Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [59]
Nemo didn’t know how many men Captain Noseless had kept on board while raiding parties scoured the island. Fewer and fewer of the roaming brigands survived, though, as the dinosaur continued to hunt through the night. And Nemo hunted too, looking for means to harm the pirates.
He stood shin-deep in a mangrove swamp, watching for snakes, but more interested in keeping himself hidden from view as he spied on the three-masted brig. The pirate ship was just across the dark waters of the lagoon. Anger and hatred simmered within his heart.
The scarred captain paced the quarterdeck. His remaining men talked amongst themselves, subdued with fear. Nemo fixed his gaze on Noseless, despising the pirate. As the sun sank into the west, painting the sky tangerine and scarlet, Noseless glanced toward the swamps, as if he could sense the young man glaring at him from the deepening shadows.
Nemo wracked his brain for a way to strike at the pirates who had twice destroyed his life. How he hated them! As dusk settled in, accompanied by the night songs of insects, the stillness began to lull Nemo into complacency.
All at once the island grew ominously silent.
The dinosaur’s roar split the gloom. The beast crashed through trees, just behind the closer yells of men. Two of the surviving brigands howled in panic as they broke out of the jungle cover by the lagoon. “Help, help!”
On board the Coralie, pirates began to mill about. The men on shore shouted toward the anchored ship, but Noseless just stood on the quarterdeck, hands on hips. His face looked more cadaverous than ever, cold and calculating.
As the terrified pirates stumbled across the beach, the trees behind them bent aside. The bloodstained dinosaur pushed its way into the clearing, and its scarlet gaze locked onto the men crossing the swatch of sand. The pirates beckoned for their captain to send help, to launch another longboat, but Noseless made no move to assist them.
One of the pirates fell to his knees in an abject expression of prayerful penitence, while the other raced out into the shallow water, sloshing up to his knees and then his waist, as if he could swim out to the Coralie in time.
The dinosaur stepped over the huddled form of the praying man, batting him to the sand with a powerful sweep of its tail, then lunged into the water and scooped down like a pelican catching a fish. The swimming pirate wailed, only to fall abruptly silent as the creature crunched its jaws. Next, the monster turned back to the beach, where it daintily bit the praying man in half.
Nemo watched from his hiding place, stunned by the cold-blooded attitude of Captain Noseless on board the ship. Dozens of pirates remained on the Coralie, and all had refused to help their comrades. The young man’s nostrils flared, and he grew angrier by the moment.
From the beach, the dinosaur stared at the ship, defiant, as if its tiny brain knew that its main enemy lay out there. Its roar split the twilight.
In response, Captain Noseless’s command echoed across the water. “Fire!”
The dinosaur roared again as a volley of blasts rang out. Every cannon on the port side of the pirate ship fired. Eight of the balls went wide, striking the rocks, the sand, or the jungle -- but five hammered into the beast, blasting huge wounds in its massive body. The dinosaur was knocked backward, thrashing.
The remaining men on the Coralie surged to the port sides, cheering.
The monster staggered, wailing and honking. Blood poured in gouts from mangled holes in its hide. It clacked its huge shovel jaws together. Two more cannons fired, and both balls struck, shattering the dinosaur’s spine and ribs.
At that moment Nemo saw his chance. While Noseless concentrated on his extravagant destruction, the young man slipped into the water. If ever he hoped for an opportunity to get aboard the ship, it was now while the pirates were cheering the