Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [109]
He looked out at the approaching patriots. “Take aim on the dock and fire! Quickly!”
Bennett aimed the gun by shoving down a heavy stick that changed the elevation of the cannon’s back end, then Sandy shoved in a wooden wedge to hold the cannon in place. Sandy already had a spark reddening on a linstock—some kind of fuse—and Bennett snatched the linstock and touched it to the base ring. He avoided the actual touchhole itself, Picard noticed.
The explosion was instantaneous, thrumming the whole side of the ship with its concussion. Below, the dock dissolved into splinters, dispensing a half dozen patriots into the water. Four of them came up sputtering. Two never came up at all.
The ship’s two middle docklines now hung limp, tied to pilings that no longer had a dock. The two outer ones, however, bow and stern, were made off to other docks for stability, and held the ship to the boatyard. However, there was no longer a dock leading up to the side of the ship.
They were defensible now.
Scarcely had the thought of his success sunk in when a fleshy mass dropped before his eyes and clamped over his mouth, leaving only one nostril free so that he could barely breath. It was a human forearm, and he was caught! He pressed out one fitful “Mmmmmph!” as he was pulled backward off balance, and two more figures charged past him.
As he gripped the arm around his mouth and twisted around the other piece of meat that had coiled around his chest to keep him off balance, he watched the two invaders plunge up the maindeck toward the bow and attack Sandy and Bennett, and—horribly—he also saw Alexander charge the armed patriots!
The patriots had stripped off their jackets and shirts in order to swim effectively and climb the chains, and now their wet backs glistened in the first spark of morning light. Their shoulders flexed as they raised swords and brought them slashing down upon Bennett and Sandy. Sandy fell back and tumbled behind the foremast, then rolled to his feet and squared off to parry his opponent.
Bennett was less fortunate. The seaman took a shattering blow to the left cheekbone from the second patriot. Bennett bellowed his gutwrenching agony and dropped like a stone. As he lay on the deck, clawing at the destruction of his face, blood flowed freely from the wound, which continued to open as his skull lost its structural integrity.
And Alexander now reached the foredeck, snatched up the red-hot linstock, and took a mighty swing at the back of the man who had killed Bennett.
Picard dug his heels into the deck and heaved backward on the man holding him, squeezing part of his mouth out from behind the mighty forearm. “Hulllfff—”
Freeze program! Freeze program!
The arm tightened against his mouth. He tried to shove the words right out through his nostrils, but the computer evidently didn’t understand the command.
Engulfed in the horror of his own lack of foresight, Picard watched as the linstock in Alexander’s hands whipped down on the patriot’s bare back and dealt the man a searing burn, which the man repaid instantly by a swirl of flesh and steel. The man’s sword swiped toward Alexander. The boy ducked back and to one side, but the sword’s point laid open the tip of one shoulder and slashed diagonally across his chest as the patriot bent his elbow at the wrong instant.
Picard roared against the strap of human forearm that clamped his mouth. He forced his jaws open, and sank his teeth into the nearest muscle.
A howl of pain blew against his ear and the arm came loose. He rammed an elbow back and drove it into the man’s diaphragm, then clamped his hands into a rock and swung around, driving his makeshift club into the patriot’s ear. Dizzied and breathless, the patriot staggered