The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [68]
The gunners manned their positions in full shift. The crew was silent, and the vessel had the feel of a ghost ship sailing other, ethereal seas. A single word caught Orphan's attention, pushing away all others, a whisper caught in the stillness of the charged air: pirates!
"What does it mean?" Orphan whispered to Verne.
The Frenchman looked tense. "This storm," he said. He looked like he would have said more, but at that moment a shout rose on the deck, and one of the guns discharged, the ball arcing over the water ahead, landing with an explosion of foam in the dark water below.
"Hold your fire!" came the shouted order of Captain Dakkar, cold and sharp like a sliver of ice. He stood at the prow, looking intently through his eyepiece at the horizon. Verne and Orphan had come and stood behind him. Orphan tried, but could see little in the distance. It was turning dark, the sea illuminated only by the flash of the incessant lightning.
"What is it?" Verne said, softly, to Dakkar, echoing Orphan. The captain folded his eyepiece and turned to him, tension etched into the lines on his face. "Perhaps nothing," he said.
At that moment thunder filled the air, close and unexpected, and seemed to go on forever. Rain burst out of the sky and fell on the Nautilus, making the deck slick and mirror-like. A wind rose and pummelled the ship.
The storm had arrived.
And with it, with a scream that rose from the lookout above and spread like water amongst the crew, were pirates.
Orphan, holding on to a rope to keep himself steady, peered out through raindrops and saw the pirate ship.
It was a dark shadow, moving across a deceptively calm sea towards them, almost gliding, its movement as smooth and uninterrupted as that of a heated knife. It sailed towards them, and its sails were black.
The pirate ship was a thing of darkness and dread. At the prow a giant, chalk-white head looked forward, severed at the neck, its nose a malevolent red. A giant, leering smile was painted on its face.
"The Joker!" called the lookout, and Dakkar had to shout at the crew to be quiet. They were frightened, Orphan thought. They recognised and dreaded the name.
He felt only a ball of excitement, taut and hard, forming in his stomach. Dread, exhilaration – he felt awake, alive, his senses growing to perceive minute details, each crack and line in the clown's wooden face that sailed towards them.
"Hold your fire!"
The men were tense.
"On my command – shoot!"
But the first shot came from the Joker.
Orphan saw the ball before he heard the discharge. The ball whistled as it flew towards them. It smashed into the side of the ship, and Dakkar, momentarily losing his balance, shouted hoarsely for the men to fire.
A volley of shots emerged from the 18-pounders and flew towards the enemy ship. Several hit, and a cheer rose, only to be silenced almost immediately.
The pirate ship was closing in fast.
It was close enough now for Orphan to see her name, tattooed to her side like a scar. The Joker. And the hideous clown face, the ship's mascot, grinned and leered at the Nautilus incessantly as if maddened.
"Fire!"
The guns fired, the Joker was hit, and continued to come. It was firing back, and the balls whispered overhead and sent exploding plumes of water high into the air when they missed, blood and wood where they hit.
"Fire!"
Then the Joker was close, close enough to reach out, almost to touch the dark figures that could now be seen on its deck, moving with silent determination.
The two ships touched, side to side.
The pirates swooped on the Nautilus. They sailed overboard with long thick hemp ropes and landed with cutlasses at the ready. They were an ugly, ferocious bunch, half-savage men with maps of scars over their naked torsos.
Lightning struck, and struck again, and again, and the sky was full of electric light, and illuminated the pirates' savage faces.
The lightning! Orphan thought. It was coming