Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland Page 14

  And just like that, I was alone.

  No one stayed. There wasn’t even a conversation. Not one single word of debate. After such heated anticipation, I didn’t expect my time in our world to end so quickly. I thought about visiting the site where I buried my father, but decided better of it. A storm could have disturbed him and I’d be here another hour reburying him. I didn’t have the time or the nerve for something like that right now.

  I stepped into the cave, following the trail of water to the passage. In the shimmering light, I ran my fingers over the words carved in the rock wall. País de Nunca. Never Land. Someone else stood here, in this very spot, and thought they had it all figured out. It may have been the same Spaniard who cursed and spat in his death throes at the very mention of Peter Pan. I considered that man’s failure for a moment, then the moment passed.

  Seconds later, I rose from the water in the cave on Neverland Island.

  A haze settled on me right away, just behind my eyes. The kind of feeling you get just before being sick. Nothing was lost yet, just dulled, which was a state that wouldn’t last long.

  I thought for a few seconds longer, alone in the dark. Or at least I thought I was alone. So stupid.

  There was a click behind me and someone cursed. A man’s voice said “Hold him” and there were hands on me. Untrained hands. Grabbing. Something hit my teeth. I tasted blood and spat it at my attacker. A pain shot up my arm and I realized that I’d been stabbed.

  I swung wildly and caught someone with a blow. The person stammered back. I drew my sword and swung at the air.

  The dim light of the water was still bright enough for me to make out my attackers.

  Collazo wiped my blood from his shirt as Doherty worked to reload the pistol.

  “It’s me you idiots,” I said, thinking that their assault was an accident.

  “Yes, it’s you,” Doherty said, fumbling with the pistol. “Alone.”

  His words stunned me for a second too long. Neither Doherty nor Collazo had voiced a single concern. Now they were about to finish the job Phillip Gulley started.

  The man aimed and fired.

  Click.

  “That’s twice you’ve been saved,” Collazo said.

  “That’s not divinity, you fools,” I said. “The gunpowder is wet.”

  Doherty threw the gun down and pulled a short sword out from his belt. “Enough of this. Soon, we’ll be rid of you.”

  “Why not just stay?” I asked.

  “And be stranded?” Doherty said. “No. We’ll have a ship and a life without you in it. Shoot Jukes and Smee in their sleep, along with anyone else who went along with your folly. Reset the board.”

  Collazo smiled. “An intelligent and coordinated effort.”

  “And you’re fine with cold-blooded murder?” I asked Collazo. “No provocation?”

  Collazo thought for a breath. “Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment.”

  “Yeah, and a babbler is no better,” I said in return. The priest frowned.

  The two men advanced. The dark made the fine art of swordplay impossible, so I swiped and slashed until I felt my sword cut into one man’s shoulder. Collazo yelped and jumped back. Doherty kicked me and I fell against the wall.

  We both dropped our swords and were on the ground. I felt something hard hit my head and all was dark for a second too long. His hands were on my neck. Light faded in from the edges and the only sounds were grunts and the gentle lapping of the water.

  And ticking.

  Faint and muffled ticking.

  Deliberate.

  Growing louder by the second.

  There was a splash and screaming. Doherty’s hands left my throat and the world returned to focus in time for me to see the croc clamp down on Collazo and roll on the ground. Her every movement pulsed with excitement and a small part of me was glad that the priest was covered in my blood.

  She dragged him into the water and, like that, I was alone with only one attacker. In Doherty’s panic, he hardly noticed me grab a rock and cave in his head.

  I gathered my equipment and joined the crew.

  Jukes stopped me at the cave mouth. I told him that Doherty and Collazo were staying put. Choices.

  We followed the river back to the bay. The walk was quick, except for the bear we passed along the banks. It stared into the water and readied its paw to strike until a salmon jumped up and bit it. The bear howled and ran into the Crescent Wood. I laughed the rest of the walk.

  When we got to the boats, I told Jukes to take most of the men back and to get a message to Smee. “I need a favor from the old bastard.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No. You’re going to need both cutters. I’ll stay here with Noodler, Teynte, and Starkey.”

  “What kind of favor is this?”

  I looked at him and smiled. “A big one.”

  I told him what it was and he smiled as well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Everything was set, all of it in under four hundred verses of the Dread Song.

  I walked up the path to the castle alone. There was no way to avoid being seen and that is the way I wanted it. When I got within twenty yards of the gate, I pulled my pistol and fired into the arrow loop of the nearest tower. The shot echoed against the dull gray stone and I listened.

  Hearing no response, I reloaded the pistol and aimed at the far tower. Before I could pull the trigger, a large green head rose up from the ramparts behind the gatehouse wall.

  “There are more polite ways to call on an old friend, Captain,” the Green Knight said, his grassy beard shaking with each word.

  “This was easier.”

  “Well, you now have my full attention,” said the Green Knight. He gripped the stone and leaned his massive frame over the battlements.

  “I don’t want your attention,” I said. “I want this over.”

  The knight smiled, flashing bright green teeth. “Do you intend to apologize? Well then I graciously accept. Come, Captain, let us drink to our union and the deaths of our enemies.”

  “I intend to separate you from your fool head,” I said.

  The Green Knight shook his head and sighed, never once losing his smile. “I accept that as well,” he said. “Are you coming in?”

  “And trap myself in an oubliette or between the gates and be shot at through the murder hole? No.”

  “Then it seems we are at an impasse, because what incentive would I have to come out?”

  “Company,” I said, “however brief.” I made a show of looking at the overgrown ivy on the castle walls. “It must be awfully lonely in that castle by yourself.”

  “I should have had your men killed instead of jailed.”

  “Should haves and could haves are the poetry of regret.”

  “Ah, yes.” The Green Knight stepped back behind the castle walls. Moments later he returned with a canvas bag, which he threw down to the dirt at my feet.

  I knelt down and pulled the two books from the bag. I held the volume of Roman history high up and gave the knight a questioning look.

  “I found it boring and filled with more myth than even I have a stomach for,” the knight said. “Your historians should stick to recent history. The distance of time is better suited to the romantic writer.”

  “That’s a bold critique.”

  “You haven’t heard my thoughts on the other one.”

  I put the Roman history book away and held the Chaucer book high in the air.

  “Unimpressive.”

  “Even the knight’s tale?” I asked. “I thought that you’d at least find that entertaining.”

  “Yes, a tournament built around two men fighting to the death over a woman,” the knight said. “I’d be entertained if it weren’t like every other story I read at the time I lived it. Those tales are best saved for the masses. Short, quick reads. No attention required.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “I got more out of it than that. There are historic
al and religious subtleties that I’m sure you’re missing.”

  “No doubt.”

  “It influenced centuries of literature.”

  “Then I am glad that you did not bring me more of your literature,” the Green Knight said. “Troilus and Criseyde, on the other hand, was quite good. Although I don’t recall Troilus ever being written as a lover before.”

  “Yes, that was new to Medieval writing,” I said. “Not new to me, but about two centuries past your time.”

  “Medieval?” the knight asked.

  “That is your time in history,” I explained. “The Middle Ages, medium aevumm.” A smile grew across my face. “Sometimes called the Dark Ages.”

  “The Dark Ages,” the knight laughed. “Your historians are crooked and biased. There is more truth in your literature, as diluted as it is.”

  We laughed, but that laughter soon faded to silence. A blustery wind cut through the trees and I pulled my coat tighter.

  “Are you ready, Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  The Green Knight disappeared from the curtain wall. I placed the two books back in the bag and threw it off to the side. Seconds later, steel moaned as the gates of the castle opened. The wooden doors creaked and the large figure lumbered out onto the grass out from the shadows. Even on foot, he barely fit. The giant clutched his axe with one hand and tested the blade with the other. A line of blood trailed down his hand, then the cut healed and disappeared.

  We stood in silence for long moments.

  The Green Knight sighed. “How do you wish to begin…” His words were cut short by a gunshot that sent a bullet through his forehead. Blood flowed down his face and into his eyes. The knight growled and spat as the bone and flesh on his head reformed.

  “Like that,” I said and sprinted away.

  Bertilak roared and ran after me in bounds. The ground shook with each giant stride.

  The soles of my hard boots crushed leaves and small flowering bushes. I leaped over fallen logs and ducked between the trees where the trunks were tight to each other.

  The sweeping crash behind me drowned out all other noise, save for the knight’s screaming. A hot wind blew on my neck and I felt a gentle brush across my back. I didn’t turn to see my pursuer. I just pushed myself faster, running over one hill, then another.

  I burst through the tree line, panting. Thick blood pounded in my ears and a rush of light-headedness overtook me. The condition of my blood makes running difficult and sprinting downright unbearable, but this had to be right. I bent down, put my hands on my knees, and drew deep breaths.

  An instant later, the Green Knight crashed into the clearing. “Stopped already, Captain?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the breath even if I planned on answering. I simply fell to the side, revealing the barrel of Long Tom, hidden among low branches.

  The cannon thundered and the forty-eight pound ball ripped through the Green Knight’s chest. The giant fell and my crew started chopping and hacking away with their swords. Smee cut his hands and tossed them aside. Jukes slashed his legs below the knee and at the hip, then kicked them in separate directions. Noodler worked his arms at the elbow and shoulder. Soon, the Green Knight was a stump, a limbless tree.

  I stood, sword drawn.

  “This won’t end me, Captain.”

  “I’m all full on mortal enemies.”

  “I am not mortal, Captain,” the knight said. “I will hunt you until the land rots in its final days.” Bertilak’s glowing red eyes told the whole truth of his words. The bleeding from his arms and legs slowed to a stop. The flesh inside the knight’s torso knitted together in a web of veins.

  I brought my sword down across Bertilak’s neck. The knight’s head rolled once to the side and stopped.

  At that, we began bagging parts of the giant’s body. Smee and Noodler carried sacks of feet and hands. Skylights and Gustavo carried calves and upper arms. Mullins stuffed two forearms into a bag and slung it over his shoulder. Billy Jukes hoisted the heavy torso over his head and carried it across his back. Cecco and Turley each grabbed a thigh.

  I grabbed Bertilak’s head by the hair and turned to Ed Teynte. “Keep the rest with you here and guard the cannon. We’ll be back before one hundred verses.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Teynte said and began singing the Dread Song. I nodded to Jukes, who sang as well. After two rounds, their beats matched in measure and I directed the men to the east end of the island.

  “What do you intend to do with me, Captain?” Bertilak rasped. His voice was faint without lungs to power his usually hearty bellow.

  “You could just wait and see. I’d have thought patience would have been one of your stronger traits.”

  “There’s no need to be snide now, dear Captain,” said the severed head of the knight. “You’ve won, however temporarily. Let us talk of other things.”

  We talked the entire walk to the east end of the island, through the path of lined trees, up hills and down again. We walked this path until we came to a patch of thin trees with wispy and bare branches. I stopped and sent the men ahead to do the necessary work. They disappeared behind a patch of trees just over the hill. Silence fell on us and I breathed in the crispness of the chilling air.

  “We would have done better together,” the knight said. I had heard men plead for their lives before. In any language and from any century, it always sounded the same. This wasn’t that. There was a calm acceptance in Bertilak’s voice. It carried a dignity that could only have come from fine breeding and excellent form.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But there can be none other before me. Not if I am to do this right. Not if it is going to mean something.”

  The men returned with empty bags in their hands. I nodded and looked down to the head in my hand. “It’s time.”

  A single, soft whine rose from behind the trees.

  I walked around the hill and stood at the edge of where the grass met the circle of sand. A dry heat pushed through my clothes. The pods that held hands, feet, forearms, upper arms, and sections of the knight’s legs wreathed the outside perimeter while the large center pod approached the knight’s torso. We watched it swallow his torso, lacing its veins around and through the flesh. When finished, it writhed and turned from side to side with what I guessed was satisfaction.

  “I was wrong about you, Captain,” Bertilak said. “Your cruelty runs deep, but it is strangely applied. You sentence me to an eternal suffering, yet wince and cringe at the loss of a few dirty children.”

  “They didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Captain Hook, defender of lost children,” Bertilak laughed. “They would as soon stab you as look at you.”

  The sun bared down on me and I turned to face its warmth.

  “Beware of his favorite strike,” the knight said.

  “The one through the ribs from underneath. We know it well.”

  The twelfth pod crept to my feet. Thorny vines extended out and licked at my boots. I kicked at them and they pulled back, more curious than aggressive.

  “Your turn will come,” the knight’s voice rasped. “Peter Pan will grow tired of you and bring another, with stranger machines and new ways about them.”

  “I know.” I tossed the Green Knight’s head into the center of the sandy circle and watched the twelfth and final pod slink towards it. Bertilak’s eyes fixed on me, and as he was swallowed, the red glow faded. Without a priest nearby, I said the first thing that came to mind. “So make us, Jesus, for thy grace digne, For love of mayde and moder thyn benigne! Amen.”

  “Captain?” Smee asked.

  “Just something he would have appreciated, Mr. Smee.”

  “Won’t these plants grow now that food is indefinite?” Starkey asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Which is why we cut and burn the roots of any pod that is not currently feeding. It will also be the job of every able bodied sailor to trim any new growth upon observation.”

  “Aye, sir,” Jukes said.
“You heard the captain. Get to work.”

  I stopped Jukes with a gesture. “Not you, Mr. Jukes. You’re with me. Mr. Teynte?” I looked to make sure I had the man’s attention. “Split the men into two groups. Send one to load Long Tom back onto the Jolly Roger. Go with the second group and tear through that castle. Take everything that isn’t nailed down.”

  “Why not take the castle itself?” Teynte asked.

  “We can’t defend it,” Noodler said.

  “He’s right,” Starkey added. “We’re safer on the ship.”

  “Tell the men to meet back on the beach in two hundred verses,” I ordered. Teynte nodded and got to work. I then turned to Billy Jukes. “Let’s go. I have a date with a mermaid and it is poor form to keep a lady waiting.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We walked past the bushes that ringed the cove and stood at the banks for several minutes. It was quiet, not even a ripple of movement. “How many verses have gone by?”

  “Eighteen,” Jukes said.

  I picked up a rock and threw it into the water.

  Nothing.

  “Come on out, you sea-wench,” I called. I picked up another rock and threw that one too. As I picked up a third one, a mound rose and moved toward us. I considered throwing the rock at it, but decided better and dropped it at my feet.

  “Don’t look directly into her eyes,” I said to Jukes. “They ensnare a man. Make him do things.”

  Jukes looked at me for a moment, then asked, “You didn’t?”

  “What? No, not that,” I said, then thought back. “Well, almost.”

  The mermaid rose out of the water. Dark rings circled her eyes. Her skin was dull and slick. “You have some nerve coming here,” she spat through her needle teeth.

  “Almost? Really?” Jukes asked.

  “She didn’t look like that,” I said. “Honest.”

  He chuckled. “Right.”

  The mermaid pushed herself onto a high rock and sneered at me. “I should tear your insides out through your mouth.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I said.

  The mermaid recoiled in genuine shock, “Oh, I wouldn’t?”