Assassin's creed : Black flag - Bowden Oliver. Страница 35

But I’d been about to let him eat the oatmeal and apparently that counted for something, because in the next instant, after a moment’s hesitation—perhaps he wondered himself about the wisdom of helping me—he scrambled over towards me, checked the shackles, then hurried over to an unseen section of the deck behind me, returning with keys.

His name was Adewale he told me as he opened the shackles. I thanked him quietly, rubbing my ankles and whispering, “Now, what’s your plan, mate?”

“Steal a ship,” he said simply.

I liked the sound of that. First, though, I retrieved my robes and hidden blade and added a pair of leather braces and a leather jacket to my ensemble.

Meanwhile my new friend Adewale was using the keys to release the prisoners. I snatched another set from a nail on the wall and joined him.

“There’s a catch to this favour,” I told the first man I came to, as my fingers worked the key in his restraints. “You’re sailing with me.”

“I’d follow you to hell for this, mate . . .”

Now there were more men standing on the deck and free of shackles than there were still restrained, and perhaps those above had heard something, because suddenly the hatch was flung open and the first of the guards thundered down the steps with his sword drawn.

“Hey,” he said, but “hey” turned out to be his final word. I’d already fitted my hidden blade (and had a moment’s reflection that though I had only been wearing it for such a short space of time, it still felt somehow familiar to me, as though I had been wearing it for years) and with a flick of my forearm engaged the blade, then stepped forward and introduced the blade to the guard, driving it deep into his sternum.

It wasn’t exactly stealthy or subtle. I stabbed him so hard that the blade punctured his back and pinned him to the steps until I wrenched him free. Now I saw the boots of a second soldier and the tip of his sword as reinforcements arrived. Back-handed, I sliced the blade just below his knees and he screamed and toppled, losing his sword and his balance, one of his lower legs cut to the bone and pumping blood to the deck as he joined his mate on the wood.

By now it was a full-scale mutiny, and the freed men ran to the piles of confiscated goods and reclaimed their own gear, arming themselves with cutlasses and pistols, pulling boots on. I saw squabbles breaking out—already!—over whose items were whose, but there was no time to play arbitrator. A clip around the ear was what it took and our new team was ready to go into action. Above us we heard the sounds of rushing feet and panicked shouting in Spanish as the guards prepared themselves for the uprising.

Just then the ship was suddenly rocked by what I knew was a gust of wind. Across the deck I caught Adewale’s eye and he mouthed something to me. One word: “Hurricane.”

Again it was as though the ship had been rammed as a second gust of wind hit us. Now time was against us and the battle needed to be won fast. We had to take our own ship, because these winds, furious as they were, were nothing—nothing—compared to the force of a full-scale hurricane.

You could time its arrival by counting the delay between the first gusts. You could see the direction the hurricane was coming from. And if you were an experienced seaman, which I was by now, then you could use the hurricane to your advantage. So as long as we set sail soon, we could outrun any pursuers.

Yes, that was it. The terror of the hurricane had been replaced by the notion that we could make it work in our favour. Use the hurricane, outrun the Spanish. A few words in Adewale’s ear and my new friend nodded and began to spread news of the plan among the rest of the men.

They would be expecting an uncoordinated, haphazard attack through the main hatch of the quarter-deck.

So let’s make them pay for underestimating us.

Directing some of the men to stay near the foot of the steps and make the noise of men preparing to attack, I led the rest to the stern, where we broke through into the sick bay, then stealthily climbed steps to the galley.

In the next instant we poured out onto the main deck, and sure enough the Spanish soldiers stood unawares, their backs turned and their muskets trained on the quarter-deck hatch.

They were careless idiots who had not only turned their backs on us but brought muskets to a sword-fight, and they paid for it with steel in their guts and across their throats. For a moment the quarter-deck was a battlefield as we ruthlessly pressed home the advantage our surprise attack gave us, until at our feet lay dead or dying Spaniards, while the last of them threw themselves overboard in panic, and we stood and caught our breath.

Though the sails were furled, the ship rocked as it was punched by another gust of wind. The hurricane would be upon us any minute. From other ships along the harbour belonging to the treasure fleet, we saw soldiers handing out pikes and muskets as they began to prepare themselves for our attack.

We needed a faster ship and Adewale had his eye on one, already leading a group of our men across the gang-board and to the quay. Soldiers on the harbour died by their blades. There was a crack of muskets and some of our men fell, but already we were rushing the next galleon beside us, a beautiful-looking ship—the ship I was soon to make my own.

Then we were up on it, just as the sky darkened, a suitable backdrop for the battle and a terrifying augury of what was to come.

Wind whipped at us, growing stronger, hammering us in repeated gusts. You could see the Spanish soldiers were in disarray, as terrified of the approaching storm as they were of the escaped prisoners, unable to avoid the onslaught of either.

The battle was bloody and vicious, but over quickly and the galleon was ours. For a moment I wondered if Adewale would want to assume command; indeed he had every right to do so—this man had not only set me free but led the charge that helped win us the boat. If he did decide to captain his own ship, I would have to respect that, find my own command and go my own way.

But no. Adewale wanted to sail with me as my quartermaster.

I was more than grateful. Not only that he was willing to serve with me, but that he chose not to take his skills elsewhere. In Adewale I had a loyal quartermaster, a man who would never rise up against me in mutiny, provided I was a just and fair captain.

I knew that then, at the beginning of our friendship, just as I know it now with all those years of comradeship between us.

(Ah, but The Observatory. The Observatory came between us.)

We set sail just as the masts unfurled and the first tendrils of the coming storm fattened our sails. Cross-winds battered us as we left the harbour and I glanced behind from my place at the tiller to see the remaining ships of the treasure fleet being assaulted by wind and rain. At first their masts swung crazily from side to side like uncontrolled pendulums, then they were clashing as the storm hit. Without ready sails they were sitting ducks and it gladdened my heart to see them knocked into matchwood by the arriving hurricane.

The air seemed to grow colder and colder around us. Above I saw clouds gathering, scudding fast across the sky and blocking out the sun. Next we were lashed with wind and rain and sea-spray. Around us the waves seemed to grow and grow, towering mountains of water with foaming peaks, every one of them about to drown us, tossing us from one huge canyon of sea to another.

The poultry were washed overboard. Men hung on to cabin doors. I heard screams as unlucky deck-hands were snatched off the ship. The galley fire was extinguished. All hatches and cabin doors battened down. Only the bravest and most skilful men dared scale the rat-lines to try and manage the canvas.

The foremast snapped and I feared for the mainmast and mizzen, but they held, thank God, and I gave silent praise for this fast, plucky ship that had been brought to us by fate.