Chapter 303: No Man Left Behind, No Chest Left Unstolen

The room behind the hole turned out to be a storeroom, with black water up to the ankles and no light. Redcoats floated face down in the shallows, no longer much use as sentries.

A dozen iron-bound chests were on the move, carried two to a cask pole or dragged along on ropes, every corner shrieking against the stone.

James came through last, [Counterargument] hanging empty against his chest while the two keys knocked together beneath his coat, never quite the same rhythm.

The merry band moved on, some dozen pirates, and the wall narrowed until it became a doorway, the doorway turned into a drain, and the drain into a staircase. The stairs were steep, with the chests up the middle and the crews pressed against the walls, hauling for all they were worth.

Before long, the sailors were hauling to a chant of every prayer anyone half remembered, with a heave on every second line.

"Hail Mary, full o’ grace..."

"HEAVE!"

"...the Lord is wi’ thee..."

"HEAVE, ye sons o’ whores!"

"Blessed art thou amongst... Jaysus, Dermot, yer bloody knee... amongst women!"

"HEAVE!"

On their path, a group of redcoats climbed with them, as there was no other way out and a sailor will make friends with almost anyone when the alternative is ungodly apparitions.

"God save the King! Shift yer bloody arse, ye godless heathen, or by Christ I’ll shift it for ye!"

"Then God save the King’s arse, ’cause I’m not climbin’ here to save yours!"

"SHIFT YER OWN, lobster-back!"

Ahead, the crews began to tally themselves, on the vain hope no one disappeared in the darkness.

"Ten!"

"Ele... eleven!"

Then silence.

"Eleven, I SAID! Come on, ye buggers! WHO’S TWELVE?"

"TWELVE! Twelve! I’m twelve, I’m here! Stop yer bloody fussin’!"

"SCOURGE! THE HEAD! They’re comin’ DOWN on us like... Christ! SCOURGE!"

James climbed over the chests, putting his boots on the iron corners, as forty pale hands poured down the stairs above him, with no arms attached to bodies, scrabbling over.

They struck the redcoats first. Knees folded forward over caps with a crack, and privates fell backward onto those behind them.

He met the hands with [Verdict] held flat, splitting them into flashes of light. A second wave poured down, and he dealt with it in the same fashion.

The third wave consisted of one hand as wide as a hatch cover, sweeping across the entire staircase at chest height. James dropped to one knee and slashed upward into the wrist as it passed, and the thing vanished in a white flash.

The merry band climbed again, the steps onto a passage in the wall that led into a hall as wide as a harbor, with pillars as thick as mainmasts away into the dark. The apparitions supplied all the light there was, revealing dozens of redcoats.

A square had formed at one edge, bayonets out every which way, while around it privates knelt in with rosaries in their hands. Those men died on their knees, as even if prayer hadn’t got them out of trouble, they appeared unwilling to abandon it.

Pirates and redcoats shoved through the same passage, elbow to elbow.

"For the love o’ God, man, which way’s out? WHICH WAY?"

"Out? OUT? We was hopin’ YOU knew, ye gawpin’ red-arsed lot!

"How d’ye think we got in here, on yer bloody invitation?"

Then tall apparitions appeared, three men high, walking on malformed legs as they strode between the pillars, each one leaning to sweep a long arm across at head height.

The arm passed through a rank of redcoats, and every man it touched dropped his musket and drove both thumbs into his own eyes until blood washed down his wrists.

"SCOURGE! SCOURGE TO THE HALL! Sweet Jesus, they’re TALL! They’re bloody TALL!"

The cry travelled around the pillars, passed from mouth to mouth.

James reached the tall figures just as it leaned, ducked beneath the sweep, and cut through the leg at the lower knee. The thing toppled and burst into light over the redcoats, and the next one came at him the same way and met the same end.

Two leaned together from opposite sides. James dropped flat, rolled between their four legs, and cut one at the knee as the arm swept over his back.

He rose beneath it and took that knee too.

Crisis averted, the merry band moved on, and the far wall drew closer as the pillars crowded together and the ceiling came down, the hall narrowing into a low passage.

The passage was low enough to make even a large man bend, and the aftershocks had brought part of the structure down. Hats, muskets, and spades lay among bodies twisted into terrible postures.

At the far end, the passage beneath the fallen ceiling was just wide enough for one body at a time, so the crews went through on their bellies, pushing the chests ahead of them.

Then a chest jammed in the passage, and the whole line backed up. The crews pushed the lid with their cutlasses until it came off, spilling gold coin and green jade across the wet stone as hands went into shirts, hats, and boots to bring what they could.

Behind James, the passage was swarmed from wall to wall with twelve arms in two banks of six, against the walls like oars and stroking in turn. Every stroke brought them a pace closer.

"LEAVE IT, ye greedy bastarts!"

"I’ll leave it when it’s in me hat, and not a breath afore! Ooh, look at the size o’ that green ’un!"

The left bank of hands swept in at chest height. James stopped it with [Verdict] held edge-up, splitting the arms, then ducked beneath the right bank as it came across.

"A tenth! Ye can ’ave a TENTH, ye pale buggers! That’s fair, that’s bloody generous!"

The second stroke came along the same path and suffered the same treatment.

"A FIFTH, then! A fifth an’ me own mother’s good name!"

Between strokes, the arms pulled back into position, and James stepped into the pause and drove the blade through the middle of the amalgamation. It came apart in a flash.

With the chance given, the merry band crawled over the empty chest and left it wedged in the passage. Beyond it, the floor dropped away into a drowned court, where the crews rose to their waists in the water.

Green light filtered through gaps in a ceiling of roots. Terraces and stairways descended into the water, while roots as thick as chains hung over balconies that had begun to lean. The crews held the chests above their heads or floated them on the poles, while redcoats waded in the opposite direction with no one having much to say to anyone else.

Where the apparitions moved, the water stayed flat as a table. Pale things lay face up just beneath the surface, eyes open, hands rising to seize ankles.

The redcoats went down in twos and threes and were drowned in silence.

The surface let no sign of the struggle beneath it.

"SCOURGE! THE WATER! It’s got ’em! It’s GOT ’EM! SCOURGE!"

The cry travelled down the pirates, and James waded, black water up to his ribs and chests bobbing past him.

A hand rose from the flat water and seized an ankle, and the crew carrying that pole went down around it. James covered the distance in four strides and drove [Verdict] straight down through the dark, into the wrist, and white light bloomed beneath the surface like a drowned lantern.

The hand disappeared, and the sailor came up spitting water as his companions hauled him onto the pole by his belt.

"Scourge! Ye’ll be seein’ the Devil afore I do! Put in a word, will ye?"

"Tell him I ain’t ready! I ain’t half finished me drinkin’!"

"The old bastart’s not answerin’ my letters, lad! Now get on your feet and keep wadin’!"

More hands came up and seized more ankles.

"SCOURGE! LEFT! LEFT, damn yer eyes! Yer OTHER left!"

James went left, and the same cut brought the same flash beneath the water, sailors coming up gasping before running down the length of the pole with water pouring off them.

The next grip caught both of James’s ankles at once, and two hands closed beneath him and hauled him down. The black water climbed over his chest and under his chin.

Blue light cracked across the hem of [Discretion] beneath the surface, and the hands released him, smoking, before sinking back into the dark below.

James came up and spat a mouthful back into the water.

Behind him, a chest lurched on its pole, as though the thing underneath had got hold of it. The two sailors carrying it let go, and the black water closed over the box without making a ripple.

"Me share! Me SHARE! Me whole bleedin’ share, an’ not a farthin’ spent!"

Give ’er BACK, ye drownin’ bastards! I’ll ’ave yer... I’ll ’ave yer..."

The merry band kept wading as the water dropped to their knees, then their shins, and the staircase rose out of it. The steps became roots, and the roots led them toward green light.

Up the last stairs, chests banging against every step and wounded sailors hanging from their backs, while behind them the dead crowded so thickly that their pale glow spread upward like a flood.

James took the rear. At the top, one last apparition reached over the stone with all its arms extended, and he cut it through the middle, enough for it to burst into white light on the terrace.

Then the rest stopped.

The dead stood on the stairs below him, from the water all the way to the last stone step, jaws open and heads tilted.

"Och, aye. Stand there, then."

The crews spilled onto the moss in the low, slanting light. Chests hit the ground, sailors sobbed and laughed. The wounded were laid down among the ferns.

"Fourteen!"

"Fifteen!"

Then silence.

"FIFTEEN! Come on, ye sods! FIFTEEN!"

Finally, a voice said "Sixteen" in a low tone, and the tally went on. They checked the chests in much the same fashion, as though each one belonged to the family.

"Nine!"

"Nine o’ twelve! NINE, d’ye hear?"

"Let the dead spend the rest, an’ welcome! Much good may it do ’em!"

Pirates emerged from more passages in the hill, one or two at a time. They were the survivors left from the scattered party, and they joined the band with their mouths shut.

Redcoats came out of the same passage, first without their hats, then by the dozen. They ran toward their camp without looking at anyone.

James looked back once. The stairs was packed with apparitions, every pale face turned upward toward him, while above them the stone statue on the hill stared down, just as it had all day.

The intermission finally permitted him to think over the commodore’s words.

Company. Redcoats. Redcoats at Concordia, coming now, while James was down a hole in Darien carrying chests. All these plans about Nassau and a decoy came to naught, as his notoriety caused a butterfly effect wide enough for the crown to ignore the ugly rock and directly send a fleet against his fledgling Republic.

"THE CREEK!"

His roar spread across the moss, and every head turned toward him.

"Down the brown stream, to the creek and to the ships, and don’t stop for the Devil himself!"

"Do we need to drop the chests?"

"NOT ONE!"

"Not for the Devil’s mother, not for GOD HIMSELF!"

The poles went up onto shoulders, and the wounded went up onto backs.

James rushed at the front, and the merry band followed him into the jungle, stretched out across the stream with the chests swinging and their iron corners shrieking at every stride.