Page 95 of Found at Sea
Relieved, I got to my feet and rushed over to him. He had a cut on his cheek and another to his left shoulder, but he otherwise looked fine. I threw myself in his arms and cried against his neck. He grabbed my face with both his hands before crushing his lips to mine. The joy at seeing him was short-lived.
As more enemies boarded us portside, men started to fall, both ours and theirs.
Horace was in a swordfight several feet away, Ian was running to the fallen men and checking to see who was alive and who was too far gone, Redmond was combating two men at once, and Sexton was nowhere to be seen.
“Dax did this!” I said as Kellan warded off an attacker. “He gave them our route. They’re after Alek.”
Kellan cursed as another man rushed us.
“Fletcher!” Kellan raised his sword and stopped the one that’d been crashing down toward my head, and he and the man began their fight. “Get to the cabin and take Alek with you. Lock yourselves in.”
The thing was…there was nowhere safe to be. Everywhere I looked, men were dying.
“There he is!” one of the enemies shouted, pointing at Alek. “Remember not to kill ‘em. King James wants him alive.”
“He’s who you’re after?” Redmond exclaimed. “Go on and take ‘em then!”
Some of the other men in our crew looked over and seemed to all come to the same conclusion: hand over Alek and it’ll all end.
“Run!” I yelled to Alek, grabbing his arm. We ran across the ship’s deck and toward the stern, putting as much distance as we could between us and the enemy—an enemy that seemed to be on both sides now. But alas, there was nowhere else to go. “Al, what do we do?”
“We fight.” He bent and grabbed a discarded sword, coated in another man’s blood. “Or we die. And I have no intention of dying.”
Spotting another sword nearby, I retrieved it before rejoining Alek near the railing.
My gaze shifted back to Kellan, who was still in a duel. He slashed at the man in an upward swing, taking the man’s arm clean off. My stomach turned as the blood spurted from the wound. More men soon followed. He seemed to be holding his ground, though, and he was a marvelous sight, countering attacks and issuing ones of his own.
The same couldn’t be said for me. I’d never even held a sword before.
I’m going to die today, I said to myself as I studied the blade. The weapon was heavier than it looked, and I needed both hands to lift it.
“Al,” I choked out. “I’m scared.”
“Me too,” he admitted. He closed his eyes and pinched his face together before opening them again and yelling. “It’s not working! I can’t…I don’t know how to save us, Fletch. I can’t tap into my powers.”
Just then a man ran toward us. Alek stopped his advance by ducking as the man neared us and swinging for his knees. The sword cut into the man’s calf and he stumbled. Alek thrust his weapon upward and right into the man’s neck
I was utterly useless as I watched it all, too afraid to move.
Dax came into view and started toward Kellan, and the breath left my lungs. Kellan didn’t see him, because he was preoccupied with two other men, fighting them both off at the same time.
I found my courage and ran that way. Alek screamed for me to stop, but I couldn’t. Not when Kellan was in danger. My friend’s footsteps sounded, and I knew he was following me.
“Hey, you swine!” I yelled to Dax, intentionally causing a scene to get his focus off my captain.
Dax turned just as I reached him, and surprise flickered in his eyes. With all of my strength, I swung my sword.
But he was quicker. The blade of his sword clanked with mine, and I lost my grip. My weapon clattered to the deck.
“Clumsy oaf,” Dax spat at me. A thick red welt marked the side of his head where I’d hit him with my lute, and I took great pride in that. “I thought you were just a pitiful, frightened whore the first time I laid eyes on ya, and I still think it. Never knew what the captain saw in your pathetic hide. Ya can’t even hold your sword.”
But my plan had still worked. I’d known I couldn’t best him in a fight, but I was great at distractions.
Kellan flipped around and saw us. He and Dax exchanged lethal glares before they barged toward each other, meeting with a clash of blades. It seemed like hours passed as they fought, neither of them gaining the upper hand. Neither tiring.
As they stepped and struck, it looked like a deadly dance.
Alek yelling made me look his way. Two men had hold of him, one on each side, and dragged him toward the railing where a plank had been placed between the two ships.
