Assassin's creed : Black flag - Bowden Oliver (библиотека книг .txt) 📗

He was down, with a leg bleeding badly, defending himself with his sword and calling for a gun. I tossed him mine and he caught it, using it to fell a man coming at him with raised cutlass.

He was dead, though. We both knew it. We all knew it.

“In a world without gold, we could have been heroes!” he shouted as they teemed over him.

Maynard led a renewed attack upon him and Blackbeard, seeing his nemesis up close, bared his teeth and swung his sword. Maynard screeched, his hand gushing crimson as he pulled away and his sword fell, its guard broken. From his belt he snatched a pistol, fired it, catching Edward on the shoulder and sending him back to his knees, where he grunted and swung his sword as the enemy moved in on him remorselessly.

Around us I could see more of our men falling. I drew my second pistol, fired, and gave one of their men a third eye, but now they were upon me, swarming over me. I cut men down. I cut them ruthlessly. The knowledge that my next attacker would die the same way kept a few of them at bay, giving me the chance to glance over and see Edward dying by a thousand cuts, on his knees but fighting still, surrounded by vultures who hacked and chopped at him with their blades.

With a shout of frustration and anger I stood and whirled with outstretched hands, my blades forming a perimeter of death that sent men flailing backwards. I snatched the initiative, shooting forward and kicking the man in front of me so that I could leap off his chest and face and I broke through the barrier of men surrounding me. In the air my blades flashed and two men fell away with open veins, blood hitting the deck with an audible slap. I landed, then sprang across the deck to help my friend.

But I never made it. From my left came a sailor who stopped my progress, a huge brute of a man who thumped into me, the two of us moving at such speed that neither of us could stop the momentum that took us over the side of the gunwale and into the water below.

I saw one thing before I fell. I saw my friend’s throat open and blood sheet down his front, his eyes rolling to the top of his head as Blackbeard fell for a final time.

FORTY-SIX

DECEMBER 1718

You’ve not heard a man scream until you’ve heard a man who’s just had his knee-cap blown off screaming in pain.

That was the punishment dealt by Charles Vane to the captain of the British slave ship we’d boarded. That same British slave ship had virtually scuttled Vane’s own vessel, so we’d had to sail the Jackdaw nearby and allow his men on board. Vane had been furious about that, but even so, that was no excuse to lose his temper. After all, this whole expedition had been his idea.

He’d hatched his plan soon after Thatch’s death.

“So Thatch has been topped?” Vane said, as we sat in the captain’s quarters of the Jackdaw, with Calico Jack drunk and asleep nearby, lying straight-legged in the chair in a way that seemed to defy gravity. He was another who had refused to take The King’s Pardon, so we were stuck with him.

“He was outnumbered,” I said of Blackbeard. The image was an unwelcome new arrival in my mind. “I couldn’t reach him.”

I remembered falling, seeing him die, blood pouring from his throat, hacked down like a rabid dog. I took another long swig of rum to banish the image.

They’d hung his head from the bowsprit as a trophy, so I’d heard.

And they called us scum.

“Devil damn the man, he was fierce, but his heart was divided,” said Charles. He’d been worrying at my tabletop with the point of his knife. Any other guest I’d have told to stop but not Charles Vane. A Charles Vane defeated by Woodes Rogers. A Charles Vane mourning the death of Blackbeard. Most of all, a Charles Vane with a knife in his hand.

He was right, though, with what he said. Even if Blackbeard had lived, there was little doubt he intended to leave the life behind. To stand at our head and lead us out of the wilderness was not something that had appealed to Edward Thatch.

We lapsed into silence. Perhaps we were both thinking of Nassau and how it belonged in the past. Or perhaps we were both wondering what to do in the future, because after some moments, Vane took a deep breath, seemed to pull himself together and slapped his fists to his thighs.

“Right, Kenway,” he announced, “I’ve been musing on this plan of yours . . . This . . . Observatory you were going on about. How do we know it exists?”

I shot him a sideways look to see if he was joking. After all, he wouldn’t have been the first. I’d been much mocked for my tales of The Observatory and wasn’t in the mood for any more, not then, anyway. But he wasn’t, he was deadly serious, leaning forward in his chair, awaiting my answer. Calico Jack slumbered on.

“We find a slave ship called the Princess. Aboard should be a man called Roberts. He can lead us to it.”

Charles seemed to think. “All them slavers work for the Royal African Company. Let’s find any one of their ships and start asking some questions.”

But unfortunately for us all, the first Royal African Company ship we encountered blew holes in Vane’s ship, the Ranger, meaning he needed to be rescued. At last we boarded the slave ship, where our men had already quietened down the slaver’s crew. There we found the captain.

“This captain claims the Princess sails out of Kingston every few months,” I told Vane.

“All right. We’ll set a course,” said Vane, and the decision was made: we were heading for Kingston, and no doubt the slave captain would have been okay and left unharmed, had he not called out angrily, “You made a hash of my cells and rigging, you jackanapes. You owe me a share.”

Every man there who knew Charles Vane could have told you what would happen next: terrible violence with no remorse. So it was at that moment, when he swung around, drew his gun and strode over to the captain in one quick and furious movement. Then he put the muzzle of the gun to the captain’s knee, his other hand held to stop himself being splashed with blood. And pulled the trigger.

It happened quickly, matter-of-factly. In the aftermath Charles Vane walked away, about to move past me when I shouted, “Damn it, Vane!”

“Oh, Charles, what a surly devil you are,” said Calico Jack, and it was a rare moment of sobriety from Calico Jack, a fact that was almost as shocking as the captain’s piercing screams, but then the old drunkard was seemingly in the mood to challenge Charles Vane.

Vane turned on his quartermaster. “Don’t fuck with me, Jack.”

“It is my mandate to fuck with you, Charles,” snapped Calico Jack, normally laid out drunk, but today in a mood to challenge Vane’s authority, it seemed. “Lads,” he commanded, and as if on cue—as though they had been awaiting their chance—several men loyal to Calico Jack stepped forward with drawn weapons. We were outnumbered, but that didn’t stop Adewale, who was about to draw his cutlass, only to feel the full weight of a guard across his face, which sent him crumpling to the deck.

I found myself with a face full of pistol barrels when I moved forward to help.

“See . . . The boys and I had a bit of a council while you were wasting time with this lot,” said Calico Jack, indicating the captured slaver. “They figured I’d be a fitter captain than you reckless dogs.”

He gestured towards Adewale, and my blood rose as he said, “This one I figure I may sell for a tenner in Kingston. But with you two, I can’t take any chances.”

Surrounded, me, Charles and our men were helpless to do anything. My mind reeled, wondering where it had all gone so wrong. Had we needed Blackbeard that much? Did we rely on him so heavily that things could go so terribly awry in his absence? It seems so. It seems so.