The Isle of Gold by Seven Jane

Author:Seven Jane [Jane, Seven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999742396
Publisher: Black Spot Books

XI

I had no time to digest the revelations that had just taken place, much less unravel them. For now, whether they held any truth or not, whether I was the daughter of some ill-fated pirate captain or just the bastard of some drunken sailor, Dunn and his legends would have to wait. None of it would matter anyway if I died at sea—something that as I looked out toward the writhing mass of wind and water outside I decided to be distinctly possible.

Whilst we had been discussing the fantastical roots of my genealogy, the ocean had come alive again outside of the captain’s cabin. The previously tranquil sea was now furious and black, boiling in angry waves that rose in jagged cliffs and crashed down in white-tipped fangs that bit savagely into the hull of the ship. The ghostly sheen on the water was gone, but the unyielding cold was not. Even with my blanket still wrapped around me, the frigid air beat forcefully against my body like the breath of an angry ocean god, freezing the blood flowing in my veins until it chilled so deep it slowed even the marrow of my bones. Darkness had consumed the sky again, with only a sparse spattering of stars left to decorate the black canvas, and most of them were dulled and hidden behind thick nighttime clouds that warned of a storm brewing over the water.

Even though the air remained just as devastatingly cold, the strange trance that had wasted the men into icy statues had thawed. As the waves rushed and pounded upon the ship so, too, again did the crew, roused from their frozen stasis to combat a suddenly violent sea. Spurred into action, they worked with the same single-mindedness of a colonized whole, moving frantically above and below the decks with the precision and speed of the citizens of an ant bed that had just been kicked over. It was not the first time this analogy had come to mind. The Riptide’s men moved in a synchronized accord that required no command or direction, laboring quickly and agilely and without so much as a shiver, the linens and sail scraps they had clutched against themselves just moment’s ago now cast away in forgotten heaps on the deck. Even in my mounting dread of being sucked into the sea it was impossible to ignore the beautiful choreography of their movements—brawny men moving about on nimble feet made confident from years of sailing, leaning from side to side as the deck rocked ferociously beneath them. I observed how in quick, practiced actions they handled the sails; there was much heaving on ropes and the guns and cannons were secured to anything that didn’t move. The most practiced of all, Tom Birch, simultaneously shouted orders while he tied knots and adjusted sails, moving from task to task without the slightest amount of hesitation although his eyes still had a dazed look about them, as if he’d been caught off unaware by the storm.

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