The Dubious Heir by Clark Lydia

Author:Clark, Lydia [Clark, Lydia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-05T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Treea made it back to the ship while the crew slept. She walked about the deck pondering on how she was going to distract the duke while Dale set his plan in motion for the next few days. Nothing she came up with seemed to appease her. Would she be able to bring herself to do that which she had implied to Dale before they parted? Could she really seduce the Duke?

The actual seducer appeared to be Dale, but it did go with his line of work. It was shady, but who was she to judge, wasn't she a pirate's daughter?

Maybe she should just pay the Duke a personal visit and take a gamble. Dale should be at the castle by now. Hopefully, he hadn't been imprisoned. All hope would be lost if that happened.

"My Lady, a ship approaches from our South." The crew hand yelled from the Crow’s nest above. "It is coming straight for us."

"Does it bear a flag?"

"Aye, it does. It's the Duke's colors."

"Ring the alarm! I don't trust this ship. They tried to board us once already, they may try once again." Treea shaded her eyes trying to see off in the distance. She needed a scope, like the one the sailor used up in the nest. She had sent him up there at sunrise, it was a quirk of a feeling that something bad might happen. This was not the way she had planned on paying the Duke his visit.

A bell on the deck was rung by another sailor calling everyone to arm themselves. Twenty sailors joined Treea on deck, waiting for the ship to approach.

It wasn't a fast moving vessel. They could've easily outrun it if they were willing to set sail back out to the open seas. This was not their intent. Instead, they would stand their ground and fight if need be.

The ship came closer. Treea could barely make out the shape of the vessel, but the sailor with the scope could see it better. "My Lady, the ship is armed with cannons," he shouted down to her.

The man, who was fifteen years senior to Treea took the helm, "Do you want us to out run it?"

Too late to run. Archers appeared on the Duke's ship and began launching flaming arrows. Treea had never taken flaming arrows into account. The crew ran about trying to put the fires out, but the arrows kept coming in massive volleys.

The helm man tried to have the anchor hoisted, but it was too late to try to run. Their ship was aflame and the only thing to do was to jump into the water or onto the other ship, which is what they all chose to do once the ship was close enough.

By using the ropes to the sails, they were able to swing from the flaming ship to the Duke's ship with ease. Any cargo they had was about to be lost. Thankfully, they had nothing of great value on board. They had taken care of that load the day Captain Pellesi was taken prisoner.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.