GUYS! Last chapter!! I'm so excited to get this to you now, so do enjoy and I'll be back at the end.
Also a continuity note: I recently rewrote a bit at the beginning of the story and in doing so, defined Jasper and Tim a bit more as characters and decided to switch their roles for this next scene. So just pretend it was Tim who threw Kenna off the ship at the end of the last chapter, okay?
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Roland ripped the sword from Dooley's body as the man crumpled to the deck. The fight around him, so chaotic when he was occupied with only the next strike or the next breath he'd take, ordered itself quickly into a clash all but finished.
Jasper was shouting from Osei's grip as he swore at Roland's back that the siren was real, that they were all doomed. Roland cursed at himself, remembering that moment he'd found the man pointing his finger at the buttoned-up widow. He should have known the man had gone fanatical at some point, unlike his other half Tim who had withdrawn from any discussion of the ship's siren. Munro held a badly-beaten Abbott at the end of his blade. The few men who had stood by him were dead or subdued. Three sailors took down the last man who slashed wildly at his former shipmates before his feet were swept from under him and one of his own knives entered his throat. The crew was anything but sentimental, making Kenna's success as surprising as it had been riveting.
At that thought Roland's eyes went up to the upper deck, seeking her red hair and finding none. Most of the men had left their posts above for the fight below, and the empty space he found there pitted his stomach. His head whipped around to the other railing. "Mr. Barnes!" he shouted. The navigator returned the call from under the gun deck, approaching with his own scraps evident from the fight.
"Well fought, Captain," the man grinned at him. "Never thought I'd see the day when those troublemaking boors lost their wits enough to attack. Not that I'm complaining at a bit of sp-."
"Where is Mrs. Bell?" Roland cut him off. The mood of the men was celebratory and he knew he would do well to encourage that sentiment, but this was more important.
Osei let out a warning whoop behind him, and Roland turned as Jasper threw himself at his back, letting the man sail past him, his attack left sprawled on the deck with the rest of him. Osei and another man dropped knees onto Jasper's back as they wrestled him down again.
"Mr. Barnes?" Roland said again, eyes fixed on the rapidly paling navigator.
"She left us to make her case, Captain. I thought it best to allow the lady to walk free and speak to the men as it were, allowing her space," he swallowed, "I lost sight of her in the fight, Captain, one can only keep eyes on so many things at once."
Roland turned and ran up the steps to the upper deck instead of acting on the desire to throttle his most important ally on the ship. There was no huddled form, hiding from the violence, no lone figure looking out to sea. He turned back around, trying to ignore the vice tightening in his chest. Beyond the main deck many of the crew still stood on the forecastle, jeering the few men held below, but no Kenna.
Perhaps she made it through the ring of men below?
He skipped all but one stair in his flight back to the main deck. "Search below. Find Mrs. Bell." he snapped to Barnes who took two men with him and disappeared below deck. "Mr. Munro, Mr. Hansen, see to accommodating these men." He took a roll of line from under a cannon and tossed it to the cook. "The mizzen will do."
The crew cheered as the few mutineers left alive were marched to the upper deck and bound in place to the mizzen mast. Roland followed, waiting for Barnes to reappear with Kenna from below. He considered heading back to the cabin to check the crawl space she'd claimed as her own, but her safety rested on him finishing what she'd started. He had to maintain control of the crew so he stayed, watching Abbott's bloody face as the man was secured to his fellow conspirators.
The men quieted their shouts, and when he faced them he mirrored their expressions of triumph without feeling any of it in himself. His thoughts were running through the ship, thinking of every place she might be hiding, but he smiled to the men here, playing his part. He brought up his fist and they cheered. "It's been a long way," he said when the quieted.,"and it has not been easy." The men nodded in agreement. "We have been taken down a path we never should have followed, led by Dougray's thirst for revenge and his ever-loyal Master Gunner." The men hissed and booed at Abbott. For his part, the man didn't even glance their way. Roland continued.
"Abbott was right about one thing." The men quieted in surprise. "There was something rotten aboard this ship, poisoning our journey, driving wedges between the crew, stirring up trouble and shirking work to make the going worse." He paused as the men reacted against those men bound to the mast. "And so our Jonah is discovered by his own plots and planning, and he will not keep us from our home." From the corner of his eye, Roland saw Barnes appear on deck, alone, the look of fear unmistakable.
The men cheered his words as he turned to Abbott, watching as the man's stained teeth came into view behind a vicious grin. He spat a wad of blood and saliva onto the wood at Roland's feet.
"Where is she?" Roland approached the man, fists trembling with the need to meet flesh.
Abbott laughed. "A parting gift for my ship," he choked out through his bruised face. "I've freed you from the siren's grip."
Roland's eyes slid to Jasper, bound beside Abbott. The man was silent, in sharp contrast to his recent fanatical shouting. He followed the man's gaze across the pit of the main deck and over to the forecastle, where a lone man stood, eyes fixed on the sea. Two steps and he was up on the gunwale, looking over the blue expanse below. The vice tightened as he searched the empty sea.
"Captain!" Barnes said, calling his attention down to where he stood at his feet. Other men had joined them, leaning over to search for the missing woman. The navigator's hand stretched out, pointing towards the shore.
There it was, the tiny shock of red hair, barely visible in the rising swells as she swam closer to the beach. "Lower the skiff. Take Munro and fast," Roland said, jumping back onto the deck. He moved before any of the men could register his intent.
"Tim!" Jasper screamed. But it was too late. Roland was on the forecastle. Tim turned, sword in hand, to face the fury Roland had been tamping down for too long. The sword fell to the deck, the hand grasping it as well. Tim's scream was echoed by Jasper as Roland grabbed the man by the neck, crushing his windpipe with his thumb and forcing him to his knees. Roland looked into his face, relished the terror and pain he found there, and brought the tip of his sword to the man's stomach. He loosened his grip on Tim's neck just enough that the man wouldn't pass out before he sank his blade, inch by agonizing inch, into his gut.
