But no more.
“I’ll send you to hell.” Jack spat out, freeing his own sword from its scabbard.
“You?”La Chauve-Sourissneered. “We must bow,non? So English, so polite.”
“Do as you wish,” growled Jack, and he straightened his shoulders, spine as iron, blade held firm. “To the death.”
A snarl and the whoreson struck forward, sword stabbing in reckless jabs.
Sloppy. And Jack parried, thrusting back with deftness, but the rain hindered his efforts, boots struggling for grip on the shifting pebbles.
A far-off scream carried on the wind and his eyes flickered to the sound but the Frenchman lunged, a whistle of blade compelling Jack’s retreat.
Focus.
Once, he would have hammered forward with blind ferociousness, but Rainham had been teaching him to bridle his temper in a swordfight, to consider and strategise.
Their blades sped through the air, clashed and skimmed, weapons evenly matched for weight and length.La Chauve-Sourisfought well with keen balance and a vigour, driven by insanity, but his style remained chaotic, strokes forceful yet careless. A gutter fighter without finesse.
Jack could be both.
Whipping his wrist around as the man shot forward, he parried a stab to the vitals and caught the blade with his own, steel grating, until they were breath to breath, edge to edge.
Lightning sparked the cove, illuminating the whoreson’s waxen face scored by four bleached scars to the cheek.
“You’ll never take her,” Jack rasped through clenched teeth, feeling the devil’s breath on his skin.
A wicked grin lit the Frenchman’s features. “She is mine,mon ami. My name is upon her.”
Jack roared above the racketing thunder, hurling him away, caught sight of the boat from the corner of his eye, sea flinging it back and forth like driftwood. He drove forward, blade hissing through the air but the Frenchman spun, eluded the strike, and off-balance, Jack’s knee struck the pebbles.
Control it, Winterbourne, he heard Rainham yell and he hauled himself up. Turned.
“Is Sewell your puppet also?”
La Chauve-Sourissneered.
Swords clattered once more, fleeter than the ragged flashes above.La Chauve-Sourislunged but Jack tore his blade through the rain to parry the blow, arm numbed by the ferocious clash.
His opponent dipped, stumbled, and Jack shifted stance, slashing the Frenchman’s shirt to draw blood.
“Fils de pute.”
Time slowed and they circled, spines curled like scorpions’ tails. Jack hauled breath to his overwrought lungs, forced his hands to steady, until he faced that black-mouthed cave where this whoreson had tortured an innocent Cornish girl.
Ire coursed. Controlled ire.
Moving his grip from hilt to blunted base, Jack hurled the sword as a spear.
Seized by surprise, the Frenchman swung to deflect and Jack threw himself forward. They tumbled and grappled in the wet shale, bruising limbs and grazing skin. Fingers stabbed at his eyes and Jack twisted, felt the graze of blade to his arm as he grabbed the man’s wrist and slammed it to the shale. Punching out with his other hand, fist crashed into jaw and the sword released.
Jack rolled off, reaching down for his boot knife asLa Chauve-Sourisscrabbled on his knees to the fallen weapon. Before it could rip across, Jack dived forward, plunging his slick dagger through cloth and flesh.
A wild howl and the Frenchman swayed on his knees, sword tumbling again as both hands fell to his gut and the protruding hilt. Jack lurched to his feet, breath heaving and hands trembling beneath the malevolent sky.
Tamsyn.
Turning his eyes to the raging sea, he scanned the waves, blundered toward the shore.
