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Shandy rolled away while Venner was rocking the heavy blade loose, and when he got up in a crouch Skank took time out from improvising a mainsail to toss him the dropped saber.
The deck was heaving, and rain and spray were in his eyes - he missed the toss, heard the sword clank and slide across wet deck, heard too the creak of the cutlass blade levered free, and Venner's sliding footsteps approaching.
Shandy dove after the saber just as the bow plunged into a wave - he shut his eyes and braced himself against the gunwale as the water crashed over him, then shook his head and blinked around frantically. The light was bad, but he saw the sword rolling in the water, and he went after it in a half-swimming crawl and caught its hilt.
Venner struck as Shandy was trying to stand up, but the deck rocked sharply back just as Venner lunged, and he lost his balance, and though the blow numbed Shandy's shoulder, it was the flat that had hit him, not the edge.
It knocked him back down onto his knees, but Venner had fallen too, and Shandy took a moment to drive his own sword point into the only reachable part of Venner - his knee - before wearily hauling himself to his feet one more time.
Venner was up too.
Shandy realized he might not be able to beat Venner, that this interminable fight might end with that damned cutlass breaking open his head or splitting his abdomen - but he was too exhausted to derive anything more than an oppressive unhappiness from the idea. He leaned back against the transom and flexed his hand on the slippery saber grip.
Venner swung the cutlass at Shandy's head, and Shandy made his numb arm lift the saber to deflect the blow, but he only succeeded in turning the heavier blade, so that once again it was the flat that hit him - squarely on the side of the head this time. His knees gave for a moment as the hot, nauseating pain seemed to ring in his sinuses.
He tried to straighten, but Venner's blade was driving in point-first now - Shandy let himself slump further and then barely managed to jerk his body aside as the blade struck - it scraped his ribs and caught in a loose fold of his jacket, nailing him to the bulkhead and stopping his fall; but he had raised his own sword in a parry that, while late, had put his point more or less in line. As cloppingly as a carelessly worked puppet he got his feet under himself.
His shirt tore as he lunged forward, and then the front of Venner's jacket was punctured to admit two inches - then four, as Shandy caught his balance and remised - of rusty steel.
Suddenly pale, Venner reeled back, off the blade, and the cutlass slipped out of his hand and rang on the deck. The Jenny crested the next wave and tilted sharply back for an instant. Everyone except the two combatants grabbed for a handhold or tried to make the tumble a controlled one, but Shandy lunged forward again, in midair as the deck dropped away beneath him, and drove his point into Venner's broad chest with such force that the blade snapped off and both of them sailed through the rainy air toward, and higher than, the port rail. Shandy let go of the broken sword and grabbed the rigging, but Venner and Davies' sword went spinning away over the side. Then the bow fell and the stern rose, tearing Shandy's grip loose and flinging him hard down onto the deck.
Chapter Twenty-Six
He came back to consciousness in slow stages, reluctantly abandoning the dreams that were so much preferable to the cold, aching situation that seemed to be reality - memory dreams, like traveling with his father and the marionettes, and wish dreams, like finding Beth Hurwood and finally telling her the things he wanted to tell her. At first it had seemed that he might be able to choose the situation he would wake up to, just by concentrating on it; but the wet and cold and rocking one became more and more insistent, and when he opened his eyes he was on the Jenny's deck.
He tried to sit up, but sudden nausea pitched him back flat, weak and sweating. He opened his eyes again and saw Skank's concerned face. Shandy started to speak, but his teeth were chattering. He clamped his jaw tight for a moment and then tried again. "What ... happened?"
"You hit the deck pretty solid after you killed Venner," said Skank.
"Where's Davies?"
Skank frowned in puzzlement. "He's ... uh, dead, cap'n. When Hurwood took the Carmichael. You remember."
It seemed to Shandy he did remember something like that. He tried to sit up again, and again flopped back, shivering. "What happened?"
"Well - you were there, cap'n. And I told you about it today, remember? How one of Hurwood's dead sailors killed him?" Skank looked around unhappily.
"No, I mean what happened just now?"
"You fell on the deck. I just told you."
"Ah." Shandy sat up for the third time and made himself stay up. The nausea surged up in him and then abated. "You may have to keep telling me." He struggled to his feet and stood swaying and shuddering, clutching the rail for balance and looking around dizzily. "Uh ... the storm has ... stopped," he remarked, proud to be able to demonstrate his awareness of things.
"Yes, cap'n. While you was out cold. We just kept her hove to and rode it out. Your sea-anchor made the difference."
Shandy rubbed his face hard. "My sea-anchor." He decided not to ask. "Good. What's our course?"
"Southeast, more or less."
Shandy beckoned Skank closer, and when the young man had crouched beside him he asked quietly, "Where are we going?"
"Jamaica, you said."
"Ah." He frowned. "What do we hope to find there?"
"Ulysse Segundo," said Skank, looking more worried every second, "and his ship, the Ascending Orpheus. You said he's Hurwood, and the Orpheus is really the Carmichael. We followed reports of him out to the Caymans, where you heard he was heading back toward Jamaica again. Oh, and Woefully Fat wanted to get there, Jamaica, before he died." Skank shook his head sadly.
"Is Woefully Fat dead?"
