The storm did not weaken with the dawn. If anything, the sea seemed angrier that we had survived the night.
The gray light that filtered through the driving rain was flat and hopeless. It offered no warmth, only enough visibility to see the mountains of green water that threatened to bury us.
My hands were raw, the skin worn down to the red by the constant friction of wet hemp. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been hammered on an anvil, but there was no rest.
On the Sea Falcon, sleep was a memory from another life.
"Lash yourself to the pin-rail, Hale! If you go over, I'm not turning back for you!"
Thomas Reed's voice was a hoarse bark, nearly lost to the shriek of the wind in the rigging. He stood by the mainmast, a line tied around his waist, his face a mask of salt and grim determination. He looked less like a man and more like a piece of iron-bound oak.
I did as I was told, fumbling with a length of tarred rope. My fingers were so numb they felt like sticks.
The deck beneath my boots was never level; it was a sliding, pitching platform that spent half its time tilted at a forty-degree angle.
Every few minutes, a massive swell would crest over the windward bulwark, sending a foot of freezing seawater rushing across the planks.
"Heave! Heave away!" Reed roared to a group of sailors struggling with the fore-staysail.
The ship groaned—a deep, structural protest that I felt in the soles of my feet. The Sea Falcon was a fast brig, built for speed and agility, but the Atlantic was trying to twist her apart.
I looked toward the quarterdeck. Captain Locke was still there, tied to the rail near the wheel. He hadn't left his post in ten hours. Beside him, Samuel Briggs was shouting something into his ear, gesturing wildly at the sea.
I scrambled toward them, staying low, my hand trailing along the lifeline.
"—broaching, Captain!" I heard Briggs scream as I drew near. "The wind is backing. If we stay on this tack, the next big set will hit us broadside. She'll roll, Adrian! She'll roll and she won't come back up!"
Locke didn't look at him. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, or where the horizon should have been. "We can't turn, Samuel! If we run before the wind now, we'll be driven onto the shoals of the Salvages before nightfall!"
The Salvages shoals — rocks that have wrecked more ships than pirates.
"We have to find the rhythm!" Briggs yelled back. "The sea is confused! The currents are fighting the wind!"
A massive wave, larger than any I had seen yet, rose up on our port side. It looked like a wall of dark glass, topped with a jagged crown of white foam. For a second, it hung over us, blotting out the gray sky.
"Hold on!" Reed's voice echoed across the deck.
The impact was like being hit by a falling building. The world turned into a churning, freezing chaos of green and white.
I was slammed against the rail, the air driven from my lungs. The water pulled at me with a terrifying, heavy weight, trying to rip me from my line. My ears were filled with the roar of a thousand cataracts.
When the water finally receded, pouring out through the scuppers in a frantic rush, the ship was shuddering violently.
"Report!" Locke shouted, wiping the salt from his eyes.
"Bilges are filling fast!" Jonah Cutter yelled from the midships. The massive carpenter was covered in sawdust and grease, holding a heavy mallet as if he intended to fight the ocean with it. "The main-chain plates are straining! I've got water coming in through the seams in the forward hold!"
"Get to the pumps!" Reed commanded, pointing at a group of exhausted sailors. "If we don't keep her light, the next one will take us under!"
I joined the line at the pumps. It was a rhythmic, soul-crushing labor. Up and down. Up and down. The iron handles were cold and slick. Every muscle in my shoulders screamed in protest, but the sight of the dark water gushing onto the deck kept us moving. We weren't just pumping water; we were pumping for our lives.
Beside me, Sikes was working the handle with a frantic, wild-eyed energy. He looked at me, his face pale. "It's the gold, boy," he hissed, his voice trembling. "Flint's gold is cursed. The sea won't let us have it. She's going to take us all down to the lockers."
"Keep your mouth shut and your back into it, Sikes!" Reed shouted, passing us with a coil of rope.
I looked up at the masts. They were bending like bows, the shrouds humming a low, vibrating note of extreme tension. High above, in the remains of the crow's nest, I saw a flash of blonde hair. Liam Hawke was still up there, lashed to the mast, his eyes searching the white madness.
"How is he still alive up there?" I wondered aloud.
"He's a bird, that one," Cutter grunted as he hammered a wedge into a straining bulkhead nearby. "Let's hope he doesn't decide to fly."
Near midday, the wind shifted with a violent suddenness. The Sea Falcon lurched, her sails snapping with the sound of a dozen cannons firing at once.
"The fore-top!" Hawke screamed from above. "The stays are snapping!"
I looked up. A thick hemp line, one of the main supports for the fore-topmast, had frayed through. It whipped in the wind, a deadly lash that threatened to bring the entire upper mast crashing down onto the deck.
"If that mast goes, we lose our steerage!" Briggs shouted from the quarterdeck.
"I need a man in the rigging!" Reed roared.
The sailors hesitated. To climb the ratlines in this wind, with the ship pitching like a dying horse, was a death sentence. The masts were swinging in arcs of thirty feet.
"I'll go!" Hawke shouted from his perch.
"No! Stay where you are, Hawke!" Locke commanded. "Reed, get a team to the base of the mast. We'll try to haul it in from the deck!"
I ran to help. We grabbed the trailing end of the snapped stay, a heavy, sodden rope that felt like it was made of lead.
"Heave!" Reed counted. "Heave!"
We pulled with everything we had, but the wind was stronger. The rope jerked, nearly pulling us off our feet.
"The block is jammed!" Hawke yelled. "I have to clear it!"
Before anyone could stop him, the young lookout unlashed himself. He climbed out onto the swaying yardarm, his movements frantic and desperate. He looked like a spider on a thread, silhouetted against the dark, churning sky.
"Get down from there, you fool!" Reed screamed.
Hawke reached the jammed block. He pulled a knife from his belt and hacked at the tangled line. The ship gave a massive lurch to starboard. Hawke swung out over the boiling sea, his feet dangling in the air.
My heart was in my throat. I grabbed a spare line and threw it toward him, but the wind caught it, tossing it back like a piece of string.
Hawke managed to get back onto the yard. With one final strike of his knife, the tangle cleared. The staysail snapped tight, and the Sea Falcon's head swung back into the wind, stabilizing the ship.
"He did it!" I yelled.
But the victory was short-lived.
"Lightning!" Briggs shouted.
A jagged bolt of white fire split the sky, so close the smell of ozone filled the air. For a fraction of a second, the world was illuminated with a brilliant, silver light.
I looked astern.
Through the wall of spray and rain, I saw a shape. It was low to the water, a sleek, black-hulled schooner. She was riding the crest of a massive wave, her raked masts cutting through the gale with a terrifying ease. She didn't look like she was struggling. She looked like she was in her element.
The Specter.
"She's closer!" I screamed.
Locke grabbed the rail, his knuckles white. He didn't need a spyglass to see her now. The pirate ship was less than a quarter-mile behind us, gaining ground with every surge of the sea.
"How can he keep pace?" Reed demanded, his voice full of disbelief. "We're running under storm-clouts, and he's carrying a full jib!"
"He's riding the pressure line," Briggs said, his voice cold with realization. "He's using the wind off the back of the storm to push him. Vane isn't fighting the gale, Thomas. He's sailing it."
The crew saw the black sails too. The fear that had been simmering all morning boiled over.
"He's coming for us!" Sikes wailed, dropping his pump handle. "Vane is a devil! He's brought the storm with him!"
"Back to the pumps, you dog!" Reed roared, swinging a heavy fist that sent Sikes sprawling. "If Vane wants us, he'll have to find us at the bottom of the ocean first!"
But even Reed's bravado couldn't hide the truth. The Specter was faster. She was a hunter that didn't fear the dark or the water.
As the afternoon turned into a premature twilight, the storm reached its peak. The noise was constant—a deep, chest-thumping rumble of water hitting oak, punctuated by the shriek of the wind.
I was exhausted. My eyes were burning from the salt, and my hands were bleeding. I felt the map in my satchel, pressed against my ribs. It felt heavy. It felt like the source of all this madness.
"Brace! Brace yourselves!" Locke's voice was a desperate scream.
I looked to port. A wave—larger than any of the others, a literal mountain of water—was bearing down on us. It wasn't green; it was black, a void in the sea.
"Turn her!" Locke roared at the helmsman. "Turn her into it!"
The Sea Falcon tried to respond, but she was sluggish, weighted down by the water in her hold. We weren't fast enough.
The wave hit us at an angle.
The world went sideways. I was thrown from the pump, my lifeline snapping like a thread. I tumbled across the deck, hitting the opposite rail with a force that saw stars explode in my vision.
The ship didn't just tilt; she stayed down. The starboard rail was buried deep in the churning water. I looked up and saw the masts pointing nearly horizontal toward the sea.
Men were screaming. I saw a sailor slide across the deck and vanish over the side into the black foam.
"She's going over!" someone yelled.
Everything that wasn't lashed down—barrels, crates, spare rigging—smashed against the bulwarks. The sound of the ship breaking was a sickening, splintering roar.
I clawed at the deck, my fingers finding a ring-bolt. I held on with everything I had, the freezing water washing over me, trying to drag me into the abyss. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I just waited for the end.
Slowly, agonizingly, the Sea Falcon began to right herself. She groaned, the weight of the water on her deck pouring out through the smashed railings. She rose back up, shuddering like a wounded animal.
I coughed up salt water, gasping for air. My head was spinning. I looked around the deck. It was a scene of total devastation. The galley chimney was gone. The longboat had been smashed to splinters.
"Is everyone alright?" Locke called out, his voice shaking.
Reed was standing by the mainmast, wiping blood from a gash on his forehead. "We lost Miller, Captain. Went over the side when she rolled."
I looked toward the foremast, my heart suddenly stopping.
"Where's Hawke?" I shouted.
Everyone looked up.
The top of the foremast was a jagged, splintered stump. The yardarm where Hawke had been clearing the block was gone. The crow's nest—the little wooden platform where the young lookout had spent his days—had been ripped away by the force of the roll.
"Hawke!" Reed roared.
There was no answer. Only the mocking shriek of the wind.
I looked out at the churning, white-capped sea. I searched the waves, hoping to see a blonde head or a waving arm. But there was nothing. Only the black water and the gray, driving rain.
The Sea Falcon drifted, her masts damaged, her lookout gone.
And as the next bolt of lightning split the sky, I saw the Specter again. She was even closer now, her black bow-wave cutting through the sea like a blade.
She was coming for us. And we were no longer fast enough to run.
End of Chapter 16