Dunham

July 4, 1776, Barbary Coast

Bare and bloody from forehead to waist, she held the tip of her sword tight to the neck of the man who lay on the quarterdeck between her feet, his sword-hand fingers ground under her heavy boot heel. Her long, blood-soaked braid whipped and snapped in the wind.

“This ship is mine now, Skirrow,” she snarled. “You have three choices. Adrift, keeled, or death by my hand.”

He would have swallowed, but her sword prevented that. “Adrift,” he whispered as best he could.

“Wrong choice.”

The blade of a carefully sharpened battle ax glinted and whistled as she arced it overhead and brought it down through his neck, cleanly separating his head from his shoulders.

Heedless of the blood spurting from their vessels, she dropped the ax and snatched her former captain’s head off the deck.

She whirled to see the crew—her crew now—watching with varying degrees of calculation and terror.

“I AM CAPTAIN FURY!” she roared, thrusting Skirrow’s bloody head, still with its terrified expression, skyward. “I am your captain now, by right of my victory. Any who challenge me will also be sent straight to hell.”

She dropped Skirrow’s head upon his body, then rammed her sword into the deck so hard that it sank two inches into the wood and quivered. Most of the crew gasped and stepped back.

“Dooley Smith, step forward!” she shouted.

A man of indeterminate age with a shock of carrot-colored hair stepped forward proudly and saluted. “Sir!”

She plucked a jangle of keys from the body’s belt and fired them at him. Without a blink, he caught them. “Dooley Smith. Leftenant. Second in command. Take who you trust and go free the prisoners. Bring them to me.”

A quarter hour passed in which she stood on the quarterdeck, hands on hips, unashamed of her bare breasts, surveying her holdings and crew. Many would die today, but most of those not by her hand.

Only fifteen men knew what this day would bring, and fourteen of them stood spread out, heavily armed, their backs to her, holding weapons to discourage any who might forcibly object.

A gaggle of Moors, Africans, Arabs, Jews, and Caucasians in equal numbers straggled up on deck, gaunt, nearly lifeless and, for the first time on this voyage, not bound by chains. Two men stood out: An Arab and a runaway Negro slave. Both stood proud, their backs strong for all their emaciation, and their bearing dignified.

“Solomon Ibrahim and Cambridge Bull, step forward!”

The two who knew they had the most to gain by this mutiny stepped forward with purpose. She pulled two leather-sheathed daggers out of her waistband and sent them zinging toward the men, who caught them handily.

“Seek out your enemies and do what you will,” she murmured, and studied the faces of the crew, a full quarter of which turned to shock and fear.

The Arab gave no expression to betray his feelings, but he turned on the balls of his feet and, with one graceful arc, slit the throat of the man behind him—then plowed through the assembled crew.

The Negro’s expression had turned murderous and he too pursued those who had made his life worse than a living hell down in the deep, dark holds below the cargo.

She watched as men dove overboard to escape the wrath of the two who suddenly possessed the strength of madmen. Throats were slashed and bodies dumped, the sea below them blossoming vermilion as she stood silent, watching, waiting.