Barbossa's Daughter

Chapter 46

"What be ye doing with that ole thing?" Cora wondered as she approached her father who held Jack's compass in his hands, watching as it spun before it settled, and pointed in her direction.

"I was curious," her father admitted before he turned her. "Because unlike Jack, me greatest treasure is right in front of me."

Cora beamed as she stretched up to kiss her father's cheek. "I love ye too, Father."

He let out a grunt as he waved it off. "And I be curious about something else as well," he said before he placed the compass into her hands, and it seemed conflicted as it tried to be in two different directions at once. And then she closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. And then it focused somewhere far off to the horizon towards the west.

"If the Trident be North, and Henry be here, where be the compass pointing?" her father wondered as she inhaled a painful breath.

"Westward. Where the sun sets. Where Will is. Where my heart lies."

Barbossa placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't you worry, me Cora. Ye be getting yer loverboy back. We be breaking both yer curse and his."

She nodded as she took a deep breath and handed back the compass. "I know," she said softly as she leaned into her father's side, and he wrapped his arms around her.

"Redcoats!" then screamed a voice and Cora looked up to the crows' nest where Henry stood watch with a spyglass. "Redcoats!"

"Cannons at the ready!" Cora called as she waved her hands and heard the familiar sound of the cannons being rolled out. "All hands to battle stations!"

"She comes starboard! We shall fight to the last. The Pearl will not fall so long as a Barbossa is captain," Hector called as they scrambled.

"Ready the guns! Prepare to broadside!" Henry commanded as he scrambled down from the lookout.

"NO QUARTER!" Cora screamed. "On my command! Ready? FI-"

But she never got to scream FIRE, because before the British could even fire, their ship was eaten by another ship. Literally.

The wooden skeleton of Salazar's ship stretched up and stretched out before it crashed down on the British ship and it exploded before it was swallowed by the sea, leaving nothing but flames behind.

"Whatever happens, stay yer course," Barbossa said to Carina who still held the wheel. "Faster!"

"Father, we control the ship, not the wind and seas. We cannot make the ship sail faster," Cora pointed out.

And Jack let out muffled screams from where he'd been gagged on the mast, another little bit of revenge from Henry.

"Hold yer positions, ye blistering sea scum! Stand fast!" Cora ordered before they were boarded.

"Jack Sparrow," came the sing-song voice of Salazar as the undead, blackened and burned captain jumped aboard the Pearl. "I've come with a butcher's bill."

"FIRE!" Cora bellowed as the ship shook and Salazar's began to splinter as cannonballs were fired into it and she drew her sword.

"Defend yourselves, men! TO the death!" Hector shouted as he drew his own sword and they joined the fray as Henry snuck to the front of the ship and began to cut Jack free.

And just as Salazar made his way past the duelling dead to the front of the ship, all he found was a pile of cut rope as Jack swung between the two ships and dangled above the ocean.

Cora on the other hand, pushed her father out of the way, just as a sword went through her abdomen.

Though she grimaced in pain at the initial entry wound, she simply gripped the sword with both hands as she pulled herself free of the blade and snarled at the dead sailor who'd tried to kill her father. "It takes more than a sword to kill a Barbossa," she growled as the wound closed and she lunged at the dead sailor with whom she was locked within a seemingly endless battle.