glimpse at my abused body shoved me into the shadows whereupon the pain resided, dark and hopeless.
On the fourth morning, Madwulf paced before me, visibly agitated. “You look like death’s head upon a mop-stick. Ghastly, truly. I wouldn’t ride you into battle.”
“Rot in hell.”
“Open the compass, Bennett.”
“I said go to he—”
Hands shot out from behind me and wrenched my injured shoulder backward. The joint screamed, shooting blades of racking pain through my neck and chest.
My attacker was joined by another, and together, they pinned my elbow against the foremast, holding it with my forearm extending past the timber. The agony in my shoulder throbbed so brutally I drowned in the nauseous, spinning dizziness. Black dots peppered my vision. Acid seared my throat, and excess saliva filled my mouth.
The brute with the wooden plank approached.
“No.” I shook my head wildly and dropped the compass in a useless effort to jerk free. “No, no, no, no! Please! I’ll unlock it right now. I promise.”
The two men restrained me as the brute with the board swung it hard and fast at my forearm. The blow hit like lightning, snapping my arm backward at the wrong angle. Bones cracked from elbow to wrist.
I screamed, choking on the anguish. Ice surged from my feet to my chest, chased by a boiling eruption of vomit.
The contents of my stomach expelled past my lips. That was the last thing I remembered before passing out.
I floated back to consciousness on the wings of my father’s words.
Start and end north.
His warm, soothing brogue began to sing to me from somewhere behind, overhead, and all around…
Oh, sad fellow, by the thrust of my blade
North to south, click, click
South to east, one tick
I remembered it as a cheerful melody with morbid lyrics. It had been so long since I’d thought of it. How did the rest go? I crawled through the strange wet fog around me, humming along and searching for the words.
Until a sharp, stabbing throb caught me unawares.
With a gasp, I found myself lying face-up, choking, drowning as if submerged in the sea. The deck stretched out beneath me. The stink of farm animals flooded my nose. My limbs felt weighted, my entire body soaked. If I had to guess, someone had dumped a bucket of water on me to rouse me.
Sounds were distant. Garbled. Voices. Someone was talking to me, saying my name over and over. That English accent didn’t make sense. I recognized it and turned my head, seeking its face and blinking through sheets of misery. Christ almighty, I hurt…everywhere.
My eyes opened, and I stared up at the concerned mien of Lieutenant Flemming.
Bending over me, the blond doctor reached down and gently tipped my chin side to side. Creases fanned from the corners of his miserable eyes, his face pale with fear.
Given his crestfallen expression, he wasn’t here as a willing new recruit. He was a captive, just like me. Because every pirate crew needed a doctor, and Flemming happened to be the only ship’s surgeon on Blitz.
“Where are we?” I croaked.
His head angled down, shaking slightly as his eyes lifted to the pirates lounging, drinking, and belching around us.
“The arm will need to be set and braced, sir.” Flemming sat back and looked up at whoever stood outside of my view.
“I dinna care about fixing her.” Madwulf’s voice sieved through my chest like ice water. “Just keep her alive long enough to open that compass.”
The task of solving the puzzle suddenly felt too big, too impossible, and it grew more so as I turned my neck and saw the mutilated wreckage of my arm.
A splintered white bone protruded from a bloody gouge near the inside of my elbow. My forearm curved outward in an unnatural angle, lying like a dead, displaced thing on the deck.
I gagged and released a soundless scream as my stomach clenched and heaved. Viscid, bitter fluid projected from my mouth, and the shivering… God save me, the tremors were overpowering, uncontrollable. As the magnitude of my injury forced itself upon me, I shook with a violence that engaged every muscle and ripped apart every nerve.
No need to look at Lieutenant Flemming’s grim face to glean my fate. I wouldn’t survive this. My heart had known that all along, but the bulwark of stubbornness within hadn’t allowed me to accept it.
As Flemming tipped a medicine vial and poured a sizzling liquid over my exposed bone, the unholy pain tried to drag me into its darkness again. Blood ran cold through my veins,