Chapter 219: Dance of the Black Fortune

James brought his glass down from San Felipe el Real, enough to rest his arm. When he raised it again, he found the whole slow procession had gained a fair stretch of water since he’d last looked, although still outside the mortars effective range.

The three galleons held their place behind the great ship, patient as ever, content to let her decide when the battle deserved hurry.

San Felipe herself had crept forward all the same, close enough now that a cautious man wouldn’t call the distance comfortable.

James called for the topsails trimmed a point forward. That would close the distance faster if the need arose without committing the Rose to bloody skirmishes.

Cudjoe grunted from his side. "Save yer breath, Captain. Thatch’s monster and the Dame did the very same not a minute past, ye’re just the last one tae catch up wi’ yer crew’s good sense."

"Bloody cheek, the lot of ye. The commodore’s meant to lead the fleet’s thinkin’, not trail after it."

"Aye, and yet here we are. Small mercies."

James let that pass with a laugh and lifted the glass again. He turned it south, past the heavy shoulders of his two largest ships, toward the water where Bonnet and Bellamy had been fighting their own battle.

The southern flank had been busy for some time already, and the Black Fortune showed the small, ordinary evidence of it with scorched paint on the deck. Some few fresh splinters stood out, and one length of torn rope slapped uselessly against the rigging whenever she rolled.

None of it had cost her an inch of speed.

Bonnet held the wheel with a captain’s confidence, though there was still faint surprise in it, as though he still remembered exactly what kind of captain he’d been before this ship taught him better.

Whitlock stood close behind him, tally board tucked under one arm even now, while Mary moved through the gun deck with clipped certainty.

Two of five sloops pressed in close, trying to box the Fortune. The other three spread wide across the open water, patient now, waiting for their chance.

The Fortune replied by coming about inside a turn that ought to have belonged to a far smaller and faster ship. Her sails cracked hard as she swung, then filled again almost at once, the hull heeling beneath the sudden strain before righting as she shot across the Spaniard’s path.

More than one pirate muttered that she turned like a woman cheating at cards, quick where quick was not owed her. Along the gun deck, voices whispered that the Devil himself must be steering whenever Bonnet wasn’t looking.

Not a soul saw fit to argue.

Whitlock watched her stern swing round tighter than his eye trusted. He’d stopped asking what kept her so light on her feet a good while back.

Then he went on marking his board as if the question had never troubled him.

One of the sloops pressed for what ought to have been safe water off the Fortune’s flank, turning her helm a breath too early. The Fortune answered with a turn of her own that no shipwright would ever have promised her.

⚙ [PERK ACTIVATED] — Wind Dancer

She came round inside the Spaniard’s turn and brought her full broadside to bear on a deck still finishing its swing. The gunports had barely opened, and half her crew were still hauling at tackle instead of standing by their matches.

Mary called it the instant the chance appeared, her voice carrying like a flat snap.

"Fire! Give her that broadside before she finds her own guns!"

The Fortune’s whole starboard side thunderously answered together.

The first guns kicked back in a single crashing roar, smoke bursting from the ports as flame ran across the battery. Cannonballs tore the length of the sloop’s exposed deck, smashing through planking and gun crews before more than a handful had touched match to powder.

Timber and iron scythed across her waist, splinters spraying through the smoke as Spaniards were knocked from their feet. The gun crews vanished beneath the blast, staggered back from the wreckage, and what remained of her forward battery never answered.

Smoke poured from a ship that had been fine only moments before, and cries washed through it as loose rigging whipped and falling canvas dragged at her wounded spars. Her guns stood silent amid wrecked tackles and scattered bodies.

The sloop lurched away from the Fortune, her sails hanging badly as the helm went unanswered, and began to wallow out of the fight.

The three sloops working the wider arc began watching for the Fortune next turn eagerly.

Beyond them, Bellamy held the Marianne between the two more distant sloops and any clear run for the shallows, his position denying them room to break for it while his guns kept them away.

"Christ, Bonnet!"

Sam’s voice was warm with an admiration he made no effort to hide.

"Teach her ’em steps in port and every captain in this ocean’ll be beggin’ ye for a turn!"

The next sloop acted with more caution, and made the Fortune pay for the trick all the same.

The cannonballs found the deck and rigging together as she came round, blowing a section of rail apart and sending splinters skittering across the deck. The knot of pirates hauling the line went down together along the starboard side, and blood washed bright across the splintered planks.

That left the gun short-handed until others could be dragged over to fill it.

Even then, the Fortune never lost way. Her wounded deck streamed fragments and loose rope astern, but the sails held and she drove on through the smoke.

The lass returned back worse than she took, too. Her broadside tore away the sloop’s steering, the shot punching through her stern and smashing the works around her rudder while the tiller vanished in a cloud of splinters, and Spaniards were thrown sprawling as the vessel yawed violently.

In the end, the sloop was left crippled and wallowing, though still afloat, her bow falling off and then swinging back as her crew fought to keep her from turning broadside to the sea.

Bonnet accepted the hit without losing his stance at the wheel. For one breath, he let himself feel the pride of a captain.

"A fair trade, I ought to think, for what we’ve just taken off her in return."

Whitlock marked the count as he marked everything else aboard that ship, flat and precise.

Today’s page was about blood and broken timber, exactly as another day might be coin and cordage.

"One struck from the tally for good." He slashed one line.

"One crippled and still owing us the balance." Then one more.

"Three left standing, and none of them looking eager to settle." And tapped the board at last.

Those three gave up trying to out-turn the Fortune and threw themselves into the battle. They converged on from three separate points of the compass all at once, guns run out and matches lit.

Every gun still standing on either side came up together, matches glowing low against the wind, within a handful of heartbeats of one another.

Across the water, the three sloops showed their guns through the haze, their crews crowded behind them. On the Fortune, the gunners waited with matches ready.

The wind pulled at the smoke and carried the cries of the wounded between the ships.

And the battle was still far from being over.