"Pilot, one point astarboard! Gunners to the larboard battery!" Castillano ordered with a firm, loud voice.
Alonso left another officer to repeat the orders below deck and joined his friend on the bridge. Castillano didn't seem to notice. Pale, clenched teeth, glaring eyes, white knuckles around the handrail.
The Lion corrected it's course, that would take it under a hundred yards of the Phantom's side once it caught up. Everybody was ready for battle on and below deck.
Endless minutes went by, while Castillano waited for the right moment to open fire. Until something happened onboard the Phantom.
"They're about to turn!" a lookout warned.
"Where to?" the bosun asked.
Castillano raised the telescope and saw the pirates work the rigging. And he was surprised at their swiftness and coordination.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Alonso cried by his side. "Look what they're doing!"
Castillano lowered the glass, frowning when he noticed the Phantom wasn't turning. It kept its course with empty sails parallel to the wind, loosing speed rapidly. He needed a moment to understand what they were up to.
"Larboard battery! Fire as she bears!" he shouted.
But it was too late. The Phantom had nearly stopped on its tracks and the Lion caught up with it way before planned. As the Spanish warrior outstripped the Phantom, the pirates fired their starboard guns from the stern forward. At least half a dozen shots hit the Lion's hull before the Spaniards were able to respond. Then Castillano heard a shouting from the Phantom. He looked up and saw them work the rigging again, this time to trim the sails and load wind.
"Pilot, alarboard! Don't let them catch up!" he shouted.
He ran to the larboard bulwark, still trying to believe his eyes, because the Phantom let the Lion pass by and seemed to jump forward. The Spanish pilot left the pirate ship on the Lion's wake, and Castillano saw the Phantom's bowsprit cleave the air only yards away from his bridge. He tackled Alonso down and covered him with his own body.
"Starboard guns!" he shouted, while the musket fire from the pirate sharpshooters at the yards and tops pierced the bridge boards only inches away from him.
But his gunners were not ready, and many of them had died or were wounded after the Phantom's unexpected broadside.
Castillano was standing up when he felt two simultaneous hits under his feet.
"The rudder!" the pilot cried. "We've lost stirring!"
Castillano and Alonso were forced to crouch down to have some shelter from the pirates' heavy fire. Castillano stood up anyway, repeating on top of his lungs his order to open fire with the starboard cannons.
No use. It was the pirates who heeded his words, unloading another broadside, this time against the Lion's starboard side from only a few tenths of yards away. Castillano could almost feel the chained balls piercing his ship's hull from side to side, tearing apart everything on their way, be it bulkheads, pillars, cannons, bodies. The musket fire of the soldiers on deck didn't cause any harm to the pirate crew, sheltered behind the gunwale and the rigging, and showing up only to respond to the Spanish fire.
Then it was as if an invisible hand grabbed Castillano's head and turned it, forcing him to look at the Phantom's bridge. The boy wearing black was there. But the ships were so close that he could only surrender to what he was seeing with his own eyes: it wasn't a boy, but a girl. The same one that had beaten him in the battle against the Sovereign.
She stood straight as he'd seen her through the telescope, only now she faced her ship's deck, not even flinching at the bullets whistling around her. She kept a stunning calm, one hand on the handrail and the other on her sword's hilt. The raven hair braided at her back. A beautiful tanned face looking ahead. They were so close he even saw her move her lips. By her side, a blond, hefty giant shouted an order.
Castillano didn't care being so exposed to the enemy fire, his eyes widening in disbelief. The child in black turned to him and met his eyes through the smoke and shrouds and rubbles. For a moment they were right in front of each other, until the Lion moved ahead of the Phantom. But her eyes remained locked with his.
"They're falling behind again!" Alonso cried behind him. "They're coming to board us!"
Castillano needed all of his will to look away from the child, and he only made it because she did it first, to turn to her crew and order something. He looked at his friend, who was just as confused and astonished as he was, and could only shook his head.
"For God's sake, Hernan! They're coming for us!"
That shook him back to his senses.
"Ready to repel boarders! For the King!" he shouted, unsheathing his sword.
The Spaniards replied with loud voices, getting ready for the upcoming close combat. Castillano stayed at the bridge side by side with Alonso, swords and misericordes in hand, waiting for the boarding they had no way to prevent.
The Phantom, moving as swift and light as a seagull, closed the gap between both ships and stuck its side to the Lion's. And while the pirates threw hooks and lines, it turned alarboard hard, pushing the Lion off course to deprive it of all its speed. Both ships ended up stopping with their bows pointing south. Then a distinct voice overcame all the shouting from the rival crews, only separated by the gunwales.
"TORTUGA!"
And the pirates replied, "HAIL THE PEARL OF THE CARIBBEAN!"
They climbed like monkeys and jumped onto the Spanish soldiers, howling like demons.
"The bitch is mine!" shouted Castillano, just about to jump from the bridge into the brawl.
"For your own sake, you better not be talking about me," said a calm voice in perfect Spanish behind him.
Alonso, who was running to the bridge steps, was so startled that he tripped and fell down on his back by the aft hatch.
Castillano spun around, refusing to believe his ears. But there she was. The child. Standing on his own bridge. Sword and misericorde in her hands pointing down. Eyes like burning coal fixed on him and a scornful smile pursing her ruby lips. The blond giant and two older pirates landed on the bridge behind her, pistols aimed at him. To Castillano's surprise, she raised her misericorde to stop them.
"Keep the bridge. I want no one near," she said, not even glancing at them.
Their faces screamed their disagreement, but they grunted, "Aye, pearl," and brushed past him to go stand at the stairs to the bridge, ready to reject anybody who tried to reach it. Meanwhile, pirates and soldiers fought above and below deck, all over the Lion, filling the air with their shouting and screams and the clash of their steels.
The child's smile widened. "So here we are, Castillano. Again," she said. "Have you learned something new? Or is this gonna be as easy as the first time?"
Somehow Castillano was able to shake off the stupor paralyzing him. And he was even able to smile back at her. "Dare to find out, child? Or should I call your nanny?"
The child's dark eyes blazed and she attacked him. Castillano was barely able to reject her. They fought oblivious to the tough combat unraveling only yards away from them. And he noticed this time the child moved even more swiftly and nimbly than the first time. And more coldly. A burning trace on his left arm urged him to attack again.
Blow against blow. Feint against feint. Block against block. Castillano wasn't able to breach the child's defense, and she seemed to be in no hurry to breach his. She just returned a stab for a stab. He realized she was trying to wear him out and make him lose focus.
He locked their blades and shortened the distance between them to only one step. "Did your nanny teach you what swords are for, child?" he asked mockingly.
Her lips mirrored his smile. "Your Grace can't show me?" she replied, just as mocking.
Castillano pushed her backwards and charged again. The child took two full steps back and planted her feet firmly, letting him come. Castillano wielded his sword over his head to deal the blow with all his strength. But the child bent backwards like a river reed in the wind. Castillano's blade whistled through empty air and a piercing pain in his chest made him stagger back. That pulled him out of the blade that had reached him with an ascendant stab he hadn't even seen coming.
He felt his chest bleed, soaking his shirt. The child's sword had missed his heart by an inch. There was nothing he could do to keep her from pacing up and stripping him off of his blades. Pain flushed the fight's rush away in a heartbeat and everything spun around him. His knees buckled. He fell on the boards of his bridge, dazed and panting.
The child stood by him, lowering her black eyes to sneer down at him. Castillano rolled over to lay on his back and found her foot by his hand. Faces and objects blurred around him, fighting noises turned dull and distant. Pain filled everything. She tried to free her foot but he grasped her ankle.
"Who— Who are you?" he breathed.
She scowled. Castillano managed to ask again. The child looked up, as if hesitating, and crouched down to lean in toward him. She grabbed the chest of his coat, already wet in blood, and replied in a whisper full of resentment, those burning dark eyes drilling into his.
"I'm Marina Velazquez, Castillano. Daughter to the man your father shot in the back and niece to the man you yourself shot in the back. But lucky you, we Velazquez don't fight like that. We don't sneak from behind like vipers. I do wish you a quick death, Lion. For if God spares you, I will be your nightmare."
She let go of his coat and yanked her ankle free, straightening up. Castillano could no longer tell what surrounded him, save the slender figure of the child in black. He still saw her held something high above her head, and heard the loud shouts from his ship's deck. What was going on? What had become of his men?
The child vanished and another deafening shouting puzzled him. Then there was only silence. He felt life slipping away with every labored breath, fallen in the growing pool of his own blood. Even pain receded. The smoke of the battle dissipated and the sky was so blue up above. Or maybe he was dying and entering the Kingdom of the Lord? He couldn't feel his legs anymore, and he wasn't sure where his hands were. A silence so deep. A sky so blue. He didn't care he couldn't move. Despite the pain, everything was peaceful.
Until a shadow loomed over his blurry eyes. A head. The child was back? Would she finish him off?
"Hernan!" a man cried. Luis? At least his friend was still alive. "Holy Mary, Hernan!" His head disappeared but Castillano heard his desperate cry. "Help! The Lion is badly wounded! Help! Here on the bridge!"
He would've wanted to tell his friend not to worry. He only wanted to enjoy the stillness and the blue sky above his head a little longer. And then close his eyes and drift away from the pain.