Pirates of the Caribbean: Treasure of the Jaguar Gods
The predawn breeze brushed across her sweat damp cheek like a gentle hand in a silken glove as she leaned against an indistinguishable palm. The moon had long since set and the vaulted sky was just starting to lighten in the east. The darkness remained absolute among the tangled growth blanketing the jagged hills, making the difficult task of forcing her way down to the port that much closer to impossible. She closed her eyes as she fought to slow her frantic heartbeat and gasping breath. She had never imagined it was possible to be this tired; this hurt on so many levels, and still be moving. It would be so easy to just lie down, to give up and wait for them to come. So very, very easy. But she couldn’t, she owed too much to, to… she couldn’t remember who. She could barely remember her own name. She pushed away from the rough trunk, hardly feeling the new scratches it left on her hands. The bundle on her back over balanced her, sending her crashing to her knees. An indelicate Spanish phrase fell from her lips.
“What would yer sainted muther say, to hear ya speakin’ so, lass?” The voice was male, deep and rolling with the touch of something Nordic underneath his cultured tones.
“She’d agree with me,” the girl panted, her head involuntarily sinking toward the sandy ground.
“None of that now, Katherine!” There was only a mumbled nonsensical response. “I know you’re exhausted, my sweet, but we’re almost there. What’s a few more minutes after almost three days of runnin’? C’mon Katherine-lass! Stay with me now!” The mumbles were fading into silence. “Your givin’ me no choice, child.”
Katherine yelped, jerking her face up from the inviting ground. She glared blearily down at the cat at her side. “Get your claws out of my thigh this instant, Erik,” she growled. Jeweled eyes blinked at her as he complied.
“I’m sorry, lass,” the cat whispered. He reared up on his hind legs, placing his forepaws on her bare collarbones and rubbed his head along her jaw line. She could feel the moist stickiness of the blood oozing from his split pads. “I’m so sorry for all of it.” Katherine gathered him into her arms, burying her face in his matted fur, breathing deeply of the scent of damp fur mixed with the bitter tang of crushed herbs and dried blood. She might have fallen back asleep as she sat, but a long, low moan sounded above the rustle of the leaves. Cat and girl stiffened, the hair on the backs of their necks standing to attention. It could have been nothing more than two branches rubbing together in the breeze. It could have been a feral hog complaining in its sleep. But it wasn’t. Nothing natural made noises that brushed across the mind like dirty fingers, leaving a film of filth behind, an unavoidable degradation.
Terror and grief as sharp as a traitor’s blade in the heart propelled Katherine to her feet. She tightened her grip on the feline in her arms as she forced her abused body into a stumbling trot.
Erik struggled against her hold. “Let me down, lass!” She ignored him. His warm weight was the only comfort left in a nightmare world. He gave up quickly; he had had even less rest than she this past week and more. “To the left, to the left,” he directed.
Katherine
obeyed silently, swerving to avoid a tree and falling into the ditch on the
other side. She clamored to her feet
immediately, feeling a faint hope for the first time
in far too long as she realized the ditch edged a broad dirt road. It was the highroad that
led along the spine of the island, connecting the sprawling plantations with
the
“Katherine!” Erik gasped. The woman jerked her paralysis dropping from her at the sound of the familiar voice. She dropped her gaze to the cat in her arms, thinking he too had sensed the presence, but his attention was fixed over her shoulder. She spun unsteadily on her heel to see what had dragged that pain-filled sound from his lips. Her eyes followed the line of the road to the crest of the hill a few yards above them. A pair of pale forms plodded over the peak of the rise, moving with a strange combination of stiffness and grace that no living creature could emulate. Even before the lightening sky revealed their faces, she guessed who and what they were. There were no words to describe the horror and sheer pain the sight drove into her soul. She knew them, she knew the men they had once been. Their dark faces were familiar, as much a part of her family as her blood kin despite the fact that they were technically her property in the eyes of the law and society. Micah’s ground rumbling bass had sung her to sleep when childhood illnesses had left her weak and restless. Peter was only a few years older than she was. He had been the one to teach the master’s daughter to climb trees and to fish in the streams criss-crossing the plantation. A voice caressed her mind, whispered to her to run to them, to throw herself into their arms and let them take her home. Katherine shut her mind to that insidious whisper, her heart recognizing it for the lie it was. She had watched them fall defending her, giving their lives so that she could flee into the wild lands. Evil had snatched them from their rightful rest and sent them after the woman they had died to protect, compelled their animate corpses to drag her back to the very person that had killed them. The person who had done this was cruelty incarnate, possessed of a sadism that would shame Lucifer himself. She couldn’t face that monster, not here, not now. All she could do was run.
Katherine tightened her grip on Erik and fled toward Belle sans Merci. She would take her chances with the amorphous shadowy presence waiting below. Within a few steps, her breath was already labored. Only the downhill incline allowed her to keep running. Signs of civilization began appearing along the side of the rutted road: broken bits of wood and leather too worthless to be collected by even the poorest, the reeking jumble of the tannery, outlying storage buildings and paddocks, then the first of the human houses appeared perched along the uneven slope of the hill. It was so early that even the slaves and the lowest class of freemen were still abed, their low-slung homes silent and seemingly deserted. Katherine made no attempt to awaken them. It would only put them in needless danger; they would not even have weapons. She had to make it to the other side of the town, to the harbormaster’s compound and the soldiers that would be barracked there.
When she stumbled over a half-seen bit of rubbish, Erik demanded to be put down. The cat wove a path through the increasingly narrow streets, his pale fur luminescent enough in the darkness that Katherine could follow him with relative ease. Ramshackle houses gave way to the great warehouses where tobacco and sugar cane and the other raw products of the plantations waited to be sold. Then came the docks with their jumble of waiting cargo and bits and pieces of nautical supplies. The presence was stronger here, the weight of its drifting insubstantial shadow slowing her already faltering steps. Fear and the liberal use of nearby piles of crates and the heavy pilings that made up the wooden docks’ supports were all that were keeping her on her feet.
Erik suddenly stopped his back bowing as he hissed a feline curse. Katherine traced his line of sight and felt her heart stop in her chest. Another of pair of animated corpses was between them and the rest of the town. Empty eyes locked on her. Another of those mind-bruising moans shivered through the predawn air, drawing an answering moan from the two behind them. Katherine twisted to look over her shoulder at their pursuers. They were so close, so very close. In desperation, following the prompting of some deep instinct, she reached out with her heart toward that strange shadowy presence. She felt its surprise and confusion as if no one had ever truly acknowledged its existence. It swirled around her, brushing against like a giant invisible cat. No, it felt more like the rush of the wind and the sea as a great ship cut through the waves. It was examining her, questioning her even though it had no words, only ghostly sensation and tangible emotion. “Please,” Katherine murmured, “please, help us.” The presence pulled back a bit. Even without words, Katherine knew it was asking ‘now why ever should I do that, luv?’. Silently, she nudged the presence’s focus toward the undead creatures stalking steadily toward them.
Katherine went to her knees as a storm of anger, loathing, and hatred flooded over her soul. Apparently, the mysterious presence did not approve of the undead. Erik leapt into her arms, terrified by the sudden unexpected barrage of dark emotions. Only the fact that it wasn’t directed toward them kept them from withering under the assault. Unfortunately, the four walking corpses were utterly unaffected by it; they were dead, their souls gone to the next world. It ended as quickly as it had begun. Katherine staggered to her feet. The presence tugged at her heart, urging her to go out along the long main pier. She obeyed, too tired to resist even though she knew that it was utter foolishness to trust an unknown inhuman entity. Erik squirmed down out her arms to pad silently along behind her.
“If you’ve got some destination in mind, Katherine-lass, you’d best hurry,” Erik whispered. “Those poor creatures are on our heels.”
“I know, I know… My God!” Katherine stared at the only tall ship tied up in Belle sans Merci harbor. The smaller local vessels looked like scruffy mutt-terriers next to the polished greyhound grace of the dark ship. Backlit by the first rays of the rising sun, she seemed to be a hole cut in the dying night, as mysterious and restless as the sea itself. At first, Katherine thought the presence was on the ship, but the ship soon set her straight. It, no, she - it was definitely a ‘she’- was very much alive and aware. Katherine paused on the pier, the near end of the gangplank at her feet. The ship urged her to board quickly, but Katherine resisted. How could she do this? How could she blindly board a strange, _living_ ship? An undead moan shattered her resistance to the ship’s call; she took a few steps up the gangplank before she even realized she was moving.
“What the bleedin’ ‘ell!” a gruff voice bellowed. “Here, yer supposed to be watchin’, not sleepin’!” A string of creative invective followed. Cat and woman froze on the bobbing gangplank, but the voice and its accompanying footsteps moved quickly toward the bow. Katherine scurried the rest of the distance up to the deck and paused to crouch behind the ornately carved railing to peer down at her pursuers. All four of the undead had stopped on the pier some distance away. To her immense unbelieving relief, they turned and shambled back into the town.
“Katherine!” Erik hissed, “The creatures are gone. Let’s get to the harbormaster while the way’s clear.”
Katherine shook her head drunkenly. She was so, so tired. “No.” She felt the ship agreeing with her. A wordless whisper pointed her gaze toward an open hatch. “We’ll hide here ‘til full daylight.” She ignored the cat’s protests and crawled over to open hatch. Somehow, she managed to shimmy down the ladder leading into the depths of the ship. Luck, or the strange ship’s will, were with her as she managed to avoid running into any crewmen. Once in the hold, she felt her way through the absolute darkness to a pile of bundles of some sort, it felt like bolts of cloth wrapped in heavy canvas. She climbed on top of the pile, slithering across it until she reached the rough wood of the hull. It seemed to take forever to shift the bundle strapped to her back around to her front. She wrapped her arms around what was for all intents and purposes the only possessions she had left and snuggled down against the wooden hull.
“This is not a good idea, lass,” Erik warned once again.
“Can’t, can’t go back out in the dark. Wake me… daylight,” Katherine mumbled, her eyes already closed. The relative safety of the ship relaxed her enough that she could no longer fight off the sleep she desperately needed.
Erik watched as his charge slowly tilted over to lie on her side, her back against the hull, her body curled into a tight a wad as she could manage. He breathed a sigh and an ancient Norse curse. There was nothing he could do. It wasn’t like her could pick her up and carry her to safety. Maybe it was smarter to wait until morning. Although daylight in no way deterred the creatures that had chased them all the way across this thrice damned island, he doubted that they could wander around Belle sans Merci without someone recognizing them for what they were and destroying them. “A few hours of rest can’t hurt, I suppose,” he whispered. The cat leapt lightly up onto Katherine and lay down in the curve of her waist, his head propped on her hip. “I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes, lass, just a few minutes.”
