The smoke reached him before anything else. It was thick and acrid, catching in his throat before his eyes could fully adjust to the situation.

As his vision cleared, he took in the deck and immediately understood the problem.

The fight had dissolved into chaos.

Men grappled in small clusters across planks slick with something far darker than rain. Every time the guns fired, orange light flashed across drawn cutlasses and moving bodies. Off the port side, two ships burned on the black water. Their masts were already gone, and flames crawled through the remains of their rigging.

Whatever those vessels had been to him before, they were lost now.

Near the foremast, a French sailor in a blue coat had one of James’s crew pinned flat on his back. The man’s knee pressed into the pirate’s chest, and his blade was raised for a killing strike.

James didn’t need time to think.

His hand found the pistol at his hip almost automatically. Before he had fully taken in the deck, the weapon was already up. Before his mind had finished catching up, he fired.

The shot struck the Frenchman above the ear.

His head snapped sideways, blood spraying across the planking as he collapsed. One moment he had been poised to kill. The next, he dropped off his victim like a puppet with its strings cut.

The pirate beneath him scrambled backward, gasping for breath. He stared at James with a stunned expression. He had expected to die within seconds and had not yet adjusted to surviving.

"Rail!"

James was already moving. One pistol was empty, but the second still hung loaded at his hip. At the same time, he drew his cutlass.

"They’re coming over the rail! Get men on it! Don’t let another bastard plant his boots on my deck!"

"The captain’s up!" somebody shouted through the smoke.

"Took ye long enough, ye ugly bastard!"

Another voice answered almost immediately.

"Rail! Get to the bloody rail!"

Farther down the deck, a crewman cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Off the mast! Off the mast! Captain wants the rail held!"

"Frenchies at the starboard side!"

"Then kill the fuckers and hold it!"

The order spread through the crew almost immediately.

Two pirates broke away from a struggle near the mainmast and rushed the rail just as another French sailor climbed over it. All three men disappeared together in a tangle of limbs and steel. A scream cut off abruptly against the planking.

Farther down the deck, one pirate took a cut across the forearm and staggered backward, more angry than injured. The man beside him answered with a boarding axe, driving it deep into a Frenchman’s shoulder.

For a brief moment both men remained standing, frozen by the force of the blow and the absurdity of the wound.

Then the Frenchman’s legs gave way, dragging the embedded axe down with him.

A boy who couldn’t have been older than seventeen sprinted past James carrying a boarding pike.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" He was screaming, but not actual words. Just raw aggression.

Before James could react, the boy drove the pike clean through a French sailor’s stomach from behind. The man folded around the weapon with a wet, choking sound. The boy jerked the pike free and kept running as if he had merely completed another kill.

Off to James’s left, a French voice rose above the noise of battle.

"Reculez! Reculez, bordel! Ils arrivent de partout!"

The man was shouting rapidly in his own language. The tone told James enough. That was the voice of someone who had just realized the odds were no longer in his favor.

James headed straight for him.

The Frenchman looked young. Younger than his uniform suggested. Blood from a fresh cut ran down the side of his face and disappeared into his collar. His eyes stood out pale against the darkness.

He attacked immediately, delivering two quick strikes in succession.

James met both almost on instinct. Steel rang against steel close enough to his head that he felt the vibration in his jaw before he consciously realized the blocks.

"Putain de merde."

Whatever discipline the Frenchman had started with was gone now.

He lunged again, fighting for survival rather than technique.

James turned aside another strike, but the next attack wasn’t a blade.

It was a fist.

The punch came without warning and connected squarely with his jaw, carrying everything the man had left.

Pain flashed through him. The edges of the world went white, and his boots slipped on the wet planks. His shoulder slammed into the mast hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.

Through the ringing in his head, a detached part of his mind found the situation amusing.

He had already died once tonight.

Apparently this Frenchman intended to see if he could manage it a second time using only his fists.

The thought vanished as training and instinct took over.

James recovered before the Frenchman had enough time to adjust his body. His cutlass was already moving. His arm seemed to know where to strike before he consciously chose it.

The blade struck home, and hot blood splashed across James’s hand.

The Frenchman doubled over with a short, ugly gasp that never became a scream. He collapsed to the deck, one hand still reaching for something that was no longer there.

James remained standing over him for a moment, breathing heavily.

The wound at the back of his head throbbed in rhythm with his pulse, and his jaw was already beginning to swell.

Around him, the tide was turning.

At first the change came slowly.

Then it happened all at once.

French sailors who had boarded with confidence now looked for ways off the ship. Some jumped over the rail before anyone could force them. Others never got the opportunity.

The boy with the pike was grinning broadly while two older pirates slapped him on the shoulder in approval.

Near the hatch, a wounded man groaned steadily. The cry was low and patient, the sort of injury that promised a long recovery rather than a quick death.

Within minutes, the only Frenchmen left on deck were the ones who would never stand again.

James’s crew, and he supposed they truly were his crew now, wasted no further time celebrating. Men checked wounds as they moved, cleared the deck of the dead, and hurried to stations before the French frigate decided to speak again.

You’ve held a pirate captaincy for roughly six minutes, and you’re already killing people with what I can only describe as confidence. I’ve made a note of it in the experiment log. The note says concerning. In large letters. Underlined twice.

James tested his jaw.

It hurt, but it still worked. That was good enough.

Then he looked past the wreckage scattered across the deck toward the French warship sitting off the starboard side. Its gun ports still glowed in the darkness.

The vessel waited.

The boarding attempt had cost the French dearly, but not enough to end the fight.

James studied the warship’s silhouette and considered what came next. Another boarding attack. A close-range broadside. An attempt to cripple his rigging and keep him from escaping.

None of those possibilities were encouraging.

Which left only one question.

What would the bloody bastard try next?

"Right then."

The word was aimed partly at himself, partly at the sea, and perhaps a little at the strange presence living inside his head.

He studied the ship beneath his feet, considered what resources remained available, and forced himself to focus on the next problem.

"Come on, lass. Let’s see what you’ve got left in ye."