The Tiger’s Prey. Wilbur Smith

was no defiance – only terror.

      A thin smile curled his lips. He lowered the blade towards the junction of thighs, letting it hover inches from her womanhood. She’d gone very still, not daring to struggle for fear of touching the sword. Smoke rose from the glowing steel.

      He darted it at her and she screamed, but it was a feint. He’d stopped the blade a hair’s breadth from her parted genital lips. He laughed. He hadn’t had this much fun since the last of the slave girls had died from his attentions.

      ‘Take it,’ she pleaded. ‘Take the cargo, the gold, anything you want.’

      ‘I will,’ Legrange promised her. ‘But first, I’ll take my pleasure.’ The tip of his sword had cooled. He plunged it back into the brazier until it glowed hotter than ever, then held it in front of her eyes. Sweat beaded on her forehead. ‘You see this? It won’t kill you, but it’ll make you hurt more than you ever thought was possible.’

      ‘Go to hell where you belong,’ she hissed at him.

      Her defiance only whetted Legrange’s appetite. He liked a woman with spirit – so much more satisfying when she finally broke down. He licked his lips and tasted blood. From below decks, he heard shouts and the clash of arms, but he was too caught up in his sport to pay it any heed. Probably his men quarrelling over the loot. He would deal with them later.

      He wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand and said softly, ‘I’m going to burn you, woman. I’m going to burn you, and then I’ll have you, and then I’ll give you to my men to finish any way they like.’

      ‘Ship your oars,’ Tom ordered quietly. All eight dripping oars slithered inboard, as the Centaurus’ jolly boat came under the pirate ship’s black hull. Tom eased off the tiller. He didn’t look up: all his concentration was fixed on bringing the boat alongside as silently as possible. In the bows, Aboli and Dorian trained their muskets up at the Fighting Cock’s deck, where a swivel cannon was clamped ominously on the gunwale. If any of the pirates had stayed aboard the pirate ship and had not crossed over to the prize, he could churn them to mincemeat with that weapon.

      Tom looked back at the Centaurus, standing off about half a mile away. The pirates hadn’t noticed her – or were too busy with their pillage to bother with her yet. He’d left only two men aboard with Sarah and Yasmini. If they failed here then the women were doomed. He put the thought out of his mind.

      The bows of the jolly boat touched the pirate ship with barely a whisper. Aboli grabbed on to her steps and gestured upwards. Tom shook his head. Near the waterline, a row of hatches studded the pirate’s hull: too low to be gun ports. He realized that they were probably ventilation hatches, a remnant from her days as a slaver.

      Tom took the knife from his belt and worked it into the seam of the nearest hatch. When the slaves were aboard, it would have been padlocked from the inside, but the pirates would not bother with niceties such as that. His blade touched the latch inside. He jimmied upwards.

      The latch gave. He swung the hatch open and peered in at the gloom of the lower deck. No one challenged him. With Aboli holding the boat steady, he wriggled through. The others followed him, passing their weapons ahead of them. Aboli, with his broad shoulders and powerful body, struggled to squeeze through.

      The lower deck was cramped and close. Tom crouched, and still nearly hit his head on a beam. He moved among the piles of stores and plunder the pirates had stored here, working his way towards the light coming in through the gratings from the main deck. Dorian and Aboli followed close behind with the rest of the crew men from the Centaurus. Among them was Alf Wilson, who had sailed with Tom’s father; and Aboli’s two sons, Zama and Tula. Their eyes shone white in the darkness, hardened to fury by the evidence they saw of the ship’s slaving past. All of them knew too well that in other circumstances they might have found themselves chained to the iron rings that still protruded from the wooden walls, carried across the ocean to be sold like animals to the colonists in the Caribbean and America; always supposing that they survived the voyage. They fancied they could still smell the residue of suffering and human misery leaching from the planks.

      Tom shinned up the aft ladder and cautiously put his head through the hatch. He’d come up under the quarterdeck, near the mizzen mast. Out in the burning sun, only dead men lay sprawled across the main deck. All the living had gone across to Dowager to plunder her.

      Tom beckoned for his men to follow him up onto gun deck. He pointed to one of the long guns, its muzzle protruding out through the open port and pressing right up against the other ship’s hull.

      He snapped an order. ‘Run that in.’

      Zama and Tula leaped to the tackles that held the gun to the ship’s frame. Alf Wilson and the other men joined them, and together they hauled it back. It rumbled in on its trucks, leaving the gun port an open square of light. Tom stuck his head through. The two ships moved together, their hulls knocking when they touched. A thin strip of clear water sparkled between them.

      He unbuckled his sword belt. ‘Anchor me, Aboli.’

      With Aboli grasping his legs, he wriggled out through the gun port until he could touch the other ship’s side. This far back, she had no gun ports: he found himself opposite her stern windows, looking into the captain’s cabin. He could see figures moving around inside behind the glass, ransacking the interior to carry off anything valuable. He froze, but they were too intent on their work to notice him in the deep shadow between the vessels.

      ‘Give me a hand with this,’ one of them called. ‘It’s bloody heavy.’

      His voice came clear through a broken window. As Tom watched, another man joined him. Together, they lifted a strong box and carried it out the door.

      The cabin was empty. Tom stretched as far as he could, glad of Aboli’s powerful arms belaying him. He reached through the jagged hole in the glass, careful not to cut his wrist, and undid the latch. He pushed the window open.

      ‘Let go,’ he whispered to Aboli. He grasped the window sill and hauled himself through. A pile of cushions broke his fall, their covers slit open and their stuffing ripped out in the pirates’ search for valuables.

      Aboli passed Tom’s blue sword through the window. Tom buckled it on and checked the priming of his pistols as the others crawled through one by one. By the time they were all in, the cabin was so crowded they could barely move.

      A roar of laughter sounded from the quarterdeck above. Tom wondered what was happening.

      The door swung open. A pirate stood there. He must have been looting the wardroom, for he carried a fistful of silver spoons in one hand, and a candlestick in the other.

      ‘What are you doing? This is mine.’ And then, as he took in the strange group assembled there, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

      There was no room to swing a sword in the cabin. Aboli extended his arm, blade in hand, and ran the pirate through the neck. He dropped to the floor clutching his throat. Blood gurgled through the wound. The spoons and candlestick clattered to the deck.

      ‘On me, Centaurus!’ Tom ducked through the door out onto the lower deck. It was a scene of utter carnage: men hauling bales of cloth from the hold, tipping out seamen’s chests, spilling precious spices across the planking. Further forward, some had broken open a cask of rum and they were drinking from the bunghole.

      None had their weapons in hand. Most didn’t see the men emerging from the cabin, or didn’t realize who they were.

      The Centaurus’ boarding party rushed at them. Dorian and Aboli were experienced warriors, veterans of countless fights. Zama and Tula, who had grown up with tales of their father’s wars, fought with the ferocity of young men given their first taste of battle. Alf Wilson and the rest of the crew had followed the Courtneys into more contests than they cared to remember. They knew precisely what they had to do.

      The pirates barely realized what was happening to them, before most were felled without a fight. A few tried to protect themselves with whatever came to