Chapter 5: The Cat and the Chain

The hatch swung open onto the second deck, and Zugonda climbed into a different world.

This deck was longer, wider, the ceiling high enough for a man to stand straight. A row of iron cannon mouths grinned along the starboard side, their black throats pointed at the hull, and between them lay the clutter of gunnery—rammers, sponges, shot stacked in pyramids, rope coiled in neat spirals. The air here was thick with powder and tar, and under it the sour tang of men who lived too close together.

Above, the ship's bell began to clang. Boots pounded the planks overhead. Voices rose in confusion, then in command.

The alarm had finally caught up.

Good.

Zugonda moved along the cannon line, keeping low, his chain looped loose around his forearm. The freed women followed in a staggered file—the honey-skinned one with her welts, the mahogany-skinned one with her half-relaxed hair, the ebony one with the officer's knife, the young milk-chocolate girl at the rear. They had no weapons but what he had given them, and no plan but the one in his head.

A sailor came around the end of a cannon, dragging a rammer, his eyes on the ladder behind them. He never saw the chain until it was already around his throat.

Zugonda pulled, crossed his wrists, held. The man's boots scraped twice on the planking and then went still. Zugonda lowered him behind the cannon and kept moving.

Another came down the ladder from the deck above, and another behind him. Two at once. Zugonda swung the chain in a wide arc—the links caught the first man across the jaw with a crack like a dry branch, and he went down spitting teeth. The second raised a cutlass, but Zugonda stepped inside the swing, wrapped the chain around the blade, and yanked it out of the man's grip. A knee to the gut folded him over. The chain finished him.

Behind him, the women moved with the efficiency of the desperate. The mahogany-skinned one took the fallen cutlass and stood over it, her breath ragged. The ebony one dragged the dead sailor's body behind a shot pyramid without being told.

Then the boatswain came down the ladder.

He was a thick-necked man with arms like dock pilings and a face gone red with rage. In his right hand he carried a cat-o'-nine-tails—nine leather tails, each knotted at the tip, dark with old use. He saw the dead men, saw the women, and his mouth opened in a roar.

"You black bastards—"

Zugonda went at him low, chain swinging. The boatswain lashed out with the cat, and the tails whistled past Zugonda's ear, one of them catching his shoulder and opening a line of fire across his skin. He grunted and kept coming.

The second lash went wide. Zugonda caught the tails on his chain, wrapped them once, and yanked. The boatswain stumbled forward, off balance—and Zugonda's skull met his nose with a wet crunch. The big man staggered, blinded, and Zugonda hooked a leg behind his knee and rode him down to the planks.

The chain went around the thick neck. The boatswain bucked and clawed, his boots drumming, his fingers gouging at the links. Zugonda planted a knee on his chest and pulled until the drumming stopped.

He took the cat-o'-nine-tails from the dead man's hand. The leather was warm and greasy. He wound it once around his fist, tested the weight, and nodded to himself.

The women were watching him. Waiting.

He pointed up the ladder, then at the cannon, then made a gesture that meant spread out, make noise, draw them. The ebony woman understood first. She took the dead boatswain's cutlass, raised it, and let out a cry that was half battle-shout and half something older.

The others took it up. They scattered along the gun line, banging rammers against shot, kicking over buckets of sand, shouting into the echoing dark.

The crew above would come running. Good.

Zugonda went through the sleeping quarters behind the gun line—a narrow row of berths and hammocks, three men snoring off a watch, a fourth awake and pulling on his boots.

The cat came down on the fourth man's face before he could shout, the nine tails opening his cheek to the bone, and the chain finished him. The three in the hammocks died in their sleep, quick and quiet, one after another, the chain finding each throat in the dark.

He took a better knife from the last man—a long dirk with a bone handle and a blade honed to a wire edge. He tucked the short knife into his waistband and kept the dirk in his hand.

By the time he came back to the gun line, the deck above was in chaos. He could hear the freed captives from the hold surging up the ladders, their chains swinging, their voices a rising tide. The crew was shouting, confused, split between the decks.

He found the officer's cabin at the aft end of the gun line, its door ajar, lamplight spilling through the crack.

He heard the voice before he saw the man.

"—look at that, look at that black hide shine. You like being down there on your knees, don't you, girl? You like a white man's boot on your neck."

Zugonda pushed the door open.

The officer was young, maybe twenty-five, with fair skin gone ruddy with exertion and pale hair slicked back with sweat. He had his trousers open and his cock out—pink, veined, jutting from a nest of sandy hair—and he was using it to beat lightly against the face of the woman kneeling before him.

She was high-yella, that pale honey-brown that came from a white father somewhere up the line, her hair a thick, wiry cloud of dark curls, her body soft and full. Her wide nose flared with every breath, her thick everted lips parted, and her big brown eyes were fixed on the officer's cock with a hunger that had nothing to do with fear.

"Yes," she breathed, her voice thick with slave dialect. "Yes, suh. I likes it. I likes when you puts me down."

"That's right." The officer grabbed a handful of her nappy hair and pulled her head back. "You're nothing but a dirty black animal. Smell that—smell your own musk. Like a monkey cage at the zoo. You can't wash it off, can you, girl? It's in your skin."

She moaned. Her hand stole between her thighs, fingers working, and Zugonda could see the shine of her arousal on her dark brown labia, could smell it cutting through the powder and tar—the heavy animal musk of her, hot and raw.

"I can't wash it off," she whimpered. "I tries, suh, I tries, but I's just a nasty black bitch."

The officer laughed and pushed her down onto her back on the cabin floor. He knelt between her thighs, spreading them wide with his pale hands on her dark knees. The contrast was obscene—alabaster against ebony-brown, pink nails against her dusky skin, his thin-lipped mouth curled in a sneer.

"You know what your kind is for?" he said. "Your kind was made to be used. My grandfather had a whole plantation full of your kind, and he used every one of them. That's what your black cunt is for—white men's pleasure."

"Yes, suh." Her hips lifted, offering herself. "Please, suh. Use me."

Zugonda watched. His cock had hardened against his loincloth, thick and aching, and his breath had gone shallow. He understood this. The degradation, the surrender, the way her body sang under the lash of his words.

But he did not watch for long.

The officer positioned himself, the pink head of his cock nudging against her wet brown folds—and Zugonda's chain came down.

It wrapped around the pale throat and jerked the man backward, his cock popping free with a wet sound. He clawed at the links, his face going from ruddy to purple, his bare feet kicking at the floor. The woman scrambled back, her hand still between her thighs, her eyes wide.

Zugonda held until the kicking stopped. Then he let the body drop.

The woman stared at the corpse, then at him—at his shaven head, his filed teeth, the chain dripping from his fist, the cat-o'-nine-tails wound around his forearm.

Her breath came faster. Her hand moved between her thighs again, urgent now, and her eyes on the dead white man went dark with a heat that had nothing to do with grief.

She crawled to Zugonda on her hands and knees, her full breasts swaying, and pressed her face to his thigh. Then she rose, her body sliding up his, her musk thick in his nostrils, and she took his hand and pulled him down to the floor.

Her hips found his rhythm before he did—rolling, undulating, a deep figure-eight that ground her wet cunt against his cock through the loincloth. She pulled the cloth aside, wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft, and guided him inside her with a moan that came from her gut.

She was hot and slick and tight, her inner walls rippling around him. Zugonda gripped her full hips and drove up into her, and she rode him with her head thrown back, her wiry hair swaying, her thick lips open in a silent cry.

She climaxed once, twice, her cunt clenching around him in waves, and he spilled inside her with a groan that shook his chest.

When it was done, she lay against him, her breath warm on his neck, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. Then she rose, found the officer's discarded knife, and tucked it through the cord at her waist.

She was ready.

The fifth captive was in a small locker off the gun line, chained to a ring in the bulkhead. She was young, maybe eighteen, with skin the deep blue-black of a moonless night, her hair a wild cloud of tight coils, her body lean and strong.

She saw him and did not flinch. She had heard the fighting. She had heard the screams.

He cut her down, and she swayed, then steadied herself on his arm. Her eyes traveled over him—the chain, the cat, the dirk, the blood—and something in her face kindled.

She pressed herself against him without a word. Her skin was hot and smooth, her musk thick and earthy, and her hips began to move—that same ancient rhythm, deep and rolling.

Zugonda lifted her against the bulkhead and pushed inside her. She gasped, her legs locking around his waist, and rode him with a fury that matched the chaos above. She climaxed with a sob, then again, her body shaking, and he finished deep inside her with a shudder.

He set her down. She took his hand and did not let go.

Above them, the ship's bell was still ringing. More decks. More sailors. More women waiting.

Zugonda turned toward the ladder.