Vampirates 5: Empire of Night Read Free Page B

on!
    His newer comrades were close by. Connor's eyes skimmed the attractive faces of Jacoby Blunt and Jasmine Peacock. The golden couple. That was how they had seemed when he had first encountered them at Pirate Academy. Jacoby and Jasmine had been two of the most talented and popular students in the graduating class. How carefree they had seemed then. Subsequently, they had served as professional pirates aboard The Tiger , commanded by Cheng Li. Their elite training had served them well professionally, but, in private, there had been developments none of them had predicted. Yes, Connor thought, as his eyes traced the contours of Jasmine's startlingly beautiful profile, there had indeed been many surprising twists and turns on the journey here.
    Cate gave the signal. Without hesitation, Connor ran to the edge of the deck, then propelled himself up into the air, shoulder to shoulder with Bart on one side and Jacoby on the other. They had their swords in hand, and the
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    battle was already under way before they landed on the deck of the adjacent ship.
    Steel clashed with steel. There had been times when the noise had made the hair on Connor's neck rise and his head ache. Not today. Today, the merciless noise was welcome, for it instantly shut out the internal din. Here, in the inferno of combat, there was no chance for the icy voices inside his head to be heard. Here, things were simple, achievable. He and his comrades had a job to do--a fight to win. And Connor Tempest was up for the fight.
    "Follow me, Tempest!" Jacoby cried.
    Connor didn't falter. Jacoby Blunt was deputy captain of The Tiger , Cheng Li's second-in-command. Whatever Connor's complicated personal feelings toward Jacoby, in combat there was a simple hierarchy to be adhered to.
    The two young pirates raced down from the deck into the heart of the ship. They were on the tail of their main targets--the ship's captain and his deputy. If--or rather, when --they surrendered, the battle was over. It was a smaller ship than The Tiger or The Diablo , and Jacoby and Connor had to run in single file, kept at a disadvantage through their lack of knowledge of the ship's particular layout. Their adversaries were young and fast. Cate and Cheng Li had said that this was a straightforward mission. But Connor had already accrued sufficient experience as a pirate to know that no mission is ever entirely straightforward. There is always an opportunity for things
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    to go wrong. It had happened when he and the rest of Molucco Wrathe's crew had been surrounded on the deck of The Albatross . Connor and Bart's dear friend Jez had lost his life as a result. Blood had flowed again during the pirates' raid on the Sunset Fort, this time through the characteristically selfish actions of Molucco's nephew, Moonshine Wrathe. Connor had had to kill, for the first time, to save Moonshine's life. Afterward, he had been deemed a hero, but the experience had led him to question his suitability for life as a pirate.
    Now Jacoby and Connor came to a stairwell, spiraling down into the bowels of the ship. They could see their targets twisting and turning beneath them. As they shouted insults up at the pirates, Connor was struck not so much by his adversaries' colorful language as by the pitch of their voices. He had known from the outset that their targets were young, but exactly how young?
    He had to shelve this thought temporarily in view of more pressing concerns. Top of the list was determining where the two targets were heading--and why? Their actions defied all logic. You never ran down from an open deck to the very bottom of a vessel--it was one of the first lessons in strategy ingrained in the minds of pirate apprentices at Pirate Academy. But Connor's opponents had never studied at Pirate Academy. They were "beach pirates"--treasure-hungry kids hoping to take the fast track to fame and fortune. A few years back, they just might have succeeded. Not now. Things were changing