The Sea Wolves by Christopher Golden Page B

powerfully. It was as if the wood itself stank of it, and for a moment he thought he sensed something looming behind the door. But when he reached out with his senses, searching for some living presence there, he felt nothing but the ominous absence of something, like the quiet of a bear’s den when the beast is out hunting and might at any moment return.
    He moved on, eager to leave that strange door behind.
    The second door in the hold area was smaller and nowhere near as secure, and Jack sniffed at the crack between door and frame. He smelled salted meat and slowly rotting vegetables, sea biscuits and flour, and heard the cackle of chickens startled by his arrival.
    Footsteps above. Jack froze and shifted along the corridor, out of the weak splash of moonlight, in case one of the pirates looked down through the grille. The sailor moved on, and it was as Jack approached the third and final door that he began to hear the whispers.
    He froze, head tilted to one side, and for a moment he was afraid to hear what they said. There was something so strange about this ship, and he’d already entertained the possibility that the prisoners were dead, and that he alone had been kept on as…
    As what? A cook? For the moment perhaps, but that had been the result of Finn’s punishment, and not part of Ghost’s initial decision to separate Jack from the others. Had he been kept aside for some more elaborate torment as the pirates’ plaything? No, because there was something more than amusement in Ghost’s eyes when he looked at Jack. The captain of any ship was kept apart from his crew by virtue of his position, but Jack had noted almost immediately the intelligence glinting in Ghost’s eyes and hinted at in his words. Could it be that he truly did want to discuss Hawthorne, or other subjects about which his crew were doubtless woefully ignorant?
    The whispers came again, sibilant arguing, and though Jack could make out no individual words, their desperation was obvious. He pressed his ear to the door and listened, and now he could catch snippets of what was being said inside.
    â€œâ€¦ get rest…”
    â€œâ€¦ do something soon…”
    â€œâ€¦ kill us, like they did…”
    â€œâ€¦ ransom…”
    â€œâ€¦ I’m scared!”
    These had to be the prisoners from the Umatilla .
    Jack scratched at the door and the whispering stopped. They’ll think it’s rats , he thought, but then realized that he had seen no rats aboard this ship. Not one.
    â€œHey, in there,” Jack whispered, pressing his mouth to the space between door and frame. There were two bolts here, but he could tell from the air moving between boards that this door was not lined with metal. He glanced back along the corridor to that first, much more formidable door and wondered again just what might be inside.
    â€œWho’s that?” a voice hissed, far too loud.
    â€œKeep it down!” Jack said. They fell silent for a few seconds, Jack looking up at the nearest grille. Faint moonlight flowed in, unhindered by the shadow of anyone watching or listening.
    â€œWho?” the voice asked again, quieter.
    â€œI’m from the Umatilla .”
    â€œWhat? You’re hiding from them?”
    â€œNo,” Jack said, but he didn’t know quite how to explain what had happened to him. “How many are you?”
    â€œEight of us in here,” the voice said. “What of the Umatilla?”
    â€œLong gone, friend.”
    â€œThen what—?”
    â€œSh.” Now that he’d found them, Jack had no idea what he would do next. Given time and the right equipment, perhaps he could have pried the padlocks loose, or even pulled the hasp and staples from the wood, and freed the prisoners. But what then? He had no weapons or plan, only a certainty that any conflict between prisoners and pirates would end in a bloodbath. They could expect no mercy. At best, the