Free Wild Waters by Rob Kidd Page B

he’d expected: a kitchen, enormous and empty of people. Unfortunately it had no other exits—but Jack was out of options. He turned to slam the door behind him and found Benedict blocking the gap.
    “LET ME IN!” Benedict bellowed, trying to squeeze in as Jack tried to shove him back out again. “DON’T LET IT EAT ME!”
    They struggled back and forth for a moment, but the pale man’s desperation won out. Benedict squished his skeletal frame through the gap and stumbled onto the stone flagstones of the kitchen floor.
    Jack grabbed a chair and shoved it against the door handle just as a ferocious pounding started on the other side of the door. He jumped back and saw splinters of wood already flying loose.
    “Help me!” Jack shouted, seizing a small wooden table. Benedict scrambled over to grab the other end and together they braced it against the door.
    “That ought to hold the beast for a moment,” Jack said, turning with a pleased expression—which immediately dropped off his face as he saw Benedict drawing a second sword. His first was lying on the stones in the vestibule, but evidently this was a man who came prepared. His second sword was a whip-thin rapier, and it was already in motion toward Jack’s neck.
    “Just long enough for me to kill you,” Benedict snarled, but this time Jack had time to dodge out of reach. He drew his own sword and danced around the long, heavy table in the center of the room. Benedict followed with measured steps, his reptilian eyes focused unblinkingly on Jack.
    “Downright unsporting, that is,” Jack said in an injured voice. “I just saved your life.”
    “You tried to push me back into the hall!” Benedict shouted.
    “Well, but I didn’t succeed, did I?” Jack protested.
    BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! went the beast’s fists against the door.
    Quick as lightning, Benedict lunged forward with his rapier, but Jack leaped to the side just in time. He hurled himself over the table, seized a copper pot, and threw it at Benedict’s head. It was rather a Grandmama-like move, but Jack couldn’t be choosy at this stage—and besides, Grandmama had won every fight she’d ever been in, so her methods were clearly nothing to sneeze at.
    The pot glanced off Benedict’s shoulder and he grunted angrily. Instead of diving over it as Jack had, Benedict ran up onto the table and jumped off, kicking out at Jack as he fell. The side of his boot connected with Jack’s ribs, and Jack nearly dropped his sword. Benedict hit the ground and spun upright again, just in time to get a pot lid in the face. He staggered back as Jack darted to the far end of the table.
    Panting with rage, Benedict chased him. A few strands of pale blond hair were sticking up from his usually smooth head and a small trickle of blood ran from his nose, but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes flared with hatred.
    Jack started grabbing everything within reach and throwing it. Spoons, dishes, and cooking tongs flew through the air, most of them clattering harmlessly around Benedict as he whacked them aside with his sword. At the last second, Jack brought up his own sword and met Benedict’s with a resounding clang. Benedict pressed forward mercilessly, beating at Jack, but Jack had been studying his swordmanship for years—ever since losing a duel to an upstart, snobbish, untrustworthy aristocrat named Fitzwilliam, which forced him to let the traitor onboard his first ship, the Barnacle —a decision Jack had lived to regret.
    Now he was one of the best sword fighters in the Caribbean, and he matched Benedict’s flashing blade strike for strike. They swung and pirouetted around the table, ducking under each other’s blows, leaping over the low attacks. The light from the torches on the walls reflected off their swords as they parried and struck.
    And all the while, the pounding at the door grew louder and louder. Jack glanced at it worriedly, noticing how a part of the wood was starting to cave into the room. It