Dreams by Richard A. Lupoff Page B

Esperanza Cortez y Gonsalvo remained unaccounted for.
    It wasn't hard for Captain Ambergris to decide where to look for her arch foe. She found her way to Doña Cortez's cabin. She paused outside. She stood before a mirror that Doña Cortez had caused to be mounted on the bulkhead. Her tricorn hat had been lost in the battle, carried away by the ball from a defender's flintlock. Her blue-black hair curled and swayed around her face. She wore a loose satin blouse and skintight trousers that disappeared into floppy-topped boots. Her face was flushed with excitement and exertion, her tongue flicked out to taste the perspiration that made her face shine.
    She tried the door to Doña Cortez's cabin and found it unlocked. She stepped inside and confronted Doña Cortez.
    Ambergris laughed at the sight before her.
    The noblewoman had donned full court dress, a floor-length gown of crimson silk and kid gloves that reached above her elbows. Her face was powdered a deathly white with spots of rouge on both cheeks and smears of blue above her eyes, a beauty mark fixed to one cheek. Most absurd of all, she wore a tall wig.
    "A fair fight, Captain Ambergris," she hissed.
    "As you wish, my lady."
    "As you see, I am unarmed." The noblewoman held her hands to her sides.
    "Very well." Amber carefully laid her cutlass and flintlock in a corner.
    When she turned back she was startled to see that Doña Cortez had doffed her gloves and gown. She stood stark naked, defiant, clad only in boots and silvery wig.
    "As you wish, my lady," Ambergris said again. She swept herself out of her clothing.
    They closed, grappling for advantage. The cabin was cramped and their motion was limited. Amber managed to grasp her opponent by the elbow, spun and twisted.
    Doña María moved with her action, slipped from Amber's grasp and delivered a backhand slap to the side of her head.
    Amber's ears rang with the blow. She lowered her head and launched a head-butt at her enemy.
    Doña María dodged, partially avoiding the attack. Amber's shoulder collided with Doña María's midriff and sent her staggering backward to fetch up against a bulkhead. With one hand she reached upward and grasped a Turkish scimitar that was mounted on the wall. With her other hand she reached beneath her wig, sending it tumbling to the floor.
    Amber clutched Doña María's wrist, smashing it against the wall, sending the Turkish scimitar clattering and bouncing across the cabin. At the same moment she felt a red-hot agony lance across her ribcage. Crimson spurted as Doña María screamed in triumph, a blood-dripping dagger in her hand.
    "Traitor!" Amber gasped. "The dirk was concealed in your wig."
    Doña María stood laughing in triumph.
    Amber felt her very consciousness failing as blood flowed from her wound. She gathered her remaining strength and launched herself once more at her opponent. To her surprise, Doña María threw open her arms.
    The two women collided, tumbling to the floor. Amber felt Doña María's dagger plunge into her flesh again and again. She found herself beneath her opponent but now marshaled her final reserves. She arched her back, literally throwing Doña María off her body. The noblewoman tumbled, flailing, landing with her throat against the Turkish cutlass.
    A hair's breadth higher and the cutlass would have sliced thin flesh and glanced off her jawbone. A hair's breadth lower and it would have bounded from her collarbone. But neither was to be the case.
    Doña María uttered a single gurgling gasp of pain and rage and mortality and collapsed, dead, on the floor of her cabin.
    Amber, her naked body covered with a mixture of sweat and blood and, yes, tears, knelt beside her dead foe's body, softly stroking her locks. A drop of sweat fell from Ambergris' weary face and ran down Doña María's cheek. A drop of sweat, or perhaps a teardrop.
    Diamond Lil and Pair o' Guts dragged Amber Annie through the hatch and laid her on her bunk in Niña's cabin. Pair o' Guts