Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat Read online

  Blood and Oak:

  Wolves Will Eat

  A Novel

  By Garrett Bettencourt

  Book 2 of the Blood & Oak Series

  Copyright © 2019 by Garrett Bettencourt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are purely the product of the author's imagination. Any license that has been taken is for the tone of the story and the enjoyment of the reader.

  1803. Stranded in a city of Barbary Pirates. One American sailor faces the fight of his life.

  Five years after escaping slavery in Tunis, Midshipman John Sullivan has returned to rescue his family. But his daring plan came to ruin. Varlick Naim, feared agent of the Ottoman sultan, has imprisoned Sullivan with no hope of rescue. An assassin both cunning and lethal, Naim blames Sullivan for the death of his son and will stop at nothing to wreak a bloody revenge.

  Now, John Sullivan must escape against all odds. He must find a way to save his shipmates, his family, and the woman he loves from a grisly fate. His only path to freedom leads through imperial soldiers, bloodthirsty pirates, and the most relentless enforcer in the Ottoman Empire. As the old saying goes on the Barbary Coast, “He who acts like sheep, the wolves will eat.”

  John Sullivan may be marooned, but this sailor is no easy prey.

  Contents

  Codas

  Part V The Red Hart

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part VI The Chronicler

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part VII Sisters in Arms

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Part VIII Day of Blood

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Part IX Independence

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Epilogue

  Glossary of Naval Terms

  Glossary of Foreign Terms

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Codas

  For those who want to learn more about the world of Blood and Oak, you can find maps, sail plans, and other items of interest at GarrettBettencourt.com under Coda:

  GarrettBettencourt.com/coda

  For Mary

  In the darkest hours of my life, you led me to the light.

  1803

  The Barbary Pirates rob and enslave American sailors on the Mediterranean Sea. Countries must buy peace or face terror. The United States has sent a fleet to defend her citizens, but the fledgling U.S. Navy faces a two-year stalemate.

  Meanwhile, one young officer is on a mission of his own. Midshipman John Sullivan has returned to the Barbary city of Tunis to rescue his sister Kaitlin, only to fall into the clutches of a lethal assassin. Varlick Naim seeks revenge for the death of his son—a son John Sullivan killed to escape slavery.

  Now, John’s only hope may be the sister he came to save…

  Part V

  The Red Hart

  Chapter 1

  The Lake Fort

  Near the City of Tunis

  Saturday, September 10th, 1803

  Day One, Near Midnight

  “It’s your fault,” cried the voice of a young man. “All of it. It should be you that’s dead—not them. It should be you burned to cinders. You’re pathetic.”

  Fourteen-year-old Kaitlin Sullivan clung to the outside wall of a round, eighty-foot tower. Beneath her feet, water lapped against sandstone where the Lake of Tunis had eaten away the shore. Ten feet above her head, a horseshoe window flickered with light. The sound of the young man’s voice came from within. The cold crescent moon glowed among the stars. Her gloved fingers clung to fissures in the stone. The spikes on the soles of her shoes dug into divots. She wiggled her nose against dust on the breeze. Aching as her muscles were, she had to reach that window. She allowed herself one look down at the water and the grassy shore. The old Crusader fort was situated on an island in the lake, halfway between the Tunis harbor and the Mediterranean. It had been abandoned for centuries. Now, a monster dwelled inside.

  As she ascended to the window above, she heard the sound of a struggle. The scraping of feet, the grunts of men in combat. A sword being drawn. An aged voice that put ice in her blood.

  “No,” the man commanded. There was no mistaking the scholarly Arabic accent of Varlick Naim. “Don’t interfere.”

  There were sounds of a scuffle. Kaitlin’s fingers reached the window sill, and she peeked inside. In the light of a crackling hearth, a tall, lean man in his fifties pinned a younger man facedown on the flagstones. The older man was Varlick Naim, an agent of the Ottoman Sultan, dressed in a luxurious kaftan of green and white, with embroidered patterns of gold. His dark hair and close-cropped beard had threads of grey, handsome features that belied his mangled right ear and the mad hatred in his eyes. The younger man had been fifteen the last time she saw him—a full five years ago. His tailored white breeches and waistcoat marked him as a Navy officer. His auburn stubble, more mature features, and taller athletic frame might have rendered him a stranger, but there was no mistaking the eyes. It was her brother. John Sullivan struggled to get free, but the man astride his back had his arm trapped and a knee pressed to his back.

  The cruel assassin bent close to John’s ear, whispering. Against the crackling of the fire, Kaitlin could just barely make out the words. “I had planned for you to bear witness to your family’s end—how disappointing to settle for Declan’s retelling. Oh, but you gave me so much more in those long days at sea. All I had to do was let you talk. Let your friends talk. Now, I have your new family. You gave me everything.”

  Kaitlin’s vision clouded with tears as Naim held the point of a knife to her brother’s eye. Her father, Declan Sullivan, sat on his haunches near an overturned table, watching
the scene in milky-eyed horror. Years as a quarry slave had left his body hunched and arthritic. More grey than red colored his frazzled hair and beard, despite his age of only forty-two years. Three soldiers dressed in red uniform jackets and loose blue trousers stood with muskets ready as the spectacle unfolded. They were members of the Nizam-I Djedid, a new brand of Ottoman imperial soldiers trained in elite European-style warfare.

  The bedraggled sight of Kaitlin’s da only added to the horror. This tower suite had been Declan’s place of nightly torment. Shadows crawled over threadbare tapestries, tiles of jade and lapis lazuli, and a repeating crossbow hanging over the mantle. A scene in which Naim had forced Declan to recount the death of his wife and daughter in graphic detail every night for a year. Not for Declan’s torture, but for the day he would finally reveal the story to his son, John. This night. Little did any of them realize that Kaitlin had been alive all along, making regular visits to the Lake Fort, silently watching.

  Kaitlin caught the swampy stench of the lake on the wind. The flames leapt in the hearth. She stared at the man who had murdered the boy she loved a year ago. Killed her mother. Tortured her father. And now, threatened her brother. She knew her breath was coming too fast—that she was panicking—but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “You still have so much,” Naim seethed in John’s ear, “that I have yet to take.”

  The worst night of Kaitlin’s life flashed through her mind.

  “Now fly, Rabbit!” Nora cries. Kaitlin’s mother flings herself against the chronicler of the sultan. Before Varlick Naim can react, Nora’s teeth are on his ear. He shrieks as she bites the earlobe free, leaving bloody ribbons.

  “Run, Kaitlin!” cries her father, Declan.

  Kaitlin runs across the narrow bridge in an adrenalin-fueled blur. The ocean surf crashes on rocks far below. A musket ball whistles by. All she can think about is the wounded boy lying on the other side. Rune, who taught her to be a thief and became her true love, lies beyond the bridge, under the awning of the watchtower. Naim’s crossbow bolt is sticking out of his chest.

  With a hand under each of Rune’s shoulders, she drags him toward the rickety wooden steps for all she’s worth. As she reaches the edge of the platform, another shot rings out. There’s a flash. A loud ringing in her ears. She’s tumbling through space. By the time she realizes she’s falling, the water hits her like a charging horse.

  Kaitlin Sullivan only lost focus for a second. It was enough. Her fingers slipped. She felt a shock of nausea. A heartbeat of weightlessness. She didn’t regain her lost grip. Instead, she thrust her fingers into a previous handhold. The metal tines on her shoe jammed into a broken corner of brick. Her whole life gambled on the memory in her limbs. She slid an inch…

  And stopped.

  Her grip once again secure, Kaitlin hung a few inches below the window, her heart hammering. It was rare for Kaitlin to lose focus on a climb—especially one she’d practiced so often.

  “I can’t do it, Rune,” Kaitlin whispered. A full three months had passed since she last cried. She hadn’t spoken to her dead love in at least three days. But now, tears warmed her skin. “I can’t do it. I can’t face him again. I can’t…”

  “Take him back to his cell,” commanded Naim, his voice booming through the window. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

  In the room above, Kaitlin heard the commotion of the guards dragging her father and brother away. Now was her chance. The tower would be empty for a few minutes at least. She had to pick the lock of a small chest on the mantle. Inside, the so-called “Chronicler of Constantinople” stored his journal and correspondence. Information more valuable than gold—knowledge of Naim’s plans and the key to her family’s freedom. Her plan was to glean what she could, then locate the entrance to a secret passage somewhere in the tower suite. Naim didn’t know it was there—a crucial advantage on which everything depended—and they could only open it from inside this one room. It ought to have been no different from any other heist, but she was stealing from him.

  “I can’t.” Kaitlin’s fingers were turning numb—weakening.

  “You keep to the shadows and you survive,” whispers Rune. His breath is turning shallow. The bolt in his chest is sucking air. “Your brother…is on his way. He’s…going to need your help.”

  Rune’s dying words.

  “You’re going to live. And you’re going to be free because…you’re the Red Hart.”

  Kaitlin closed her eyes. She cleared her mind. Her breath steadied. With her left hand, she reached into her leather kaftan and clutched the wooden tiger pendant. A gift from Rune—“the magnificent Aruna the Tiger Foot”—master thief and pickpocket. She smiled as she felt the contours of the great cat rearing up on hind legs. She felt a familiar tingle of adrenalin. Naim’s little box contained nothing as exciting as jewels or silver or priceless art, but then treasure had never been Kaitlin’s only reason for stealing. Ever since she was a little girl, she loved high places. Secret places. Forbidden places. Being a thief took her to all three. There was no greater thrill in the world than a challenging theft. She was the Red Hart. Fear didn’t stop her—it fueled her.

  The tower room door slammed shut. Kaitlin peeked over the window sill again. The fire snapped and popped, light flickering over tapestries of medieval battles. Tea ran into cracks in the stone, spilled from the tea service when the table overturned. The Red Hart stole through the window. She stared ruefully at the mess. Some jobs require a thief to leave no trace.

  What a crime, Kaitlin decided, to leave behind such fine silver.

  Chapter 2

  The Lake Fort

  Dungeons

  Sunday, September 11th, 1803

  Day Two, After Midnight

  “Da!” said John Sullivan, looking at his father in the dark. He lifted the edge of his straw mattress high, revealing a symbol painted on the bottom in red. It was the silhouette of a stag’s face and antlers. It was barely visible in the torchlight filtering through a porthole in the door. “The Red Hart—it’s her symbol. She’s telling us she’s here to help.” A laugh of pure joy burst out of him. “Katie is alive!”

  The emaciated slave in the corner of the cell took in a breath. His hands trembled as he pushed off the limestone wall and crawled forward. The square of light passed over a web of burned flesh on Declan’s lower cheek. The two men were the only prisoners in this silent dungeon. The Nizam-I Djedid had taken up residence in a fort not used since the Crusades. Its position on a tiny island in the middle of the Lake of Tunis allowed privacy for Naim and his soldiers, away from the prying eyes of the bey and the Janissaries. The Djedid hadn’t posted a guard at the door, a sign of their confidence. Still, Declan looked about, as if afraid of spies. In a wafer-thin whisper, he said, “Truly? Can it be? I was so afraid to hope.”

  In his excitement, John had forgotten his despair. Only minutes ago, Declan had finished telling the terrible story of his family’s fate. A story in which Varlick Naim had hunted down John’s mother, father, and sister on the Barbary Coast in a bid for revenge. A story in which John’s mother Nora died in Declan’s arms, and his sister Kaitlin was killed in an explosion. All because five years ago, as a slave on his own family’s former ship, the Wandering Hart, John had secretly charted a course into a reef. He had watched spitefully from the safety of a small rowboat as the ship sank and the captain, his master Ilyas Naim, drowned. If only John had known that he would incur the wrath of Ilyas’ father, Varlick Naim, the feared assassin of the Ottoman Empire.

  How quickly the balance of fate could shift. A moment ago, John had been Naim’s prisoner, with no idea how he, his father, or his friends—Ethan Auldon and Melisande Dufort—might escape. And he had thought his sister Kaitlin dead. Now, as John carefully studied the stag’s face, her moniker as a thief, he knew her to be alive and well—and Naim was none the wiser. “There’s something here…” mused John as he studied the rock placed on the cot’s wooden slats. A moment ago, when John laid down on th
e mattress, he’d immediately felt it digging into his back. A slip of coarse paper stuck out from under the stone. He tossed it away, grabbed the scrap, and let the mattress fall.

  John settled onto the stone floor. There were only two words. “‘Choose oil,’” John read aloud. “What could that mean? Why leave such a cryptic note?”

  “I don’t know, but Kaitlin will have a reason,” Declan said, energy returning to his Irish lilt. Given his usual listlessness, sudden vigor made him sound like a mad prophet. “You’ve got to trust her, son. She’s young, but she’s smart. Oh, Katie—I never gave up hope.”

  “Wait a minute.” John studied his father’s animated eyes. “What do you mean you ‘never gave up hope?’ You just spent hours telling me of her and Mam’s death. Now you’re saying it was a lie?”

  Declan’s eyes fell. His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t lie. I didn’t. She was dead. Because she had to be. If Master Naim thought there was even a chance she survived…he would’ve hunted her down.”

  Looking at the pathetic wreck of a man before him, John felt his bile rising. The anger and shame of the last five years came flooding back. “Look at you,” sneered John. “He’s not even here and you call him master. The moment the Barbary Pirates raised their flag, you gave up. You surrendered five years ago as surely as you’re surrendering now. How can I be the offspring of such a coward?”

  Declan flinched as if John had raised a fist. “I had no choice, son. The masters had to believe—”

  “Stop saying that filthy word! They’re no masters of mine. Unlike you, I’ll die before I become a slave again.”

  Declan’s gaze became distant, and he sat back against the wall. His burst of energy sputtered out. “I died a long time ago.”

  The hours passed in silence. John and Declan retreated to their separate sides of the cell, neither speaking to the other. In the darkness beneath the Earth, there were no sun or stars to reference. The only sounds were the odd drip of water or squeak of a rat. Only the torches suggested the shape of time as they burned out one by one. John lay awake, staring at Kaitlin’s note, reading it over and over. He contemplated the words. Imagined every possibility. He wondered why she didn’t say more.