1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) by George Wier, Billy Kring Page B

hanged and his head was struck from his body and was displayed publicly. You don’t even have a decent beard, what?”
    “Oye’m ‘is great-grandson,” the strange pirate stated, and moved his cutlass in a figure eight.
    “Blackbeard the Fourth?” Denys laughed. “You’re one-sixteenth of the man he was, quite literally.”
    “If’n oye ‘as one sixty-eighth the man ‘e wern, oye’d still beat you. Who thee be?”
    “One sixty-fourth, you nit.”
    “Huh?”
    “One sixty-fourth. Sixteen doubled is thirty-second. Thirty-second doubled is sixty-fourth.” Denys twirled his saber in a figure eight, then brought the tip of his blade to hover in the air between them. Blackbeard’s blade touched his.
    “Oye hires uvver men ta do me figgers. Whomever thee be or whomever thee b’aint, Oye’m ‘bout to carve thee to cornfetti.”
    “It’s ribbons,” Denys said. “Carve you to ribbons . Don’t you know anything?”
    “Oye knows thee for a dead man,” Blackbeard said and lunged. Denys easily countered the thrust by stepping aside and parrying the blade away. At the same instant he kicked the man hard on his left side.
    Blackbeard back-pedaled and swore. “Wot ta Debbil’s hell was thot?” he asked. He’d never before been kicked by a man during a sword fight.
    “Jiu-jitsu,” Denys stated.
    “Chewy wot?”
    “Nothing. You wouldn’t understand.” Denys lunged, feinted. Blackbeard riposted and sparks flew where forged steel clanged. Blackbeard’s cutlass sang and Denys stepped backwards, the cutlass slashing where he had been an instant before. The downward slash connected with the platform and more sparks flew. Denys stepped forward as Blackbeard withdrew his blade and brought his saber in a downward arc, not at Blackbeard’s head or chest, but at his sword arm. The saber connected with the man’s wrist. Hand and sword clattered to the platform. Denys, his eyes never wavering from Blackbeard’s face, looked for shock where there was none. He glanced at the stump of the man’s wrist, expecting spurting blood, but there was none. There was, instead, a spark of electric fire from the wrist. Denys himself was stunned for a moment, and Blackbeard took the opportunity to calmly retrieve the sword and hand with his good left. He removed the disembodied fingers from the hilt, held the hand out in front of him and dropped it.
    “Oy never could ‘boyd the godrotted thing anyways,” he said, and smiled.
    Blackbeard slashed with the cutlass in his left hand and Denys parried the blow, then tossed his saber from his right hand to his left. It was his turn to smile.
    “Aye! So’s yer an ambi! ‘Ta odds be’s e’en.”
    Jack Ross’s head popped through the hatch from the Engine Room and he ducked again as Blackbeard’s cutlass came back in preparation for another savage slash.
    “Don’t mind me,” Jack said.
    “To your post, Mister Ross,” Denys stated confidently. “I’ll do with this blackguard.” Denys caught the blow dead even and the two went into a battle of brute strength of arms for a moment.
    Denys shoved hard, brought his saber inside the other man’s guard and carved a groove across Blackbeard’s chest. Blood began to flow.
    “So you’re not all machine,” he stated. “Pity. It would have assuaged my guilt for killing you.”
    “Oy b’aint be deaded yet.”
    “I think you should drop that dreadful pirate accent. It doesn’t become you, Mister Teach.”
    “You mean like this?” Blackbeard said, the pirate accent instantly gone. Denys eyes widened. Blackbeard noted the shocked expression and took the opportunity to lunge.
    At the last instant Denys turned sideways and the cutlass pierced his shirt. He felt the blade slide along his back. He spun abruptly to face Edward Teach and the saber was wrenched from the man’s grip.
    Denys’s blade hovered before Edward Teach’s face.
    “You know, we should hang you, cut off your head, and display it publicly in San Antonio. Say,