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This bain't happenin'! comes a screaming voice in Barbossa's head. Tain't possible; Tain't right!
But it is. The Black Pearl, that he's loved and tended as his own family, has gone mad, her cordage tying itself up in knots, ensnaring both him and his terrified crew.
Hoisted and turned upside-down by a rope snaking round his right leg that won't be pulled off or cut no matter how hard he saws at it with his knife, Barbossa can see Blackbeard on the quarterdeck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, waving that infernal Sword of Triton that's throwing the Pearl's crew to the depths of the sea, or stringing them up in the rigging, like insects stuck in the glue of a spider's web. Even his little pet monkey, usually so at home in the ropes, is scampering wildly about and squealing in fright. "Ye hellish blackguard!!" he bellows, swearing when his treasured pistol works loose from his belt and falls, bouncing off the rail, to disappear into the water. "No one does this t' me or m' ship! I be Cap'n Hector Barbossa, an' if ye wanna fight me, then come aboard an' do it proper, like a man!"
Over the distance, Blackbeard slowly smiles as his dark eyes lock with Barbossa's blue ones. The suffering of the crew is just a tidbit for him, and can't compare with what he intends to dish out to their captain. For those mere jacks who somehow don't strangle or drown, he'll set them adrift, bear down on them, and roast them alive with one wave of his sword, but their feather-topped leader merits a far longer-lasting torment than that. Cutting him open and nailing his guts to the mast of the Queen Anne's Revenge while forcing him to watch the Black Pearl sink to the depths… ah now, that will be suitable and a fine entertainment. He'll make Barbossa hop to, dancing around the mast while his innards unspool, and if he can't jig, then he'll crawl. Once he can do neither, relieving him of his stick and stones and stuffing them down his throat should do a lovely job of capping off the torture; unless, of course, he also decides to carve out one of those glaring, hate-filled blue eyes; just one, so Barbossa will be forced to keep seeing who got the better of him. Oh, but that would be delicious. Blackbeard doesn't like competition and that's what he wants: for this rival captain to die in a sticky pool of blood and guts, half-blinded and gagging on his own privates, and screaming so high that there isn't a dog on earth that would hear him.
Barbossa's not stupid. He knows every type of torture there is and knows also how Blackbeard's mind works. "No!" he snarls. "I'll not just give up an' die; not at yer hand; not by yer choice! M' life be my own, not yers, an' I'm th' master of me own fate, not you!" He knows now the rope won't release him no matter how he slices and hacks at it, and he's shaking with dread at what he knows he must do to break free, but the grip he takes on his sword is tight and sure, his mind clear. "An' I swore t' m' Dove I'd come home! Ye'll not take that away! No man takes that away!" For one instant, there's a tremor in his hand, then it steadies.
All at once, he yanks his sword from its scabbard; and, with both hands on the hilt, slashes hard across his leg, neatly severing it just above both bootline and the rope preternaturally cemented to his skin.
His sword dropping from paralyzed fingers, Barbossa falls to the deck, shrieking and in shock, blood pulsing from the stump of his leg. He wonders vaguely what to do, because if he just lies there, he'll be dead within minutes. He can't just lie there. He can't. He can't.
If he does, he's not going home, and he'll never again get the chance he's foolishly turned his back on so many times: to tell the innkeeper just how much he loves her.
Through salt-stung eyes, he spots a tar bucket about five feet away. Think! Think! He can't think; he's in too much agony. But he can think. He has to think. He's Hector Barbossa and he's survived Death. He can, he must survive this.
Against the pitching of the ship, Barbossa drags himself over to the bucket, his strong arms and shoulders working where his missing leg can no longer help him to move, leaving a slippery trail of blood behind him. Is there enough tar inside? If there isn't, it won't seal the wound and all this will have been for naught.
Oh Christ, there is — just enough — and it's heated from the fires on the deck. But first… first… Panting and wheezing heavily, nose running, his eyes blinded by tears, Barbossa unthreads his saffron sash and ties it tightly around his thigh, cutting off the bloodflow as best he can. Comin' home, Dove, is all he can think. I'll get that bastard Blackbeard no matter what I mus' do, an' then I'm comin' home. Though it does nothing for the pain, this litany helps keep his mind focused. I'll get 'im, an' then I'm comin' straight home t' you. Comin' home.
The Pearl is mortally damaged, not by gunfire, but by dire magic, and is being bombarded by more by the minute; she won't last much longer, and he'll have to get clear of her if he doesn't want to be dragged down. Where be th' tar? Where be th' fuckin' tar? Barbossa's sweaty, shaking fingers close on the bucket's wooden handle. Oh, Jesus…!
His tormented screams drown out everything else as he jams the stump of his leg into the hot, sticky tar, sealing everything to mid-thigh so that his life's blood is stopped from pouring out of his body.
Mercifully, Barbossa remembers little after that save the tug of hands under his arms, until he finds himself pulled from the water by those few fortunate members of the crew who escaped Blackbeard's notice and made away in a single cockboat. "Land, sir," one of them says quietly, pointing. "We weren't far from Hispaniola, so that's probably it."
"Aye," Barbossa grits out, coughing. He's determined not to break down whimpering and snivelling in front of his men and it's all he can say without a gush of tears bursting from his eyes. If he cries, he won't stop. If he cries, he'll sob in misery and pain until all the water and blood and other fluid humours inside him are gone; until his whole body dries up and blows away in the wind.
But they wouldn't have blamed him, staring, as they are, at his bloodsoaked hair and clothes and the tarred stump-end of what used to be his muscular right leg; the one which stomped along the Pearl's decks, helped him to climb her rigging, and occasionally kicked a slacker. "I'm sorry, sir," one of them ventures to tell him.
Barbossa scowls, and even when he's so sorely injured and in such agony, he can still make the crewman back down and think better of regarding him as less than a man-and-a-half. "Don't!" he says tightly. "I'll kill th' bastard, mark m' words."
Oh aye, I'll kill th' fuckin' bastard for takin' m' beautiful Pearl, he thinks, grinding his teeth. For that, an' m' goddamn leg, an' because I were about t' go home t' th' arms of m' precious Dove. Ye fucked all that up, Edward Teach, an' now ye'll pay. No matter how long, no matter what I mus' do, no matter where in th' world I must chase ye… ye'll pay.
Oh, ye'll pay, Blackbeard. Ye'll pay.
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