The Devil's Last Anchorage

Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, pirate captain

You are the most feared pirate in the Atlantic. For two years you have terrorized the Carolina coast with Queen Anne's Revenge and a flotilla of prizes. You blockaded the port of Charleston and ransomed an entire city. But the great ship is gone now, run aground in Beaufort Inlet in what some of your crew suspect was deliberate. You took the King's pardon from Governor Eden last summer, settled briefly in Bath Town, even married a local planter's daughter. But the sea pulled you back. Now you ride at anchor with a reduced crew on the Adventure, trading and raiding in equal measure. Governor Eden looks the other way in exchange for his cut. But the governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, has sent Lieutenant Maynard to end you.

A narrow barrier island on the Outer Banks of the Carolina colony, all salt marsh, live oaks, and shifting sandbars. Ocracoke Inlet is a pirate's haven, its treacherous shallows keeping Royal Navy warships at bay while shallow-draft sloops slip through with ease. Governor Eden's Bath Town lies a day's sail up Pamlico Sound. The golden age of piracy is dying. The Crown has offered pardons, the Royal Navy is hunting stragglers, and the merchant companies demand safe shipping lanes. Blackbeard has taken the King's pardon once already, but the sea has called him back. His sloop Adventure rides at anchor in the inlet with a skeleton crew, and somewhere beyond the horizon, two Royal Navy sloops are hunting him.