“They have only one of these fearsome devices, but they certainly know how to use it!” he muttered to himself as he ducked and then busied himself with another Thunderbolt.
Talon saw another small flash on the pirate ship and looked up. Dar’an must have thrown his bomb down onto the vessel. He nodded approvingly; the boy was growing up. He peered over the top of the transom as shards of wood hummed by, and saw the results of several of the oil bombs that his men had tossed onto the vessel. Flames began to lick at the rigging. Now was the time for Talon to take his bow and to shoot the men down who tried to put out the flames.
“Get us out of here, Captain!” he yelled. There was no answer, so he jerked around to shout again. There was only one steersman standing, and he looked as though he was paralyzed with fright. There was blood on his tunic, the other was down in a welter of blood, and alongside him was the captain. Talon rushed to kneel by the captain’s side, but when he turned him over it was clear he was dead. The front of Dandachi’s shirt was soaked in blood; there were several black holes in his chest, and his head lolled loosely.
Talon looked up. “Abdullah!” he shouted at the seaman, who was stationed at the ropes with some men. “Get the ship away from them. Now!” he yelled. He smacked the frozen steersman across his face and shouted, “Turn the rudder! Wake up!” the man flinched and did as he was told. They began to pull away to starboard, much too slowly for Talon’s liking.
Then there were more flashes and booms from his own deck as Reza fired off the reloaded Erupters. The flames lanced across the water to scorch the side of the other vessel and wreak more havoc among the enemy.
We have to kill the men who are firing at us, or we too will go down in flames! Talon thought desperately. He snatched up his bow and quiver and ran down the steps onto the main deck, pushing past the jostling and yelling loaders. He slipped on the bloody deck and nearly fell; one of the crew seized his arm to steady him. He nodded his thanks and continued until he estimated he was opposite where the other ship’s Erupter was located. He could just make out dark figures frantically trying reload their weapon in the flickering light of fires that were now taking hold on the ship. The Greek Fire pots were proving once again to be deadly effective.
“Archers to me!” He roared.
Four of his men heard him and rushed to join him stumbling and colliding their companions who were frantically loading their Erupters with Reza yelling instructions at them.
“Shoot at anyone who is near that Erupter of theirs!” Talon shouted. He stared at the other ship and found that he was looking straight into the black maw of the enemy Erupter. A cold fear swept down his spine. The enemy were about to light the fuse! If they succeeded at this range it would blow him and his men to pieces.
“Shoot them!” Shoot them!’ he roared and did just that with his own bow. A cluster of arrows swept across the gap straight into the small crowd gathered near the enemy Erupter.
Men fell but one man still moved forward unscathed with a burning coil to fire the deadly weapon.
His heart pounding as he realized that time was running out, Talon reached for another arrow but found none in his belt, he experienced a moment of sheer panic then glanced at one of his men.
“Here give me one of those!” he called across. He snatched the arrow from the surprised archer and in on swift motion he sent an arrow straight into the chest of the shadowy figure on the other ship, and then another. The man dropped what he was carrying and fell over with a cry. Talon could not see what it was but suddenly everyone nearby was running away from that area of the ship.
A moment later there was a blinding flash and a huge explosion. The pirate ship seemed to jerk to a stop as the fore deck disintegrated in a massive burst, tossing huge flaming pieces of deck into the sky. The side blew outwards and large splinters of wood howled through the air overhead, ripping through the sails of the Sea Eagle. One of the Sea Eagle crew went down with a choking cry, pierced as though by a huge spear. Talon was temporarily blinded by the flash and had to blink furiously; his eyes had bright red and yellow spots in front of them, making it hard to see.
He turned away from the sight of the raging fires and sensed the shifts in movements that indicated the Sea Eagle was finally pulling away from the stricken pirate ship, whose main sail was now ablaze in a terrible curtain of flame that illuminated both ships with a hellish orange glow, casting long shadows that made men look like demons. He stared in awe at the devastation. Without warning another explosion went off deep inside the pirate ship, and it broke the ship in half. He watched as the survivors of the two explosions dived into the water, trying to get away from the conflagration that had once been their home. Within minutes there remained only large pieces of burning timber and the clutter of burnt sails and rigging, around which were men struggling to swim who cried out for help to an indifferent night.
O’er the water pointing westward
To the purple clouds of sunset
Fiercely the red sun descending
Burned his way along the heavens,
Set the sky on fire behind him
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aftermath
Talon was coldly angry. He wanted one of the survivors.
“Reza, we should get one of them aboard. Only one!” he shouted, not realizing that Reza was quite close and that he too could barely hear. They had all been deafened by the explosions.
Reza nodded. “You will need to get that taken care of,” he said pointing to the wound on Talon’s cheek. Talon dabbed at the wound in irritation, with the rag he had used before. He had other things to worry about just now.
As they pulled away from the flaming ship, several men managed to swim towards their own, crying for help. Reza picked one of them and had him hauled aboard. The others he dispatched with arrows. It was a kindness, given the shark-infested waters; they screamed and begged for mercy, but he shot them anyway.
The crewmen dragged the one survivor out of the water and threw him on the deck, none to gently. Reza walked over to him and poked him with his sword. The sailor jerked. No one paid any more attention to the burning wreck they were leaving behind.
“Tie his hands,” Reza ordered, and when the sodden pirate was sitting up he crouched next to him and said, “You will be hung for what you tried to do. You will have to make your peace with God for what you have done, but if you would rather be killed quickly, instead of very, very slowly, you tell us where you are from and who was the captain.”
The man, an Arab, gasped for breath and retched out some seawater. “Have mercy upon me, Lord,” he stammered. “I am but a humble sailor who had to do as I was told. We are from the island of Langkawi and my master is Captain Amar, servant of Lord Sing,” he babbled.
“What was your intention? To plunder our vessel and rape our women?” Reza shouted at the cowering pirate.
He shook his head, his eyes rolling, and said nothing, too scared to speak.
Talon put his hand on Reza’s shoulder. “Captain Dandachi is dead. They killed him,” he told his friend.
Reza stared up at him with a shocked expression on his face. “The captain is dead?” he asked loudly. He was still deafened by the thunder of the Erupter.
Others of the crew heard him; word went around like fire itself and some of the crewmen began to wail and scream imprecations at the luckless man at their feet. They were ready to tear him to pieces in their rage.
“Leave him!” Reza roared. Such was their respect for him that they drew back, but they continued to form a menacing circle around the prisoner. Reza turned to Talon and there was anger in his voice as he spoke loudly for all to hear.
“You are now the captain, Talon, as well as the owner. What do you wish to do?”
Talon had been thinking carefully. With Amar gone, Sing might be very vulnerable. He wanted to avenge the captain, and knew full well that his brother and the crew were waiting to hear him say the words
.
“Captain Dandachi was a master of the sea and navigator. I have known no one better. He was also a friend. As God is my witness, I wish to avenge his death and clean out the nest of vipers that live on the island,” he stated. The crew roared their approval.
“Before then we must clean up our own ship. We have to take care of the wounded and prepare the dead for burial and make repairs. Waqqas and Abdullah, you are to keep the ship on a North-westerly course until I tell you to change; This will take us well out of sight of the island. Umayr, you and your men will assist Reza with the wounded and the dead. Tarif, bring some men and make sure the prisoner is secured. I do not wish him to get away for any reason. But he is not to be harmed until I have decided what to do with him.”
He turned back to walk up the stairs to the steering deck, where he paused. The body of the captain had been laid out on his back, staring up at the sky with sightless eyes. The night obscured most of his features, but Talon knelt by his body and closed his eyes, then he rested a hand on his chest. “Goodbye, my friend. I do not know how we will get home without your skill and knowledge.” He noticed a drop of blood fall onto the dead man’s chest. Only then did he become aware again of the cut on his face. Rav’an would have something to say about that. He fingered it and realized it might need a stitch. She would know what to do.
Talon stood up with a heavy heart and went below to tell her what had happened.
*****
The next day, the Sea Eagle was hull down north of the island of Langkawi. It had not been too hard to persuade the prisoner to tell them everything he knew about the bay where the pirate ship used to be kept anchored, waiting for orders to sail out and attack merchant vessels that were on their way home to the Chinese or Arab countries.
Talon held a conference with Reza and the women. He included Yosef and Dar’an in the discussion.
Rav’an was adamantly against the sketchy plan. “I want to sail away as soon as possible and leave this accursed island and its evil owner behind,” she stated firmly.
“Why are you and Reza so set on revenge? “ she demanded. “Anything could go wrong, and then where will we be?”
It was a reasonable argument and Talon knew it.
“I think that in the heat of the moment I should have thought this through more carefully, but everyone was so full of anger, I made the decision,” he told her. “It’s too late now to go back on what we promised the crew. They are out for blood!”
“We cannot go back on our word to the crew, Rav’an,” Reza added his argument to that of Talon. “They want to avenge a man they admired and depended upon. I for one, want revenge on the man who gave them their orders, Lord Sing. He is murdering merchants and crews and stealing their cargoes. Yesterday he was prepared to take our ship and kill us all. What he had in mind for you does not bear thinking about. I am going to take revenge,” he said, with an unusually stubborn expression on his face.
Not even Jannat could dissuade him, so the meeting ended with Rav’an and Jannat declaring their unhappiness but agreeing to stay on the ship with Rostam while the men went onto the island.
Before they parted, Rav’an asked Talon to remain a little longer, and when they were gone she reached up to touch his cheek where the splinter had cut. He wore a crude patch over the cut and his right eye. “You look truly villainous, my Talon,” she said softly, her eyes concerned. “I was shocked at the devastation wrought by those dreadful engines of war last night.”
“I too, my Love. However, if we had not had them we would all be dead, or worse,” he responded. He reached for her and held her very close.
“You will make a fine captain, my Talon,” she whispered into his shoulder.
“We shall see, my Love. But ...” he stood back and smiled. “I shall have that scamp Rostam at my side to make sure I take all the readings properly. He will make a fine navigator one day.” They both laughed, the tension broken.
“Where is he, anyway?” Talon asked.
“He is on deck, where else? Probably telling the crew men how to clean up the appalling mess,” Rav’an said with a wan smile.
*****
Later that day, Reza and Talon had their own small but intense discussion at the after end of the ship.
“You know that you cannot lead this expedition, Talon?” Reza stated.
“Why ever not?” demanded Talon with a fierce look at his friend.
“Because you are the captain now, not just the owner, and it is your responsibility to stay with the ship in case anything goes wrong. If I get killed you can still sail away and make it home, but if you are killed then we will all be at the mercy of the men of this place.”
Talon gripped the railings till his knuckles were white and glared in the direction of the island, which could not now be seen from the deck. Reza was quite right, even if he doubted his ability to do all that the captain had done. It rankled, as he wanted very much to see Sing’s face just before he killed him. He was very angry over the death of Captain Dandachi, whom he had considered a good and trusted friend, but also over the other members of the crew: four good men lost, and many others wounded.
The captain had guided them without a hitch to China and held the ship together in a ferocious storm, which could have sunk Sea Eagle had he not been at the helm. Now he, Talon, was being looked up to by his own brother and the crew to take the Captain’s place, and to take them all home. Those were very large boots to fill. For a long moment he said nothing, and Reza waited silently by his side, watching the emotions play across his face. Finally, with a sigh, Talon lowered his head and turned to his friend.
“You are right, Brother. You must go, but I must stay.”
Reza embraced him and said, “Thank you, Captain! I wanted to see where your head was, Brother. As always, it is firmly on your shoulders. I shall take good men and we will do the work that is necessary. Have no fear of that.”
*****
Talon remained on deck for the rest of the day, supervising the cleanup of the ship and seeing to the wounded as well as preparations for the raid. He had Tarif oversee the shrouds for the dead and their readiness for burial at sea.
If he could not go with the landing party he wanted to make sure there was nothing to go wrong with their equipment. He had the crew bring several of the deadly Greek Fire pots on deck, prime them, and place them in straw in a sack to be carried ashore with the party. He supervised the training in the use of the Thunderbolt bombs. Dar’an, by now confident in their use, explained the operation of the bombs carefully to the men, who regarded them as one might a deadly snake. Observing the apprehension of the men, Talon decided to send Dar’an along with the landing party to make sure the bombs were used properly. The lad was no longer a boy; he had become a man without Talon even realizing it. Dar’an was ecstatic.
The difficulty lay not so much in carrying the dangerous items as in being able to light their fuses at the right time, and in time. The Chinese understood the need for fuses, but even to Talon’s uneducated eyes these were crude devices. The Chinese had warned him that they could fizzle out, leaving the wielder with a worthless missile, or flame too fast and blow up before the bomb could be jettisoned.
Talon left Dar’an to figure out how to deal with them. He now he had a ship to sail. Waqqas and Abdullah both interpreted his orders when it came to the actual sailing and when a change of course was needed.
The man they had captured, Hanji, had drawn a rough map of the island of Langkawi. The first thing Talon noted was the numerous smaller islands and outcroppings of rocks dotted along its coastline; the next were the inlets and beach areas, which looked like an enticing anchorage for a ship. He suggested this, but the prisoner told the two men squatting next to him that the island was thick with jungle and the pathways would be impossible to negotiate at night.
“How do we get to the castle by any other way?” Reza demanded; his natural impatience surfacing.
“You must sail to the south of the island and
come back up from the Southwest, Master,” Hanji told him. Talon had promised not to hang him if he told them everything. He had fallen on his knees in front of Talon, weeping with relief at the reprieve. Now he fell over himself to explain the geography of the complex island archipelago. “You must negotiate the channel to the west of the island of Dayang Bunting and go ashore a league before the town. I can take you along a well worn path that leads up the hill from the beach to the fortress itself, which is overlooking the town,” he told them.
“Can this be done at night?” Reza asked. His tone was skeptical.
Hanji looked up at the sky, which was normally cloudy at this time; it was late afternoon. “The rains will not come today, not even tomorrow if you wish to wait. While there may be clouds, there will be a half moon tonight, so we will be able to see enough to march by... and to sail,” he said.
“So now I have to sail this ship to an unknown place, in the dark, with pirate as a guide who might give us away at any moment. I must be mad,” Talon muttered to Abdullah as they stood on the steering deck, watching the men making preparations down on the main deck.
They raised sail as the sun set, and, with Waqqas assisting him, Talon took the ship several leagues to the west before the lookout told them that the island was out of sight. They then sailed the southern leg, hull down with the lookout keeping them just within sight of the island. They sailed for a good two hours in that direction, during which time night fell and, much to Talon’s relief, the half moon came out. They changed course to bring them close enough to make out the dark outline of the island from the deck. Clouds still moved across the moon, plunging them into darkness from time to time, but Hanji seemed confident that they were on the right course.
At one point he asked to go up to the top of the mast, where he studied the land mass. He came down to stand again with Talon next to the steersmen. “We should change course now, Captain,” he said.
The Dragon's Breath Page 52
