by Jon F. Merz
They hit the docks and headed straight for the raider ship. Ran could already see that Neviah was locked in a struggle with another sailor. He leapt onto the gangway and cut down another sailor who had started to come at him. The man toppled off the gangway and into the sea below.
Neviah used the distraction of Ran’s attack to throw her attacker and then plunged her dagger into his throat. He gurgled, and blood erupted from his throat before Neviah jerked the dagger free and kicked his lifeless body overboard. Ran heard the splash and then fell aboard the ship. Yuki followed.
“Is that the last one?”
Neviah nodded, looking tired. “Yes. Jysal is at the tiller.”
Kancho was back on the dock close to the gangway, locked in combat with two sailors. Ran watched them come at him from either side, but Kancho merely pinwheeled his blade and sliced them both apart at the seams. The men went down in a blossoming pool of blood, their knives clattering harmlessly away.
Kancho leapt onto the gangway. “The ropes!”
Ran cut through the thick hemp with his blade. Instantly, the raider ship started to pull away from the dock. Ran pointed at the oars. “We need to use them to get out to sea. Everyone grab a seat and pull for your lives!”
He slid into the closest rowing station and waited until Neviah was on the opposite side. “Ready?”
“Ready!”
“Heave!”
Both of their oars dipped into the sea, and they pulled as hard as they could. They were only two people, but Kancho and Yuki soon joined them while Jysal worked the steering. Fortunately, the current was slight, and their exertion brought immediate results. The raider ship’s prow headed off to the tunnel leading to the sea.
Ran saw the hand coming over the bulwark and immediately abandoned his post to take on the attacker. Somehow, one of the sailors must have found a spare length of rope trailing the boat and climbed aboard. He was a massive fellow, and as he came up the rope close to the bow, he jerked a wide-bladed sword out of his belt, hopped over the bulwark, and faced Ran.
Ran eased his sword out of his belt and faced the man. The sailor grinned. He was much bigger than Ran, and Ran saw the gleeful look on his face. Big fighters always underestimated men who were smaller than they were. And while their size might well be an advantage in some situations, the ship would not be one of them. Even as he came down and launched a chopping attack aimed at Ran’s head, Ran sidestepped and cut back horizontally, expecting his blade to cut deep into the man’s torso.
Instead, his blade met the sailor’s blade with a sharp clang. The surprise jolted Ran. The sailor was quicker than he’d thought he would be. Ran immediately corrected his technique, flipped his blade over, and made another horizontal cut at the man’s throat. The sailor ducked and kicked out at Ran, catching him in his upper thigh and barely missing Ran’s crotch.
“Not so easy to kill, little man,” grunted the sailor.
He drove in again, using his sword more like a shield to batter Ran back until they were both against the bulwark. Ran felt his grip loosening on his sword. He could see Kancho and Neviah both getting ready to come to his aid, but he shook his head.
“Keep rowing!”
He felt the sailor’s weight against him and knew the man would easily overpower him. Ran took a breath and dropped his sword. The movement caught the sailor’s eye, and he grinned.
Ran felt the weight come off just a bit, and that was all he needed. He jerked his hands up and over the sailor’s, clapping them both on the man’s ears and shattering his eardrums. The sailor shouted as the air pressure tore his eardrums apart and stumbled back. Ran followed up with a kick of his own to the man’s stomach, knocking him onto his back.
The sailor started to recover and draw himself up, but Ran never gave him the chance. He grabbed the sailor’s sword and brought the blade right down on his neck. There was a gout of blood, and then the sailor fell to one side. Ran dragged his body to the edge of the boat and dumped him over the side, listening to the huge splash the body made as it hit the sea.
Ran grabbed his sword and resumed his place on the rowing bench. They’d lost speed but were close to entering the tunnel that led to the sea. “Keep pulling,” said Ran. “We have to make it to the entrance.”
The oars creaked in their locks, rising and falling in steady time to the rhythm of their breaths. There was no need for anyone to call out the stroke. Desperation and a desire to escape drove them better than any drummer ever could. Ran looked overhead as the inner harbor receded and the tunnel leading to the open sea drew past above them.
Kancho grunted and kept rowing while Neviah glanced sideways at Ran. “I thought you were going to have some trouble dealing with that attacker.”
Ran nodded. “Big man. He was strong as an ox as well.”
“Your tactic worked,” said Neviah. “I liked the way you distracted him.”
“Sometimes all it takes is one moment to change the course of the fight.”
Neviah nodded. “That is a lesson he learned too late.”
“Better him than me,” said Ran.
“Skiff ahead!” shouted Jysal.
The skiff. Ran had forgotten about the two men Malkyr had sent into the tunnel to look for him. Not that it would matter much. The skiff was a tiny boat compared to the raider’s ship. They could simply sail right over them if they wished. But the tunnel was also narrow. If the men in the skiff managed to position themselves just so, there was a chance they could try to board the boat as well.
Neviah looked at Ran. “Let me handle this.”
Ran nodded. “All right.” He looked back at Yuki who sat on Ran’s side. “Ease off. Kancho and I will row for a bit.”
Neviah abandoned her station and rushed up to the bow.
“Port side,” called Jysal. “In the water ahead.”
Neviah pulled two daggers free from her belt and waited. “Get me closer,” she called.
Ran pulled hard on his oar and imagined the vessel cutting through the water as he did so, but with only two rowers, the sloop wasn’t going anywhere fast. Behind him, Kancho also rowed hard. The ship moved ahead slowly, and Ran watched as Neviah pulled her arm back and took aim. She launched a single dagger, and Ran heard the shriek as it hit. He heard a splash soon after.
Neviah glanced back. “The first one is dead.”
“Better finish them both,” said Ran.
Neviah threw her other dagger and got a similar result. As she came back down from the bow and resumed her place at the rowing bench, she smiled at Ran. “I never cared for those knives, anyway. They’re a far inferior blade to what I carried originally.”
“If we get out of this alive, I’ll buy you several new ones to replace the ones you lost when Kan-Gul took you hostage.”
“I’ll hold you to your word, Ran.”
Ran glanced back at Kancho. “We should almost be at the tunnel entrance. A few more pulls on these oars and we will break out into the open sea. Then we raise the sails and make for home.”
Kancho nodded. “Home would be a welcome sight.”
But Ran wondered if it really would be. Kancho had broken his vows to come and rescue his daughter. Would the Murai look favorably upon that? He doubted they would. In all likelihood, Kancho would be put to death for his crimes. The Murai did not tolerate violations like what Kancho had committed. Duty to one’s lord always came first, and certainly always before family. Kancho had defied that, and he was certain to pay for his transgression.
He could have run away, of course, but being Murai, Kancho would face his punishment square on. Plus, he would warn the other warlords of the impending invasion. Ran couldn’t fault him for that sense of duty, but he wished there were another way for Kancho to deal with the Murai.
The current picked up, and Ran could feel the boat starting to float faster now as the channel clearly deepened and the tide started to grab at the raider ship. A few more minutes, he thought, and they would be away from these terrible lands. The thought of freedo
m made him smile. There would be another time and place to deal with Kan-Gul and his undead Chekhal hordes. Let the universe decide when and where, he thought. I will see to it that he meets his demise.
“Ran!”
Jysal’s voice snapped him back to the present. Ran glanced back. “What is it?”
“You’d better look at this.”
Ran frowned but moved off the bench quickly and headed up to where Jysal stood at the stern. She had a view of the water ahead of them that they could not see from the rowing bench. As soon as he reached her position, Ran understood why she had called him up there.
“That’s not good.”
Ahead of them, Ran could see the opening that led to the open sea. Unfortunately, between them and freedom was a giant metal portcullis with thick steel teeth that descended from the rock above deep into the sea below. The wooden timbers looked as thick as trees, and the steel was as wide across as two hands.
“It looks impenetrable,” said Jysal.
Ran nodded and then called down to the bench. “Stop rowing.”
Kancho looked at him like he was crazy. But Ran pointed ahead. “There’s a gate. And right now, it looks like there’s no way we can get through it.”
“No!”
Ran nodded. “We’re trapped.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ran tried to think.
The raider ship slowed to a crawl, drifting on the current that continued to carry it closer toward the huge portcullis. This far down the tunnel, the chaos of the scene back at the docks seemed distant. Ran could hear shouts and cries as the sailors tried to figure out how to give chase, but at least right now, he had some time to work through this particular problem.
The portcullis was not something he would be able to handle on his own. Obviously, the gate offered significant security to the ships it berthed in the inner harbor. That meant there must be some sort of trigger system for raising and lowering it. Ran couldn’t remember seeing any sort of pulley system or pull-chain device that would have controlled the portcullis back on the docks. And he’d seen quite a bit of the place during his infiltration and escape from the ship—the same ship he now stood on.
So if the portcullis control wasn’t back at the docks, then where would it be? Out here by the gate itself? Would that make sense? Not likely. Any invading ship could simply dispatch a few sailors to take control of the device and open up the harbor anytime they wanted.
No, he decided, it had to be elsewhere.
That revelation didn’t particularly buoy his spirits. It meant that they were effectively trapped unless a miracle happened and the portcullis started rising on its own accord. Otherwise, they were going to have to abandon their plan of sailing out of here.
Kancho came up on the deck and stared at the huge gate. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get through that?”
“I’m sure there is,” said Ran. “But I haven’t got the vaguest notion where the control is for it.”
“Could we get through those gaps in the gate?”
“They’re pretty small,” said Ran. “We could maybe manage to squeeze through ourselves, but the ship’s not coming with us. And once we get beyond that gate, we’d be bobbing in the swells and the coast is lined with jagged rocks. Any wave could cast us against the rocks and kill us. That is, if the sharks out there don’t get us first.”
“Or that beast we battled on the way in to the coast.”
Ran nodded. “Fair point.” He sighed. “I don’t know what to do. If we stay here, Malkyr will send sailors and take us all prisoner. If we swim for it, we’ll have other problems to deal with.” He looked at Kancho. “I’d appreciate any wisdom you might have on this.”
Kancho smiled. “One route leads to guaranteed capture and presumably death at the hands of a man with no honor. The other leads to probable death from dangerous beasts and the forces of nature.” He shrugged. “I’d rather take my chances with the sharks and waves than I would give Malkyr the satisfaction of killing us.”
“So, overboard?”
“Overboard.”
“Fair enough.” Ran turned and waved Neviah up to the deck. “We’re going to abandon the ship and swim through those gaps in the portcullis.”
“You want us to get into this water and take our chances with sharks?”
“It’s either that or wait here until Malkyr comes and kills us. He’s got a lot more men than we can handle.”
“I thought you were the clever one here.”
Ran grinned. “Meaning what?”
“All we’ve seen you do is steal around places, move without making noise, disappear from sight almost at will. And now you’re telling us to jump into the sea to avoid the enemy when another option seems perfectly viable to me.”
Ran frowned. “You’d better explain.”
Neviah pointed at the portcullis. “What if we make it appear that we followed your plan and swam through the openings in the portcullis, but instead we hide out belowdecks until they opened the gate and then reemerge?”
“There aren’t many places to hide five people down there.”
“You managed it.”
“I’m trained to do it,” said Ran. “And hiding one person is a lot easier than five.”
“All the more reason why they won’t suspect anything tricky. At least not at first.”
Ran eyed the portcullis. “We could leave a scrap of clothing in the gap to entice them further.”
“Yes.”
“You know,” said Ran, “you’re a pretty clever warrior yourself.”
Neviah shrugged. “I’ve been watching you. And learning.”
“All right, let’s do this. We don’t have much time. You and the others head down into the cargo compartment and hide yourselves as best you can. It will be absolutely imperative that you make no noise. You need to be in a position that you can hold for a long time in case we end up waiting. So don’t bother with crazy acrobatic positions and the like. Find some place you can lie down and rest if need be.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ran pointed. “Tear off a strip of your tunic and I’ll swim over and place it just so. It will be visible enough to lead them to think we swam out. Hopefully, they’ll take the bait and raise the gate to pursue us. Once they do, we can come out of our hiding places and resume our escape.”
Neviah tore a piece of her tunic and handed it to Ran. “You’ll swim back once you place the cloth?”
“We’ll see. It depends on how long it takes me. Also, if I come back aboard dripping wet, they might spot the water from my clothes. And we can bet that they will do at least a cursory inspection of this boat to make sure we’re not hiding. So it’s vital you are all well-hidden. Understood?”
“I’ll get the others squared away.” She turned and headed down to the decks below with the others.
Ran lowered himself into the water by one of the ropes at the bow. The sea water here was colder than in the inner harbor, but he wasn’t too concerned about sharks. The portcullis looked like it extended all the way to the bottom of the channel, and its gaps would inhibit most larger fish from getting through unless they were really determined to squeeze through the gaps. Still, Ran didn’t want to be in the water any longer than necessary.
He swam quickly toward the portcullis and positioned the strip of cloth to make it look like one of the nails had caught it and torn it free. He swam back and eyed it. It looked natural enough, he thought. Time to find his own hiding spot.
Ran slid through the water back toward the raider ship. The walls of the channel were worn smooth by the water and offered little in terms of concealment. Ran’s best option was to either reboard the ship or stay in the water.
Noises behind him made him decide.
He turned and saw several skiffs racing toward the raider ship. He frowned, took a breath, and dove deep. He hoped Neviah and the others had taken his advice and hidden themselves well, otherwise they were going to be captured shortly, whe
n Malkyr’s men boarded the boat.
From the bottom of the channel, Ran peered up and watched the skiffs pass by him. He swam back behind the search line and surfaced around a small bend that afforded him a view of the raider ship and the skiffs. From his vantage point, Ran watched one muscular man with a thick beard directing several teams.
“You two get on that boat and see if anyone’s there.”
Two men from the skiff closest to the raider ship clambered up one of the ropes, taking their time on the approach. They were both armed with the shorter, broader swords that Ran had seen other sailors wearing. While they boarded the ship, another skiff approached the portcullis.
“Sir!”
“What is it?”
Ran saw one of the sailors holding up the strip from Neviah’s tunic. Ran nodded. Take the bait, he thought.
“It looks like they might have gone through the gate and taken their chances outside the harbor.”
“Fools,” snapped the man on the skiff. “They’ll be chewed up out there.” He glanced back in Ran’s direction, and the Shinobujin froze where he was, resisting the temptation to dive. A move like that would only draw the man’s attention, and Ran doubted he was looking at the spot where he bobbed, anyway.
“Malkyr will want to know for sure. We’ll have to go out.”
Ran’s eyes caught movement on the main deck of the raider ship. One of the two men who had boarded it hailed the boss in the skiff. “No sign of them anywhere on board here, sir.”
Ran smiled in spite of himself. The timing of the discovery of the cloth on the portcullis had probably been overheard by the men searching the boat and would help to convince them there was no one on board the raider ship. So far so good.
The bearded boss pointed at the men in another skiff. “Raise the gate. We’re going out.” And then he looked back at the men who had boarded the raider ship. “Stand by on that vessel. We’ll be coming aboard so we can search the waters outside here better. Grab the ropes!”
The two men on the raider ship scrambled to the stern and bow and started hauling the ropes up. Ran felt a twinge in his stomach. Those ropes were his only way back on to the ship. If they hauled them all aboard, he’d have no way of getting on the boat, and he’d be left here in the channel.
