Blood of the Falcon, Volume 2 (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

  “Ill?” Athna said before she could stop herself. “Forgive me, Admiral.”

  Beryr sat up straighter. “Speak, Captain.”

  “Before I left Graynor, I had an audience with Her Majesty, my Aunt Pa’ella. She said she only just finished a letter of condolences to Her Grace, the Duchess Rhoslyn.”

  Beryr sank back into his chair, expelling a sigh like a whale blowing air. “The poor child.”

  As if Athna wasn’t intimidated enough, she felt compelled to offer words of condolences, but she had none. Beryr rose and opened one of the windows in the stern. A cold rush of wind ruffled the velvet drapes and charts. “He would have been proud of the work we’ve done here. And we’ll keep it that way, Captain. Won’t we?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “What are your orders?”

  “To return to His Majesty with your confirmation, sir.”

  “A long way, a lot of wasted man-hours, just to deliver a message.”

  “The king wanted you to be absolutely clear on his alliance. If I do not return to him, he will assume I have sunk and send another messenger, and waste still more.”

  Beryr waved a hand in dismissal. “If you happen to cross paths with a Fieran on your way home, you’ll give him a message or two from me, eh?”

  Athna grinned. “Happily.”

  ~~~~

  Tacking into the north winds made for a slow return home. If it had taken the Bane three days to reach Galdan Bay, Athna estimated at least six until the ports at Graynor came within view. Struggling around the jagged sea stacks off Tempest Rock, the Bane passed one of the smaller, swift brigs headed south. Was this the ship manned by pirates? Athna couldn’t tell. Rather than the customary pirate flag with the crossed cutlasses, it was the duchess’s red and silver banner that snapped from the brig’s rigging.

  On the afternoon of the fifth day, the smoking remnants of the Fieran ports at Brathnach drifted past. Likely, Shadryk’s merchants had been caught trying to sneak goods in and out the backdoor. Attacking a pirate’s ship was one thing, Athna pondered, but aiming her ballistae at civilians was another. Watching the burned roofs slip by, she decided it wasn’t a matter of caring nothing for men, women, and children, but having the guts to obey an uncomfortable order. “Do I have the courage?” she asked herself.

  “Pardon, Cap’n?” asked Wyllan, who leaned on the rail scrutinizing the ruined ports.

  “Was the king right, sending me away from the rest of the fleet?”

  Wyllan’s head cocked. “You’re a decorated sailor, Cap’n. Of course, he was right.”

  That night the Pirate’s Bane passed the lighthouse on Stony Point, entering the home waters of Brynlea Bay. The cliffs of Queen’s Coast lay a good day’s sailing dead ahead, and deterred some of the harshness of the northern gales. Ice clung to the rigging; curly, windblown icicles pointed the way back south. The men on duty blew on their fingers before they shimmied up the ratlines, but it was the three men keeping watch in the mastheads that had the least enviable job. Blood froze sitting still that long. Athna brushed flecks of frost from her coat while she strolled the deck and kept an eye on the hour candle sheltered in the binnacle. At midnight, she personally chimed the bell to announce the rotating of the watch. If Captain herself was out in the cold to ring the bell, the best the men could do was wake and climb to the coldest place under the moons.

  Shortly after the turn of midwatch, the sailor atop the foremast cried, “Eldritch lights, Cap’n!”

  Confounded, Athna searched for signs of a storm on the horizon, or a ship drifting past with its lanterns blazing. Moonlight glittered across the crests of slow-rolling billows. Was the sailor mad? “Where away?” she asked.

  “Dead ahead, Cap’n.”

  A faint ruddy halo past the bowsprit bled up from the horizon. Athna monkeyed up the mizzenmast shrouds and gathered her coordinates by measuring the position of the lighthouse on Queen’s Head, only a star-like point in the night, and the lighthouse on Stony Point, a full-bodied flame to stern. Dread as icy as the air slid into her gut. The ruddy halo could be coming from only one place. “Mother above,” she muttered with frozen lips. “Graynor.”

  Dropping to the deck, Athna clanged the bell like mad. “All hands!” she shouted down the pipe. The ship came alive with increasing fervor. The boatswain enjoyed his job and flicked a short, knotted rope to motivate the men up the gangways. The fifty Hellbenders gathered smartly into lines below the quarterdeck.

  Wyllan joined Athna near the wheel, fingers struggling with the buttons of his coat. “Enemy ships?”

  “I don’t know,” Athna admitted. “Graynor burns. Whether Fierans are at fault, we will lend our aid.” She apprised the officers and crew, extra sails dropped, and the Pirate’s Bane tacked more sharply north. Regardless, hers was a slow, cumbrous charge. Athna opened her spyglass; the fiery glow remained steady throughout the night. As dawn approached, the glow dimmed and billows of smoke appeared against the sky. Slowly the horizon rolled back and the city emerged from the sea. The royal palace, sprawling across its long, low hill looked unharmed, and the smoke was too dense to determine how much of the city had burned.

  “The fleet, Captain!” cried Wyllan, peering through a spyglass of his own. Half of Leania’s ships had been ready to sail when the Pirate’s Bane left port. The other half prepared to join their sisters out in the harbor. They never made it. How many had burned? How man had rolled onto their sides and lay like boulders against the quay? Athna had trouble picking them out of the smoke. The fires appeared to have spread from the ships to the warehouses, and from there into the city. Pandemonium ruled Graynor’s streets now. Even from this distance, Athna glimpsed people running through the smoke.

  A Fieran war galleon cruised the harbor, green banners flying boastfully. No way for the Bane to slip in and look for survivors. Outside the breakwater that guarded the harbor, fourteen more Fieran ships engaged what remained of Leania’s fleet, surrounding them like a swarm of sharks. Fire streaked across the dawn as ballistae launched garrots wrapped in oil-soaked twine. Sails caught flame and curled up, flapping wildly. Men in orange leapt from one ship to another, sabers flashing. The Hellbenders aboard what appeared to be Admiral Warris’s ship led the boarding party onto a Fieran galleon locked to her side.

  “How did this many ships slip past the blockade?” Athna muttered. Oh, for a way to get word to Beryr.

  “Do we engage, Captain?” asked Wyllan.

  Across the quarterdeck, the sailing master, boatswain, surgeon and other officers stared at her, waiting for her order.

  “We don’t have any choice but to engage,” said second mate Rannil. “Our people need us. Best, the Fierans haven’t spotted us yet. We have surprise on our side. We could pummel the nearest with anvil-heads before she’s aware.”

  A Fieran galleon broke away from her sisters and turned her prow toward the Pirate’s Bane. A garrot streaked toward the Bane’s broadside, plunked short into the sea.

  “We just lost our advantage, Rannil,” Athna said, “and he’s got the wind. Stations!” Orders rang out. Men scrambled to the ten ballistae on the main deck and down to the twenty-two on the deck below. To her mates, Athna said, “With the wind against us, we’ll tack sharp as we can, rake that bitch on her portside, then turn hard and bear south. Maybe we can drag a few more Fierans south with us, give Admiral Warris a chance to recover.”

  “And lead them into the line of Evaronnan ships behind us,” Wyllan said.

  “Precisely.”

  He and Rannil prepared the crew.

  The Bane veered slowly to the west, while the Fieran galleon bore down on her, lobbing garrots. Several grazed the freeboard now, some stuck deep and scorched the planks. Men scrambled to douse fires in the lower sails. The Bane’s ballistae thunked, flinging garrots in return.

  The closer the Fieran galleon sailed, the darker Athna’s dread. The ship flew a commander’s flag below the White Falcon’s banner, and she boasted two ballista decks ins
tead of one. Silver letters along her prow announced her as the Shadow. “Madon,” she breathed. If her men realized they faced the legendary Shadow of the Seas, would they lose heart?

  The two young mates of the weapons officer scurried onto the quarterdeck, tossing crossbows and quivers to each of the officers. Athna cranked back the bow, slotted a bolt, and cried down the pipe, “Rake her low!”

  Madon’s flagship slid past, twenty feet away. The Bane’s portside ballistae thudded, releasing anvil-heads the full length of the flagship. Madon had the same thing in mind. Garrots hammered into the oak planks. Bolts from crossbows whistled past Athna’s ears. She pulled the trigger; a Fieran grabbed his neck and fell.

  Then the ships were clear. Athna’s sailing master turned the wheel hard to port, obeying her orders without complaint, now that they mattered most. The Bane cut a long scythe across the Shadow’s wake, and her sails filled with the north wind. Swinging past the melee, her starboard ballistae launched flaming garrots at the Fierans hemming in the Leanian fleet. They had only the one chance before the Bane was out of position and bounding away south.

  Athna raised her spyglass. Two Fieran galleons pulled away from the swarm to take up the chase, and Madon’s flagship turned slowly south. Raking her hull hadn’t debilitated her as Athna had hoped, but at least Madon had given up the attack on her people. How many of his men would see him sailing away and take it as a sign to sail for home?

  Once, the goal of naval warfare had been to burn sails and masts, making a vessel unable to maneuver, an easy prize that was towed home. But with the advent of the anvil-headed garrot, the goal changed. Sink the enemy, and good riddance. Bano’en’s engineers had tried to develop ways of armoring his ships while minimizing weight and drag; so far they were unsuccessful. Had the Fierans discovered a way? Athna had glimpsed three or four Fieran ships sunk in Graynor’s harbor, she was sure of it. Regardless, Madon kept pace, sailing in tight formation a little behind the other two warships. One was the Storm; the other was the Falcon’s Victory.

  Athna’s carpenter hurried to the main deck, wringing his hat in his fists. “Captain, a pair of Madon’s anvil-heads punched through the freeboard. Below the waterline. We’re taking on water.”

  “How much?”

  “The men are bailing fast as they can, and me and my mate are working to repair the damage. But one of the planks splintered pretty bad. It will take some time.”

  “Keep me appraised.” Bad as the carpenter’s report sounded, Athna wasted no time worrying. The Bane had been battered before. Somehow the nefarious Zalka Krim, smuggler and Captain of the Sinister, had gotten his hands on a few anvil-heads, and during Athna’s second engagement, he managed to smash through the Bane’s freeboard before Athna’s crew boarded his brig and took the lot prisoner.

  She took up position at the taffrail and kept her eye on the three Fieran ships.

  “Cap’n,” Wyllan said softly. “There’s half a league between us and them. You should rest. Did you sleep at all last night?”

  “Nap after supper,” she replied sharply enough to indicate that she did not appreciate the paternal advice. “These are not pirates who attack and flee, Wyllan. There’s a determined, crazy son of a bitch after us, and he won’t give up.”

  “All the more reason—”

  “How many men were wounded in our little debacle?”

  “A dozen or so, I think.”

  “Go find out, Lieutenant.”

  Wyllan bowed stiffly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  All morning, the Fierans trailed the Bane across Brynlea Bay, and slowly the distance closed. By the time they passed the lighthouse on Stony Point in early afternoon, the Fierans had come within a quarter of a league. The crew continued to pump water below decks. “Rannil,” Athna called.

  The second mate snapped a spyglass closed and approached.

  “Any sight of the blockade yet?”

  “No, Captain. We’re on the lookout.” He was a formal, no-nonsense young man who preferred to stand at-ease whenever she addressed him. The respect he extended to his superiors would carry him far.

  “As soon as an Evaronnan ship is spotted, send up a lighted garrot as a distress signal. In the meantime, all sails, even the moonrakers, and secure the extra stays to the masts.”

  Rannil cast a furtive glance over the taffrail and asked no questions. “Aye, Captain.”

  It took the crew a painful amount of time to fix the outer booms and raise the studding sails, skysails and moonrakers, canvas that was only used in times of calm seas and little wind, or in times of emergency. Backstays were added to the masts to keep them from snapping under the strain.

  Peering through the spyglass again, Athna swore. The flagship spread more canvas as well. The Shadow of the Seas had no intention of letting the Bane escape. The others followed suit. Where were the bloody Evaronnan ships?

  Within the hour, the Falcon’s Victory sailed into range. A pair of flames flanked her bowsprit and took flight. They became a blur in the spyglass as they sped toward the Bane. One garrot dropped into the sea and fizzled out; the other burrowed into the stern’s freeboard beside the rudder.

  “Stations!” Athna bellowed. Her men, exhausted from pumping water and fixing the extra rigging, hurried to their assigned ballistae. Some scrambled up from the hold with bundles of garrots in their arms, while the weapons officer passed out crossbows for the second time. “Distress signal,” Athna ordered the man at the nearest ballista. “Maybe there’s an Evaronnan ship close enough to see it.” A twine-wrapped garrot was dipped into a bucket of pitch and lighted. The men swiveled the great bow until it pointed almost straight up, and a Hellbender gave the order to loose. The garrot arched high, streaking the sky with black smoke, then plunked down into the sea. “Another,” Athna ordered. Could the men hear the worry climbing into her voice?

  A garrot with Fieran green fletching ripped through the mizzen topsail. The flame ate quickly upward. A second punched through the portside studding sail. Men drew water from the sea, a bucket at a time, and tossed it toward the fires, doing little good. As if the hull taking on water wasn’t bad enough, the Bane would lose wind now, too.

  The two ballistae in the Bane’s stern returned fire. Garrots scorched the air, and the Victory caught them as smoothly as a child running up beneath a tossed ball. A jib and a foresail blazed. A third flew wide, but a fourth must have landed in a tub of pitch, for fire leapt up from the forecastle deck.

  “Anvil-heads!” Athna cried as the range closed. “Sink her!”

  The men in the stern eagerly loaded the heavy-headed shafts into the ballistae’s channels and cranked back the arms. “Loose!” cried the Hellbenders. Only one anvil-head reached its target, but it skidded off the rounded planks of the hull. “Reload!” ordered the Hellbenders. The Fierans loosed their own anvil-heads. Glass shattered as one sailed through the windows of the wardroom, two decks down. Another struck the stern at the waterline, the ideal target. The hole gulped water, and Athna called to no one in particular, “Plug that up!”

  “Aye, aye,” answered half a dozen men, and they scurried down the hatch.

  The fire in the mizzen topsail billowed up to claim the topgallant and royal sails as well. Burning scraps of canvas flapped loose in the wind, igniting the main topsail. Fire ate along the ropes, chewing through them and turning them into blazing whips. Men screamed and leapt away from flailing flames. The Victory fared no better. Her remaining sails furled, and she dropped out of the race.

  The Bane slowed to a crawl. Madon’s flagship slipped up alongside. Her ballistae launched forty-four anvil-heads at the Bane’s portside planks. Wood thudded and crunched. Sailors below shrieked in pain. The Bane returned the assault. Cheers rose from the deck below; some of the ballista crews must have seen their garrots strike their target. Athna emptied her crossbow, once, twice, three times before the Shadow sailed past.

  Lieutenant Rannil called from the waist, “We caught several below the waterline, Captai
n!” Fresh blood darkened the sleeve of his coat. Gritting his teeth, he tugged out the Fieran bolt, loaded his crossbow and loosed it at the Shadow’s stern in revenge.

  At Athna’s side, Lieutenant Wyllan cranked back another. “We’ve done what we set out to do, Captain. Shall we surrender the ship?”

  “You heard what Madon did to the crews of the two ships he captured during the Tempest Conflict—”

  “Aye, my uncle was one of the crew.”

  “I have no desire to hang from a yardarm as he did, Wyllan.”

  He exhaled, resolved to the accept the alternative.

  “Look,” Athna said. “The Shadow is turning for another pass.”

  And where was the Storm? The spyglass showed her holding back to stern. Why? What order had Madon passed to her captain? Athna tried to decipher the message flags flying from the Shadow’s shrouds, but the Fierans had developed a different system of communication than the Leanian navy; the flags were meaningless to her. The Shadow hooked slowly around. When her bow faced the Bane, Athna grinned and said, “She’s listing to starboard. We got her, boys.”

  Wyllan relayed the message down the pipe. The ballista crews cheered wildly. “Madman, he is,” Wyllan added, rejoining Athna near the rail. “He’s still not willing to give up and go home.”

  “Why should he?” Athna said. “We’re dead in the water till we get our holes plugged. He may mean to board us. Have the boys pass out sabers.” Kill Madon and his officers, and the Bane might carry the day yet. But for the strange silence from the Storm, Athna’s confidence rose. Was the other crew ordered to stay back and act as witness to the battle? Athna couldn’t decide. There was no figuring the tactics of Admiral Madon, she recalled.

  Spyglass pressed hard to her eye, Athna saw the Shadow letting out more sail instead of dragging it in. If her crew meant to board, the Shadow ought to be slowing down, not speeding up. Skimming past the Bane’s bow made little sense, as there was less of a target for her ballistae. What was Madon thinking? “The drunkard,” Athna muttered. “If Madon doesn’t turn a few degrees, he’ll—” Her heart plummeted. “Wyllan! Get the men out of the rigging, secure all ballistae, and have everyone move to starboard.