by Джеффри Лорд
Blade sprang to his feet, looking around for something he could use to cut himself free or at least to defend himself. He didn’t know what the exploding cannon might have done to Kukon’s fighting men. He doubted if there were enough of them left to defend her against the boarders.
In the smoke and confusion he saw Dzhai making his way along the port gangway. He had a sword thrust into his belt and his axe over his shoulder. Blade cupped his hands and shouted. Dzhai turned and stared. Blade shouted again, waving one hand furiously.
Dzhai nodded, and the axe flashed in the gloom as he swung it over his head. Then it was flying through the air toward Blade, settling into his hand as neatly as a homing bird.
Chapter 14
Blade knew he had to work fast. Nothing, not even a pirate boarding party, would keep a slavemaster or an officer from killing a slave he saw trying to escape. A live man was lying across the heavy iron ring in the deck to which Blade’s chain was attached. Blade prodded the man in the ribs, not gently. He rolled clear.
Blade went to work, hacking away furiously at the deck. Splinters flew and the wood began to gape white around the ring.
Blade shifted his grip on the axe, now smashing the back of the head against the ring. Bit by bit, he felt it loosening. He dropped the axe and bent down to grip the ring with both hands. Every muscle and every breath in Blade’s body went into a single tremendous heave. Torn wood groaned, strained metal protested, and the ring sprang out of the deck so suddenly that Blade nearly lost his balance and sprawled backward again.
He stayed on his feet and snatched up the axe from the deck. «Here,» he said, thrusting it into the hands of the nearest slave. The man gaped at Blade, gaped at the axe, then suddenly realized what he held in his hands and started hacking away at the deck as furiously as Blade had done.
So far no one had noticed Blade, either pirates or Kukon’s own fighters, but that might change at any moment. Blade looked around for a weapon. All of the living fighters were on the starboard gangway, and none of the bodies lay anywhere near Blade.
As he looked around, he saw an eight-foot length of shattered oar lying almost at his feet. He picked it up and swung it experimentally. It wasn’t a perfect weapon, but it was the best he could do and anybody he hit with it wasn’t going to get up again for a while. Blade lifted the oar in both hands, raising it high over his head. Then he advanced into the battle, the chain on his ankle clattering behind him.
He reached the starboard side just as the first pirate leaped across onto an undefended portion of the gangway. Blade let out a yell and charged. The pirate saw a gigantic, naked figure charge out of the smoke at him, a figure smeared from head to foot with soot and blood, whirling a broken oar around his head like a straw and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
The pirate stopped in midstride, his mouth open and his sword frozen over his head. If he didn’t die of fright in that moment, he died seconds later as Blade swung the oar. The lead-weighted end crashed against the pirate’s skull and he vanished over the side as if he’d dissolved into the smoke.
Blade sprang up onto the gangway and thrust the oar forward. The splintered end caught a pirate in the mouth as he clambered over his own ship’s bulwarks. He roared an oath through smashed teeth and tried to climb back to safety. Blade whirled the oar end for end, smashing it down on the man’s shoulder. He screamed, lost his grip, and splashed into the water between the two ships.
A third pirate sprang into view. He held a loaded musket, swinging the muzzle toward Blade. Blade jabbed forward with the weighted end of the oar and caught the pirate in his unprotected stomach. The man gasped and toppled over backward. The musket clattered to the deck beside him and went off with a bang. Blade threw the oar into the murk ahead of him, then leaped after it onto the pirate galley’s deck. He had always been a believer in carrying the fight to the enemy.
The pirate who’d carried the musket was gasping and trying to sit up. Blade chopped him across the throat with the edge of his right hand. Someone in the smoke fired at Blade, sending a ball whistling close over his head. Blade dropped flat on the deck, in case there were more muskets out there. With his left hand he groped for the fallen oar. Two pirates loomed above him. Blade swung the oar like a scythe across their legs. They yelled and fell forward. Blade jumped up as they fell, landing with all his weight on one man’s back. He kicked the other one in the head, took a good two-handed grip on the oar, and sprang forward.
How many men Blade killed or drove over the side of the pirate galley in the next few minutes, he never knew. He could not even have made an intelligent guess to save his life. Somehow he swept the pirate’s deck from end to end, with nothing but a broken oar, his own colossal strength made greater by his rage, and the sheer terror he inspired in the pirates.
As Blade cleared the pirate’s deck, her boarding party died one by one at the hands of Kukon’s fighting men and a growing number of freed slaves. Eventually Blade found himself standing on the enemy’s deserted deck, looking back over a litter of corpses toward Kukon. Kukon’s captain and the bearded man stood side by side, staring back at him.
A voice Blade recognized as Dzhai’s began shouting for the rowers to get back to work. Blade heard the rattle and splash of oars being run out. He ran back along the pirate’s deck and sprang aboard Kukon just as she pulled clear of the enemy. Looking over the side, he saw the pirate’s ram break free and remain stuck in Kukon’s side. Good. That would help to plug the leak until they could work out something better.
Now the rowers bent to their oars with a strength Blade would not have thought was left in them. He noticed that a good many slaves now stood at bow and stern, holding swords, bows, and muskets. A good many sailors and soldiers, on the other hand, now strained over oars. There were no live slavemasters anywhere in sight, and only two dead ones on the deck. Blade was not surprised at that, nor did he much care. The slavemasters would not be missed.
Kukon backed slowly away from her derelict enemy. Blade started forward, looking for Dzhai. It was time to get a party down into the hold to check the leak from the ramming. A bucket brigade would probably be enough for the moment.
As he moved, Blade looked out across the water. As hard as he strained his eyes, he could see almost nothing except a swirling, gray-white murk, with orange flame flaring up briefly here and there. Once he thought he saw the dim bulk of a ship, distorted and wavering, but he couldn’t be sure of that or of anything else he saw in the smoke. It was as if a fogbank had risen from the sea to swallow up the rest of the battle.
Blade was hardly going to complain about that. He would be quite happy if all the rest of both fleets stayed swallowed up in their own smoke for several hours. That would give Kukon time enough to get away, repair some of her damage, sort out her mixed crew, and be ready to flee or fight again.
Blade reached the galley’s stern, noticed that the cabins had been shattered by the exploding gun, and looked forward again. The beat of the oars quickened. Now he recognized Dzhai on the foc’sle, supervising a crew working to remount the two disabled guns. He had the axe stuck in his belt now, along with the sword, to leave himself a hand free.
Then a gun boomed in the smoke and a ball whistled low over the sea, skipping off the water in a burst of spray and sailing only feet over Kukon’s deck. Blade controlled the urge to duck, looked off to starboard, and swore.
A pirate galley was closing fast on Kukon, racing along in a cloud of foam and spray. She was apparently undamaged except for the loss of her masts, and her guns were all manned. More men were lined up on her deck, ready to board when the moment came. She was closing in to ram Kukon on the already damaged starboard side. Kukon could not move fast enough to escape the blow and she could hardly survive a second ramming, even if she could fight off another boarding party.
Blade stopped swearing. It was a waste of breath. The pirate galley had to be stopped or slowed, and the guns were the only way to do it. Blade ran forward, leaping a gap in
the gangway, and reached the foc’sle. The bearded man was yelling at the rowers, and Kukon was already beginning to swing around to meet the enemy bows-on. They wouldn’t be able to avoid the ramming that way, but they would make it easier for the bow guns to bear.
Blade ran up to Dzhai and jerked a thumb at the heavy gun. «Loaded?» Dzhai nodded. Blade snatched up a handspike, rammed it under the gun carriage, and began heaving the gun around. Half a dozen men leaped to join him, sweating and swearing. Slowly the gun moved. Finally Blade could look along the barrel straight at the center gun on the foc’sle of the oncoming pirate ship. Her gunners had stopped firing and were lying down on the deck. Apparently they now expected the ramming and the boarders to do all the work.
Blade lit a length of slowmatch and waited, as the enemy ship grew steadily larger. He was only going to get one shot, and he had to make it a good one.
The pirate ship was only two hundred yards away when Blade decided his moment had come. He sprang to one side of the gun, thrusting the match down into the touchhole as he did. The gun went off with an earthquake roar, leaped backward, and crashed halfway through the bulwarks. It hung precariously for a moment, then slipped overboard with a crackling of shattered wood and a tremendous splash.
Seconds later a thundering explosion made Blade spin around. Another second, and an even bigger shock wave knocked him and everybody else on the foc’sle flat on the deck. Blade tasted blood from a split lip and a battered nose, rose to his hands and knees, and looked toward the pirate ship.
A tremendous cloud of smoke was still rising from the spot where she had been. Out of the smoke rained oars, planks, guns, ropes, and human bodies. A charred block of wood clattered down on Kukon’s deck and rolled against Blade. A human arm, the hand still wearing a leather glove, struck Dzhai on the back. He picked it up with a sour look and threw it over the side.
Blade had aimed his shot to smash down the length of the enemy’s deck, slaughtering rowers and boarders. Instead, his aim and good luck had put his shot squarely into the magazine.
Now the smoke was drifting aside, merging into the general murk hanging over the sea. Blade could see the pirate galley again. The forward third of her hull was blown off clear down to the water line. As he watched, he saw the charred timbers of the bow dip under. Then the water climbed up the deck, the stern rose, and the whole black hull slipped down out of sight. Foam bubbled up for a moment; then there was nothing left but a mass of drifting wreckage and a hundred or so heads, dark against the silver-blue water. Beyond the heads Blade could already see the upthrust gray fins of approaching sharks. Sharks, he’d read, were attracted by vibrations and explosions in the water. There’d certainly been enough of those around here today. Anybody who found himself swimming here and now would be very lucky to get to shore. Blade stood up, helped Dzhai to his feet, then turned to the bearded man and the captain.
Blade noticed that the captain still wore his sword and armor. His face was now gray with fatigue and dirt.
The bearded man turned to the captain and said, «Cap’n-ye ken be w’ us effen y’ wish. Weel na fight w’ ye now.» The man looked up at Blade and Dzhai. Blade nodded. If the captain could be trusted, why not let him come with them? He’d fought well today and they all owed him much. Besides, it was time to bring the killing to an end.
After a moment, Dzhai also nodded. It was the captain who shook his head. «Thank you-gentlemen, may I call you? The offer does you honor. But a man who has survived today’s battle will not be in the Emperor’s favor. One who has also lost his ship to its rowers will be still less so. And there is my family’s fate to consider, as well as my own. You know the ways of His Magnificence.»
The captain drew off his helmet and laid it and his sword down on the deck. «I have sons who should by custom receive these. I ask you to do what you can for them. Farewell, and safe voyaging.» Without another word he turned, climbed onto the bulwarks, and stepped off into the air. The splash as he struck the water sounded unnaturally loud in Blade’s ears.
At least the captain’s armor would draw him down quickly. The sharks would have no chance at him.
Blade sighed and turned to the other men. «Come on,» he said, with a briskness he did not feel. It had been a very long day, and it was not over yet. «It’s time we started on our way out of here.»
«True,» said Dzhai. He reached down to his waist and unbuckled the belt and knife. «Prince Blade, I believe this is yours?»
Chapter 15
The bearded man set a course to the southeast. Heading due south would have taken them away from the battle and the islands of the Strait of Nongai faster, but it would also have taken them straight away from land, out into the Silver Sea. Kukon was afloat for the moment. Before they could safely take her on a long voyage, she would need repairs of a sort they could not give her in the open sea. They would also need fresh water, firewood, and jury masts.
Then there was the matter of sorting out those who had been slave rowers and those who had been free sailors and soldiers. For the moment there were neither slaves nor freemen aboard Kukon, only men fleeing for their lives. If this happy situation didn’t last, there would be trouble of a sort best prevented before it got started. Blade, Dzhai, and the bearded man all-agreed on that.
No ship from either side followed Kukon as she limped away from the battle. Perhaps no one noticed her; perhaps no one cared enough to follow. Or perhaps there was no one left alive to either notice or care.
Blade suspected it was the last situation. The rest of the battle had probably been fought as savagely as Kukon’s part. If so, there would be neither pirate galleys nor Imperial galleys left afloat-nothing except wreckage and a lot of well-fed sharks.
The sun set a couple of hours later. Kukon crept on through the darkness, a weary drummer beating out a very slow cruising stroke to the half of the rowers who remained on their benches. The other half had not been released from duty; they had simply collapsed on the deck from sheer exhaustion and fallen asleep where they landed.
Blade wouldn’t have minded joining them. His head throbbed, his throat and mouth felt as if he’d been eating porridge made out of gunpowder and sand, his eyeballs felt swollen to three times their normal size. He had no serious wounds, but he was bruised, scratched, and generally battered and sore from head to foot. Dzhai and the bearded man were hardly in better shape, but none of the three could afford to sleep as yet.
At dawn they swung north again, toward the coast. The leak was growing slowly, so that Kukon was noticeably more sluggish. They had to get her beached within another day at the most. If they had to fight, they were probably finished. There was one serviceable cannon and a dozen muskets left aboard. There was practically no dry powder. There were plenty of spears and swords, but there was hardly a man aboard Kukon who could lift a finger by now, let alone a weapon.
The bearded man, who now admitted to the name of Luun, put it accurately.
«T’ree old wimmin-tey catch us, den hit us on t’ head w’ brooms.» He made a thumbs-down gesture and spat into the water alongside.
Toward sunset they finally crept into a wooded cove. Kukon’s bow crunched gently onto the sand and gravel of the beach, and a sigh went up from more than two hundred exhausted men at once. They were not out of danger by any means, but for the moment they no longer had to worry about their ship sinking under them and leaving them to thrash about until the sharks came.
Blade and his two co-captains didn’t try to get any work out of the men that night. The men wouldn’t budge. All of them, slave and free both, wanted to drink fresh water, breathe air that smelled of growing things, sleep on pine needles instead of hard planks.
After seeing the wounded carried ashore and a small guard posted, the three leaders retired to what was left of the after cabins. They had to decide which of them should be the new captain. All knew that a ship could have only one.
Inevitably, the choice fell on Blade. He was a nobleman and the only one who had c
ommanded a warship in the past-although he didn’t tell them when or where. He also knew gunnery, tactics, and swordsmanship enough to be the best leader in any fight. Last, he was by far the strongest of the three. That could be important with Kukon’s assorted and perhaps unruly crew. Her new captain might have to back up his authority with his own fists and sword.
The next morning the new captain of Kukon addressed his crew. Blade stood on the galley’s ram. The tide was out, and twenty feet of the ship’s bow rested on land. Luun and Dzhai stood on the damp sand at the water’s edge, one on either side of the ram. Both held drawn swords. All the rest of the men who could stand stood in a rough half-circle facing Blade and their ship.
«Men of Kukon,» he began. «You have fought in a great battle and won a victory. Three galleys of the pirates of Nongai will never sail again because of your victory.» Everyone cheered loudly. Blade held up his hand for silence.
«You and your ship have come away from this victory and come safely to land. There are repairs to be made and then another voyage to make.
«When Kukon sets forth on that voyage, she will not be as she was before the battle. Then she was a galley of the Imperial fleet of Saram. She is one no longer, and she will never be one again?» More cheering, much louder than before, practically all of it coming from the rowers. They were half hysterical with joy. Most of those who had been free stood silently.
«We sail for the Five Kingdoms and whatever fate awaits us there. All of us shall work to make Kukon fit for the voyage, but no man shall sail to the Five Kingdoms who does not wish to go. No man aboard her shall be chained by the ankle, or have a whip lashed across his back, or a sword pointed at his throat.
«There are those among you who were slaves at our ship’s oars. There are also those who were freemen, soldiers, sailors, gunners. It does not matter to me what you were before the battle. When we sail for the Five Kingdoms, all of you will be the men of Kukon, no more and no less.
