Gregorvero nodded. “Aye, Nico.” He gave an awkward nod of encouragement and left them.
Danamis placed his hands on the steep railing that ran at chest level. “Even if we outrun them, we can’t stop until we reach Maresto. Not Nod’s Rock. Not even Palestro.”
“I know.”
“If it was your wish... I would understand if you and Necalli choose to return to Palestro. To return to the colony.”
She pulled his arm away from the railing and turned him to her. “I have vowed to stay with you. If for no other reason than to keep you from wallowing in self-doubt.” He did not know what she knew, that Necalli’s interest in her went beyond the salvation of the Valdur merfolk. And she shuddered at the thought of Danamis confronting Necalli at swordpoint. “What would it benefit me to return to Palestro without you?” she said. “Outnumbered by your father and—” She shot a glance across the deck to Necalli. “No, Nico. We shall see this through together. First Maresto, then Palestro.”
He smiled in unfeigned relief, his eyes drinking her in. “My Citala,” he said quietly, “my love. You’re worth more than rubies and emeralds, worth more than all the treasure that could ever be raised from the depths.” He brushed her locks with the back of his hand and then turned to make for the stairs. She had not been honest with him. Already, guilt was welling up inside her, guilt for abandoning the colony she had begun. She had left them with no one to face up to the worst of the Palestrians or, more worrying, the fickleness of Valerian Danamis. This was heaped upon the anger and despair she felt now that she was banished from Nod’s Rock. The only home she had known. It seemed that the chances of saving her father from his own demons had now slipped even further.
As Nicolo pounded down the stairs to the main deck, Necalli slowly faced Citala, and then made his way across to join her.
His large round eyes, black pupils gleaming, did not blink.
“You heard his words?” she said in the mer tongue.
He nodded.
“What chance do we have in this world? With war upon war by the landsmen, devouring themselves. I have left my people in the midst of them. Like some dying whale set upon by sharks who will then feast upon each other when all is gone.”
“They are a strange race. But you already know that. And your hope is to change them. I know that is what you think. It will not happen. They will change you.”
She stared at him, half-accepting that he was right. The other half of her could not give up on the promise of mer and man in Valdur. “There is hope, Necalli. Always that.”
“You need not worry if the Sineans defeat him tomorrow.”
Citala raised her chin, eyes narrowing. “You mean that you and I can always slip over the side and disappear if that happens. Leave them all to their fate.”
He shook his head and raised his hand. “I mean to say that I do not believe they will defeat him.” He looked away from her as he struggled for words, reluctant to go on.
“What are you saying? How would you know such a thing?”
His long, thin nostrils flared and twitched. “If the battle goes ill, I may be able to help him.”
“How? How can you help?”
He suddenly changed his mind and drew back. “I can say no more. Pray that Danamis will outrun the enemy.” He drew his shining blue garment about him and turned away but then stopped. “I beg you, say nothing of this to him. Please.”
She frowned and did not answer, her mind straining to remember something that had happened days before; something that had touched her consciousness from a great distance and then just as quickly, had withdrawn.
THE LONG LOW rim of orange spread a tentative light from the east, the sky yet purple over the duchy of Torinia off the Vendetta’s starboard. Danamis and Gregorvero stood on the stern poop silently watching the gigantic ship that was now drawing closer. So close now as to be able to count all seven of its towering masts.
“They’ll have us,” said Gregorvero. “And there’s not a goddamn thing we may do to change that.”
“Hoist my personal standard and the royal pennant,” growled Danamis. “Perhaps if the Sineans see that they will leave the Grace and make for us instead.”
Gregorvero sputtered and rounded on him. “What? Are we to surrender or try running some more? We should give them iron from the orichalcum guns! They haven’t seen the likes of that before.”
“No surrender. But I will wager they won’t fire on us for fear of harming the queen and the prince. That would not help their cause in Perusia and they know it. And if Polo is on board, he will most certainly know that.”
“And then what?”
“We fight them close in if we can without grappling, and then try and run south by east and lose them in the islands.”
Gregorvero’s eyes widened. “You don’t have the faintest scrap of a plan, do you?”
“Just raise the standards. And run out the guns.” He saw Gregorvero swallow his protest, salute, and turn. What could he do? He had never before faced a Sinean warship and he knew nothing of their crew. But he had already underestimated their speed and that could yet undo him. He cursed himself and headed down. It was time to see Cressida, and it would not be pleasant.
She was already fully dressed when she bade him enter the cabin. Sarant had his nose pressed up against the diamond panes of glass at the stern, watching the large ship draw ever closer.
Danamis gave her a little bow, his lips pressed tightly together.
“Polo and his friends are fast approaching,” she said in her regal voice. “Or have my eyes deceived me and that is not a Sinean warship bearing upon us?”
“And it seems a faster vessel than yours, Admiral Danamis,” observed Sarant with an almost scholarly detachment. “Will we have a battle?”
Danamis spread his hands. “I am sorry. I thought we might outrun any pursuit but they are swift sailors. But I’m not giving up yet. We’re smaller and we can outmanoeuvre them. They won’t harm you or the prince. They need you alive.”
“That is your consolation? That we will be captured alive?”
“If they take the ship you two will be the only ones to live. The rest of us will fight to the death.”
“I trusted you, Nico,” she said, her voice bitter.
Sarant was watching him, a look of derision on his round dark face. “Your other ship is turning away, Admiral. Maybe they have had enough already.”
“Stay inside the cabin,” said Danamis, curtly. “No matter what happens. Do you understand?”
Sarant bounded off the bench and stood tottering, hands on hips, caught off balance on the ship’s roll. “I want to fight on deck. Give me a sword!”
Danamis gritted his teeth and gave another bow to the queen. “If they fire upon us, I will have to have you taken down to the hold.”
“I will not be treated as cargo, Nicolo Danamis!”
But he was already out the doorway.
GREGORVERO HAD HIS eyes firmly fixed on the Sinean vessel, its bizarre trapezoid sails billowing and rippling, the foaming water churning under its high blunt-nosed prow. “Bassinio’s a crafty devil. Breaking away and making them choose which one of us to follow.”
“Looks like they have chosen us,” said Danamis, his knuckles white on the railing. He was right. The massive vessel had kept its course, bearing down upon them and ignoring the Royal Grace as the latter made a lazy turn to larboard. Easy prey should they try and take it. But it was clear now they knew exactly who their quarry was.
“You do realize we can’t raise our guns high enough to reach their main deck. Do you reckon we can hole them below the waterline?”
Danamis had already realized that was the only tactic he could pursue in bringing his guns to bear. But he had no idea how thick the Sinean hull was. He kicked himself for not accepting Polo’s offer of a tour when he had the chance. “Gregor, this will be a dance to end all dances, and we must avoid it ending in an embrace.”
The master nodded. “Manoeuvr
e. Play the breeze and get them becalmed in a turning game. They’re fast with the wind at their back but how do they sail into a stiff breeze, eh?”
Danamis shielded his eyes and could just make out the mouths of two large cannon mounted up on the box-like fo’cscle of the Sinean ship, itself almost as large as a river barge. “If we find we can’t hit them with our guns then we can shower them with our arrows. Tell Talis I want every man who can fire a bow ready and armed.” Gregorvero too was watching the Sineans draw ever closer, his eyes taking in the brass guns and the bobbing heads of the sailors who stuffed the foc’scle.
“If they catch us Nico... if they catch us, we can fight it out. But we can’t win.”
“I know, Gregor.” He turned to his friend and smiled. “But Vendetta hasn’t been caught yet. When the archers are ready on deck and on our foc’sle, we’ll ready to come about, close to the wind. North by east nor’east.”
No sooner than he had spoken than a rolling boom sounded, a cloud of white smoke blossoming from starboard foc’sle gun of the Sineans. They were still out of range. It was an unsubtle demand to lower sail.
“Well, at least we know their intention,” said Gregorvero.
“Those bastards have no right to demand anything of us. Ready the decks.”
A QUARTER OF an hour later they were within range. Necalli and Citala now joined Danamis on the long quarterdeck of the caravel, watching the gargantuan vessel dip and rise, it huge sails the colour of yellowing parchment. They could now see the glint of many steel helmets on the enemy deck. Citala leaned against Danamis’s shoulder. “I am ready to fight if it comes to that.” Next to her, a Palestrian loaded the small iron swivel-gun on the railing. Against what was bearing down upon them, it was little more than a toy.
Danamis leaned over and whispered in her ear. “If we are boarded you go over the side. Back to Palestro. Necalli will go with you. Understood?”
She looked into his eyes. “Do not ask me to make that choice.”
“I pray you do not have to. But your duty is to your people. Not to me.” One of his soldiers had brought up his falchion and swordbelt. He accepted it and wrapped it around his waist, slinging the scabbard over the back of his left hip. He looked up to his mainmast. Overhead his dolphin pennant streamed out in the wind for fifteen feet. And on the mizzen mast spar, a great square flag: the griffon standard of Valdur, fluttered wildly, animating the beast upon it into a fury of movement. He moved forward and called down to the helm. “On my mark, come about to larboard, hard as you may!” He was rewarded with a reassuring holler from Gregorvero and he turned again to face towards the stern, waiting for the moment and gambling that the Sineans would not dare fire upon the royal family they had been sent to retrieve.
His shoulders involuntary flinched as the sound of the detonation rolled over the deck from the Sinean warship. It was followed a heartbeat later by a furious buzzing whir, the tearing of canvas and a long drawn-out cracking and groaning of wood overhead. Black hail bounced on the deck around them: small thumb sized cubes of iron shot. Danamis rushed forward, swept up Citala and rolled to the deck near the railing as the long mizzen spar of the lateen sail collapsed. There was a scream as a sailor was crushed and then a mountain of red canvas sail swept over their heads and then out over the side into the sea. The Vendetta listed and slowed.
Danamis lifted up Citala, her eyes huge with shock at the suddenness of the attack. “Get below,” he said, shaking her and then pushing her towards the stairs. His crew staggered to their feet. “Cut it away! Cut it all away!”
His falchion drawn, he was soon hacking away at the tangled lines. The great spar, nearly the length of the ship itself, was lying diagonally across the deck, trailing its canvas half in and out of the water. Vendetta was still making headway, but painfully slow now, despite its other sails propelling them forward. More canvas was soon dragged out over the side by the movement of the ship, the spar groaning as it shifted on the deck. Gregorvero had already yanked the whipstaff back, straightening the vessel lest the turn set it over. Vendetta crawled on, stricken, and the Sineans closed the distance. Danamis paused at his wild hacking and saw long hooked poles sliding outwards from the Sinean vessel in preparation for grappling the Vendetta. They were barely a hundred yards behind. His fist clenched tight around the grip of his sword. So it has come to this.
In the confusion of yelling, cursing men, Necalli stood near the rail and closed his eyes. His mind began to call, a silent call as loud as a trumpet blast. So shrill and urgent was it that on the chaotic main deck Citala clapped her hands to her ears. She understood then, in Necalli’s call—his demand—what it was he had tried to tell her earlier. What it was she had sensed under the sea with him a week before. Her hand reached out unsteadily for the staircase to the quarterdeck. She must tell Danamis: something was coming.
She pushed her way across the deck, fighting the cursing sailors that were struggling with the massive spar. Necalli stood as if frozen at the corner of the deck, his blue robes fluttering in the breeze, eyes shut. But she could see his eyes moving underneath the lids, seeing. She made her way to Danamis who was assembling the small party of bowmen to fend off the boathooks that now dangled just yards away. “Danamis!”
He turned to her and gestured for her to retreat but she fought her way to his side. “You must get us away from here,” she said, her voice twisted and hoarse with alarm. “Away from that ship!”
Danamis waved his falchion, dumbfounded. “My love, that’s what I’m trying to do! Get below!”
“You don’t understand. It’s Necalli. He’s summoning something.”
Danamis shot a glance across the deck. Necalli’s whole frame was shuddering, convulsing even as his eyes remained firmly shut. “What in the name of God....”
Citala’s mouth fell open. “It’s too late,” she said.
An enormous fountain of seawater erupted at the stern quarter of the Sinean ship, sending a cascade over the deck and knocking the breeze out of the great sails. First one, then several gigantic black tentacles lashed out from underneath the surface, the largest with a girth that made the ship masts look like twigs. A wave of seawater crashed over the stern of the Vendetta, sending men off their feet. As the stern pitched up and then down with the unnatural swell, Danamis held onto a line from the broken mizzen, transfixed by what was rising from out of the sea. Whipping tentacles ripped the Sinean canvas, shrouds, and stays, and their masts bent under the strain, the whole ship now listing towards the thing that was hauling itself up towards the churning surface.
Danamis wiped his arm across his face, recovered his senses and turned back to his men who were frozen in horror. “Cut, damn you! If you want to live cut it all away!” The Sinean ship now had nearly stopped dead under the weight of its assailant, putting more distance between it and the Vendetta. Danamis hacked away with his falchion, severing rope and wood, and then the last of the massive lateen fell away over the side. The Vendetta righted itself effortlessly. Danamis staggered to Necalli who had now collapsed motionless upon the deck.
“What have you done!” Danamis raised him up and shook him like some mischievous child. “A kraken!”
Necalli’s eyes opened and he reached up and placed a long fingered hand on Danamis’s chest. His words came slow and slurred. “My ihiyolcatl. My spirit beast.” Citala helped Danamis get the merman to his feet. They saw the kraken, the monstrous oily lump of its head having now cleared the surface, its tentacles wrapping around the masts of the Sinean vessel. Its huge white bulging eye, a square black pupil showing every sign of intelligence, goggled the ship. And now, only for the first time, they could hear the pitiful screams of the Sineans. An enormous cracking sound echoed towards them as one of the seven great masts was snapped by the largest of the tentacles, mast and sail tumbling into the swell.
“I cannot control it,” said Necalli softly. “The rage is upon it now that I have called it.”
“What are you saying?” said Citala, pul
ling the mer by his collar.
“We have been paired since childhood,” said Necalli. “In Atlcali. It protects me.”
Danamis threw Citala a look of unadorned fear. “What does he mean he can’t control it?”
Citala shook her head and Necalli closed his eyes again, as if drifting to sleep.
Danamis took a few steps back and whispered, “Sweet Elded.” He turned and yelled to his crew, all staring out across the water. “Clear the mainsail of that broken spar! We need all speed with what canvas we have left!”
Sineans were jumping and falling into the sea as the greatest ship ever seen in Valdur was torn apart by the kraken. Another mast came down, broken halfway, its sail of many internal slats folding up like paper. Citala left Necalli, still swaying, confused, and walked to the railing. The tentacles now contracted, pulled, and Citala watched as the great ship heeled hard over and the sea rushed in over the side, obscuring the creature except for its mighty arms which yet hugged the Sineans in a deadly embrace. Citala closed her eyes and concentrated. She could feel the kraken in her mind, a lumpen angry inchoate voice that cried out with blind rage.
She probed, probed and bid as she did with whales and dolphins, as she had in Ivrea with the mastiff that saved her life. Gently she pushed, trying to penetrate the roiling sense of its primitive mind—telling it to be still, to surrender its anger. That Necalli was safe now. She opened her eyes then drew in a sharp breath as she saw the tentacles release the shattered ship which slowly righted yet listed drunkenly still. And then she froze in horror. A large dark wake, olive green against the blue of the sea, was coming towards them. Larger than the entire ship. She stepped backwards, and into Necalli’s arms.
“Citala, what have you done?”
Her mouth moved but words would not come. She had lured it not away but towards them.
Necalli moved to the railing. He raised up both his arms and stood motionless. Citala felt his presence, stronger than ever before, as the ripples of his thoughts touched her and continued out and towards his ihiyolcatl. She felt dizzy and reached for the railing, watching the sea foam and bubble as the submerged bulk of the kraken approached. Her head throbbed with the creature’s reply, a blurt of questioning emotion. And then, the kraken slowed, its wake dissipating across the azure waters. The black shadow under the surface disappeared and she knew, she felt, the creature return to the depths. Necalli lowered his arms and turned, unsteady on his feet. His head drooped and Citala moved forward to hold him up.
The Witch of Torinia Page 34
