Mehrak winced. ‘That will not go down well when word gets back to his divine majesty.’
‘Nor will the fact that you had me here and let me go. You’re already in for it.’
‘Very well,’ the man agreed unhappily. ‘I shall do as you ask. What else?
‘Can I speak to the survivors of the attack? I might just be able to narrow down my search. Certainly better than scouring the open sea for any and all armed imperial vessels.’
‘Of course. They are being quartered in the port for now. I will have you escorted to them. And the captain who brought you here will take your letter and your soldiers to Velutio. He is a good man, and he will be relieved to be out of Akkad after having broken the rules to bring you here.’
Titus sighed and sagged. ‘You realize just how small my chances of success are, Mehrak.’
The officer smiled sadly. ‘Yet you have a reputation for surviving the most ridiculous of situations, Titus, like your father before you. Your luck goddess, I suspect, rides upon your shoulder.’
‘Then I hope she’s paying attention at the moment.’
Chapter XII
Of Troubles Seaborne
The black sail was growing in size by the moment as the Pelasian daram gained on them.
‘So much for the damned fastest ship available,’ Titus complained to the captain, who stood next to him at the stern rail, watching the dark blot in the endless azure blue knifing through the water towards them.
‘It’s a matter of draft and water depth, not ship speed, Marshal.’
‘Sailor jargon,’ dismissed Titus.
‘It’s quite simple. This part of the sea, off the north coast of Pelasia, is an underwater plateau. Most of it is quite shallow and the only way a proper vessel can get through is by navigating the deeper areas and channels in it. It’s almost as though the ship runs on rails, you see. In fact, if we didn’t have good Pelasian charts we’d have been high and dry over an hour ago. Back in the old days when we were at war with them a whole imperial fleet came to grief in these waters. Our draft is quite deep, while the Pelasian daram have a very shallow draft. While we are limited to the deeper channels, they can race across the shallow areas of the plateau.’
Titus frowned. ‘So why don’t we do what they do?’
The captain gave him a look as though he’d asked why cats couldn’t bark.
‘Pelasian vessels are only made for activity in the Eastern and Nymphaean Seas. Even then they tend not to operate in the middle of the sea and rarely roam more than a few hours from the coast. Their draft makes them unstable in rough waters, you see?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Well, our ships with a deep draft are hard to knock over sideways, so they can roam out into the Western Ocean, from where we get all our tin and amber and the like. The Pelasians are shallow. One big wave like you get in the Western Ocean and the whole thing would be upside down. It all depends what the ships are made for. Ours are suitable for all waters, you see.’
‘Except these,’ noted Titus bitterly.
‘And yet these are the safest waters to ply to get where you want to be, Marshal. Better than risking the twin monsters or the harpy rocks in the open sea.’
‘I don’t believe in sea monsters.’
The captain’s eyebrow jacked up a notch. ‘Better that way, I can assure you. When you’ve felt Scautha clutching at your hull and trying to drag you down into her lair while your oarsmen pull for their lives, there are moments when you’d give an arm not to believe in sea monsters. The fact remains, I will be boarded by a thousand Pelasians before I risk my ship to the swarming depths.’
‘I’ll remind you of that in half an hour when those bastards have caught us.’
‘We could have gone directly north from Akkad,’ the captain noted in a level tone, ‘made for Barada and then coasted it to Rilva. It would have been safer and little chance of being caught by Pelasians out that way.’
‘And it would add days onto our journey. We’re already too far behind and time is of the essence. Just see if there’s any way you can get to open water and outrun this black-sailed shitbag. The delay will make me fret.’
As the captain bent over his charts once more and tried in vain to find an alternative that wouldn’t scrape off the keel of their vessel, Titus returned to watching the daram that closed inexorably upon them. He was limited in terms of destination by the small hope he had gleaned back in Akkad.
The naval commander had shown him to the survivors of the attack, and he had very politely and gently drawn from them every small detail they could give him.
They had been only a day and a half out from Velutio. Though the survivors hadn’t a solid grasp of imperial geography, given the likely speed of their ship – a fast one – and a few of the features of the coast they could describe, Titus placed the attack somewhere off the southwestern point of the central provinces, around the port of Haphoris, though out of sight of it, since they were in open sea and heading south. That gave him a location for the ship’s sinking, though such would be of little help in tracking Jala.
However, while all but one of the survivors were oarsmen with only passing knowledge of what went on around them, the other was a lookout, and his information had been a lot more elucidating. He gave them a solid description of the attacking craft.
It had been taller than this one, and wider, with three sails, rather than the more common two – an extra small lateen at the stern. That made it a ship designed specifically for the wide ocean, which put it somewhere in the western provinces. Moreover its imperial flag bore a green stripe down the edge of the fly, and that confirmed a solidly western origin. Given the flag and the shape of the vessel, it was a reasonably safe assumption that the ship had come from the outer edge of the empire, along the Western Ocean shores. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
He had, in truth, been a little dismayed to learn that the huvaka had been telling the truth and that it had been an imperial ship that sank the empress’s vessel. The lookout’s description was just too credible to be faked. Such ships were rarely seen in the inner seas, so it was almost certainly the first time the man had seen such a vessel.
And so Titus had formulated his plan. They would sail back towards the open arms of the Nymphaean Sea and once the twin archipelagos came into sight they would turn west along the outer coast. What then, he didn’t truly know, and was still thinking through that part, but at least he would be in the right quarter of the empire. Not much, but a start. If all else failed they would sail along the coast until they reached Burdium Portus, the largest coastal installation in the west, where, if there was any information to glean, it would be found.
They were already many days behind the empress and her captors, and every hint of a delay irked the marshal.
The black sail was closer still, now.
Titus ground his teeth and took a deep breath. ‘Slow the ship.’
‘Sir?’ the captain looked up from his map.
‘It’s all about speed. And if we faff around looking for ways to outrun the bugger, we’ll just cause extra delay. He’s going to run us down in the end anyway. We might as well let him catch us, get this over with and then get moving.’
The captain nodded with a look that rather unsubtly suggested that had been his opinion all along, and gave the order to slow the vessel.
Once they stopped plying the deeper channel in the underwater plateau, the black daram raced towards them with impressive speed, pulling out to port and coming alongside. Titus was unsurprised to see the artillery in the bow loaded and turned to face them. He’d given no such order aboard their own ship. Better that this be dealt with peacefully and very quickly.
‘Prepare to be boarded, imperial vessel,’ shouted a deep voice in the northern tongue, laden with a southern Pelasian accent. A desert nomad by heritage, then, and now sailing the wide seas. Odd how things work out for some people.
‘We are a diplomatic party,’ Titus shouted back
in faultless Pelasian, ‘four hours out of Akkad and making for Burdium Portus. We have nothing to hide and no contraband. Send your party aboard quickly and get this over with, as we are on a tight schedule.’
The daram closed and grapples were sent out, biting into the rails, the ropes tightening and drawing the two hulls close together.
‘I hope he’s going to pay for that damage,’ the captain growled.
‘Don’t make trouble. I’ll see you right for it,’ Titus hissed back as the ramp was run out of the daram and across to their vessel. He turned back to the Pelasian captain.
‘Before anyone boards, and given that we have peacefully agreed to your “request” to board us, I would take it kindly if that artillery piece was pointed somewhere else. We’re not at war yet, you know.’
There was a brief discussion aboard the black ship and the huge bolt-thrower swivelled ponderously until it pointed off across the water.
‘Thank you.’
Four Pelasian sailors in black tunics and trousers, with their heads covered in dark cloth to ward off the worst of the blistering sun, trotted across the plank and dropped into the imperial vessel, nimbly stepping between the oar benches. Once aboard, the Pelasians split into two pairs. One went to the bow and began to move back along the ship, peering into each space between the benches. The other moved to the hatch and dropped down into the belly of the ship, where the cargo hold was almost empty in order to grant the ship all the more speed. Their search shouldn’t take long.
The captain hopped across to their ship and bowed to his opposite number, who gave a sour, half-hearted salute.
‘You are a senior officer,’ the Pelasian noted, addressing Titus.
‘An imperial marshal, yes.’
‘Then you have my apologies for the necessity of this.’
‘I understand. I just want to get on with my journey.’
The man nodded. ‘You speak my language well.’
‘And you mine.’
The two men fell silent, with little else to say. Titus stood still, pensive, irritated, as the air filled with the sound of the sea lapping against the ship sides, the creak and groan of rocking timbers and the thud of canvas as the half-reefed sails caught the occasional whisper of wind. All was eerily quiet, the Pelasian crew watching with a strange mix of boredom and expectation, the imperial crew simmering at the indignation of being boarded.
‘Where does the plateau…’ Titus began, but was cut off sharply by an urgent shout from below.
He and both captains exchanged startled glances and started to move down the ship towards the hatch with a sense of urgency. Titus felt his heart lurch. What could they have found? Surely the captain hadn’t been stupid enough to bring anything suspicious with them?
As they neared the hatch, a figure emerged from it, and the marshal felt his world falling apart around him. One of the two Pelasian sailors who’d gone below was staggering up onto the deck, clutching his head. Blood was sheeting down from his scalp, and he looked distinctly unsteady.
‘What happened?’ Titus barked.
The other Pelasian appeared now, dragging an imperial sailor by the throat, the lighter-skinned man’s face pulverized and bloody.
‘He wanted to search my sea chest,’ the sailor growled through split lips.
‘What have your sailors done to my men?’ demanded the Pelasian captain, despite the answer to his question standing plainly before him.
Titus rounded on the foreign captain. ‘I understand you are searching ships for the Empress Jala. Do you really think to find her in a sailor’s sea chest?’ He almost spat the words with anger.
‘You submitted to a search,’ shouted the Pelasian captain.
‘For a person. Not to have this ship scoured for anything of value. Get the fuck off my ship and take your legalized pirates with you.’
The Pelasian bridled, his eyes flashing dangerously. ‘It is my duty to search this ship and I will do so.’
‘No, you will not,’ Titus snarled. ‘You lost that right when you started looking to pillage instead.’
Out of the corner of his eye he could see the artillery on the Pelasian ship starting to swivel back towards the imperial hull. Before he could say anything, there was a scream from the hatch. Turning, he saw that the bloodied imperial sailor had taken the opportunity in the confusion to jam his knife into the thigh of the hitherto intact Pelasian sailor. The man was shrieking as he fell, clutching the hilt sticking out of his leg.
‘Shithead,’ snapped the bloodied sailor, just before he was hit in the midriff by the man with the battered skull and the pair went down on top of the leg wound.
‘Oh, shit,’ Titus murmured, then turned to his remaining 15 guardsmen, who were standing tense at attention in the stern, simply awaiting the command. ‘Get that artillery piece loaded and train it on the Pelasians. The next time any of them touch an imperial citizen, put a 10- pound shot through their hull and sink the bastards.’
He turned back to the Pelasian beside him. ‘We’re teetering on the brink here, Captain. One word from me and we’re fighting. Now, I’m politely, as an ambassador of the court of Velutio, giving you one last chance to get off this ship and take your pirates with you. If you refuse we will have no choice but to force you.’
The Pelasian sneered, his hand going to the hilt of the blade at his side.
‘I think that answers that question. Prefect Torus? Take three men and secure the enemy artillery.’
Even as his own men finished loading the heavy rock into their own artillery and turning it to face the daram that bobbed alongside, half a dozen sailors at the rear had hauled the two bloodied Pelasians up and were pushing them back down the walkway towards the boarding plank. The two who’d been searching among the rowing benches were nervously edging back towards their only means of exit, their hands on their weapons.
‘Last chance,’ Titus said in Pelasian. ‘Leave or fight.’
With a roar, the Pelasian captain ripped his blade from his sheath. Before he could bring it to bear, Titus punched him in the face with every ounce of strength he could muster, sending the Pelasian floundering into the oar benches, where two of the imperial rowers grabbed him and began to throttle him.
The prefect in command of the guards was now leaping across the dangerous narrow gap between ships with three of his men. The entire Pelasian crew were grabbing swords and rising from their benches. Similar activity was taking place on the imperial ship. Titus sighed. Why was nothing easy? And he was fairly sure he’d broken a finger on the captain’s jaw, too.
A thud and a scream announced the release of the Pelasian bolt-thrower. The marshal caught the scene from the corner of his eye. The last of the three guardsmen leaping across to the enemy ship took the blow full in the chest. The 2-foot iron bolt exploded his torso, showering both ships and their crews with blood and gore. The blow plucked him out of the air and threw him back against the foremast of the imperial ship, which he hit with a wet thud and then slid down. Most of his chest was gone, and Titus could see the mast through it.
The Pelasians were busy loading the weapon again, ratcheting back the firing mechanism, but the prefect and his remaining two men were there now. One man took his blade to the bound sinews of the artillery, hacking through them and ruining the weapon with every blow. The Pelasians reacted immediately, half a dozen sailors running over and swamping the prefect and his men.
Even as poor Prefect Torus fell under the rising and falling blades of the angered Pelasians, the first shot from the imperial stone-thrower hit. The men, loosing the weapon as quickly as they could without taking too much time to aim, had released it too high. The huge stone ball failed to hole the hull, instead smashing the Pelasian ship’s rail and bouncing across the deck, where it took the leg clean off a sailor in a shower of bone and red spray before passing through the far rail and off into the turquoise waters.
The Pelasian artilleryman dropped a bolt into the groove of their weapon and turned it to
face the centre of the imperial deck. Then the man made a dreadful mistake. He ratcheted the mechanism back one more time, and the twisted sinews that created the weapon’s tension, weakened by the sword blows of the guardsman, gave. The entire weapon folded in on itself and exploded in a shower of wood and splinters. The bolt itself arced up gracefully and passed through the imperial ship’s foresail before plopping harmlessly down into the sea. The entire enemy artillery crew were pulverized, sprayed with deadly shards of wood and splinters of iron. Indeed, half a dozen of the nearby Pelasian sailors were hit by the agonizing cloud of death.
Titus stared in shock. All about him, fighting had erupted. The imperial sailors were up now, running for the boarding plank with swords drawn. The Pelasians were doing the same, though there were fewer of them, given the nature of the imperial vessel’s passengers.
Down in the oar benches, the Pelasian captain was thrashing about as the two sailors throttled the life out of him with a length of rough rope. Ah, well. Titus had thought this would be relatively routine. He should have known better. Hefting his own blade, he moved to the edge of the ship and prepared to jump across.
There was a creaking noise and a kerchunk and suddenly a large section of the black daram’s starboard hull disappeared. The 10-pound shot from the imperial artillery passed easily through the timbers and down through the hull then, from the sound of it, out the other side.
Almost immediately the Pelasian ship lurched and the boarding plank bucked and crumpled. The men busy struggling on the plank to try and board each other’s ship screamed as they were upended and dumped into the water between the two vessels. Then the inevitable happened. With the stability of the Pelasian ship ruined, the two vessels collided, their sides crashing together, crushing those men who’d fallen from the ramp and grinding them to paste. The turquoise water started to change colour around the ships as more and more blood filled it.
The daram lurched back the other way and the grapple ropes all strained taut. The imperial ship jerked with the motion and Titus, who had been standing at the rail, found himself tipping over it. For a dreadful moment he thought he was in the water, where the next wave would send the ships together again and crush him. But at the last moment his questing hand found the rail and instead he was hanging precariously over the side, his sword in his other hand. The fiery pain lancing up his hand from the rail confirmed that he had, indeed, broken his finger on the enemy captain.
Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Page 16
