Dark Empress (23 page)

“Not that I’ve seen sir. I think it was just bait.”

The captain nodded.

“Then Felix can board her. We’ll set her crew adrift and fire the vessel. If we can get her ablaze we might be able to use her against the other daram. In the meantime, though we’ll have to fight them off and make sure they don’t board us. Think you can do it, Samir?”

Samir laughed.

“Soldiers don’t know how to fight dirty, captain. We’ll keep them quite busy until you’re ready for whatever you want to do.”

The captain clasped hands with him for a moment, and then turned his attention to shouting commands among the crew. On the way back to his men, he passed the second boarding party and Felix grasped his elbow as he passed.

“I’m overmanned for the job, Samir. If there’s no marines on there, I only need a dozen men. You take the rest with you; you’ll need ‘em.”

Samir considered arguing for a moment, but Felix was right. He beckoned to half the men in the group and they followed him back along the ship to where Samir’s party stood waiting.

The heavy military daram was bearing down on them with speed and purpose. Any minute now they would be in trouble unless Samir and his men could keep them occupied and the captain came up with one of the clever manoeuvres for which he was famed. Samir turned to his men.

“We’re going to have to board them to give the captain time to do what he needs to. If we just try to stop them getting aboard us, we’ll end up fighting among our own oarsmen. So as soon as the damn ship gets close enough I want everyone over there. Once we’re across gather into groups and we can start doing some damage. Three groups. One by the main sail amidships, one making their way toward the rear where the officers are and the third in between. Alright?”

There were shouts of agreement and Samir turned back to examine the ship bearing down on them. Certainly Calphorian. What the hell were they doing so far to the west?

In which a rift forms

Ghassan leaned against the rail and watched the pirate ship intently. The captain was good. The moment the lookout had spotted the Wind of God, the men on board the ship had reformed very quickly. Rather than panic and try to run, which would have been disastrous for them, since the militia vessel was running at maximum pace, while the pirates had slowed to deal with the merchant as they pulled alongside, the captain of the Dark Empress had continued what he was doing but reorganised his men.

“Captain? He’s only sending a few men on board the decoy. He’s formed the rest up to stop us.”

The captain nodded sagely. He had come to rely quite heavily on the sharp mind and eyes of Ghassan and within a year of reaching full service age, the young recruit had already been promoted to a junior officer position.

“Suggestions?”

Ghassan shrugged.

“We still outnumber them, sir, and this Khmun seems to be a clever and honourable man. I don’t think he’ll make it a fight to the death. We just need to prove to him that we are not willing to back down and he’ll do so to save his crew.”

The captain continued to nod.

The militia warship closed with impressive speed on the pirates. Ghassan twitched as he gripped the hilt of the blade he carried ready. He would lead the second boarding party, having considerably less experience than lieutenant Shufi. The Empress came ever closer and, with a nod, Ghassan had one of his men ready the grapples.

As the gap between the two vessels rapidly narrowed, Ghassan realised flames could be seen beyond, on board the merchant ship.

“The bastards have fired her. I hope Khmun let the crew go first or I’ll skewer him myself.”

There were nods of agreement among his men.

He counted down under his breath the seconds until the pirate ship, with its complement of mismatched criminals lining the rail, reached the point where grapples could be thrown.

“Four… three… two…”

He blinked in surprise as the first rope from the pirate ship crossed the gap and the heavy iron grapple fell among his men.

“What?” he bellowed in disbelief as he and his men were forced to drop their own grapples and duck out of the way of the iron missiles that shot over from the pirate ship, scraping across the deck and anchoring themselves among the rowing seats and on the rail.

“They’re boarding us? Are they insane?”

There were cries from the men on board the Dark Empress and the militia vessel lurched as twenty strong, bulky pirates hauled on the ropes and dragged the two ships together. Several of Ghassan’s unit lost their footing as the two vessels met with an almighty crash. This Khmun was supposed to be unpredictable and clever, but this was plain crazy.

And with no further pause, the world exploded into a chaos of noise, movement and violence. Without an order being given, the pirates hurled themselves across to the militia ship, taking advantage of the surprise and the fact that the soldiers were temporarily off balance.

Behind the boarding party, the top deck oarsmen on the pirate vessel, currently superfluous, unshipped their oars and stood ready to repel any militia boarders that made it past the initial attack. Given the fact that they’d taken the pirates by surprise with little over a minute to react, Ghassan couldn’t help but be impressed by the precision and coordination the men of the Dark Empress exhibited.

He had no time to appreciate the matter as he suddenly found himself under the direct attack of a crazed and excessively ugly Pelasian-looking man with a jagged, saw -edged sword. Desperately, he jumped back out of the way of the first swing of that horrible weapon. Righting himself, he felt the mast behind him. Taking a deep breath, he let a blank mask fall across his face and waited as though in terror. The pirate grinned and swung the terrible blade again. In a sharp movement, Ghassan ducked to one side and the blade bit into the heavy timber mast.

The pirate started in surprise and Ghassan righted himself and lunged with his own blade. The ugly fellow was surprisingly quick, though, and, as this officer went for him, the pirate grasped one of the soldiers by the shoulder and hauled him between them as a shield, forcing Ghassan to arrest his blow sharply or face impaling one of his own men. With a laugh the saw-blade pirate flicked a mock salute at him and then disappeared in amongst the flurry of men.

Ghassan took advantage of the brief pause to take stock of the situation. The pirates had used the confusion to form into three distinct groups. The first was engaged here amidships with Ghassan’s men. The mess was well-planned, preventing the other militia boarding party from getting involved. Instead, the second militia unit were trapped behind his own, trying in vain to cross between the two ships, but held at bay by several rowers flailing dangerously over the gap with their heavy oars.

He turned to look back along the rear of the ship and saw that the other two groups of pirates were also well placed. The furthest group were now engaging the officers at the rear and keeping the helm busy. The Wind of God would be unable to manoeuvre until the area was freed of attackers, but the third group had positioned themselves between the two areas of fighting like a wall of ugly and were severing the ropes and rigging that controlled the sails.

Ghassan shook his head in amazement. Despite being outnumbered and in a poor position, the pirate captain had managed to turn things to his advantage. The militia troops were trapped and mostly useless, while the pirates were rapidly gaining control of the helm. But this was all temporary. As soon as the first group here broke under the weight of militia numbers, the soldiers would begin to sweep along the deck and would soon deal with them all. What did they hope to gain by preventing the militia from manoeuvring? What?...

With a sinking feeling, Ghassan grasped the rigging by the main mast and hauled himself a couple of feet higher so that he could see over the fighting.

“Oh, shit!”

Nearby, one of his men looked around in surprise, only to be dispatched by a pirate.

The merchant hulk, now fully ablaze, was being led around the stern of the pirate ship with ropes and kept at a safe distance with oars. Slowly, but with infinite menace, the roaring timber inferno was rounding a corner and bearing down on the bow of the militia ship.

The pirates weren’t trying to take the ship; they were stopping the Wind of God escaping the oncoming flames!

Ghassan dropped back down and brushed his dark curls from his eyes. He saw one of his lieutenants pull back from the action and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Simos? We need to break through to the captain and get that rudder turned. They’re bringing a fireship down on us.”

A frightened look passed across the man’s face.

“Don’t panic” Ghassan yelled at him. “Just get the men formed up and have them begin trying to turn the tide back so that we can push through until they break.”

The man looked at him in momentary confusion and then saluted and started bellowing orders. Ghassan nodded. All they needed to do was break through. They didn’t have to kill all the pirate boarders, just get through them and help recover the helm and the senior officers. The next problem was to buy them some time to pull it all off.

Taking a deep breath, he climbed the rigging and began to pull himself along it above the heads of the fighters. He’d momentarily considered using this route to get to the rear, but the middle group of pirates who were not engaged in combat had now fully severed the rigging, preventing just such a possibility.

Irritably, he clambered toward the bow, where the other militia unit were disorganised, some of them fighting off the swinging oars of the pirates across the narrow watery channel, others trying to get involved in the main melee, and yet more merely standing and staring in horror at the blazing inferno bearing down on them.

Shaking his head, he caught sight of his opposite number.

“Shufi! Get your men organised. You need to get the oars out and use them to try and hold that thing off! We’re trying to free the helm.”

The officer stared up and him and then nodded and began issuing the appropriate orders. Satisfied that there was little else he could do to improve the situation, Ghassan once more cast his glance around the ship, trying to take stock of how things were progressing.

He was lucky indeed to have chosen that moment to look around, as he saw the knife hurtling toward him through the air in time to avoid it. The blade sailed between the ropes where the young man had been moments earlier and clattered down to the deck harmlessly as Ghassan dropped to the ground and drew his sword to deal with the new assailant.

“Brother?”

Ghassan’s eyes opened wide at the voice. As his head came up to see the source of the thrown blade, his mouth fell open. Samir had changed, for certain, with the passage of so many years, but there could be absolutely no doubt as to who this was, his knife-throwing hand still frozen in the air, the other gripping the blade at his side.

“Samir?”

The smaller brother laughed.

“You went to join the army! What are you doing at sea?”

Ghassan shook his head angrily.

“I went to join the militia and that is what I did.”

“To fight pirates?”

Ghassan growled and changed hands with his sword.

“We fight whoever needs fighting. We’ve already taken blood against Ma’ahd several times, but you?”

Samir was disappointed to hear a mixture of astonishment and disgust in that last word that was almost spat at him.

“You?” Ghassan repeated. “You became a pirate? You abandoned me to the desert to live a life of crime? Mother would disown you!”

Samir’s face hardened.

“That’s not true. And I never intended this. Things just happen sometimes, Ghassan, but my goal is ever the same as it was; as yours, even: to take the fight to Ma’ahd and free M’Dahz.”

Ghassan spat on the floor.

“Crap! You’re a killer and a thief now. When we retake M’Dahz its people like you we’ll be keeping out!”

Samir shook his head sadly.

“These soldiers have you thinking too simply, Ghassan. You fight your war, and I’ll fight mine. In a few minutes we’ll be free of you and we’ll leave. And because we’re thinking and reasoning people, we’ll leave you be and go our own way. We don’t need to fight.”

“That’s a coward talking,” Ghassan growled. “You’re supposed to be a pirate, Samir; a killer.”

Samir shook his head.

“I am what I am, brother, but I’ll not fight you.”

With a sad look, Samir turned his back and sheathed his sword, striding toward the gap between the boats. As he went, he called out to his men.

“They’ve got enough to deal with now, lads. Get back aboard and cut the ropes. We’ll be a long way from here before they can get going.”

He clambered up to the rail and stopped in surprise at the sudden pain in his neck. He turned, astonished, to see Ghassan behind him, sword raised and blood running down the razor edge, dripping to the timbers of the deck.

“Ghassan?”

Samir put his hand to his neck. It was just a small flesh wound that would heal quickly, but it was a wound nonetheless. He glared at Ghassan and spoke through clenched teeth.

“You will have to sort out your rigging before you can make sail again, you’ll have to be careful around the burning merchant, and our men have put your artillery out of commission and jammed your rudder. You won’t be able to follow us or fire on us.”