Dark Empress (67 page)

And now here he was, part of a ridiculously fragile conspiracy of pirates against other pirates, relying on the planning and brains of a man over a decade younger than himself and outnumbered, waiting for some unknown sign to move. Of course, Samir was a man after his own heart and certainly the best man for this job and, if he managed to pull this off, he would be responsible not only for ending the threat of piracy in the Sea of Storms, but also for returning those who deserved it to position in the military. It was a master stroke. Faerus just hoped he lived long enough to enjoy it. The plan had sounded so good but now, trapped between hostile captains and barely able to even see his ally through the rigging, he was beginning to doubt the strategy.

“Sir!”

Faerus blinked as he turned to locate the shouting sailor. One of the juniors was pointing to starboard. Shaking his head irritably, Faerus tried to see through the rigging of the pirate vessel that sat alongside them and to the ships beyond. Through the mass of ropes, sails, masts and men he could see the next pirate ship and then just make out the colours of Sho-Han’s Sea Witch beyond that. The Dark Empress was entirely lost behind them all. What the hell had the lad seen?

A sudden and tremendous ‘boom’ answered his question as artillery went off in the centre of the fleet. He shook his head again. Samir said he’d know the signal when he heard it, but that was just ridiculous! Turning to the first officer, he took a deep breath.

“Alright, Alif… These two ships won’t know what’s going on, but it won’t take them long to realise and, as soon as they do, they’ll be down on us like a sand devil on a wounded camel. Everything we planned, and all at once. Alright?”

The desert-dweller who had served faithfully as Faerus’ right hand man for the best part of a decade grinned.

“Everything at once, sir, aye! Let’s hope we can make enough room eh, sir?”

Faerus ground his teeth and spoke under his breath into the breeze.

‘This is it, Samir. I hope you know what you’re doing.’

He smiled as there was a muted and distant thud, way out across the waves and as he watched a ball of flaming mass arced up and over the water, trailing a line of oily black smoke behind it as it flew with relentless speed and surprising precision straight into the bow of the ship to starboard of Faerus. He turned to watch his orders being carried out as several more horrifying missiles began their journey from the Imperial fleet.

The ships to either side of the Golden Dawn were in chaos, just as Faerus had expected. The sudden launching of hostilities within their own fleet, followed by the beginning of a surprise bombardment from the governor’s ships had left them panicking and trying to pull themselves into enough order to either engage or flee, though neither captain would have had the leisure to make even that decision yet.

Faerus’ crew had been with him and worked together for so many years that the orders were carried out with the minimum of wasteful activity and fuss and events unfolded before him in perfect order and precision.

Aloft, the pirate pennant was cut loose as the great Imperial replacement fluttered free in the breeze. He’d questioned Samir as to whether it would have been more sensible to wait to reveal their intentions until after they’d attacked, giving them more surprise, but Samir had been adamant. As soon as this action began, he’d said, it began with them serving the Empire and to do that they had to be honourable and open. In a way Faerus agreed but, with a nod to the need for surprise, he’d waited until the very last minute, pushing all his actions into one frantic moment.

As the green and blue flag whipped in the breeze, a cloth was discarded into the sea and the Golden Dawn was no more. The pirate ship that had been Faerus’ home for decades had gone, to be replaced instantaneously by the Imperial ship of the line Retribution, which was already bursting into life with impressive speed and efficiency. Even as the oarsmen began to heave on the oars and the ship started to turn sharply to port, the artillerists had their weapons loaded and trained to the rear.

Shouts of alarm went up from the ship they were turning toward as the crew saw the sudden movement of Faerus’ vessel, turning sharply sideways while remaining in the line, and they noted with horror the great iron ram and spike listing ponderously toward their hull. Their captain leapt to action trying to get his vessel mobile as fast as possible and move out of the way of this sudden menace.

Behind and to starboard as they turned, the captain and crew of the other vessel were already in a panic, trying to deal with the massive damage caused by the Imperial fire catapults. The forward section of the main deck was ablaze and flames were leaping up the foresail and racing along the rigging as men tried desperately to cut the ropes and contain the fire. It would be out soon, Faerus noted, as men were already hurling water and sand across the flames, but the damage had crippled them long enough to give Faerus the edge.

As the Retribution turned, the artillerists finished lining up and levelling their weapons and released in unison. With a deafening crash, the already beleaguered and flaming vessel found itself the sudden target of a second ball of oily fire that burst at the base of the stairs to the command deck, filling the corridor inside with flames and cutting off the officers from their men, while two canister shots ripped through timber, sails, rigging and crew. In among the carnage, an officer trying to rally the crew in desperation was picked up bodily by one of the long iron bolts and pinned to the burning timbers where he burst into flame before the life could pass from his eyes.

Faerus turned his face from the doomed ship. Horrible and dangerous as that was, that had never been the gamble. This was the gamble: there simply was not enough room for Faerus’ ship to fit lengthwise between the two enemy vessels and they had to keep moving away from the burning ship before the flames engulfed the whole vessel and she became a hazard to the Retribution.

That all meant that the only way Faerus could get safely to a position where he could manoeuvre and involve himself further in the action was to go through the outermost vessel. As he watched, the prow of the Retribution closed on the side of the enemy ship’s hull. Their captain had been quick to get his oars out and into the water and even now the enemy ship was starting to move ponderously forward. He’d never get out of the way in time, of course, but that wasn’t what was worrying Faerus. Ramming someone at slow speed and at a three quarter angle was not a recipe for success.

“Artillery? Phase two!” shouted the second in command and Faerus nodded tensely. Without speed and a direct frontal blow, the ram and spike would probably just jam and lodge there, locking the two ships in a deadly embrace while the fire behind them drifted ever closer. The only hope was to break up enough of the ships’ structure before the ram hit so that half its job was already done.

Behind him, the artillerists, their weapons already reloaded, were swivelling their machines of war on the small castle amidships, and taking aim at their next target: the hull of the ship directly ahead of the Retribution’s prow.

Faerus held his breath as the two ships closed with an unstoppable force. The Retribution continued to pick up speed as the oarsmen strained and heaved like they had never done before.

The first two shots of heavy iron ammunition punched into the enemy ship in tightly-aimed locations, one just below the waterline, ahead of their ram, the other smashing into the rail and shearing the main deck as it smashed through the timbers, ripping up boards. Squinting at the need to be perfectly accurate, the artillerists released the third and fourth shot only a moment later. Both of these hit in the areas previously devastated by the initial shots, entering the main structure of the ship and ripping apart beams and bulkheads.

New cries of dismay went up among the crew of the enemy ship and the captain rushed to the rail of his command deck to survey the damage, waving his arms and shouting to his juniors, but there was no hope. His orders went unheard as the faster-thinking members of his crew ran to either stern or prow, whichever was closer, and threw themselves into the water, far from the site of the impending breech.

Faerus shut his eyes as the shadow cast by his ram slowly made its way up the side of the enemy ship, marking every inch as they closed. This was it… they were either going through, or down…

At the far end of the fleet, another tale was unfolding, though this was far from a happy one. The barrel-chested and fork-bearded Orin, captain of the newly named Revenge, surveyed the damage and sighed, scratching his chin. He would have liked at least once to have stood on the deck as it entered port a legitimate naval vessel. He was no longer a young man and had long ago begun to tire of the attitudes of his peers. When Faerus and Samir had tentatively approached him with the plan, it had been a dream come true.

But then all dreams faded.

As soon as the first shot was fired, the ships on either side of Orin had leapt into action. The Imperial fleet had taken its toll on a number of vessels between here and the centre of the line, but the ones flanking Orin had been sharp enough to launch an immediate assault on him, even before he’d had a chance to strike the new colours.

By the time his artillerists had launched their first shot, the prow had already been hit by a ball of oily fire and leapt into a flickering blaze. He’d had the oars run out to try and begin pulling back from the line, but the solid and canister shot from both sides had been aimed at the banks of oars and he’d lost half the rowing capability only moments after the oars touched water. As he’d watched in horror, trying to decide how best to deal with the growing nightmare, the second and third fireballs had hit, one amidships at the mast, effectively ending the use of his artillery, while the other burst through the side of the ship, below the command deck, ravaging the cabins within.

Orin ground his teeth in anger as he felt the boards beneath his feet beginning to warm with the fierce heat of the flaming cabins below.

He’d had plans, for certain, but they’d relied on him having at least a second to breathe before the fight began. But the shrewd bastards to either side of him had clearly been planning on taking him out regardless of the day’s actions. Their artillery must have all been loaded and trained on him from the start for things to have happened so damn quick.

He sighed again. There was no other option.

“Leave that!”

The crew amidships looked up in surprise at their captain where they worked tirelessly with buckets of water, trying to douse the ever expanding flower of billowing flames.

“The Revenge is done for, but we’ll not go down alone, eh lads?”

There was a somewhat half-hearted cheer. He couldn’t really blame them, of course. Many of them would now be wondering why they ever decided to turn against their colleagues. Still, Revenge was both the name of the ship and the order of the day… he’d see those bastards to either side whipped through three hells for what they’d done to him this morning.

“Grapple lines… every available hand on both rails!”

The men stood for a moment in confusion, but then realisation dawned on them and they ran to get the ropes and grapples. The Revenge would burn for a while yet before she began to sink. The other ships were so busy concentrating on taking him down that they hadn’t given thought to pulling out of the range of danger themselves.

With enough strength on the grapples, the Revenge would pull its assailants relentlessly in until they all three became one great flaming mass. But he would have to make sure that did for them too…

Scouring the deck, he spotted the dejected face of the second in command of artillery and beckoned to him.

“We’ll make use of your stuff yet, Khaim. Drop that grapple and get three men with you down to the armoury. Remove the protective coverings on all your firepots and get them charged and up on deck. As soon as we’re within reach of these bastards, we’re going to turn this ship into the biggest explosive you’ve ever seen!”

In which the line breaks

As the Redemption, formerly the Dark Empress, backed out of the chaotic line of vessels, making for somewhere with enough room to turn, Ghassan and Samir stood at the rail with Saja and Culin, trying to make sense of what was happening. Almost every ship in the line was now moving, though with an unplanned, chaotic and desperate edge to the action.

The left flank of the line was one of the main areas of trouble, though Samir had felt sure that Faerus could handle whatever the morning threw at him. The ships to either side of him were in trouble, one thoroughly ablaze and already starting to lean badly, the other…

Samir laughed as he watched his friend’s ship in the distance hit the enemy vessel amidships, tearing through the hull as though it were parchment and passing through, cutting the pirate ship in half in the process. How he’d managed that without more damage to his own ship, Samir couldn’t fathom, but he’d certainly be asking him if they got out of this well.

So at least one of their allies was safe, he thought as he watched Faerus tear through the last of the ship and out to open sea where he could turn and manoeuvre. And in the process he seemed to have crippled or destroyed two of the remaining eight enemy vessels.

The two remaining ships on that side of the rail were now heavily locked in close combat, captain Sho-Han of the Sea Witch having, not surprisingly, declared for his old commander who now stood side by side with Samir on the command deck. Those two vessels were an even match and far too close for effective use of anything other than small shot artillery. It would come down to man-to-man fighting on deck, which would be nasty for both sides but, whatever the outcome, that meant the entire line to the left of Samir was involved or dealt with.

The Imperial fleet had finished its bombardment, but that was expected. The agreement had called for only one volley since, by the time a reload had been effected, the pirate fleet would be moving and likely mixing among one another, making targeting almost impossible for a crew at such distance. Still, from the roiling smoke that filled the bright morning air and the steady roar of flaming timber, their single volley had been devastating enough to turn the fight immediately Samir’s way.