The Warrior's Tale (43 page)

As for navigators skilled with map, astrolabe and compass, they had no place here with these fishermen. A man didn't need to sail far beyond his own village. Haifa day out, half a day back at most, and any boy knew how to read the sea close to home long before he was permitted to stand behind the rudder. If a boat was caught by a storm, and driven out to sea, well, the fishermen shrugged, if the gods were good he might find his way home. Otherwise
...

We were told we'd likely find what we were seeking further south, beyond the Giants' Dice, which had been cast there by monstrous beings ages before, after they'd gambled and lost with men - the stakes being these fishing islands. But we'd best sail carefully, and perhaps wait some weeks, until the summer storms that were brewing blew past. But we had no time to spare.

We sailed on, and as the tiny dots of land grew fewer and fewer, the seas became stronger, green rollers that seemed to have travelled through many waters, building strength as they went.

The way was rough and wet for our small galleys, but I'd learned by now a small, light boat like these could ride out almost any tempest. Besides, we'd survived the storm of the Archon, and those great waves that came with it. And so, unworried if a bit queasy, we bore away from all land, still questing towards the heart of Konya.

One morning, just after dawn, a lookout sighted a sail far ahead, just on the horizon. One, then three more, as we overhauled them. We conferred hastily. Should we avoid them? Should we close? Cholla Yi said we should proceed boldly. We outnumbered them more than two to one, probably had speed on them, and if they were hostile, well,
his
men at least were eager to wash the salt from their swords in blood, particularly if there was loot in the offing. Perhaps this might be a way to test the situation rather than sail blindly into some harbour where we could be trapped.

We altered course towards the four ships. When we did, our ships began rolling even more. Now we were sailing almost due east, with the wind on our starboard beam. The seas grew heavier as we sailed on, the wind rose in ferocity, and rain began sheeting down in intermittent squalls. It was mid-morning, but it might just as well have been a grey, dark twilight.

‘I’
m thinkin' we'll be comin' to a blow,' Stryker said. "Pears to me them fishermen weren't tale-tellin' when they said th' summer storms be damned fierce.'

Duban drew him over to the staff our long weather glass was stapled to. I followed. Stryker tapped the glass, eyed the level the liqu
id within had sunk to, and whistl
ed.

'Aye,' Duban said, having nearly to shout to make himself understood over the wind's roar. 'Dropped 'most a fingerwidth in less'n three turnings of the hourglass. We're in for it, Cap'n.'

'That we be,' Stryker agreed. 'Turn out the watch below. Make certain all's lashed down. 'N have th' galley fire quenched. Double-lash th' boats, and secure th' oars.' He turned to me. 'Cap'n Antero, if you please. Could I have a work detail of yer Guardswomen to help secure th' cargo below? I'll detail mates to supervise.'

I shouted for Corais, and told her to follow Stryker's orders. She nodded, then looked over my shoulder, and her eyes widened in amazement.

I turned, and I, too, gaped. As the storm built, I'd momentarily forgotten the Konyan ships. Now, we were within a few hundred yards, and even through the rain, could see them clearly. Three of them were smaller, about twice the size of our galleys. Each had three masts, with lateen sails, and were high-decked, with a single poopdeck running from amidships to the stern. It was the fourth ship that made us marvel.

It was a galley, but one such as I could never have imagined. I thought it about ten times the length of our ships, and as wide as it was long. It had but a single row of oars, but those oars stuck far out into the water. They disappeared into oarholes on a lower deck, so I couldn't see how many men it took to work each of them, but thought there must've been at least five or six to each bench. Above the main-deck was a shelter deck that wasn't much smaller than die main, and, above that the topdeck. Perhaps it was this that gave the ship its amazing appearance, since it was set with three cabins that were roofed like houses on land, with each roof uptilted like so many sun bonnets at the corners. I could see the ship's timbers were covered with elaborate carvings. All of die cabins had huge round portholes, as did the main structure on the deck below. Heavy railings lined the decks, and the ladders leading to each level were more like stairs. It looked, in short, like a two-storey villa, or a small country temple had been magically given a hull and sent to sea. There was a single mast set in the middle of the ship, and one square sail, now with a double goose-wing reef, hung from a yard that must've been turned from a huge tree.

'Damned t
hing's a wooden water-beetl
e,' Stryker said, and so it appeared as the long oars flailed at the seas, sending up nearly as much spume as the wind.

'Surely hell to navigate in a storm like this,' Duban said. 'Look at how it's bein' driven downwind, an' the full storm ain't struck yet. Must be near flat
-
bottomed like a barge.'

It didn't take any expertise on my part to know he was right -
1
could see ten, no fourteen men bending mightily at twin tillers that led to the monstrous rudder I saw for a flash when the ship pitched into a swell, burying its bow in a wave and sending its stern pointed skyward. More sailors swarmed around the shrouds.

'What is it?' Polillo asked.

'Can't tell,' Stryker said. 'Unhandy vessel like that, I'd say she might be some kind'a inshore merchantman. But look at them workin' parties they got crawlin' all over th' pig. Too damned many sailors fer a merchantman's profit. Maybe she's a warship. But how does she fight, dammit? Ifn she's got her ram - 'n she's wallowin' like she do
-I
can't see how it'd do any damage, 'less she was a'ter somebody at anchor. Hell, maybe these Konyans get cross-eyed drunk 'fore they go to battle and try to run down anythin' they spy. Probably, though, they just pull up alongside each other and go at it 'til they run out of heads to chop off, and there be the winner, by damned.' He grew thoughtful. 'It'd surely be interestin',' he said, 't' see what we could do against such a ship, considerin' the amount of prize cargo she might bear.'

I, too, was thinking in those terms, but caught myself. Was I becoming as great a freebooter as Cholla Yi's men? There was a purpose for ships, after all, besides war and booty. But still
...
I
thought of four or so swift galleys, harrying such a behemoth, like direwolves taking down a giant bear. I set the thought aside, to ponder and develop at a more placid time.

The three smaller ships were obviously escorting the fourth. When we approached, they'd been in a vee-formation in front of the galley. Now they'd changed course, and all three were between us and their charge.

'Damn' protective, ain't they,' Duban sa
id. 'I'd surely give a year out’v
e my life to root around in them holds for an hour or so, playin' keepsies. Pity we've got other business with 'em.'

Signal bunting fluttered to the tops of the escorts' masts, which we couldn't read, but was, no doubt, challenging us, indicating what waters these ships of an unknown type hailed from and asking what was our intent. I looked at the flagship to see what reply Cholla Yi was making. He'd bent on a single large white banner, evidently figuring that would be taken for peaceful intent even in these foreign waters. I told Stryker to do the same.

Perhaps it meant something else here, or perhaps we weren't being believed, for I saw armoured men fight their way out on deck into positions by the rail, and two light catapults on each of their foredecks were cleared for action.

'Stryker,' I ordered. 'Signal Cholla Yi to stand off. They think we're attacking.'

'Not in this weather we ain't,' he said, but shouted for the mate on watch.

'We'll try to stay within eyesight of them,' I decided. 'When the storm's over, we'll approach them again with a single ship.'

'Signal from Admiral Yi, sir,' the watch mate ordered. 'All ships
...
proceed independentl
y. Run SSE before wind. Will reassemble
...
that's all I can make out, sir.'

Now there was no time to worry about these foreign ships as the storm closed around us. The air was heavy with spume. The wind had grown into a steady scream. I counted one, two, only three of our ships visible through the murk, then lost them. The Konyans had already vanished into the storm.

'How's the glass?' Stryker asked.

'Still dropping!'

Stryker swore. He snapped a stream of orders, and working parties fought their way forward along the storming bridge, and put a double reef on the foresail, leaving only a scrap of canvas to steady us. The mainmast and yard were lowered, and I heard Stryker cursing Duban for not bringing it down an hour earlier. I had a moment to wonder whether Klisura's murder might not punish us further, since it was evident from Stryker's treatment of the new master he had nowhere near the regard for Duban that he'd had for Klisura.

I ordered my Guard below. Polillo, who was looking distincdy pale, pulled me aside and swore she'd rather be washed overside than be stifled in her sickness below. I took pity, and ordered her to tie herself to the port rail, and stand by to help the steersman. Stryker had already detailed two men to the tiller, but even they were fighting to
hold the ship on its course. I went below and told off Dica and two others to take care of Gamelan in his cabin, and also quiedy gave them the harsh order that in the event of complete disaster their lives were less vital than the wizard's, and they should act accordingly. They understood and took no offence.

Back on deck, I tied a line around my waist and to the staff, with about ten feet of slack so I could move around the small quarterdeck. Stryker and Duban did the same.

The winds grew louder still, rising to a howl. The rigging screeched like a cornered bear. Stryker ordered the lookouts in the forepeak
below, and we began taking green water over the rails. We had barely got the mast down in time - now, anyone venturing down onto the weather deck wouldn't stand a chance. It didn't look as if we were on a ship at all, but rather on two square rafts, the foredeck and the quarterdeck, invisibly tied together, drifting through this tempest.

The strangest thing, though, was something you would never hear from an old sailor's dockside yarn about great storms - the weather was tropical, muddy. The waves that dashed over us were warm as blood.

We were running due south, the wind behind us, unable to hold the south-southeast heading Cholla Yi had ordered. A cross-swell hit us from the east, and our ship was pitching, slamming from side to side. Polillo was now at the tiller, and I saw her muscles bulge as she and the tillermen fought to hold our course. The ocean was slate-grey, the shrieking wind blowing the tops off the waves, and streaking the sea itself. It was hard to tell where air stopped and the water began. The winds paused for a moment, and I saw, astern of us, another Orissan galley and then the typhoon closed in.

The cross-swell was making our ship yaw, and Stryker shouted, close in my ear, we were in peril - we could broach. It was more than the wind, he thought. We were in the grip of an ocean current that drove us along as fast as if we were riding the spring flood down Orissa's river. We needed to put out a sea anchor. Stryker told me what was needed. I knew where the bosun's stores were, up forward, and worked my way to a hatchway, waited until there was a space between waves, jerked the hatch open and dropped down the companionway.

If the deck was hellish, it was worse below. The world, lit only by the dim glow from a handful of small glass deadlights set in the deck above, pitched and rolled. The air was as thick as a sauna, and reeked of fear-sweat, dirty bodies, stale bread, mould, vomit and shit. Not everything had been lashed down in time - a mess chest skittered across the deck, and a sailor barely rolled out of its way. Bronze dishes clattered their way from side to side as we rolled, and I felt the crunch of shattered pottery under my boot
-
heels.

Stryker's sailors were in every posture imaginable. Some tried yarning with their shipmates, and I wondered if the stories made sense and, if so, who could tell. Some were praying. Some just waited, staring blankly, having tied themselves to a deck stanchion. Some pretended unconcern, and cast lots on a blanket, although I noted no one seemed quite sure of the stakes. But one sailor, an old grey-bearded man whose name I remembered as Bertulf, topped everyone. He'd slung his hammock from its beams, crawled in, and gone to sleep. He wasn't shamming. I bent over and heard him snore, and his breath would've made a whale's spout smell sweet.

My Guardswomen were holding in as good an order as could be expected. Even though I'd never trained them for such a time, there were no signs of panic or disorder. Again the truth of the old saw that to fight easy you must train hard came. I took Cliges and E
bbo, both nearly as strong as Po
lillo, and we worked our way forward.

We were just to the mainmast step when I smelt something. Smoke! A wooden, tarred ship could explode in seconds if fire broke out, and I'd heard tales of ships that had ironically been destroyed in storms by runaway fire, not water. I saw, or maybe thought I saw, a tiny wisp of smoke. It was near a chest mounted solidly to the deck, and I remembered it contained the cook's pots. I rushed to it, jerked the catch away, and the door opened. Smoke billowed out. Someone shouted fire, and I heard a rush of feet, and a blow, and a shout of 'Stop' as panic spread but I paid no attention. I looked about wildly for water, saw nothing, had a moment to realize the irony, then spotted a bucket lashed to a beam, and ripped it from its stays and cast its contents into the chest. Steam billowed, and I heard a hiss over the roar of the wind outside. I nearly vomited. But the jakes bucket did its work, and the smoke was gone, the fire out.