Kingdom Of Royth

CHAPTER 20

When Blade came up onto the flagship's deck after breakfast, he found the same scene that had greeted him every morning for the past week. To seaward a flat, glazed blue sea stretched to meet a glowing blue sky, the sea broken only by the sails of the patrol ships and the sky by a few puffs of white cloud.

Toward the land, the first thing he always saw was Charger, tied up alongside the flagship like a kitten snuggling up to its mother. Men were moving on her decks-the guards, leaning wearily against the masts and railings in postures that reeked of boredom, and her own crew, washing down the decks and airing hammocks under Brora's supervision. On either side of the flagship a line of merchant vessels stretched off for miles into the distance, their sails furled and decks bare except for morning working parties and officers taking the air like Blade. These were the deep-draft transports, which drew too much water to anchor closer in or run up on the beach.

Farther in toward the land a line of galleys and smaller merchant vessels tugged at their anchors. Beyond them still another line of masts rose into the air, marking the galleys actually drawn up on the beach. Amid those masts rose the thin curls of blue smoke marking the cooking fires of the camps on shore.

Then the land climbed into swelling green hills, marching away and blurring into the faint haze that shrouded the landward horizon. The nearest hill was surmounted by a scar of black-the ruins of a small fishing village. The ruins had been smoldering as late as two days before, long after the flames and screams that rose into the night as the pirates sacked the village had died away.

It had taken the pirates two days to sail north to their chosen landing point and another day to put ashore their landing force, fortify the camp, and anchor or beach their ships. Cayla's fear of a trap had had some effect; the pirate fleet was less vulnerable to a seaward attack than Blade had hoped it would be. But it would most certainly be short-handed. On the fourth day the landing force had marched off into the hills, more than thirty thousand men in four great columns. Occasional faint spots of fire in the night and distant pillars of smoke by day showed where they were spreading out across the countryside in search of the gold horde of Royth. Otherwise, they might as well have all marched off the edge of the world-or into a sealed trap laid by the army of Royth. Blade hoped it was the latter.

The flagship was coming awake around him now. Smoke curled up into the almost windless air from the galley smokestack as the cooks prepared breakfast. All the fresh provisions were long gone; breakfast would probably be another unappetizing mush of pounded biscuit and minced salt meat. Amidships, the officer of the watch was looking importantly around him, taking bearings on the neighboring ships to make sure the flagship had not dragged her anchors during the night. Forward, one of the anchor windlasses creaked as a working party hauled buckets of seawater for washing the decks thirty feet straight up from the sea. One of the armorers squatted on the deck with a large pot of paint, carefully dipping the tips of catapult bolts into it.

The faint brrrum-brrrum-brrrurn of an oarmaster's drum beating out a cruising stroke came over the water to Blade. Turning, he saw Sea Witch gliding past, Cayla for once sitting rather than standing by the tiller, her unhelmeted blonde head gleaming bright in the sun. She raised an arm in mocking salute as Witch cut across the flagship's stern, heading out to take up her patrol station. Blade was glad when the other ship passed out of his field of view. Seeing Witch and Cayla reminded him always of her murmured words about the allies she had, to deal with Blade in case of treachery.

Yet somehow on such a day, all stillness and color and sunlight, it was hard to believe in the slithering submarine monstrosities that Blade's imagination conjured up out of his memories and his fears. He had seen no signs of them during the voyage north or the week of waiting. Perhaps they could not survive so far from the haunted waters of Mardha where they laired.

But he had also seen no signs of the royal fleet of Royth. That was much less welcome. How long would the fleet wait in its northern lair before bursting out and taking the pirates in the rear? They were less than a day's sail north of the pirate anchorage. Had Pelthros' admirals developed cold feet? The trap had to close on both the pirate fleet and the pirate army to make the victory complete. If only their army was destroyed or driven away, the whole thing might have to be done over again in a few years, regardless of what he had said in the Council. Blade found himself sweating with more than the rising heat of the sun and pacing the deck like a caged animal, until he caught himself and forced himself to sit down and at least look calm.

Breakfast arrived-what he had expected. He pulled out a wooden spoon and sat down on a canvas stool to eat. The shrieks of squabbling seabirds floated up from aft as the cooks emptied the garbage over the side.

Then all at once Blade saw smoke gush into the air at the far northern end of the line of merchant vessels. Some seconds later a dull thud floated down the line to his ears. He saw eyes swivel to follow his own gaze and took a closer look.

Oily gray-brown smoke was pouring up from a ship anchored close in the lee of the little peninsula marking the northern end of the bay. Even as Blade watched, another ship spouted smoke and this time flame, and splashes went up beside a third one. Somebody up on the peninsula was doing remarkably good shooting with a siege engine firing-what? Pots of burning oil, most likely.

Blade didn't wait to wonder who was attacking or why at this time. Only one force could be striking at the pirates here and now. Why the royal fleet was attacking its superior opponent in broad daylight was something to consider later. Right now there was not a split second to spare for either him or Charger if they wanted to get clear of the pirate armada safely.

He had only his eating dagger; the first thing to get was a weapon. The guard assigned to him was too busy looking north to notice anything else until he found himself jerked off his feet and over the railing by two colossal arms. Blade barely had a chance to get a good grip on his new sword when two other guards ran at him, pikes leveled. He launched a kick at one that took him down with a smashed kneecap and opened the throat of the other with a backslash. Then he dashed forward, toward the galley smokestack, snatching up the stunned armorer's paint pot on the run.

He whipped his arm up in an underarm swing, and the paint pot arched through the air like a cricket ball and dropped out of sight down the smoking galley stack. Blade was already backing away, dueling furiously with three sailors, when the galley stack spewed black smoke and orange flames. Screams floated up from below as the galley fires erupted all over the cooks. Smoke was already beginning to billow up through the hatches as Blade ran lightly up the ladder to the foc'sle, locked both arms around the windlass rope, and slid down it to the sea.

He landed near Charger's stern, to be almost at once nearly knocked silly by the body of a mercenary guard that came sailing over the stem railing, a cutlass firmly rammed through its chest. He swam forward to the waist, keeping on the side of Charger away from the flagship for safety's sake, then seized the mooring line of one of the boats bobbing there and hauled himself furiously up the side onto the deck of his own ship. It was the first time he had stood there in nearly ten days.

Another mercenary ran at him as he got to his feet. Blade, seeing that the man was trying to flee rather than trying to kill, sidestepped his clumsy lunge, tripped him, and pitched him head first over the side. It seemed now to Blade that all his trained perceptions and reflexes were operating at a higher pitch than ever before, now that the final moment of action had arrived. So it was a fighting machine that saw and heard and felt everything, and killed nearly everything in its path that sprang into combat.

One of the crew was trying to hack through the hawser holding Charger to the flagship. A soldier ran at him, ran him through, then died with Blade's sword jutting out through his chest. Blade whipped the sword free just in time to hack down a javelin thrust at him and take off the wielder's arm-on the backswing. Another man darted past Blade, snatched up the fallen axe, swung it down on the hawser. Blade in his turn snatched up the javelin and hurled it to bring down a soldier backing a sailor against the foremast, then whirled around to face two more soldiers.

One was apparently the commander of the guards aboard Charger, judging from his gilded helmet and jeweled sword hilt. He was also a dangerously effective opponent. His long sword darted in and out; Blade frantically parried both the officer's lightning thrusts and the clumsier slashes of the soldier-then the hawser parted with a twang. The deck lurched slightly, throwing the officer off balance long enough for the man with the axe to whip around and bury the head in the other's back. Going down, the officer blocked his subordinate for long enough to let Blade get through the man's clumsy guard and take him in the throat. The two soldiers fell across each other, writhed briefly, then lay still in the blood sluicing across the deck.

Blade suddenly realized that the man who had chopped through the hawser and then cut down the officer was Brora, that the deck was clear of living soldiers, and that Charger was now nearly fifty yards clear of the flagship. He looked back toward the bigger vessel in time to see the foremast boom into a column of flame that spouted above even the black smoke pouring up from below, then turned back to Brora. The sailor was drenched with sweat and the blood oozing from half a dozen minor wounds, but grinned as he looked at Blade.

«Back to our true colors, aye, Captain Blahyd?»

«Yes. Order the men to the oars. I'm going aloft.» Blade dropped his sword to the deck, grasped the ratlines, and scrambled upward toward the maintop. Once there, he at last had the view and at least a little of the time he needed to look about him and see what was happening.

The far northern end of the pirate fleet had dissolved into a chaos of burning ships and others that moved purposefully among them-galleys of all sizes, painted a green so dark that they were barely visible against the sea. The shorebased siege engines had apparently ceased fire, because of too much risk of hitting friendly ships. Farther out, off the tip of the peninsula, a mass of merchant vessels and sailing warships was sliding into view, following as close on the heels of the galleys as the fluky wind would permit. War engines on their decks were still busy, and Blade saw more of the white spouts of falling projectiles creeping down the pirates' line. The royal navy of Royth was riding in to the attack.

And if he could persuade his crew to resist the natural temptation to simply out oars and run for it, Charger could do her share and more. If the galleys on the beach and anchored at the south end of the line had a chance to pull themselves into battle formation, short-handed as they were they might put up a murderous fight. The fleet of Royth might be crippled beyond repair even if victorious. But if Charger lived up to her name, hurling herself into the middle of the assembling galleys, she might sow mighty confusion among them. And the royal warfleet might well sweep the whole length of the pirate fleet before effective resistance developed. Blade decided it was worth trying, slim as it left their own chances of survival. He scrambled down to the deck, and called Brora to him.

«Brora, we're going to attack the southern end of the pirate fleet.»

Brora turned pale and swallowed, then nodded. He didn't need to spend much more time than Blade thinking out what Charger might do-and at what cost. He turned away, bawling orders to the oarmaster and the rowers. The beat of the oars quickened, and Blade felt the timbers under his feet begin to throb with that beat.

So far, no one had connected the sudden attack from Royth with Blade, and Charger was moving away unmolested. Behind her the flagship was now ablaze for nearly half her length, and Blade could see the splashes made by sailors hurling themselves from her high decks into the sea. On shore, people were swarming down the beaches and scrambling aboard ships, and a number of the anchored galleys of the inner line were already underway. There was no sign of Sea Witch or of Cayla's allies. When Cayla appeared, with or without allies, Blade knew he would have a fight on his hands.

A large galley with black and orange checked sails was turning almost broadside to them as her oarsmen settled to their beat. Blade ran aft and stationed himself alongside the tillermen, while Brora ran forward to speak to the oarmaster and then manned the catapult on the bow. Charger's head came around slightly to starboard, aiming for a point nicely calculated to intercept the other galley. The oarsmen bent to their work, the oars thumping in their sockets and the foam curling higher and higher alongside as they worked up to their racing stroke.

The men of the galley ahead had only a brief minute to realize that the other galley racing down on them meant to attack. Blade saw men running on her deck, heard Charger's catapult twang and spray a shower of lead slugs into the men on the enemy's deck. Some of them died, others threw themselves flat. Those who had thrown themselves flat were just beginning to rise when Charger's ram crashed through her opponent's oars and into her side amidships. Oars cracked, timbers splintered, the enemy's mainmast snapped and went over the side, dragging half the tiller crew with it, men mangled by the ram or by the flailing oars howled and screamed below decks. Brora snapped out orders, and Charger's oars went into reverse, pulling her free of the other galley. She was heeling over and sagging low in the water even before Charger had come about on a new course in search of a new victim.

This new victim was a smaller galley, as nimble as Charger and expecting the attack. Her oarsmen worked furiously, swinging her bows-on to the approaching Charger. Blade grinned. He had suggested one or two unorthodox tactics to Brora, who had trained his crew appropriately. Now Brora gave the necessary orders. Charger's bow swung until she was aiming her ram down the side of the approaching enemy, then he bellowed, «In all oars, starboard!» The entire starboard crew jerked their oars in through the ports and everybody aboard Charger braced themselves as she ploughed along her opponent's side, snapping and splintering the whole bank of oars on that side. The archers on Charger's deck had time to add to the enemy's discomfiture with three volleys, then the two ships were pulling apart, Charger building up speed again, the other limping away crab-wise.

The catapult fired again, this time hurling a huge wad of oil-soaked rope across the deck of a small merchantman passing under their lee only fifty yards away. A pinnace with a dozen men in it scuttled across Charger's bow, miscalculated its distance, and was trampled underfoot by the rushing galley. Blade saw the men spilled into the water and thrashing wildly to avoid Charger's oars, but there was no time to pick up survivors. Arrows, catapult bolts, and stones were beginning to splash down about Charger or crash and chunk into her decks as the crews of the ships around her realized that she was an enemy.

A galley came backing off the beach now, moving slowly, with only about half her oars in action. She was keeping such a poor lookout that Charger easily darted in and rammed her in the stern, smashing her rudder, then threw a firepot onto her deck as she tried to turn under oars alone. Three down! Blade began to wonder whether the arms of the rowers-or Charger's seams-could take the strain of much more high-speed maneuvering and violent ramming.

Then Brora squalled incoherently, with the note of panic in his voice sounding so loud that Blade spun about as though an assassin were striking at his back, whipping his sword free in the same instant. Racing toward them out of the smoke pall laid across the water by the burning flagship was Sea Witch. Cayla was clearly visible, perched on the bow just above a ram that was half-submerged in green water by the speed of Witch's passage. She had her arms stretched out toward the sea, and as Blade watched, his jaw set, she raised her arms.

Five monstrous fanged heads rose out of the sea, turning inquiringly on the ends of twenty-foot lengths of scaled green neck. Blade saw those heads turn toward Charger, felt the glare of five pairs of angry red eyes sear him. Then he instinctively stepped back from the railing as the heads and necks fell back into the water. Five mounds of water rose up where they had been, five mounds arrowing straight for Charger. Here were Cayla and her allies-here were the Serpent Priestess and the Serpent Guardians-she had summoned them out of the depths of the sea, out of the depths of nightmare. And here was a last deadly battle for life itself.