Ships from the West

Three

'The birds,' said Abeleyn. 'They follow the ships.'

Over the fleet hung a cloud of raucous gulls, thousands of them. They wheeled and swooped madly and their unending shrieks hurt the air, carrying over even the creak of timber, the smash of keel striking water, the groan of rope and yard.

'Scavengers,' Admiral Rovero called out from the quarter shy;deck below. 'But it's strange, is it not, to see them so far out from land.'

'I have never seen it before. The odd one, yes, but not flocks like these,' Hawkwood told him.

All down the four levels of the spar deck – forecastle, waist, quarterdeck, poop – soldiers and sailors were staring up shy;wards, past the cracking, bellied sails, the straining yards, the bewildering complexities of the rigging. The gulls circled tirelessly, screaming.

Below them the flagship shouldered aside the swell with a beautiful easy motion. The Pontifidad was a tall man-of-war of twelve hundred tons with seven hundred men on board, and eighty long guns which were now bowsed up tight against the closed portlids like captured beasts straining for their liberty. A floating battery of immense destructive power, she was the largest warship in the western world, the pride of the Hebrian navy.

And she may not be enough, Abeleyn thought. She and all her mighty consorts, the assembled might of four nations. What are men and ships compared to-

'Sail ho!' the lookout yelled down from the main topgallant yard. 'A caravel coming out of the eye of the wind, fine on the larboard beam.'

'Our reconnaissance returns,' Hawkwood said. 'With what news I wonder?'

The knot of men stood on the poop deck of the Pontifidad and awaited the approaching ship calmly. Two days before a small squadron had been sent out to the west to reconnoitre while the fleet beat up round the headland now safely astern.

Admiral Rovero called up to the lookout from the quarter shy;deck. 'How many sail there?'

'Still just the one, sir. She's got a fore topsail carried away and I see braces on her flying loose.'

Abeleyn and Hawkwood looked at one another.

'What do you think, Captain?' Abeleyn asked.

Hawkwood rubbed a hand through the peppery tangle of his beard. 'I think the squadron may well have found what it was looking for.'

'My thoughts also.'

Admiral Rovero thumped up the companionway to the poop and saluted his monarch. 'Sire, there's no one to be seen on her deck. It smells bad to me. Permission to beat to quarters.'

'Granted, Rovero. Captain Hawkwood, I believe we should signal the allied contingents. Enemy to nor'-west. Clear for action.'

'Aye, sir.'

Over several square miles of ocean, the fleet came to urgent, scurrying life. Fifty-three great ships and dozens of smaller carracks and caravels were travelling north-east with the breeze broad on their larboard beam. The solitary caravel, a small vessel gauging no more than a hundred tons, ran headlong before the wind towards their gaping broadsides.

The fleet was in a rough arrowhead formation. The point was formed of Hebrian ships, the largest contingent. The left barb belonged to the Gabrionese, eleven lean, well-manned vessels with crews of superb seamen. The right barb consisted of the Astarans: larger ships, but less experienced crews. And the shank of the arrowhead was made up of the Sea-Merduks. Their vessels were lighter, as were their guns, but they were crowded with arquebusiers and buckler-men.

All told, over thirty thousand men rode the waves this bright spring morning, fifty leagues off the west coast of Hebrion. It was the biggest conglomeration of naval power the world had yet seen, and its assembling had been the patient work of years. Ten days now they had been cruising westwards to shy;gether, having rendezvoused off the Hebrian coast a fortnight since. All for this one day, this moment in time. This bright spring morning on the swells of the Western Ocean.

The stink of slow-match drifted up to Abeleyn from the gun deck, along with the sweat of the sailors as they hauled the huge guns outboard so that their muzzles protruded from the ship's sides like blunt spikes. Above him, in the tops, soldiers were loading the wicked little two-pounder swivels, ramming loads down the barrels of their arquebuses, hauling up buckets of seawater to fight the inevitable fires that would catch in the sails.

The caravel was less than three cables away now, and careering directly for the flagship. There was no one at her tiller, but her course was unerring.

'I don't like this. That's a dead ship with a live helm,' Rovero said. 'Sire, permission to blow her out of the water.'

Abeleyn paused in thought, and for a moment could have sworn that the regard of all those hundreds of sailors and soldiers and marines was fastened upon him alone. At last he said: 'Granted, Admiral.'

The signal pennants went up, and moments later the massed ordnance of the fleet began to thunder out, awesome as the wrath of God.

The caravel disappeared in a murderous storm of spuming water. Hawkwood saw timbers flying high in the air, a mast lurch and topple enmeshed in rigging. Cannonballs fell short and overshot, but enough were on target to smash the little vessel to kindling. When it reappeared it was a dismasted hulk, low in the water and surrounded by debris. The gulls shrieked overhead as the smoke and roar of the broadsides died away.

'I hope to God we were right,' Admiral Rovero murmured. 'Look at her decks!' someone yelled from the masthead. Men crowded the ship's rail, impatient for the powder smoke to clear. The knot of officers on the poop were higher up, and thus saw it before the sailors in the waist.

Cockroaches? Hawkwood thought. My God.

As the caravel settled, black, shining things were clamber shy;ing up out of her hatches and taking to the sea, for all the world like some aquatic swarm of beetles. A horrified buzz ran through the ship as the men glimpsed them.

'Back to your stations!' Hawkwood roared. 'This is a king's ship, not a pleasure yacht! Bosun – start that man by the cathead.'

The beetle figures tried to clasp on to the wreckage of the caravel, but it was in its death throes, circling stern-first down into a foaming grave and sucking most of them down with it. Soon there was nothing left on the surface of the sea but a few bobbing fragments of wreckage.

A yelp of pain as the bosun brought a knotted rope's end down on some unfortunate's back. The men returned to their battle-stations, but their whispering could be heard like a low surf from the poop.

They captured our squadron, and obviously are aware of our location,' Admiral Rovero said.

Whatever they are, Abeleyn thought. But he nodded in agreement. 'That is what we wanted, after all. We cannot cruise indefinitely. The enemy must come to us.' He turned to Hawkwood, and lowered his voice. 'Captain, the things in that ship. Have you-?'

'No, sire. We saw nothing like that in the west.'

As Hawkwood spoke there was the sudden flap and crack of wilting canvas overhead. They looked up to see the sails go limp as the wind died. For a few moments it was so silent on board that the only noise seemed to be the rasping of the sea past the cutwater. Then that faded too. The very waves became still, and in the space of half a glass the entire fleet was wallowing in a clock-calm, its formation scrambling as the ships began to box the compass. The abrupt stillness was astonishing.

'What in the world?' King Abeleyn said. 'Captain, this cannot be right.'

'It's not natural,' Hawkwood told him. 'There's sorcery at play here. Weather-working.'

The ship's bell rang out, and seconds later those of the other ships in the fleet followed suit as their quartermasters col shy;lected their wits. The sound was somehow desolate in the midst of that vast, dead ocean. Seven bells. It was barely mid-afternoon. The sea was a vast blue mirror, as even and unruffled as the flawless sky above it. The fleet resembled nothing so much as a chaotic, bristling city somehow set afloat upon the ocean, and for all its teeming might, it was dwarfed into insignificance by the vastness of the element which surrounded it. The gulls had disappeared.

The preternatural calm lasted into the evening, when a mist began to creep up on the fleet from the west. Faint as spider-silk at first, it swiftly thickened into a deep fog laden with moisture, blotting out the stars, the young moon, even the mast lanterns of all but neighbouring ships. Into the night the conches blew, arquebuses were fired at stated intervals, and lookouts posted fore and aft shouted their enquiries into the blank grey wall. The fleet drifted with flaccid sails, and crews spent anxious hours at the rail with long poles, lest they be needed to ward off a collision. All order was lost, and ships of Astarac became entangled with ships of Gabrion, and slim Merduk vessels were thumped and dunted by great Hebrian galleons.

The Kings of Hebrion and Astarac, along with Admiral Rovero and Captain Hawkwood, met in the Great Cabin of the Pontificiad just after eight bells had struck the end of the last dog-watch. King Mark had set out for the flagship to confer with his Royal cousin just after the fog had descended, and had been several hours in a cutter, rowed from ship to ship until he found his goal. His face was pasty and ill-looking despite the motionless sea.

The setting was a magnificent one, the curving, gilded sweep of the stern windows glittering in the light of over shy;head lanterns slung in gimbals, and two eighteen-pounder culverins bowsed up snug to their ports forward. The long table that ran athwartships was covered in charts, wine glasses, and a decanter. The liquid within the latter was as level as if it sat upon dry land.

'The men are becoming tired,' Hawkwood said. 'We've had them at quarters for nigh on six hours. The last watch has missed its turn below decks.'

"The enemy is very close – somewhere out in the fog,' Rovero said harshly. 'They have to be. They'll come at us ere the dawn. The men must remain at their posts.'

A momentary silence. They sipped their wine and listened to the melancholy calls of the lookouts, the far-off crack of an arquebus. Hawkwood had never known a crew so quiet. Usually there was a hum of talk, a splurge of laughter, ribaldry or profanity to be heard, even as far aft as this, but the ship's company waited on deck in the dew-laden darkness with scarcely a word, their eyes wide as they watched the wall of fog swirl formlessly before them.

'And who – or what – exactly are the enemy?' King Mark asked. 'Those things in the caravel were not human, or did not appear so. Nor did they seem to be shifters like those encoun shy;tered by the captain here on his expedition.'

The table looked at Hawkwood. He could only shrug. 'I am as much in the dark as anyone, sire. It's a fair number of years since that voyage. Who knows what they have been doing there in that time, what travesties they have been hatching?'

A knock on the cabin door, and a marine stepped in. 'Lord Murad, sire. Desires an audience.' The marine's face was chalky with fear.

Hawkwood and Rovero shared a swift look, but then Murad was with them, bowing prettily to his king. 'I hope I see you well, sire.' To their surprise his voice shook as he spoke. Water droplets beaded his face.

'You do. How was the haul to the flagship, cousin? The night is as thick as soup.'

'My coxswain hailed every ship in turn until we found the Pontifidad. He is as hoarse as a crow and I am dew-soaked and salt-crusted. We followed in the wake of King Mark, it seems.

Your majesty, forgive me' – this to Mark of Astarac who sat watching wordlessly – 'Duke Frobishir of Gabrion has also been looking for the flagship, I am told. He must still be out there in the fog. A man could be rowed around all night and finish where he started, it is so thick. But I am forgetting my manners. Admiral Rovero, my compliments – and here of course is my old comrade and shipmate, Captain Hawkwood. It has been a while, Captain, since we exchanged more than a nod at court.'

Hawkwood ducked his head, face closed.

Murad had put on some flesh since returning from his ill-starred voyage to the Western Continent. He would never be plump, but there was a certain sleekness to him now which made his scarred, wedge-shaped face less sinister than it once had been. Neither would he ever be handsome in any con shy;ventional sense, but his eyes were deep-set coal gleams which missed nothing and which gazed often, it was said, on the naked forms of other men's wives. This despite his marriage to the celebrated beauty Lady Jemilla. Hawkwood met those obsidian eyes and felt the mocking challenge within them. The two men were bitter enemies, the mariner's elevation of the past few years seemingly adding an even keener edge to Murad's hatred, but they kept up a civilised enough pretence in front of the King.

Murad's initial discomfiture had fled. 'I have brought you a gift, sire, something which I think we may all find intriguing, and, dare I say it, educational. With your permission.' He raised his voice to a shout. 'Varian! Have it brought in here!'

There was a commotion in the companionway beyond the stern cabin, men swearing and bumping. The door opened to admit four burly sailors dragging a large hessian sack which bulged heavily. They dropped it on the deck of the Great Cabin, knuckled their foreheads to the astonished company within, and then left with a strange, hunted haste.

The thing stank, of stagnant seawater and some other, nameless reek which Hawkwood could not identify, though it seemed hauntingly familiar. The men in the cabin rose to their feet to peer as Murad pulled back the mouth of the sack.

Something black and gleaming lay bundled within.

The nobleman took his poniard and ripped open the hessian with a flourish. Spilling out on to the cabin floor was what seemed at first glance to be a jumbled set of black armour. But the stink that poured out of it set them all to coughing and reaching for handkerchiefs.

'God Almighty!' Abeleyn exclaimed.

'Not God, sire,' Murad said grimly. 'Nothing to do with God at all.'

'How did you snare it?' demanded Hawkwood.

'We trolled for it with a net one of the crew had, in the wake of the caravel's sinking. We brought up others – all dead, like this – but threw them back and kept this as the finest speci shy;men.' There was surly triumph in Murad's voice.

'At least they drown then, like normal beasts,' Rovero said. 'What in the Saint's name is that stuff? It's not metal.'

'It's horn.' Abeleyn, less ginger than the rest, had knelt beside the carcass and was examining it closely, tapping it with the pommel of his dagger. 'Heavy, though. Too heavy to float. Look at the pincers there at the end of the arms! Like a giant lobster. And the spikes on the feet would pierce wood. Captain, help me here.'

Together the mariner and the King grasped a segment of plate that might be said to be the helm of the creature. They tugged and grunted, and there was a sharp crack, followed by a nauseating sucking sound. The helm part came free, and the smell it released set them coughing again. Hawkwood con shy;trolled his heaves first.

'It's a man then, after all.'

A contorted ebony face with snarling yellow teeth, the lips drawn back, the eyes a pale amber colour. It was a study in bone and sinew and bulging tendon, an anatomist's model.

'A man,' King Mark of Astarac said, rather doubtfully.

'If they're men, then they can be beaten by other men,' said Abeleyn. 'Take heart, my friends. Rovero, let this news be passed on to the crew at once. It's ordinary men in strange armour we face, not soulless demons.'

'Aye, sire.' Rovero gave the corpse a last, dubious stare, and left the cabin.

Hawkwood, Abeleyn, Murad and Mark were left to gaze at the dripping carrion at their feet.

'It's like no kind of man I've ever seen before,' Hawkwood said. 'Not even in Punt are their skins so black. And see the corner teeth? Sharp as a hound's. They've been filed, I believe. Some of the Corsairs do the same to render themselves more fearsome-looking.'

'Those eyes,' Abeleyn muttered. 'He burns in hell now, this fellow. You can see it in the eyes. He knew where he was going.'

They stood in an uncomfortable silence, the agony in the dead man's face holding them all.

'He may be a man, but something dreadful has been done to him all the same,' Mark said in almost a whisper. 'These sorcerers . . . Will their lord, Aruan, be here in person, you think?'

Abeleyn shook his head. 'Golophin tells me he is still in Charibon, marshalling his forces.' 'This fleet of theirs-'

'Is very close now. It may only have been sighted once or twice in the last ten years, but it exists. Small ships it is said, lateen-rigged and bluff-bowed. Scores of them. They appear out of mists like this. They've been raiding the Brenn Isles these two years past and more, taking the children and disappearing as they came. Odd-looking ships with high castles to fore and aft.'

'Like the cogs of ancient times’ Hawkwood put in.

'Yes, I suppose so. But my point is that they are built for boarding. Our long guns can – can keep them at bay . . .' The King's voice fell and they all looked at one another as the same thought struck them at once. In this fog, long guns were next to useless, and an enemy ship might drift close enough to board before anyone had any notion of her.

'If our sails are empty, then theirs are also,' Hawkwood said. 'I've not heard tell they have any galleys, and even the most skilled of weather-workers can affect only an area of ocean – he cannot choose to propel individual ships. They're boxing the compass just like us, and these things here – he nudged the corpse with his foot – 'they can't swim it seems, which is another blessing.'

Abeleyn slapped him on the shoulder. 'You hearten me, Captain. It is the good sense of mariners we need now, not the paranoia of politicians. You may rejoin the admiral on deck. We shall be up presently.'

Dismissed, Hawkwood left the cabin, but not before trading chill glances with Murad.

Abeleyn flicked the hessian over the snarling dead face on the deck and poured himself a long glass of wine. 'I should like to keep this thing as a specimen for Golophin to examine when he next visits us, but I fear the crew would not be overly enthusiastic at the notion. And the stink!' He drained his glass.

'Mark, Murad, no formality now. I want advice as the' – he raised his empty glass ironically – 'supreme commander of our little expedition. We have enough supplies for another month's cruising, and then we must put about for Abrusio. If we are not attacked tonight, then-'

'We're not going anywhere as long as this calm lasts,' Murad interrupted him harshly. 'Sire, while we are helpless and blind in this airless fog, it may be that the enemy is sailing past us in clear skies, and is intent on invading a kingdom stripped of its most able defenders.'

'Golophin has six thousand men garrisoned in Abrusio, and another ten scattered up and down the coast,' Abeleyn snapped.

'But they are not the best men, and he is no soldier, but a mage. Who's to know how his weathercock loyalties may swing if he sees this thing going against us?'

'Don't go doubting Golophin's loyalty to me, cousin. With shy;out him this alliance would never have been possible.'

'All the same, sire,' Murad answered him, unabashed, 'I'd as soon as seen a soldier in command back in Hebrion. General Mercado-'

'Is dead these ten years. I see where you are going with this, kinsman, and the answer is no. You remain with the fleet. I need you here.'

Murad bowed. 'Cousin, forgive me.'

'There is nothing to forgive. And I do not believe we will be bypassed by the enemy.' 'Why not, sire?'

King Mark of Astarac spoke up in the act of filling his own glass. His face had regained some of its colour. 'Because there are too many ripe royal apples in this basket to let it go by unplucked. Isn't that so, Abeleyn? We're dangling out here like the worm on the end of a hook.'

'Something like that, cousin.'

'Hence the pomp and circumstance that attended our de shy;parture,' Mark said wryly. 'Bar an engraved invitation, we have done everything we could to persuade the enemy to rendezvous with us. Abeleyn, I salute your cleverness. I just hope we have not been too clever by half. When is Golophin due to drop in again?'

'In the morning.'

'You can't summon him in any way?'

'No. His familiar is with Corfe, in the east.'

'A pity. For all your doubts, Murad, I for one would feel a lot happier with the old boy around. If nothing else, he might blow away this accursed mist, or whistle up a wind.'

'Sire, you speak sense,' Murad said, with what passed for humility with him. 'If the enemy has any intelligence at all of our comings and goings, then he will attack tonight, while the elements are still in his favour. I must get back to my ship.'

'Don't bump into anything in the dark,' Abeleyn told him, shaking his hand.

'If I do, it had best not be allergic to steel. Your majesties, excuse me, and may God go with you.'

'God,' said Abeleyn after he had left. 'What has God to do with it any more?' He refilled the wine glasses, and emptied his own at a single draught.

The night passed, the stars wheeled uncaring and unseen beyond the shroud of fog that held the fleet captive.

Unforgivably, Hawkwood had nodded off. He jerked up shy;right with a start, a sense of urgent knowledge burning in his mind. As his eyes focused he took in the steady glow of the lamp motionless in its gimbals, the blur of the chart on the table before him resolving itself into the familiar coastal line of Hebrion, the shining dividers lying where they had dropped from his limp fingers. He had been dozing for a few minutes, no more, but something had happened in that time. He could feel it.

And he looked up, to see he was not alone in the cabin.

A darkness there in the corner, beyond the reach of the light. It was crouched under the low ship timbers. For an instant he thought he saw two lights wink once, and then the darkness coalesced into the silhouette of a man. Above his head eight bells rang out, announcing the end of the middle watch. It was four hours after midnight, and dawn was racing towards him over the Hebros Mountains far to the east. It would arrive in the space of half a watch. But here on the Western Ocean, night reigned still.

'Richard. It is good to see you again.'

Hawkwood tilted the lamp, and saw standing in the corner of the cabin the robed figure of Bardolin. He shot to his feet, letting the lamp swing free and career back and forth to create shadowed chaos out of the cabin. He lurched forward, and in a moment had grasped Bardolin's powerful shoulders, bruis shy;ing the flesh under the black robes. A wild grin split his face, and the mage answered it. They embraced, laughing – and the next instant Hawkwood drew back again as if a snake had lunged at him. The smile fled.

'What are you come here for?' His hand went to his hip, but he had unslung his baldric, and the cutlass hung on the back of his chair.

'It's been a long time, Captain,' Bardolin said. As he advanced into the light, Hawkwood retreated. The mage held up a hand. 'Please, Richard, grant me a moment – no calling out or foolishness. What has it been, fifteen years?'

'Something like that'

'I remember Griella and I searching the docks of old Abrusio for the Osprey that morning' – a spasm of pain ran across his face – 'and the brandy I shared with Billerand.'

'What happened to you, Bardolin? What did they do to you?'

The mage smiled.

'How the world has changed under our feet. I should never have gone into the west with you, Hawkwood. Better to have burned in Hebrion. But that's all empty regret now. We cannot unmake the past, and we cannot wish ourselves other than we are.'

Hawkwood's hammering heart slowed a little. His hand edged towards the hilt of the cutlass. 'You'd best do it and have done then.'

'I'm not here to kill you, you damned fool. I'm here to offer you life.' Suddenly he was the old Bardolin again; the dreamy menace retreated. ‘I owe you that at least. Of them all, you were the only one who was a friend to me.'

'And Golophin.'

'Yes – him too. But that's another matter entirely. Hawk shy;wood, grab yourself a longboat or a rowboat or whatever passes for a small insignificant craft among you mariners, and get into it. Push off from this floating argosy and her consorts, and scull out into the empty ocean if you want to see the dawn.'

'What's going to happen?'

'You're all dead men, and your ships are already sunk. Believe me, for the love of God. You have to get clear of this fleet.'

'Tell me, Bardolin.'

But the strange detachment had returned. It did not seem to Hawkwood that it was truly Bardolin who smiled now.

'Tell you what? For the sake of old friendship I have done my best to warn you. You were always a stubborn fool, Captain. I wish you luck, or if that fails, a quick and painless end.'

He faded like the light of a candle when the sun brightens behind it, but Hawkwood saw the agony behind his eyes ere he disappeared. Then was alone in the cabin, and the sweat was running down his back in streams.

He heard the gunfire and the shrieking up on deck, and knew that whatever Bardolin had tried to warn him about had begun.