The Hand of Zei

CHAPTER TEN

At last the Sunqar appeared again upon the hazy horizon. Barnevelt, beginning to feel as if he knew these waters well, gave the course for the northwest coast of the floating island where lay the entrance to the pirate settlement.

A glider returned to the Kumanisht with word, passed on to the Junsar by flag signals, that a ship was coming out to meet them. The ship itself followed hard upon the word of its coming. As she approached, she furled her sails and headed straight for the Junsar, both slowing until they rested motionless with bows almost touching. The green truce pennon flew from the pirate's mainmast.

"Who be ye and what do ye here?" came a rasping voice in the Qiribo dialect from the bow of the Sunqaro ship.

Barnevelt told the herald with the megaphone beside him: "Tell him we're the allied navies of the Sadabao Sea, come to clean out the Sunqar."

"Clean us out!" came the yell from the other ship. "We'll teach you…" the spokesman for the Morya Sunqaruma mastered himself with an almost audible effort. "Have ye terms to present ere the hand play begins?"

"If you surrender we'll guarantee your lives, but nothing more—not your liberty or property."

"Very kind, ha ha! I go to carry your generous offer to our chiefs."

The Sunqaro galley backed oars until she was several lengths away before turning; her captain evidently did not care to expose his vulnerable side to a hostile ram at close quarters, truce or no truce. Then the pirate's oars thumped and splashed furiously as the ship raced for the entrance to the weed.

The Junsar started to follow at a leisurely pace to give the Sunqaruma a fair chance to consider the ultimatum. Then Barnevelt became aware of another rapid thumping on his left as Queen Alvandi's Douri Dejanai foamed past in pursuit of the pirate.

"Hey there!" Barnevelt called across the water. "Stay back in line!"

Back came the queen's hoarse bawl, "That's Gizil the Saddler who served as herald! I'll sink his ship and…"

"Who's Gizil the Saddler?"

"A saucy runagate from Qirib and a notorious fomenter of discontent among our males! We'd have hanged the losel but that when he heard there was a warrant out for him he fled. He shan't escape us this time!"

"Get back in line," said Barnevelt.

"But Gizil will escape!"

"Let him."

"That I'll not! Who think you you are, to command the Queen of Qirib?"

"I'm your commander-in-chief, that's who. Now stop where you are, or by Qondyor's toenails I'll sink you myself!"

"You'd never dare! Faster, boys!"

"Oh, no?" Barnevelt turned to Tangaloa and said, "Pass the word: Full speed ahead—load the forward catapult-secure to ram."

Although the Douri Dejanai had drawn ahead of the Junsar during this exchange of unpleasantries, the larger ship soon overhauled the smaller.

Barnevelt said, "Fire one shot over her poop. Try not to hit anything."

Whang! went the catapult. The great arrow as long as a man screeched across the narrow space between the two ships. Barnevelt had intended to miss the queen by a comfortable margin. However, whether because the target was too tempting or because the motion of the ship affected the crew's aim, the point of the missile struck Alvandi's cloak, ripped the garment from her shoulders, and bore it fluttering far out into the sea, where missile and cloak disappeared with a single splash. The queen spun and sprawled on the deck. One of her Amazons rushed to help her up.

She stopped her ship's oars, then shook a fist at the Junsar. Barnevelt saw grins everywhere, for Queen Alvandi's highhandedness was notorious even in a fleet whose leaders included such uninhibited individualists as Prince Ferrian of Sotaspe. Thereafter there was no more disobedience to Barne-velt's orders.

Me and Napoleon! he thought. If they only knew who he really was…

As they neared the Sunqar, the patches of terpahla became commoner until they occasionally fouled an oar. Through a long brass Krishnan telescope, Barnevelt saw that the ship that had met them was the one that stood guard at the entrance. This ship had resumed her former position and was pulling the detached floating mass of terpahla into the mouth of the entrance. Meanwhile a longboat was rowing up the channel.

The Sunqaruma were standing on the defensive. Barnevelt passed the word: "Carry out Plan Two."

With much signaling and trumpeting, the fleet changed formation. Two groups of ships that had been modified from regular galleys to troop carriers by cutting down their oarage drew off on the flanks, while Barnevelt in the Junsar led the Majburo squadron straight for the plug that blocked the channel into the Sunqar.

The pirate galley still stood guard inside the channel, a tackle of ropes connecting her with the plug. Beyond her, other ships moved about the channel.

Barnevelt wondered if the Sunqaruma would try a further parley, but then the Junsar's captain pointed out to him the maroon war pennant flapping lazily from the mainmast head of the guard ship.

"There's your answer, my lord," said he.

An instant later a catapult thumped, and lead balls and feathered javelins began to arc across the intervening water. As these got closer they were accompanied by arrows and crossbow bolts. Under the Junsar's captain's directions, some men of the crew rigged a bulwark of shields around the bow so that Barnevelt and the others could watch more safely.

"Shall we shoot?" said the captain.

"Not so long as they're kind enough to do our ranging for us," said Barnevelt.

He swung his telescope, trying to see if the squadrons were following the plan, though with the haze that the warm wind had brought he could do almost as well with his naked eyes.

A missile plunked into the water between the Junsar and her starboard neighbor. "Shoot," said Barnevelt, and the catapults on the bows of the Majburo squadron went off.

Things began to hit the bulwark of shields with resounding bangs. Aft, a crash and an outburst of yells told that the defenders' fire had gotten home.

Barnevelt, peering over his breastwork, found that only the plug of weed and a few meters of open water separated him from the galley that guarded the portal. This galley shot fast, things going overhead with a continuous swish and hum. Four Majburo galleys had come up to the plug and were shooting back, though being end-on they could only use their forward catapults, and there was not much room for archers to deploy on their forecastles.

Men scrambled down the bows of the attackers onto the rams with hooks and rakes, dug these into the terpahla, and pulled up streamers of the golden-brown slimy stuff with its purple floats. These they passed up to others above them in an effort to get a firm grip on the plug. In front of Barnevelt a man gaffing the sea vine was transfixed by a shaft and fell into the water. Another took his place.

A prolonged swish overhead made Barnevelt look up. It was one of Ferrian's gliders making a sweep over the enemy, its rockets leaving a trail of the yellow smoke of yasuvar powder. As it passed over the guardship, something like rain fell from it. Barnevelt knew that this was a handful of steel darts, of which Prince Ferrian had prepared great numbers for his aviators.

Another glider went on to the main settlement, where it dropped something. There was a burst of smoke and the sound of exploding fireworks, though Barnevelt could not see whether these pyrotechnics had done any real damage.

Bang! A leaden shot from a hostile catapult smashed through the bulwark, two shields away from Barnevelt, and went rolling along the forecastle like a bowling ball. A couple of men struggled to replace the broken shield. Below, other men were lying in the water among the vines. Barnevelt saw one of them jerk in a peculiar fashion and caught a flash of spotted hide. Drawn by the blood, the fondaqa or venomous eels were gathering.

A Majburo galley had belayed a number of strands of sea vine to its decks and began to back oars; but, as the tension increased, the vines broke one by -one until none was left. Another glider hissed overhead. As it passed over the guard-ship, a spray of missiles reached up ineffectively for it.

"My lord Snyol!" cried the Junsar's captain. "Here comes Prince Ferrian."

Barnevelt ran aft just as Ferrian, slim and swarthy, popped over the stern, the sun gleaming on his damascened armor. Below, the crew of the longboat that had rowed him over from the Kumanisht rested on their oars under the Junsar's stern.

Ferrian took a few seconds to get his breath back, then said: "A strange fleet nears from the North, my lord. One of my fliers saw it from his height."

"What sort of fleet?"

"We know not yet, but I've dispatched another glider to see."

"Who's it likely to be? King Rostamb, ashamed of himself, come to help us?"

"All things are possible, but more likely, 'tis the fleet of Dur, come to save their piratical friends."

Dur! Barnevelt had not thought of that possibility. Up forward, the racket of the fire fight with the Sunqaruma continued.

He said, "I'll go back to the Kumanisht with you to see about this. Carry on here," he told Tangaloa. "Send out a signal for the troop ships not to disembark their ski troops until further notice."

It would hardly do, he thought as he climbed down the rope ladder into the longboat, to be attacked from the seaward side in the midst of that delicate operation.

Aboard the carrier he fidgeted on the flight deck, ducking out of the way during glider operations. Finally the glider that had been sent north to scout came back, drifting in with butterfly grace until seized by the deck crew.

The aviator climbed out, saying, "Another quarter-hour and I should have been in the sea for want of fuel. My lords, the approaching fleet's indeed that of Dur, as could be ascertained from their sails, cut square in the fashion of the stormy Va'andao."

"How many?" asked Ferrian.

"I counted fourteen of their great ships, plus perhaps an equal number of small craft."

Barnevelt calculated. "If we can keep the Sunqaruma bottled up, that should leave us a margin to deal with Dur."

"You know not the great ships of Dur," retorted Ferrian. "Their biggest galleys are manned by nearly a thousand men, and one of those could destroy a squadron of ours as a man treads bugs under heel. With due respect, therefore, my lord, let's see a demonstration of this preternatural resourcefulness whereof Alvandi told us, lest the setting sun illumine the un-joyous spectacle of you, me, and all our brave people furnishing food for the fondaqa. What, sir, do you command?"