The Tyrant

Chapter 12

"I can delay it for another hour," said Thicelt tightly, peering at the vessel half a mile off from the stern of their ship. His eyes were squinted against the sun, which gave his huge-beaked face an even fiercer look than usual. "No longer than that. The wind's not good enough to stay ahead of them before their rowers tire."

Jessep Yunkers gave the pirate ship pursuing them a last glance and turned to Helga.

"It's your decision, ma'am."

Helga hesitated, not sure what to do. Then, an oft-repeated remark of her father's came back to her.

"My father always said to rely on your First Spear's advice when you were unsure of things. So-what is it?"

Jessep's square face creased into a grin of sorts. He turned his head and studied the oncoming pirate vessel. Then, glanced at the sun and gauged its position.

"I can't see any point in waiting." He jerked a thumb at the soldiers of the hundred, who were lying down everywhere on the deck. Out of sight of the pirates in their low galley, true enough, but badly cramped. "Another hour of that, and they'll be too stiff to get to their feet easily when the time comes. Best to do it quickly."

Thicelt glanced at Helga. She nodded. Immediately, the ship's captain began bellowing orders.

Part of the crew swarmed up the rigging and began bringing down the sail. Once that was done, they would see to the backbreaking and risky work of removing the mast. That was always done when a warship was heading into battle-at least, a warship armed with a ram-or the mast would snap off at the impact.

Meanwhile, obeying the new rhythm of the hortator at his wooden drum, the oarsmen began turning the ship. To the pirates pursuing them, it would seem as if the merchant ship was making a desperate attempt to ram them.

And desperate was the right word for it. Unless the pirates handled their ship incredibly badly, they should have no difficulty at all avoiding the clumsier demibireme's assault. Although Helga's was a warship of sorts itself, the pirate vessel was much more maneuverable in a single ship action. Typical of the type used by the freebooters along the coast, it was a light and shallow-draft pure galley. Very wide in proportion to its length, true, in order to accommodate the huge number of rowers aboard her. But still a much handier craft than its prey.

Sure enough, before Thicelt had even finished turning his ship Helga could hear the loud jeers of the pirate crew. There must have been some two hundred men aboard that low galley. Even across the distance-still perhaps four hundred yards-their voices carried well enough.

"Stay right here where they can see you clearly when we get closer," said Jessep. "Begging your pardon, ma'am. But that'll help… distract them."

Helga's smile was a very crooked thing. " 'Distraction' is one way of putting it. But how are they supposed to get a good look at me? We're back in the stern, First Spear. Sorry, 'Special Attendant.' "

" 'First Spear' is just fine coming from you, ma'am. Think I prefer it some, to be honest."

Helga nodded. " 'First Spear' it stays, then, at least between you and me. But my point is-if you really want them to get a look at me, shouldn't I be up in the bow?"

Jessep shook his head. "That'd be suspicious, ma'am. A lady'd be either way back at the stern or…"

"Cowering in the hold," finished Helga, "like as not screaming her head off. Speaking of which-"

She took three quick steps and leaned over the hatch. In the semi-darkness below, she could see Polla's pale face staring up at her. Despite the paleness, which was more the product of spending days in the ship's interior than anything else, Polla didn't seem especially worried.

"It'd help if you all did some screaming," said Helga. "When the time comes. I'll give you the signal."

Polla nodded. Then, gave her own version of a crooked smile. "No problem. Won't be the first time any of us have faked it. Although there's probably no need to mention that to my, ah, husband."

Helga chuckled. Then, chuckled again, hearing Ilset's outraged hiss. " I never faked anything! My husband-"

"Oh, shut up, will you?" groused Polla. "If I have to listen to another paean of praise about your precious Jessep, I swear I'll…"

The rest faded out as Polla disappeared. Helga straightened and went back to Jessep. The middle-aged former First Spear had a very smug look on his face. Apparently, the injury to his head hadn't affected his hearing any.

"Okay," she said. "Now what?"

Yunkers shrugged. "You and I just stand here looking like a rich merchant and his beautiful daughter. With our personal bodyguard." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Lortz. Helga's personal weapons trainer, looking relaxed if none too happy, was standing near them in full weapons and armor.

"Nothing else for us to do, really," Jessep continued. "Thicelt's an excellent shiphandler, as he's made obvious by now." He nodded in the direction of one of the soldiers lying on the deck. "My nephew Uther's as good a First Spear as any you'll find, and he's led at least four boarding operations that I know about. Other than that…" He winced slightly.

"Other than that, there's the question of what my hot-blooded and eager young brother wants to do."

At the moment, judging from the evidence, what Trae mainly wanted to do was curse the fates. Such, at least, was Helga's interpretation of his grimaces and gestures. The words themselves were difficult to follow, since there really weren't too many strung together in coherent clauses.

Eventually, as the string of swear words shortened, she was able to make some sense of it. Trae, it seemed, was most unhappy with the decision to end the long stern chase.

By then, he was standing in front of Helga herself and making his sentiments known.

"Dammit, Helga, I wanted to try them out! How in the name of all that's holy am I supposed to get any experience with the guns if-if-you stupid idiot!" His arms were waving about rather wildly now. "Turn the ship back around! I was just about to set the clamps!"

Yunkers hesitated, apparently reluctant to get into a fierce argument with a Demansk scion. Helga, for whom Trae was simply a younger brother, had no such compunction.

"If your precious guns are so finicky they can only be used under perfect conditions," she snarled, "then we might as well have left you behind."

As always, an attack by his older sister brought out the imp in Trae.

"You're just being nasty because these stupid pirates are getting in the way of your rut. For shame. Mother brought you up properly, too. Tried to, anyway."

"You're right," she snapped. "I want to get laid-it's been almost a year, dammit-and these freebooters are not what I had in mind for the purpose." She stared down her younger brother for a few seconds, daring him to carry the jest any further.

Not even Trae was that bold. "Okay," he muttered, reaching up and scratching his head. "Let me think…"

He gave the upper bank of rowers a brief study. "Oarlocks'll get in the way," she heard him mumble, "but even so…"

Trae turned back and looked at Thicelt. "How soon before the pirates lay alongside will you order the oars in?"

Thicelt glanced at the pirate ship. "No way to avoid them now, so any ship captain would already be starting to think in terms of repelling boarders. How much time do you need?"

"Two minutes," came Trae's immediately reply. "Three would be better."

Thicelt shook his head. "Three minutes is too long. In these seas, we'd be wallowing the gods know which way by then. Even two is pushing it. But I can manage that by keeping a third of the oars going until the last minute." Again, he glanced at the pirate ship. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quick. There are archers and slingers on that ship. They'll be starting to bombard us with missiles once they get within fifty yards."

"Fifty yards," sneered Trae. "My guns can-"

"Not on a tossing ship they can't," said Jessep softly. "This isn't like missile fire on land, young sir. You'll be lucky to hit anything until they're almost alongside."

Trae looked a bit startled. For all that he and his gunners had practiced setting the tripod clamps for the arquebuses, they hadn't actually fired any shots so far on the voyage. Trae had wanted to save his ammunition, since he had no way of knowing if he'd be able to replenish it in the Southron lands.

"Of course," added Jessep, "the same applies to the pirates. Most of their arrows and sling bullets will go wild also. All of this missile firing before a boarding operation is mostly show anyway."

The implied insult caused Trae's face to darken a little. Still, he was wise enough not to snarl a rejoinder. Trae understood full well that he and his beloved gunners had yet to prove themselves in action. Brash he might be, but not even Trae was cocky enough to boast about feats he hadn't accomplished yet.

"Make sure you set them up on the lower bank only," interjected Thicelt. He jerked his head toward the pirate ship, which was now not more than two hundred yards away. "As low as that galley is, all of our soldiers will still be boarding from the upper deck. No other way to do it, since that's how the special bridges are designed."

"Pain in the butt, that," growled Jessep. "Having to charge down a steep ramp-loaded with shield and armor and assegai-even leaving aside the fact that we haven't tested the damn contraptions." He gave Thicelt a look which was not entirely filled with admiration. "Wish we had some simple old-fashioned claws."

By "claws," Helga knew, Jessep was referring to the traditional boarding ramps used by the Confederate army in their favored method of naval operation. The "claws" were nothing more complicated than wide planks, held upright and fit into prepared hinges along the rails just before action. And with spikes at the other end, which would drive into the wood of an opposing vessel when the planks were pushed over.

But there had simply been no way to adapt the demibireme to that tactic, which presupposed the large war galleys of the Vanbert regular navy. Instead, what Thicelt had done was redesign portions of the upper deck-already designed to be removed in the event of action-so that they would collapse down onto an enemy vessel alongside. He'd even added fittings for small spikes which could be inserted at the last minute. Those adaptations had not been the least of the cost to her father of getting this ship ready for her voyage.

The end result would be boarding ramps not much different from claws. In theory, at least. But like almost all soldiers, Jessep was conservative when it came to mayhem. The tried and true methods are best, and be damned to the fancy schemes of amateurs.

"They'll work," said Thicelt firmly. "We've tested them plenty of times."

Jessep left unsaid the obvious rejoinder: not in a real battle, you haven't. There was simply no point now in arguing about the matter. Thicelt's complicated boarding ramps would work or they wouldn't. Either way, Jessep was obviously not concerned about the outcome- a crack Vanbert hundred against twice their number of mangy pirates? surely you jest! — but simply the casualties. With proper claws, the Confederate marines would turn the pirate crew into so much ground meat. With these new-fangled things…

He sighed heavily. "Whatever happens will happen. And now, young sir, you'd best get to it. You don't have much time left."

Trae was gone instantly, shouting orders to his gunners waiting on the deck below. The gunners began scurrying to their newly-designated posts. Helga was a bit puzzled to see how easily they seemed to interpret Trae's orders. Most of the words her younger brother was shouting were simply obscenities.

"That much he's got right," growled Yunkers. The former First Spear grinned at Helga. "Trained soldiers pretty much know what to do anyway. You just have to cuss at 'em to keep their brains working."

Afterward, Trae and his men would be able to boast endlessly. Which, to the regret of everyone else, they did.

The pirate vessel, as Thicelt predicted, had no difficulty eluding the demibireme's ramming attempt. Then, as the one-and-a-half slid by, the pirates pulled feverishly on their oars to close the distance. The one and only benefit of the ramming attempt was that it kept most of the pirate archers and all of their slingers out of the action. There was no room on that crowded vessel, with hundreds of men working at huge oars, for more than a handful of archers to fire a few missiles. Most of which, as Jessep had foreseen, went astray anyway.

Trae waited until the pirate ship was not more than ten yards distant. By then, Thicelt had removed all the rowers and Trae's gunners had set the tripod clamps at ten places along the lower deck which gave them a clear line of fire. At Trae's command-which was nothing more than a string of particularly obscene words-the first team of gunners set their arquebuses and fired.

None of it took more than a few seconds. The gunners themselves, following Trae's previous orders, were not even aiming at individual men. In fact, they weren't shooting at "men" at all. Not directly, at any rate. Their heavy, large-bored guns were simply pointing at the side of the pirate ship. The only sense in which "aiming" applied was that they were trying to hit the wooden wall of the enemy ship at approximately the height of the rowers' benches on the other side. "Hip-high," had been Trae's specific command. But… with the heavy four-ounce balls fired by those two-man arquebuses, at point-blank range, anything close would do just fine.

And so it proved. The gunhandlers set their weapons, more or less "aimed," then braced for the recoil and closed their eyes when the other man of the team applied the slow match. A slightly ragged volley erupted, and one which was noisy enough to make the word "erupted" much more than a poetic allusion. It sounded like a small volcano, heard up close.

Looked like one, too. Immediately, the middle portion of the pirate ship vanished from sight, engulfed in a cloud of smoke. Helga, from her vantage point, could only see the bow and stern of the enemy. The faces of the pirates standing there, which only a moment before had been leering at her, were now so many studies in shock and confusion.

She thought that a bit odd, at first. Her former lover Adrian Gellert, after all, had been the one who first introduced gunpowder weapons to the world-using the pirates of the islands as his chosen instrument. And the Islanders had taken to the new weapons eagerly, as her father and Speaker Emeritus Jeschonyk had discovered to their dismay when the first Confederate assaults on the rebel island of Preble had been bloodily repulsed. That had been over a year ago. By now, Helga would have thought, pirates would be quite accustomed to gunpowder.

Then, seeing the rags in which the pirates on this ship were clad, she realized the truth. Like most Vanberts, Helga tended to think of "Islanders" and "pirates" as synonymous terms. But the truth was more complicated.

The Islanders could be separated into at least four distinct groups. There was the actual Kingdom of the Isles, ruled over by Casull the IV from his capital on the island of Chalice. Or, as he officially styled himself: "King Casull IV, Lord of the Isles, Supreme Autocrat, Chosen of the Sun God and Lemare of the Sea." Leaving aside the rhetorical flourish of the rest, the term autocrat was accurate enough. Except that the power of the King of the Isles, as great as it undoubtedly was, also had the historical characteristic of transience. Islander politics were even more notorious for treachery, double-dealing and palace revolts than the Confederacy's.

Then, there was-had been, rather-the smaller-scale but similar realm of Vase. The island of Vase, because it was located quite some distance from the main archipelago, had traditionally enjoyed independent status. Until Casull conquered it the year before, it had been ruled by the so-called Director of Vase. It had been in that old pirate chief's hareem that Helga had spent the most unpleasant year of her life, after she'd been sold by the pirates who captured her. The Director had been delighted to obtain a high-ranked member of the Vanbert aristocracy for one of his concubines. Even if, in practice, he hadn't been able to do much to enjoy his prize.

She grimaced, as a sudden image came back to her. A fat belly, heaving and covered with sweat, almost crushing her; and an old man's peevish voice, cursing her because he couldn't get an erection. He'd slapped her, that night, hard enough to leave bruises on her cheeks for days thereafter.

The ugly memory was blown away by another volley from Trae's guns. She was startled to realize that not more than a quarter of a minute had elapsed since the first. Trae really had trained his men well.

And he was using them intelligently, Helga thought. Trae had kept back half of his twenty two-man teams, having apparently decided that maintaining a good rate of fire was more important than the size of the volleys themselves. Now, as his teams switched places-one squad firing loaded and ready guns while the other picked up their second set of weapons-his decision proved itself. The second volley slammed into the side of the pirate ship before the cloud of smoke from the first had been dissipated by the slight breeze.

Confusion, she could remember her father telling her, is an even better weapon against an enemy than casualties. The pirates, she realized, had not had time to make sense out of what was happening to them before yet another volley ripped into their ranks.

Because of the smoke, she couldn't really see the casualties which were being inflicted by Trae's guns. But judging from the volume of the screams coming from amidships of the enemy vessel, as well as the dismay on the faces of those pirates she could see on the stern and bow- they weren't gloating over their projected rapine now, the stinking bastards — she thought the guns were tearing the enemy like a pack of predators tears a cornered greatbeast.

The unwanted image of a rapist's fat belly was replaced by another. The more slender waists of would-be rapists, sitting on benches, screaming as they stared at their shattered hip bones and ruptured intestines. Helga had seen what those lead bullets would do to a heavy pig, shot at close range. The thin planks of the pirate ship wouldn't slow them down much more than paper. If anything, she thought, the splinters the bullets would produce punching through the walls would simply double the casualties. And if pieces of broken wood sent sailing by four-ounce lead balls wouldn't do quite as much damage as the bullets themselves, they would do more than enough to put most of the men they struck half out of the action by the time the marines stormed aboard. "Half out of the action," against experienced Confederate infantrymen, was pretty much a euphemism for dead meat.

The first squad was back at their firing posts. Another volley, still before the cloud of smoke could vanish. Each two-man team in Trae's gunnery unit, Helga knew, had two arquebuses. With the weapons already loaded and the slow matches prepared, given the rate of fire they were showing now, that meant Another volley. Helga was almost shocked herself. They could manage four volleys in the first minute, before the pirate ship could even manage to close the final distance. She realized now that she'd allowed herself to be too influenced by Jessep's veteran experience. True, even with four volleys, the actual casualties inflicted would be relatively slight. She did the quick arithmetic in her head. Even assuming every bullet hit a pirate-almost certain, fired into such a packed mob, since for each one that missed another would punch through two men-then add another from splinter damage…

Still, only forty men hit, out of probably two hundred.

Before she could get too smug about her newfound wisdom, however, Jessep Yunkers was shouting in her ear. "A fifth of them, by the gods! I'll wager my pension on it! And before we even hit the bastards with the blades!"

She turned and stared at him. The veteran's blocky face was almost split in half with a grin. Seeing her look of confusion, Jessep shook his head.

"Y've never been in a battle, lass." He was so excited he forgot his normal ma'am or young lady, and his eastern accent was thicker than usual. "A fift' gone in th'missile volley? We don' never hope fer more than a tent', even wit' dart volleys throwed by vets." His grin turned into a jeer, aimed at the pirates. "That'll break most any'un, much less these scum."

She followed his gaze. The sight of the pirates on the bow and stern-the midships was still obscured by smoke-showed her at once that Jessep was right. Those faces were full of panic, now, not dismay.

The sight brought her thoughts back to her earlier ruminations. In addition to the pirates of the archipelago and the other large islands of Vase and Preble-"pirates" so-called; in reality they were a well-organized kingdom in their own right-there were the pirates who laired along the coast of the continent. Too far south to be under Confederate control, and too remote to be ruled more than nominally by any Southron chieftain, these were simply pirates in fact as well as in name.

Not even that, Helga realized. Most of the time, these "pirates" would survive by fishing and selling the rare hardwoods they cut from the dense forests along the continent's waist. For all their undoubted seamanship, not to mention their ferocity when easy prey showed off their coastal villages, they had little of the disciplined organization of the Islanders proper. They weren't even that closely related racially, although they had adopted many of the Islander customs and usually worshipped Islander gods. Part Islander, part Southron-not to mention a heavy admixture of slaves escaped from the Confederate plantations to the north-they were mongrels by blood as well as habit. Tough, yes; as mongrels always are. But with a "discipline" that didn't begin to compare with the Islanders proper, much less Confederate soldiery.

The fourth volley erupted. That would be it, for the moment. Helga had watched Trae's men at practice, often enough, while her younger brother trained them on the family's estate. She knew that those clumsy guns, once fired, needed at least a minute to be cleaned and reloaded. A minute, at best. After a few rounds had been fired through the barrels, they needed to be set aside to cool before they could be used again. Trae had used the best metal he could find for them, but even those precious alloys would start to weaken once the barrels got too hot.

But in this instance, it was irrelevant anyway. Thicelt was already shouting at Trae, telling him to pull his gunners out of the way of the soldiers. The men of the hundred were on their feet, crouched, ready to topple the special sections of the upper deck onto the pirate ship's rail. By now, only a three-foot gap separated the two vessels-more than short enough to allow the sections to span the distance.

The gunners scrambled aside and the soldiers yanked out the pins which held the sections in place. Then, with a shout and heaved shoulders, toppled the improvised boarding ramps onto the pirate ship.

Then Nothing. At their First Spear's shouted command, they simply stood by the ramps, waiting. Helga was too confused to do more than notice that they weren't even hefting their weighted darts for an initial volley.

She heard Jessep's harsh chuckle. "I told you Uther was a good First Spear. Good as I was, truth be told-sure enough at his age."

She turned her head and stared at him. Jessep's rare grin was back.

"Live and learn, ma'am. Experience always counts." He pointed with his square chin at the pirate vessel, still half obscured by smoke. "Uther's never seen gunpowder at work before, but he has led boarding operations onto burning ships. You don't want to lead men into a pile of smoke, you surely don't. Half your discipline'll vanish in a few heartbeats. Let Vanbert soldiers know their place-see and feel their mates at their shoulders-they'll handle anything. Let them lose their bearings, and you never know what'll happen. The only Confederate hundred I ever saw break and run did so in a dense fog."

The grin vanished, replaced by the usual block-against-block that did Jessep for a jaw. "Didn't keep 'em from being decimated afterward, o' course. Those of 'em who survived the enemy pursuit."

Now understanding, Helga nodded jerkily. Not for the first time, she was reminded of the harsh regime under which the Confederacy's soldiers lived and fought.

Another shout from Uther jerked her head back around. The smoke had cleared enough, apparently. The first wave of marines was charging across the ramp, two abreast. Even on that precarious footing, they had their shields locked and the assegais ready for that terrible underhand thrust which had made Confederate infantrymen feared for centuries.

There were four ramps, in all. The first eight men hammered into the screeching mass of pirates. Their spear thrusts were almost desultory. For the most part, the vanguard was using the force of their charge and their shields to clear some fighting room for their comrades coming behind.

The shields were well designed for the purpose. Oval in shape, covering a man from shoulder to mid-thigh, and with a metal rim and boss to bolster the laminated wood from which they were made. Between their own mass and the weight of the three lead-weighted darts clipped on the inside, the shields were just about perfect for the task of driving back a crowd.

Perfect, at least, when wielded by men trained in their use. Watching the soldiers at work, the way their shoulders hunched into the shields and their powerful legs worked like the pistons Trae had shown her in the captured steam ram, Helga suddenly understood something else for the first time.

She'd been trained in combat herself, at her insistence, and by the finest retired gladiators her father could find, Lortz being the latest of them. But her training had been, basically, in the Emerald style which was fashionable in aristocratic duels and the gladiator arenas. That style favored long swords, small round shields, with all the fancy footwork and need for room which it required.

She snorted. "It's no wonder we whipped them."

Jessep, again, showed an uncanny ability to read her mind. "True enough, la-ah, ma'am. You want a short blade for real killing. And then you do most of the killing with your shoulders and legs anyway. The spear thrust's just the finish. Easy enough, if you've gotten the strength and endurance it takes to keep a heavy shield steady at all times-and leg muscles like iron."

She remembered watching her father's soldiers at training. It had seemed a bit odd to her, at the time, the way they devoted such a relatively small amount of time to practicing spear thrusts. For the most part, the training of Confederate infantrymen seemed to be nothing more than endless running-and shield work. Time after time, she'd watched as a squad of men-always a squad, or a whole hundred; Confederate soldiers never trained as individuals-pushed a huge and heavy box full of dirt all the way across a training field. Their legs hammering like pistons, the shields steady against the obstacle. Never halting, never tiring, never stumbling.

They were doing it again now. The first wave of boarders had been joined at the front by the next two. Fully a fourth of the hundred were not using their spears at all. They were simply clearing the midships of the pirate vessel, pushing their opponents back with a solid shield wall. Their shields remaining locked, even as the men holding them threaded their way down the bench rows. Their legs drove relentlessly, never losing their footing even when the sandals stamped down on ruptured bodies instead of wood. Helga could remember watching her father train soldiers on a field littered with the carcasses of gutted pigs. She'd thought it gross, at the time.

Not to mention wasteful of perfectly valuable swine. But now, also, she understood why she'd overheard soldiers say they preferred serving under a rich officer, as long as he was competent. She'd thought, then, that they'd only been thinking of pay and bonuses. But now she realized that a man like her father could afford to train his soldiers properly, as well as provide them with the best equipment. Pay and bonus did no good to a dead soldier.

The pirates were screaming even more loudly, now that this second blow had struck them. They'd been expecting to face nothing more than the usual crew of a demibireme. Sailors, basically, who doubled as fighters only on rare occasion. Coming on top of the surprise volleys of gunfire, the shock of seeing regular Confederate marines storming across boarding ramps- and where the hell had those come from? — had unnerved them completely.

The pirates facing the marines directly weren't even fighting, except here and there. Most of them were simply trying to scramble away.

But there was no room to scramble. Two hundred men packed aboard such a galley had left little room to begin with, even before the Confederate assault cleared the space in the middle.

"They're starting to go over the side," said Jessep. Sure enough, Helga could see at least a dozen pirates spilling into the water. A few of them from jumping, most of them simply from being knocked overboard by the sudden crush.

"Pity the poor bastards," he added. Softly, if not gently.

Helga was about to snarl something to the effect that she wanted all the pirates dead. The coast wasn't that far away, after all, and at least some of them would be good swimmers. But then, seeing the first fins cutting through the water not more than fifty yards away, the words died in her throat.

"These are shark waters, aren't they?" she asked.

Jessep grunted. "Famous for it." He studied the shoreline for a moment; then: "I'd say it's a good two miles. Maybe closer to three. Not too many men can swim that distance to begin with. Here…" He shook his head. "Not a chance."

Helga decided he was right. As they neared, she recognized the shape and markings of the fins. These were what sailors called "redsharks." Not from their own coloring, which was basically a dull gray except for the white tips of the dorsal fins, but from their handiwork. Redsharks were almost as large as the much rarer "great blues," and their gaping jaws were fringed with grappling tentacles lined on the interior with nasty little barbs.

They weren't even the same species-not even close-as most of the seabeasts which went by the generic name of "sharks." Men had been known to survive attacks by other types of sharks, even great blues. Most sharks were actually a little finicky in their tastes. They usually bit humans by mistake, thinking they were their normal prey. One bite was enough to find the taste of humans sour, and the shark went on its way.

Of course, often enough that one bite was fatal, especially with great blues. Still, many men had lived to tell the tale afterward of a great blue attack; even if, as a rule, they told the tale with a wooden leg propped up on a seaside tavern stool. But Helga had never heard of anyone surviving a redshark which sunk its teeth and tentacles into them. Redsharks were about as indiscriminate in their taste as hogs in a trough, and they weighed on average half a ton. Once a human got into their grasp, that… was it.

"Good," she hissed. She caught a glimpse of Jessep giving her an odd look, but paid no attention. She was engrossed with gauging the battle raging on the ship alongside.

By now, the Confederate marines had cleared the entire center of the enemy vessel and were beginning the butcher work. All of them had finished boarding. Half of the hundred was driving toward the stern, the other half toward the bow. Shields still locked-but now the assegais were flashing. And, like the legs, went back and forth like machines. Pistons, for all intents and purposes-except these pistons ended in two-foot blades sharpened to an edge which didn't quite match a razor's. Not quite.

"This is finished, First Spear. Isn't it?"

"Aye, ma'am. All but the killing."

She shook her head. "No reason to risk any more losses." Losses had been few enough, in truth. Here as always, Confederate training and discipline counted. But Helga could see at least five soldiers of the hundred out of action. Three of them were only wounded-and not too badly at that, she thought. They were already attending to their own wounds.

The other two… One of them was dead, no question about it. A skillfully wielded blade-or just a lucky one-must have come over the edge of his shield and caught his throat. Blood was still gushing out of the wound, enough to make his survival a moot point.

She wasn't sure about the other. He was lying sprawled across one of the benches, his helmet knocked askew. Might be dead, or just unconscious.

But there was no need, any longer, to risk more casualties. She might well need her hundred again, in the weeks and months to come-and there'd be no way to replace lost men down in the southern continent. At least, she'd never heard of Southrons being recruited directly into a regular Vanbert unit. Many of the barbarians served in the Confederate army, of course, but to the best of her knowledge always as members of auxiliary units.

"Call it off, First Spear," she commanded. "There's no need to lose any more of our people."

Jessep was shouting the order before she even finished. Looking at him, Helga realized he was relieved to hear her order. He'd obviously been expecting her to insist on full revenge.

Her jaws were tight. I'll get my revenge, never fear. I just don't need the hundred for it.

The instrument of her revenge was trotting toward her even now. Trae, his mouth split in a wide smile, about to utter some words of glee and self-praise.

He never got them out. "I'm not finished with you," hissed Helga. She pointed a stiff finger at the pirate ship. "Destroy that thing for me, brother."

He came to an abrupt stop a few feet away and turned his head. "What for?" he demanded. Then, seeing the Confederate soldiers begin an orderly withdrawal: "And why'd you wait so long to call them back? Another five minutes and they'd have lost-"

He broke off, seeing the expression on Helga's face. "Oh," he mumbled. "That."

He took a deep breath. "Sorry, sister. Because you never act like… what I mean is…" Another deep breath. "Never mind."

He gave the pirate ship a quick study. "Don't want to chance a grenade," he muttered, "and they're too hard to replace. Simple satchel charge should do the trick-and I've got something special I'd like to try anyway."

As always, a technical project got Trae completely engrossed. Within fifteen seconds, he was back among his gunnery crew, shouting his usual mix of profanity and orders.

It was all very quick. By the time the last Confederate marines trotted back across the ramps, carrying their dead and helping their wounded, Trae had his "special" ready. It looked like one of the other satchel charges Helga had seen, except for three flasks strapped to the side.

Very quick, though not rushed. Thicelt even had his sailors take the time to pry loose the ends of the ramps and hoist them back into position, rather than simply jettisoning them by detaching the hinges. Then with a push of several oars, opened a space of about ten feet between the two ships.

Two of Trae's men were standing on one of the still-fixed portions of the upper deck by now, holding the "special satchel" between them. At Trae's shout, a third man lit the fuse and the two tossed the thing onto the center of the pirate galley's deck. That area was cleared, except for corpses. The pirates still alive-a good half of the crew, Helga estimated-were cowering at the bow and stern. Even after the marines retreated, they hadn't been in the least inclined to "pursue."

"Get us away from here, Sharlz!" bellowed Trae. "That's a short fuse!"

The command was pointless, really. Thicelt already had the ship under way, the hortator pounding his mallets. Their progress was slow, at first, with only the lower bank of oars working. But by the time the satchel charge blew, less than a minute after it was tossed, Helga's ship was fifty yards away and retreating rapidly. Some corner of her brain was impressed by the speed with which Thicelt had gotten the upper bank back into action.

But only a corner of her brain, and a small corner at that. Most of her mind was being washed over by a wave of sheer hatred, intermingled with horrible flashes of memories she had long suppressed. One male body after another-just pieces of bodies, really; a bare chest, a leg, a scrawny belly wet with her violation, another gap-toothed grin-slamming onto her, one after the other. She never knew how many; didn't want to know. It had lasted for three days.

At first, she was disappointed by the burst of the satchel charge. She'd been expecting to see the pirate ship simply disintegrate. Break in half, at least. But then, not more than a second later, seeing the bloom of fire wash across the ship, she understood what Trae had meant by a "special." He must have designed this satchel charge especially for use against an enemy ship.

Trae confirmed her thought immediately. "Beautiful, isn't it? There wasn't actually much powder in the thing. Just enough to set off the naphtha-some other stuff too-I had in those flasks. She'll burn down to the waterline, you watch."

Helga didn't doubt it. Neither, judging from their looks of horror and their screams, did any of the pirates still alive on the ship. Seamen fear nothing quite so much as an uncontrolled fire on a wooden vessel. Even though the waters around the burning galley were now being crisscrossed by white-tipped fins, Helga could see at least a dozen more pirates jumping overboard.

Her hatred now consumed her entirely. From the stern of the ship, she had a perfect view of the massacre. She pressed her groin against the rail, clutching the wood with hands like claws, and screamed across the waters.

"Try raping the redsharks, you fuckers! I hope-"

What she hoped, in shrieking and graphic anatomical detail, had Trae and Jessep and Lortz pale-faced within seconds. Minutes later, when she finally turned away, they were still pale.

Seeing the expressions on their faces, she snarled at them. "Tough men!" she jeered. "Try surviving three days of a gang rape, you pussies, before you think of telling me what 'tough' means."

And with that, she stalked over to the hatch and lowered herself into the hold. Muttering under her breath all the while about her need for the company of women.

Once below, she found herself spending the next ten minutes trying to quiet her wailing infant. He and Ilset's baby daughter were producing a truly incredible volume of noise.

" 'Twas the screaming did it," explained Polla apologetically. "Ours, I mean."

She gave Helga another crooked little smile. "The sound of the guns made things worse for little Yuli, but it actually seemed to steady your boy for a bit there. Like father, like son, the old saying goes."

Helga returned the smile with one that was probably just as crooked. She'd been careful, since Adrian had returned her to Demansk, to keep the identity of her baby's father a closely-held secret in the family. An unknown pirate's bastard was simply a tool for Demansk's enemies to shame him. Had it become widely known that the father of Helga's child had been Gellert himself, the repercussions might have been much worse.

But once they'd left on this voyage, she'd seen no reason to keep the secret from the new friends she was making. By the time they got back to the Confederacy-if they ever did-it would all be a moot point, anyway.

When she finally had her baby down to the point of occasional little sobs, Helga turned to Polla and whispered a few words of thanks.

Polla shrugged. "Not the first time I've had to take care of scared kids. Not the worst, neither-not by a long ways." She shook her head sadly. "I hate to see it, I really do. Children, specially babies, shouldn't be inflicted with the ills of the world."

Those words were the first thing which penetrated Helga's still-seething fury. Broke the rage, in fact, like a needle punctures a bubble.

Children, specially babies…

There hadn't been any children, of course, on the pirate ship. But… those "pirates," when all was said and done, had children of their own. Waiting for their fathers to return, back in a cluster of small fishing villages.

Helga's breath came in a little shudder. There would be no fathers returning this day. Nor any other. Helga's vengeance had destroyed those villages along with the fathers. Within weeks, she knew, as the word of the disaster spread, the nearby villages would start predating on their own. Men would come in little bands, raiding on the outskirts at first to test the rumor. Then, seeing it was true, would swarm the shattered villagers. Kill the men left-old or crippled, most of them-then sell the women and children into slavery.

Dozens of children, many of them no older than her own, had been doomed as well by Helga's vengeance. That vengeance had killed the fathers in less than an hour. It would torture their children for a lifetime.

"And so what?" she muttered, half snarling. She gave Polla a look which was almost one of appeal. But Polla only returned the look with those same soft, sad brown eyes.

"It's a pity," was all she said. "But that's the way of the world."

That night, as always, Jessep himself came down to the hold. The other senior men with "wives" aboard only visited them on occasion, but Jessep spent every night with Ilset folded into his arms.

"Folded," that is, using the term loosely. Sound carried in the hold, the partitioning cloths being no better insulators than thin linen ever is. Helga had been amused, impressed-and envious, truth to tell-at the sounds issuing from Jessep and Ilset's little partition each and every night since the voyage began. Middle-aged or no, head injury or no, Jessep Yunkers seemed to have neither difficulty nor reluctance keeping his healthy young wife entertained.

Unlike all the previous nights, however, Jessep came by her partition first. Helga heard him whisper through the cloth.

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I'm fine, First Spear." Then, moved by a sudden and powerful impulse: "Come in. Please."

A moment later, a bit gingerly, Jessep moved aside the cloth and stooped into her section. Helga was propped against a little pile of cushions, with her son asleep in the crook of her arm. With her right hand, she patted a space next to her.

"Sit. Please."

Jessep did as she bade him, although it was obvious that he felt very awkward in such close and casual familiarity with a noblewoman.

Helga gave him a smile which she intended to be reassuring. But, to her surprise, felt the smile dissolve into a little sob. A little sob which became wracking tears within seconds.

Now it was her turn to be enfolded in Jessep's embrace. There was nothing sexual about the contact, however. The man's strong arms reminded her of her father's, in the years now long past when she had been a child herself. And, though she'd always been a self-confident girl, there had been times when she'd needed that comfort.

"S'all right, girl," whispered Yunkers. " 'Ma'am,' I mean."

A laugh burst its way through the sobs. "Call me 'girl,' Jessep. Or 'lass' or whatever else you want. Just 'Helga' will do fine, for that matter."

She lifted her tear-blurred eyes and looked up at his blocky face. Smiling for the first time in hours.

"I'm not sure exactly how I feel about men in general, right at the moment. But I'm partial to fathers, that's for sure. And you remind me a lot of my own."

Jessep returned the smile with a little grimace. But it was a relaxed sort of wince. Even a bit of a serene one.

"Don't know as I've got his spirit. Sure as anything don't have his brains. But I'll do my best, young la-Helga."

She lowered her head and nestled it into his shoulder. "Tell me, Jessep. What do you think of vengeance?"

She felt his thick chest rise and fall, twice, while he considered his answer.

Then: "It's like this, girl. A bit of vengeance is a fine thing. Useful, now and then. But I think of it like a honing stone. You just want a little, when you need it, to keep the blade sharp. And that's it. Too much and… you'll wear the blade away in no time."

"I think that's good advice," she murmured. "And I think I'll take it from now on."

They said nothing further for perhaps ten minutes. Then Helga lifted her head again and gave Jessep's chest a little push. "Enough. Your Ilset will be getting fidgety."

Jessep chuckled. "She's not the jealous type, girl. And even if she were, I wouldn't have to lie anyway."

" 'Jealous' be damned!" snorted Helga. "I know the two of you. I should, having to listen to it every night."

Jessep flushed. Helga chuckled again. "So be off. Another ten minutes and she'll be so horny you might not survive the night. Old and decrepit as you are."

The speed with which Yunkers scurried out of her partition gave the lie to that last jibe. Not that any was needed.

Helga lay down and tried to find sleep. It wouldn't come at first, though. Jessep's advice was still rolling through her mind. Her brain seemed fixed on the image of a blade being sharpened to nothingness on a stone of hatred. After a time, the image of a blade shifted and she found herself remembering the face of Adrian's brother Esmond. A handsome face, it was. Very handsome, in fact-much more so than Adrian's, truth to tell. Even leaving aside Esmond's demigod physique, which Helga had seen more than once clad only in a loincloth, during the time she had spent as Adrian Gellert's "captured concubine."

But there was no attraction in the memory. There had always been something wrong about Esmond. Always, whenever he looked at her, something evil and hollow in the stare. As if he saw nothing in the woman her brother had taken for his own than just another hated Vanbert.

That's what Jessep's talking about, she realized. A splendid blade, worn down by endless honing. Such a waste.

But she didn't spend much time on the matter. By now, one thought following another, her mind was focused on the brother himself. Adrian Gellert, in whose arms she had spent many a night lying naked-and enjoying every minute of it.

New images came to her, then, of naked male body parts and a male face seen in focus-all of it and not just a leer. But there was no horror in these images. She thought she was done with that horror forever.

She hoped so. The problem she faced now was a problem she hoped she would always face, whenever she had trouble falling asleep. For which there was a simple and practical solution, even if she had found masturbation a poor substitute for the real thing, since she met Adrian Gellert.

Dammit, beloved enemy, if you're not there when I arrive I'll kill you. I swear I will.

She finally managed to get to sleep then, wafted away on new thoughts of vengeance. The methods by which she planned her possible murder of Adrian Gellert varied quite a bit, in their precise details. But all of them involved death from exhaustion.