Corsair (26 page)

“Maintain your beat!” Geran called back. “We’re going to ram!”

“Ram?” Murkelmor asked incredulously. “Who’s there to ram?” The dwarf started to climb up to the main deck to look for himself.

Ram? Hamil repeated. He looked up at Geran. Have you lost your mind?

“There’s a Hulburgan warship dead ahead of us, and she’s got one of our galleys pinned to the pier,” Geran answered. “We’re going to make sure she can’t pursue us when we leave! Now back to your places!”

A bold ploy, Hamil said. He winced, steadying himself by the rail.

Geran watched the distance narrow. At the last instant he shouted, “Raise oars! Bring em in and brace for impact!”

Carried forward by momentum, Moonshark buried her iron-sheathed beak in the side of the outboard Black Moon galley—Daring, if Geran read her name right in the uncertain light—with an awful sound. Timbers groaned and snapped like thunderbolts, the horrible sound echoing across the harbor. Daringwzs driven into Seaivolfbeside her, which in turn plowed into the wharf with enough force to upend the pilings and send the planks making up the boardwalk hurling through the air like match-sticks. Men screamed in terror or shouted in dismay. Aboard Moonshark, the hands at the rowing benches hurtled forward at the impact, and every loose item on the deck—barrels of sand and water, coils of rope, blocks and tackle—flew forward. One of the top yardarms aloft broke free and landed in the wreck of Daring.

Geran rebounded off the ship’s wheel and found himself lying on the deck near the ladder to the main deck, tangled up with Hamil. The halfling groaned. “That is something I never want to do again,” he muttered. “Ramming, indeed! That was the best you could come up with?”

“Once the notion struck me, I didn’t want to examine it too closely,” Geran answered. He staggered to his feet. Daring was already beginning to settle, her side stove in by the impact. He couldn’t make out anything of Seawolf on the other side, since so much of Daring’s rigging and the wreckage of the pier covered her decks. “Back to your benches!” he shouted at the crew. “We’ve got to back out now, or the wreck will take us down with her!”

The crewmen started to untangle themselves from their seatmates and the benches around them, more than a few with groans of pain or muttered oaths. Murkelmor climbed to his feet and weaved forward uncertainly, taking in the damage to Moonshark. From the wreckage of Daring rose cries for help, the screams of the wounded, and more than a few streams of profanity. -Suddenly the dwarf whirled back to face the quarterdeck,

outraged. “You damned fool!” he shouted at Geran. “That’s no Hulburgan! That’s Daring you’ve killed, one of ours!”

“I can see rhat!” Geran answered. “Now get the crewmen to their benches, or we’re going to sink with her!”

Skamang picked himself up from the oar benches and looked for himself. “You bloody traitor!” the Northman snarled. “You did that deliberately!”

“And I’ll answer for it, but we’re going to sink too if we don’t back out! Now get to your benches before Daring takes us down!”

The deckhands looked from Geran to Skamang and Murkelmor. Fury darkened the dwarf’s face, but he abruptly wheeled and began to shove men into their places. “Reverse your benches!” Murkelmor shouted at the crew. The men stood, turned in place, and sat down again to seize the oars that would have been behind them in normal rowing. Skamang glared at Geran, but he joined the rest. All too often a ramming ship went down with its victim, and Moonshark’s crewmen understood that they were at risk of joining Daring on the bottom if they didn’t act swiftly. But angry glares were fixed on Geran and Hamil as the crew seized their oars.

“Oars in the water!” Geran ordered. “Tao Zhe, standard beat! Pull us out!”

Moonshark lay tangled with her victim for a long moment, her oars groping for purchase in the waters of the harbor. Then, with the groaning and popping of tortured wood, she pulled herself free from the wreck and backed off. Scores of Daring and Seawolf hands clung to their battered ships or the tuined wharf or shouted angrily from the street just beyond.

“What’s our damage, Murkelmor?” Hamil shouted.

Murkelmor shot Hamil a resentful look, but he hurried forward and peered over the bow. Then he ducked into the forecastle. While he was below, Geran continued to let Moonshark back slowly, and put the wheel over to swing her bow toward Kraken Queen.

Trying for the big one next? Hamil asked. The crew won’t stand for it, Geran!

“Kraken Queen’s the one I really want,” Geran answered under his breath. He just couldn’t imagine how to convince the crew to ram another ship. “Avast rowing! Reverse your benches again!” he called to the crew. “We’re going ahead now.”

“Where, Aram?” Skamang demanded from his seat. “Where are we going?”

“I’m bringing us about,” Geran replied. “Now sit down and row!”

With grumbling and a few suspicious looks, the crewmen switched positions again. Geran fixed his eye on the Black Moon flagship, only a few hundred yards away and still moored at the pier. He could see pirates hurrying to man the ship and spotted a flurry of activity by her quarterdeck. There was a muffled thump from the pirate ship, followed three heartbeats later by a shrill whistling in the air.

“Darts!” Hamil cried. “Cover!” He threw himself against the gunwale, crouching under its cover. Geran ducked down behind the helm. An instant later, a dozen short iron javelins sleeted across the deck. Most clattered on empty space or stuck quivering in gunwales or masts, but a few fell among the crew packed on their rowing benches, wounding several men. Screams of pain and howls of dismay rang across the deck. One dart hissed over Geran’s shoulder and took a deep gouge out of the ship’s sternrail. Then a catapult on Kraken Queen’s foredeck snapped against its frame, and a ball of flaming pitch streaked across the smoke-filled sky to splash into the water a little short of Moonshark s bow.

“Kraken Queen’s firing on us!” shouted one of the crewmen.

Geran grimaced. Moonshark had no shipboard artillery. Very few ships in the Moonsea—warship, pirate, or otherwise—did. Their only attack was to ram or grapple their foes. “Oars in the water! Give me some steerageway, or she’ll rake us again! Tao Zhe, full speed!”

Moonshark started to glide forward as Tao Zhe struck the beat and the crew found their stroke again. Now she was moving forward, her prow toward Kraken Queen. Another flight of darts hissed through the air, most of them overshooting this time. Then Murkelmor climbed back up to the deck. “We’ve sprung seams by the stem!” he called. “Some oakum ought to hold her for now, but she’ll need repair soon.”

“Understood,” Geran replied. “Get your carpenters to work on stuffing the leaks.”

Murkelmor called out several of his men from their places and sent them hurrying into the forecastle. He gloweted at the iron darts littering the deck, the wounded men in the benches, then ducked as flaming pitch sailed over the midships deck to explode in the water on the far side of the ship. The dwarf swore and turned to yank Tao Zhe’s baton out of his

hand. “Avast rowing!” he shouted. “All of you, stop! You’ll drive us right into Kraken Queen next!”

“Stand aside, Murkelmor!” Hamil shouted. “We’re sitting ducks for the catapults if we’re not moving!”

“That’s as may be, but none of us’ll row a single beat more until the captain makes his intentions clear!” Murkelmor retorted. “Get us alongside a pier, Aram, or by Moradin’s beard we’ll take the wheel and do it ourselves!”

“He doesn’t mean to bring us to shore,” Skamang said angrily. “He’s up to some black treachery! Can’t you all see it?”

Geran held his course, fuming. He wanted Kamoth’s ship … but he couldn’t take her by himself, and he couldn’t trick Moonshark’s crew into helping him to do it. His best chance to deal with Sergen and Kamoth lay ashore now, but he couldn’t bring another ship full of pirates into the city. Kraken Queen’s catapult threw again, and this time her volley of darts fell across the center of the ship. Even with the instant of warning the darts’ passage through the air provided, several more men fell to the iron javelins.

“Why did you strike Daring?” Murkelmor demanded. “What’s your game, Aram?”

Geran spun the wheel to starboard and turned Moonshark’s bow seaward. “Get them rowing, Murkelmor! We have to get out of the flagship’s range before we do anything else!”

The dwarf glared up at Geran, but he handed the baton back to Tao Zhe. “Battle speed,” he agreed. “Go ahead, get her underway again.”

The deckhands bent their backs to the oars, and Moonshark began to pick up speed. Kraken Queen’s next catapult throw brought another ball of burning pitch. This one struck Moonshark low on the hull, a few feet aft of her sternmost oar. A great gout of stinking smoke billowed up from the side, but the shot was too close to the waterlinc and was soon extinguished by the choppy waters of rhe harbor. By the time Kraken Queen was ready to fire again, Moonshark had drawn back out of range. The pirate flagship was still tied up alongside the old Veruna wharf and did not appear inclined to pursue while most of her crew was engaged in a pitched battle ashore.

Geran surreptitiously eased the helm over to approach the Arches from their harbor side. Hamil’s idea about running the ship aground was worth a try. There were places in the forest of stone columns where a small boat could slip through, but nothing Moonshark could manage. Unfortunately,

Murkelmor no longer trusted Geran’s judgment at the helm. The dwarf moved to the side of the ship and leaned out for a good look forward. “Slow down or come about!” he shouted at the quarterdeck. “We’re running short o’ sea room here!”

Geran ignored him. After a moment, the dwarf swore to himself. “Did you no’ hear me the first time? Where are you steering us, Aram?”

Murkelmor and Skamang won’t let us run her aground, Hamil said. Perhaps it’s time to leave?

Geran stood his ground a moment longer, trying to think of some ploy that might mollify Moonshark’% crew. Murkelmor swore again and began to shake the crew around them, getting them to drop their oars and stand up from their benches. The looks the crewmen turned on the quarterdeck ranged from slack-jawed puzzlement to dark fury, but none boded well for his continued command of the ship. He and Hamil might be able to hold the quarterdeck ladders for a long time—at least, until the crew remembered the crossbows below in the ship’s armory—but what was the point? Moonshark might turn back to the docks and join the attack, but that would mean coming within range of Kamoth’s catapults again. He’d already bloodied the Black Moon. There simply wasn’t anything more he could do aboard Moonshark short of sinking her, and the crew wasn’t about to let him do that.

“Come on!” Skamang roared. He pointed at Geran and Hamil. “Kill those miserable dogs before they do any more harm! They’ve betrayed us all!” The Northman seized a boarding pike by his bench and led the way as the crew surged up out of the benches and swarmed toward the quarterdeck.

“I think you’re right,” Geran said to Hamil. He retreated to the ship’s wheel, spun her bow toward the Arches, and looped the keeper over the top spoke. Then, tossing his cutlass aside, he moved to the sternrail, swung his s over, and leaped into the dark water astern of the ship. It was bitterly cold, and when he surfaced he gasped for air. Hamil followed a moment later, dropping into the water a few feet behind him. Moonshark swept away from them, carried by the momentum of her sprint even though her oars were no longer pulling in unison.

“Somehow I knew it was going to come to this,” Hamil spluttered. “You and I in the water, watching the ship sail away.”

“I think they’ll keep her off the rocks,” Geran said. “If we could have kept them at the oars just a little longer…”

“I’ll point out, for the record, that your command of Moonshark lasted less than a single day.”

“So noted,” Geran answered. The water was very cold, and he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. “Come on, we’d better get ashore. Skamang looked mad enough to come around and try to run us down.”

Treading water, Geran watched the ship recede. There was a flurry of activity as the crew swarmed the quarterdeck and regained the helm. Skamang glared over the rail at him, and several other corsairs joined him. Then cries of alarm distracted the pirates; someone had noticed that the ship was drifting into new danger. The crew rushed back down to their benches, and the oars slowly began to dip into the water again. A moment later Tao Zhe leaped over the side, hitting the water with a large splash. The Shou surfaced and began to swim in the direction of Geran and Hamil.

“The ship’s back the way you came, Tao Zhe,” Hamil said.

“I know it,” the cook said. He glanced over his shoulder and laughed. “I like my prospects better in the water. Everyone on board knows I’m your friend.”

“Suit yourself,” Geran answered. “It’s a long swim, though.”

They struck out for the closest land, which was the point east of the Veruna docks. It was hardly near the center of the action, but it already looked to be a swim of several hundred yards, and Geran was not about to lengthen it by swimming all the way to the city’s wharves. It took them a quarter hour before they staggered up the pebble-strewn shoreline near the mouth of the Winterspear, shivering and exhausted. He turned and looked back over the harbor; Moonshark had turned her nose toward the wharves again, but she hugged the west side of the harbor, staying away from Kraken Queen and her catapults.

“Did we do enough, Hamil?” he asked his friend.

Hamil flopped to the ground and started to wring water from his braids. “We sank one ship for certain, and the other ship that was between her and the pier likely isn’t going anywhere soon either. We kept Moonshark out of the fight for most of the evening, and I’ll wager that Kamoth won’t have much use for Narsk’s ship after tonight. 1 don’t know what more we could have done.”

Tao Zhe looked at them both, his eyes wide. “I knew it! You are no pirates. Who are you?”

“No, we’re not,” Hamil said. “I’m Hamil Alderheart of Tantras. This is Geran Hulmaster of Hulburg, nephew to the harmach.”

“Don’t worry. You don’t have anything to fear from the harmach’s men,” Geran told Tao Zhe. “I’ll see to it that you get a pardon and an honest sailor’s berth, if you want it.”