Dark Empress (70 page)

Samir blinked. Just as he’d once done to Ghassan’s ship! One carefully aimed shot had removed almost half the rowing power on the enemy’s port side, the remaining oars on that side now disjointed and out of time, in chaos.

The effect was immediate and astounding.

With little forward motion on the port oars, while the starboard banks ploughed on as fast as they could and the sails billowed with the wind, no amount of rudder control at the rear could stop the ship turning. The men of the Imperial ship Redemption watched with fascination as the enemy vessel slewed wildly to port, momentum still carrying it forward at a strange quarter angle.

Samir barely had time to take it all in before he realised what was coming next. The ramming spike had skewed left and out of line with its target, but nothing was going to stop the two ships colliding under the circumstances.

“Brace!” he bellowed and, grabbing tight hold of the artillery fortification, ducked to floor level.

The enemy vessel hit them at that quarter angle, the timbers of both ships crashing and breaking, amidships for Redemption and to starboard of the forward deck on the pirate vessel. The damage was far from fatal for either, but the crews of both ships were shaken, those who were not fully braced being swept from their feet. A number of screams and splashes from various directions announced men overboard among both crews.

The Redemption listed frighteningly following the impact, slowly righting itself as men were hurled from the rail. Similar events appeared to be occurring among the pirates.

Ghassan grasped Samir and the two hauled themselves back up to the crenellated top of the fortification.

“We’re not out of the shit yet, Samir” Ghassan breathed heavily. “You’ve got a skeleton crew at best now, while they’re fully manned.”

Samir nodded, biting back an undeserved retort. Ghassan was right. The men on his ship were brave and among the best he’d ever seen, but the odds would be three or four to one, and no amount of heart was going to even that out.

“I’m not letting them have the Empress, Ghassan.”

“The Redemption, Samir.”

The smaller brother shot an irritated look at his sibling.

“If things get too bleak, make sure you throw that compass over the side. That has to be the end of it.”

Ghassan nodded soberly and Samir turned and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“To arms. Prepare to board!”

Ghassan stared at his brother.

“Board? Are you mad? We should be trying to repel them. You don’t try and board a ship that outnumbers you by four men to one!”

“Indeed,” replied Samir, “which is why it’ll throw them completely off track!”

Behind them, the men of the Redemption drew their weapons as they picked themselves up from the deck and clambered across the wreckage toward the rail.

“Samir, they’ll die.”

“Better to go out trying than cowering, Ghassan. I’m leaving you in charge of the Redemption and the compass. You know what to do when things get too bad.”

“Oh no you don…”

“Yes I do. Good luck, brother.”

As Ghassan launched off on a tirade at the smaller man, Samir, grimacing, leapt down to the main deck and ran to join the men who were even now clambering at the rail.

Ghassan watched from the command deck, helplessly. Samir, however irritating, was right. Someone needed to stay back in charge of the compass. It must not fall into enemy hands. And he, since his back was still weeping when he moved wrong, was the obvious choice. He thumped his hand on the rail as he surveyed the scene.

It was a mess. Many of the oars on both ships had been smashed when the collision occurred, and the pirate vessel had slid to a stop side by side with her prey, both ships rocking and shaking. The gap between the two hulls was almost narrow enough to leap, but if a man missed, given the fact that the two hulls kept washing against one another, drowning would be a blessed option. Ghassan had seen men crushed between two ships’ hulls before and it was never pretty.

The sailors of both sides were clamouring at the rails, awaiting the chance to cross and cause havoc, but neither was ready yet. The collision had left both ships in a state of chaos. No one was willing to take the leap between ships and neither side had expected a boarding action, so the boarding ramps were being brought up hurriedly on both sides.

The crews, who looked largely identical, roared their anger and defiance at one another and the sight was almost comical, given the impotent inability to actually reach the opposition until the ramps were in place.

Ghassan, however, a veteran of so many years of combat, could see a subtle difference in the two crews.

Not the numbers. There was nothing subtle about the fact that the enemy ship’s rail was crowded by a throng of bloodthirsty cutthroats at least four men deep while there were few enough men on board the Redemption that small gaps remained at the rail.

No. The difference was in the tone of the shouts. The enemy ship had that roar of true violence. They knew they had the upper hand and that they would be safe if they overran the Redemption, stole the compass and retreated into the reefs. They had every reason to believe that the fight would go their way.

Samir’s crew, however, knew they were doomed. Though their cries were as angry as those of the enemy, the undercurrent was that of quiet resignation. The crew of the Redemption knew that they were likely to lose here and that the enemy would leave no survivors.

The roaring intensified as the boarding planks were run out on both sides, falling to the opposing deck and jamming there as the iron teeth fitted to the end dug into the boards; yet another potentially humorous moment unfolding as both sides tried to charge one another before the other could prepare.

The result was, of course, chaos. Men from both ships ran out onto the same boarding planks, meeting at the centre between the two vessels. The forces clased in a sea of bellowing colour, men screaming and hollering as sword blows landed and helpless, desperate men fell from the planks into the churning waters, only to stare terrified and boggle-eyed at the hulls of the two ships as they trod water. The waves brought the hulls inexorably closer and closer together once more until they met with a crunch.

Ghassan winced at the sound of a dozen desperate cries being cut off instantly with that wooden bang.

The initial attack was beginning to slow. The numbers were thinning out and more people now fell foul of the drop between the hulls than made it either forward or back to either deck. The gore and viscera of the vicious fighting had, within the first minute, coated every ramp, making the crimson timber slippery and treacherous.

Anger was quickly giving way to frustration and desperation, as men from both sides fought as carefully as they could. Then, as Ghassan watched in horror, the figures of Samir and Saja appeared out of the rear of the Redemption’s massed crew, nodded at one another, turned, and ran, using the banks of rowing seats as a launch pad.

From his vantage point on the command deck Ghassan watched, his heart in his throat, as the two men leapt across the gap with its bloody boards, crushing depths and battling men and came down in a heap on the enemy deck, amid a pushing crowd of surprised pirates, knocking a number of men to the deck as they hit.

The pair vanished from sight in a pile of men and the area suddenly became a focus of intense fighting. Ghassan closed his eyes.

“Samir, you bloody idiot!”

A call escaped his attention for a moment as it was almost lost in the noise of the battle raging around him and it took precious seconds for Ghassan to realise that the voice was addressing him from somewhere above. Raising his eyes and sheltering them from the brightness of the blue sky above, he spotted a young sailor at the top of the smaller rear sail, hanging onto the cross bar.

“What is it?”

The young man shouted something garbled that Ghassan couldn’t quite make out and pointed toward the enemy ship’s rigging. Ghassan frowned as he looked across at the sails, ropes and masts of the pirate vessel, with the shouting men dotted here and there among them. There was nothing unusual there. He frowned again and was just about to turn and try to frame a mouthed question at the lad when he saw it…not among the enemy ship’s rigging, but behind them.

Two vessels! Not just one, but two! Saja’s former ship: The Sea Witch. She’d not been officially part of the rebellion, so she had no new name and no imperial pennant to fly, but she’d dropped her own colours and was sporting a plain green flag the captain had found somewhere.

And she was bearing down on their aggressor at a frightening pace, with Faerus’ Retribution at her side, like a charge of heroes from the tales of old.

Ghassan took a deep breath.

“Stay safe, Samir. Help’s on the way…”

In which a last assault begins

There was a moment when the madness of the act flashed across Samir’s mind and almost shocked him to a standstill. He was a man who never did anything without a plan and at least one card up his sleeve. He had rarely in his adult life entered into any situation that he was not already absolutely sure of. There always had to be a way out.

Not this time.

For years he had bent every effort and guided every possible thread he could find to one end: to this very end. But once the governor had accepted the deal, the pirate fleet had been coerced or dealt with and the passage through the reefs had been sealed for all time, there had been no more plans. And now he had found himself fighting a sea action for which he was unprepared and which seemed to be heavily weighted in favour of the enemy. And the upshot of everything was that he had to do what he could without that all-too-important card up his sleeve.

In the press of men pushing up against the rail of the Redemption, trying to get to the rabid pirates on board the enemy vessel, Samir’s mind had finally gone blank, leaving him floundering with no plan; directionless. He and his men had to gain the advantage over the much larger enemy, but he just kept coming up blank; there was no clear way.

Around him the men of his crew pushed and shouted, itching to prove their worth over the one remaining enemy vessel, and Samir could do nothing but watch helplessly.

He had jumped and almost lashed out when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Swinging round, he found himself staring helplessly into the eyes of Saja, ex councillor of Lassos, renowned pirate lord and tactician and equally famed warrior. Saja’s face wore a deep frown of concern, causing some of his tattoos to meet around the corner of his eye and his various gold adornments to move hypnotically around his face. Samir, his mind reeling with the unfamiliar feeling of uncertainty, found himself lost in the movements of the various rings and studs.

He suddenly realised that Saja was saying something to him, just as the man stopped and raised his brow, waiting for an answer.

Can’t show my growing panic, Samir thought… not amid the crew.

Taking a deep breath, he held his hand to his ear, miming that he couldn’t hear Saja over the rabble. The large, ebony-skinned captain nodded and, grasping Samir’s shoulder harder, turned and propelled him back through the press and toward the open deck behind them.

As they left the heavy crowd, the councillor leaned close to Samir.

“We have to do something to break them.”

“Yes” Samir nodded emphatically “but what?”

“It’s up to us. Men fight twice as hard when they are led by men they believe in; you know that, Samir. It’s up to us to turn the tables on the enemy.”

Samir nodded again, uncertainty still freezing his mind.

“But how?”

Saja shrugged as they neared the open space.

“We have to lead the attack. Give them something to aim for.”

Samir nodded, the uncertainty still filling his mind with emptiness. He had to do something. He was never this useless; always had the next five steps worked out.

So… they had to get ahead of the press and onto the enemy ship. They had to give them ‘something to aim for’ as Saja said. There was plainly only one thing they could do.

“We’ll have to dive in feet first and come up fighting. We need to be the incentive.”

Saja nodded.

“Swing down from the rigging?”

“Too slow. Things could go badly by the time we’ve climbed up there and swung across. We need to get our men over there now, before they break us and we all end up fighting on the Redemption!”

“Then we need the clearest area and a good run up.”

Samir nodded and scanned the deck as the pair finally came out of the rear of the massed sailors.

“There… past the main mast. The place with the least men. That’ll be where they break through first!”

Saja followed Samir’s gaze and then turned to him and nodded. The two men jogged back across the deck, angling themselves so that when they turned back to the press, they were facing one of the remaining gaps where the mass of shouting sailors was thinnest.

“See you on the other side” Samir laughed, the sudden attainment of direction giving him purpose and clearing his mind of the fluff that seemed to have settled there.

“Ha’Rish smile on us with a good face.”