Dark Empress (71 page)

The pair grinned and then ran. There was surprisingly little run up across the deck, and the charge was hampered a little by the many obstacles on the wooden boards, but the two men reached the raised benches of the oarsmen just behind the press of men and took an agile step, jump and then leap from the highest point, drawing their weapons at they rose.

Ghassan would not approve, Samir thought briefly as he watched the surprised upturned faces of the men of his ship while he passed over the top of them, and then the equally astonished raised faces of the enemy just before reality reasserted itself and the two men crashed back to the floor in a tangle of body parts. Fortunate they were that the enemy had been so taken by surprise that they’d not had time to react. Just one man having the forethought to raise a sword to the descending men could have put an end to the foolhardy attack all too soon.

As Samir and Saja felt the squashed bodies of fallen men and the hard surface of the deck boards beneath them, a roar went up from behind. Their attack had enthused the Redemption’s crew and, hopefully, spurred them into a stronger push. The two men had precious little time to think, though, and could pay no further heed to what was happening behind them. Already the effects of their shock arrival were wearing off and men nearby were picking themselves up and collecting weapons.

Samir struggled to his hands and knees, his fist wrapped around the hilt of his short sword and supporting his weight as he tried to take stock of the immediate situation. As he turned, he found himself face to face with one of the pirates, picking himself up in the same fashion. As their eyes met, the man tried to free the blade in his hand enough to manage a stab at this mad captain. Samir, instinct taking over as always, had already considered and then abandoned the sword as an option. Still leaning on that hand, he lashed out with his free fist, punching the crouched pirate full in the face, shattering his nose and knocking the man flat.

As the stunned man toppled to the side, his hand came up and Samir reached out and calmly plucked the longer, curved blade from it. Standing slowly, hefting his shorter Imperial sword in his right hand and the long, curved desert blade in the other, Samir remembered a day, so long ago, when he had stood on a ruined tower at the edge of M’Dahz with their uncle Faraj teaching them the difference between the two and why they had to learn the use of different weapons.

He smiled grimly as he twisted his wrist and spun the straight blade in his hand. The nearest pirate took a look at his face, the man’s gaze passing down first to one hand and then the other, and he backed away carefully as much as he could into the press of men.

Behind him, Saja had acted with much less flourish, style and honour, but with considerably more effect. As the big man had come to his senses on the floor, on top of two fallen pirates, but surrounded by many more still standing, he had brandished his weapon, elbowed a little room and then taken as strong a swing as he could.

Despite the lack of space, Saja was a powerful man, huge muscles rippling under his dark and decorated skin, and the golden bangles jangled as he scythed out with his own curved blade, cutting easily through calves, shins, knees and hamstrings. The effect was horrifying. Blood pumped from a dozen wounds and begun to flood the area as men collapsed in a screaming mass at this sudden and debilitating attack. And, as the pirates above him fell like a field of wheat before the scythe, Saja rose from the mass, slowly, covered in fresh blood and brandishing his evil blade while grinning like some monster from legend.

Samir stood slowly, a sword in each hand, and nodded to his companion. The attack had certainly started something. Back among the press, he could see occasional faces he recognised from the crew of the redemption, snarling and shouting among the enemy. Samir’s crew had begun to push once more.

The pirates were being pressed by a considerably smaller force, against all odds, and Samir and Saja grinned as they faced a motley collection of nervous-looking men, waiting for the tense standoff following their initial onslaught to break.

The first strike came suddenly after three heartbeats, which had felt like months, passed. The man closest to Samir lunged with the speed of a viper and Samir had to step back to parry the blow with his short imperial blade, stumbling slightly into Saja, who consequently almost fell foul of a simultaneous attack from the other side.

In the brief moment that followed before all hell broke loose, Samir took the opportunity to swap hands with the two blades, the heavy, curved sword in his right, striking hand, the smaller straight Imperial blade in the left for parrying. He barely had time to get a full grip before the force hit them.

The men around Samir and Saja came in like a tide, the ripples of a cast stone in reverse, swinging curved blades and lunging with short swords and long knives, the attack only faltering a little through lack of organisation and of room to manoeuvre.

Samir found he had no time to make an attack of his own, being forced instead to raise and shift both swords in a constant whirr of steel in order to block the various blades that thrust, swiped and cut at him. Even so, in the massive press of men, he felt three blows land in the initial flurry: one glancing blow cutting a thin sliver of flesh from his upper arm just below the shoulder, another taking a small piece from his earlobe and the third cutting deep into his outer thigh.

Another set of blows like that and he’d be down! He was damned lucky none of those three had been debilitating, as they easily could have. Behind him, Saja yelped as a blow bit home somewhere on his powerful physique.

And then there was chaos. After the initial surprise and the standoff, then the tentative lunges, the full-blown assault by the enemy that surrounded them had given the men all the incentive they needed and Samir and Saja found themselves beleaguered and fighting desperately for their lives, parrying blow after blow and managing only rarely to get in a thrust or swing of their own as opportunity allowed.

Again and again Samir felt the shock of swords hitting his desperately-raised blade and sliding with a jarring, grating feel down the blade. More blows connected, drawing blood and leaving fine lines or small wounds on his flesh. Samir was a good swordsman; maybe as good as Saja, even, but no man could hope to hold his own for long in a pressing circle of dozens of bloodthirsty, screaming enemies.

This was it. No regrets, of course. What they did, leaping in among the enemy, had been the spur the men of the Redemption had needed and had changed the whole direction of the battle. Ghassan and Culin had better take advantage of the change and use it, or their sacrifice would have been in vain.

Another blow, well placed while Samir’s own swords were raised to block other attacks, swung in beneath his guard and cut deeply just above his left knee.

Some muscle or cord had been severed, Samir realised as he desperately swung with his curved blade. The strength left his leg instantly and he collapsed like a sack of grain, the blade spinning out of his hand and bouncing along the boards between the legs of the attackers. He watched with dismay as the curved weapon came to a halt perhaps a foot out of reach among the stamping feet.

He stared at it as he crumpled, his head hitting the deck, hard. A foot, perhaps, but it might as well be a league. Out of reach.

He tried pushing himself up, but his head exploded in shards of white light and he realised through the heavy pulsing of his blood as it pounded round his brain, that the deck beneath his head was slick with dark blood that was pouring from his own skull.

He flailed and tried to raise the short sword in his left hand, but there was so little strength there and no coordination in his head. The blade wobbled for a moment before it toppled from his grasp and fell to the floor.

He realised he’d fallen back again only as the board hit the cracked area at the back of his skull and his vision blurred.

He’d always wondered how it happened? When Ha’Rish turned her masked face to you and your soul went with her, did you see the Goddess? He squinted through the shattered fragments of white light and the growing fug deep in his brain, trying to see whether Ha’Rish had come for him personally.

Perhaps not, he sighed, as his vision briefly swam into focus long enough to identify a heavy-set man with a blue whorled pattern tattooed on his face as the pirate raised a straight and wide sword in both hands, point down, to drive it through Samir’s chest and finish him at last.

Given the rather insistent pain, it might be a blessing. Samir let his limbs loosen and fall to the deck as he watched the glinting point of the sword descend.

Somehow, superimposed over the falling blade, he finally saw the masked face of Ha’Rish.

She wasn’t as beautiful, even in her death-masked image, as he’d expected. In fact, she might very well be said to be quite ugly.

Samir sighed as the blackness descended. At least she could have been pretty…

Saja grasped Samir by the shoulders, a sudden panic descending on him as the crew of the Redemption swept around him and began to push the desperate pirate crew back. The Sea Witch and the Retribution were moments away, their own boarding ramps already raised and ready to help. In mere moments, the whole attack had overturned. The two commanders’ attack had begun something that simply could not be stopped, even by sheer weight of numbers, and the news that their sister ship and Saja’s old vessel were bearing down to help them had lent renewed vigour to the attack.

The news had, however, had a somewhat different effect on the pirates. Their earlier resolution lost, panic had set in. There would be no hope for them. If they surrendered, only a gibbet and a very public death awaited but, if they stayed here they would only be carved to pieces by the three victorious crews.

And so they had broken, some diving overboard, others trying to find somewhere to hide from the now overwhelming enemy force.

Saja frowned at Samir’s still form. Only a moment ago as he’d swept aside the last pirate who’d been intent on finishing the job, he’d seen Samir, eyes open and smiling. And then suddenly he’d gone limp and slumped.

With breath held, heart thumping in his throat, he leaned down to Samir’s chest and put his ear to the man’s tunic.

A voice from above spoke in a leaden, hollow tone.

“Well?”

Saja looked up and his ebony face burst into a wide, toothy grin.

“He’ll be alright, captain Ghassan. So long as that head’s bound quickly. He’s a survivor, your brother.”

The tall first officer brushed the ever present curl of black hair from his eyes and sighed with relief.

“Close, Saja. Too close for you two mad bastards!”

In which Retribution is the watchword

The governor’s flagship was a magnificent vessel. Ghassan could hardly take his eyes from the thing as he was greeted at the top of the rope ladder and gestured toward the main deck by a deferential sailor. Waving aside the man, he turned and helped Saja bring his wounded and bandaged brother up the last section, master Culin below adding support as he pushed Samir toward the top.

The governor stood on the command platform with a number of important looking personages and Samir shook his head gently as he reached the deck and planted his wobbly legs as firmly as he could on the timber, accepting Ghassan’s offered arm for support.

Saja and Culin took up positions in surreptitiously supportive places around the young captain who had, against all odds and despite the innumerable immense obstacles, brought a fleet of vicious pirates to battle against one another until the only ones that remained afloat flew the flag of the Empire. The four men waited a moment until the windswept head of captain Faerus appeared over the edge of the deck.

“I see no one feels the need to help me aboard, just because I didn’t have the idiot bad sense to try and personally tackle an entire crew of howling lunatics.”

He grinned as Culin reached down and grasped his hand, hauling him aboard.

The five men, the leaders of the pirate rebellion, stood for a moment, recovering, before following the beckoning form of the second officer aboard the Pride of Calphoris.

The climb up the stairs to the command deck was easier, though still a little delicate, given the condition of three of the five men. Ghassan still winced occasionally as movements pulled the stitches in his back, Saja was criss-crossed with minor cuts and abrasions and Samir… The doctor on board the Redemption had been typically sarcastic, but had begun work on stitching and binding the various wounds before the captain had even been given a sedative; a testament to how bad he considered Samir’s condition.

That had been almost five hours ago and the doctor had been quite vocal in his refusal to let Samir out of his sight, even at the governor’s request until, Ghassan had given him a direct order to his quarters.

While the doctor had worked, the crews of the three ships had swept the site of the battle, noting the locations of the various sunken wrecks mostly from the flotsam and jetsam and the bobbing, bloated bodies that had not yet been pulled down as they lay draped over random spars of wood or shattered pieces of broken deck.

The saddest had been the site of Orin’s ship, the Revenge. No sign had been found of any survivors in the area, but the pieces of charred timber and the various unpleasant things the searchers did locate had told a horrible story.

Still, Orin had fought, like all of them, for what he believed to be right and it was partially through his sacrifice that the five remaining leaders reached the top of the stairs and crossed the command deck of the massive, outsized daram to the waiting officers opposite.