“Archers to the aft deck!”
Hadrian joined the others at the railing, where they lined up, shoulder to shoulder, looking out across the Emerald Storm’s wake.
“Light arrows!” came the order.
From across the water they heard a sound, and a moment later men around Hadrian screamed as arrows pelted the stern.
“Fire!” Bishop ordered.
They raised their bows and fired as one, launching their burning shafts blindly into the darkness. A stream of flame flew in a long arch, some arrows dying with a hiss as they fell into the sea, others striking wood, their light outlining a ship about three hundred yards behind them.
“There,” Bishop shouted. “There’s your target, men!”
They exchanged volley after volley. Men fell dead on both ships, thinning the ranks of archers. Small fires broke out on the tartane, illuminating it and its crew. The Dacca were short, stocky, and lean, with coarse long beards and wild hair. The firelight cast on them a demonic glow that glistened off their bare sweat-soaked skin.
When the tartane lay less than fifty yards astern, its mainmast caught fire and burned like a dead tree. The brilliant light exposed the sea in all directions and stifled the cheers of the Storm’s crew when it revealed the positions of the rest of the Dacca fleet. Four ships had already slipped alongside them.
“Stand by to repel boarders!” shouted Seward. He drew his sword and waved it over his head as he ran to the safety of the forecastle walls.
“Raise the nets!” ordered Bishop. The rigging crew drew up netting on either side of the deck, creating an entangling barrier of rope webbing. Under command of their officers, men took position at the waist deck, cutlasses raised.
“Cut the tethers!” Mr. Wesley cried as hooks caught the rail.
The deck shook as the tartanes slammed against the Emerald Storm’s hull. A flood of stocky men wearing only leather armor and red paint stormed over the side. They screamed in fury as swords met.
“Now!” Hadrian heard Wyatt shout at him.
He turned and saw the helmsman pointing to the tartane tethered to the Storm’s port side near the stern, the first of the Dacca’s ships to reach them. Most of its crew had already boarded the Storm. Poe, Grady, and others in Wyatt’s team held back, watching Hadrian.
“Go!” Hadrian shouted and, grabbing hold of the mizzen’s port-side brace, cut it free and swung out across the gulf, landing on the stern of the tartane.
The stunned Dacca helmsman reached for his short blade as Hadrian cut his throat. Two more Dacca rushed him. Hadrian dodged, using the move to hide the thrust. His broadsword drove deep into the first Dacca’s stomach. The second man, seeing his chance, attacked, but Hadrian’s bastard sword was in his left hand. With it he deflected a wild swing. Drawing the broadsword from the first Dacca’s stomach, Hadrian brought it across, severing the remaining man’s head.
With three bodies on the aft deck, Hadrian looked up to see Poe and the rest already in possession of the ship and in the process of cutting the tethers free. With the last one cut, Poe used a pole and pushed away from the Storm.
“What about Royce and Wyatt?” Hadrian asked, climbing down to the waist deck.
“They’ll swim for it and we’ll pick them up on the far side,” Poe explained as he ran past him, heading aft. “But we need to get into the shadows now!”
Poe climbed the short steps to the tartane’s tiny quarterdeck and took hold of the tiller. “Swing the boom!” he shouted in a whisper. “Trim the sails!”
“We know our jobs a lot better than you, boy!” Derning hissed at him. He and Grady were already hauling on the mainsail sheet, trying to tame the canvas that snapped above like a serpent, jangling the rigging rings against the mast. “Banner, Davis! Adjust the headsail for a starboard tack.”
Hadrian had never learned the ropes, and he stood by uselessly while the others raced across the deck. Even if he had picked up anything about rigging, it would not have helped. The Dacca tartane was quite different in design. Besides being smaller, the hull was sloped like a fishing vessel, but with two decks. It had just two sails: a headsail supported on a forward-tilting mast and the mainsail. Both were triangular and hung from long curved yards that crossed the masts at angles so that the vessel’s profile appeared like the heads of two axes cleaving through the air. The deck was dark wood. Glancing around, Hadrian wondered if the Dacca stained it with the same blood as the sails. After seeing the rigging ornamented with human skulls, it was an easy conclusion to make.