She clenched Mock’s arm in a furious grip. ‘They have us in their jaws!’
A distant crash sounded then, as of the release of some titanic mechanism, and a fiery projectile flew from the harbour defences – a burning tarred bomb. Tattersail watched, helpless, while it climbed skyward in a parabolic arc that brought it down to strike the prow of a galley, shearing it off cleanly by the force of its impact alone.
‘Tarel’s betrayed us,’ she grated.
The admiral appeared to have mastered himself as he drew a hand down his moustaches, scowling. ‘Quite obviously, dearest.’ He gestured to Marsh. ‘Strike the attack! Raise the retreat!’ Marsh ran to convey the orders. Mock strode to the great blond giant that was Earnolth. ‘Bring us round tight. We’ll break through and hold the opening.’
The hulking fellow picked up a line and began lashing himself to the tiller-arm, rumbling a laugh as he did so.
Tattersail clenched the railing and called upon her Thyr Warren. She felt it igniting the air about her. Betraying bastards. She’ll send them all to the Abyss.
*
Cartheron was halfway into the job of rearranging the rigging on the foremast mains’l when Hawl came to his side. ‘Be entering the bay soon,’ she called, and he nodded in a distracted way. Whoever had set up this north-shore-style rigging had done them no favours. He preferred a tighter cinch. Less prone to slippage.
He spared a glance north to the distant shoreline – gods, they were far behind! And the sun was rising. They were hours from Cawn. What was the point now?
Choss came past carrying fresh line for repairs. He dropped the coil to stare at Cartheron’s work.
‘What have you done?’ the man said, outraged.
Cartheron gestured to the rigging. ‘Fixed it proper.’
‘Proper?’ The burly fellow set to redoing Cartheron’s work. ‘I had it all arranged just the way I like.’
‘North-shore style is too loose.’ He raised a hand to intervene but Choss knocked it aside.
‘You mind your own station, Crust. I’m in charge here.’
Cartheron backed away, his hands raised. ‘Okay, okay!’ He shook his head. The problem with the Twisted right now was far too many captains and not enough crew.
‘Smoke to the north!’ Hawl called from the bows. Cartheron squinted that way. He raised a hand against the oblique rays of the dawn. He couldn’t see any hint of smoke, but he trusted her Warren-enhanced senses.
‘You see!’ he called to everyone in general. ‘The attack’s started already! There’ll be nothing left for us!’
‘Get on it then,’ Hawl answered, and Cartheron shook his head again. Too many damned captains. He hurried to the stern, to old Brendan at the tiller. Crossing the deck, he took in the sails, their deep bellies, the angle of the vessel, and the surge of the waves, and nodded to himself. ‘A touch easy…’ he murmured to the sailing master.
Brendan offered a wink. ‘Nothing’s chasing us yet.’
Cartheron quirked a smile. ‘True enough, old-timer. True enough.’
The Twisted held north. Again Cartheron wondered what was happening back in Malaz; how Lady Sureth – Surly – was doing practically unguarded.
When she announced she wouldn’t be accompanying them on board the Twisted, there’d been a near mutiny. They all shouted at once that they simply wouldn’t go without her. Finally, after much mutual silent glaring, she allowed that perhaps Urko could remain to guard her. But that hadn’t been enough for Cartheron. He’d also left Shrift, Amiss and Tocaras. Grinner wanted to stay as well, declaring that he’d dedicated his sword to Lady Sureth’s service and his place was by her side.
He couldn’t understand why Surly had refused to come. Yet that wasn’t entirely true; he knew she was up to something. Some scheme. Geffen would no doubt try something in their absence – perhaps she planned to pick off some of his hired toughs. He wouldn’t put anything like that past her. After all, she’d come within a hair’s breadth of the throne of Nap. She certainly wasn’t going to let some second-rate criminal stand in her way.
Now he could make out the smoke to the north drifting across the waters – and quite a lot if it too. He hoped the Malazans weren’t burning down the entire city.
They rounded a rocky headland that guarded the mouth of the bay and he simply stared, completely dumbfounded by what confronted them. A full-blown naval engagement completely clogged the waters. Ships danced about each other. Some foundered, locked together in combat. Some lay half over, men clinging to their hulls; a few coasted helplessly, engulfed in raging flames.
Even as he watched, a salvo of flaming projectiles came arching from the Cawn harbour defences to slam into the jammed bay. Shattered wood flew skyward where a few hit targets, both Malazan and Napan, the Cawnese not being too particular at this point.
In the instant it took Cartheron to take in the engagement he grasped how Tarel’s fleet was seeking to drive the Malazans into the Cawnese defences, while the Malazans had turned upon their ambushers and were trying to outfight them ship to ship.
Without pausing in his scanning of the battle he yelled to Brendan, though the man stood right next to him, ‘Break off!’ The sailing master threw over the tiller and the Twisted yawed mightily. Even as they turned, another of the clashing vessels burst into flames.
‘Blue sails!’ Torbal yelled from high on the mains, unnecessarily, for more than half the vessels choking the bay carried them – the full Napan fleet must be present.
As an ex-flank admiral in that very fleet, Cartheron stared, utterly fascinated, yet appalled by the carnage – the two largest privateer navies of the southern seas locked in a death-embrace. Who would emerge the victor? Part of him cheered his old command, yet he also could not help but damn the bastard Tarel’s efforts to abject failure.
And standing there at the stern in full view for that unthinking moment was his undoing. It happened even as realization dawned; the Twisted’s arc brought it sweeping past the rearmost of the Napan fleet – an aged galleass he knew as the Just Cause. He also knew its captain quite well, Regen Leath the Fat.
And standing there at the railing of the Just Cause, staring back at Cartheron, stood Regen in his generous flesh. Across the waters mutual recognition lit both their eyes, and the man’s mouth opened in a great exaggerated O, followed by the bellow, too distant to be heard: ‘YOU!’
Only now – too late, by far too late – did Cartheron duck down from sight. Shit! Shit, shit! Dammit to Hood! He turned to Brendan. ‘We have to turn back.’
The man gaped at him as if he were a lunatic. ‘Turn back, sir?’
‘We need to take that galleass!’
Dujek was within earshot and he slid along the railing to close with Cartheron. ‘What’s this, captain? Turn round?’