‘We have to take that galleass.’
The officer Jack, who was always alongside Dujek, saluted. ‘With respect, sir. If we engage that vessel its sister-ships will swing round and we’ll be overrun. We’d never escape. Also, that’s a troop carrier. There must be over two hundred soldiers on board.’
‘He’s got a tactical point,’ said Dujek.
Cartheron pressed a fist to his forehead. ‘Dammit! Fine! Full sails southerly.’
‘Prudent,’ Brendan put in, laconically. ‘’Cause it’s pursuing.’
‘What?’ Cartheron almost jumped up to look but caught himself in time. Still, did it really matter now? He stayed crouched anyway, bracing himself at the stern railing. ‘We can outrun a damned over-burdened galleass,’ he growled.
Brendan said nothing, while Choss, who also was crouched at the stern, blew out a breath. ‘Oh, come now!’ Cartheron chided them. ‘It’s not like we’re some damned Cawnese trader scow.’
‘Well,’ Choss allowed, ‘we’re not Cawnese…’
Cartheron waved him off impatiently. He turned to Brendan. ‘Get us out of here.’
The old sailing master grinned and bellowed, ‘Raise all jibs!’
Cartheron winced at this order, but didn’t countermand it; so far he’d avoided the jibs as he wasn’t completely confident of the ancient original bowsprit and booms. Hunched, he crossed to the starboard rail and peered over. The galleass was breaking off to give chase.
And he knew they simply could not allow themselves to be caught. That was certain. An old galleass, he thought to himself. At least they stood a chance. She couldn’t throw up any more canvas than they. But Mael’s breath, they were slow. So slow. And two old buntlines had snapped under the strain just getting here … He returned to Brendan, said, ‘Now someone’s chasing us.’
The old sailing master laughed, revealing half-empty gums. ‘Yes indeed. But it’s a stern chase and we got us a good lead.’ His smile fell away. ‘That is, if everything holds.’
Cartheron stroked his chin, almost wincing. ‘Bless Mael. Provided.’
Brendan pushed them far closer into the wind than Cartheron would have ever dared. He cleared his throat, almost ready to object, but swallowed the comment, reflecting, Dammit, the man’s the sailing master and I put him there – so I should just put up and shut up.
He glanced back to the galleass, its huge square mains straining; they were putting open sea between them. If everything on this bucket would just hold.
*
Black choking smoke of burning tar, wood and oil half-obscured the bay. Ships seemed to emerge right before Tattersail’s eyes and it was all she could do to deflect countless attempted rammings and grapplings. Another Napan galley coursed too close to the Insufferable and she seized the Ruse mage in her Thyr powers, gasping, ‘Strafe those oarsmen!’
The detachment of archers with her released as one in a sweep of the boards; the galley fell behind, chaos on her decks.
‘Port!’ came a yell from the lookout and she turned away to that side; sailors called amid the floating wreckage and pools of burning oil, but there was no time. The tall bronze-capped ram of an archaic trireme came darting like a loosed shaft out of the smoke and manoeuvring vessels of battle.
Reaching out with her Warren she threw all restraint aside and raked the entire deck with a storm of flames. The vessel lurched as every oarsman now writhed, oars forgotten, to leap howling into the waves.
She stood panting and saw the archers, who had been cheering her before, now eyeing her with something like dread. She pointed their gazes to the bay. Awful, yes, but this was battle – this was where she could exult in her powers, and tested them to their depths.
She raised her Warren as a gyring storm about her and whipped aside yet another effort to rake the Insufferable’s deck, sending the salvos of crossbow bolts wide into the littered waters of the bay. She then picked her way across the wreckage of a fallen mizzen lower yard, its rigging and canvas a tangled heap, to climb to the sterncastle where Mock and his flagmen were furiously sending orders ship to ship.
‘Have the Fancy and the Hound heave off,’ Mock was telling a flagger. ‘They’re bunching up.’ He stood with his legs wide, hands tucked into his belt at his back. Now that battle had been engaged he had somehow come back into his own. Gone was the unsteadiness and world-weariness – the man was now grinning behind his moustache, calm, almost eerily cheery.
‘We’re clear!’ she called to him. ‘We should disengage!’
She was certain he must have heard but he did not answer. Instead, he turned to the mid-decks, shouting, ‘Take another run at the Sapphire, would you, Marsh? She’s lining up rather obligingly ahead.’
‘Aye, aye,’ the mate answered.
The Sapphire, Tarel’s flagship. They’d been taking runs at each other all through the engagement, with no decisive blow landed as yet.
She was angry, yet couldn’t help reflecting that this was the man who two years ago had charmed her all through that first long raiding run eastward round the coast, when they’d sat down with greased Wickan traders to unload their massive takings.
‘We should disengage!’ she repeated, pressing.
He offered a wink. ‘One more run, dearest…’
She shook his arm. ‘No! We’ve lost the Intolerant, and the Intemperate is dead in the water. We’re all that’s left to guard the retreat.’ The admiral frowned. She wondered whether, fixated as he’d been upon destroying Napan vessels, he hadn’t been aware of these setbacks. She made a last appeal. ‘Think of what’s left of the fleet.’
He nodded then, smoothing a hand down his moustaches. ‘Good for you, Sail. Yes, very well.’ He turned to amidships, calling, ‘Marsh! Raise the retreat! We’re disengaging.’
Marsh halted in mid-step, blinking his confusion; then he shrugged, and, raising his chin to the highest tops’l, yelled, ‘Raise the retreat!’
‘Aye, aye,’ came a faint and distant answer.
Mock took Tattersail’s shoulders, facing her close. ‘Can you drag the Intemperate along behind us?’
She could not help but glance to the huge flaming conflagration that currently was the Intemperate. ‘But it’s afire…’
‘Exactly.’
‘Ah. Well … I’ll try.’
He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Very good.’ He turned to the mid-decks. ‘Marsh! Did I not order to disengage? Sails! Where’s our canvas?’
‘On it, cap’n.’
Mock turned back to Tattersail. ‘Sweep a hole open with the Intemperate, won’t you, dearest?’
‘They have the best Ruse mages on the seas,’ she warned.