by Rob May
The twin long-bore bow-chasers were positioned either side of the bowsprit, facing ahead. Kal could also see a pair of stubby twelve pounders on either side of the deck. ‘Six more below, and two more in your cabin as well,’ Dogwood reported. ‘We were running out of space to put them.’
‘It’s fine,’ Kal said. In a sea battle, the captain’s cabin was usually the first place to be converted into a gun deck. She looked out to sea—a row of white canvas on the horizon indicated that the Armada had arrived. Kal forced herself to focus on their present dilemma; inside, she was seething with anger at Che’s death, but now she had to put it behind her and think about defending Port Black. She looked up. ‘We need a new flag,’ she said. ‘Do you have a Republic banner or anything?’ she asked Dogwood.
The doctor stepped forward with a folded package in hand. ‘When we told the local captains and sailors that we would be fighting for Port Black, we didn’t tell them it was for no Republic. There was a time when the Auspice Islands were independent, and their banner was—’
‘The black lotus,’ Lula said. ‘The symbol of Vuda.’
‘Then this ship’s new name is the Black Lotus,’ Kal said. ‘May Whalo bless all who sail in her, and so on! Come on, Lu. Let’s get up in the nest and see what’s going on.’
‘It’s bad luck to rename a ship, Kal!’ Lula complained as they climbed the mast. ‘They say—’
She stopped dead when Kal looked down and flashed her a black look. Had Lula already forgotten Kal’s view of superstition and the supernatural?
‘If that’s what it takes to get people to follow me, then that’s what I’ll do,’ Kal said. ‘Didn’t you know that it’s bad luck for anyone to stand against me. So things will even out, I’m sure.’
In the nest, Lula put her eye to the telescope while Kal stood impatiently by. ‘What can you see?’ she said.
‘Over a hundred vessels,’ Lula said. ‘About twenty large men o’ war, forty or so merchant ships—probably armed, of course—and the rest smaller flyships. Oh, and the Drago Azul is leading them in.’
Amaro Azul’s ship. His knowledge of the town would give the Eldragorans an advantage. Kal looked out to sea and noticed that the Armada was not on a direct approach: it was curving around to attack from the east, as far from the fort as possible.
‘They’ll lose the weather gage,’ Kal said. The Reaping Wind had blown in from the west. But when the new flag was hoisted up, she realised she was wrong: by day, the Paradise Wind was an easterly wind, and would be at the backs of the oncoming fleet: a powerful advantage in any sea battle.
All the other vessels in the waters around the peninsula of Port Black had either fled or accepted Kal’s summons and huddled under the shadow of the fort. Only the zombie galleon remained on guard, lobbing a slow barrage of poorly-aimed cannonballs at the Armada. A squad of small fast flyships surrounded the galleon and whizzed around it in circles, fearless of its attacks. Their own bombardment was more effective, tearing down the galleon’s masts and battering its hull with a metallic clatter.
A metallic clatter? What in the world was that ship made of?
Kal’s confusion was punctured by Lula yelling, ‘Look!’ and jabbing her finger at several spots in the sea between town and the Armada. Kal was now even more perplexed; she could see nothing but the shadows of fast-moving clouds. She always panicked when things started getting out of hand. ‘What are you looking at?’ she snapped at Lula, but then she realised …
They weren’t shadows—they were shapes under the water, and they were moving far too straight and steady to be big fish. As Kal watched, a straight line of spray extended out from the front of one of the shapes, as a missile of some sort sped across the water, hitting one of the Eldragoran man o’ wars just below the waterline. It yawed suddenly to port.
‘Nautilus!’ Lula said. ‘The Magician said he had boats that sailed underwater, but I never believed him!’
And I never believed he had the strength to defend Port Black, Kal thought to herself. But his weakness was just a trap to lower the guard of his enemies.
‘We need to get out of here, Kal,’ Lula said.
‘No,’ Kal replied, in the face of all sense. ‘We’re staying.’
‘Caught between Sirensbane and the Eldragorans? Whose side are we on now?’
‘No one’s,’ Kal said. ‘We need to find a way to stop this war before thousands of people get killed. Get the signal flags, Lu—it’s time to find out if every man and woman with us is prepared to do their duty!’
Lula pulled out the signal flags in order to communicate Kal’s orders to the other ships that had stuck around to join their cause, while Kal herself went down to talk to her crew eye to eye. She descended the mast by hitching her marlinspike to the flagpole halyard and using it as a belay, allowing her to slither down to the deck in less than two shakes of a mermaid’s tail. The crew were suitably impressed, and they stood to attention to hear her speak.
Kal raised her voice over the sound of cannon fire out to sea. ‘We can’t let the Magician—or Sirensbane, or whatever he calls himself now—win this battle with his strange underwater contraptions and metal boats. And we can’t let the Eldragorans win it, either—if they get their hands on Port Black, they’ll exploit it far worse than the Republic ever did.’
This last part may or may not have been true, but Kal had rather see Port Black back under Ben’s control than Amaro Azul’s.
‘So we’re going to put a stop to this war! They call me Dragon Killer, and that’s what we’re going to do: take down the Drago Azul, the Blue Dragon. Amaro Azul is leading the Armada, and if we sink his ship, then the whole invasion will fall apart. Taking down dragons is no easy task, of course, but if you know their weaknesses and you have a good plan, it can be done!’
The crew looked nervous and excited at the same time.
‘I know the Drago Azul's weakness,’ Kal told them, ‘and I have a good plan! So here’s what we’re going to do …’
IV.vi
The Battle for Port Black
There was silence once Kal had outlined her plan. Only the clatter of the Eldragoran cannon raking the side of the zombie galleon could be heard, punctuated by a sudden loud bong as one of the nautiluses took a direct hit.
The doctor spoke first: ‘Will that be a port or starboard broadside?’ he asked, trying to sound optimistic.
Kal shrugged. ‘We’ll have to play it by ear. How fast can we get the cannon ready?’
One of the gunners, a new man who had been recruited in town, spoke up: ‘I can have this beauty sponged, primed and loaded in less than a minute in the heat of battle,’ he said, slapping the cannon next to him. ‘But for the first salvo, we usually double-shot ‘em.’
Kal nodded. ‘Alright then. If the plan works we’ll only need to fire once anyway, so I want each team to man a pair of cannons on opposite sides of the deck and have them ready to fire, double-shotted and everything, at my command. Any other questions?’
Pip, the youngest member of the crew, raised his hand. ‘If we get as close as you say, we’re sure to get boarded,’ he pointed out.
‘We will,’ Kal agreed. ‘So I hope you all picked up weapons in town.’ Seeing Pip’s empty hands, she threw him her marlinspike. ‘Stick that in someone’s goolies if you have to,’ she said.
Up in the crow’s nest, Lula was relaying the plan by attaching a series of chequered, coloured flags to the rigging. She saluted Kal to say she had finished. Kal turned back to her crew. ‘Alright, let’s weigh anchor and move out!’
There was no way Kal’s small fleet could sail directly upwind and into the battle, so they had to beat to the wind instead, striking out to the North East, with the intention of zig-zagging a path to the Drago Azul. Their initial trajectory took them around the outskirts of the raging conflict, and—under a new name and a white flag of truce (Kal had no compunctions about deception)—they looked like a rag-tag band of refugees fleeing from the carnage. They drew no attent
ion from either the Armada or the Magician’s fleet.
Kal watched from the rail. The Eldragoran Armada had broken formation and was fighting a moving battle, keeping ahead of the nautiluses’ attacks. The small, metal submarines were hampered by a wide turning circle, allowing the Eldragorans to easily predict their next moves. Already, a handful of the strange fish-shaped craft were floating belly-up in the water. But the sea was also already carpeted with wooden debris: the battle could go either way.
Unless Kal quickly put an end to it. She nodded for Lula to give the signal (a sudden changing of the white flag to a hastily stitched together red and gold ensign), and the small flotilla suddenly tacked into the wind. They hung motionless for a mere instant, sails luffing, before they were off again, racing under taut, close-reaching sail directly towards the heart of the battle … directly towards the Drago Azul. The brightly-painted blue and gold ship was an easy landmark amid all the smoke and chaos.
The next few minutes were excruciating, as the Black Lotus and company ran the gauntlet of the sea battle. They were caught in the crossfire between the Eldragoran men o’ war and the zombie galleon. The Black Lotus’s flying jib snapped off with a crack as a cannonball sailed over the bowsprit; behind them, a small clipper belonging to one of Port Black’s captains collided with a nautilus and reared up out of the water, before rolling back down on its side, hitting the water with a loud smack.
Kal joined the doctor to lend a hand at the tiller as they raced towards the Drago Azul. The crew of their target had noticed them now; Kal could make out the big shape of the bearded first mate watching their approach with interest. The red and gold flag Kal was flying was enough to confuse him: it was the flag of Eldragoro. ‘Try to get close enough as if we were going to ram them,’ Kal said, ‘but without making it look like we’re going to ram them.’ The doctor gave her a questioning look. ‘I don’t know!’ Kal replied. ‘Sail casual!’
There was clear water on the Drago Azul’s starboard side, so Kal aimed for that; and so, dragging it’s anchor, the Black Lotus slid into position alongside the larger ship, heeling slightly to port as the crew all dashed across the deck to man the guns that faced their enemy. To end the battle as fast as possible, Kal had to make her one broadside count; and to accurately hit the Drago Azul’s weak spot, she needed to get as close as possible. There were less than six yards between the two ships; Kal’s gun teams ran the cannon carriages into position as fast as they could, securing them with breach rope—a sturdy cable that secured each gun to the bulwarks.
Dogwood was on deck, shouting orders. Kal concealed herself on the opposite side of the mainmast; she didn’t want Azul to know she was here just yet. She knew that the Drago Azul had eight gunports facing her ship at this very moment, and she didn’t want to give him an excuse to fire first. Kal tried to block out the sound of the battle raging around her, and concentrated on listening to Dogwood’s commands.
‘Get ready! One … Two …’
One chance! But Kal knew the Drago Azul’s weak spot because she had seen it first hand … from the inside. When she had stowed aboard the ship on the voyage to the Forbidden Island, Kal had crept through the hold and seen something very interesting: a spot in the otherwise impervious oak hull where a previous rent had been repaired in a hurry with pine taken from the decking and interior framework. It was a tiny spot, perhaps only a yard across, and unlikely to be breached by anything other than a perfectly placed close-range bombardment …
‘Threeee …’ Dogwood counted, stretching out the syllables of the count as he watched the side of the Drago Azul slide slowly past. Kal was holding her breath.
‘Fire!’ There was a moment’s pause as each cannon’s fuse burned down the touch hole into the breach, and then …
… Six cannons fired their double payload simultaneously, and the Black Lotus rocked with the tremendous recoil of the blast. The broadside had been pre-aimed—the gun carriages had been moved into predetermined positions—so that all six fired at a convergence point six yards out from the beam of the ship. That meant a dozen twelve-pound cannonballs struck the Drago Azul’s hull at exactly the same time, tearing the ship a new hole just below the waterline. The warm seawater rushed in so fast that the Drago Azul started to sink almost immediately, dragged down at an angle so that its masts and rigging tangled with the Black Lotus’s—an unforeseen after-effect.
Still, one thing Kal was sure of was that the Eldragorans wouldn’t be slow to abandon ship. She heard her own crew drawing weapons, heard the sound of extra feet on the deck, and heard the loud, familiar voice of their captain urging his men on: ‘Kill every living bastard on this bastard ship!’
Now that she had him where she wanted, Kal prepared to reveal herself. She popped the top button of her shirt and pulled it down over one shoulder. Then she changed her mind and did herself back up—from what she knew of Amaro Azul, he was more likely to be blindsided by sauciness rather than sexiness. Kal stepped out from behind the mast.
Azul was standing before her, dressed in black leather trousers, ridiculous bucket-top boots, an undone shirt of vivid blue, and several medallions of polished gold. ‘Hold up, lads!’ he said when he saw her. ‘It’s Kal bloody Moonheart!’
His crew paused on the brink of attack. To her left, Kal saw Pip drop his marlinspike in relief. Azul just stared at Kal for a few long moments, while behind him his ship sank out of view, its masts scraping the Black Lotus as it went down.
Eventually he found his voice. ‘You just sank my beautiful ship!’ he growled. ‘If I wasn’t in the middle of the most important battle of my life, I’d take you below deck and flog you to within an inch of your life with my own leather codpiece! And then I’d—’
‘Maybe later,’ Kal said. ‘Sod your precious ship. I’ve come for you, Amaro. I’m the captain of this ship, and I’m looking for a mate who can keep up with me. Lula told me you know your way around a woman’s deck; stem to stern, as it were.’
Azul’s mouth hung open in shock, and he almost dropped his pistols. ‘Damn, girl,’ he said as stray cannonballs flew overhead, and the ship rocked from the swell churned up by a nearby explosion. ‘You picked the worst moment to play this game. Did you really need to scupper my ship to tell me this?’
‘I needed to end this battle,’ Kal said. ‘But I’ll make you a deal: order the Armada to go home, and then we’ll go after the Magician together: you and me. The zombies you’re fighting are innocent, and you’ll lose most of your ships trying to sink these metal contraptions. You’re caught in the Magician’s trap, Amaro, but it’s not too late to back down. I know you want revenge for Gaspar, your brother, but this isn’t the way! My way is better, so join me!’
That was it: all Kal could do now was hope her gamble paid off. She folded her arms and tried to adopt a confident front while Azul wrestled with this choice. Eventually he made up his mind …
‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’ Kal parroted. She gestured all around, to where her crew, and the crews of all the other ships from Port Black, had pistols and muskets all trained on Azul.
‘No!’ he repeated, ignoring the threat and raising his own pistols towards Kal. ‘Now I’m taking your ship, so get off this deck before I make you spring a leak, too.’
He didn’t get the chance to fire—at that moment, a coil of rope fell from the mast above and pulled Azul’s arms to his sides, making him drop his guns in surprise. Lula came down the rope and picked up both pistols. She tossed one to Kal.
‘Are you sure the answer’s no?’ Lula said, twirling the pistol around her finger. ‘I’ll give you one last chance to call off the Armada.’
‘Lula Pearl!’ Azul exclaimed. ‘I knew I hadn’t seen the last of you! I knew you’d somehow managed to trick me when we realised we had dropped you off on the wrong island. I’m glad you made it back alive, in a way! But still, even if I did want to join you and Kal on a wonderful three-way orgy of revenge—and believe me, my loins are stirring at the thought
even now—I couldn’t turn back the Armada even if I wanted to. The King of Eldragoro has decreed that Port Black will fall, and neither the Magician nor you pair of crafty sirens will be able to stop it. You see, the Magician isn’t the only one who knows how to spring a trap …’
As if to underline his words, a sudden clamour of voices and cheers rose from nearby Eldragoran ships. Both Kal’s crew and Azul’s were looking out to sea, and when she turned Kal saw straight away what the commotion was: another mass of ships had appeared on the horizon. The sails filled the horizon, and Kal guessed there must be at least five hundred vessels out there.
‘My king has called on all his powerful allies, and made deals with many other nations,’ Azul gloated. ‘This is the biggest Armada the world has ever seen! This attack has been in the planning ever since Port Black fell out of Republic hands. If I take this town, not only will I have my revenge on the Magician, but I’ll also take the king’s daughter as my prize, and become gobernador of these islands. The Eldragoran Empire will finally surpass your Republic in size and strength, so I will be the second most powerful man in the world, after my king—and certainly the most powerful man in the southern hemisphere!’
In response, Lula cocked her pistol. She looked to Kal for the final decision, though. Azul, too, was staring at Kal, but with a manic gleam in his eyes.
A part of Kal died inside. She had completely misjudged the game, and had gotten involved in a hand where the stakes were the highest in the world—far too high even for her. Azul had everything to win and nothing to lose, and like all good gamblers he was fearless in seeing the hand through to the end. For the first time ever, Kal was actually impressed by the man.