Ready when you are, Darok thought.
On the galley to the north, a high shrill note piped out, an answering signal, and four grappling-planks flew through the air. Hooks bit into the rail on either side, but only a handful of pirates leaped up on those and strode forward. Scouts. Darok’s mind raced. He had to think of some way to get more of the pirates on board.
“Captain!” A lookout on Rorqual, a boy who could not have been more than fourteen, was crouched on a yardarm and pointing down. “There’s ports in the hull, it’s a warship—”
“Yes!” Darok shouted back. “She’s called Daystrider.”
The tall pirate’s lips drew back from teeth that looked yellow in the firelight, and his voice rose to a roar of thunder. “Board it!” The weapon he pulled from behind his back was a huge double-bladed axe. “Take him alive!”
Chapter Seven
Freeship Rorqual
Gangplanks rattled against the rail as the pirates swarmed the ship. The huge man with the battle-axe was in their lead, and even if Darok had been certain of no interference from the rest of the pirates, he would have hesitated to take the battle-axe on. He ran to the nearest ratline and leaped, grabbing the rope and climbing up it.
Shouts and jeers rang out from the ships on either side as the first of the pirates landed on Daystrider’s deck. Darok clenched his teeth. He had to get as many of them aboard as possible, but enduring those scum on his ship was like watching a cockroach crawl across his dinner plate. Forget it. He kept climbing, praying none of them would decide to loose an arrow at him.
“Get the hatches!” the pirate captain shouted. “I’ll take care of him!”
You do that. Darok reached the first platform on the mainmast, thirty feet from the deck, and dared to look down. Pirates swarmed his deck like rats, scurrying to smash open the bolted-shut hatches. One man, much to Darok’s fury, planted a banner showing a broken chain on the prow.
Their captain shoved the battle-axe into a scabbard on his back and began to climb the rigging. Darok might have considered fighting him, using the height advantage of the platform, but he had a better plan in mind. Besides, with an axe that size, the pirate could have hacked the platform out from under him.
He caught another ratline and climbed again, towards the glow of a swaying lantern. Below came the crunch of axes biting into wood, but for such a large man, the pirate captain was frighteningly fast in the climb. A hand grabbed Darok’s boot. His heels were greasy with oil and the pirate lost his grip, cursing. Darok scrambled up the ratline. The lantern was only ten feet away.
A sharp punch struck his left arm, hard and unexpected as an invisible fist, and he jerked. His whole arm was numb—what the hell happened?—and he hung from his right hand.
He turned his head. Red feathers fluttered from an arrow’s shaft, and his sleeve was turning redder. Then the pain came, hot and biting like a wave of acid.
Agonizing though it was, it cleared his head. Climb. Go up or you won’t have a ship to go down to. His right palm was damp, reducing the friction against the net of ropes, and they swayed each time the ship moved. The lantern hung from a nail driven into the mast, just a few feet away, but he couldn’t take his right hand off the rigging because his left was useless.
He opened his mouth and bit down on the rope instead. The taste was foul, but it was better than no grip at all, and with his feet braced in the rigging, he stretched out his right arm. The lantern was just out of reach.
“Stop running, coward!” Anything else the pirate captain might have said ended in a grunt as the ship listed suddenly to port, all but slamming him into the mast. It did the same for Darok, of course—the entire rigging turned to a cobweb in the wind—but that was enough for him to snag the lantern. That’s my girl, he thought to the ship.
He let the lantern drop.
The instant before it struck the deck lasted a very long time. Then came the sound of shattering glass and Darok breathed again. With a whoof, the oil-soaked deck of Daystrider burst into flame.
The shrieks that filled the night had more of shock and terror than pain about them, but springing the trap bought Darok a moment to keep climbing, gaining some distance from the pirate captain. The arrow stuck out of his arm, and when the feathered end caught against a rope, his vision went white. He was so far above the deck by then that a fall would have killed him before the pirates could, so he clenched his teeth and hauled himself the last few feet to the crow’s nest, all but toppling over the edge when he reached it. He struggled to his knees.
Below, a few of the pirates had fled but some of them struggled to beat out the flames. The captain hesitated for a bare second longer before he continued to climb.
Darok reached for one of the sealed clay pots in the crow’s nest. Oil sloshed inside it as he hefted it and threw, not aiming for anything in particular as long as the pot’s contents splattered over the deck. The oil ignited at once. He flung the next one straight at the pirate captain, and it cracked in two over the man’s helm, dousing him.
“One step further and you’ll roast alive!” Darok shouted at him, then tossed another pot over the side. The screams from below were almost drowned out as renewed fire raced over the deck, biting into wood. Scouring his ship, burning the dirt away.
The pirate’s roar rose above it all. “Archers, kill him!” He let go of the rigging and leaped sideways.
Darok hoped he would be splattered against the deck like an overripe plum, but the pirate landed with a splash in the water instead. The shark wouldn’t pick the bastard off either, because Yerena had orders not to play her hand until the last moment.
Arrows struck the crow’s nest, punching into the wood from both sides. Darok crouched down and threw the rest of the pots out blindly. More screams rose up, so he dared to glance over the edge of the crow’s nest and down to the deck. The mainmast jutted out of a sea of fire. A shrieking figure wrapped in flame staggered to the gunwale and toppled over into the sea.
Another pirate shouted an order to disengage, and men on Rorqual pulled in the gangplanks. Daystrider’s arbalests fired almost simultaneously, on both sides, though to little effect. The galleys were so close his men couldn’t miss, but by the same token, the arbalests couldn’t fire up at a steep enough angle to strike the galleys’ gunwales—or the pirates just beyond them. The galleys trembled under the force of the tridents punching into thick wood, and that was all the damage they took.
The smoke drifting up from the deck was so thick Darok couldn’t see oars dig into the waves, but he felt the ship move as she backed water, trying to get free of the pincer to bring her prow into play. Bowhead’s gangplanks remained snagged in her rails, though, and Rorqual moved faster. The galley pulled away, oars sweeping the water in strong coordinated strokes, and began to turn.
No. Darok’s eyes stung with smoke, but he couldn’t look away from the sight of Rorqual’s prow pointing directly at his ship’s side. The galley had put more than enough distance between the two of them to build up speed for the ramming charge, and Daystrider was still caught fast. The impact would slam her into Bowhead and damage that galley, but the impact would also split her in two.
His hands tightened on the rim of the crow’s nest. Hard as a heartbeat, an oarmaster’s drum pounded on Rorqual and two hundred oars moved as one. The water churned. Rorqual streaked through the waves.
And the shark leaped out of them. Tons of muscle and sinew came down on the starboard bank of oars, snapping them like kindling. Rorqual’s forward surge slowed abruptly. The galley began to slew before men pulled in the oars on her port side as well, bare seconds before the shark could reach them too. Panic broke out on her deck. Officers shouted conflicting commands and men scrambled to get clear of the gunwales.
Darok sank back into the crow’s nest. He knew exactly what was happening on Rorqual as the sailors’ atavistic dread of the white death gave way to greater terror at the realization that they were on a crippled vessel. The galley’s inert
ia carried her forward, but she had no momentum, let alone aim. Her prow did little more than scrape along Daystrider’s hull.
With a splintering of wood, the fire-weakened rails on Daystrider broke. Gangplanks fell away and her oars beat fast as she pulled free of Bowhead. Darok guessed no one on that galley would be too interested in continuing the fight, especially not after seeing the shark. The beast had scared him almost as badly, because until then he had only seen it submerged in water that hid its full size. It was a thunderbolt with teeth.
Which it seemed to be using on any pirates unfortunate enough to be in the water. One of them wailed, “Please, no, please, call it off, merc—” and Darok tried to ignore that as he took stock of his own injury. His entire sleeve was sodden. He thought of pulling out the arrow, but the head was embedded in his arm, and if it was barbed it would rip his flesh. Thankfully he could lift his arm and bend his elbow.
He felt Daystrider come about and forced himself back up to his knees. Arrows bristled from the crow’s nest like a porcupine’s quills, but few of the pirates were fighting any longer. Two archers on Bowhead were shooting into the sea, but they weren’t likely to hit the shark. It didn’t need to surface to close its jaws around men’s legs and drag them down screaming, and it was so large a few arrows tickling its hide would probably just annoy it.
As long as they didn’t strike its eyes. Though in the dark, in water turned opaque with blood and froth, piercing a moving creature through the eye would be a stroke of great fortune—and luck didn’t seem to be on the pirates’ side any longer. Rorqual’s sails unfurled, but there was no wind, only a hot oppressive stillness. Daystrider’s oars lashed the water and she flew.
Ramming speed. Darok braced himself against the edge of the crow’s nest. The water parted for his ship’s prow, and flames trailed behind her like bright banners. On Rorqual’s deck, the pirate captain raised his huge axe one-handed over his head, and by then they were so close Darok saw the man’s lips draw back from his teeth in a futile snarl.
Daystrider rammed the galley an instant later. Wood smashed like an eggshell. Darok jolted forward, hissing in renewed pain, but the shock flung pirates off Rorqual’s deck into the ocean. Daystrider backed oars, pulling away, and the galley lurched. Water rushed into the great rent in her side.
The battle was done. He glanced at Bowhead, but that galley was pulling away too, oars thrashing. A pale shadow slid beneath a flailing man in the water, as the shark turned so its underslung mouth could be brought into play. There are siege engines and there are slaughter engines. The sea around the foundering Rorqual turned dark with blood.
Then everything was bleached in a flash of blue-white as lightning flickered through the sky. The rumble of thunder was immediate, and a raindrop hit Darok’s cheek. Thank the Unity, that will put out the fire. He hoped Alyster wouldn’t give chase to Bowhead. The galley had too much of a head start, and they needed repairs first.
More predators appeared in the sea, black streaks in storm-tossed water. One of them lifted its head from the waves and he saw a splash of white beneath its eye. Orcas. Well, none of his men were in the water, and those wolves of the sea wouldn’t attack a ship unless they were provoked.
Ignoring men and ship entirely, the four whales closed in on the shark.
Long before the battle began, Yerena lay on her bunk in the dark, hands clasped on her belly, her eyes closed. She was so accustomed to the posture and those circumstances that her body went limp almost at once. Her mind found the shark, its presence as familiar as her own flesh, and she slipped deep into its senses—past touching, beyond holding. When she locked with its consciousness, she had no need to open her eyes.
Now her eyes were black as deep pits with no end, and they were always open.
She never felt so strong as when she shared the shark’s body, but locking with it was a delicate balancing act. If she dominated it completely, she had to think how to do what came instinctively to the shark, but being a passive passenger wouldn’t help either. She had to be its equal, allowing it to do what came naturally and yet steering it where it was needed.
After the calm darkness of her room, being in the shark’s head was a shock to the senses. Despite its good eyesight, not much was visible in the night, but the water carried sound only too well. She heard vibrations transmitted through Daystrider’s hull, men moving about or hauling equipment. The water smelled foul, and not just from human wastes. A smaller shark—an openwater hunter with long white-tipped fins—turned and fled her periphery, emptying its bowels as if to ensure it didn’t take an ounce of unnecessary weight along. The shark ignored it, and so did she.
Because she felt them coming, heard the oars five hundred feet away. Darok, she thought, but it was no more than a whisper that flitted through the woman’s lips and the white death’s mind and was gone. All her training and senses focused on the fight.
It wasn’t difficult to hold the shark back when pirates spilled from Daystrider’s burning deck, even when she smelled hot blood and roasting flesh. The shark had fed earlier in the day, she sensed that too, and it preferred seal or porpoise in its belly anyway.
The deep water was a safe haven compared to what was happening above the waves, but the shark was curious and she let it rise just enough to get an eye to the surface. Now, she thought when she saw Rorqual pull away in preparation to ram. The fire on Daystrider was so bright it turned the world to daylight. The shark’s tail beat fast as a drum, picking up enough speed for its own charge.
Yerena guided it gently, then let it fly.
The shark weighed nearly five tons, more than enough to shatter the galley’s oars. It slammed back into the water, breathing again, and Yerena directed it to pick off the pirates, which it did easily and indifferently as she relaxed. Finished, with no real casualties she knew of, apart from Daystrider’s deck. She tasted bloody water and heard battle raging—muffled screams, the raw crunch of wood, distant roared commands.
But almost drowned out by all those was another sound, a high-pitched whine like a wire drawn against the edge of a wet glass. Something about it sent a cold finger down her spine. Then it was echoed from the opposite direction.
Not an echo, not in the sea. Yerena gave the shark its head, rising from lock to touch immediately. The shark reacted with sheer instinct, snout going down as its tail slammed water. It dove hard, and the fastest killer’s teeth snapped shut where it had been a heartbeat earlier.
Get out of there! Yerena screamed silently and broke the contact altogether as she threw herself out of the bunk. Her limbs were stiff as if they had contorted in position, but she struggled up and flung the door open. There were sailors outside, blood on the floorboards, a dead man. She could not have cared less.
She ran right, to another door. One of Daystrider’s men was on guard outside but what he saw in her face stopped his tongue. He opened the door for her and shouted, “Sir!”
“What is it?” Alyster Juell said as she hurried in.
Her mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. “Stop them. The killers. Please—stop them.”
To his credit, he didn’t ask why, only turned to the men at the arbalests. “The orcas. Fire at will.”
“Why the orcas, miss?” another man asked Yerena. She knew she had spoken to him before, but at that moment she could barely remember her own name, let alone his. “Are they—they aren’t on the pirates’ side, are they?”
She managed a nod, her heart hammering. The shark was still close, too close. What if it didn’t want to let itself be chased off? In the churning chaos of the sea, the men might hit it instead.
One arbalest whanged, and a moment later another one did so. “Missed,” a man said as they began to reload. The third and last loosed its trident, a bolt of steel eight feet long, and she dropped to her knees beside the weapon-port.
The sea turned to a boiling black-and-white mass of waves and killer whale.
Lightning flickered and thunder boomed like a trump
et. Rorqual started to capsize, stern tilting well out of the water while the heavier prow slipped beneath the waves. Even if the galley somehow managed to remain afloat, the storm would complete what Daystrider had begun. Yerena bowed her head until her brow rested on the solid frame of the port, and touched the shark’s consciousness.
It was far from her now, but it had been hurt, and phantom pain snaked through her own side. The killers might have given chase if not for the one which had been trident-pierced. Two black fins moved through a curtain of silvery rain to surround and support the injured whale. A third slewed to one side and dived to avoid another trident.
Before the men could shoot again, thick wood broke with a sound like a dry bone snapping and the ship lurched violently. Arbalests slid back from weapon-ports and men staggered. Yerena lost her balance and landed hard on the floor, but rolled as she did so to come upright again. She guessed the third whale had rammed them, and had done so aft, where none of the tridents could hit it. The men held their positions as they secured the arbalests, waiting for the next strike in tense silence, but nothing further happened. She could only hope the rest of the pack had retreated to safer waters.
Footsteps moved to her and she looked up to see Alyster. “Why did they attack it?” he asked. “Did the pirates make them do that?”
“No.” She pulled herself to her feet. “Another Seawatch operative did. He’s with the Tureans.”
The fires were dead and Darok didn’t feel too lively either. Rain poured over him until he was chilled to his bones, and the pain in his arm dulled to a raw, constant ache. The lightning whipped the sea into a frenzy, and although the ship faced the waves, she swayed and rolled. Even if he wanted to try climbing down from the crow’s nest with one arm, during a storm, he wasn’t sure how weakened the rigging and ratlines were from the fire.
He imagined what Admiral Balt would have to say about that. You are aware, Captain, that in battle one is supposed to burn the enemy’s ship? Well, too late to worry about it, and at least the Turean bastards would think twice before they tried to board his ship again.
The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) Page 13