by Kirby Crow
"No. I am the coward here, not you, too weak to watch your blood being spilled.” With that, he had no more words to share. Liall shook his head helplessly and released him.
Liall rejoined Qixa on the quarterdeck. Oleksei, Mautan the mate, and the quartermaster were gathered in a knot. For once, Mautan was not smiling, and he looked leeward and saw the schooner had gained greatly just in the time he was gone.
"Keep her on the leeward,” he warned. “That will give us some advantage, but not much."
Qixa nodded, his arms crossed, watching the deadly lines of the ship closing on their stern like a sleek hound on the water. There was nothing else he could do.
When she was two hundred paces out, the mate gave a shout to the men on the main deck, all lined up as they were with their knives and swords and hatchets in their hands, silent as the tomb, watching the schooner grow and fill the horizon. At a signal from Qixa, they moved, some shinnying up the ropes and some bellying up to the port-side rail with shields in their hands to deflect arrows. These would try to protect the sails and masts and also hack through any grappling implements thrown at them from the schooner deck.
Liall saw a man marking his forehead with an ancient sign, and another, a mariner with ruddy-gold hair and a face even younger than Oleksei's, looked to the north, toward Rshan, and nodded as if making some silent pact. This was the worst part; the knowing. Watching them slip up behind and then alongside bit by bit and seeing their numbers, the weapons in the hands of the enemy crew, their set faces. There were a lot of them. Not Rshan, thank Deva, but lean, brown-haired Morturiis and stout, parchment-skinned axe men from Minh. He had been wrong about the empty holds; they were filled with fighters.
It did not take long. The Ostre Sul dove into a thick fog that seemed to have rolled in from nowhere, smelling of fish and rot, and clouding their vision. The brigantine's sails vanished into white clouds.
They raced now, neck and neck into the north, and when the length of water between them was perhaps fifty paces, the schooner captain gave a shout. Some of the enemy crew leaped forward to the rail then, succumbing to nerves or just tired of standing. The captain, a grizzled Morturii commander in blackened Minh armor who straddled the quarterdeck as if bolted there, signaled for the hooks.
The grappling hooks, iron claws attached with strong rope at one end, were thrown. Some missed the brigantine and trawled the sea uselessly; others struck the gunwale and held fast, their strong barbs sunken deep into wood or jammed between crevices. The Rshani crew leaped to hack the ropes that held them, and the Morturii captain shouted another order. Arrows flew from the schooner. One volley—all there would be time for before their two hulls began to scrape—and several of the men nearest the railing screamed and fell, impaled through the chest and arms.
The compact size of the Minh warriors gave them an advantage. From the schooner, the Minh were shinnying or swinging over on the grappling ropes, either to prevent the hooks from being dislodged or to drop like spiders on the Rshani crew from above.
Liall had put aside his knives and taken a sword from the weapons master. He had had it in his hand from the moment the arrows flew. It was a long, double-edged blade, probably Qixa's own, and felt good in his grip. They—the watchers higher up on the quarterdeck, Liall, Qixa, the quartermaster and Mautan, Oleksei and perhaps thirty other skilled fighters—waited for the arrows to land before they moved a muscle. One volley of arrows was all Liall expected, since they were at such close quarters.
He was not wrong, and as the Minh archers dropped their bows to the deck and blades flashed from their sheaths, Liall charged off the foredeck with Mautan and the others, roaring loud enough to wake the dead. Half of all soldiery is intimidation, and he made best advantage of his height and appearance. A Morturii swordsman rose in his path and he struck the man down as he passed, fixed on a target near the port anchor; a hook embedded in a post. Two of the fighter's fellows tried to take him down and he turned to slaughter them, wielding the double-edged sword like an axe, felling them like saplings.
Liall struck down another Minh on his way to the side, sword straight into him and out, not even stopping to make sure he was dead. Then a larger Morturii blocked his way and they fought briefly. The Morturii was enthusiastic with his weapon, but no true swordsman. At the last, he gave up parrying Liall's thrusts and maneuvers and simply threw himself at the taller man. Liall went down with him and the Morturii rolled and kicked, seeking to get his hands around Liall's throat, but Liall snatched up a dislodged hook in the deck and pushed the barbs into the Morturii's face.
Dazed but on his feet again, Liall hacked at a hook stuck firm in the brigantine's side and cut it away as an enemy crashed over him again and dragged him into the thick of the killing, rolling and tumbling.
Again, Liall threw them off and rose, and while he was fighting his way back to the side to detach more hooks, another Morturii clothed in flamboyant armor and armed with a long-knife in each hand came at him. The Morturii was good. Liall lurched aside from one well-aimed thrust, but the Morturii's left blade went shallowly into his shoulder. The man took a fool's moment to grin at his handiwork and Liall smashed a fist into the Morturii's jaw and watched his smirking head snap back. Liall used his knife to open a wide, red smile in the man's throat.
On the schooner, the Minh were hauling on the ropes, dragging the tethered schooner close to their side, at last sealing their wet hulls, which screeched like mating wildcats. They lashed the ropes to their ship to make them fast, and then began to leap the distance between them, three at a time. Soon, enemy fighters swarmed over the Ostre Sul's deck.
The Rshani crew were in grave trouble. They were outnumbered two to one, and they had already lost many to the arrows. They had only one hope: to cut the ropes that bound the ships together and swing away from the schooner into the swell, separating the raiders on their deck from the greater numbers of their fellows on the schooner. Then they could kill the enemies that remained on their ship and then face the second wave.
Liall found another hook and chopped the rope free with his sword, then instinctively dropped to one knee when he heard a whirring at his back. The axe that narrowly missed his ear smashed into wood, and he stabbed back with his knife without looking, and the gut-stabbed mariner tumbled over him. Liall helped him into the sea while keeping a firm grip on his knife. Losing a blade stuck in another man's throat or kidney had killed more mariners over the years than scurvy.
It was close and dirty fighting from that point: stabbing up under the ribs, wielding the sword crudely, chop and hack and slash as the battle became more like butchery than war. He went down once under a press of Morturii and took the opportunity to hamstring two or three of them, then rose from the deck, throwing the bodies off him with a roar. A Minh swordsman darted in under his guard and thrust upwards. Liall danced aside, but not swiftly enough, and the enemy blade pierced his shoulder where the Morturii had stabbed him already, deep but not lethal. If he had not turned, the Minh would have taken him down and impaled him to the wooden deck.
Fresh blood can steam like hot water in the north, and new blood poured out of him in a misty fount, hot and smelling of slaughter. Howling, Liall hacked at the Minh swordsman until he had lopped off an arm, then kept going from there. The Minh was considerably abbreviated when he was done.
When Liall blinked away the haze before his eyes, he saw that Scarlet had disobeyed him and joined the battle. He was near the bulkhead that supports the quarterdeck, fighting a spear-wielding Morturii a head taller than him, and as he watched, Scarlet slashed with his long-knife—too slow!—and narrowly avoided being spitted.
Liall went a little mad as the berserker rage took over, but this time he welcomed it. He only knew there was a roar in his ears like the sea and his throat hurt from screaming, and all around him was steaming blood and the stink of fear and men falling like wheat under his blade. He saw Scarlet twice more: once hacking away at a grappling rope while a hulking Minh ran a
t him. Scarlet fell back and grabbed the nearest thing, a broken spar with a jagged end, pointed it at his enemy, and let momentum do the rest for him. Liall tried to fight his way to Scarlet's side, but Scarlet had already moved closer to the half deck, where the fighting was less, having achieved his goal and dislodged the rope. The second time, Liall saw him locking blades with a Minh who was a much better swordsmen. The Minh slapped the blade out of Scarlet's grip with his sword, slicing the back of his hand, and Scarlet danced back a step and looked wildly around for another weapon. Liall threw his dagger at the Minh and caught him where his spine joined his neck. The Minh fell to the deck, his feet jerking as he convulsed and frothed like a rabid dog. Scarlet stared at Liall, dazed and pale.
"Get below!” Liall roared.
* * * *
The Minh fell before Scarlet with Liall's dagger in his neck, and Scarlet fell back against the ship, pressing his body against the reassuring strength of solid wood. The deck felt slick beneath his feet, and he looked down and saw that his boots were washed with blood. Everywhere he looked he saw visions of madness. Men hacked into each other, their faces twisted into unrecognizable masks of straining fury, as blood sprayed from the wounds of their enemies, bathing all in crimson. He ran.
Suddenly, another Minh warrior loomed before him. The Minh's dark armor blackened the sky, seeming to shut out hope. On Deva danaee shani, Scarlet prayed automatically. He had no more weapons, and the bodies of the dead blocked his escape from all sides. Scarlet knew that he looked on his death.
The Minh raised his axe. Liall, Scarlet thought in profound loss, and then the Minh opened his wide, bearded jaw, and a torrent of blood flowed from it like a red stream.
Scarlet gaped as the Minh fell, revealing Qixa's broad figure standing behind the fallen warrior. The captain locked eyes with Scarlet and shook his head, a small smile on his lips, as if ridiculing himself for the act of saving a worthless lenilyn.
"Get off the deck, Byzan child,” Qixa growled.
Scarlet's whole body was shaking as he nodded at Qixa, unable even to summon a word of thanks. Qixa turned and barked orders to the crew, and for the moment the battle moved away from them both, giving Scarlet a much-needed moment to breathe. He spied a long-knife on the deck and took it up, and then looked out over the water to the enemy schooner.
The Rshani crew had cut away the last of the grappling ropes, and the schooner lurched away from the brigantine. Even Scarlet, novice that he was, could see that it was only a temporary respite. The schooner was faster and could turn much quicker than the brigantine. She could stalk them for weeks on the water, attacking at any moment of her choosing, picking a little more of the Rshani crew off each time, until there were not enough mariners to beat the enemy crew back, or until the winds failed the Ostre Sul and she became a sitting target.
Scarlet's eyes fastened on the billowing sails of the schooner, and he suddenly wished he had Scaja's talent of farcasting his Gift. Scaja had spent many nights teaching his son how to cast the withy on something outside of the house that neither of them could see, a piece of wood in the lane, or a fish deep in the pond. Scarlet had always been able to use his Gift on objects or creatures within arm's reach, but to cast across distance required special skill. A fire on the schooner would solve many things, and if the wind was in their favor, might even do the job for them.
Scarlet knew it was useless, and the schooner was pulling further away with every second. Yet, even as he thought of setting a withy to the enemy sails, he felt a tingling in his skin, like a ripple through his veins, and a flush of heat flooding his face. I can do it, he thought.
He had never tried with anything this far away before, but that fact seemed irrelevant. He stared at the sails, his eyes very wide, and thought: fire.
A curl of smoke huffed from the edge of a white sail. Scarlet trembled, for he now felt like he was holding a wild beast by the neck. Flames licked the sail and sent testing fingers to the wood of the schooner's mast. Power surged through Scarlet's body, stirring his blood, hammering his heart, and he recoiled in horror as he felt a man's clothing catch fire on the schooner.
A shout went up among the Rshani as one of the schooner's mainsails was engulfed in flames, and Scarlet jumped, startled, as Qixa bellowed at his men, giving an order Scarlet could not translate. The ten Rshani archers in reserve on the quarterdeck opened fire, felling the enemy fighters who had dropped their weapons and were attempting to put out the fire on their decks.
Qixa gave another order, and the archers launched two volleys of oil-soaked arrows. Twenty trails of flame went up.
Scarlet knew almost nothing of seafaring, yet he instinctively understood that all mariners must have a terror of fire at sea. One look at the blood-soaked deck of the brigantine told him that the Rshani crew could not withstand another assault. There was no other way.
A sail rigging caught fire on the schooner and then another at the aft, and then a great many of the schooner crew began to ignore the battle to fight the more pressing war on their own deck. The wind chose to shift at that moment, fanning the flames and dragging the brigantine safely away. Scarlet lost sight of the schooner in the fog.
No doubt they fought it bravely, but not much later, when the screams floated ghostlike over the misty swells, Scarlet knew the schooner crew had lost their battle with fire. In the new quiet, he grabbed the rail in both hands and leaned over, breathing in great gulps of cold air and trying not to vomit. His mind was like a fly caught in a web, tearing and flailing at itself to escape. What's happening? he thought in dismay. How did I do that? Not even Scaja could have sent a withy like that, and I sent not one, but many, and much stronger than anything I've ever seen Scaja do! What's happening to me?
Behind him, Qixa moved among the crew and ship, surveying the damage. The masts were whole and only one sail was damaged, but all the ship's rails was seriously marred and weakened, as well as the deck on the port side. They would have to drop men over the side on ropes to inspect the hull and determine whether the impact from the schooner bellying up to them had pushed in the wooden hull below the waterline. As for the dead, Scarlet counted eighteen Rshani, among them Mautan the mate, who would never smile again. He did not see Liall anywhere, and fear clutched his heart.
The mariners were dumping the pirate dead overboard when Scarlet finally spotted Liall on the main deck, near the stern. Liall had a sword sheathed at his waist and he held a bloodied hand to his shoulder. He was shouting hoarsely.
"Scarlet!"
"Here!” Scarlet called. He watched, dazed, as Liall came toward him in a rush. Liall seized his shoulders.
"I told you to stay below!” Liall shouted, and then jerked Scarlet this way and that to see if he was whole. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.
Dark blood was spattered at Liall's shoulder and painted down the front of his coat. “No, but you are."
Liall was breathing heavily. “It is nothing."
Scarlet yanked Liall's coat open and flinched when he saw how much blood was soaked into the gray wool of Liall's shirt. “You said there was a curae on board?"
Liall waved that aside, seeming unconcerned. Blood began dripping in a steady trickle from the end of Liall's shirt, spattering the crimson-washed deck. “I am not the only man wounded on this ship, and there is still work to be done."
"And you'll be no help to anyone if you faint."
Liall scanned Scarlet's body up and down. “Is any of that blood your own?"
Scarlet looked down at his clothes and felt briefly giddy, seeing all the gore. He looked worse than Liall did. “No.” His stomach turned over and he was mortally glad he had not eaten for hours. “Never mind me. I have to look at that wound."
"The bleeding has stopped, mostly,” Liall said as a last protest.
Scarlet thought Liall looked pale, considering his usual color, and without asking he shoved his shoulder under Liall's arm and steered the man toward their cabin.
Captain Qixa stopped them on th
e way and spoke to Liall. Liall locked eyes with the captain and gave him a look of deep regret. “This is my fault,” Liall said in Bizye. “You know what they were really after."
Qixa shook his head, his face proud but haggard with loss. “No one makes me do anything, ap kyning. I knew the risk."
Liall bowed his head, equal to equal, and Qixa returned it with the aplomb of a king before barking an order to the crew in Sinha. The mariners began to throw the corpses overboard. All, that is, save the Rshani. Mautan they bore gently away on their shoulders, singing a song of death.
Liall allowed Scarlet to guide him into the cabin, and sat slumped on the bunk as Scarlet hurried to find the small pack of medicines he always carried on the road. Scarlet left to dip a basin of fresh water from the barrel on the main deck and returned to find Liall flopped onto his back.
Frightened, Scarlet leaned over Liall and roughly shook his uninjured shoulder.
Liall opened his eyes blearily. “What?"
"I thought you'd passed out."
"I did.” Liall sat up painfully. “This is how I heal."
That explained much, including how easily Liall slipped into sleep at the inn at Volkovoi and how quickly his bruises had vanished afterwards. Scarlet managed to get Liall out of his coat and the shirt off him. The wool shirt was ruined, cut in several places and soaked through with blood. He laid it aside and bit his lip when he saw the wide gash at Liall's shoulder.
"This will need stitching,” he said.
Liall assessed Scarlet quietly with that measuring gaze of his, his pale eyes revealing nothing. He nodded. “Help me get my boots off. I am covered in blood."
Scarlet helped Liall to undress before turning to the small brazier. Water would have to be heated, and there were bandages to make. He wished suddenly that Hipola the midwife was here, or even Scaja, who had known much more about healing than he did. He could find no suitable cloth to bind the wound with, but he tore one of his older shirts and boiled it in the water. They would do for cleaning the wound, anyway. With the sterilized cleaning cloths laid aside, he dumped the hot water and refilled the iron pot with clean water to heat, boiling it for several minutes to kill off any lingering poisons.