by Джеффри Лорд
«They may not be interested in victory for its own sake. They will still be interested in winning for the sake of not being tortured to death by the Emperor.»
The galleys were now coming in from the mainland, three, five, eight each day. As fast as they came, Blade snatched their carpenters and other skilled workers ashore. Some of the galleys were sent back for more powder and masts. The armed and filled barrels and the trimmed spars began to pile up. They were kept under close guard in dry caves not far from the sea.
There was no problem getting the men to work, even without knowing exactly what they were making. They knew that whatever they were making would help destroy Kul-Nam’s fleet and bring him down. Any man who had seen the ruins of Parine or helped bury its dead in mass graves could imagine the same thing happening to his home and family, and he would return to his work with more enthusiasm than ever. The workers would in fact have gladly stayed on their jobs twenty hours a day. Blade refused to let them do so, fearing that exhaustion would set in and lead to carelessness, and carelessness to accidents. He was not going to see many weeks’ work and the best chance for victory wiped out by the mistake of some worker too tired to see straight.
The pirates of Nongai came as they had promised. They were fifty galleys, each crammed with all the fighting men and supplies she could hold and a little bit more. The officers and men from the galleys of the Five Kingdoms looked dubiously at the pirates at first. Then they saw the pirates behaving themselves on shore, standing guard like disciplined men, and obeying the orders of Blade and Prince Durouman without question. Old suspicions did not vanish overnight, but nothing remained to keep pirates and Five Kingdom sailors from fighting side by side as long as the enemy was Kul-Nam.
Two days after the pirates arrived, the entire royal fleet of Nullar appeared, twenty-six galleys. Prince Durouman was openly astonished and asked their admiral what had inspired the king to such unusual boldness.
«The lady who shall be your wife inspired him,» replied the admiral. «She said that if the fleet were not sent to aid you, she would set forth to do so, though she had to set forth in a fishing boat clad only in her night shift.»
«She will make a fine empress for Saram,» said Durouman, only half to himself. He seemed to be getting accustomed to the idea of himself on the throne of Saram.
In another two days the fleet received its last reinforcements. These were small, but surprising and very welcome, especially to Blade. They consisted of two galleys, formerly of the Imperial fleet but now flying the flag of the House of Kudai. Aboard them were Tulu, now Duke of Kudai, and as many of the guards and servants of the house as he’d been able to save after his father’s arrest and execution.
Tulu looked ten years older than when Blade had last seen him. His voice was brittle as he told his tale. «I will spare you the details of my father’s death. They were as vile as you may imagine.»
«What was the charge?»
Tulu shrugged. «The Emperor had never much cared for my father’s independent spirit. He had doubtless been accumulating grievances for many years. In the end, though, there was no charge at all. It was Kul-Nam’s whim, and he made no effort to disguise it as anything else.»
Prince Durouman’s eyebrows rose very high. «If he has reached that point, he is mad indeed. What is said of this is Saram?»
«Very little is said,» replied Tulu. «There is still too much fear of His Bloodiness’s long arm. But little is done against those who wish to take themselves out of reach of that arm. That is how I was able to escape.»
«The galleys surrendered to you?»
«Yes. Still, I do not think they would have surrendered to me alone. But-Blade, this was your work. I remembered you and Tzimon and Dzhai and the ways of England. The lesson went home to me. Instead of fleeing alone, I gathered together all the fighting men and servants who would come with me, and we marched to the coast. There we found the galleys. Everywhere the men of Kul-Nam stood aside from us. The strength of my company gave them an excuse, but one man alone would not have given them that excuse. I owe you my life, Blade, and so do all those who came with me. I hope they will be welcome in your ranks.»
«They will be.»
«I thought so,» said Tulu, and smiled for the first time. «One of them should be even more welcome than the rest. Haleen is among those who fled with me.» Blade said nothing, only smiled in turn.
«This is welcome news indeed,» said Prince Durouman. «if there is so little enthusiasm for Kul-Nam among those who must fight for him, our task begins to look easy.»
«Easier,» corrected Tulu. «The Corps of Eunuchs will fight to the death. They know they are doomed if Kul-Nam falls. Everyone else will also fight as long as there is any chance that Kul-Nam will live to take vengeance.»
«Very well, then, easier,» said Prince Durouman. «But would it be fair to say that if we strike off the head-Kul-Nam-the body will submit without more fighting?»
«If you are proposing yourself as the new head, yes,» said Tulu.
«I am,» said the prince. He rose. «I think we have done and said all that is necessary before we strike. Let us prepare to sail. Blade, do you agree?»
Blade nodded. A hundred and forty galleys were assembled at Parine now, all as well manned and well equipped as they ever would be. Each had at least three of the exploding barrels stowed in her hold, apart from her other weapons. Nothing worthwhile would be accomplished by further delay. He also had to admit that he was impatient to strike.
«Very well,» said the prince. «I shall give no commands as Emperor of Saram until the Eagle Crown rests on my brow. But I shall make one request of you, Blade, as a friend and battle comrade.»
«That is?»
«If I am to ride into battle aboard Kukon once more, I would like to see her name changed.»
Blade opened his mouth to object. He had found here, as in practically every Dimension that had ships, a superstition against changing ships’ names. It was bad luck, pure and simple.
Prince Durouman went on. «I should like Kukon to be renamed Avenger.»
Blade’s mouth snapped shut, his objections suddenly meaningless. No one in his right mind could object to that name. Even the most superstitious would consider it a good omen.
There were so many to be avenged. Tzimon, Dzhai, Duke Boros and all of the House of Kudai who had not escaped with Tulu. Princess Tarassa and all the thousands of her people. Kukon’s first captain. Prince Durouman’s ancestors and those ancestors’ supporters, a century ago. Hundreds of thousands of anonymous victims of Kul-Nam and those who had preceded him over an entire century and in half a dozen lands. Men tortured, women raped, children worked to death. A toll that it turned Blade’s stomach to think about.
«Yes,» he said finally. «I think Avenger is a very good name for our flagship.»
That was the end of the conference. Blade went in search of Haleen. Somewhat to his surprise, he found that she did not need much consolation for Dzhai’s death.
«He always knew that he would not live to grow gray,» she said with a sad smile. «That was his fate. Indeed, he was fortunate, for he died a warrior’s death in a great battle for a good cause, and he never hoped for that much even in his dreams. I do mourn him, Blade. But-I would not care to be alone here, at least at night.»
Blade took care to see that Haleen was not left alone during the next three nights. On the fourth day, the fleet set sail from Parine.
Chapter 25
The fleet descended on the Sulphur Islands, off the southern coast of the Empire of Saram.
Blade and Prince Durouman chose the islands as the point of attack because of something Duke Tulu had said. As Blade put it at one conference:
«Somewhere there has to be something so important to Kul-Nam that an attack on it will bring him and his fleet down on us at once. We cannot afford a long campaign. It will exhaust our supplies and wear out our ships and crews. It will also give time to rebellion, other pretenders to the Eagle Throne,
and to the Steppemen.»
So Duke Tulu suggested the Sulphur Islands. «From their mines comes nearly all of the sulphur used in making the Empire’s gunpowder. Kul-Nam certainly cannot afford to lose them.»
«Is he short of powder?»
«He has far less than he needs. Much was used against Parine. If he has to fight another great battle, there will definitely not be much left.»
Then rebels could spread everywhere. The Steppemen could cross the borders with relative impunity. Even Kul-Nam’s vast and expensive fortresses and castles would be far less formidable without powder for their artillery and muskets.
«We will move against the Sulphur Islands, then,» said Prince Durouman.
The islands fell without any resistance worthy of the name. Their garrison had been stripped of ships and men in order to reinforce the Imperial fleet after the losses at Parine. Four galleys and less than a thousand men remained to defend the islands against the attack of a hundred and forty galleys and twenty-five thousand men.
The galleys fled. A few of the men threw themselves off the cliffs or down the mine shafts. Most surrendered. A few of the bolder ones joined the attackers.
Along with the guns on the island, Blade found a number of old-fashioned non-explosive siege engines, designed for throwing large stones. He had them taken aboard the larger galleys, to be used for throwing barrels instead of stones. Some of the barrels would be filled with gunpowder and bits of iron, designed to explode murderously; others would be filled with sulphur, to spread flames, fumes, and ghastly smells across the decks of an enemy.
«With these coming down on their heads, I don’t imagine even the best gunners will be able to shoot very well,» said Blade.
After they had loaded the siege engines and their ammunition, it was finally time to reveal the secret weapons. Blade called all the captains aboard Avenger to tell them what he had done and what the new weapons ought to accomplish in the coming battle.
The captains cheered him and they cheered Prince Durouman. They also stood silently for a moment in memory of the barrel-makers of Parine. They would gladly have drunk enough wine to float one of the largest galleys, but there was none aboard. So they cheered some more, then went back to their own ships.
From Avenger’s foc’sle Blade and Prince Durouman watched them go.
«If the barrels work as well as the captains expect them to, Kul-Nam and all his fleet are doomed,» said Blade.
«Yes, but are they expecting too much?» said the prince.
«There is no way to answer that until we fight our battle.»
The allies did not have long to wait. Toward sunset of the fourth day a scouting galley hove into view, one mast gone and the signal for the approaching enemy flying from the other. The fleet weighed anchor and crept out to sea as the last light drained from both the sky and the water. They settled down to wait, the crews sleeping at their battle stations, masts bare and oars trailing, all guns loaded.
Aboard Avenger Blade, Prince Durouman, Duke Tulu, Emass, and the admirals of the Five Kingdoms held their final council of war. The tactics Blade had planned for the battle were simple-so simple he’d expected arguments against them.
He got none. Prince Durouman, Tulu, and Emass clearly understood the reasoning behind the plan; it was important to capture Kul-Nam’s flagship, and every other consideration was secondary at the moment. The five admirals didn’t care about that, but they did see that Blade’s tactics involved a headlong charge at the enemy. That was the style of fighting they liked, the style of fighting that gave them the best chance to prove their warrior’s courage.
Normally Blade would have felt like beating the admirals over the head until he’d beaten some sense into them. Commanders who thought more of courage than of skill usually led their men into disaster. This time he was able to ignore the problem.
Now all that remained was for Kul-Nam to do his part.
The Emperor seemed to be cooperating. Dawn brought the Imperial scouts up over the horizon. Two hours more and the rest of the fleet was hull-up and bearing down on the allies. Blade waited until he could count the Imperial fleet-forty armed sailing ships, a hundred galleys-and saw it shifting into its usual broad crescent. Then he ordered the formation signal hoisted on Avenger’s foremast-and Prince Durouman’s battle standard hoisted on the mainmast.
This was the next to the last signal he planned to make, the next to the last he could hope that the whole fleet could see. Galleys scuttled about in all directions like a swarm of mad waterbugs, as though all one hundred and forty captains and crews were suddenly drunk. Blade hoped that Kul-Nam’s admirals would think just that and allow their own confidence to swell accordingly.
It was half an hour before the allied formation was pulled into the shape Blade intended. By that time Kul-Nam’s fleet was only a couple of miles outside gun range, coming on now like a solid moving wall of wood and canvas, silent gun muzzles and rhythmically beating oars. The sailing ships had all their canvas spread and showed no signs of shortening it at all.
That was not good, but under the circumstances it was inevitable. There was more wind today than Blade liked — not enough for a sailing ship to outrun a galley moving at full speed, fortunately, but plenty to let the sailing ships maneuver freely. Most of Kul-Nam’s admirals had more sense than the late lamentable Sukar; they would probably take advantage of the weather.
Blade-scrambled up to Avenger’s foremast to take a last look over his fleet. In theory every one of the hundred and forty galleys should now be where she could do her intended part in the coming battle without any more signals. He hoped so. There was only going to be one more.
He cupped his hands and shouted down to the men on the signal halyards.
«Hoist the attack.»
They must have had the flag already bent on. A ball soared up to the masthead and broke apart into a great black flag, streaming out on the wind. Avenger’s bow guns went off, one by one. Cheers floated up to him on the wind as the crews of nearby galleys jumped up and down, waving hats, helmets, and swords. Then Avenger’s drummers broke into the attack stroke, and the flagship surged forward.
Behind her and around her surged a hundred and thirty-nine other galleys, in Blade’s special formation. It was not the standard simple-and simple-minded-crescent. Instead, it looked like a gigantic, squared-off letter U, with the open end of the U facing astern, away from the Imperial fleet.
Each side of the U was formed by a single line of forty light galleys. The base was formed by a triple line of larger ones, twenty in each line. In the center of the second line were ten of the largest, including Avenger. Each of the ten mounted a siege engine on her stern, with barrels stacked ready to load. Every one of the hundred and forty galleys had a barrel and spar lashed to her ram, jutting out sixty feet ahead and six feet below the surface, invisible and hopefully lethal.
The idea was to drive home a straight thrust with the sixty larger galleys, while the others protected either flank. Extended in its usual crescent, the Imperial fleet would try to fold its wings around the attackers’ flanks. At the same time it would be weaker in the center, more vulnerable to the massive punch that Blade hoped to drive straight home.
«Home» did not mean just the enemy’s center. It meant Kul-Nam’s own flagship, and ultimately the Emperor himself. Blade was scanning the enemy lines now, trying to make out the ship flying the Imperial standard. He doubted if Kul-Nam would refuse to fly the standard or permit it to be flown aboard several ships to conceal his location. The man was too arrogant and too jealous to take that kind of sensible precaution. Still, Blade could not see the black eagle on red anywhere in the forest of masts and sails and other bright flags and banners ahead.
Finally he decided to leave that job to the lookouts and get back to his own duties. He swung himself into the shrouds and slid down to the deck so fast he scorched the palms of his hands on the rough rope.
Prince Durouman met him as he landed. The prince was pale a
nd sweating with excitement and anticipation.
«Did you see the flagship?»
Blade shook his head. «The man must be holding well back.»
Prince Durouman cursed and pounded one gauntleted fist into the palm of the other hand. It was his dearest wish to see Avenger laid alongside the Emperor’s flagship and personally lead her boarding party into the Emperor’s private cabin to kill him there.
Blade understood that a hundred years of frustration and anger and waiting for this moment of vengeance lay behind Prince Durouman’s desire. He still didn’t think much of it. As far as Blade was concerned, it would be putting the prince and therefore his whole cause into unnecessary danger. There would be no boarding party or death grapple with the Emperor if it could be avoided. Blade would be perfectly happy to blow the flagship apart or send it to the bottom with all hands. That would be less melodramatic but just as effective.
White smoke rose from one enemy ship after another, and whiter fountains of spray began to rise among the advancing allied fleet as the Imperial sailing ships opened fire. They were shooting badly, but not so badly that all their shots missed. Blade saw a mast go overboard from one allied galley, saw another swerve wildly as half the oars on one side were suddenly smashed or tossed into the air.
Beyond the flanks of the allied fleet Blade could now see Imperial galleys sweeping forward. They too were opening fire, but no galley captain would depend on guns if he saw an opportunity to close and ram. Then the lighter allied galleys would have their chance-and so would the Sunday punch they were thrusting ahead of them under the water.
A determination to watch his invention work under battle conditions filled Blade. He sprang into the rigging again, ignoring the steadily increasing beat of the enemy’s guns. He had barely settled into the crow’s nest when he saw a pirate galley swing out on the left flank, driving in against an Imperial opponent that had wandered too close. Blade held his breath, cursing mentally. The captains were supposed to save the barrels for use against sailing ships first, not against galleys. But a pirate captain who saw a chance to strike down an Imperial opponent would be sorely tempted. This one had obviously yielded to temptation.