“Orichalcum? Who knows how to smelt that?” asked Gregorvero.
“The forgemaster of Ivrea,” replied Strykar, a smug look on his face. “I was there a year ago. Stronger than wrought iron they say because they are a single piece cast in the furnace. They load them from the muzzle end. And they shoot farther and with more power. Cast shot too.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Bah!” moaned Gregorvero. “Why haven’t we seen anything like that yet?”
Strykar shrugged. “The Ivreans don’t make much use of warships themselves. But they’ve got those guns on their city walls facing out to sea.”
Danamis had been silent in the exchange as the import of Strykar’s words began to sink in. “Ivrea you say? I have never sailed there. Strange place, they say.”
Strykar nodded. “Strange ain’t even the beginning of it. Half of them down the mines, the other half doing their blessed best to keep to their own business, which is generally fleecing their fellows. Never seen a city with more ferocious merchants.”
Danamis wiped his brow with his sleeve. He was tired. “And you say you saw these cast orichalcum guns fired?”
Strykar swirled the dregs around in his cup. “Well, yes… though it was just a ranging shot out to open sea. Mind you, I did speak with a captain of infantry there who had seen one hit its target. He told me, ‘If those pieces ever get sent into the field they’ll tear a hole into an army at nearly half a mile.’”
“Cast guns are treacherous. Likely as not to blow up in your face.”
Strykar shook his head. “Not these. Orichalcum isn’t brittle like iron.”
There was silence in the cabin for a few moments, the ship’s movement a gentle sway as it lay at anchor. Gregorvero stared at his captain. He knew him well enough to know that this talk of Ivrean guns had caught his interest—maybe worse. Danamis was looking into his cup, his thoughts elsewhere. Bassinio elbowed Gregorvero and tilted his head towards Danamis. He too was starting to worry.
Strykar caught the glance. “So nobody believes me,” he said, his voice rough.
Danamis sat up straight on his bench. “I believe you, Strykar.”
The mercenary leaned back, smirking, as happy as a dog praised by his master.
“Tell me, Strykar, how well do you know the forgemaster of Ivrea?”
“We hoisted a few jugs together when I was there. Not much more.”
Danamis turned to Gregorvero. “I want to make for Nod’s Rock as soon as we round the point.”
The ship’s master gawped and then looked to Bassinio to see his reaction. “Are you mad, Nico! After everything that’s happened in the last fortnight! The trade with the merfolk is what turned the men against you—and the Temple. And now you want to start it all again?”
“I will seize any chance—any—to get back Palestro and the fleet,” said Danamis, practically spitting his words. “The guns of Ivrea won’t be bought cheap—assuming that they even can be bought. But I swear I will go there and get them.”
Gregorvero looked first to Bassinio and then to the mercenary across from him, hoping he would find common cause, a voice of restraint. Bassinio cast his eyes downwards while Strykar wore an expression of amused detachment.
Gregorvero turned to Danamis, his shoulders hunched. “You are the captain—my captain,” he said softly, the air of resignation in his voice barely concealed, “and the Grace is yours to command. We make course for Nod’s Rock.”
Danamis looked over to Strykar, wordless yet expectant. The mercenary took a breath and sat back. “Well, I and my men are only passengers on this voyage—and reluctant ones at that.” He paused and scratched his beard. “However, it’s my myrra that lies in your hold and, like you, I can only think of one party interested in it. So, my friend… shall we discuss the conditions of the loan for your war chest?”
Twenty-Six
THE SEA OF Valdur was always azure, and agreeably warm, even into the depths of winter when it turned merely a shade of darker blue, the waters cooling slightly as the air blew chill from the northeast. The sun of the late summer bathed the Royal Grace as it lay drifting without anchor in the lee of Nod’s Rock. The smell of melting pitch rose from the timbers and beams, not unpleasant in itself and a far better alternative than the smell of the sweating seamen and soldiers that stood crowding the decks of the vessel, their anticipation waning as their skins reddened.
Captain Danamis made his way across the main deck, offering words of praise and encouragement, slapping shoulders, laughing, promising success and gold. A few of the men may have noticed his wobbling, slightly unsteady gait and remarked upon it for Danamis’s sea legs were as good if not better than any man who had grown up on the water. For three hours they had waited there and though Danamis had ordered his father’s conch horn sounded three times, this signal had failed to summon merfolk from the depths. Hope was fading and with it, that precious commodity: trust. While many of the crew had been with Danamis for years, near upon half were newly joined in Perusia. Talk of merfolk for these men was not a cause for rejoicing but for distrust and fear, so deeply were the tales ingrained.
Gregorvero stood on the poop looking forward, his gaze moving from the topmast with its furled sheets to the triangular fo’c’sle deck where he could see some two dozen soldiers and bowmen wilting in the heat under the eye of Captain Bassinio. He had convinced Danamis not to drop anchor nor to stow the powder charges belowdeck, for he knew they were exposed out in this well-travelled stretch of the sea betwixt Torinia and the Rock. His gaze moved downwards towards Danamis ambling amongst his men on the quarterdeck, smiling as he spoke, and for the first time he found himself wondering whether the young admiral would be able to overturn his infernal ill luck or if this was the beginning of the end.
“He’s burning with fever.” It was the Widow Pandarus.
Gregorvero turned to her. “I know. And I worry that I may have to make the decisions come the morning.”
“I have tried to keep the wound clean,” she said, “but there is precious little physik aboard for me to do much more. With God’s help it will burn itself out.”
Acquel was standing close by her. “How much longer do we wait here?”
Gregorvero continued to watch his captain. “Until he realizes they’re not coming.”
Danamis, dressed in his red velvet brigantine of plates, falchion at his hip, suddenly leapt down to the main deck and the larboard gunwale, one hand leaning on the barrel of a saker for support. He began pointing and then waving out to something he had seen out at sea. The lookout in the main mast was quiet and though others ran to Danamis’s vantage and scanned the water, no one could see a thing.
“It is a chariot! Ten points off the bow! It’s there, breaking the surface!”
Gregorvero moved quickly to the railing and shielded his brow from the glare of the high sun. An occasional whitecap erupted and flattened out beyond. He saw nothing. The men on the deck started to exchange glances and Gregorvero swore under his breath and struck the railing with his fist. He turned and grabbed a sailor by his shoulder. “You! Go and tell the captain I need to speak with him now!” The lad nodded and disappeared below.
The master turned back to Timandra. “Is there nothing more you can do for him? If I can convince him to take to his berth, can you tend to him?”
Timandra nodded. “I can sponge him with some wine and try to cool him down. Not much more.”
When Danamis reached them Timandra realized how ill he had become. He was dripping with sweat, pale as death and eyes bloodshot. But his demeanour was disarmingly buoyant, almost ecstatic as he reported to Gregorvero that he had seen them briefly appear and then sink again.
“Nico, go below and take some rest,” said Gregorvero, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Your fever is talking. The Widow Pandarus will redress your wound and make you comfortable.”
Danamis gave a confused smile and quickly glanced at Timandra. “But, they may not come unless they see me here on d
eck.”
Timandra spoke softly. “Captain, Brother Acquel and I can tend to you below. The master will keep a sharp watch.”
Danamis shook his head and wiped his glistening brow. “I’m a bit low but I can still run this ship. Tend to me later.”
Above them, there was a sharp cry from the crow’s nest. “Sail ho!”
Gregorvero and Danamis cried out almost as one: “Where away?”
All heads craned towards the direction shouted down and they saw the square-rigged sails of a carrack emerge from around the western side of Nod’s Rock, barely a mile away. In an instant, boredom turned to alarm and confusion. As Danamis moved to lean over the rail, staring at the newcomer, Gregorvero bellowed, “Raise all sail!” and seamen leapt to the ratlines and shrouds. Acquel found himself bowled down by two sailors who rushed past to free up the halyards tied to the mizzen.
“Talis! Get your bowmen up here! All of them.” Gregorvero swore a streak at his own complacency but was interrupted by another shout from the top of the mainmast.
He looked out past their bow and saw a second ship—another large carrack—following in the wake of the first and, beyond that, a third. He squeezed the rail, his jaw going slack. “Saints preserve us,” he muttered.
The Firedrake and her companions were swinging out wide from the island, preparing to take full advantage of the wind and bear down on them from the west. And it was a Firedrake confidently arrayed in striped mainsail of red and white, the three-dolphin flag of the Free City of Palestro flying over her top.
“Nico! It’s Tetch!”
Danamis slowly turned to look at Gregorvero. “He has the devil Berithas himself at his shoulder,” he replied, voice steady and without emotion.
Bassinio had already taken command in the fo’c’sle as more soldiers and gunners spread out to take their stations. On the main deck, the gunners had hastily donned their helms and were preparing to place shot and powder into the big guns. Above them, there was the loud snap of canvas as the huge mainsail was unfurled, flapping madly in a luff as the ship began nosing towards the north, painfully slow, until it filled.
Strykar arrived at the stairs to the poop, shouting the whole of the way up for Danamis. “Elded’s bollocks! Tell me they’re from Maresto or Perusia!”
Danamis swayed and steadied himself on the railing. “Tetch,” he said, spitting the name. “It’s sorcery. How can that bastard know what I intend to do at every turn? Damned sorcery.”
Strykar, taken aback, glanced to Gregorvero. He gripped Danamis by the arm. “Where do you want me and my men?”
Danamis seemed distracted and his answer came haltingly as concentration seemed to fail him. “Strykar. Good. Take your men to the main deck and help mine deploy the netting above the guns. We’ll need your swords if they try and board us.”
Gregorvero stepped forward. “Captain, I’ll swing us around to the east! We can then run south around the island with the wind at our backs and try and outdistance them.”
Danamis’s eyes suddenly grew large with absolute rage. “We sail straight at them, damn you! I’ll have him this day! Firedrake’s the lead vessel. Run us past his larboard and we’ll fire a broadside into him and then come around.”
Strykar heard the ship’s master inhale loudly. In a flash, Gregorvero grabbed Danamis by the yoke of his brigantine and pulled him in close. “We can’t sail into the wind! This is the fever talking!” he yelled. “We can’t fight on these terms!”
Danamis bellowed like an enraged bull and shoved Gregorvero backwards. “We have at them! I will board him myself and take his head!”
In the distance a gun sounded. “Well,” said Strykar, laconically, “one of you better decide before they’re climbing over the rails.”
Firedrake had rounded Nod’s Rock and made its turn, bearing down on them wide so as to cut off the Grace and force it between Tetch’s squadron and the island whose massive cliffs dropped down into the sea as steep as any castle wall.
Danamis staggered over to the centre of the poop and shouted down to the helmsman at the whipstaff on the quarterdeck beneath. “Steer for Firedrake! Take her on the larboard and don’t let her flank us!”
Gregorvero started for Danamis but Strykar held out his arm. “He’s the captain. He has command.”
The master looked up at Strykar. “He will be the death of us all.”
Strykar smiled and backed away. “Truth be told, I’m tired of running too.” He turned and went down the stairs to re-join his men.
Acquel stood close by Timandra as they watched the disheartening exchange. “Come,” he said quietly, “we’d better find some arms below. I didn’t expect we would be doing this again so soon.”
“We stay by Strykar in this,” she replied, her voice sounding determined but with false confidence. “That will give us our best chance.” She turned and looked up at him. “Tell me you’ll pray to Elded for us.”
Acquel nodded, trying to hide the fear that was crawling up inside his chest. “I will.”
Torturously slow, the ship gathered momentum as her foresail and topsails filled more in the side-on breeze, her rudder assisting her manoeuvre downwind. But the enemy was bearing down from the windward, closing the distance between them at a rapid rate. A puff of white smoke billowed out from one of Firedrake’s fo’c’sle falconets followed by the gun’s report echoing off the water.
Danamis stood on the poop watching the carracks close while around him the tankard-like breech charges clunked into place on his own swivel guns. His soldiers were shouting at each other, the metallic cranking of the crossbow spanners carrying loudly across the poop deck. His head was now beginning to swim and a feeling of giddiness, almost abandon, welled within him. His feet seemed to be lifting off from the planks underneath and he felt the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile. He heard Gregorvero at his side, telling him something before he darted down the stairs again to the quarterdeck. Telling him they would get one fair pass on the larboard and a chance for a cannonade before falling off and coming about.
And within a few moments both ships were within range. Strykar, surrounded by Brognolo and his men, stood square near the mainmast and just behind the sakers. Acquel and Timandra found themselves on the inside of the mass of rondelieri, she brandishing a bill hook and he the same, ready to push off boarders that made for the netting. Acquel heard their fo’c’sle swivel guns sounding off and then flinched as the sound of whizzing shot through their own ratlines proved they were under fire too. As the bowsprit and fo’c’sle of Firedrake hove into view, he hunkered down, instinctively putting an arm around Timandra’s back. An instant later he heard a loud explosion and saw a billowing tongue of flame shoot out from their deck guns. Within a heartbeat his face was spattered with debris, his ears ringing. A stone shot from Firedrake’s sakers had ripped across their deck, shattering the gunwale and bowling over at least a dozen men near the fo’c’sle bulkhead. He staggered and reached for Timandra and, remarkably, they had escaped hurt. A pall of thick greyish smoke swirled and covered them. He felt the ship list under him, throwing him off balance. The Grace was turning hard over to starboard, and he heard the mainsail snap furiously as the wind filled it in a great blast, like the exhalation of an angry god.
The smoke drifted off the ship and Acquel could see the enemy moving into their own turn to try and cut off their run. Around him men were screaming as they writhed on the deck, heart-rending cries rising at high pitch amid the desperate babble of the unwounded.
Timandra had been knocked to the planks, but as far as Acquel could see, she was without a scratch. Aloud, he gave thanks to the saint who dogged him. “Timandra!” he called. “Help me!”
They began pulling the wounded, the two of them together, one man at a time from the centre of the deck to the fo’c’sle to get them out of the line of fire. As Acquel emerged a third time he looked aft to see Gregorvero yelling for Danamis. The master had sprung up the little steps leading to the poop deck. Strykar w
as close behind. Acquel yanked Timandra’s arm and shouted close into her ear. “Something has happened to Danamis!”
They moved aft, stepping over the dead, discarded weapons and helms. Acquel ascended to the quarterdeck and looked up to Strykar on the poop. The mercenary’s look of helpless shock told him the worst had occurred and he took the last set of stairs two at a time. Dead bowmen lay in a pile and blood was spattered across the deck. Gregorvero was bent over, hands on his knees, a mournful bellow pouring from him. The entire larboard rail was gone, ripped away by a cannon shot, and with it, Captain Danamis. A dull thud sounded, echoing on the water. Acquel looked up to see Firedrake in full sail, bearing down on them, her sister ships in her wake.
DANAMIS FELT HIMSELF going over the side, falling, and though his eyes had shut at the moment of the impact of the shot, his mind’s eye was frozen on the image of Giacomo Tetch with his shining bald pate and flaming beard on the quarterdeck of the Firedrake as it passed, an instant before the falconets blasted his station. The shock of hitting the water jolted him. His eyes flew open, his arms spread wide, and he could feel himself sinking. A cloud of bubbles surrounded him as he sank, quickly rising up even as he plunged deeper. Somehow, he had managed a gulp of air before impact, and as he oriented himself in the blurry, blue water, he began kicking furiously to propel himself upwards. It was futile. His armour and the sword at his waist were dragging him to his death. He fought a retch, a large bubble of precious air escaping his mouth.
His hands fumbled at the harness buckles even as he began to feel the burning urge to exhale. His ears popped. He managed to free one shoulder buckle but the other he could not. His lungs ached and he swallowed, trying to gulp back escaping breath. And then he realized that he was drowning. He stopped fumbling at his harness and curled his body. His head now felt ready to explode.
Something knocked him from behind and the last of the air in his lungs blew out of his lips. Someone appeared in front of him; a dark face, blonde hair billowing. He felt a pair of arms embrace him and the face of a woman came close to his. Her eyes, a vibrant violet, were wide open as she pressed her mouth forcefully to his and blew a breath into him. Another set of arms, this time from behind, and he could feel himself rising upwards. He sucked in the air she had given him, his own eyes wide in near terror and disbelief. Then, once again, his lungs burned and he coughed out, the bubbles exploding in his face. Another woman leaned in toward him from his left and above, pressing her lips to his. He felt the air fill his mouth and throat and he inhaled again, nearly breaking the lip seal and sucking in seawater. The woman who held him in the embrace raised a long slender grey finger in admonition and her wide mouth broke into a smile.
The Guns of Ivrea Page 26