The Hellhound Consortium

by B A Simmons

  A school of rayfish swam under them at dusk, and Rob hauled one aboard. They cooked it over the coals in the cooking box and ate a tasty meal before raising the new sail and setting course for battle.

  Rob held the sheets for Tom as they adjusted to the new sail. Mark and Alistair checked and rechecked their firebombs. The dark silhouette of Alimia grew larger. Then Mark lit the ship’s lantern and began waving it as a distress signal. It was a dangerous move as creatures in the sea were just as attracted to the light as the eyes of the Falcons on Alimia. It was a matter of chance as to which would see them first.

  Rob heard several splashes in the water outside their range of vision. After more than a year of near continuous sailing, he’d learned to distinguish which splashes signaled the most danger. These were smaller fish, which could be dragonfish, but as they were still distant, the danger was minimal.

  They could see the lights from Alimia Castle atop the ridge. Surely, their sentries had noticed them by now. Shielding his eyes from the lantern, Rob looked south and saw the form of Little Alimia. There was no sign of the Anna Louisa, which Rob was thankful for. If he couldn’t see them, then neither could the galley when it arrived.

  “Trim the sails, Rob,” Tom ordered. “Let’s slow down a bit and get the oars ready. We may need to make some evasive maneuvers.”

  Rob obeyed. Moving made him realize how fast his heart was beating. Every shadow in the water seemed to threaten them—a rock, a shark, a nessie. Then suddenly, he heard Alistair’s voice.

  “There it is,” he said calmly.

  Rob looked out and saw a light between the islands. The galley was coming for them.

  “They’re signaling with their lantern,” Tom said as he adjusted course toward them.

  Mark replied, “I can’t tell what the code is. I’m just going to continue waving ours.”

  “I’ll do that, Mark,” Rob said. “You and Alistair get the firebombs ready,” and he took the light from his brother.

  After another few minutes, they heard a voice call out to them over the waves. Amplified by one of their conical speakers and with a hard accent, a Falcon officer was demanding to know who they were.

  “We are the Siren,” Mark shouted. “A fishing boat from Hoy Isle!”

  “What arah doing een deez waturs?!” the voice called back. They were now close enough to distinguish the sails and oars from the surrounding darkness. No human figures were visible, but Rob had no doubt they had manned every gun. He stopped waving the lantern.

  “We lost our rudder in a nessie attack! Please help us, we’ve been drifting for days!” Mark called out.

  There was silence for a few tense moments. The galley rowed closer and had it not been for their slow speed, Rob would have thought they were going to ram them.

  Then the voice called to them again.

  “We arah coming alongside! Preparah to be boarded!”

  The galley shifted to port and the starboard oarsmen pulled in their blades.

  “Now!” Mark shouted and hurled the first lit firebomb onto the galley. It exploded and spread flames across the bow. This was quickly followed by a bomb from Alistair, which smashed on the hull below the starboard gunwale.

  Both cannons fired and the sound rang in Rob’s ears. The gunners hadn’t adjusted their aim and the shots flew over the Entdecker. Rob took hold of a shield and axe and crouched in the cargo hold, ready to attack any boarders. Meanwhile, Mark lit another bomb and he reared back to throw it with all his strength. The bomb sailed over the bow and landed at the foot of the foremast.

  Rob could hear shouts of alarm from the Falcon crew and then the thudding sound of something striking their hull. Another thud and he felt his shield vibrate. The point of a crossbow bolt appeared beneath his arm. Rob saw more bolts strike the mast, water barrel, and railings. The Falcon archers could not see them but were firing randomly at the Entdecker hoping to strike one of them. Rob still had not seen a human figure aboard the galley, they were now hidden behind the flames that continued to spread and grow across the front of the enemy ship. The cannon mounts were completely engulfed, and Rob could hear the sounds of buckets being tossed over the sides for water.

  In the corner of his eye, Rob saw Alistair reach back with a firebomb in his hand. But just as he launched it, a bolt struck him. Alistair fell to the deck; his bomb fell into the water between the ships. Rob looked for Mark and saw him lift another bomb of his own. He flung it onto the galley just as a volley of crossbow bolts struck the Entdecker. Rob ducked behind his shield and shouted for Tom.

  His cousin appeared at his side, holding a shield of his own for protection.

  “We need to get out of here!” Rob said.

  “Take the portside oar, I’ll take the starboard. Row forward, I’ll turn us away from the galley.”

  Again, Rob obeyed. He focused only on the oar, putting out of his mind all thoughts of crossbow bolts, flames, or cannon fire. He rowed in rhythm and looked only at the progress they made getting away from the galley.

  A sudden flash lit up the water and the immediate boom that followed deafened Rob once more. He thought perhaps the galley had fired their cannons again at a dead aim toward the Entdecker, but no shots hit them. Instead, the flames on the galley were suddenly at their port flank. It was an explosion. The torpedo! Edwin had struck them with the torpedo!

  Another explosion, this one far greater than the first, disintegrated the galley and created a hot wave of air that pushed Rob and the Entdecker back. Chunks of wood flew everywhere, puncturing the sail. Rob felt two of them strike like bee stings on his arm. Tom cried out in pain as he was also struck.

  Rob knew that the galley was destroyed, but had no idea how badly they were damaged. He looked across the deck to Tom, who clutched at his face with one hand while holding the other out at an odd angle. Rob looked at his own arm where two shards of the galley’s hull stuck out. He took hold of one with his opposite hand and pulled it out. Only then did he feel the pain. He looked out again for Mark but instead saw Alistair coming toward him.

  “Rob!” Alistair shouted above the ringing. “Rob, it’s Mark!”

  The red-haired McClain pointed toward the forward bulwark. Rob lifted himself up to get a better look. Mark was there, lying face up. Rob had to get closer before he noticed the blood. It covered Mark’s face and chest as well as the deck next to him. Rob knelt next to his brother and leaned over him. His eyes were open but not moving. Rob saw a dark shape on Mark’s throat just above the collar of his armored jacket. It was the shaft of a crossbow bolt.

  The thought entered Rob’s mind as sharply as the shards had entered his arm. He refused to recognize it, just as the pain of his wounds had not immediately registered. Then he pulled at it. Tugged at the thought, to get it out; to deny its truth.

  “Mark?” Rob said softly. Or was it soft? The ringing in his ears was still so loud. “Mark?!” he said again. “Mark!”

  The tears welled and fell without Rob’s permission. There was no need for them yet, Mark’s eyes were open. He wasn’t badly hurt, he couldn’t be. Why couldn’t Rob stop the tears? They fell from his face onto his brother’s. Rob felt a pair of arms reach around him. They were oddly angled, for one was Alistair’s and the other Tom’s. They pulled at him, but he fought them off. He had to see Mark’s eyes. They would blink; any moment now he’d blink and suck in a breath the same way Rob had done so often after Mark punched him.

  The eyes did not blink. Tom reached out and pushed them shut as Rob began to sob.

  Mark Engleman was dead.

  27 – The Consortium

  Patience was not Anna Engleman’s strength. However, as much as she hated waiting, she hated not knowing more. Therefore, sitting on the deck of the Anna Louisa while not knowing what was happening with Mark and the Entdecker was sheer agony.

  “We should move closer,” she told Edwin. “We’re probably too far away to see what’s happening.”

  “No, Anna. We’re in the right place
. We can see the gap, we can see the island. We can see the Entdecker’s light. We’ll see the galley as soon as it arrives.”

  She found his newly discovered sense of righteousness annoying. Either that or she was becoming easily agitated the more she progressed into pregnancy. Why hadn’t her mother told her about that part of having a child? She focused her frustration at her mother, because she knew that Edwin was right. They needed to wait.

  “You know, in all the years I had Mark as a student, I never realized he had such a tactical mind,” Doctor Morris said to her. “I knew he brawled with other boys. I knew he often laid ambushes for Rob, not to mention his superb hunting skills. Yet, I must say I’m impressed with how well he’s managed this campaign.”

  “Be careful, Doctor, that’s starting to sound like you approve of our little war.”

  Morris didn’t say any more, for a moment later, a dark shape emerged from the lagoon, bearing a lit lantern and gliding across the waves toward the Entdecker.

  “Now, Edwin!” Anna said.

  “Shhh!” came her brother’s reply.

  For Anna, the next few moments seemed to take forever. She could hear the amplified voice of the Falcon officer, but not any response. Suddenly, another light erupted. A fire! They’d thrown the firebombs!

  “Set sail and begin rowing!” Edwin commanded.

  The crew heard the cannons fire and hurriedly loosed sails and pulled on oars. The Anna Louisa moved slowly at first. They could see the flames reaching higher and the shouts of the Falcon crew. The light from the fire at the galley’s bow illuminated the rest of the ship.

  “James, two points to starboard!” Edwin ordered. As the ship veered east, he called out, “Standby the torpedo!”

  Anna tried to take hold of the ropes connected to the torpedo, but Karen and Eugene grabbed her and pulled her back toward the cabin.

  “Let go of me!” she protested in vain.

  The wind caught the full sail and the Anna Louisa sped forward to her target, but it also pulled her another couple of degrees to starboard. They were aimed at the port quarter aft. Not where Mark had wanted, but good enough for Edwin.

  Less than a hundred yards, he judged. The waves were not high, nor were they choppy, but he dared not risk lowering the boom just yet.

  Seventy-five . . . seventy . . . sixty-five. They had really picked up speed. Fifty yards and closing. The galley’s foremast was now ablaze, and Edwin could see crossbowmen shooting from over the starboard gunwale.

  At twenty-five yards, Edwin remembered the torpedo crew.

  “Lower the boom!”

  Twenty-five yards closed quickly. One moment, Edwin could see the glint of firelight off the copper canister, the next he was blinded by the blast. A wave of heat, filled with sharp splinters of wood flew into his face. He fell to the deck, as did everyone aboard the Anna Louisa.

  He was about to return to his feet when the second explosion rocked the entire ship. Two of the crew were knocked overboard by the blast. A large chunk of the galley flew into the Anna Louisa’s hull. The men below immediately went to work with a canvas patch, but the amount of water coming in was distressing. Edwin was among the seven on board impaled by shards of wood, though thankfully none of these wounds was life-threatening.

  After checking to see that all his crew were alive and safely on board again, Edwin turned to the apocalyptic scene before them. The forward end of the galley, still engulfed in flames, was drifting away while slowly dropping beneath the waves. The stern was still afloat, though the rigging that was left was also on fire. The rest of the ship was gone. Nothing remained of the mainmast, sails, or the hundreds of planks that made up the deck. Burned oars and sections of rope floated all around them. Half a dozen bodies floated among the debris.

  Gus approached Edwin; his eyes reflected the same horror that Edwin felt in his stomach.

  “A ship like that likely had a full crew o’ fifty or more. Where are the rest o’ them?”

  “Launch the dinghy,” Edwin replied. “Look for survivors on the way over to the Entdecker.”

  “We must have struck near their powder magazine. That blast . . .”

  The Entdecker was visible across the debris field. Edwin strained his eyes through the darkness, but could not see any movement on board.

  “Edwin, I’m going over there. Don’t try to stop me!” Anna proclaimed.

  “Be careful,” was all he could say.

  Though she wanted desperately to get to Mark and the others on the Entdecker, Anna couldn’t help but also feel pity for the men whose bodies she saw in the water, even more for those she couldn’t see. A blast that strong must have disintegrated flesh as much as it did wooden bulwarks and hull.

  They were halfway to the Entdecker when they heard a soft moaning from a pile of floating wreckage. They changed course and found a Falcon marine clinging to life. His face was badly burned, and he was missing most of his left hand as well as his left leg. After hauling him into the dinghy, Karen went to work assessing the severity of his wounds. Anna could hear her groans of frustration as they kept rowing. He stopped breathing before they reached their destination. Without any recourse, they slipped his body back into the water.

  Aboard the Entdecker, Tom heard Anna’s voice calling out to them. He raised his head and spied the dinghy approaching. He wanted to tell them they were all right. Yet he knew that was not true. Panic struck him as an anxious Anna nearly threw herself across the diminishing gap to get to them. Should he let her come aboard and see her husband’s torn body? Did he dare try to stop her?

  “Where’s Mark?” she asked as she clambered aboard.

  Tom took hold of both her arms to stop her and she suddenly stared directly into his eyes. He saw the tears well up in her eyes, but he could not bring himself to say anything.

  “Anna,” Rob said, and she looked across the deck to see him standing above Mark. She moved forward in a daze, shaking her head in disbelief. She cried out once—a piercing wail of pain. She stumbled and then collapsed into Rob’s arms. He fell to his knees with her and the two of them sobbed together for a long time as the others looked on.

  Karen came aboard and examined the bolt stuck in Alistair’s shoulder. She frowned as she realized that it was embedded deep into the joint. In her experience, wounds such as this often resulted in the loss of the limb.

  Two more men came aboard from the dinghy. Tom put them to work taking down the tattered lateen sail and rigging up the hellhound-emblazoned square. The wood splinters in his face and hand were painful but did not stop him from climbing up to the quarterdeck to control the steering oar. In truth, he was lucky. A few centimeters over and the shards in his face would have taken out his eye. Other pieces of wood had struck them in their chests and backs, but were stopped by their armor.

  “There! In the water!” shouted a man. He pointed back toward the wreckage of the galley. All eyes followed his hand and they saw the fins and jaws of a large shark as it tore into one of the floating bodies. More fins began to appear and Edwin called out an order to hurry along.

  The Entdecker got underway just as fishing vessels from Port Alma began sailing across the lagoon toward the scene. Gus and two others aboard the Anna Louisa loaded the three-pounder and fired a couple of warning shots. They were still pumping water out of their hold and struggling to contain the leak letting it in from the sea. Eugene and Jonas worked furiously to cut a patch from some of the wreckage which could be sealed with tar rope.

  Once the Entdecker caught up with them, the news of Mark’s death reached every ear. The mood aboard both ships was not of glorious victory, but of somber sorrow. They were still within sight of Alimia when dawn came. The island seemed to reflect their grief, for surely word of the loss of their galley, with all hands, had spread through Port Alma, the castle, and perhaps the entire island.

  Several large sharks began following the Entdecker and before long were bumping their large heads into the keel. Piers harpooned one, causing it
to flee in pain. For a moment, it drew the others away. Then they or others returned, and it seemed they’d brought their friends with them. Someone counted over twenty sharks nosing at both vessels, but especially at the Entdecker.

  “It’s the body. It’s drawing them in, not to mention all the blood. We need to do something with the body,” Piers said.

  “It’s Mark Engleman,” James said. “We can’t toss him overboard.”

  “Edwin, do you have a barrel of vinegar on board?” Doctor Morris asked.

  Edwin’s brow displayed his displeasure at the idea. Yet, there were few other options, none of which was any better.

  The barrel was transferred and despite Anna’s objections, Rob, Alistair, and Tom stripped Mark’s body and placed it as delicately as possible into the briny liquid. The deck was washed with seawater and then with the excess vinegar. However, this did not keep the sharks away entirely. More harpooning and a nessie attack during the night were what kept the ships afloat. The nessie had come for the sharks but then overextended its welcome and had to be shot with poisoned arrows.

  Three and a half days later, they rounded the east peninsula of Engle Isle and entered John’s Bay. The fishing vessels that met them in the bay were cheerful at their approach, but soon came to know the sorrow the returning warriors bore. By the time the Entdecker and Anna Louisa came to the docks at Port John, they had a funeral train behind them of half a dozen skiffs and dinghies.

  Word of their arrival had spread before they had come into the bay, and a large crowd of people assembled at the fortifications that now guarded the town. A few cheers and shouts of “welcome home” sounded from this crowd, but otherwise they noticed right away the solemn faces of their returning heroes. An audible gasp burst from the Engle Islanders as Mark’s body, cleaned and dressed in his best tunic, was lifted out from his ship on a stretcher. Despite the painful wounds they bore, Rob, Tom, Alistair, and Edwin carried Mark’s body toward their collected kin and neighbors.