How much more? How much more will you ask of me?"
He saw the light again on board the other ship. It glowed from the tall windows in her stern. Were there candles burning in there? He stared until his eyes ached, but there was no single source to the emanation of light.
There was a light touch on his arm. He had not heard Aboli climb back to him. "The Gull is in sight from the deck, "he told Hal softly.
Hal could not leave the masthead yet, for he felt a sense of religious dread as he stared at the strange light in the Gull's stern.
"Tis no lamp or lantern or candle, Aboli," he said. "Tis the Tabernacle of Mary that glows in the darkness. A beacon to guide me to my destiny."
Aboli shivered beside him. "Tis true that it is a light not of this world, a fairy light, such as I have never seen before." His voice shook. "But how do you know, Gundwane? How can you be so sure that it is the talisman that burns so?"
"Because I know," said Hal simply, and as he said it the light died away before their eyes, and the Gull was dark. Only her moonlit sails towered before them.
"It was a sign,"Aboli murmured.
"Yes, it was a sign," said Hal, and his voice was strong and serene once again. "God has given me a sign."
They climbed down to the deck, and Hal went directly to the helm. "There she is, Mister Tyler." They both looked ahead to where the Gull's canvas shone in the moonlight.
"Aye, there she is, Captain."
"Douse the light in the binnacle. Lay me alongside the Gull, if you please. Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstall when the others are killed."
"Aye, Sir." Hal went forward. Big Daniel's figure emerged out of the darkness. "Grappling irons, Master Daniel?"
"All ready, Captain. Me and ten of my strongest men will heave them."
"Nay, Daniel, leave that to John Lovell. I have better work for you and Aboli. Come with me."
He led Daniel and Aboli back to where Judith Nazet stood at the foot of the mainmast.
"The two of you will go with General Nazet. Take ten of your best seamen. Do not get caught up in the fighting on deck. Swift as you can, get down to the Gull's stern cabin. There you will find the Tabernacle and the child. Bring them out. Nothing must turn you aside from that purpose. Do you understand?"
"How do you know where they are holding the Emperor and the Tabernacle? "Judith Nazet asked quietly.
"I know," Hal said, with such finality that she was silent. He wanted to order her to stay in a safe place until the fight was over, but he knew she would refuse and besides which there was no safe place when two ships of such force were locked in mortal combat.
"Where will you be, Gundwane?"Aboli asked softly.
"I shall be with the Buzzard," Hal said, and left them without another word.
He went towards the bows, pausing as he reached each of the divisions who crouched below the gunwale, and speaking softly to their boatswains. "God love you, Samuel Moone. We might have to take a shot or two before we board her, but think of the pleasure that waits you on the Gull's deck."
To Jiri he said, "This will be such a fight as you will boast of to your grandchildren."
He had a word for each, then stood once more in the bows and looked across at the Gull. She was a cable's length ahead now, sailing on serenely under her moon, radiant canvas.
"Lord, keep us hidden from them," he whispered, and looked up at his own black sails, a tall dark pyramid against the stars.
Slowly, achingly slowly they closed the gap. She cannot elude us now, Hal thought, with grim satisfaction. We are too close.
Suddenly there came a wild scream of terror from the Gull's masthead. "Sail ho! Dead astern! The Golden Bough!" Then all was shouting and confusion on the other ship's deck. There was the savage beat of a drum calling the Buzzard's crew to battle quarters, and the rush of many feet on her planking. A loud series of crashes as her gun ports were flung open, and then the squeal and rumble as the guns were run out. From twenty points along her dark rail came the glow of slow-match burning, and the glint of their reflection from steel.
"Light the battle lamps!" Hal heard the Buzzard's bellows of rage as he drove his panicky crew to their stations, then clearly his order to the helm. "Hard to larboard! Lay the bastards under our broadside!
We'll give them such a good sniff of gunsmoke that they'll fart it in the devil's face when we send them down to hell."
The Gull's battle lanterns flared, as she lit up to give her gunners light to work. In their yellow glow Hal glimpsed the Buzzard's bush of red hair.
Then the silhouette of the Gull altered rapidly as she came around. Hal nodded, the Buzzard had acted instinctively but unwisely. In his position Hal would have stood off and shot the Golden Bough to a wreck while she was unable to reply. Now he would have to be fortunate and quick to get off one steady broadside before the Golden Bough was upon him.
Hal grinned. The Buzzard was the victim of his own iniquity. Probably it had not even entered his calculations that Hal would hold his fire on account of a child and an ancient relic. If he were in the same position as Hal, the Buzzard would have blazed away with all his cannon.
As the Gull came slowly around, the Golden Bough flew at her and, for a moment, Hal thought they might be alongside her before her guns could bear.
They closed the last hundred yards and Ned had already given the order to shorten to fighting sail, when the Gull turned through the last few degrees of arc and all her guns were aimed straight at where Hal stood.
Looking directly into the Gull's battery, Hal's eyeballs were seared by the brilliant crimson glow as she fired her broadside into the Golden Bough at point-blank range.
A tempest of disrupted air struck them so viciously that Hal was hurled backwards and thought that he had been hit by a ball. The deck around him dissolved into a buzzing storm of splinters and the knot of Amadoda nearest him were struck squarely and blown into nothingness. The Golden Bough heeled over sharply to the weight of shot that tore through her, and the choking fog of gunsmoke drifted over her shattered hull.
The terrible silence that followed the thunder of the broadside was marred only by the screams and groans of the wounded and the dying.
Then the wall of gunsmoke was blown aside, and from across the narrow gap of water came the cheering of the other crew. "The Gull and Cumbrae!" and Hal heard the rumble of the gun trains as they were run in-board to be reloaded.
How many of my lads are dead? he wondered. A quarter? Half? He looked back at his own decks, but the darkness hid from his eyes the torn timbers and the heaps of dead and dying.
From across the water he heard the thudding of ramrods forcing powder and shot down the barrels of the guns. "Faster!" he whispered.
"Faster, my darling. Close the gap and do not make us face another such blast."
He heard the squeal of the tackle and the rumble as one of the swiftest gun crews completed loading before the others and ran out its culverin. The two ships were now so close together that Hal saw the monstrous gaping barrel come poking out through its gun port With the muzzle almost touching the Golden Bough's side it roared again, and timbers shattered and men screamed as the heavy ball tore through them.
Then before any more of the Gull's guns could be run out, the two ships came together with a rending, grinding crash. In the light of the Gull's battle lanterns Hal saw the grappling hooks hurled over her side and heard them clatter on her deck. He did not hesitate but sprang to the gunwale and leaped across the narrow strip of water as the two hulls surged alongside each other. He landed lightly as a cat among the nearest of the Buzzard's gun crews and killed two men before they could draw their cutlasses.
Then a wave of his boarders followed him over her side, led by the Amadoda armed with pike and axe. Within seconds the Gull's upper deck was transformed into a battlefield. Men fought chest to chest and hand to hand, shouting and yelling with rage and terror.
"El Tazar!" roared the men of the Golden Bough, to
be answered by, "The Gull and Cumbrae!" as they came together.
Hal found himself confronted by four men simultaneously and was driven back to the rail before John Lovell tore into them from behind and killed one with a thrust between the shoulder-blades. Hal killed another as he hesitated and the other two broke and ran. Hal had a moment to look about him. He saw the Buzzard on the far side of the deck, roaring with rage, the great claymore swinging high above his head as he hacked down the men in front of him.
Then from the corner of his eye Hal caught the glint of Judith Nazet's steel helmet and, towering on each side of her, the forms of Aboli and Big Daniel. They drove across the deck and disappeared down the companionway to the stern cabin. That moment of distraction might have cost Hal his life for a man stabbed at him with a pike, and he turned only just in time to avoid the thrust. Then he was in the midst of the fight again as it swayed back and forth across the deck.
He put down another man with a thrust in the belly, then looked about for the Buzzard. He saw him in the waist, and shouted at him, "Cumbrae, I am coming for you!" But in the uproar the Buzzard did not look round at him, and Hal started towards him cutting a path for himself through the mob of fighting men.
At that moment one of the main shrouds was cut loose by a swinging axe that missed the head at which it was aimed, and the battle lantern that was suspended from it came crashing to the deck at Hal's feet. He sprang back from the blaze of burning oil that roared up into his face then gathered himself and leapt through the flames to reach the Buzzard.
He landed on the far side and looked about him swiftly, but the Buzzard had disappeared and instead two of his sailors charged at Hal. He took them on and slashed through the sinews of an extended sword arm as one lunged at him. Then, in the same movement, he changed cut to thrust and drove his point deeply into the second man's throat.
He recovered and glanced back over his shoulder. The flames from the shattered lantern had taken hold and were lighting the deck brightly. Streamers of fire were running up the dangling shroud towards the rigging. Through the dancing flames he saw Judith Nazet leap out of the entrance to the stern companionway. She was followed closely by Big Daniel carrying the Tabernacle of Mary, balanced easily on his shoulder as though it were light as a down filled bolster. The golden angels on its lid sparkled in the light of the flames.
A sailor rushed at Judith with his pike, and Hal shouted with horror as the gleaming spearhead struck her full in the side under her raised arm. It tore through the thin cotton of her tunic, but glanced harmlessly off the shirt of steel chain-mail beneath the cloth. Judith whirled like an angry panther, and her blade flashed as she aimed at his face. Such was the fury of her blow that the point came out of the back of the pirate's skull, and the man dropped at her feet.
Judith's fierce dark eyes met Hal's across the teeming deck.
"Iyasu!" she shouted. "He is gone!" The flames were leaping up between them, and Hal yelled through them, "Go with Daniel! Get off this ship! Take the Tabernacle to safety on the Golden Bough. I will find Iyasu."
She neither argued nor hesitated but ran, with Daniel beside her, to the rail and leaped across onto the Golden Bough's deck. Hal started to fight his way towards the companionway to reach the lower decks where the child must be hidden, but a phalanx of Amadoda led by Jiri swept across the deck and cut him off. The black warriors had locked their shields together into the solid carapace of the testudo and, with their pikes thrust through the gaps, the pirates could not stand before their charge.
In every battle there comes a moment when its outcome is decided and as the Gull's sailors scattered before that rush of howling, prancing warriors it had come. The Buzzard's men were beaten.
"I must find Iyasu and get him off the Gull before the flames reach the powder magazine," Hal told himself, and turned towards the break in the forecastle as his easiest access to the lower decks. At that moment a bellow stopped him dead.
The Buzzard stood on high, lit by the dancing yellow light of the flames. "Courtney!" he roared. "Is this what you are searching for?"
His head was bared and his tangled red locks tumbled about his face. In his right hand he held his claymore, and in his left he carried Iyasu. The child was screaming with terror as the Buzzard lifted him high. He wore only a thin nightshirt, which had tucked up above his waist, and his slender brown legs kicked frantically in the air.
"Is this what you are looking for?" the Buzzard bellowed again, and lifted the child high above his head. "Then come and fetch the brat."
Hal bounded forward, cutting two men out of his way, before he reached the foot of the forecastle ladder. The Buzzard watched him come. He must have known that he was beaten, with his ship in flames and his crew being cut down and hurled overboard by the rush of the pike men but he grinned like a gargoyle. "Let me show you a fine little trick, Sir Henry. It's called catch the hairn on the steel.t With a sweep of his thick hairy arm he threw the child fifteen feet straight up in the air, and then held the point of the claymore beneath him as he dropped.
"No!" Hal screamed wildly.
At the last instant before the child was impaled on the point the Buzzard flicked aside the sword and Iyasu fell back unscathed into his grasp.
"Parley!" Hal shouted. "Give me the child unharmed and you can go free, with all your booty."
"What a bargain! But my ship is burned and my booty with it."
"Listen to me," Hal pleaded. "Let the boy go free."
"How can I refuse a brother Knight?" the Buzzard asked, still spluttering with laughter. "You shall have what you ask. There! I set the little black bastard free. "With another mighty swing of his arm he hurled Iyasu far out over the ship's side. The child's shirt fluttered around his little body as he fell. Then, with only a soft splash, the dark sea swallowed him.
Behind him Hal heard Judith Nazet scream. He dropped his sword to the deck and with three running strides reached the rail and dived head first over the side. He struck the water and knifed deep, then turned for the surface.
Looking up from twenty feet deep, the water was clear as mountain air. He could see the weed-fouled bottom of the Gull drifting past him, and the reflection of the flames from the burning ship dancing on the surface ripple. Then, between him and the firelight, he saw a small dark shape. The tiny limbs were struggling like a fish in a net and silver bubbles streamed from Iyasu's mouth as he turned end over end in the wake of the hull.
Hal struck out with arms and legs and reached him before he was whirled away. Holding him to his chest he shot to the surface, and lifted the child's face clear.
Iyasu struggled feebly, coughing and choking, then he let out a thin, terrified wail. "Blow it all out of you," said Hal, and looked around.
Big Daniel must have recalled his men, then cut the grappling lines to get the Golden Bough away from the burning hull. The two ships were drifting apart. The seamen from the Gull were leaping over her sides as the heat of the flames washed over them and her main sail caught fire. The Gull began to sail with flaming canvas and no hand on her helm. She bore down slowly on where Hal trod water, and he struck out desperately with one hand, dragging Iyasu out of her path.
For a long, dreadful minute it seemed that they would be trodden under, then a fluke of the wind pushed the bows across a point and she passed less than a boat's length from them.
With amazement Hal saw that the Buzzard still stood alone on the break of the forecastle. The flames surrounded him, but he did not seem to feel their heat. His beard began to smoke and blacken, but he looked down at Hal and choked with laughter. He gasped for breath then opened his mouth to shout something to him, but at that moment the Gull's foresail sheets burned clean through and the huge spread of canvas came floating down, covering the Buzzard. From under that burning shroud Hal heard one last terrible shriek and then the flames leapt high, and the stricken Gull bore away her master on the wind.
Hal watched him go until the swells of the ocean intervened and he lost sigh
t of the burning ship. Then a freak wave lifted him and the child high. The Gull was a league off, and at that instant the flames must have reached her powder magazine for she blew up with a devastating roar, and Hal felt the waters constrict his chest as the force of the explosion was transmitted through them. He watched still as burning timbers were hurled high into the night sky then fell to quench in the dark waters. Darkness and silence descended again.
There was neither sight nor sign of the Golden Bough in the night.
The child was weeping piteously, and Hal had no word of Geez to comfort him, so he held his head clear and spoke to him in English. "There's a good strong lad. You have to be brave, for you are born an Emperor, and I know for certain that an Emperor never cries." But Hal's boots and sodden clothing were drawing him down, and he had to swim hard to resist. He kept the two of them afloat for the rest of that long night, but in the dawn he knew that he was near the end of his strength and the child was shivering and whimpering softly in his arms. "Not long now, Iyasu, and it will be bright day," he croaked through his salt-scalded throat, but he knew that neither of them could last that long.
Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey Page 77