Slaves to Darkness 02 (The Blades of Chaos)

by Warhammer

  A tear appeared in Lucas's eye and he began to shake. Leerdamme glanced at the rest of the crew and saw that they were all looking in his direction, waiting for his orders, expecting his guidance. Those that had accompanied Verhoen looked at each other with knowing glances, and avoided the gaze of the others, shaking their heads.

  'Steady yourself, Lucas, the men are watching,' said Leerdammer. 'We have to be strong for them.'

  'Sorry, captain, so sorry,' Lucas said, head bowed.

  'What did you do with the dead?' Leerdamme asked.

  'The men were starting to get sick,' explained Verhoen. 'Me too, for that matter. We had to leave them there.'

  'We'll deal with them later,' the captain said to Lucas, patting him on the shoulder. He pointed out over the village towards the fort on the headland. 'First of all, we find out what happened there.'

  The great wooden gates to the fort were open, their planks splintered, the shattered bar hanging in two pieces from the brackets. The inside of the great open square was like the village, with signs of fighting and burning everywhere but devoid of bodies. Soot coated the inside of the stone walls and, in their emplacements overlooking the bay, the castle's three brass cannons were tipped onto their trunions. Broken halberds, shattered swords, mangled handguns and dented shields lay amongst the smoking timbers and piles of rubble. All that remained of the barracks, storehouse and stables in the courtyard were twisted, blackened nails and charred timbers.

  'What kind of vile bastard would do this?' Kieter asked, rubbing at his scalp. He stood with Leerdamme and Verhoen just inside the gates, as the rest of the crew that were ashore picked through the wreckage.

  'And a mad devil at that, attacking a fort. Any Norseman with any sense wouldn't come within a mile and a half of this place, he must have been mad.'

  'Or very cunning, and very brave,' countered Lucas.

  'What do you mean?' asked Leerdamme. 'What have you seen?'

  Lucas pointed to the shattered portal.

  'Most of the splinters and blows are on this side of the gates,' he explained. 'It was attacked from inside the fort, not outside.'

  'What does that mean?' Leerdamme said, noting that the master was right, there were clearly many swordblows and axe marks on the interior of the gateway.

  'The defenders got trapped inside, and the gate was barred from outside and they tried to chop their way out...' Lucas said softly. 'They must have come in over the walls.'

  'But how?' asked Kieter. 'First of all they would have to dare the shot of the cannons, then climb the cliff face, and even if they managed that, they would have to scale the walls in the face of shot and halberd. No men could do that, surely.'

  'Who can say,' Leerdamme said with a shrug. 'The ways of the Norse are strange, and who can tell what dark powers they drew upon to aid them here. There's nothing more to be doing here.'

  'What now then?' asked Verhoen.

  'We deal with the dead and then make way,' Leerdamme told them. 'Gather the men up and muster back at the boats.'

  'Is there nothing else we can do?' Kieter said, kicking bitterly at the debris.

  'Yes there is.' Leerdamme replied softly. 'This happened yesterday, which means the bloody devils that did this can't be too far away. The Graf Suiden is faster than any longship, and I'm going to scour the coast until I find them and make them pay.'

  They were just leaving when Sorely jogged over to catch up. His expression showed he was perturbed.

  'Found something odd, captain.' he reported as Leerdamme turned to him.

  'Well, spit it out.' the captain snarled when the officer remained silent.

  'The magazine was burned to the ground.' Sorely told them.

  'So's everything else, what's your damn point?' Leerdamme pressed him.

  'If it was torched, then the powder would have gone up, blowing the whole fort to pieces.' explained Sorely. 'So that means they must have taken it before they put the place to the torch.'

  'What in the name of the gods do Norse want with black powder?' exclaimed Leerdamme. 'They haven't taken any guns have they? Gods, I hope not!'

  'No, it looks like they just broke everything, judging by what I found left.' replied Sorely.

  'Well, I'll be sure to ask the bastards when I find them.' Leerdamme said, giving a nod to Sorely. 'Let's just get about making that happen, shall we?'

  For four days, the Graf Suiden prowled along the coast seeking the raiders. This early into spring, Leerdamme expected the Norse to have continued south and westwards, rather than returning home. Keeping close to the land, they sailed into every cove and estuary looking for signs of the raiders, but the search had so far proved fruitless.

  'Perhaps they headed back to Norsca,' suggested Verhoen as dawn broke on the fifth day. He had come up onto deck for his watch and found his captain pacing the quarterdeck, as he had done for each previous day. Verhoen wondered if Leerdamme had actually slept at all.

  'Then we have nothing to lose by heading back towards Marienburg,' countered the captain.

  'If they've gone east, they could be preying on the Nordland coast as we sail further and further away,' Verhoen said, gazing towards the shore.

  'Nordland doesn't pay me for prizes, they can look to their own bloody ships,' snapped Leerdamme. The thought that he had let the raiders slip away had been gnawing at him for the last four days, and he felt responsible for any heinous act they might commit until he caught them.

  'You don't think that,' argued Verhoen, turning to his friend. 'You've never thought like that.'

  Leerdamme sighed and stretched.

  'I'm going to look like a fool if we don't find them,' he admitted. 'Keep the lookouts sharp, I'm going to catch some sleep for the rest of the watch.'

  Lucas Verhoen watched his captain trudge down the steps to the deck below, and yawned heavily. The ship was quiet, the weather had held fair for the night, and the sky was grey and cloudy but not unduly worrying. As he looked at the green-topped cliffs, dipping occasionally into inlets and marshy bays, he took a deep breath of the salty air and closed his eyes. Not for the first time, he was glad he had chosen to be a sailor and not a cobbler like his father.

  It was not long after noon that the lookout at the mainmast gave a shout, prompting excited agitation amongst the crew, who were lounging on the deck whittling at wood and bones, or playing dice with each other for their rations of drink.

  'Sail to the southwest,' Verhoen reported to Leerdamme, who had thundered up the stairs on hearing the cry through his cabin's skylight.

  'I've just been looking at the charts,' the captain grinned. 'There's shoals out to half a mile, about ten miles ahead. If we can keep them close to shore, we can run them aground. Set the t'gallants, then clear for action. Let's catch these bloody-handed scum!'

  As the officers passed on Verhoen's shouted commands, Leerdamme made his way down the stairs to the deck below and slowly walked the length of the ship. Under his feet, the ship reverberated to the footfalls of five hundred crewmen running back and forth, breaking down the bulkheads that made up the officers' cabins, stowing hammocks, dousing the galley fires, running the guns back for loading, swinging the boats over the side to be towed astern and the dozens of other tasks required to get the greatship ready for battle. It was disciplined chaos for several minutes, while Leerdamme watched the bellowing bosun and his mates, gun captains reporting to the magazine for their fuses, the gun crews throwing buckets of sand onto the red decking to improve the grip of their bare feet.

  As the gun captains each raised their hands to indicate their readiness, Leerdamme strode up the steps leading to the maindeck, and then on up into the forecastle. There, the two long bowchaser cannons were laid out in readiness, the gun crews crouched nearby, alert and ready.

  'Everything set, Kueger?' Leerdamme asked one of the gun captains. He knew them all well, they were hand-picked from the best of the crew. With most of her prizes taken from outrunning Norse raiders, it was important that the Graf
Suiden's bowchasers were fired quickly and accurately to cripple the enemy vessel from afar and allow the less manoeuvrable greatship to close in and bring her full weight of iron to bear.

  'Aye, cap'n, just waitin' on the order to run out,' Kueger told him, patting the barrel of the brass cannon. 'You reckon them's the ones what raided the village?'

  'Certain of it,' Leerdamme replied grimly. He paced forward to peer out of the open gun port. There was nothing to see except an endless vista of white-flecked waves and grey sky. The captain squatted there for a long while, head nearly full out of the port as he looked left and right along the horizon, desperately seeking some sign of the Norse vessel.

  Then, there was a movement just above the waves, slightly to port, close inshore.

  'Pass the word for Master Verhoen to bring my spyglass,' he said to the gun crew, standing up as far as the roof of the forecastle would allow. The message rippled back down the ship and it was not long before he could see Lucas approaching through the gloom of the gun deck. The master proffered the eyeglass with a nod, and then turned and headed back to resume his position at the wheel.

  'Wait for the order.' he reminded the crew as he strode up the hatch onto the foredeck. The crew there shuffled aside from their place at the jib to allow him up to the rail. Leaning forward precariously, Leerdamme, raised the eyeglass and looked out over the port bow.

  There was a flash of colour, and Leerdamme steadied himself as he focussed the telescope. It was unmistakably a red and white striped sail, about two miles away. Shoving the eyeglass into his belt, the captain bellowed back towards the quarterdeck.

  'Bring her another point to larboard.' he yelled, pointing over the rail. There was a wave of acknowledgement from Verhoen and the crew jumped to his orders to trim the sails to the new heading. On their present course, as they closed in on the Norse vessel, they would be seaward of the raider. The only problem was the wind. At the moment the raiders were heading into the wind on the starboard tack, keeping them away from the cliffs. They couldn't change to the port tack for fear of drifting too far to leeward and crashing on the shore, and to turn further to starboard would leave them crosswise to the Graf Suiden, and easy prey for her guns. If the Norse managed to clear the shoals, however, the coast took a turn to the south, giving them much more room to tack and head to port. The Graf Suiden had to close before that happened, and that meant the bowchasers would have to carry away some rigging, or hole her, or, more preferably, both.

  Confident that Verhoen could keep the ship on course and at best speed, Leerdamme headed back to the forecastle to stand with the gun crews. They waited patiently, casting their gaze out of the port, looking occasionally at their gun captains and Leerdamme.

  Conscious of their looks, Leerdamme affected an expression of indifference, patiently waiting for Verhoen to close the range. He constantly fought the urge to peer out of the port, knowing that the gun captains were keeping a sharp eye and would tell him as soon as they felt that it was worth laying the guns.

  'Reckon we might give it a go now, captain,' said Stielen, the captain of the port gun. Leerdamme bent down and cast a look through the port. The prow of the Graf Suiden was rising and dipping rapidly in the waves, spray occasionally spattering through the port.

  'Pass the word to shorten sail to topsails,' he said to Kueger, who hollered the command up to the top deck. 'It'll be easier to lay your shots if we stop hogging this much.'

  'Aye, captain, it will,' agreed Stielen, taking a glance along the polished length of the cannon's barrel. 'Reckon we might put another quoit in, captain.'

  'Wait for the range to shorten and fire on the swell,' Leerdamme replied. Although the long guns could fire a considerable distance, he preferred not to tire out the crews with unnecessary pot shots at long range. Also, with every shot fired there was always a chance that something might go wrong - the cannon could crack, it could blow the touchhole, hurt one of the crew, break a cable or any of a number of other potential disasters that befell an unlucky or careless gun crew. 'Try to carry the yard or some stays, get her to founder as we come up on the weather side.'

  The gun captains nodded in agreement, faces split with vicious grins. Since their grim discoveries in the sacked village, Leerdamme had heard constant oaths from the sailors and soldiers to avenge the dead villagers, and certainly the gun crews seemed eager enough to bring the raiders to justice. Soon, they would get the chance.

  The Norse vessel could now be seen with the naked eye, a splash of red and white against the grey sky, perhaps a mile distant. Leerdamme glanced out of the port at the coastline, recalling the outline and notes on his chart. About half a mile ahead was a long, low headland that stretched several hundred yards out, its rocky feet extending even further into the sea. Beyond that, rocky outcrops lay just beneath the surface, ready to catch an unwary ship. It was there that the Graf Suiden would trap the raider, provided they could get to seaward of her first.

  'Reckon it's no more than three parts of a mile now, captain,' reported Stielen without further comment.

  'Very well, Stielen, Kueger, load and prepare to fire,' Leerdamme told them. 'I'm up to the foredeck, listen out for instructions.'

  'Course, cap'n,' Kueger replied with a knuckle to his forehead. Leerdamme had insisted he stopped the sign of deference, for the captain was of no more noble blood than Kueger, but a childhood on the Count of Marienburg's own estate had ingrained the habit into the man to the point that he would knuckle down to any superior.

  Looking at the maindeck, he saw the whole crew straining to look forward, those who could were lining the gunwhales or peering out of the gun ports.

  'We'll be giving those bloody Norse a taste of iron in a moment, lads!' Leerdamme bellowed to them, raising a cheer. 'When we've knocked the wind out of the sails, I want you brave men to give them everything you've got, so that Sergeant Kulnenkeist and his men can go over the side and finish them off!'

  Leerdamme heard the rumbling of the bowchasers' trucks beneath him, and peered over the rail to see the two long guns with their muzzles pointing out either side of the bowsprit.

  'Fire when you can lay your target,' he shouted down to the gun crews. He pulled free his eyeglass and trained it on the Norse ship. 'Listen for my report.'

  He waited for a moment, feeling the deck rising and falling beneath him, easily riding the waves with his legs braced wide, the inverted image of the longship wavering in the spyglass.

  The port gun roared, flame leapt forward and smoke billowed up over the prow, sweeping past Leerdamme. He saw a splash some hundred yards short and fifty yards starboard of the raider. Coughing to clear his throat, he called down to Kueger.

  'Port fifty, reach one hundred,' he told the gun captain. 'Stielen, there's a big swell coming, wait for my order.'

  'I'll gi' her a li'l more powder next one.' came Kueger's shouted reply.

  The Graf Suiden pitched into a low trough, the circle of the eyeglass filled with foaming sea for a moment until the prow began to rise. Adjusting the focus lever, Leerdamme caught the Norse ship again, directly ahead. She was turning to starboard, heading seaward. Obviously they knew about the reefs, or perhaps had seen some sign of them, and were trying to reach more open sea. That they knew they were under attack was no doubt: he could see small figures at the sides of the ship, waving weapons and fists.

  'Fire!' he bellowed as the greatship lifted up onto the crest of the wave. The report from the gun echoed up through the hatch and Leerdamme fancied he saw the blur of the shot as it flew through the rigging of the longship. The sail began to flap heavily and he saw the Norse sailors scurrying around the deck, trying to fix the damage.

  'Little bit lower next time, but well done,' Leerdamme told both crews, dropping the telescope from his eye and relaxing. 'Fire when you're sure of your shot.'

  For several minutes the cannons barked irregularly, and each time Leerdamme raised his eyeglass to survey the damage. They were less than half a mile distant now, and
he could see ragged holes in the longship's stern, and parted cables whipped around wildly from her mast. It wouldn't be long before they overhauled the raider and the maindeck and gundecks could be brought to bear. Then it would only take one or two broadsides to finish her off ready for boarding. Few Norse had any stomach for a fight after a few ton of shot had swept over their boards.

  Suddenly, a great wave rose up in front of the Graf Suiden, appearing from nowhere. Dark and menacing, it seemed to have been sucked up from the sea itself. Leerdamme thought he heard fell voices on the edge of hearing, and could see malign eyes staring at him from the wave. Higher and higher it towered, and in the back of his mind the captain heard cackling voices speaking in a language he didn't understand. The air seemed to grow hot, and his skin prickled with fear. It all happened in a moment but seemed to last for a lifetime.

  The wave rose up to a pinnacle some fifty feet above the bowsprit, a towering mass of water that rushed towards them. What appeared to be a snarling face appeared at its centre, with fangs of froth and eyes like whirlpools.

  'Manaan save us!' cried Leerdamme, dropping his eyeglass and grabbing the rail.

  With a crash like thunder the wave broke over the prow. With a splintering crack the bowsprit snapped in two and was hurled aboard, spitting two crewmen and flinging their ragged remains to the deck. The water surged in through the open bowchaser ports, tossing the cannons off their trunions and crushing the gun crews. It washed up through the hatch, exploded up through the grating along the main deck in fountains of water and men, overturning cannons, flinging fuse barrels into the air, ripping men from the rigging and crashing around the masts. Leerdamme felt his skin being stripped from his flesh, his arms wrapped around the prow rail, trembling with the strain.

  As the wave passed, the Graf Suiden plunged into the deep trough left behind, dropping a hundred feet forwards, throwing men from the mastheads, the masts themselves creaking under the pressure, the stays snapping and whirling, ripping men in two and lacerating limbs from bodies.