In Search of Spice (14 page)

The stern ballista fired, but its sheaf did not separate properly and the spears smashed into the second longship in a clump, killing a few axemen but not affecting the speed or direction. The Captain nodded at Brian. The sheaves were experimental, and the Captain was pleased with the result. The hours of practice paid off, despite the painful cost.

Captain Larroche had a hand on the wheel, with Taufik watching carefully while a huge brawny master’s mate had the spokes in his paws. Brian watched the wind carefully, tracking its strength and direction through the movement of the sails. Captain Larroche measured the gap between the longships and the vulnerable side of the ship with his eyes. He had gone cold and focused, not allowing any feelings to surface, feeling his ship through his legs, moving gently with her motion.

“Now,” he said, pulling down on the wheel a little. The master’s mate immediately spun the wheel savagely, causing the ship to turn away from the longships and across the wind which caught the sails and high castles, pushing the ship hard over on its side so it leant over towards the longships. The crew on the deck were expecting the tilting deck, anchored, and ready, but the soldiers suffered, crashing into the side of the ship and Little would have fallen overboard if a brawny soldier, Husk, had not laid a huge hand on his upper arm.

The longships were moments away from impact as the big ship heeled over and turned away from them. Assuming it a manoeuvre to crush and swamp them, but mistimed and played too early, the galleys reacted gracefully like dancers, the drummers barking orders, the larboard oars digging into the choppy waves and spinning the longships to port.

It was too far for the outermost longship without its steersman, and the next longship fouled its oars as well, pushed it to one side and it slid past the Queen Rose to turn and beat back. The other three turned gracefully putting themselves broadside on to the ship. Accelerating, they slammed into the side of the great ship with a scream of breaking wood, despite losing full ramspeed. The great metal shod spikes pierced the side of the ship just under the waterline in a shower of water and splinters, impaling the great ship and attaching the longships firmly to the side. The Spakka, despite being braced for impact, were thrown forward and picked themselves up with a premature, deep guttural roar of victory.

The master’s mate spun the wheel the other way and the ship swung back into the wind. The deck righted itself, as the Queen Rose majestically rolled upright, dragging the three longships up by their rams so the ram holes were above the waterline. The longships dangled at a steep angle from the side and the broken wood screeched at the strain put upon it. The Spakka, recovering from the impact and swarming to the bows, lost their footing and fell back as they found their decks slanted upwards and a steep and difficult angle to climb in order to board the carrack.

Howls rent the air as the axemen recovered, pushed to the front of the longships and swarmed up the side of the Queen Rose, throwing rope boarding ladders up from their prows. Sara watched expressionlessly as a huge Spakka warrior leaped up and used the deck railing as a springboard to soar high and smash his axe down at Little’ head, where Husk deftly caught it with a parasol. The clang echoed with ear-splitting intensity, and the warrior cried out, seeming to vibrate in the air. Before he could land, Little lanced him in the belly and twitched him to one side as if he were spearing salmon at the rapids.

The soldiers were making short work of the axemen, but the pressure was building as more ladders were thrown against the side so more could come up at once. Sensing the pressure, Sara cried out.

“SING YOU BASTARDS! You’re soldiers of the King, let them know who you are!” and she started to sing the battle song of the frontier, the House of the Rising Starr, with all the soldiers immediately crashing in, and singing as the wet work continued.

Behind the soldiers, the Bosun grinned demoniacally. She was gripping a long halberd, like an axe on a ten-foot pole, with a huge hook under the axe. Some of her mates stood beside her similarly equipped, while others held knives. Mot stood beside her, growling faintly, ruff erect and bristling.

Pat was still on the foredeck, methodically firing arrows into the axemen waiting to board, those not hidden by the side of the ship, and shouting for more arrows. He had loosed over a hundred and his fingers were bleeding. Terri climbed up the ladder with a sheaf in her arms.

Now a surge of axemen came up the side from the second longship, and the Bosun and her mates leaned forward. At first, it was the blade of the halberds, knocking warriors back down, but they pressed up the sides, eyes glaring, faces red and shouting hoarsely, lost in the battle rage. A hail of thrown axes pushed the sailors back, three falling, where they changed tactics and used the hooks to gaff a warrior as he reached the top, drag him wriggling over the side and back to the waiting knives. And Mot.

The soldiers could not cover the breadth of the boarding attacks, and Sara soon found herself in action, able to come from behind some rigging to stab the warriors as they attacked the parasols, firmly stopping them from coming round the side. She was seen from below, as a thrown axe cleared the rigging, just missing her ear and a warrior jumped up, grabbed the rail, pulled himself up and over in another prodigious feat of strength before she could react.

Landing lightly on his feet, he sent the axe whistling sideways toward her neck. Sara rolled beneath it, so close it took a few stray strands of hair, and sank her rapier into his exposed armpit while he changed the axe’s direction. The blow petered out as the warrior slumped back, frothy blood pouring from his mouth. Sara pushed him off her blade with her foot, and turned to the next raider, oblivious of a shocked Dan who watched the man die and stood uncertainly with an axe. She was still singing with the men; her fighting style very different. She could not stand up to the axemen, as the soldiers did, and instead moved constantly, darting forward to stab between armour plates and immediately pulling back. She needed to, for somebody in the longship was looking out for her, as throwing axes fizzed through the air whenever she appeared.

On the poop deck, the Captain watched the battle unfold. Two of the longships were embedded below the main deck, while the third was under the poop deck where the side was too high to climb, and the axemen were trying to break through the side of the ship into the hold.

Captain Larroche nodded to Brian and pointed to this longship. Brian took a picked band to the aft mast where they used the spar as a crane and swung out a net of huge ballast stones, thoughtfully lashed to the mainmast in preparation for this event. As the net swung out, Brian made a chopping motion, a crewman pulled a rope, the net opened and the ballast stones rained down on the longship, smashing through its deck and hull. The longship shuddered, the stern falling back into the water as the ocean poured through the rents. It was caught strongly by the current rushing past the Queen Rose and the ram ripped out of the side, splinters and bits of board flying, and the longship was floundering in the wake, men scattered everywhere as she sank.

Brian roared an order to a boatswain’s mate to take his sailors down and clear the hold of those Spakka who had made an entrance, if any.

Captain Larroche looked out for more longships, and realised that even with the two remaining embedded longships, the Queen Rose was now pulling away from the pirate fleet. He nodded again to Brian, who supervised ballast stones being swung out over the remaining longships. At the same time, he shouted down to the deck.

“Mactravis! Offer quarter!”

Mactravis did not hear, but Sara did and relayed the order. Mactravis leaned forward to shout down, and a thrown axe smashed into the top of his helmet, sending him flying backwards, stunned. The first stones swung over the longships, galvanising the longship slaves who jumped up from their oars, wailing and screaming. Those close enough to a Spakka grabbed him and hauled him down to their feet to be brained with manacles, and the drum master could be seen smashing at the nearest slaves with an axe, till an arrow from Pat knocked him overboard.

“Russell!” Sara shouted. “Lieutenant is down, you have command. Hold the line, defence only. Stop singing, men!” She moved to the side, staying behind the railing. She called out in harsh, accented but understandable Spakkan.

“Axemen! Bold Spakka warriors! It is done. Will you die or will you live?”

At first, there was no change, then the shouts died away, replaced by groans and cries of pain. Sara raised her head, wary of a thrown axe, and looked over, seeking an officer. The warriors were slumped, looking round, the axes lowering. The longship slaves were standing by their oars, looking at her while keeping apprehensive glances on the stones above.

“Do you have a noble left alive?
” Sara called.

A figure in better armour rolled slightly, and a head lifted up, eyes staring with pain. He had clearly fallen back into the longship and been pulled back out of the way. He tried to lift himself up on an arm.

Grabbing a rope with her left hand, rapier ready in her right, Sara went over the railing and walked herself down the side into the longship, ignoring the warriors and picked her way through to the officer. On the poop, the Captain gripped the rail and cursed. The sailors all looked puzzled, only the soldiers understood.

Her point at his throat, she spoke.
“Noble sire, you have trained your warriors well. They have followed you to death and laughed. Will you have them sing your name in my feasting halls or will you take them with you?”

“Your accent is terrible, girl, but you have honour,”
the Noble grunted.
“Your poxy blade already has my life.”
She saw the blood seeping from his armpit, her favourite target, and the bloody bubbles on his lips from the lung strike. He lifted his voice, struggling with the effort.
“Warriors! You have a new leader who knows the code! Serve her well and with honour!”
He nodded to Sara, and said,
“I thank you for your honour. I regret I never met you on the frontier, blade to blade. Hurry now, before I shame myself.”
He turned his head slightly and bent it, eyes misting in agony. Sara carefully placed the point just in front of his ear and leaned on the blade, sliding it into the brain and the Noble died without a sound.

She looked up at the warriors,
“You, you and you - go and free the slaves. Strip the longship of everything worthwhile and load it up to the ship. You will be given berths and instructed when on board.”

She strode to the gunwale and called to the other longship.
“Do you have a surviving Noble?”

“No, mistress,”
came an instant response.
“We were sworn to the Noble Hilario whom you have honoured. We are yours.”

“You heard my orders. Free the slaves and take everything on the main ship. I want everything done within thirty minutes, then draw up in ranks on the main deck and introduce yourselves to me.”

Sara hesitated a moment, wanting to sheath her blade before climbing back, but reluctant to sheath it without cleaning it. A Spakka warrior, really a boy, knelt at her feet, head bowed and hands up.

“I beg the honour of cleaning the blade, Mistress. It has done great service this day and is a Noble weapon even though so small.”
His voice was hushed and awed, breaking slightly and she saw his sparse beard, guessing he was even younger. She dropped it into his hands and swarmed up the rope back onto the ship.

Strachan was forming the soldiers up into a party to bring up the loot from the longship, while Little was tending to Mactavish. Russell was trying to get the Bosun to tell him if she wanted the wood from the longships, while she still expected an attack.

“Sara,” cried an irritated Sergeant Russell, “go and have a word with the Captain, see if he wants to haul those longships on board or have us chop them away. Good job, by the way.”

Sara smiled, threw him a snappy, regulation and totally un-mercenary salute, and climbed up the ladder to the poop deck.

“Both longships and all survivors surrendered, sir,” she snapped briskly, “the slaves are being released and the vessels stripped. Do you want the wood or indeed the entire longships pulled aboard? I gave instructions for the slaves and warriors to muster on the deck in half an hour so you can count them up and allocate them to quarters.”

“Allocate them to quarters?” The Captain spluttered. “Damn it, I’ll rescue the slaves, but we’ll set adrift the survivors in one of the longships. I don’t want the bloody things.”

“Oh, I am so sorry sir,” said Sara contritely, wondering how to get out of this. “I took their oath to stop them fighting. Spakka don’t surrender, but they will change sides if their Noble gives them away. I got to him before he died, to stop us killing them all.”

“Before he died?” Brian interjected. “You rammed your sword through his skull.”

“Spakka honour, sir. It is their cult of a warrior. We learn all about it on the frontier.”

“Funny how a mercenary would know that,” said the Captain, suspiciously. “Such a young one, too. Never mind. So we have a bunch more crewmen. Brian, I want an injury and a damage report as fast as you can, and you and the Bosun can decide what to do with those damn longships. Sara, you took an oath from these warriors.”