Blade ran up to Dzhai and jerked a thumb at the heavy gun. «Loaded?» Dzhai nodded. Blade snatched up a handspike, rammed it under the gun carriage, and began heaving the gun around. Half a dozen men leaped to join him, sweating and swearing. Slowly the gun moved. Finally Blade could look along the barrel straight at the center gun on the foc'sle of the oncoming pirate ship. Her gunners had stopped firing and were lying down on the deck. Apparently they now expected the ramming and the boarders to do all the work.
Blade lit a length of slowmatch and waited, as the enemy ship grew steadily larger. He was only going to get one shot, and he had to make it a good one.
The pirate ship was only two hundred yards away when Blade decided his moment had come. He sprang to one side of the gun, thrusting the match down into the touchhole as he did. The gun went off with an earthquake roar, leaped backward, and crashed halfway through the bulwarks. It hung precariously for a moment, then slipped overboard with a crackling of shattered wood and a tremendous splash.
Seconds later a thundering explosion made Blade spin around. Another second, and an even bigger shock wave knocked him and everybody else on the foc'sle flat on the deck. Blade tasted blood from a split lip and a battered nose, rose to his hands and knees, and looked toward the pirate ship.
A tremendous cloud of smoke was still rising from the spot where she had been. Out of the smoke rained oars, planks, guns, ropes, and human bodies. A charred block of wood clattered down on Kukon's deck and rolled against Blade. A human arm, the hand still wearing a leather glove, struck Dzhai on the back. He picked it up with a sour look and threw it over the side.
Blade had aimed his shot to smash down the length of the enemy's deck, slaughtering rowers and boarders. Instead, his aim and good luck had put his shot squarely into the magazine.
Now the smoke was drifting aside, merging into the general murk hanging over the sea. Blade could see the pirate galley again. The forward third of her hull was blown off clear down to the water line. As he watched, he saw the charred timbers of the bow dip under. Then the water climbed up the deck, the stern rose, and the whole black hull slipped down out of sight. Foam bubbled up for a moment; then there was nothing left but a mass of drifting wreckage and a hundred or so heads, dark against the silver-blue water. Beyond the heads Blade could already see the upthrust gray fins of approaching sharks. Sharks, he'd read, were attracted by vibrations and explosions in the water. There'd certainly been enough of those around here today. Anybody who found himself swimming here and now would be very lucky to get to shore. Blade stood up, helped Dzhai to his feet, then turned to the bearded man and the captain.
Blade noticed that the captain still wore his sword and armor. His face was now gray with fatigue and dirt.
The bearded man turned to the captain and said, «Cap'n-ye ken be w' us effen y' wish. Weel na fight w' ye now.» The man looked up at Blade and Dzhai. Blade nodded. If the captain could be trusted, why not let him come with them? He'd fought well today and they all owed him much. Besides, it was time to bring the killing to an end.
After a moment, Dzhai also nodded. It was the captain who shook his head. «Thank you-gentlemen, may I call you? The offer does you honor. But a man who has survived today's battle will not be in the Emperor's favor. One who has also lost his ship to its rowers will be still less so. And there is my family's fate to consider, as well as my own. You know the ways of His Magnificence.»
The captain drew off his helmet and laid it and his sword down on the deck. «I have sons who should by custom receive these. I ask you to do what you can for them. Farewell, and safe voyaging.» Without another word he turned, climbed onto the bulwarks, and stepped off into the air. The splash as he struck the water sounded unnaturally loud in Blade's ears.
At least the captain's armor would draw him down quickly. The sharks would have no chance at him.
Blade sighed and turned to the other men. «Come on,» he said, with a briskness he did not feel. It had been a very long day, and it was not over yet. «It's time we started on our way out of here.»
«True,» said Dzhai. He reached down to his waist and unbuckled the belt and knife. «Prince Blade, I believe this is yours?»
Chapter 15
The bearded man set a course to the southeast. Heading due south would have taken them away from the battle and the islands of the Strait of Nongai faster, but it would also have taken them straight away from land, out into the Silver Sea. Kukon was afloat for the moment. Before they could safely take her on a long voyage, she would need repairs of a sort they could not give her in the open sea. They would also need fresh water, firewood, and jury masts.
Then there was the matter of sorting out those who had been slave rowers and those who had been free sailors and soldiers. For the moment there were neither slaves nor freemen aboard Kukon, only men fleeing for their lives. If this happy situation didn't last, there would be trouble of a sort best prevented before it got started. Blade, Dzhai, and the bearded man all-agreed on that.
No ship from either side followed Kukon as she limped away from the battle. Perhaps no one noticed her; perhaps no one cared enough to follow. Or perhaps there was no one left alive to either notice or care.
Blade suspected it was the last situation. The rest of the battle had probably been fought as savagely as Kukon's part. If so, there would be neither pirate galleys nor Imperial galleys left afloat-nothing except wreckage and a lot of well-fed sharks.
The sun set a couple of hours later. Kukon crept on through the darkness, a weary drummer beating out a very slow cruising stroke to the half of the rowers who remained on their benches. The other half had not been released from duty; they had simply collapsed on the deck from sheer exhaustion and fallen asleep where they landed.
Blade wouldn't have minded joining them. His head throbbed, his throat and mouth felt as if he'd been eating porridge made out of gunpowder and sand, his eyeballs felt swollen to three times their normal size. He had no serious wounds, but he was bruised, scratched, and generally battered and sore from head to foot. Dzhai and the bearded man were hardly in better shape, but none of the three could afford to sleep as yet.
At dawn they swung north again, toward the coast. The leak was growing slowly, so that Kukon was noticeably more sluggish. They had to get her beached within another day at the most. If they had to fight, they were probably finished. There was one serviceable cannon and a dozen muskets left aboard. There was practically no dry powder. There were plenty of spears and swords, but there was hardly a man aboard Kukon who could lift a finger by now, let alone a weapon.
The bearded man, who now admitted to the name of Luun, put it accurately.
«T'ree old wimmin-tey catch us, den hit us on t' head w' brooms.» He made a thumbs-down gesture and spat into the water alongside.
Toward sunset they finally crept into a wooded cove. Kukon's bow crunched gently onto the sand and gravel of the beach, and a sigh went up from more than two hundred exhausted men at once. They were not out of danger by any means, but for the moment they no longer had to worry about their ship sinking under them and leaving them to thrash about until the sharks came.
Blade and his two co-captains didn't try to get any work out of the men that night. The men wouldn't budge. All of them, slave and free both, wanted to drink fresh water, breathe air that smelled of growing things, sleep on pine needles instead of hard planks.