‘Man the deck! Ready crossbows!’
The crew lurched from side to side, stowing equipment, distributing what few weapons they possessed. Jemain made his way to the stern; Corlo followed. There, he watched through the waves where the vessel appeared in glimpses between the grey waters and the equally grey overcast sky. It was swinging around them, nimble as a gull, while the Ardent, a single-banked slave galley, so battered by its long ocean crossing, wallowed like a log.
It was going to ram.
‘Brace yourselves!’ To Watt: ‘Ready to swing to port.’
The old tillerman clamped his toothless gums together, his lips wrinkling. ‘We'll give it a go, sir.’
Corlo tapped his shoulder, gestured to the bow. Bars was now standing, his hands clamped on the gunwale, gaze fixed upon the closing vessel. ‘Pity the Marese, maybe, hey?’ he said.
Pity us first. Jemain, a lifelong seaman, could only stare in awful appreciation of the skill and seamanship as the vessel bore down upon them, cresting the last wave just in time to lurch downward, adding the impetus of its weight to the thrust of the blunt bronze-sheathed ram cutting the water and throwing a curled wake higher than the vessel itself.
Beautiful. ‘Port!’ Watt threw the arm sideways; the Ardent only began to respond before the ship was upon them. Too slow — no chance. No chance at all.
The blow drove the Ardent sideways. It snatched Jemain from where he stood to throw him against the gunwale and over. The frigid water stung as if it were boiling. It stole what little breath he possessed. Vision and sensations came in glimpses as his head broached the surface. The Ardent wallowing, side caved in. Men tumbling overboard. Bars at the canted bow, fists raised in rage. Then frothed grey water as he spun in the waves. Frigid, life-sapping water numbing his arms, face and legs. And he sinking, weakening in the all-embracing cold. The numbness spreading to take his vision and thoughts.
He awoke coughing and spluttering on hard decking. Limp. Limbs useless. Other crewmen from the Ardent lay about like gaffed fish. Mare crewmen in dark leather armour were gathered around one particular netted man, truncheons rising and falling, beating and beating. Seeing him awake, one crewman came over, wiped his brow, panting. ‘You are of Genabaris, yes?’ he asked in a strange mangling of the South Confederacy dialect.
Jemain nodded mutely.
‘We usually capture ships — except Malazan — but yours was such an insult we had to sink it.’ He smiled as if that somehow made up for it. ‘My apology.’ He wiped his brow again, taking a deep breath, and gestured his truncheon to the netted, now limp, crewman from the Ardent, whose identity Jemain could guess. ‘You are all going to the Korelri. Especially that one. He would not go down — good thing the waters had done half our work, hey? We should get a good price for him.’ He smiled his white teeth again. ‘I think he would do well upon the wall.’
