'Four sail ahead!' came the next call.
That was good enough, to Urikh's mind. Even if the Mekhani were left with two ships, they were probably not going to threaten a well-crewed Askhan vessel. His only worry was that the pirates would realise their plight and flee too soon. Nightfall was no more than three hours away and darkness would allow the Mekhani to slip from the trap.
'Six sail ahead!'
Urikh smiled and rubbed his hands together. He felt the presence of Eroduus at his side and glanced at the captain.
'We have drawn them all out,' said Urikh. 'Now all you have to do is sink them.'
'I think we can manage that, prince,' replied Eroduus.
With the flagship leading the fleet like a mother swan followed by her cygnets, the twenty Askhan warships swept down the Greenwater. A mile ahead, the two galleys that had been despatched as bait were turning upriver, their spear throwers and catapults launching missiles at the low-beamed Mekhani ships trying to encircle them.
Though outnumbered, the Askhan vessels were handled better, oars moving with efficient strokes while the sweeps of the Mekhani ships had little coordination, some thrashing, others plunging deep into the water. Someone had shown the Mekhani how to build the ships, but not how to crew them. The desert tribesmen also had no war engines and were subjected to a hail of spears and boulders as they closed to board the Askhan ships. Fountains of water erupted around the closest pirate as boulders plunged into the river, while ropes were parted and the dirty white sail was torn by the flight of barbedtipped bolts.
'Eight sail ahead!'
Both Urikh and Eroduus looked up at the masthead in surprise.
'Count them again!' roared the captain between cupped hands. Urikh directed an accusing glance at his admiral, who answered the glare with an innocent look of incomprehension.
'Sorry, captain!' came the next call. Eroduus shook his head in disappointed resignation. The eyes of both men widened at the next cry. 'Nine sail!'
There was muttering through the crew and the legionnaires on deck; the news must have permeated down to the oar decks as a babble of voices drifted up from the open hatches.
'Stop their noise,' Eroduus snapped at the officers standing below the aft deck rail. They headed into the mass of men, cursing and snarling.
'Your mastmen do know how to count, yes?' said Urikh.
The captain ignored the icy remark and strutted to the starboard side to bellow at the trireme surging through the water alongside. Listening to the short exchange, Urikh heard it confirmed that there were at least nine galleys ahead.
'Doesn't matter,' said Eroduus on his return. 'We still have more than a match for them.'
As if given a cue by fate, another shrill cry sounded from the mast top.
'Three sail to aft!'
Sure-footed on the rolling ship, Eroduus reached the aft rail beside the tiller a few strides before Urikh. Nothing could be seen of the ships themselves, but three white patches against the forest canopy on the bank were sliding along the coast. They were headed for the merchant ships that were now nearly a mile behind.
'They must have been hidden in one of the side channels,' said Urikh. He rounded on Eroduus. 'Why were they not seen?'
The captain could only answer with a nonplussed shrug and a shake of the head. Eroduus stared back upriver, lips pursed tight, jaw clenched; he stood so still that he might have been mistaken for a carving set to look over the stern of the ship.
'What should we do?' said Urikh, keeping his voice calm, though inside he was seething with anger. Blame and punishment could be meted out later; his first concern was to deal with the rapidly-changed circumstance in which he found himself.
'That is your choice, prince,' said Eroduus, suddenly springing into life again. 'Three options. One: split the fleet. Two: turn back and save the traders, leaving the galleys ahead to fend for themselves. Three: keep on ahead and hope that the merchants can deal with three galleys on their own.'
Urikh looked fore and aft repeatedly, trying to weigh up the best course of action. The purpose of the expedition had been to get the cargo to Cosuan. Losing two galleys with nearly a thousand legionnaires on board would not go down well with his father and would lose Urikh the respect he had tried to maintain with Harrakil.
Urikh looked along the deck and saw the First Captain glancing back at him from where he was stood next to the company of legionnaires left on board. It was obvious to the prince that Harrakil knew what was happening and the choice Urikh faced. The prince desperately wanted to ask Eroduus what he would do, but that would be a terrible abrogation of leadership from which Urikh might never recover.
The choice was Urikh's alone, and if he was to be king one day, it was the sort of choice he would have to be prepared to make.
'Destroying the pirates is why we came here,' he told Eroduus. 'Send the four smallest ships back to help the merchant fleet. That still gives us enough ships to send those bastards ahead to the bottom of the river.'
'Right you are, prince,' said Eroduus, giving the briefest nod of agreement.
Urikh studied the captain's face for any sign of disagreement, but saw nothing in the few moments before Eroduus spun away, bellowing orders. These in turn were shouted to the nearby ships and on to the others, passing to the rest of the fleet.
Turning his direction downstream, Urikh could clearly see the Mekhani war galleys. Even to the prince's untrained eye, they were poorly proportioned, front heavy vessels that ploughed through the water like an abada fording a stream. Two of the galleys were foundering already, one with a mast snapped, another with a gaping hole in the starboard bank of oars. This second vessel was listing badly, doubtlessly holed below the waterline. At this distance, Urikh could see nothing of the crew, but imagined with some satisfaction the desert-dwelling Mekhani trapped on board as their galley sunk.
From their positions and directions of travel, Urikh guessed the Mekhani vessels had emerged out of another side channel behind the bait ships, which were attempting to sail around the incoming flotilla by steering close to the dawnwards bank of the river. Having seen the full number of foes facing them, the two Askhan captains were sacrificing the accuracy of their war engines for speed, but the closest attackers were less than two hundred paces away; the main fleet still had half a mile to travel before their catapults would be in range.
'No need to look so worried, prince,' said Eroduus, joining Urikh again. 'There are nearly five hundred men from the Seventeenth on each of those galleys. Those boys are an Okhar legion; they have been fighting up and down this river for years.'
Urikh resisted the urge to glance aft at the galleys turning back towards the trade fleet. There was nothing he could do to influence the outcome of that battle. He brought this line of thought up short, realising that there was little he could do to chart the course of the battle about to engulf him. He was in the hands of Eroduus and his captains. Such was the nature of leadership, he told himself; if done well, everybody else did the work.
It was a frustrating time waiting for the fleet to close with the enemy. He had not felt so tense since he had watched his father march away with his legions to take Askh from King Lutaar. Remembering the sense of impotence that had plagued him during the long days before hearing word of Ullsaard's victory darkened his mood even further.
While resigned to simply waiting, Urikh saw that the situation ahead was changing quickly. The Askhan galley furthest downstream had stopped in the water, hull leaning at a slight angle, grounded on a rock or shelf under the surface of the water. Two Mekhani ships were slowly and inexpertly closing in through the shallows, suffering the wrath of the beached vessel's catapult and spear throwers.
The other Askhan ship was almost clear of the Mekhani, sail taut with a following wind, oars crashing into the water with relentless rhythm.
With a slap of ropes and a crack that startled Urikh, the fore catapult of the flagship launched a rock. The prince watched the blurred arc of the rock, following its course until it hit the river with a tremendous eruption of water just in front of the closest Mekhani galley.
More boulders descended on the enemy from the rest of the fleet, pocking the surface of the river like
