Glancing right, she saw the bosun already using her bow and arrows, shooting while Tress guided the skiff across the last few meters…
Wood crumped against wood. Brod shouted, leaping to seize the bigger ship’s rail, a rope-end between his teeth. The youth scrambled up and quickly tied a knot, securing the skiff.
“Look out!” Maia cried. She commanded urgent action from her muscles, ordering them to strike out toward a snarling woman who ran aft toward Brod, an illegally sharpened trepp in hand. Alas, Maia’s uncoordinated flail only glanced off the railing.
Brod turned barely in time to fend off the attacker’s blows. One smashed flat along his left shoulder. Another met the beefy part of his forearm, slashing his shirt and cutting a bloody runnel. There was an audible crack as part of the impact carried through, striking his head.
The young man and the reaver stared at each other for an instant, both apparently surprised to find him still standing. Then, with a sigh, Brod pushed the pirate’s weapon aside, took her halter straps, and flung her overboard. The reaver screamed indignant fury until she crashed into the sea, where other figures could be seen swimming amid the wreckage of the raft.
Tress and Naroin were already scrambling to join Brod, followed by a groggy Charl. Maia grabbed the rail and concentrated, trying twice before finally managing to throw one leg over, and then rolling onto the upper deck. In doing so, however, her grip on Inanna’s bill loosened and it slipped from her hands, clattering back into the skiff.
Maia shook her head dizzily.
Dimly, she was aware of other figures clambering aboard, presumably raft survivors, joining the attack while enemy reinforcements also hurried aft. There were sharp cracks as firearms went off. Feet scuffed all around her as grunting combat swayed back and forth. Looking up, Maia saw two women attack Brod while another swung a huge knife at Naroin, armed only with her bow and no arrows. The scene stunned Maia, its ferocity going far beyond the fights in Long Valley, or even the Manitou. She had never seen faces so filled with hatred and rage. During those earlier episodes, there had at least been a background of rules. Death had been a possible, but unsought, side effect. Here, it was the central goal. Matters had come down to abominations—blades and arrows, guns and fighting men.
Maia’s hand fell on a piece of debris from the explosion, a split tackle block. Without contemplating what she was doing, she lifted it in both hands and swiftly brought it around with all her might, smashing one of Brod’s opponents in the back of the knee. The woman screeched, dropping a crimson knife that Maia prayed was innocent of boy’s blood. Without pause, she struck the other knee. The reaver collapsed, howling and writhing.
Maia was about to repeat the trick with Brod’s other foe, when that enemy simply vanished! Nor was Brod himself in view anymore. In an instant, the fight must have carried him off to starboard.
Maia turned. Naroin was backed against the rail, using her bow as a makeshift staff, flailing against
With a scream, Maia leaped. The riflewoman had but a moment to see her coming. Eyes widening, the reaver swung the slender barrel around.
Another explosive concussion rocked by Maia’s right ear as she tackled the pirate, carrying them both into the rail. The lightly framed wood splintered, giving way and spilling them overboard.
Maia surfaced at last with an explosive, ragged gasp, thrashing through a kick turn while peering through a salty blur in hopes of finding her foe before she was found. But no one else emerged from the sea. Perhaps the raider so loathed losing her precious weapon, she had accompanied the rifle to the bottom. Despite everything she’d been through, it was the first time Maia had ever knowingly killed anybody, and the thought was troubling.
Maia sought and found the reaver ship, awash in smoke and debris. Fighting a strong undertow, exhausted and unable to hear much more than an awful roar, she struck out for the damaged ketch. At least her thoughts were starting to clear. Alas, that only let her realize how many places hurt.
She swam hard.
By the time she managed to climb back aboard; however, the fight was already over.
There were strands of cable everywhere. The tangled mass, remnants of the broken winch mechanism, had been the centerpiece of their intended trap. A net wide enough to snare a large, fast-moving boat, even using an inaccurate, makeshift catapult. It had been Brod’s suggestion that the booby-trapped gearbox might also make a good weapon. Naroin had said not to count on it, but in the end, that had provided the crucial bit of luck.
Still, the rigging was a mess. The masthead and fore-stay were gone, as well as the portside spreader. It would take hours just to clear away most of the wreckage, let alone patch together enough sail to get under way. Heaven help them if another reaver ship came along during that time.
Barring that unpleasant eventuality, a head start and favorable winds were what the surviving castaways most wanted now. Even the wounded seemed braced by the thought of imminent escape westward, and a chance to avenge the dead.
Although, the reavers had been stunned and wounded by the ambuscade, it would have been madness for four women and a boy to try attacking all alone. But Maia and the rest of the skiff crew had counted on hidden reinforcements, which came from a source the pirates never suspected. Only a few of those who had been aboard the raft when the reaver ship was first spotted had remained aboard to face the brunt of the cannon’s shells. The rest had by then gone overboard, taking shelter under empty crates and boxes already jettisoned—apparently to lighten the raft’s load. In fact, they were tethered to float some distance behind, where the enemy would not think to shoot at them.
Only the strongest swimmers had been chosen for that dangerous role. Once the skiff crew began boarding, drawing all the reavers aft, five waterlogged Manitou sailors managed to swim around to the bow and clamber aboard, using loops of dangling, cable. Shivering and mostly unarmed, they did have surprise on their side. Even so, it was a close and chancy thing.
Small-scale battles can turn on minor differences, as Maia learned when she pieced together what had happened at the end. The last two Manitou sailors, those responsible for springing the catapult trap, had been perhaps the bravest of all. With their job done, each took a running start, then leaped feetfirst off the high bluff to plunge all the way down to the deep blue water. Surviving that was an exploit to tell of. To follow it up with swimming for the crippled ketch, and joining the attack in the nick of time… the notion alone put Maia in awe. These were, indeed, tough women.
Before Maia made it back from her own watery excursion, that last wave of reinforcements turned the tide, converting bloody stalemate into victory. Now ten of the original band of internees, plus several well-watched prisoners, labored to prepare the captive prize for travel. Young Brod, despite bandages on his face and arms, climbed high upon the broken mast, parsing debris from useful lines and shrouds, eliminating the former with a hatchet.
Maia was hauling lengths of cable overboard when Naroin tapped her on the shoulder. The policewoman
