the hell out of here, that's what for.'
'I think,' said Togura, 'you'd better take charge yourself.'
'This isn't my ship,' said Draven. Then, looking around at the scrummage on deck: 'On the other hand – maybe you've got a point.'
And Draven started roaring out orders.
'Avast there, salts and gobblers!' screamed Draven. 'Listen for your lives! Brazen the spazjits! Lubber the lee! Untrice the hawsers!' Nobody paid any attention. 'Come on, you rat-scum whore-rapists! Drop the scurfs in the brine! Get the plugs run-hauled!'
It was useless.
'Draven,' said Togura, urgently. 'Grab that man there. The big one, with the dragon tattoo. Talk him into your crew.'
'Oh knot off,' said Draven, pushing him away. Then, to the milling mob: 'Plug up your gobs, you mouse-cocked chicken-shaggers! Hear out my orders!'
While Draven screamed himelf hoarse to no avail, Togura spoke to the dragon-tattoo man with an eloquence inspired by fear of death. Triumphant, he led his recruit back to Draven.
'Captain Draven,' said the man, giving a clenched-fist salute. 'I'm Ratbite Jakes, at your service.'
'Good man!' said Draven, slapping him on the shoulder. Then, seeing Togura's strategy, and seeing now that it would work, he adopted it as his own. 'Jakes,' he said, pointing. 'Grab that fellow over there! The one with the red hair! We need him!'
On the quayside, a battle royal was raging. No enemy was yet in sight, but men were fighting each other to get aboard the ships. Something in the city was roaring – it sounded like a huge animal. There was a cacophony of wreckage and rupture. It sounded as if all hell was marching toward them.
Draven, having gathered up half a dozen big, husky, capable-looking men, spoke to them swiftly, giving his orders. Then they dispersed, shouting their orders, press-ganging men as they went. Togura, Jakes and Draven, a three-man hunting pack, began to recruit a second echelon of group leaders.
Soon, Togura was getting control.
Half a dozen rowing boats were pirated from the harbourside. They began to lug the ship toward the harbour mouth. Togura, still sick and dizzy, got booted upstairs, and found himself in the rigging, floundering amidst the canvas.
The ship was slow, slow, slow to move.
'Hell's grief!' said a man, in shocked disbelief.
'What?' said Togura, trying to steady himself in the rigging and tie knots at the same time.
'Look!'
Togura looked.
A rock was smashing its way out through the harbourside buildings. Roaring, it charged. Men ran, screaming. The rock crunched into them, corpsing them, pulping their bodies to strawberry jam. Togura, stunned, sickened, appalled, almost fainted and fell.
'Steady yourself!' said his comrade, grabbing him with a most welcome supporting hand.
The rock smashed its way to the quayside and charged their ship. It crashed into the gat between the ship and the sea, plunged down to the water, screamed, and was drowned down under. Draven, on the deck below Togura, shouted at the oarsmen to haul harder.
Togura closed his eyes.
He shuddered.
Togura had once had a clash with a walking rock in Looming Forest, north of Lorford, but had later dismised the whole incident as a hallucination. But it seemed walking rocks were real! Hell's grief, indeed!
'Work on,' said his comrade, shaking him.
'Yes,' said Togura. 'Yes.'
The rowing boats lugged them clear of the harbour mouth. The wash of an outgoing river helped push them west, into the Central Ocean. As men did battle on the quayside with invading rocks and soldiers, other ships cleared the harbour.
Draven's ship picked up its rowing-boat men and began to sail with all canvas set. Five ships got free from the harbour. Togura clambered down to the deck, sweating, exhausted, his arms and legs quivering. His recent illness had left him weak as a butter-doll.
'Hello, Forester,' said a friendly voice.
Togura turned, and found himself looking at a fair-haired young pirate with a raw straw beard.
'Who are you?' said Togura, sure he had never set eyes on the fellow before in his life.
'Come now! You remember me!'
'From where?' said Togura.
'From the time we were married, lover. No, jokes aside – I'm your old shipmate Drake. What's with the cuttlefish head?'
'Cuttlefish?' said Togura, bewildered. 'What kind of fish is that?'
'No kind of fish at all,' said the pirate Drake.
It was, in fact, a type of cephalopod, and 'cuttlefish head' was, in pirate argot, a term for amnesia.
Togura found his legs folding up under him. He folded up after them. Shadows danced in front of his eyes like demented mosquitoes.
'If you don't remember me,' said Drake, sitting down beside him, 'I suppose it's the beard that's to blame. I didn't have it last time we met. Aboard the Warwolf, remember? Jon Arabin's ship. We lost you in the Penvash Channel, near the island of Drum.'
'Oh,' said Togura.
'Not very talkative, are we?' said Drake. 'Got a hangover, have we? Better pull ourselves together, I think. We might have fighting soon.'
'How so?'
'Look back to the harbour, man.'
Togura looked, and saw another ship setting out to sea.
'So some more of us have got away,' he said.
'That's not ours!' said Drake. 'That's enemy!'
'How can you tell?'
'The sails, man, the sails! That gap-tooted raggage was never set by pirates! There's landsmen aboard that ship. In pursuit of us, my friend. Lusting for our eyeballs. Hearty for our gizzards. They'll cuttle us down and under, unless we're careful.'
'Yes, well,' said Togura. 'Tell us when it's fighting time. I'm going to sleep.'
He snoozed for a while. When he woke, eight enemy ships were in pursuit.
'Eight against five,' said Togura.
'As odds go,' said Drake, 'it's not exactly picnic time. But never fear – I think we're hauling away on them. Griefs, they're still having trouble getting their canvas up!'
'Tell me if anything changes,' said Togura.
And closed his eyes.
The sun was warm, the motion of the ship was easy, and he was very, very tired. He drifted off to sleep again, and was soon dreaming confused dreams in which blue-green sea serpents tangled their way through piles of chicken feathers which were swarming with baby turtles. In his dream, he found his way into a woman's thighs, and was just about to apologise when she clouted him on the head.
He woke.
'What?' he cried, dazed by a mix of sleep and sunlight.
The ship lurched.
Something smashed into the vessel with a blow which was felt from keel to masthead.
'Sea serpents!' screamed Togura.
'No, whales!' shouted someone, looking overboard.
And whales they were. Big ones. Sperm whales, each more than twenty paces long. Water-surging cetacean wrath, charging the ship and battering it.
