March To The Stars

when all four of her chained-together arms were wrenched backwards. Only one of the rings had come out of the planking, which made it even worse. Instead of dragging them all straight aft, the rampaging grapnel cracked the chain like a whip. Sparks flew as the grapnel's tines raked furiously down the heavy links, and someone's scream ended in a hideous, gurgling groan as the grapnel disemboweled him. She could hear the other slaves screaming as the whole group was snatched along the deck until the grapnel finally yanked entirely free of the chain. But not before it had slammed all of them brutally into the ship's starboard bulwark.

She felt as if her arms had been pulled out of their sockets, and when she looked sideways, she saw that that had literally happened to one of the other Shin. But she refused to let that stop her as she rolled over on her head again and slipped her legs between her arms.

That contortion would have been difficult enough for a human; most Mardukans would have found it virtually impossible, but the same training which had saved Pedi's life against the first pirate came to the fore once more. She folded practically in half and slipped first one, then the other leg out until she could lie with her arms bound in front of her. Of course, they were now flipped around, false-hands above true-hands, but her wrists slid in the manacles to let her relieve the pressure on her elbows and shoulders, and even with false-hands high, she was happier this way. Besides, it was also an insulting hand gesture, which suited her frame of mind perfectly.

* * *

Roger had been paying strict attention to the preparations for the attack. Despite his concentration on other things, he'd been vaguely aware of the low-voiced conversation between D'Nal Cord and Denat, but he hadn't paid it very much attention. Not until Cord suddenly snapped an angry retort at his nephew. The deep, sharp-edged sentence was short, pungent, and spectacularly obscene.

'What?' Roger's head whipped around at the highly atypical outburst from his asi.

'They appear to be trying to kill their prisoners,' Denat said with a gesture towards the other ship.

Roger followed the waving true-hand and saw half a dozen Mardukans chained to the deck near the center line. One of them was only too obviously dead, clearly a victim of Hooker's broadsides. A chain, stretched between two raised iron rings, joined them all together, running up through a complex four-point restraint behind each Mardukan to hold his arms behind him. As Roger watched, one of the grapnels caught the chain, and he winced in sympathetic pain as it ripped one of the chain's anchoring rings out of the planking and yanked the prisoners across the deck. It also killed another of them, and then the rest of the captives were slammed into the ship's bulwarks with more than enough force to kill anyone who hit awkwardly. Indeed, it looked to Roger as if all but one of them had been injured, possibly severely. But that didn't prevent several more of the Lemmar from advancing on them with swords ready just as Hooker's boarders started over the side of their own ship.

* * *

Pedi Karuse rose on her knees once more, examined her situation, and allowed herself one vicious curse. The grapnel had only managed to rip out one ring; the other one remained firmly fixed to the deck, still holding her prisoner. Worse, the other slaves chained to her had fared far worse than she had as they were hurled against the side of the ship and lay about like so many more inert anchors. Aside from having her arms in front of her again, she was as helplessly chained as before, and she looked aft, where the first of the boarders were coming over the stern. At first, she thought they might be Shin, for they wore bright blue harnesses, like those common to the Fardar clan. But in the next instant, she realized that it couldn't be her people. The boarders were using weapons she had never seen before, and their tactics were unlike any Shin.

The first wave over the transom formed a shield wall, more like the sort of thing Krath heavy infantry would do, which held off the pirates while reinforcements swarmed aboard behind them. The second rank bore something like long-barreled arquebuses. Unlike any arquebus Pedi had ever heard of, however, these had no problem with water or weather—as they demonstrated with the very first volley. At least some of that many normal arquebus would have had their priming soaked during the crossing, but all of these weapons fired successfully into the mass of pirates hammering at the shield wall.

The long-barreled arquebuses also had knives on the ends, and after the first volley the entire group charged forward. They wielded the guns more like spears than firearms, but they did so with a discipline and purpose that was decidedly un-Shin-like. They strode forward in step and struck in unison, while the shield bearers stabbed forward with short spears, sliding the thrusts upward from below their shields.

Unfortunately, she didn't have long to contemplate this new mode of warfare before some of the pirates recalled their duty as Lemmar and decided that killing bound captives was a better use of their time than fighting the boarders. She finally knew despair as four of the pirates approached, one of them slicing down to kill the mostly unconscious Guardsman while two more approached her warily.

'Lemmar slime! I'll eat your tongues for my breakfast!'she shouted, bouncing up to spin a kick into the nearest one's belly. He flew backwards, but so did she, and as she slammed down on her back, the one she hadn't kicked sprang forward, sword upraised.

* * *

Roger lost track of the prisoners as he watched the boarding party foam across onto the other ship's deck's under Krindi Fain's direction. Once again, the young Mardukan was proving his stuff, first sending over a small team of assegai-and-shield troops, then following it up with a double line of rifles. A command rang out, the assegai troops squatted instantly and simultaneously, with their shields angled, and the riflemen fired a double volley over their heads. The massive bullets smashed into the tight-packed Lemmar, and the Diasprans followed up immediately with a bayonet charge that was a beautiful thing to see. The combination scattered the remaining Lemmar defenders on the pirate ship's afterdeck, and the boarders stormed ahead towards the surviving clumps of raiders further forward.

'Yes!'

Even as Roger yelled in triumph, he felt rather than saw Cord leave his side. His head snapped around, and his eyes widened in a moment of pure shock as the shaman bounded down the ratlines. The huge Mardukan moved with unbelievable speed and agility, and then he flung himself through the air, onto the enemy deck.

He landed, absolutely unsupported, half-way up the ship from Hooker's boarders. And as if that hadn't been enough, he'd thrown himself in front of what must have been the largest single remaining group of Lemmar still on their feet—a cluster of about twelve, with four in the lead and six or eight more following.

Roger couldn't believe it. In every battle, from the day he had first saved Cord's life, his asi had always been at his side, guarding his back. The only time he hadn't been, it was because he'd been too seriously wounded in the previous battle to stay on his feet. It was an unheard of violation of his asi's responsibilities for him to desert his 'master' at such a time!

The prince didn't even curse. Cord had backed him too often for him to waste precious seconds swearing. He just checked to ensure that his revolvers were secure in their holsters and his sword was sheathed across his back.

Then he leapt outward in Cord's wake.

* * *

The Lemmar with the sword snarled at Pedi and brought his weapon flashing down ... only to be flung violently backwards by the enormous, leaf-bladed spear which suddenly split his chest.

Pedi didn't know where the fellow, frankly dangling, above her came from, but he was the best sight she'd ever seen in her life. Even from this angle.

The guy was old and naked as a slith, without even a harness, much less a bardouche, but he wielded his huge spear with a deft touch that reminded her of her father's personal armsman back home. That old armsman had seen more battles than she'd seen breakfasts, and could whip any three young bucks while simultaneously drinking a cup of wine. And it looked like this fellow was cut from the same cloth.

Nor was he by himself, although she'd never seen anything weirder than the creature beside him. It looked like a two-sren-tall vern. It had only two arms, long yellowish head tendrils, similar in color to her own horns, dangling down its back and gathered together with a leather band, and a most peculiar pistol in either hand. Right behind the two of them came another odd creature that looked like a cross between a sorn and an atul. It was longer than she