Loke didn’t turn to face him, leaning hard on the rail. “Captain—”
“Loke, we have it! We have the—” The good news died on his lips as his eyes followed the path of the younger man’s gaze.
Three small galleys were rowing, hard, upriver. Even at the distance he could see naked blades and no few bows were in the hands of those not hauling at oars. And they were approaching from the wrong direction to be soldiers of a local zamindar’s or even the mansabdar’s garrison troopers.
In fact…he turned and looked to the distant castle, city, and docks, which were just now reacting to the galleys. Poor sailors at the best of times, the local soldiery would be no help to the ships riding at anchor. Worse still, the crew had just completed a careening of Vind, and Strand, in an abundance of caution, had ordered Lønsom Vind as far from the castle as he dared. Sailors in the east never knew when the local potentate would decide that taking a European vessel was just the thing to solve a treasury problem, and being under the castle’s guns made him twitchy.
“Pirates, in Surat?” Loke asked, his wave taking in the other ships just upriver and in the deepest part of the channel, including the vast bulk of the junk owned by Jahanara Begum Sahib for the use of pilgrims en route to Mecca. “Won’t the emperor come down on them like the wrath of God?”
“With what navy? And, besides”—Strand gestured with the scroll—“we’ve had news from inland: the emperor is dead.”
Loke nodded toward the approaching galleys. “They heard before we did?”
“Seems so.” He considered shouting for his men to man the guns, but didn’t want to precipitate an attack on his ship if the pirates had another in mind.
“Timed their approach to ride the tidal bore,” Loke said.
“Eases the current they must fight and gives them an onshore wind,” Strand agreed.
The galleys altered course, settling into a staggered line on a direct course for Lønsom Vind.
“Fordømt!” he cursed. Just when things were looking up.
Loke made better use of his tongue, cupping his hands and bellowing, “Pirates! All hands to arms! Light your cords!”
Lønesom Vind erupted in shouts and the pounding of feet and, within moments, the stink of match cords from the leader of each gun team.
Strand spent the next few heartbeats estimating time, distance, and numbers. Disgusted, he shook his head and spat over the rail. “Axes, Loke. Cut the anchor line.”
“But—”
The captain cut him off. “You know I hate losing such an expensive piece of kit as much as the next ship’s master, but we’ll get perhaps one good broadside as she turns with the current, more than we would if we tried to bring it in.” He left unsaid that anchors could be replaced far more readily than lives and, while she didn’t have a great many, the cannon of the Lønsom Vind could very well even the odds, especially if the loads acquired just before they left Hamburg worked as well as the USE Navy man claimed.
If.
Loke nodded, relayed the orders.
Axes started falling as Strand bellowed to the waist of the ship: “Special load!”
“Special load, aye!”
One man of each gun team retrieved a heavy wooden cylinder and shoved it home atop the powder bag already packed in.
“Loaded-ed-ed.” The shouts of each gun’s team leader made a stammer as each gun was rolled into battery.
“Damn them,” Strand muttered, watching the shadow of the mast as the ship started to swing. “Men aloft. We’ll need some sail for after.”
“Yes, Captain!” Loke again relayed his orders. “They make a brave show, eh?” he asked, watching the pirates again.
“That they do…” He calculated distances and angles, drew a deep breath, and called, “Make ready! Two guns to a boat, aye?”
“Aye!” the gun captains shouted among themselves, designating their targets.
The crews quivered, as prepared as could be expected.
“Think the Navy man was exaggerating?” Loke asked.
Strand shrugged. “That’s why I’m going to let them get closer than he claimed necessary.”
The lead galley had a small piece affixed across the bow. It boomed, belching off-white smoke and sending its shot skipping across the water to drown a few paces short of the Lønesom Vind.
Loke sighed, answered the look his captain shot him with: “I’d hoped they might try and parley.”
The other two galleys turned slightly, angling to maximize the volleys from the mass of bowmen they carried along the raised walkway running the length of the little ships.
Arrows began arcing toward the USE ship.
“That’s not a good sign.”
Strand nodded and, judging the time right, bellowed, “Fire!”
The starboard side of his ship erupted in a series of horrendous bangs followed by a peculiar sound he’d never heard before, something like the world’s largest, angriest nest of wasps flying very fast away from him.
The gun captains started their men on the reloading process as the smoke cleared.
Strand didn’t think a second volley would be necessary.
All three boats were drifting, decks awash in blood and less identifiable remains of men, oars stilled and sails shredded.
He’d once been on the dock when a ship’s magazine exploded at anchor, sending slivers of timber hundreds of paces through the air with man-killing force. A lighter had been approaching the vessel when it went off, and every man aboard it had been screaming for mercy.
Lønesom Vind’s guns had each discharged a mass of lead balls with similar—and far better-directed—force to that explosion. The result was carnage so great, so total, the sharks that cruised upriver would struggle to find a morsel large enough to fight over.
The sound of Loke throwing up was loud in the silence that followed.
“Dear God,” Strand breathed.
Men, like rats, often survive even the most devastating of blows.
So it was with the pirates: a few screams at first, then some slight movement from the galleys, men grasping oars or lost limbs, lathered in the blood of their companions.
* * *
The local mansabdar sent a small galley out to
