large, ebony-skinned captain nodded and, grasping Samir’s shoulder harder, turned and propelled him back through the press and toward the open deck behind them.
As they left the heavy crowd, the councillor leaned close to Samir.
“We have to do something to break them.”
“Yes” Samir nodded emphatically “but what?”
“It’s up to us. Men fight twice as hard when they are led by men they believe in; you know that, Samir. It’s up to us to turn the tables on the enemy.”
Samir nodded again, uncertainty still freezing his mind.
“But how?”
Saja shrugged as they neared the open space.
“We have to lead the attack. Give them something to aim for.”
Samir nodded, the uncertainty still filling his mind with emptiness. He had to do something. He was never this useless; always had the next five steps worked out.
So… they had to get ahead of the press and onto the enemy ship. They had to give them ‘something to aim for’ as Saja said. There was plainly only one thing they could do.
“We’ll have to dive in feet first and come up fighting. We need to be the incentive.”
Saja nodded.
“Swing down from the rigging?”
“Too slow. Things could go badly by the time we’ve climbed up there and swung across. We need to get our men over there now, before they break us and we all end up fighting on the Redemption!”
“Then we need the clearest area and a good run up.”
Samir nodded and scanned the deck as the pair finally came out of the rear of the massed sailors.
“There… past the main mast. The place with the least men. That’ll be where they break through first!”
Saja followed Samir’s gaze and then turned to him and nodded. The two men jogged back across the deck, angling themselves so that when they turned back to the press, they were facing one of the remaining gaps where the mass of shouting sailors was thinnest.
“See you on the other side” Samir laughed, the sudden attainment of direction giving him purpose and clearing his mind of the fluff that seemed to have settled there.
“Ha’Rish smile on us with a good face.”
The pair grinned and then ran. There was surprisingly little run up across the deck, and the charge was hampered a little by the many obstacles on the wooden boards, but the two men reached the raised benches of the oarsmen just behind the press of men and took an agile step, jump and then leap from the highest point, drawing their weapons at they rose.
Ghassan would not approve, Samir thought briefly as he watched the surprised upturned faces of the men of his ship while he passed over the top of them, and then the equally astonished raised faces of the enemy just before reality reasserted itself and the two men crashed back to the floor in a tangle of body parts. Fortunate they were that the enemy had been so taken by surprise that they’d not had time to react. Just one man having the forethought to raise a sword to the descending men could have put an end to the foolhardy attack all too soon.
As Samir and Saja felt the squashed bodies of fallen men and the hard surface of the deck boards beneath them, a roar went up from behind. Their attack had enthused the Redemption’s crew and, hopefully, spurred them into a stronger push. The two men had precious little time to think, though, and could pay no further heed to what was happening behind them. Already the effects of their shock arrival were wearing off and men nearby were picking themselves up and collecting weapons.
Samir struggled to his hands and knees, his fist wrapped around the hilt of his short sword and supporting his weight as he tried to take stock of the immediate situation. As he turned, he found himself face to face with one of the pirates, picking himself up in the same fashion. As their eyes met, the man tried to free the blade in his hand enough to manage a stab at this mad captain. Samir, instinct taking over as always, had already considered and then abandoned the sword as an option. Still leaning on that hand, he lashed out with his free fist, punching the crouched pirate full in the face, shattering his nose and knocking the man flat.
As the stunned man toppled to the side, his hand came up and Samir reached out and calmly plucked the longer, curved blade from it. Standing slowly, hefting his shorter Imperial sword in his right hand and the long, curved desert blade in the other, Samir remembered a day, so long ago, when he had stood on a ruined tower at the edge of M’Dahz with their uncle Faraj teaching them the difference between the two and why they had to learn the use of different weapons.
He smiled grimly as he twisted his wrist and spun the straight blade in his hand. The nearest pirate took a look at his face, the man’s gaze passing down first to one hand and then the other, and he backed away carefully as much as he could into the press of men.
Behind him, Saja had acted with much less flourish, style and honour, but with considerably more effect. As the big man had come to his senses on the floor, on top of two fallen pirates, but surrounded by many more still standing, he had brandished his weapon, elbowed a little room and then taken as strong a swing as he could.
Despite the lack of space, Saja was a powerful man, huge muscles rippling under his dark and decorated skin, and the golden bangles jangled as he scythed out with his own curved blade, cutting easily through calves, shins, knees and hamstrings. The effect was horrifying. Blood pumped from a dozen wounds and begun to flood the area as men collapsed in a screaming mass at this sudden and debilitating attack. And, as the pirates above him fell like a field of wheat before the scythe, Saja rose from the mass, slowly, covered in fresh blood and brandishing his evil blade while grinning like some monster from legend.
Samir stood slowly, a sword in each hand, and nodded to his companion. The attack had certainly started something. Back among the press, he could see occasional faces he recognised from the crew of the redemption, snarling and shouting among the enemy. Samir’s crew had begun to push once more.
The pirates were being pressed by a considerably smaller force, against all odds, and Samir and Saja grinned as they faced a motley collection of nervous-looking men, waiting for the tense standoff following their initial onslaught to break.
The first strike came suddenly after three heartbeats, which had felt like months, passed. The man closest to Samir lunged with the speed of a viper and Samir had to step back to parry the blow with his short imperial blade, stumbling slightly into Saja, who consequently almost fell foul of a simultaneous attack from the other side.
In the brief moment that followed before all hell broke loose, Samir took the opportunity to swap hands with the two blades, the heavy, curved sword in his right, striking hand, the smaller straight Imperial blade in the left for parrying. He barely had time to get a full grip before the force hit them.
The men around Samir and Saja came in like a tide, the ripples of a cast stone in reverse, swinging curved blades and lunging with short swords and long knives, the attack only faltering a little through lack of organisation and of room to manoeuvre.
Samir found he had no time to make an attack of his own, being forced instead to raise and shift both swords in a constant whirr of steel in order to block the various blades that thrust, swiped and cut at him. Even so, in the massive press of men, he felt three blows land in the initial flurry: one glancing blow cutting a thin sliver of flesh from his upper arm just below the shoulder, another taking a small piece from his earlobe and the third cutting deep into his outer thigh.
Another set of blows like that and he’d be down! He was damned lucky none of those three had been debilitating, as they easily could have. Behind him, Saja yelped as a blow bit home somewhere on his powerful physique.
And then there was chaos. After the initial surprise and the standoff, then the tentative lunges, the full-blown assault by the enemy that surrounded them had given the men all the incentive they needed and Samir and Saja found themselves beleaguered and fighting desperately for their lives, parrying blow after blow and managing only rarely to get in a thrust or swing of their own as opportunity allowed.
Again and again Samir felt the shock of swords hitting his desperately-raised blade and sliding with a jarring, grating feel down the blade. More blows connected, drawing blood and leaving fine lines or small wounds on his flesh. Samir was a good swordsman; maybe as good as Saja, even, but no man could hope to hold his own for long in a pressing circle of dozens of bloodthirsty, screaming enemies.
This was it. No regrets, of course. What they did, leaping in among the enemy, had been the spur the men of the Redemption had needed and had changed the whole direction of the battle. Ghassan and Culin had better take
