M’Dahz. If he just wanted to protect the port itself, he’d have bought second hand ships off one of the other satraps.”
Sater was nodding to himself as he listened. Ghassan rattled on.
“Sir, Ma’ahd is almost unstoppably greedy, conniving and treacherous. He is by now aware that M’Dahz is hardly the prize he expected and is probably already deciding which tower of Calphoris would look best with his banner hanging from it.”
Sater frowned. “I understand what you’re saying, lad, but why then send just one vessel into our waters? It’s not a tactically sound move.”
Ghassan fell silent. He honestly didn’t have an answer to that, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the closing black sail meant grave danger. The quiet was broken by the captain; Ghassan hadn’t even been aware that the man had joined them.
“It’s quite simple when you think about it. If the boy’s right and Ma’ahd is building a fleet with the intent of conquest, then he can’t make a play for somewhere as important as Calphoris without his God-King’s backing. If he’s unpopular, then he needs an excuse; a reason for invasion to take to his God-King.”
Sater shook his head in amazement.
“He’s expecting us to attack them. They’ll fight us off and then run away. Then we’ll have initiated combat and he’ll have his excuse. Then we must sail on by. We can’t attack them, sir.”
The captain’s face was a mask of doubt and Ghassan realised he had reached a crucial moment.
“With respect, sir, all that may well be true, but I know how Ma’ahd works. If you don’t attack him, they’ll have the advantage on you and we’ll never leave here to tell the tale. He won’t want word of their presence leaking out, or his plan falls through.”
Both Sater and the captain were nodding now. The marine officer narrowed his eyes.
“Permission to have my lads stand to and load the artillery, captain?”
The captain frowned for a moment and then nodded.
“Very well. We can’t stand down or they may just sink us without a fight. And we certainly can’t let them get away if we do fight. So, quite simply we have to win, and we have to sink them.”
He turned to the others around him.
“Have the men stand to and everything made ready, but do it carefully, subtly and quietly. Don’t let them know we’re preparing.”
Ghassan felt the grip on his arms disappear.
“You,” the captain said, pointing at him. “You have an uncanny insight into this. Get aloft in the rigging and keep your eyes open.”
Ghassan saluted and, as he ran off, he heard the captain ordering someone else to the rudder. Things were looking up.
As he ran past the midship fortification, he saw the artillery master loading the giant crossbows and the catapult and, most impressive of all, rolling the massive inflammable ball of wadding onto the firing mechanism while a man stood to with a lit taper.
He scrambled with a recently-practiced expertise up the rigging to the spar at the top where the current lookout, an older boy nearing active service age, nodded a greeting.
“What’s up?”
Ghassan pointed at the ever-nearing ship.
“Seen anything odd yet?”
“Not really” the other boy shrugged.
“Where are the marines then?” Ghassan asked with a grin. “That’s a military vessel about to meet a potential enemy in open sea. The marines should be on deck.”
As the lookout blinked in surprise and nodded, Ghassan’s smile widened.
“We’ve got them by the balls!”
Without offering any further explanation and leaving the lookout with a blank expression, Ghassan jumped down from the spar and slid down the ropes as fast as he could go. Dropping the last ten feet to the deck, he went into a roll and came up running until he reached the artillery master with his crew among the wooden battlements amidships.
“Sir?”
The officer turned and frowned at the grinning boy.
“What?”
“We can end this in minutes, sir.”
He noted the doubt on the man’s face and pointed back at the Pelasian ship.
“No sign of their marines, sir, but a ship like that should be ready with them on the deck. That means they’re hiding ready to board, sir, and they can’t be below deck, ‘cause they wouldn’t have time. That means they have to be crouched down among the upper deck oar seats along the edge.”
The artilleryman frowned.
“You sure about this? If you’re wrong, we could be in real trouble.”
Ghassan grinned.
“I’m not wrong. Aim the catapults and the fire-thrower along the gunwales and we’ll take out most of their marines in two shots. After that she should be easy, sir.”
The officer frowned for a moment and then nodded.
“You’d better be bloody right, lad.”
Ghassan, his grin still wide, saluted and, tuning, ran to climb the rigging once more. He was right. He knew, beyond certainty, that he was right. He also knew that the captain was watching him with interest, and that any minute now, and because of him, they would sink the first ship satrap Ma’ahd had sent to the east.
First blood, Ma’ahd. This one was for his mother and all of those who died on the walls of M’Dahz that terrible day.
In which five years have passed
Asima sat back against the red velvet cushion and examined her nails critically. No matter how much time she spent on them they never quite seemed to look right. Tetchily, she reached around for the goblet of rich, sweet palm wine and took a less than ladylike gulp.
She also noted with a strange mix of irritation and nostalgia the slightly crooked angle of the index finger on her left hand as she buffed. A smile crept across her face as she remembered that time three years ago when she had been among the girls taken to the great temple for the choosing. She had, and this had really surprised her, been entirely unaware of the conspiracy of hatred that had grown among the other girls during those two years of preparation. She hadn’t realised just how petty, angry, and even subtle, the others had been.
The morning before the ceremony, while the festival was in full swing outside, the girls had been allocated five hours to prepare themselves and Asima had discovered with growing impatience that everything she needed to help her get ready had been vandalised or disposed of.
The fight that had ensued had ended satisfactorily for Asima in most respects. She had managed to acquire everything she would need from the four girls she knew to be behind the worst of the activities. She had fought hard but had been clever, keeping her blows to areas that would not show and would be hard to prove. The only permanent mark she had received had been her own fault: a broken and now slightly-misaligned finger from a badly-aimed blow that she would need to keep hidden for a time. The others, however, had fought like wildcats, randomly and angrily. Their blows had been aimed for maximum discomfort instead and Asima had smiled through her painful split lip as she returned to her room.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
At the mirror, she had examined the mess the girls had made of her. Reaching down with the brush, she had been about to apply the concealing makeup over the already blackening eye, but had smiled, wiped the blood from her lip, and tended instead to her hair.
Once they were ready, the twenty six girls had been taken to the gate of the harem where the witch had
