the more vicious cutthroats of Lassos.
Another lurch and they were almost on the enemy vessel. With a few crisp commands from captain Khmun, the Empress swung out sharply to starboard and then back on line. Within a few moments they would start to come alongside the merchant, at which point Samir and his boarding party would swing over and put paid to the marines on board, clearing the way for Felix.
As the two ships closed, something occurred to Samir. They would have to manage the boarding action very carefully, as the side of the merchant vessel was considerably higher than that of the Empress. He frowned. How could that be? This was a laden and slow merchant. It should be floundering around several feet below their own deck level. And the Empress was light and riding tall.
“Shit!”
The men of his party turned to him in surprise.
“Sir?”
“Something’s wrong, Rin. I think we’re in trouble.”
Without waiting for questions, Samir ran across the deck and glanced up at the lookout.
“Can you see anything unusual?”
The lookout looked down in surprise and then quickly spun around and cast his gaze across the horizon. Samir heard the string of expletives very clearly.
“You blind ass!” he bellowed up. “How many and of what?”
By now other members of the crew had caught on to the sudden flurry of activity amidships. The lookout shook his head.
“One ship, but she’s a daram, the same as us.”
“Flag?”
The lookout squinted and shaded his eyes with his free hand.
“Can’t quite see, sir, but I think its pale green or pale blue.”
Samir was already running toward the captain at the stern before the boy had finished.
“Sir. Daram closing in behind us and the idiot boy lookout can’t tell who it is, but it’s clearly not Pelasian. Could be Calphorian or some private force. Also, the merchant’s got far too much freeboard, whereas she should be wallowing low in the water. Sir, she’s not carrying any cargo. We’re in the jaws of a trap.”
Khmun rubbed his chin for a moment.
“Any marines on board the trader?”
“Not that I’ve seen sir. I think it was just bait.”
The captain nodded.
“Then Felix can board her. We’ll set her crew adrift and fire the vessel. If we can get her ablaze we might be able to use her against the other daram. In the meantime, though we’ll have to fight them off and make sure they don’t board us. Think you can do it, Samir?”
Samir laughed.
“Soldiers don’t know how to fight dirty, captain. We’ll keep them quite busy until you’re ready for whatever you want to do.”
The captain clasped hands with him for a moment, and then turned his attention to shouting commands among the crew. On the way back to his men, he passed the second boarding party and Felix grasped his elbow as he passed.
“I’m overmanned for the job, Samir. If there’s no marines on there, I only need a dozen men. You take the rest with you; you’ll need ‘em.”
Samir considered arguing for a moment, but Felix was right. He beckoned to half the men in the group and they followed him back along the ship to where Samir’s party stood waiting.
The heavy military daram was bearing down on them with speed and purpose. Any minute now they would be in trouble unless Samir and his men could keep them occupied and the captain came up with one of the clever manoeuvres for which he was famed. Samir turned to his men.
“We’re going to have to board them to give the captain time to do what he needs to. If we just try to stop them getting aboard us, we’ll end up fighting among our own oarsmen. So as soon as the damn ship gets close enough I want everyone over there. Once we’re across gather into groups and we can start doing some damage. Three groups. One by the main sail amidships, one making their way toward the rear where the officers are and the third in between. Alright?”
There were shouts of agreement and Samir turned back to examine the ship bearing down on them. Certainly Calphorian. What the hell were they doing so far to the west?
In which a rift forms
Ghassan leaned against the rail and watched the pirate ship intently. The captain was good. The moment the lookout had spotted the Wind of God, the men on board the ship had reformed very quickly. Rather than panic and try to run, which would have been disastrous for them, since the militia vessel was running at maximum pace, while the pirates had slowed to deal with the merchant as they pulled alongside, the captain of the Dark Empress had continued what he was doing but reorganised his men.
“Captain? He’s only sending a few men on board the decoy. He’s formed the rest up to stop us.”
The captain nodded sagely. He had come to rely quite heavily on the sharp mind and eyes of Ghassan and within a year of reaching full service age, the young recruit had already been promoted to a junior officer position.
“Suggestions?”
Ghassan shrugged.
“We still outnumber them, sir, and this Khmun seems to be a clever and honourable man. I don’t think he’ll make it a fight to the death. We just need to prove to him that we are not willing to back down and he’ll do so to save his crew.”
The captain continued to nod.
The militia warship closed with impressive speed on the pirates. Ghassan twitched as he gripped the hilt of the blade he carried ready. He would lead the second boarding party, having considerably less experience than lieutenant Shufi. The Empress came ever closer and, with a nod, Ghassan had one of his men ready the grapples.
As the gap between the two vessels rapidly narrowed, Ghassan realised flames could be seen beyond, on board the merchant ship.
“The bastards have fired her. I hope Khmun let the crew go first or I’ll skewer him myself.”
There were nods of agreement among his men.
He counted down under his breath the seconds until the pirate ship, with its complement of mismatched criminals lining the rail, reached the point where grapples could be thrown.
“Four… three… two…”
He blinked in surprise as the first rope from the pirate ship crossed the gap and the heavy iron grapple fell among his men.
“What?” he bellowed in disbelief as he and his men were forced to drop their own grapples and duck out of the way of the iron missiles that shot over from the pirate ship, scraping across the deck and anchoring themselves among the rowing seats and on the rail.
“They’re boarding us? Are they insane?”
There were cries from the men on board the Dark Empress and the militia vessel lurched as twenty strong, bulky pirates hauled on the ropes and dragged the two ships together. Several of Ghassan’s unit lost their footing as the two vessels met with an almighty crash. This Khmun was supposed to be unpredictable and clever, but this was plain crazy.
And with no further pause, the world exploded into a chaos of noise, movement and violence. Without an order being given, the pirates hurled themselves across to the militia ship, taking advantage of the surprise and the fact that the soldiers were temporarily off balance.
