Corsair

The Shou looked startled, but he began to strike his drum more swiftly. In the rowers’ benches, the rest of the crew could not easily see where Moonshark was headed; they sat with their backs to the bow, and the covered bench galleries were low along the sides of the ship anyway. But the crewmen looked at each other, and many tried to catch glimpses forward between oarbeats. “Are you sure of your speed, Captain?” Murkelmor called from his place between the rowing benches. “It’s no’ so big a harbor!”

“Maintain your beat!” Geran called back. “We’re going to ram!”

“Ram?” Murkelmor asked incredulously. “Who’s there to ram?” The dwarf started to climb up to the main deck to look for himself.

Ram? Hamil repeated. He looked up at Geran. Have you lost your mind?

“There’s a Hulburgan warship dead ahead of us, and she’s got one of our galleys pinned to the pier,” Geran answered. “We’re going to make sure she can’t pursue us when we leave! Now back to your places!”

A bold ploy, Hamil said. He winced, steadying himself by the rail.

Geran watched the distance narrow. At the last instant he shouted, “Raise oars! Bring ’em in and brace for impact!”

Carried forward by momentum, Moonshark buried her iron-sheathed beak in the side of the outboard Black Moon galley-Daring, if Geran read her name right in the uncertain light-with an awful sound. Timbers groaned and snapped like thunderbolts, the horrible sound echoing across the harbor. Daring was driven into Seawof beside her, which in turn plowed into the wharf with enough force to upend the pilings and send the planks making up the boardwalk hurling through the air like matchsticks. Men screamed in terror or shouted in dismay. Aboard Moonshark, the hands at the rowing benches hurtled forward at the impact, and every loose item on the deck-barrels of sand and water, coils of rope, blocks and tackle-flew forward. One of the top yardarms aloft broke free and landed in the wreck of Daring.

Geran rebounded off the ship’s wheel and found himself lying on the deck near the ladder to the main deck, tangled up with Hamil. The halfling groaned. “That is something I never want to do again,” he muttered. “Ramming, indeed! That was the best you could come up with?”

“Once the notion struck me, I didn’t want to examine it too closely,” Geran answered. He staggered to his feet. Daring was already beginning to settle, her side stove in by the impact. He couldn’t make out anything of Seawolf on the other side, since so much of Daring’s rigging and the wreckage of the pier covered her decks. “Back to your benches!” he shouted at the crew. “We’ve got to back out now, or the wreck will take us down with her!”

The crewmen started to untangle themselves from their seatmates and the benches around them, more than a few with groans of pain or muttered oaths. Murkelmor climbed to his feet and weaved forward uncertainly, taking in the damage to Moonshark. From the wreckage of Daring rose cries for help, the screams of the wounded, and more than a few streams of profanity. Suddenly the dwarf whirled back to face the quarterdeck, outraged. “You damned fool!” he shouted at Geran. “That’s no Hulburgan! That’s Daring you’ve killed, one of ours!”

“I can see that!” Geran answered. “Now get the crewmen to their benches, or we’re going to sink with her!”

Skamang picked himself up from the oar benches and looked for himself. “You bloody traitor!” the Northman snarled. “You did that deliberately!”

“And I’ll answer for it, but we’re going to sink too if we don’t back out! Now get to your benches before Daring takes us down!”

The deckhands looked from Geran to Skamang and Murkelmor. Fury darkened the dwarf’s face, but he abruptly wheeled and began to shove men into their places. “Reverse your benches!” Murkelmor shouted at the crew. The men stood, turned in place, and sat down again to seize the oars that would have been behind them in normal rowing. Skamang glared at Geran, but he joined the rest. All too often a ramming ship went down with its victim, and Moonshark’s crewmen understood that they were at risk of joining Daring on the bottom if they didn’t act swiftly. But angry glares were fixed on Geran and Hamil as the crew seized their oars.

“Oars in the water!” Geran ordered. “Tao Zhe, standard beat! Pull us out!”

Moonshark lay tangled with her victim for a long moment, her oars groping for purchase in the waters of the harbor. Then, with the groaning and popping of tortured wood, she pulled herself free from the wreck and backed off. Scores of Daring and Seawolfhands clung to their battered ships or the ruined wharf or shouted angrily from the street just beyond.

“What’s our damage, Murkelmor?” Hamil shouted.

Murkelmor shot Hamil a resentful look, but he hurried forward and peered over the bow. Then he ducked into the forecastle. While he was below, Geran continued to let Moonshark back slowly, and put the wheel over to swing her bow toward Kraken Queen.

Trying for the big one next? Hamil asked. The crew won’t stand for it, Geran!

“Kraken Queen’s the one I really want,” Geran answered under his breath. He just couldn’t imagine how to convince the crew to ram another ship. “Avast rowing! Reverse your benches again!” he called to the crew. “We’re going ahead now.”

“Where, Aram?” Skamang demanded from his seat. “Where are we going?”

“I’m bringing us about,” Geran replied. “Now sit down and row!”

With grumbling and a few suspicious looks, the crewmen switched positions again. Geran fixed his eye on the Black Moon flagship, only a few hundred yards away and still moored at the pier. He could see pirates hurrying to man the ship and spotted a flurry of activity by her quarterdeck. There was a muffled thump from the pirate ship, followed three heartbeats later by a shrill whistling in the air.

“Darts!” Hamil cried. “Cover!” He threw himself against the gunwale, crouching under its cover. Geran ducked down behind the helm. An instant later, a dozen short iron javelins sleeted across the deck. Most clattered on empty space or stuck quivering in gunwales or masts, but a few fell among the crew packed on their rowing benches, wounding several men. Screams of pain and howls of dismay rang across the deck. One dart hissed over Geran’s shoulder and took a deep gouge out of the ship’s sternrail. Then a catapult on Kraken Queen’s foredeck snapped against its frame, and a ball of flaming pitch streaked across the smoke- filled sky to splash into the water a little short of Moonshark’s bow.

“Kraken Queen’s firing on us!” shouted one of the crewmen.

Geran grimaced. Moonshark had no shipboard artillery. Very few ships in the Moonsea-warship, pirate, or otherwise-did. Their only attack was to ram or grapple their foes. “Oars in the water! Give me some steerageway, or she’ll rake us again! Tao Zhe, full speed!”

Moonshark started to glide forward as Tao Zhe struck the beat and the crew found their stroke again. Now she was moving forward, her prow toward Kraken Queen. Another flight of darts hissed through the air, most of them overshooting this time. Then Murkelmor climbed back up to the deck. “We’ve sprung seams by the stem!” he called. “Some oakum ought to hold her for now, but she’ll need repair soon.”

“Understood,” Geran replied. “Get your carpenters to work on stuffing the leaks.”

Murkelmor called out several of his men from their places and sent them hurrying into the forecastle. He glowered at the iron darts littering the deck, the wounded men in the benches, then ducked as flaming pitch sailed over the midships deck to explode in the water on the far side of the ship. The dwarf swore and turned to yank Tao Zhe’s baton out of his hand. “Avast rowing!” he shouted. “All of you, stop! You’ll drive us right into Kraken Queen next!”

“Stand aside, Murkelmor!” Hamil shouted. “We’re sitting ducks for the catapults if we’re not moving!”

“That’s as may be, but none of us’ll row a single beat more until the captain makes his intentions clear!” Murkelmor retorted. “Get us alongside a pier, Aram, or by Moradin’s beard we’ll take the wheel and do it ourselves!”