In every battle there comes a moment when its outcome is decided and as the Gull's sailors scattered before that rush of howling, prancing warriors it had come. The Buzzard's men were beaten.
"I must find Iyasu and get him off the Gull before the flames reach the powder magazine," Hal told himself, and turned towards the break in the forecastle as his easiest access to the lower decks. At that moment a bellow stopped him dead.
The Buzzard stood on high, lit by the dancing yellow light of the flames. "Courtney!" he roared. "Is this what you are searching for?"
His head was bared and his tangled red locks tumbled about his face. In his right hand he held his claymore, and in his left he carried Iyasu. The child was screaming with terror as the Buzzard lifted him high. He wore only a thin nightshirt, which had tucked up above his waist, and his slender brown legs kicked frantically in the air.
"Is this what you are looking for?" the Buzzard bellowed again, and lifted the child high above his head. "Then come and fetch the brat."
Hal bounded forward, cutting two men out of his way, before he reached the foot of the forecastle ladder. The Buzzard watched him come. He must have known that he was beaten, with his ship in flames and his crew being cut down and hurled overboard by the rush of the pike men but he grinned like a gargoyle. "Let me show you a fine little trick, Sir Henry. It's called catch the hairn on the steel.t With a sweep of his thick hairy arm he threw the child fifteen feet straight up in the air, and then held the point of the claymore beneath him as he dropped.
"No!" Hal screamed wildly.
At the last instant before the child was impaled on the point the Buzzard flicked aside the sword and Iyasu fell back unscathed into his grasp.
"Parley!" Hal shouted. "Give me the child unharmed and you can go free, with all your booty."
"What a bargain! But my ship is burned and my booty with it."
"Listen to me," Hal pleaded. "Let the boy go free."
"How can I refuse a brother Knight?" the Buzzard asked, still spluttering with laughter. "You shall have what you ask. There! I set the little black bastard free. "With another mighty swing of his arm he hurled Iyasu far out over the ship's side. The child's shirt fluttered around his little body as he fell. Then, with only a soft splash, the dark sea swallowed him.
Behind him Hal heard Judith Nazet scream. He dropped his sword to the deck and with three running strides reached the rail and dived head first over the side. He struck the water and knifed deep, then turned for the surface.
Looking up from twenty feet deep, the water was clear as mountain air. He could see the weed-fouled bottom of the Gull drifting past him, and the reflection of the flames from the burning ship dancing on the surface ripple. Then, between him and the firelight, he saw a small dark shape. The tiny limbs were struggling like a fish in a net and silver bubbles streamed from Iyasu's mouth as he turned end over end in the wake of the hull.
Hal struck out with arms and legs and reached him before he was whirled away. Holding him to his chest he shot to the surface, and lifted the child's face clear.
Iyasu struggled feebly, coughing and choking, then he let out a thin, terrified wail. "Blow it all out of you," said Hal, and looked around.
Big Daniel must have recalled his men, then cut the grappling lines to get the Golden Bough away from the burning hull. The two ships were drifting apart. The seamen from the Gull were leaping over her sides as the heat of the flames washed over them and her main sail caught fire. The Gull began to sail with flaming canvas and no hand on her helm. She bore down slowly on where Hal trod water, and he struck out desperately with one hand, dragging Iyasu out of her path.
For a long, dreadful minute it seemed that they would be trodden under, then a fluke of the wind pushed the bows across a point and she passed less than a boat's length from them.
With amazement Hal saw that the Buzzard still stood alone on the break of the forecastle. The flames surrounded him, but he did not seem to feel their heat. His beard began to smoke and blacken, but he looked down at Hal and choked with laughter. He gasped for breath then opened his mouth to shout something to him, but at that moment the Gull's foresail sheets burned clean through and the huge spread of canvas came floating down, covering the Buzzard. From under that burning shroud Hal heard one last terrible shriek and then the flames leapt high, and the stricken Gull bore away her master on the wind.
Hal watched him go until the swells of the ocean intervened and he lost sight of the burning ship. Then a freak wave lifted him and the child high. The Gull was a league off, and at that instant the flames must have reached her powder magazine for she blew up with a devastating roar, and Hal felt the waters constrict his chest as the force of the explosion was transmitted through them. He watched still as burning timbers were hurled high into the night sky then fell to quench in the dark waters. Darkness and silence descended again.
There was neither sight nor sign of the Golden Bough in the night.
The child was weeping piteously, and Hal had no word of Geez to comfort him, so he held his head clear and spoke to him in English. "There's a good strong lad. You have to be brave, for you are born an Emperor, and I know for certain that an Emperor never cries." But Hal's boots and sodden clothing were drawing him down, and he had to swim hard to resist. He kept the two of them afloat for the rest of that long night, but in the dawn he knew that he was near the end of his strength and the child was shivering and whimpering softly in his arms. "Not long now, Iyasu, and it will be bright day," he croaked through his salt-scalded throat, but he knew that neither of them could last that long.