Mall’s hand on my shoulder fetched me up, crouching with the others behind the rail. Still lost in myself, I hardly noticed the heavy mist-strands entwining with the smoke, the spreading grey in the sky above the rail. High sails, shot-torn and smouldering, swelled up against it, and below them a blacker bulk that seemed to swing towards us with frightening, inexorable speed. On its high stern transom tall lanterns grinned, for they were carved in the shape of huge fantastical skulls, utterly unhuman – carved, or real? And as the black flanks towered above us I saw the huge smoking snouts of the cannon thrust out, and begin to tilt downward. From our own deck a wild chorus of yells arose and from the shadow above a fearful guttural howling – Wolves right enough. It would have scared anybody; it terrified me. But I knew what I was doing now, and it was horribly simple.
‘It’s all I’ve got left!’ I yelled to Mall, and she seemed to understand. ‘Not much – you’re right – but I’ve got to defend it! I’ve got to fight –’
A chance to care about someone else. If I lost that …
No. Not that. Clare!
Then the flanks of the two ships came together, and all human sounds foundered in a squeal of tortured wood and a long-drawn-out grinding crash. The Defiance stood right in under the Chorazin’s tumblehome, and the swell of the merchantman’s much higher side bulged right against our rail, clattering and splintering, a looming cliff in the dawn light. Sailors sprang up, swinging many-toothed iron hooks on long lines, and flung them out to catch through rail and gunport, grappling us to the looming cliff above.
‘Come, then!’ yelled Mall, and sprang up onto the rail. Then memory, remorse, everything dissolved in the thunder that shook the universe.
The Wolves had fired at point-blank range – but they’d left it too late. A blazing demonic breath seared the air, but the twenty-five pound shot that might have shattered our vulnerable hull screamed over our heads, terrifyingly close, and ploughed only through rigging and sails, without harm. Except one. The immense pine mainmast leaped in its socket and writhed like a live animal maimed, flinging at least one mastheader away and out in a great arc, past any help. Then with a long tearing sound, punctuated by sharp popping cracks, it tilted slowly over. In a tangle of torn rigging it crashed in among the Chorazin’s masts and was held there, swaying uneasily, as trees in a close forest support their falling companions.
It was an appalling moment. But in the clearing smoke I saw the rail empty – and Mall, her long hair smouldering, clinging spider-fashion to the Chorazin’s black planks, clinging and climbing. I jumped for the rail and flung myself after her, only dimly aware of the roar as the others did the same. I looked down –
The axe-spike bit into the lip of a timber and held – luckily for me. My mind wavered. I swung on the lip of chaos, feet scrabbling for a foothold like a hanged man’s, struggling to clear my mind of the depths I’d glimpsed, that had scattered my thoughts like dry leaves in a blast. A vast void of swirling, scudding vapours and beyond it a blur of rushing speed, steel-gray infinity shot with shards of bitter light. It blinked among the mist and was gone in the very second of seeing, like the blind spot of an eye …
Then my feet jammed against boltheads and lips of timber, my hand caught the edge of a gunport. With those firm holds it became an easy enough climb. I ducked as a grappling line hissed down, severed by a blow from above, then gaped as the black-haired girl forged past me, her dress hitched up over thin white thighs, her slender fingers clamping to the planks like a fly to a wall, the dark nails digging into the wood. Her hair glistened, and she looked wet, wet through as if she’d climbed straight from the sea. She didn’t spare me a look; her eyes were intent, her lips set with childish determination. Another grapple twanged loose, but others flew in its place, and from above there came a sudden shout. Wolves were leaning over the rail, striking at Mall with axe and cutlass, and one, no more than five feet above, leant out to aim some kind of musket. The muzzle of one of the huge guns still protruded beside me. I stuck a foot on that, swung myself up by the huge stay tackle and hacked out with the axe. He yelled and dropped the musket, which went off into nowhere; I yelled and leaped for the rail with my shoe-sole sizzling. That gun was hot!.
Mall was over the rail already, driving back Wolves with great roundhouse slashes to clear our way. Behind her the Stryge’s girl slithered up through a shot-torn gap; instinctively I moved to help her, then almost fell back myself as she flung herself weaponless on the first of the enemy. Though not exactly weaponless; she went straight for the shock-headed brute’s throat with those relentless fingers, yanked herself up and sank her little white teeth straight into his face. With a screech that cut through every other noise he tore himself free, stumbling and stamping and clutching frantically at his face. No wonder: it was covered with a ghastly black slime that spread and seethed and smoked like some foul acid. Another hurled him aside and slashed at her – and she spat like a cobra, full into his eyes. Back into his fellows he blundered, shrieking; with a yelp of dismay they fell back, and we were on them.
What happened in the next few minutes isn’t too clear. None of these neat duels you see in the movies, certainly. Huge figures in strange gaudy rags ranged around us like a wall, blunt grey faces snarled like storybook trolls and long dull blades hissed and clashed till it seemed the mists themselves were hitting out at me. They never hit me; no doubt I was being protected, though I wasn’t aware of it, or by whom. Desperately I dodged past them, parried and hacked out when I could, yelling god knows what at the top of my voice, and when my blows landed there was a wild exultation, the mirror-side of fear. Then suddenly there was a space open before me, and I stumbled out into it, uncomprehending, till Mall’s hand shook my arm.
‘Come, Steve, along with you! While the way’s open!’ I followed with eight or nine others, skidding in the puddles of smoking black slime spreading across the decks, jumping over the Wolves that writhed in them. Mall ran aft and in one fluid movement kicked a half-open hatchway back off its coaming and swung herself in.
‘I saw some vanish down here!’ she panted. ‘Looking to their captive, maybe?’
From up forward somewhere Jyp’s shouts rang across the deck. ‘Sic’em, Defiants! That’s the style! Not one cent for friggin’ tribute!’ It was good to know he’d got through too. There came a ghastly howl of agony, suddenly cut off, and a yelping bark, high and malevolent; I thought of Fynn. Hastily I plunged after Mall, cantered half out of control down the ladder and cannoned into her in the pitch-blackness below. The stench caught at my throat and set me coughing.
‘Hush!’ she hissed, as the others came clattering after. ‘To the walls, and flatten! They can see better than us in the dark – yet they’d need a little light – aha!’ Metal clattered and chinked, a red spark winked and swelled to a yellowish flame, and suddenly we were gaping wide-eyed at one another in a narrow corridor of rough timbers painted a dull red all over, floor and ceiling included. Mall gestured to the various doors on either side, held her lantern high and hefted her sword as seamen kicked them open. They were all nothing but storerooms, mostly half empty and incredibly messy, and she padded quickly down towards the shadowy stairs at the end, casting monstrous shadows on the walls. Overhead the deck throbbed as the fighting swept astern again, and sounds rang suddenly through the muffled furore, that horrible bark, a falling blade singing in the planking, Jyp’s voice cracking with excitement. ‘Remember the Alamo! Tippecanoe an’ Tyler too!’ Then we swept down after her into the dark.