‘Get on it then,’ Hawl answered, and Cartheron shook his head again. Too many damned captains. He hurried to the stern, to old Brendan at the tiller. Crossing the deck, he took in the sails, their deep bellies, the angle of the vessel, and the surge of the waves, and nodded to himself. ‘A touch easy…’ he murmured to the sailing master.
Brendan offered a wink. ‘Nothing’s chasing us yet.’
Cartheron quirked a smile. ‘True enough, old-timer. True enough.’
The Twisted held north. Again Cartheron wondered what was happening back in Malaz; how Lady Sureth – Surly – was doing practically unguarded.
When she announced she wouldn’t be accompanying them on board the Twisted, there’d been a near mutiny. They all shouted at once that they simply wouldn’t go without her. Finally, after much mutual silent glaring, she allowed that perhaps Urko could remain to guard her. But that hadn’t been enough for Cartheron. He’d also left Shrift, Amiss and Tocaras. Grinner wanted to stay as well, declaring that he’d dedicated his sword to Lady Sureth’s service and his place was by her side.
He couldn’t understand why Surly had refused to come. Yet that wasn’t entirely true; he knew she was up to something. Some scheme. Geffen would no doubt try something in their absence – perhaps she planned to pick off some of his hired toughs. He wouldn’t put anything like that past her. After all, she’d come within a hair’s breadth of the throne of Nap. She certainly wasn’t going to let some second-rate criminal stand in her way.
Now he could make out the smoke to the north drifting across the waters – and quite a lot if it too. He hoped the Malazans weren’t burning down the entire city.
They rounded a rocky headland that guarded the mouth of the bay and he simply stared, completely dumbfounded by what confronted them. A full-blown naval engagement completely clogged the waters. Ships danced about each other. Some foundered, locked together in combat. Some lay half over, men clinging to their hulls; a few coasted helplessly, engulfed in raging flames.
Even as he watched, a salvo of flaming projectiles came arching from the Cawn harbour defences to slam into the jammed bay. Shattered wood flew skyward where a few hit targets, both Malazan and Napan, the Cawnese not being too particular at this point.
In the instant it took Cartheron to take in the engagement he grasped how Tarel’s fleet was seeking to drive the Malazans into the Cawnese defences, while the Malazans had turned upon their ambushers and were trying to outfight them ship to ship.
Without pausing in his scanning of the battle he yelled to Brendan, though the man stood right next to him, ‘Break off!’ The sailing master threw over the tiller and the Twisted yawed mightily. Even as they turned, another of the clashing vessels burst into flames.
‘Blue sails!’ Torbal yelled from high on the mains, unnecessarily, for more than half the vessels choking the bay carried them – the full Napan fleet must be present.
As an ex-flank admiral in that very fleet, Cartheron stared, utterly fascinated, yet appalled by the carnage – the two largest privateer navies of the southern seas locked in a death-embrace. Who would emerge the victor? Part of him cheered his old command, yet he also could not help but damn the bastard Tarel’s efforts to abject failure.
And standing there at the stern in full view for that unthinking moment was his undoing. It happened even as realization dawned; the Twisted’s arc brought it sweeping past the rearmost of the Napan fleet – an aged galleass he knew as the Just Cause. He also knew its captain quite well, Regen Leath the Fat.
And standing there at the railing of the Just Cause, staring back at Cartheron, stood Regen in his generous flesh. Across the waters mutual recognition lit both their eyes, and the man’s mouth opened in a great exaggerated O, followed by the bellow, too distant to be heard: ‘YOU!’
Only now – too late, by far too late – did Cartheron duck down from sight. Shit! Shit, shit! Dammit to Hood! He turned to Brendan. ‘We have to turn back.’
The man gaped at him as if he were a lunatic. ‘Turn back, sir?’
‘We need to take that galleass!’
Dujek was within earshot and he slid along the railing to close with Cartheron. ‘What’s this, captain? Turn round?’
‘We have to take that galleass.’
The officer Jack, who was always alongside Dujek, saluted. ‘With respect, sir. If we engage that vessel its sister-ships will swing round and we’ll be overrun. We’d never escape. Also, that’s a troop carrier. There must be over two hundred soldiers on board.’
‘He’s got a tactical point,’ said Dujek.
Cartheron pressed a fist to his forehead. ‘Dammit! Fine! Full sails southerly.’
‘Prudent,’ Brendan put in, laconically. ‘’Cause it’s pursuing.’
‘What?’ Cartheron almost jumped up to look but caught himself in time. Still, did it really matter now? He stayed crouched anyway, bracing himself at the stern railing. ‘We can outrun a damned over-burdened galleass,’ he growled.
Brendan said nothing, while Choss, who also was crouched at the stern, blew out a breath. ‘Oh, come now!’ Cartheron chided them. ‘It’s not like we’re some damned Cawnese trader scow.’
‘Well,’ Choss allowed, ‘we’re not Cawnese…’
Cartheron waved him off impatiently. He turned to Brendan. ‘Get us out of here.’
The old sailing master grinned and bellowed, ‘Raise all jibs!’
Cartheron winced at this order, but didn’t countermand it; so far he’d avoided the jibs as he wasn’t completely confident of the ancient original bowsprit and booms. Hunched, he crossed to the starboard rail and peered over. The galleass was breaking off to give chase.
And he knew they simply could not allow themselves to be caught. That was certain. An old galleass, he thought to himself. At least they stood a chance. She couldn’t throw up any more canvas than they. But Mael’s breath, they were slow. So slow. And two old buntlines had snapped under the strain just getting here … He returned to Brendan, said, ‘Now someone’s chasing us.’
The old sailing master laughed, revealing half-empty gums. ‘Yes indeed. But it’s a stern chase and we got us a good lead.’ His smile fell away. ‘That is, if everything holds.’
Cartheron stroked his chin, almost wincing. ‘Bless Mael. Provided.’
Brendan pushed them far closer into the wind than Cartheron would have ever dared. He cleared his throat, almost ready to object, but swallowed the comment, reflecting, Dammit, the man’s the sailing master and I put him there – so I should just put up and shut up.
He glanced back to the galleass, its huge square mains straining; they were putting open sea between them. If everything on this bucket would just hold.
* * *
Black choking smoke of burning tar, wood and oil half-obscured the bay. Ships seemed to emerge right before Tattersail’s eyes and it was all she could do to deflect countless attempted rammings and grapplings. Another Napan galley coursed too close to the Insufferable and she seized the Ruse mage in her Thyr powers, gasping, ‘Strafe those oarsmen!’
The detachment of archers with her released as one in a sweep of the boards; the galley fell behind, chaos on her decks.
‘Port!’ came a yell from the lookout and she turned away to that side; sailors called amid the floating wreckage and pools of burning oil, but there was no time. The tall bronze-capped ram of an archaic trireme came darting like a loosed shaft out of the smoke and manoeuvring vessels of battle.
Reaching out with her Warren she threw all restraint aside and raked the entire deck with a storm of flames. The vessel lurched as every oarsman now writhed, oars forgotten, to leap howling into the waves.