She stood panting and saw the archers, who had been cheering her before, now eyeing her with something like dread. She pointed their gazes to the bay. Awful, yes, but this was battle – this was where she could exult in her powers, and tested them to their depths.
She raised her Warren as a gyring storm about her and whipped aside yet another effort to rake the Insufferable’s deck, sending the salvos of crossbow bolts wide into the littered waters of the bay. She then picked her way across the wreckage of a fallen mizzen lower yard, its rigging and canvas a tangled heap, to climb to the sterncastle where Mock and his flagmen were furiously sending orders ship to ship.
‘Have the Fancy and the Hound heave off,’ Mock was telling a flagger. ‘They’re bunching up.’ He stood with his legs wide, hands tucked into his belt at his back. Now that battle had been engaged he had somehow come back into his own. Gone was the unsteadiness and world-weariness – the man was now grinning behind his moustache, calm, almost eerily cheery.
‘We’re clear!’ she called to him. ‘We should disengage!’
She was certain he must have heard but he did not answer. Instead, he turned to the mid-decks, shouting, ‘Take another run at the Sapphire, would you, Marsh? She’s lining up rather obligingly ahead.’
‘Aye, aye,’ the mate answered.
The Sapphire, Tarel’s flagship. They’d been taking runs at each other all through the engagement, with no decisive blow landed as yet.
She was angry, yet couldn’t help reflecting that this was the man who two years ago had charmed her all through that first long raiding run eastward round the coast, when they’d sat down with greased Wickan traders to unload their massive takings.
‘We should disengage!’ she repeated, pressing.
He offered a wink. ‘One more run, dearest…’
She shook his arm. ‘No! We’ve lost the Intolerant, and the Intemperate is dead in the water. We’re all that’s left to guard the retreat.’ The admiral frowned. She wondered whether, fixated as he’d been upon destroying Napan vessels, he hadn’t been aware of these setbacks. She made a last appeal. ‘Think of what’s left of the fleet.’
He nodded then, smoothing a hand down his moustaches. ‘Good for you, Sail. Yes, very well.’ He turned to amidships, calling, ‘Marsh! Raise the retreat! We’re disengaging.’
Marsh halted in mid-step, blinking his confusion; then he shrugged, and, raising his chin to the highest tops’l, yelled, ‘Raise the retreat!’
‘Aye, aye,’ came a faint and distant answer.
Mock took Tattersail’s shoulders, facing her close. ‘Can you drag the Intemperate along behind us?’
She could not help but glance to the huge flaming conflagration that currently was the Intemperate. ‘But it’s afire…’
‘Exactly.’
‘Ah. Well … I’ll try.’
He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Very good.’ He turned to the mid-decks. ‘Marsh! Did I not order to disengage? Sails! Where’s our canvas?’
‘On it, cap’n.’
Mock turned back to Tattersail. ‘Sweep a hole open with the Intemperate, won’t you, dearest?’
‘They have the best Ruse mages on the seas,’ she warned.
‘Ah, but you’re not attacking their vessels, are you?’
She could not help but shake her head at that, almost smiling. ‘You canny bastard. Very well.’ She prepared herself mentally, blocking everything out; everyone now knew not to bother speaking to her. She reached out to the Intemperate, grasping hold as best she could, and held it as the Insufferable now pulled away beneath her. The mass of the great man-o-war fought her at first, but once it swung round and started moving it almost cooperated as she sent it veering towards the nearest Napan galleon now moving to intercept. The Sapphire, for its part, had decorously arced away, signal flags waving furiously as her captain sought to reorder the Napan lines.
Once it became clear that it was under threat from a blazing bonfire the size of a small town block, the captain of the pursuing galleon broke off the attack and swung clear. All Malazan vessels currently free to manoeuvre now turned away from the engagement and raised all the sail they possessed.
Straining, gasping for breath and almost fainting with the effort as her vision darkened, Tattersail sent the Intemperate wherever she could to discourage pursuit.
Thankfully, the Ruse sea-mages present among the Napan vessels declined to raise their Warrens against her directly; it seemed they were too busy deflecting the Intemperate whenever it veered too closely to any one of their ships.
Between the Insufferable’s massed barrages and the threat of the conflagration that was the Intemperate, the surviving Malazan vessels worked to free themselves of the closing jaws of the Cawnese defences and the Napan fleet.
* * *
League after league of empty sea passed beneath the Twisted’s freshly tarred hull. Their lead on the Just Cause widened. Choss now came to Cartheron’s side. A worried frown crimped the big man’s thick brows. He cleared his throat, hesitant, saying, ‘You realize you’re leading them straight to Malaz…’
Cartheron closed his eyes, nodding. Yes, yes. ‘I’d hoped to have lost them by now.’
The soldier – an ex-Napan colonel – raised his brows. ‘Well…?’
Cartheron sighed, turned to Brendan. ‘Sou’-east.’
The sailing master eased a wary breath between clenched lips. ‘We’ll lose headway.’
Cartheron shot Choss a told-you-so look; the man answered with a shrug that said they had no choice in the matter.
South to sou’-east, Cartheron reflected. This could suggest a curving retreat for distant Kartool. Let them chew on that – if they could shake them.
The Twisted groaned and creaked about them now in far heavier swells. A crossing to Kartool was no timid strike for Malaz; deep ocean lay before them where waves could build taller than their masts.
Cartheron cast a wary eye to their stern; the Just Cause pursued, her Napan-blue sails peeping just above the white-capped crests. If they could pull ahead far enough to lose sight of her, then they could strike a more southerly course …
The explosive crack of wood yanked his gaze to the bows in time to watch the jibs collapsing in a heap of canvas and shattered wood, shrouding the bow. A scream sounded. He ran to join the marines, who were already digging through the wreckage.
They pulled Clena clear. She lay cradling her arm, panting her pain. Hawl gently examined it. ‘Broken,’ she told Cartheron.
‘What was it?’ he asked. Hawl shook her head; she didn’t know.
‘Get those sails up!’ Brendan barked from the stern.
Cartheron shot a glance to the rear. They were losing priceless headway. There was only one thing for it … He turned to Hawl.
She sensed his regard and raised her eyes to him. Her jaws worked as she slid her dark gaze to the stern. ‘If they have a sea-mage…’ she warned him.
Cartheron shared her worry. The Just Cause might have a Napan sea-mage, in which case he or she might know Hawl, or recognize her Warren-aspect.
He gave her a curt nod. ‘Do it.’
She straightened from Clena. ‘Very well. Let no one interfere. This could get messy.’ She headed for the mid-deck, pushing up her sleeves as she went.
Cartheron glanced about; Dujek and Jack were organizing the marines into teams on tackle they’d thrown up to raise the two intact jib spars.