Whaleboats spit over the rail. He was so unkempt he was disreputable even among us. "Maybe there'll be women," he mused. "Been a long time since we took one with women."
"Save one for the Virgin." I chuckled. That was the Kid's other name. It got used mostly when somebody was baiting him.
Whaleboats laughed too. "But of course. First honors, even." Then his face darkened. "One of these days we're going to catch another wizard."
They had tried it before.
It was our one great fear. Battles we could win when they were man against man and blade against blade. We were the meanest fighters on the western ocean. We had proven it a hundred times. But against sorcery we had no protection save the grace of the gods.
"Itaskia. We've hurt them most. They'll send out a bait ship with a first-rate witch-man aboard. Then what good our luck?"
"We managed before."
"But never again. I might take Student up on it." He did not say what.
The pirates of the Red Isles had tried it. It had been a close thing. We had been lucky, that time, that Colgrave was too crazy to run. Barley had gotten the sorcerer an instant before he could unleash a demon that would have scattered Dragon over half the Western Ocean.
Our competitors in the islands were not fond of us at all. We showed their vessels the same mercy we gave any others.
Each man of us prayed that we would find The One before some eldritch sea-fate found us.
I could make out faces on the caravel. Time to get ready. I opened their waterproof case and carefully considered my arrows. They were the best, as was my bow. Worth a year's hire for most men. Time was, I had made their price hiring them, and myself, out for a month.
I studied, I touched, I dithered. I finally selected the grey shaft with the two red bands.
Whaleboats observed the ritual with amusement, having failed to entice anyone into a wager on which I would choose. I always took the same one in the end. It was my luckiest shaft. I had never missed with it.
Someday I would exchange arrows with the archer aboard the phantom. They said he was sure death inside three hundred yards. I did not believe he could possible be as deadly as I as long as I had the banded lady.
It would be interesting, if dangerous, meeting him.
The caravel was trying to trim her canvas. One of the cutlass men guffawed and shouted, "Fart in them! That'll give you all the wind you need."
I wondered what it was like to look over the taffrail and see certain death bearing down. And know there was not a thing you could do but wait for it.
IV
The caravel ran straight away, under full canvas. But the gap narrowed steadily. I could make out details of weapons and armor. "They've got soldiers aboard!"
"Uhm. A lot of them." That was Tor, who had the sharpest eyes on Vengeful D. He had known for some time, then.
I turned. The Old Man had clambered up to the poop, stood there looking like some dandified refugee from Hell.
" 'Bout close enough for you to do your stuff," said the boatswain, tapping my shoulder.
"Yeah?" It was a long, long shot. Difficult even with the banded arrow. Pitch, roll, yaw. Two ships. And the breeze playing what devil's games in between? I took my bow from its case.
It was worth a year's pay to most men. A magnificent instrument of death. It had been designed solely for the killing of men and custom-crafted to my hands and muscles. I ran my fingertips lightly over its length. For a long time the weapon had been my only love.
I had had a woman once, but she had lost out to the bow.
I bent it, strung it, took out the banded arrow.
They were making it difficult over there, holding up shields to protect their helmsman. They had recognized us.
The banded lady never missed. This time was no exception. At the perfect instant she lightninged through a momentary gap between shields.
The caravel heeled over as she went out of control. She slowed as her sails spilled wind. Panic swept her poop. We raced in.
Colgrave bellowed subtle course changes at our own helmsman. Our sails came in as we swept up.
One by one, I sped my next eleven shafts. Only two failed finding their mark. One was the treacherous blue and white I had threatened to break and burn, it seemed, a thousand times.
The Old Man brought our bows alongside their stern with a touch so deft the hulls barely kissed, as Barley, Priest, and their party leapt over. The shambles I had made of the other poop left no contest. We controlled her immediately.
Sails cracked and groaned as both vessels took them in. Our bows crept past the Freylander's waist.
Whaleboats threw his grapnel. I helped heave on the line.
Screaming, our men poured over the maindeck rail to assault the mob awaiting them. They were regular soldiers, Freylander troops tempered in a hundred skirmishes with Trolledyngjan raiders. Once Whaleboats made fast, I resumed plying my bow, using scavenged Freylander arrows.
Crude things, they were unfit to caress a weapon like mine. No wonder they had not harmed any of us.
I dropped a score into the melee, probing for officers and sergeants, then took out a bothersome pair of snipers in the caravel's rigging. They had been plinking at the Old Man, who stood like a gnarled tree defying a storm, laughing as arrows streaked around him.
He would be some match for the dead captain of the phantom.
The caravel's poop was clear. Barley and Priest were holding the ladders against counterattacks from below. The men with them threw things at the crowd on the maindeck. I decided to recover my arrows before some idiot trampled them, went aft.
The uproar was overwhelming.
Shouts. Clanging weapons. Shrieks of pain. Officers and sergeants thundering contradictory orders. The sides of the vessels ground together as the seas rolled on beneath them. And the Old Man still laughed crazily on the poop. He and I were the only ones who remained aboard.
He nodded. "As always, well done."
I gave him an it was nothing shrug. When the sterncastles rolled together, I jumped across.
My feet came down in a pool of blood, skidded away. Down I went, my head bounding off the rail.
Colgrave laughed again.
It was nearly over by the time I came around. A handful of soldiers were defending a hatchway forward. Most of our men were pitching corpses overboard. They were eying that hatchway hungrily. Feminine wailing came from behind it. Priest and Barley were getting ready for the final rush.
I staggered up, planning to help with a few well placed arrows.
Damn! My head! And the Freylander seemed to be rolling badly.
It was not my imagination. The squall was closer. It would arrive in a few hours.
That was time enough for recreation. And to find the grog.
V
It had been another of those good battles. I sipped from a quart tankard I had found in the Freylander captain's cabin. No serious injuries for our boys. Lots of cuts and scratches, a bashed head here and a broken finger there. Nothing permanent. The gods must, as Colgrave claimed, have favored our mission. They seldom allowed any of us to come to harm.
The men were having a grand time down on the maindeck. Twelve women. A genuine princess and her ladies-in-waiting. What Whaleboats called a jackpot ship. The Virgin, I saw, was not anymore. He abandoned his conquest, scrambled into the Freylander's rigging, began dancing on a yardarm. He was naked from the waist down.
His sureness in the tops, his fearlessness, was his great talent. He showed it off too much.
Whaleboats, a priceless keg of Daimiellian brandy under one arm, a woman's satin bolster under the other, joined me on the poop. "Another master stroke." He nodded toward Colgrave, who still stalked Dragon's poop, muttering, cursing the luck that kept him from finding The One.
Student joined us, glancing at Whaleboats questioningly. Whaleboats shrugged.
Student had found himself some new books. "Squall's moving in," he observed. The water had become a bluish grey showing freckles and stripes of white. The seas were running closer together.