Furious and fuddled, the Buzzard's Bay corsairs, male and female, collectively scratched their heads. The entire midsection of the merchant ship was hidden behind that queer curtain. Granted, it was only old canvas and they could easily peg crossbow bolts and arrows through it, yet the marauders hesitated to attack victims they couldn't see.
"What on the briny deep-" On the quarterdeck, Captain Rimon cursed and wondered if Adira Strongheart had gone crazy. Yet the two ships clashed hulls with an awful racket, so the time to attack was now. Making his decision, Rimon bawled, "Never mind that bed sheet! We'll cut it to shreds in seconds! Hurl the grapnels! Hurry aboard, and fetch me Strongheart's head!"
A whisk! and whap! seemed to answer. Rimon whirled to see his helmsman shot through the chest by a long-fletched arrow. Lacking a guiding hand, the rudder instantly straightened so the ship lost way. A gap of green water churned between the vessels. Shouting for the bosun to grab the wheel, Rimon grunted with satisfaction as iron grapnels on chains soared jingling across the gap to snag Conch's wooden gunwales. Two hooks bounced off the taut curtain-sail and splashed in the water, but corsairs were quick to haul them back inboard.
Rimon bellowed, "Now heave on those lines, you bastards, and bring us alongside! A bonus to the man who cuts Adira down."
Another whicker and whap. Rimon blinked as the bosun who'd gained the wheel slowly keeled over. A black arrow jutted from his liver. Rimon screamed for the sailing master to seize the helm, but the officer balked. Rimon sputtered curses and stepped to grab the wheel, but even he quailed. To touch the wheel was to die. Rimon squinted aloft. Two archers were crammed hip to hip in Conch's crow's nest. They'd kicked a slat out of the wooden tub and hunkered inside, hiding from crossbow bolts while peeking for a chance to kill a helmsman.
Snarling, Rimon raged, "We'll steer by trimming the sails! Jump aboard, lads and lasses!"
"Whoa! What's that thing?" called a voice. Puzzled corsairs pointed overhead and were confused anew.
Something round swung on the end of a rope from below Conch's midmast. It was a barrel, a big one called a hogshead, wrapped with a cradle of rope. Cut loose at just the right moment, the hogshead swung a looping arc, curved through the air as the ship dipped, then hung, poised, not three feet below Drumfish's own crow's nest. Before it could swing back, a vision of orange and black spilled from the barrel.
Immediately Rimon thought of infernal fire, the flaming liquid so often used against castles.
But the barrel spilled a tiger.
Braced by black claws sunk inside the barrel, Jedit Ojanen leaned out with long arms and snagged Drumfish's rigging. For a few seconds, Jedit made a living bridge connecting one ship to the other. Several things happened.
The brownie Whistledove Kithkin scampered like a monkey up Jedit's great frame, hopped onto tarred rigging with a rapier in her fist, and lanced the blade through the eye of the lookout leaning from the crow's nest. Immediately after, Jasmine Boreal, less nimble but game, slithered from the barrel. Grabbing hanks of tiger fur, she scrambled hand-overhand until she caught hold in the ropeworks. Jedit Ojanen gave a roar, obviously a signal, for the line holding the barrel to Conch was chopped free. The tiger relaxed his foothold, and the barrel plummeted. It bounced off a stay, collided with the midmast, then struck the deck with a splintering crash.
Gallons of rancid fishy liquid squirted from broken staves and hoops to splash the raider crew, a longboat, sails, and ropes. A few corsairs recognized the smell and shouted.
High above, clinging to rigging by one hand, Jasmine Boreal jerked a wad of resin-soaked rags from her bodice and gabbled, "Spark of life, bringer of strife!"
As the rags erupted into crackling flames, she dropped them squarely into the shattered spilled mess below.
Whale oil ignited and flared. Flames rippled like fire sprites set free. Shouting corsairs dropped their weapons and yanked off their vests to beat the flames or else snatched buckets to scoop seawater.
Though the fire burned fiercely, the ship could spare a score of sailors to combat it. The rest of the raiders, incensed by this daring and clever attack, rallied to kill the Conch and its quarrelsome crew. Grapnels and chains were sheeted home, so the two ships chafed and thumped like butting whales. Roaring to spur their courage, and ignoring the queer curtain amidships, a score of corsairs leaped the churning gap onto Conch's gunwales and ratlines. Several even took advantage of the taut curtain and flopped against it as a cushion.
Those clever killers died instantly.
Waiting just behind the upraised curtain were Adira, Virgil, Peregrine, Murdoch, and Simone the Siren. The misplaced sail obscured their view of Drumfish, but they clearly saw silhouettes of boarding corsairs etched against canvas by-setting sun behind. Hollering like fiends, Adira's crew shoved boarding pikes into bellies and groins right through the canvas. Drumfishers died as their blood stained the yellow curtain.
Nor was that the only attack. At either end of the taut sheet were poised Adira and Simone, the ablest fighters. Each gripped a cutlass and dagger, and as corsairs thumped on the sides or slithered around the canvas, they stabbed and chopped at heads, hands, and feet. Adira cursed and shouted as she swung wildly with both blades, and she prayed her delaying tactics would work. Dozens of corsairs could easily evade her weird curtain and bloodthirsty crew by swarming aboard at the ship's stem and bow, but Conch's crew would have to deal with those raiders, for even Adira Strongheart couldn't do everything.
High in the sky, Jedit, Whistledove, and Jasmine had carried the assault back aboard Drumfish. Her lookout in the crow's nest died as he peered over the wooden side, for Whistledove's blade rammed into his brain. Jedit Ojanen caught the man's arm and tugged him from the crow's nest to topple to the deck. He shooed Jasmine and the brownie up into the tiny tub as sizzling crossbow bolts came soaring at them from below. The ship's midmast was still two feet thick even at this height, filling much of the tiny shelter, so the three Seveners were jammed cheek to cheek.
The tiger called, "Jasmine, time for your trick!"
"Hush! I don't perform 'tricks!' " Shooting her blue-dyed sleeves, the strawberry-blonde druid plucked an acorn from a pouch on her wide belt and mashed it against the mast with her thumb, chanting, "Soul of the tree, return unto thee!"
Drumfish shivered as if rocked by a wind gust. Jedit and Whistledove grunted as the mast's varnish curdled and cracked, flaking yellow peelings. Smooth wood grew corrugated and crazed, taking on the appearance of live bark. The brownie squeaked as a tiny branch popped out and unfurled a green leaf no bigger than her fingernail.
The ship quivered so much that Jasmine's teeth rattled. An enormous groaning and creaking sounded below. The shouting of corsairs, very loud as they fought both fire and Adira's cutthroats, became a frenzied wail. Jedit nodded as the tiny branch unfurled more leaves.
"Impressive, but if the mast is recalled to life, and sprouts leaves up here…"
"That's right." The druid was smug, almost laughing. "Down below it grows a full set of roots. Where the butt of the mast is stepped on the keel."
Whistledove's big eyes grew round. Jedit Ojanen purred as if to comfort himself. Rising, standing high above the world in the crow's nest, the tiger found no one shooting. The whale-oil fire had scorched a black circle but been knocked down, though a few errant flames crackled up tarred stays. A pitched battle raged along Conch's gunwales until blood painted wood, ropes and canvas, but now corsairs struggled to board Conch not to kill and plunder, but to save their lives.