Blade's forty men were outnumbered at least five to one by the soldiers, but the soldiers were packed close together and concentrating completely on the enemy to their front. The pirates bit them from behind, by surprise, and at a dead run, yelling like a horde of fiends and laying about them like madmen. Some of the soldiers tried to turn and bring their pikes and halberds to bear. The pirates spitted most of these before they could strike a blow. Some dropped their pole weapons and drew short swords. These lasted a little longer. Some simply dropped everything including helms and armor and ran for it or leaped into the water and swam for it. These mostly got away, because Blade and his men were too busy with the ones who stayed to fight.
Blade was keyed up to the highest pitch, and he was a terrifying sight as he lunged and slashed and hacked and yelled. Run his dagger through the hand of a man trying to bring a halberd down on him, then take the man's head off with a backswing. A swordsman coming at you? Kick him in the knee and then stab him in the neck as he goes over. Blade's sword stuck in the wood of a halberd shaft and was wrenched out of his hands. He let it go, grappled with the halberdier and snapped his neck like a carrot, then darted under a sword thrust and butted the swordsman in the belly so hard that he crashed backward against two of his fellows and all three of them went over the edge of the breakwater to be carried under by the weight of their armor.
There were shouts and yells and running feet behind him, such an uproar that it penetrated even his battlefogged brain. He turned to see Tuabir, carrying off all things a quarterstaff, charging toward the breakwater at the head of his crew. They too were yelling like fiends. Blade saw the soldiers turn toward the new attack. Then by one accord and at one instant they broke, and there was a mad scramble to shuck off armor, helms, and weapons and get into the water and safety.
Not all of them found it. The archers in the lighthouse had plenty of light and great sport. And Blade saw Cayla splashing merrily about in the water, as at home as any seal or otter, coming up behind soldiers, jerking their heads back, and smoothly cutting their throats. The water was blotched with red patches when she finally pulled herself out of the water and came up to Blade.
Her shirt was hanging in shreds about her waist, and there was a feather-thin red line across the skin of her left breast. All of the rest of the blood that dyed her trousers was from her score or more victims. She was maddening and deadly and frightening and beautiful, and Blade felt nothing strange for once in reaching out and pulling her against him.
A cough from Tuabir interrupted him. «Sister Captain, Master Blahyd. I see Esdros' men coming up across the canal bridge. I judge it were time we were thinking of gathering ourselves together and making for the open sea.»
«True,» said Cayla slowly, as if reluctant to leave before she had thought up some other way of wreaking vengeance on the Counts of Tram. «A good night's work we've had.»
«The night isn't over,» said Tuabir with a note of impatience in his voice. «And we'd best be putting what's left of it to use in getting well clear of here before the war fleet comes down on us.»
Cayla nodded sharply, and all her dreaminess left her. She began barking orders with all her normal briskness, and soon men and booty were streaming aboard all three ships. Without waiting to stow or count the booty, the men took their places at the oars, the lines were cast off, and the last sentries recalled. All three ships backed hastily out into the approaches of the canal, turned north, and fled away as fast as their battle-weary rowers could thrust them along.
Half the sky was filled with a bloody glow behind them as they pounded along. Cayla, a blanket hastily wrapped around her, stood watching it as it slowly receded behind them. Blade went up to her and said, «Captain, how do we break through to the open sea?» He swallowed. «Do we use the same-method-we used coming in?»
Cayla turned at the note in his voice and glared at him. «You dislike the Guardians of the Cult?» Blade had sense enough to shake his head. «No, Blahyd, we head straight north. Before long we will come to the coast of a wide stretch of land long in dispute between Mardha and the neighboring barbarians to the north. It is a wild land, shunned by most. But there are numbers of little creeks and river mouths. We can find fresh water and lie concealed until the count's warfleet has exhausted its rowers beating up and down in search of us. And we can divide the booty and perhaps find some entertainment.» There was a glint in her eyes as she said that last word that made Blade feel vaguely uneasy.
CHAPTER 11
A series of rainsqualls lasting through most of the morning helped them break through the first line of patrols. The only ship challenged was Thunderbolt, but with her masts down and most of her crew below at the oars she looked enough like a local warship to pass by safely. This incident again confirmed Blade's low opinion of the efficiency of the count's armed forces. He began to wonder if it might not be possible to organize a pirate fleet large enough to occupy the whole County for several weeks and carry away everything that wasn't nailed down. Then he realized that he was thinking perhaps too much like a pirate of Neral. As usual, he was slipping deep into the pattern of thoughts of what he was supposed to be and retaining only a tenuous connection with the Richard Blade of Home Dimension.
Some thirty hours from Tramport, just before dawn, Sea Witch led her squadron into an almost landlocked bay. Not content with that, Cayla had the three ships pull almost to the rear of the bay into the mouth of a small river flowing into it. She ordered the exhausted and staggering crews ashore to cut branches and bushes to tie all over the ships, then personally supervised the backbreaking job of dismounting two of the catapults and remounting them under cover to guard the entrance to the bay. This work took most of the day, and only occasional rain showers that drenched their sweating bodies kept most of the crewmen from collapsing in their tracks. Finally, when Cayla was satisfied that all that could be done had been done, she gave the order for sleep. Most of the men dropped where they stood and slept like the dead on the bare planks for twelve hours, oblivious to further showers. Blade unashamedly did the same. Twenty men with clubs could have taken the whole squadron and everybody in it, but they were not bothered.
Still, it was two full days more before Cayla decided they could let down their guard enough to do what everybody had been waiting for since they left the burning town-divide the booty. That, as Blade had heard, could be a bloody mess under a weak captain. But none of the captains or mates here were weak, so the division went smoothly.
There was much to divide. About two hundred thousand Roythan crowns-no record for the pirates, but enough to make the captains and officers wealthy men and keep even the boys who aided the cooks and carpenters in comfort for several years. There was a large amount in silver and gold coins and almost an equal amount in jewels, worked gold, and silver ornaments. There were enough fancy weapons to arm the whole crew of the squadron twice over, several hundred bolts of silk and other valuable fabrics, and assorted boxes of spices and drugs, including a box of the blue dream powder which Cayla promptly threw overboard.
When Cayla was through supervising the division, and then through gloating, she turned to the prisoners. Although Blade's party had brought back only the one girl, the others had been more fortunate and had scooped up half a dozen influential citizens (or citizens who had looked influential) in the town itself and three ship captains and an army officer too drunk to fight in the harbor area. These promised a tidy sum in ransoms.