The oars rattled and splashed, and the archers shuffled back and forth across the deck, checking their bows, greasing their bowstrings against the salt air, and muttering to comrades. Some pulled biscuits and salt fish out of their belt pouches and ate a few bites, but most weren't hungry. Blade did a quick inspection of the weapons of the men who would fight at close quarters, boarding or fighting off boarders.
«Damned archers, getting all the glory and none of the danger,» said one man with a mace.
Blade slapped him on the shoulder. «Say that after this day's over, if you still think it's true.»
Lioness heeled slightly as the helm went over to put her on course for the first of the Sarumi. The enemy's oars churned up foam, pulling it out of Lioness's path. The galley's captain swung the ram toward the second enemy ship.
This one seemed willing to make a stand. Her oars trailed, and her men poured up from below. As fast as they reached the deck, they lay down, pulling shields and rolled-up sails over them. The Sarumi ship drifted to a stop, squarely in Lioness's path.
Blade realized what the enemy captain was trying to do. He was deliberately inviting a ramming, to immobilize Lioness and let his own comrades swarm around her and board her. Blade leaped down from the foc'sle and ran aft toward where the galley captain was standing by the men at the tiller. He had to be warned about the trap.
Then the drummers started pounding out the furious ramming stroke, the archers crowded forward, and the rowers hurled themselves against the oars. Blade turned back. It was too late. Carried away by blood lust for an easy prey, the captain was going to plunge into the trap.
Lioness's archers ran to either side and a few of the more ambitious ones nocked arrows and shot. Blade saw two men fall overboard from a Sarumi ship. On the one ahead, Blade saw the men pulling back from the side toward the galley, gripping swords, spears, and two-handed axes.
Blade scrambled up on to the foc'sle. Behind him came a dozen archers, and behind them Khraishamo, waving an ax and cursing the whole world impartially. The archers drew away from him, apparently uncertain which side the Bloodskin friend of Blade would really be on. Blade was about to say a few words to them about this when he saw the Sarumi ship looming closer. Some of the pirates on her deck were making obscene gestures at Lioness.
«Hang on!» Blade shouted.
Before he could follow his own order, Lioness ploughed into the Sarumi ship at full ramming speed. Everyone who wasn't hanging on to something went sprawling, then the lightly built foc'sle collapsed. Blade and Khraishamo and all the archers fell to the deck in a cloud of dust and a confusion of splintering wood. Some of the archers were hurt, and their screams would have been deafening if the crashing and crunching of Lioness's ram hadn't drowned out every other sound. The deck under Blade heaved and tossed as if the galley was caught in a whirlpool.
The unwounded Sarumi aboard the rammed ship were on their feet at once. Then grapnels darted across to hook Lioness's railings, and the Sarumi themselves followed. Blade, Khraishamo, and the archers found enemies swarming over them. For a moment they were actually in danger of being trampled to death. Then the Sarumi found room to use their weapons. More than half the archers died where they lay, and those who got up didn't last much longer unless they had a close-combat weapon.
Blade and Khraishamo were a different matter. The pirate chief was the first up, and even when he rose he wasn't attacked. Apparently the other Sarumi didn't know quite what to make of seeing one of their own people aboard a human ship. Then Khraishamo punched one of the boarders in the stomach, heaved a second overboard, and went to work with his ax. In five strokes he killed four enemies and cleared a circle around himself and around Blade.
Blade used this chance to spring to his feet, stabbing upward into the stomach of a boarder as he did. A Sarumi came at him and got in too close for Blade to use his sword, so he used the knife again, this time in the throat. Then Blade made his own fighting room, stood back-to-back with Khraishamo, and also went to work.
In five minutes the wreckage of the foc'sle was covered with dead and dying Sarumi. Blade and Khraishamo had enough room to fight, but the boarders had no room to get past them. Other Sarumi took to the water, swimming alongside Lioness and trying to board her amidships. The archers picked off some in the water and the rowers from below knocked more on the head as they climbed up.
Enough Sarumi made it aboard to interfere with the archers. The hail of arrows from Lioness slackened and two other Sarumi ships started creeping in toward her, ignoring the dead and wounded on their decks. Meanwhile, Lioness's ram was still wedged deeply in the side of the first enemy ship. Blade felt the deck under him begin to tilt toward the bow as water poured into the rammed ship, and saw that she was already lower in the water. If Lioness didn't back clear, she might go down with her victim, but all her rowers were now up on deck fighting for their lives. Blade started to look around for an ax, an iron bar, anything for chopping or prying the two ships apart before they sank in their deadly embrace.
As he searched, he looked to starboard for the first time since the ramming. The Goharan fleet hadn't closed the distance as much as Blade would have expected-except for one ship.
Kloret's big galley was bearing down on Lioness and her victim, oars flashing at nearly ramming speed and her ram completely buried in a rainbow of foam. It was hard to tell if Kloret planned on actually ramming Lioness, but he certainly had a perfect excuse to close in. From a distance, it must look as if Lioness was already in Sarumi hands. He could ram or send a boarding party, and in the confusion it would be easy for Blade to be «accidentally» killed.
However, two men could think of that idea. Blade would be at a disadvantage, because at first he'd have only himself and Khraishamo. Kloret would have his whole galley's crew. On the other hand, two fast-moving men with speed and surprise on their side could do the job.
Nobody was coming across from the rammed Sarumi ship now. The few men left on her deck were trying to get the wounded in shape to swim before the ship went down. Khraishamo was also dealing with the wounded Sarumi around him, muttering a few words over each one, then bringing his ax down. The expression on his face made Blade reluctant to speak to him. And what would Rhodina say if he dragged Khraishamo into this adventure and the man didn't come back? Nonetheless, he needed Khraishamo's help. He couldn't trust anyone else.
At a hand on his shoulder the pirate spun around, eyes blazing, ax coming up by sheer reflex and stopping just before it came down on Blade's head.
«Khraishamo. Our next enemy isn't Sarumi.» He pointed to the approaching galley and the flag at its masthead.
«Ah.»
«Coming right into our hands, too.» He spoke quickly, summarizing his plan in a few sentences. Khraishamo nodded, then started strapping his ax to his belt.
«No. Sword and knife only. The ax will weigh you down too much.» They were going to have to swim like fish, then possibly climb like monkeys.
«All right.»
Blade looked to starboard again. Kloret's galley was heading straight for Lioness. Now she could hardly avoid ramming if she wanted to. It was time for him and Khraishamo to get over the side, before anyone aboard the approaching ship recognized them.