Ships from the West

'They say a great deal, but for once there is a nubbin of truth under all the tall tales. This Aruan came out of nowhere scarcely six years ago now, landing at Alsten Island with a few followers in strange-looking ships. Himerius at once recognised him as some kind of messianic prodigy and admitted him to the highest circles of power. He claims to be some form of harbinger of a better age of the world. He is immensely old, that we know, but as for the lost race of conjurors – well, that's a myth, I'm sure. In any case, he has the armies of Perigraine and Almark and half a dozen other principalities to call upon, as well as the Orders of the Knights Militant and the mysterious Hounds. The Second Empire, as this unholy combine is known, is a fact of our waking world-'

'The Fimbrians,' Mirren interrupted. 'What will they do?'

'Ah, there's the rub. Which way will the Electorates jump? They've been hankering after a rekindling of their hegemony ever since the fall of Aekir, but this new thearchy has stymied them. I'm not sure. We will be fighting for the self-determina shy;tion of all the Ramusian kingdoms, and that is not something the Fimbrians would particularly like to see. On the other hand, they do not want to watch the Himerians become invincible, either. I reckon they'll wait it out until we and Charibon have exhausted ourselves, and then step in like hyenas to pick over the bones.'

'I've never known a war,' Mirren said with uncharacteristic timidity. She stroked the marmoset which perched on her shoulder. 'What is it like, Father?'

Corfe stared out over the barren swells of the upland moors. Sixteen years ago, this quiet emptiness had been the epicentre of a roaring holocaust. If he tried, he was sure he would hear the thunder of the cannon echoing still, as it echoed always in the dark, hungry spaces of his mind.

'War is a step over the threshold of hell,' he said at last. 'I pray you never experience it first hand.'

'But you were a great general – you commanded armies -you were a conqueror.'

Corfe looked down at her coldly. 'I was fighting for survival. There's a difference.'

She was undaunted. 'And this next war – it also is about survival, is it not?'

'Yes. Yes, it is. We have not sought this battle; it has been thrust upon us – remember that.' His voice was sombre as that of a mourner.

But the hunger and the darkness within him were crowing and cackling with glee.

Three

'The birds,' said Abeleyn. 'They follow the ships.'

Over the fleet hung a cloud of raucous gulls, thousands of them. They wheeled and swooped madly and their unending shrieks hurt the air, carrying over even the creak of timber, the smash of keel striking water, the groan of rope and yard.

'Scavengers,' Admiral Rovero called out from the quarter shy;deck below. 'But it's strange, is it not, to see them so far out from land.'

'I have never seen it before. The odd one, yes, but not flocks like these,' Hawkwood told him.

All down the four levels of the spar deck – forecastle, waist, quarterdeck, poop – soldiers and sailors were staring up shy;wards, past the cracking, bellied sails, the straining yards, the bewildering complexities of the rigging. The gulls circled tirelessly, screaming.

Below them the flagship shouldered aside the swell with a beautiful easy motion. The Pontifidad was a tall man-of-war of twelve hundred tons with seven hundred men on board, and eighty long guns which were now bowsed up tight against the closed portlids like captured beasts straining for their liberty. A floating battery of immense destructive power, she was the largest warship in the western world, the pride of the Hebrian navy.

And she may not be enough, Abeleyn thought. She and all her mighty consorts, the assembled might of four nations. What are men and ships compared to-

'Sail ho!' the lookout yelled down from the main topgallant yard. 'A caravel coming out of the eye of the wind, fine on the larboard beam.'

'Our reconnaissance returns,' Hawkwood said. 'With what news I wonder?'

The knot of men stood on the poop deck of the Pontifidad and awaited the approaching ship calmly. Two days before a small squadron had been sent out to the west to reconnoitre while the fleet beat up round the headland now safely astern.

Admiral Rovero called up to the lookout from the quarter shy;deck. 'How many sail there?'

'Still just the one, sir. She's got a fore topsail carried away and I see braces on her flying loose.'

Abeleyn and Hawkwood looked at one another.

'What do you think, Captain?' Abeleyn asked.

Hawkwood rubbed a hand through the peppery tangle of his beard. 'I think the squadron may well have found what it was looking for.'

'My thoughts also.'

Admiral Rovero thumped up the companionway to the poop and saluted his monarch. 'Sire, there's no one to be seen on her deck. It smells bad to me. Permission to beat to quarters.'

'Granted, Rovero. Captain Hawkwood, I believe we should signal the allied contingents. Enemy to nor'-west. Clear for action.'

'Aye, sir.'

Over several square miles of ocean, the fleet came to urgent, scurrying life. Fifty-three great ships and dozens of smaller carracks and caravels were travelling north-east with the breeze broad on their larboard beam. The solitary caravel, a small vessel gauging no more than a hundred tons, ran headlong before the wind towards their gaping broadsides.

The fleet was in a rough arrowhead formation. The point was formed of Hebrian ships, the largest contingent. The left barb belonged to the Gabrionese, eleven lean, well-manned vessels with crews of superb seamen. The right barb consisted of the Astarans: larger ships, but less experienced crews. And the shank of the arrowhead was made up of the Sea-Merduks. Their vessels were lighter, as were their guns, but they were crowded with arquebusiers and buckler-men.

All told, over thirty thousand men rode the waves this bright spring morning, fifty leagues off the west coast of Hebrion. It was the biggest conglomeration of naval power the world had yet seen, and its assembling had been the patient work of years. Ten days now they had been cruising westwards to shy;gether, having rendezvoused off the Hebrian coast a fortnight since. All for this one day, this moment in time. This bright spring morning on the swells of the Western Ocean.

The stink of slow-match drifted up to Abeleyn from the gun deck, along with the sweat of the sailors as they hauled the huge guns outboard so that their muzzles protruded from the ship's sides like blunt spikes. Above him, in the tops, soldiers were loading the wicked little two-pounder swivels, ramming loads down the barrels of their arquebuses, hauling up buckets of seawater to fight the inevitable fires that would catch in the sails.

The caravel was less than three cables away now, and careering directly for the flagship. There was no one at her tiller, but her course was unerring.

'I don't like this. That's a dead ship with a live helm,' Rovero said. 'Sire, permission to blow her out of the water.'

Abeleyn paused in thought, and for a moment could have sworn that the regard of all those hundreds of sailors and soldiers and marines was fastened upon him alone. At last he said: 'Granted, Admiral.'

The signal pennants went up, and moments later the massed ordnance of the fleet began to thunder out, awesome as the wrath of God.

The caravel disappeared in a murderous storm of spuming water. Hawkwood saw timbers flying high in the air, a mast lurch and topple enmeshed in rigging. Cannonballs fell short and overshot, but enough were on target to smash the little vessel to kindling. When it reappeared it was a dismasted hulk, low in the water and surrounded by debris. The gulls shrieked overhead as the smoke and roar of the broadsides died away.