'You'd better be the best foreteller between the southern ocean and the unbroken northlands before you wish for another man's life. Who knows what lies beyond the next rains for any of us?'
Neither of us realised those words had the ring of portent, did we, my father? Neither of us foresaw your death before those next rains had ended, leaving me ruling the domain, barely married to Janne, not even as old as Sirket.
'They're putting up sails back there.' Telouet was looking past the sternposts to the heavier triremes following the Scorpion.
'They'll be pulling their canvas down soon enough.' Jatta clapped the helmsman on the shoulder. 'Cai was born and bred in these waters. He knows how contrary the winds are.'
Cai grinned as he concentrating on feeling the ship's course through the twin stern oars. Kheda noted the helmsman's own book of sailing notes tucked securely by one thigh.
I wonder how soon Jatta will be telling me he's willing to see Cat raised to command of his own ship, a despatch galley or such? Well, he'll have the pick of the domain's best mariners to replace him, for the warlord's personal trireme.
Kheda glanced back at the heavy triremes surging in their wake. Unlike the Scorpion, such ships drew their whole crew from the particular island whose produce supplied them, spare sons opting to serve the domain by taking up an oar instead of a plough or a hunting spear.
Jatta's head snapped round as they all heard a flurry of horns passed from one ship to another.
'They're changing course.' Telouet squinted across the brilliant sea.
'The signal is to summon help for one of our own, under attack.' Jatta's angular brows met in a scowl above his beak of a nose.
'Then we join them.' Kheda's voice was untroubled; his face a bland mask but apprehension twisted around his gut like one of Sain's flowering vines strangling a sapling.
Is it come to this already? Have these invaders come north in the night? Are we going to be sunk with fire and magic before we even reach the boundary of our own waters?
Jatta whirled round to shout orders down to the rowing master. The sweating oarsmen strove to turn the narrow ship in an impossibly tight circle. Jatta joined Cai in hauling on the twin tillers as the seas seethed around the biting blades.
With the Scorpion rocking, struggling back through the waters the rowers had just stirred up, Kheda saw the heavy triremes surging behind a narrow islet of white sand topped with a sprawl of dusty green brush and the darker tufts of nut palms.
'We can cut round up there.' Jatta was standing at Cai's shoulder, pointing, and his route book open in one hand. Absently, he fingered his braided beard. The scars and calluses he'd earned as a rower in his youth were vivid on honey-coloured skin bequeathed by some distant ancestor from the north where Aldabreshin territories touched the unbroken barbarian lands.
Atoun tapped an impatient foot on the close-fitted planks of the deck, oblivious to Telouet's exasperated glare. The toiling oarsmen hauled the trireme past the little island; the rowing master and bow master both pacing up and down the lower gangway, shouting exhortations.
The channel opened out ahead of them. Thanks to Jatta's short cut, the Scorpion's course now lay alongside the heavy galleys as they ploughed through the strait.
'It's a Chazen merchant galley.' Jatta's contempt rose above the noises of sea and ship. 'Chasing down a low galley of ours.'
Reefs forced the Scorpion away to the side. As the trireme hastened towards clear water Kheda got a good view of the chase underway ahead.
The low galley was one of many such vessels linking the myriad islands within every domain. Men sat three to a bench and sweated over their oars on a single open deck.
Shipmaster and helmsman shared a meagre stern platform canopied against the sun. A square-rigged mast stood always raised behind the first six banks of oars, twice that number behind. At the moment, the Daish men were dropping their sail in a confusion of cloth. The great galley had three masts to their one, so no wind would help them outrun this pursuit. Their only hope of escape was their smaller ship's shallower draught as they sought to skip across the reefs cutting through the strait, heading straight for the Scorpion.
'I hope that helmsman knows his shoals,' murmured Jatta fervently.
The low galley darted between two spiky reefs; the roaring sea splashed right up over the Daish ship's shallow sides, soaking her unprotected oarsmen. The great galley couldn't follow and seeing the heavy triremes bearing down on it, wallowed in the deeper waters in an attempt to turn its course to the channel where the Scorpion waited.
'Do they think they can pass us?' scowled Atoun derisively.
'They're not slowing,' Telouet observed.
'They're heavily laden,' said Jatta thoughtfully.
'And heavily manned.' Kheda could see archers lining the side rails of the upper deck and the glint of sun on chainmail armouring the men behind them. Rowers would be sweating on the middle of the three levels below, thirty banks of three oars to each side. Great galleys were happy to take the weight of so many men in trade for the muscle needed to propel their vast cargoes between domains. Kheda took a moment to judge the Chazen ship's speed between two usefully prominent clumps of wind-tossed palms. Yes, the great galley was certainly heavily laden; that was probably all that had saved the lesser galley thus far.
What's in your capacious holds? Trade goods, or Chazen troops to attack helpless Daish vessels, to seize Daish land now you've been driven out of your own?
'I don't think they fancy their chances just now,' said Atoun with grim satisfaction.
Belatedly, the shipmaster of the Chazen great galley had ordered a sudden stop. The sails on the three tall masts were being struck. The oars on one side began backing while the others dug deep with new urgency.
'He's going to try and make a run for it.' Jatta glanced at Kheda.
'Ram him before he can make the turn,' Kheda ordered.
The shipmaster barked the order to the rowing master and the piper's note sounded shrill and rapid. The Scorpion's swordsmen and archers ran for the prow, to find a safe handhold for the collision and to be ready for the fight that would follow.
'Signal to the heavy galleys to make ready to board.' Kheda moved to call down to the bow master, who hurried to the prow. As the signal horn drowned out the flute's voice, the rowers marked their own time with a low rhythmic growl, an ominous sound as the trireme bore down on the enemy.
'They're a good crew,' said Jatta dispassionately. The great galley had all but made the whole turn as the Scorpion drew near.
'Aim for the stern,' Kheda told Jatta. 'Cripple their steering.'
The shipmaster moved to take one of the Scorpion's two tillers from Cai.
Kheda recalled the conversation he'd had with Daish Reik, the first time he'd been in a battle at sea, just a little older than Mesil.
'I've heard tell hitting a ship at the wrong angle can rip the ram clean off a trireme. And very silly we'd look without it. Which is why you'll see the helmsman match their course as soon as we hit.' Daish Reik had been smiling with vicious anticipation, teeth white in his black beard. 'Besides, the ram's built separate from the hull just in case he gets it wrong. We won't sink. Now hold on to something.'
Kheda took a firm grip on the shipmaster's chair. The Scorpion surged through the sea, the white beaches and the myriad greens of the shore flashing past.