The trireme's brass-sheathed ram ripped into the planks right on the waterline. A shudder ran the length of the Scorpion. With a grunt forced out of every man aboard by the impact, it was as if the ship herself groaned. Cai and Jatta threw all their weight against the twin tillers. The crossbeams at the Scorpion's bow, reinforced where they projected on either side of the ram, crashed into the galley's side, springing the weakened seams of her planking still further. The jutting timbers smashed the great galley's rearmost oars. Screams came from the galley's middle deck as rowers were clubbed by their own splintered oars sent in all directions.
'Back!' yelled Jatta.
The rowing master had already set the oarsmen to dragging the Scorpion back from the great galley. Water poured in through the gash in the wounded ship's side and she began listing almost immediately. The sea was suddenly full of men desperately trying to swim clear of the foundering vessel amid a confusion of broken and flailing oars.
There was a second crash and then a third as two Daish heavy triremes drove their prows into the great galley. Their rams rode higher than the Scorpion's, designed more to bite and hold fast to make a bridge for swordsmen intent on boarding. The stricken vessel shuddered, already sunk to her oar ports. The warriors on the great galley threw their swords into the sea in open surrender as the deck filled with all those who'd been below decks fleeing the encroaching waters.
Kheda saw women and children struggling in the confusion of noise and panic.
They're not raiders. They've fled whatever disaster it is that's ravaging Chazen. I need to know where they've come from, what they've seen.
He took a step forward. Telouet stretched out an arm to bar his way. 'You'll go no closer to their archers than this, my lord.'
Kheda turned to Atoun who was watching the Daish swordsmen taking possession of the galley with visible frustration. He pointed to a man feverishly ripping pages from a book to let the heedless wind blow them away to oblivion. 'Bring me that shipmaster!'
Rope ladders were already slung over the Scorpion's stern and Atoun disappeared at once, soon reappearing in a small boat rowing for the ruined galley.
Kheda sat in the shipmaster's chair watching the great ship sink to rest on a hidden reef, uppermost deck knee deep in water, only prow and sternposts rising clear of the sea. Every time a wave lapped at the wreck, the sound of breaking wood rippled through the air.
Close at hand, the sounds of hammering and urgent repairs reverberated through the Scorpion. Kheda leaned forward to call to Jatta.
'What's the damage? Are we still fit to sail for the Hyd Rock?'
Jatta came halfway up the stairs from the lower gangway. 'There're a few seams need caulking and there's the usual damage to oar loops and such. Nothing we can't bear.' He disappeared again.
'My lord.'
Kheda turned to see what Telouet was looking at.
'I don't think he was going to wait to pay his duty to you,' said the slave thoughtfully.
One of the Daish heavy triremes was escorting the lesser galley whose aid they had come to. The smaller ship was limping along with several broken oars and Kheda could see his own swordsmen on the deck. One was on the stern platform and the sun glinted on his naked blade.
'Let's see what he has to say for himself.' He looked to see if Atoun was on his way back.
The two mariners arrived at much the same time. Unhampered by the naked blade in one hand, Atoun drove a battered and hangdog man up the ladder before him, Telouet standing over him with a ready sword as soon as he set foot on the deck. The master of the lesser galley stood proud on his own stern platform as his vessel drew up smartly beside the Scorpion. Gaudy pennants flapped from the poles supporting the canopy fluttering just below the deck level of the Scorpion. The Daish mariner judged the distance to a nicety, jumping to catch hold of the rope ladder and climb lithely aboard.
'My lord.' He knelt on the deck and bowed his head to the planking.
'Your name?' Kheda stayed in the shipmaster's chair, face impassive.
'Maluk, great lord.' He looked up, eyes bright.
Kheda considered the equally bright gleam of gold in his ears and around the man's neck. He did not smile. 'And you, of Chazen?'
'Kneel before Daish Kheda!' Telouet threw the man down on to his knees. He slumped, chin sunk on his chest, hair matted and cotton tunic stained with blood from a split in his scalp that Kheda judged to be a day or so old.
'Chazen man,' Kheda said sharply. 'What is your name?'
Telouet would have reminded the man of his manners with a smack round the head but stilled at Kheda's look.
'Rawi, great lord,' he mumbled.
The warlord noted a hint of uncertainty cross Maluk's face. 'What brings you uninvited and flying no flag of mine to grant you passage through my waters?' he asked mildly.
Now Rawi looked confused. 'We were told to flee, to take all we could carry and flee.' He shivered despite the baking heat of the sun. 'My lord's soldiers came. They drove us all from our homes, threatening to club us if we tarried. They said we would die if we stayed. They said an enemy had come—' He broke off, swallowing hard, and raised horror-struck eyes.
Kheda could see the man's quandary reflected in his eyes.
If you warn me of magic, will I be grateful or just put you to death where you kneel?
With hopeless resignation, Rawi opened his mouth.
Steel in his voice, Kheda interrupted. 'Why were you pursuing my ship?'
'We were not alone. There were skiffs with us, fishing boats, anything that would float.' Rawi shot Maluk a look of pure hatred. 'He has followed us for a night and a day, picking them off. We took as many aboard as we could—'
'We sought only to protect the Daish domain,' Maluk declared robustly.
'From what, exactly?' Kheda queried sternly.
'We feared invasion, great lord,' Maluk insisted with a little too much wide-eyed innocence. 'We thought men of Chazen were come to steal our islands. The beacons were burning!'
'Men of Chazen? Come to raise battle with their Southern Firl families in tow?' Kheda stood to look at the two heavy triremes where the tally of bound and kneeling swordsmen was at least equalled by women and children, the decks now cluttered with hastily filled sacks and roughly tied bundles, all sodden and wretched. 'Didn't you look for help to tackle a ship so much stronger than your own?'
Maluk spread uncertain hands. 'We signalled to other ships and to villages that we passed with our lanterns. I don't know if they saw us. No one came to our aid. But we dared not lose sight of the enemy,' he continued, a little bolder now. 'We had to know where they might land, my lord. Then we would have carried word to the nearest beacon towers, to summon your warriors.'
A claim impossible to prove or disprove. And there are sufficient fighting men aboard Rawi's galley to justify Maluk's assertion that he'd feared invasion. All the women and children would have been below decks, and every man driven from his home by threats of unspecified foes would have carried a weapon if he could. So, hoping to get away with it unseen but confident in his excuses if not, Maluk's been raiding this Rawi's haphazard flotilla, claiming whatever loot he could for himself. And then, well aware his life was all but forfeit for sailing in my waters without a pennant to authorise his passage, the Chazen shipmaster finally turned his great galley on his tormentor. Proving this Maluk's ill faith could doubtless be done, if I had half a season to spare. I don't have half a day. I have to get clear of this tangle and make best speed to the Hyd Rock.