The Granicus ran down toward the Azanian Sea through the middle of a wide, broad valley. The hills to the north and south were low and weathered, so low they hardly deserved the name. But smaller streams flowed into the Granicus from those hills to either side. Beyond the watersheds, the streams ran into neighbors from among the Nine Rivers.
I sent Alca to a riverside town, Grus thought, and hoped none of the pirates had come to Pelagonia. This was the first time he’d come to the south himself since sending her away from the capital. But Pelagonia did not lie along the Granicus, and the king had other things on his mind besides the witch he’d once loved—still loved, though he hadn’t let himself think that while he was anywhere near Estrilda.
As day followed day and Grus’ fleet sped down the Granicus, he spent more and more time peering ahead, looking for smoke to warn him he was drawing near the Chernagors. Once he saw some rising into the air, but it proved only a grass fire in a field. It might have been a catastrophe for the farmer the field belonged to. To Grus, it was just a distraction.
And then, a day later, lookouts—and, very soon, Grus himself— spied another black column of smoke. Grus had a good idea of where they were along the Granicus, though he hadn’t traveled the river for several years. To make sure, he asked the steersman, “That’s Araxus up ahead, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man at the steering oar nodded. “When we round this next bend in the river, we’ll be able to see the place.”
He proved not quite right. When they rounded the bend, all they could see was the smoke spilling out from the gutted town. Of Araxus itself there was no sign. But Grus pointed to the ships tied up at the quays. “No one in Avornis ever built those.”
“How can you tell, Your Majesty?” Hirundo asked.
Grus gaped. His general was a lubber, and no more a judge of ships than Grus was of horseflesh. “By looking,” the king answered. “They’re bigger and beamier than anything we build, and see those masts?”
“They’re ships,” Hirundo said.
“Yes, and we’re going to sink them.” Grus turned to the oarmaster. “Step up the stroke. Let’s hurry.” As the man nodded and got the rowers working harder, Grus told the trumpeter, “Signal the rest of the fleet to up the stroke, too. We don’t want to waste any time.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man raised the trumpet to his lips and sent the signal to the other ships close by. Their trumpets passed it along to the rest of the fleet.
The Chernagors ravaging Araxus were alert. They spotted the Avornan fleet as soon as it rounded the bend in the river. Grus couldn’t see the pirates in the town itself, but he saw them when they came out and ran for their ships. He wondered what they would do once they had them manned. The wind blew out of the east, from the direction of the sea. That had let them sail up the Granicus to Araxus. But the only way they could flee down the river, away from the galleys, was by drifting with the current. If they tried that, the oar-powered Avornan ships would catch them in short order.
Grus wondered what he would have done if caught in a like predicament. No sooner had the thought, Make the best fight I could, crossed his mind than the Chernagor ships put on their full spread of sail—a stunning spread, by Avornan standards—and started up the Granicus toward the river galleys.
“Now I see it. They are bigger than we are.” Hirundo sounded nervous. “Can we beat them?”
“If we can’t, we’d have done better to stay back in the city of Avornis, don’t you think?” Grus asked. Hirundo grinned. Grus knew he had to seem confident. In truth, he had no idea what would happen next. How long had it been since the Chernagors and Avornans squared off against each other on the water? He had no idea. Lanius had tried to tell him, but he hadn’t let the other king finish.
He wished things happened quicker aboard ship, but no help for that. The Chernagor pirates had to claw their way upstream against the current. More than a quarter of an hour passed between their weighing anchor and the first arrows splashing into the Granicus. The pirates had only half a dozen ships, but they were all jammed full of men. And with their high freeboard, getting Avornan warriors into them from the lower galleys wouldn’t have been easy even if they hadn’t been.
“Ram the bastards!” Grus shouted. Without his giving the order to the trumpeter, the man sent it on—cleansed of the curse by his mellow notes—to the rest of the fleet. To his own crew, Grus called, “ ‘Ware boarders! If we stick fast when we ram, they’ll swarm down onto us.”
More and more arrows flew from the pirate ships. Grus had never had to worry about so many in a river battle; he might almost have been fighting on land. A couple of rowers were hit. That fouled the stroke. The oarmaster screamed curses until the wounded men were dragged from their benches and replaced. Archers at the bows of the river galleys were shooting along with the Chernagors, emptying their quivers as fast as they could. A pirate threw up his hands and splashed into the Granicus, an arrow through his throat.
The oarmaster upped the stroke again, this time without waiting for a command from Grus. The steersman aimed the bronze-tipped ram at the planking just to port of the bow of a pirate ship. Where everything had seemed to move slowly before, all at once the pirate ship swelled enormously.
“Brace yourselves!” Grus shouted just before the collision.
Crunch! The ram bit. Grus staggered but kept his feet. “Back oars!” the oarmaster screamed. The rowers did, with all the strength they had in them. If the ram did stick fast in the pirate’s timbers, the Chernagors would board and slaughter them.
“Olor be praised!” Grus gasped when the river galley pulled free. The pointed ram had torn a hole two feet wide in the pirate ship, just below the waterline. The Granicus flooded in. The extra weight, growing every moment, slowed the ship to a crawl.
“Ram ’em again, sir?” the steersman asked.
Grus shook his head. “No. We got enough of what we needed.” He would have done far more damage striking another river galley. The Chernagor ships, built to withstand long voyages and pounding ocean waves, were even more strongly made than he’d expected.
He looked around to see how the rest of the fight was going. One pirate ship had ridden up and over the luckless river galley that tried to ram it. Avornans, some clutching oars, splashed in the Granicus. Another Chernagor ship traded archery with three river galleys. Two more pirate ships besides the one Grus had struck had been rammed, and were taking on water. One pirate ship was afire. A river galley burned, too—the Chernagors had flung jars of oil lit with wicks down onto its deck. More Avornans went into the river. So did Chernagors from the northerners’ burning ship. Grus wondered whether they’d set themselves ablaze. Savagely, he hoped so.
He pointed to the ship that had defeated one ramming attempt. “Turn about!” he called to the steersman. “We’ll get ’em in the rear.”
“Right!” The steersman threw back his head and laughed. “Just what they deserve, too, Your Majesty.”
How the Chernagors on the pirate ship howled as the sharp-beaked river galley sped toward its stern! They sent a blizzard of arrows at Grus, who wished he wore something less conspicuous. He wanted to go below, but that would have made him look like a coward in front of his men. The things we do for pride, he thought as an arrow stood thrilling in the river galley’s deck a few inches in front of his boot.
Crunch! Again, the river galley shuddered as the ram struck home. Again, the oarmaster bellowed, “Back oars!” Again, the rowers pulled like men possessed. Again, Grus breathed a sigh of relief when the ram did pull free.