Bleidbara suddenly shouted an order and one of the men leaped agilely to the rigging and went up to the top of the main mast. After a few moments he called down and Bleidbara’s mouth tightened a little at his words.
‘The trouble is,’ he confided to Eadulf, ‘we have the dawn rising at our backs. They will see us coming if they are directly ahead of us — and before we ourselves get close enough to see their sails. I have put a man up there to see if he can spot any sign of them.’
Eadulf knew enough to realise that the height of the mast gave an advantage in sighting a vessel across the water that would otherwise be hidden from those on the deck.
They sailed on in silence for a while, the tension growing among the crew. There was a cry from the masthead.
‘There’s Er Lannig now,’ grunted Bleidbara. ‘We’ll keep it to port and come north-west of it.’ He gave a sharp order to the helmsman. ‘We have to steer clear of the southern tip — there are submerged standing stones there.’
As the ship swung further north, Heraclius explained: ‘The island seems to have been a centre of pagan worship. I have come exploring here before. There are the remains of two stone circles. Do you see them?’
Eadulf could just see the silhouettes of jagged stones, curving into the sea.
‘One circle is entirely submerged, but one of the stones remains very dangerous. Local fishermen call it the blacksmith’s stone,’ Bleidbara went on. ‘It could tear the bottom out of a ship like this.’
Now the dawn had become a reality, not with rich reds and golds but with a pale watery hue that seemed to foretell rain to come. The sun was well hidden behind a growing pack of pale clouds, but it was now clear enough to see for some distance — and all eyes swept the sea around them.
‘We’ll turn for the Island of Goats,’ called Bleidbara, pointing ahead.
Another shout from the masthead made them all look up.
Eadulf did not understand what the lookout was saying but his arm was thrust out more to the north of them. He looked but couldn’t see anything.
Bleidbara slapped his thigh with a grin.
‘There she is, just where I expected her to be. She is heading south towards us.’ He glanced up at the sails. ‘But we should have the wind with us. Take a care for yourselves, my friends, as we will soon be upon them.’
There was now a shout from the maindeck and Eadulf turned and saw a ship materialising across the water. Her sails were fully rigged but they hung almost useless in the prevailing wind. The ship was pitching and moving without elegance as it sought to make headway.
It seemed that they had been spotted, for there was movement on the oncoming ship. Its bows seemed to move as if it were trying to turn away.
‘They are wearing ship,’ muttered Heraclius. ‘Trying to turn,’ he added for Eadulf’s sake.
Indeed, the ship was jerking idly backwards and forwards. It seemed that those on board had been surprised by the appearance of Bleidbara’s vessel moving rapidly towards them, heaving and plunging as the wind grew stronger. The water was gushing under her bows; the plumes of white froth spreading more widely as she raced across the gap towards the sea-raider.
‘Time to get ready!’ Bleidbara shouted to Heraclius.
The young man nodded, and with a quick, ‘Good luck,’ to both Bleidbara and Eadulf, he made his way for’ard to where the wild ass was being uncovered by some of the crew.
Eadulf had never seen a machine like it before. At first it seemed to consist of a triangular frame of dark oak whose base was fixed firmly on the deck. At the front end was a vertical frame of solid timber; through this frame, Eadulf noticed an axle that had a single stout upright spoke inserted through a skein of twisted rope. At the end of the spoke was a leather thong or sling. The axle or horizontal barrel was rotated by a crank which forced the vertical spoke backwards almost to a horizontal position. He had heard something about these Ancient Roman engines. A stone would be inserted into the sling and the vertical arm released, usually by the person in control, using a mallet to knock out the securing pin, which held the arm. Thus released, with such pressure provided by the tension of twisted rope, the arm went up and would throw the stone or rock for a considerable distance.
He could see Heraclius examining and checking the engine. Then he said something to one of his men. Two of them disappeared below decks and came back carrying the wooden box carefully between them. It was obviously heavy and they placed it cautiously by the engine. Heraclius bent down and opened it and extracted one of the large clay balls that Eadulf had seen in the apothecary’s stone hut.
Bleidbara gave a warning shout to Heraclius and pointed to the oncoming ship.
Now, in the early-morning light, Eadulf could see archers lining the decks near the bows. He saw the familiar lines of the ship, the carved figure of the dove on its prow. It was, indeed, the Koulm ar Maro, The Dove of Death, that had attacked the Barnacle Goose. There was no disputing its lines as it turned for the attack. But Bleidbara was in charge of no undefended merchantman. His warriors were already lined up at the side with their own bows ready.
Nervously, Eadulf edged towards a position where a spar might afford him some protection from the onslaught of arrows that would undoubtedly fall on them. He had presumed that Bleidbara would run the ship alongside the Koulm ar Maro. Now he realised that Bleidbara was heading bow first towards the vessel as if to ram her. Heraclius and his companions had lifted one of the large clay balls into the sling and the young man seemed to be sighting his curious weapon as if measuring the decreasing distance between the two vessels.
‘Heraclius won’t knock a hole in that vessel with those clay balls,’ Eadulf called to Bleidbara. ‘Hasn’t he got some heavy stones to inflict more damage?’
Bleidbara glanced at him and smiled reassuringly.
‘Keep your head down, Brother Eadulf. We shall open the battle when we are three hundred metres from her.’
The Koulm ar Maro was no longer trying to turn but also coming bow first towards them in spite of the wind being entirely with Bleidbara’s vessel. It was only now that Eadulf realised that the enemy’s main deck was higher than their own, so the archers on the Koulm ar Maro had the advantage of shooting down while Bleidbara’s men would have to shoot upwards. Eadulf knew enough about warfare to be aware that this was not the best position. With a dry mouth he watched the dark strip of water closing between the two vessels.
Suddenly Bleidbara shouted to Heraclius.
The young man bent forward. Eadulf saw the mallet in his hand and heard it strike on the wooden peg. He could feel the vibration through the entire vessel as the pole with its sling released the projectile under extreme pressure. The clay ball arched upwards across the space between the two vessels, and Eadulf was bitterly disappointed to see it hit a jutting spar on the Koulm ar Maro and fall back into the sea, breaking into pieces as it did so. Then he gasped in astonishment, for even as it fragmented he saw a glint of fire — and next thing there was a patch of blazing water where the pieces of the ball had fallen in the sea. He could not believe his eyes. The seawater was on fire!
Heraclius and his team were already winching the pole back into position and another of the curious clay balls was being placed into the sling.
Bleidbara was grinning at him. ‘Heraclius calls it pyr thalassion in his own language. He translates it as liquid fire. He says that his father Callinicus was developing it in Byzantium. It gives us more advantage against these sea-raiders now.’