“Who’s with me?” he yelled, all the while judging the narrowing gap as the Salmon swung back into the battered side of the Eagle. Satisfied with the bloodthirsty howls at his back, Temar leaped, putting every effort he possessed into his jump, falling to his hands and knees on the far deck, sword nevertheless poised and ready. Thuds behind him announced the arrival of a handful of the Eagle’s crew, eager to make use of their captured weaponry.
“Ramsen!” Temar saw one of his men drop his guard as he gaped at a figure rolled this way and that by the plunging motion of the trapped vessels. “They’re lost!” Temar shouted harshly, his own stomach hollow as he recognized a face slack and white among the fallen crew of the Salmon. “Watch yourselves!”
The enemy were quick to react to this unexpected counterattack and a close-knit detachment was making its way down the deck, blades raised. Temar steadied himself, his longer sword at the ready to defend and to rend, but half an eye spared for the tall figure in the forecastle, blond hair blowing in the breeze, a gold gorget bright at his throat as he focused all his attention and skills on the attack on the other ship.
An axe came scything in at Temar’s head but he blocked the blow with ease, following up to force the man backward. Taking a pace forward but careful not to outstrip the others behind him, Temar cut and sliced, feinted and parried, less to kill than to gradually force those opposing him into a gradual retreat up the ship. He focused all his efforts on the men before him, trusting the sailors at his back and the stout defense of the ship’s rail to his off hand. Step by step, Temar and his men drew closer to the enemy Artificer, who abruptly turned to face them, arms raised, hands spread, hatred twisting his face as he spat at them in an unknown, harsh-accented tongue.
The air before Temar seemed to shimmer and ripple, the faces before him distorted as if seen through poor glass. The deck beneath his feet suddenly felt rough and broken, like a rocky road. Temar took a pace forward but his footing shifted and slipped, snarls as of wild beasts echoing all around him, greedy and eager for blood. The hair on Temar’s neck rose as every instinct told him to flee and he heard cries of dismay and terror from the men behind him. Temar shook his head in frenzied denial and furiously ransacked his memory for the wards and defenses that Guinalle had been teaching him before their friendship had foundered.
“Tur ryal myn ammel,” he yelled, screwing his eyes shut for a scant breath to put every effort he could summon into throwing the Artificer’s touch from his mind. Panting, he opened his eyes and found his gaze was clear again, more than that, the sailors at his back seemed to have recovered. Temar spared a moment to wonder just what the incantation he had half remembered was actually supposed to do.
The shouts of the enemy back aboard the Eagle grew suddenly louder, but now they were ringing with consternation rather than victory. A dull tremor shivered through the deck and rolled the lifeless body of another crewman at Temar’s feet, threatening to trip him until he steeled himself to kick it aside. Tormalin voices suddenly rose in shouts of triumph from the other ship, taunts mingled with obscenities and curses. Temar spared a glance to see several of the black-clad invaders dropping their weapons to struggle, screaming, with some unseen threat, scrambling backward to escape some horror only they could see, one tumbling over the rail to vanish into the turbid waters as the ships swung apart and crashed back together. The soldiers facing Temar and his men fell back to the steps leading up to the aft castle, weapons now ready to defend rather than to attack.
Temar looked back to the enemy Artificer and saw consternation mingled with hatred on the thin, lined face as the man stared at Guinalle, now standing on the aft deck, a circle of sailors defending her as she wrought unseen destruction on the attackers. As Temar watched a handful hurled themselves yelling toward her, felled even before they could bring blade to bear on the ring of wood and iron. The Artificer raised a hand, the threat in the gesture unmistakable, but a sudden lurch of the deck threw him off balance. Temar grabbed at the rail himself but a bark of humorless laughter escaped him nevertheless.
“The longboat!” One of the sailors shook Temar’s shoulder and he nodded with grim satisfaction as he saw the returning crew of the rowing-boat scrambling up over the distant rail of the Eagle, weapons raised, fresh wrath pouring over the attackers like a breaking sea, sweeping the black-clad figures aside like so much flotsam. The deck swung beneath Temar’s feet again and he realized nearly all of the grappling irons had been unhooked.
“We need to get back to the Eagle!” he shouted over his shoulder, loud agreement coming from the sailors. They retreated, slowly, weapons raised, alert for any sudden rush from the enemy. Several of the black-clad assailants paced them down the deck, just out of reach, taunts clear in their unintelligible tongue. “Ignore them.” Temar shook his head at a sailor whose backward steps had halted, captured axe eager to rejoin the fray.
Temar felt inside the breast of his jerkin for his throwing dagger. Retreating like this was all very well, but it was too slow. As the ships writhed in the snapping toils of the ropes, he could hear the snap and whistle of breaking hemp, every movement as the wind tugged at the Eagle’s sails putting intolerable strain on the remaining lines. He palmed the dagger as they drew level with the remaining grapnels, relieved to hear eager shouts from the Eagle’s deck, hands and ropes offering assistance.
“Make ready to go,” he commanded sternly, judging distance and wind, wondering if he could do this.
“When?” demanded a sailor at his elbow.
“Now!” yelled Temar. He took a pace forward and brought his hand up and back in one fluid movement, sending the bright blade shooting the length of the vessel, a flash of silver in the sunlight as it buried itself in the Artificer’s chest. His yell of agony halted the troops on deck who were just about to fling themselves on the sailors desperately scrambling back over the rails of the two ships, unable to defend themselves adequately. As blond heads turned this way and that, Temar and his men seized the moment of indecision to escape to the Eagle, where waiting knives hacked through the last fibers of the entangling ropes to free the vessel.
“Make sail and head for open water!” Captain Grethist roared, his voice sending sailors scrambling into the rigging, hands still sticky with gore, clothing stained with their own blood and that of others. The Eagle moved on rising wings of white canvas to pull away from the Salmon, now drifting away at the mercy of wind and current as dark figures struggled with her ropes.
“We can’t just abandon the Salmon!” a voice protested.
“How do we go about retaking her?” demanded Grethist scornfully, but his own outrage was plain on his twisted face as he moved to instruct the helmsman. “No, we’ll let those bastards look after her for a little while, just as long as it takes us to get back to port, raise a flotilla and come back to send every last fancy whore’s son straight to Dastennin’s feet!”
This prediction raised a general shout of agreement and defiance, insults hurled from every side as the Salmon finally got under way and lurched toward the distant headland.
“D’Alsennin!”
Temar looked toward the stern of the ship, trying to place the unfamiliar voice. He saw the tall, spare figure of Avila For Arrial on the aft-deck, struggling to support a fainting Guinalle.
“Here, let me,” Temar shoved his way through to the aft-castle and swept Guinalle up in his arms, alarmed by her extreme pallor.