Among the numerous freebooters haunting the gulf, some were especially notorious. These included Morojin, a vicious, one-eyed pirate; Xanka, self-styled King of the Sea; the brothers Hagy and Drom, known as the Firebrands from their habit of burning captured vessels-usually with the hapless crews still on board; the female pirate, Hexylle, who commanded an all-woman crew; and Hagbor, the fearsome sea ogre, who was said to eat his prisoners.
Around noon, the wind died. Blue Gull, which had been churning along at a decent rate, slowed to crawl. They were on the outward leg of one of Torwalder’s zigzags, in deep water near the center of the gulf. At the captain’s command, sailors dragged buckets of seawater up the masts and drenched the limp sails.
“Painting the sails,” Darpo told his comrades. Wet canvas caught even the tiniest breath of breeze.
It didn’t help. Slowly the two gray galleys closed in. The galleots dashed ahead of their bigger brothers, steering on either side of the roundship. Torwalder ordered his men to arms. Pikes and cutlasses were distributed. Four sailors armed with bows took to the rigging.
“Where would you like us?” Tol asked.
“Choose your own ground,” the captain replied stonily. “One part of the deck is as good as another to die on.”
Tol chose to defend the sterncastle. Frez and Darpo pried loose the ladders leading up from the lower deck and hauled them up. Blue Gull sat much higher in the water than the galleots, so at least the defenders would have the advantage of height.
“Two points port,” Torwalder cried. The man on the steering board bent to his task. A freshening breeze caught the sails, and the roundship surged ahead, bearing hard for the galleot on their left. The captain of the pirate craft either misread Torwalder’s intentions or simply failed to grasp his desperate purpose. The pirate ship held to its straight course. When the other captain finally woke to Torwalder’s plan, it Was too late.
“He means to ram!” Frez shouted.
Tol barked, “Hold on!”
In the last moment the galleot tried to sheer off, pivoting on its own length to elude the roundship. Sails swelling, Blue Gull drove on, snapping the pirate’s starboard oars like kindling. The oaken cutwater hit the galleot’s light planking. Although braced for the impact, Tol and his people were thrown to the deck. A deafening cracking sound filled the air.
Torwalder roared orders even as Blue Gull ground the enemy under its prow. The port side of the galleot rolled out of the water, oars flailing helplessly in the air. Screams rang out. With irresistible momentum, the roundship tore the pirate vessel in two.
Kiya got to her knees and crawled to the rail in time to see the stern half of the galleot rise high in the air before it sank. The slave rowers, chained to their benches, shrieked for help as the water rose around them. Heavily armed pirates scrambled over the side, but they were in little better shape. They couldn’t swim long or far weighed down by armor.
“The slaves are dying!” Kiya cried, seizing Tol’s arm.
“There’s nothing we can do!” he shouted over the grinding crunch of shattering wood.
Blue Gull tore free of the galleot. Torwalder turned his ship smartly on a reverse tack and sped away. Sailors lined the rails, jeering their drowning foes.
Tol and his people crowded the rail as well, mesmerized by the spectacle. The rear half of the galleot slipped beneath the waves, and they saw only a few heads still bobbing on the surface. Blue Gull’s archers sniped at the survivors from the rigging.
Torwalder had no time to enjoy his success. The other galleot had turned away to avoid the fate of its sister, but the big quinquiremes had put on speed and were bearing down on Blue Gull. Pennants fluttered from pole masts. Largest of these flags was a forked banner in red and white.
“The flag of Xanka,” said Torwalder grimly. Their pursuer was the so-called King of the Sea.
White water curled from the heavy bronze ram on the snout of each quinquireme. Just as Blue Gull had smashed the galleot, so too could the pirates’ rams pierce the roundship.
The galleys drew apart, coming up on either side of Torwalder’s ship. Pirates were massed on the foredecks. Sunlight glittered off their naked blades. The ships were close enough that Tol could see the leers on the pirates’ faces as they caught sight of Miya and Kiya.
Torwalder commanded his men to erect a boom from the mainmast as they had when the horses were hauled aboard. A spare anchor was winched up from this yard. When a pirate ship came alongside, Torwalder would swing the boom over their deck and drop the anchor. It might not smash all the way through the galley’s hull, but the weighty hook was bound to wreak havoc among the pirates crowded together on deck.
The battle-god Corij and the Blue Phoenix, god of the sea, favored them. The wind improved, and Blue Gull crept ahead. On the leeward side, quinquireme pirates were manhandling a catapult forward to the bow. Tol told Kiya to aim her arrows at the catapult’s crew when the time came. The Dom-shu woman swore that any who approached the machine would die.
The chase continued for half the afternoon. Even Torwalder became anxious. Why didn’t Xanka close in? The galleys could overtake them any time they chose, but they seemed content merely to stalk the roundship. Once the sun began sinking in the west, the truth became clear.
A lookout on Blue Gull’s masthead sang out. “Ships off the starboard bow!” A heartbeat later he added, “More ships to port!”
From horizon to horizon, a vast arc of ships spread across the gray sea. Oars foamed the water at their sides. Every ship bore the red and white pennant of Xanka.
Sailors abandoned their posts and swarmed around Captain Torwalder, all shouting at once. Threats were made.
Blows were exchanged. The young master of the Blue Gull struck down a man with the pommel of his cutlass.
Tol led his people to the main deck. They cleaved through the rebellious sailors, making their way to Torwalder. Cries of “We’re done for!” and “Time to abandon ship!” rang out all around them.
“No one leaves my ship!” the captain thundered. “This is mutiny!”
“We’ll be slaughtered or slaved if we stay!” roared a sailor behind Torwalder as he raised a hatchet high.
Tol caught the weapon with his saber and turned it aside. Torwalder whirled and ran the man through with his cutlass. The mutineer was dead when he hit the deck.
That was enough for the crew. Throwing down their weapons, they ran to the rail. Torwalder chased them, slashing the nearest with his sword and bellowing commands. They paid him no heed, scrambling madly over the rail. In moments, the deck was empty save for Tol’s party, and the furious captain.
“My regrets you have to die on my ship!” Torwalder growled.
“We’re not dead yet,” Tol said staunchly, but neither he nor his people looked very confident.
Without steady hands on the steering board or trimming the sails, Blue Gull soon lost its way, luffing and turning beam-on to the following sea. The rhythmic thump of massed oarlocks grew louder as the skulking galleys closed in.
Grapnels whistled through the air, biting into Blue Gull’s port bulwark. Darpo stepped up to hack off the connecting lines, but Tol stopped him.
“This is one predicament we can’t fight our way out of,” Tol said evenly. “Put down your weapons and stand by.”
More grapnels snagged Blue Gull, and the ship was hauled in tight against the long hull of one of the biggest ships any of them had ever seen. Torwalder identified it as Xanka’s flagship, Thunderer, an “elevener”-so called because each oar was manned by eleven rowers.