She nodded and beckoned her lords over to the engines, dragging the bodies clear and gathering the remaining ammunition. “Can’t say as I know how to work such a thing,” Harvin said.
“It’s easy,” Benten said, grimacing a little as Murel tied a bandage about his arm wound. “This lever draws back the arm, that one releases it.”
They managed to have it readied by the time the Shield had steered them within range of one of the Volarian ships. Lyrna touched a torch to the pitch-covered hemp and Benten kicked the lever, the fireballs sailing into the centre of the enemy ship without any obvious effect. They repeated the process two more times as the Sea Sabre closed, their efforts rewarded by the sight of a decent-sized blaze rising from the Volarian ship’s deck but also drawing the ire of her archers.
“Faith!” Iltis grunted as they huddled under his shield, an arrowhead appearing through the leather binding just above his arm.
“Grapples out!” Belorath yelled as the Sea Sabre scraped against the Volarians’ hull. Crewmen ran to cast their three-pronged hooks across the gap, one falling to an arrow and plunging over the side. However, the thickening smoke offered some protection as the rest of the crew clustered around and hauled on the ropes, pulling the two ships together then throwing boarding planks across the divide.
“They don’t come with mercy!” the Shield yelled, standing at the rail with his sabre held aloft. “Don’t show them any!”
The crew responded with snarling assent as they followed him across the planks, sabres and spears raised high, the sight of the ensuing battle lost to the smoke now billowing about the Volarian deck.
“Um, Highness?” Lyrna turned to see Murel standing at the starboard rail and beyond her a very large Volarian ship ploughing directly towards them.
“Reload the engines!” She went to the starboard mangonel, working the lever as fast as she could, casting glances at the approaching monster. A few fireballs won’t stop this one.
“Murel!” she shouted. “Get the pitch!”
The lady didn’t respond, still staring out to sea, but not at the Volarian ship, at something moving towards it at great speed, its fin leaving a wake like a streak of white fire.
The shark rose from the sea, tail whipping and jaws agape, falling onto the Volarian deck in an explosion of splintered wood. It thrashed, scattering men and rigging like chaff, bodies and wreckage cast into the air, some men leaping into the sea in terror. The Volarian ship listed under the weight of the shark, the upper deck collapsing as she keeled over and the sea washed across her hull. Dozens of men thrashed in the water, the sea roiling as the great ship sank into the depths, then turning red as the shark’s head rose amongst the survivors, jaws snapping. Within a few seconds they were gone, the only sign of their ship a few splintered planks and barrels bobbing on the swell.
Very good, Lyrna thought, catching sight of the shark’s red stripes beneath the waves. Do it again.
By the onset of evening what remained of the Volarian fleet clustered together for protection like bison facing a wolf pack as the Meldeneans circled, casting forth an unending rain of fireballs. Occasionally a Volarian captain would try to strike out at the tormentors, but the sight of the shark was usually enough to turn them back. Three times it had leapt from the sea to destroy any ship coming close to the Sea Sabre, spreading terror amongst the Volarian fleet and sapping their crews’ courage with every shattered hull and blood slick. After the destruction of the third ship, a huge troop carrier which had gone down accompanied by the screams of the hundreds of men trapped belowdecks, many Volarian vessels had simply turned about and sailed off towards the east with every sail hoisted. By the time the sun began to wane Lyrna counted only some two hundred ships bunched together as the fireballs fell. The pirates’ skill and the shark had tipped the balance, but at a cost. She estimated at least half the Meldenean fleet was gone, numerous vessels adrift on the surrounding sea, their decks thick with corpses.
The last Volarian ships attempted to break out as night descended, the flaming hulls of their sisters robbing them of concealment as the Meldeneans closed for the kill. She saw a troop ship assailed by three pirate vessels at once, the crews swarming aboard with spear and sabre, sounds of battle soon replaced by screams of slaughter and torment. By midnight it was over, the Shield ordering sails trimmed and a south-easterly course set.
“We still have five hundred more to sink,” he said. “You’d best rest, Highness.”
He had given her his cabin to share with her ladies. They were both already abed, lying fully clothed side by side, hands dark with dried blood after hours spent tending the wounded. Lyrna settled next to Orena, provoking a fearful whimper. She began to stir but relaxed as Lyrna stroked a hand over her hair. “Shhh, all over now.”
Lyrna relaxed into the bed, bone-weary and hoping sleep would come soon, but knowing it was likely to elude her for some hours. She had seen too much today, the wondrous and the terrible, all crowding into her mind and making her long for the ability to forget. But when her memory brought forth a vision it was not of battle or screaming men snapped in half by a shark’s maw, it was an old man on a bed . . . so old, so sunken into age and regret, barely recognisable as her father, barely believable as a king.
She looked down at her hands and found they held no scroll . . . It’s different. Her hands went to her face, finding the burns, the fingers tracing over a scalp of stubble and ruined flesh.
“You are not my daughter,” said the old man on the bed. “She was beautiful.”
“Yes,” Lyrna replied. “She was.”
He coughed, a trickle of blood appearing in the corner of his mouth, his voice weak, pleading. “Where did she go? I have things to say to her.”
“She went to speak with the Alpiran ambassador.” Lyrna moved to sit on the edge of the bed, taking the old man’s hand. “But she did give me a message.”
His tired but still-shrewd eyes narrowed. “I trust it’s an apology. I’ll not have a lifetime’s planning ruined by her weakness now.”
Lyrna laughed, realising she still missed this dreadful old schemer. “Yes, an apology. She said she was sorry for beating you at Keschet all those years ago. But she was too young to realise how galling it would be.”
“Hah.” He grunted, pulling his hands from hers. “Every chance taken for a jibe. Her mother was the same. Took the board away for her protection. Couldn’t have it known she was so . . . special. But that day I knew I had an heir.”
Lyrna felt a tear trace down her cheek, smiling at the old man’s scowl. “She didn’t do what you ordered. You must know that. She agreed to the Emperor’s terms and Malcius returned to take the throne. Your grand design was all for nothing.”
“And is he a good king?”
Lyrna stifled a sob. “He’s dead, father. He was killed before my eyes, with his queen and his children. Your wish is finally fulfilled, I am queen now, and I rule a land of ruin and death.”
His scowl transformed into a wry grimace, a bony hand coming up to lift her chin. “After the Red Hand it was all ruin and death too. But it rose again, because I made it. Grabbed it and dragged it to its feet in the space of a generation.”
“The people may not accept me as I am . . .”
“Then make them.”
“Our enemies are many . . .”