The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (17 page)

Remembering that did the rest of the work of cooling her off, and she finished dressing moments later. “Good luck,” she said to Darok, and let herself out of his cabin.

The ship was dark except for a single lantern hanging sixty feet above Darok’s head.

He leaned against the mainmast, wanting to feel its solid reassurance for as long as he could. No one else was on deck—or above it, since the crow’s nest was unoccupied for once. The hatches were shut tightly. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his roughspun jacket and waited.

The sails were furled to keep them out of the way and to stop
Daystrider
from moving, though the wind had turned against them late that evening. Now it blew from the east, meaning the Turean galleys would be upon
Daystrider
soon. He stood alone on the deck, though he knew Yerena’s shark was circling somewhere deep beneath the ship. Much as he distrusted the creature, it was his hidden trump, one he intended to play when he stood to lose the most.

He would have preferred not to rely on Seawatch at all, because remembering the scars on her back made his hands tighten into fists. Not only did they beat a little girl, they made her believe she deserved it. If he ever had a daughter, he’d sooner see her in Lunacy than in Seawatch. Yerena was so much more than just a Weapon of Denalay, and he wished she wouldn’t settle for the crumbs Seawatch gave her. Or the beatings, for that matter.

Daystrider
rocked in the empty sea, and the wind felt pleasantly cool on his skin. If they hadn’t been waiting to fight a battle, he would have liked to bring Yerena up on the deck—it would never again be so private. He would pull down a sail and spread that over the deck, then make love to her under the stars. A thick blanket of clouds overhead hid every star from sight, but he wouldn’t have minded doing it in the rain either. Yerena did look good in soaking wet clothes and was even more fetching out of them.

Two pinpoints of light, like the eyes of a distant cat, appeared on the eastern horizon.

Darok straightened up as the lights grew to fireflies and bred clusters of more bright dots that he guessed were firepots on the decks of the galleys—fires to kindle arrows. That was fine, since his men were all belowdecks and his sails were almost as safely out of the way. He glanced at the wooden boards beneath his feet. Those were a little slippery, but with luck the pirates wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

The galleys moved under oars, their sails furled as well, and Darok knew they had either been tipped off or suspected that his ship was no mere whaler. He might—just might—have tried to pass it off as one otherwise, saying they had drifted off course while hunting an albino that had smashed the ship’s rudder, but furled sails meant a galley ready for battle.
Two galleys.
They moved apart so they could flank
Daystrider
, and now they were close enough for him to see the dark figures of pirates crowding their decks.

His heart thudded against his ribs. He knew
Daystrider
’s own oars would be drawn in and all the ports closed. Alyster was in command belowdecks, and he wouldn’t begin the counterattack until things had well and truly gone to hell above.

The galleys moved into position, trapping
Daystrider
in a pincer. Just as Yerena had said, they had prows meant for ramming, painted black with eyes that glittered in the light of firepots, enough light for him to see their names.
Rorqual
and
Bowhead
, two whales for a whaler, with broken-chain banners flying from their sterns.

Darok took his hands out of his pockets and flattened one palm against the mainmast. He was only too aware of the archers perched safely behind the armed pirates, and one arrow would be enough to pin him to the mast. He hadn’t even worn armor under his clothes.
No wonder I’ll never make admiral.

The galleys’ sails were down and lookouts filled both rigging and nests, lookouts who had no doubt noticed the apparent lack of defenders on his deck. Darok tensed. He was in clear enough sight—the galleys were only a dozen or so feet from
Daystrider
—but what if they didn’t take the bait?

On the galley to the south, a tall man with shoulders wide as a bull pushed his way to the forefront of the pirates, then raised both hands to cup them around his mouth. “I am Captain Veck Ithane of the freeship
Rorqual
!” he shouted. “Prepare to be boarded!”

Ready when you are,
Darok thought.

On the galley to the north, a high shrill note piped out, an answering signal, and four grappling-planks flew through the air. Hooks bit into the rail on either side, but only a handful of pirates leaped up on those and strode forward.
Scouts
. Darok’s mind raced. He had to think of some way to get more of the pirates on board.

“Captain!” A lookout on
Rorqual
, a boy who could not have been more than fourteen, was crouched on a yardarm and pointing down. “There’s ports in the hull, it’s a warship—”

“Yes!” Darok shouted back. “She’s called
Daystrider
.”

The tall pirate’s lips drew back from teeth that looked yellow in the firelight, and his voice rose to a roar of thunder. “Board it!” The weapon he pulled from behind his back was a huge double-bladed axe. “
Take him alive!
”

Chapter Seven

Freeship Rorqual

Gangplanks rattled against the rail as the pirates swarmed the ship. The huge man with the battle-axe was in their lead, and even if Darok had been certain of no interference from the rest of the pirates, he would have hesitated to take the battle-axe on. He ran to the nearest ratline and leaped, grabbing the rope and climbing up it.

Shouts and jeers rang out from the ships on either side as the first of the pirates landed on
Daystrider
’s deck. Darok clenched his teeth. He had to get as many of them aboard as possible, but enduring those scum on his ship was like watching a cockroach crawl across his dinner plate.
Forget it
. He kept climbing, praying none of them would decide to loose an arrow at him.

“Get the hatches!” the pirate captain shouted. “I’ll take care of him!”

You do that
. Darok reached the first platform on the mainmast, thirty feet from the deck, and dared to look down. Pirates swarmed his deck like rats, scurrying to smash open the bolted-shut hatches. One man, much to Darok’s fury, planted a banner showing a broken chain on the prow.

Their captain shoved the battle-axe into a scabbard on his back and began to climb the rigging. Darok might have considered fighting him, using the height advantage of the platform, but he had a better plan in mind. Besides, with an axe that size, the pirate could have hacked the platform out from under him.

He caught another ratline and climbed again, towards the glow of a swaying lantern. Below came the crunch of axes biting into wood, but for such a large man, the pirate captain was frighteningly fast in the climb. A hand grabbed Darok’s boot. His heels were greasy with oil and the pirate lost his grip, cursing. Darok scrambled up the ratline. The lantern was only ten feet away.

A sharp punch struck his left arm, hard and unexpected as an invisible fist, and he jerked. His whole arm was numb—
what the hell happened?
—and he hung from his right hand.

He turned his head. Red feathers fluttered from an arrow’s shaft, and his sleeve was turning redder. Then the pain came, hot and biting like a wave of acid.

Agonizing though it was, it cleared his head.
Climb. Go up or you won’t have a ship to go down to.
His right palm was damp, reducing the friction against the net of ropes, and they swayed each time the ship moved. The lantern hung from a nail driven into the mast, just a few feet away, but he couldn’t take his right hand off the rigging because his left was useless.

He opened his mouth and bit down on the rope instead. The taste was foul, but it was better than no grip at all, and with his feet braced in the rigging, he stretched out his right arm. The lantern was just out of reach.

“Stop running, coward!” Anything else the pirate captain might have said ended in a grunt as the ship listed suddenly to port, all but slamming him into the mast. It did the same for Darok, of course—the entire rigging turned to a cobweb in the wind—but that was enough for him to snag the lantern.
That’s my girl
, he thought to the ship.

He let the lantern drop.

The instant before it struck the deck lasted a very long time. Then came the sound of shattering glass and Darok breathed again. With a
whoof
, the oil-soaked deck of
Daystrider
burst into flame.

The shrieks that filled the night had more of shock and terror than pain about them, but springing the trap bought Darok a moment to keep climbing, gaining some distance from the pirate captain. The arrow stuck out of his arm, and when the feathered end caught against a rope, his vision went white. He was so far above the deck by then that a fall would have killed him before the pirates could, so he clenched his teeth and hauled himself the last few feet to the crow’s nest, all but toppling over the edge when he reached it. He struggled to his knees.

Below, a few of the pirates had fled but some of them struggled to beat out the flames. The captain hesitated for a bare second longer before he continued to climb.

Darok reached for one of the sealed clay pots in the crow’s nest. Oil sloshed inside it as he hefted it and threw, not aiming for anything in particular as long as the pot’s contents splattered over the deck. The oil ignited at once. He flung the next one straight at the pirate captain, and it cracked in two over the man’s helm, dousing him.

“One step further and you’ll roast alive!” Darok shouted at him, then tossed another pot over the side. The screams from below were almost drowned out as renewed fire raced over the deck, biting into wood. Scouring his ship, burning the dirt away.

The pirate’s roar rose above it all. “Archers, kill him!” He let go of the rigging and leaped sideways.

Darok hoped he would be splattered against the deck like an overripe plum, but the pirate landed with a splash in the water instead. The shark wouldn’t pick the bastard off either, because Yerena had orders not to play her hand until the last moment.

Arrows struck the crow’s nest, punching into the wood from both sides. Darok crouched down and threw the rest of the pots out blindly. More screams rose up, so he dared to glance over the edge of the crow’s nest and down to the deck. The mainmast jutted out of a sea of fire. A shrieking figure wrapped in flame staggered to the gunwale and toppled over into the sea.

Another pirate shouted an order to disengage, and men on
Rorqual
pulled in the gangplanks.
Daystrider
’s arbalests fired almost simultaneously, on both sides, though to little effect. The galleys were so close his men couldn’t miss, but by the same token, the arbalests couldn’t fire up at a steep enough angle to strike the galleys’ gunwales—or the pirates just beyond them. The galleys trembled under the force of the tridents punching into thick wood, and that was all the damage they took.

The smoke drifting up from the deck was so thick Darok couldn’t see oars dig into the waves, but he felt the ship move as she backed water, trying to get free of the pincer to bring her prow into play.
Bowhead
’s gangplanks remained snagged in her rails, though, and
Rorqual
moved faster. The galley pulled away, oars sweeping the water in strong coordinated strokes, and began to turn.

No
. Darok’s eyes stung with smoke, but he couldn’t look away from the sight of
Rorqual
’s prow pointing directly at his ship’s side. The galley had put more than enough distance between the two of them to build up speed for the ramming charge, and
Daystrider
was still caught fast. The impact would slam her into
Bowhead
and damage that galley, but the impact would also split her in two.

His hands tightened on the rim of the crow’s nest. Hard as a heartbeat, an oarmaster’s drum pounded on
Rorqual
and two hundred oars moved as one. The water churned.
Rorqual
streaked through the waves.

And the shark leaped out of them. Tons of muscle and sinew came down on the starboard bank of oars, snapping them like kindling.
Rorqual
’s forward surge slowed abruptly. The galley began to slew before men pulled in the oars on her port side as well, bare seconds before the shark could reach them too. Panic broke out on her deck. Officers shouted conflicting commands and men scrambled to get clear of the gunwales.

Darok sank back into the crow’s nest. He knew exactly what was happening on
Rorqual
as the sailors’ atavistic dread of the white death gave way to greater terror at the realization that they were on a crippled vessel. The galley’s inertia carried her forward, but she had no momentum, let alone aim. Her prow did little more than scrape along
Daystrider
’s hull.

With a splintering of wood, the fire-weakened rails on
Daystrider
broke. Gangplanks fell away and her oars beat fast as she pulled free of
Bowhead
. Darok guessed no one on that galley would be too interested in continuing the fight, especially not after seeing the shark. The beast had scared him almost as badly, because until then he had only seen it submerged in water that hid its full size. It was a thunderbolt with teeth.

Which it seemed to be using on any pirates unfortunate enough to be in the water. One of them wailed, “Please, no,
please,
call it off, merc—” and Darok tried to ignore that as he took stock of his own injury. His entire sleeve was sodden. He thought of pulling out the arrow, but the head was embedded in his arm, and if it was barbed it would rip his flesh. Thankfully he could lift his arm and bend his elbow.