They worked in silence for some time. Eventually, Luka said, “Do you fear me, Sesto?”
“Fear you?”
“After all we’ve been through, I had fancied that there was some comradeship between us, but then you speak of my skewed philosophy, and it reminds me of our differences. You are a prince, and I am a rogue and a murderer. I see myself through your eyes, and it troubles me. You must fear me.”
“I think… you dismay me, sometimes. I would count you as a friend, Luka, but then no friend I’ve ever had could take a list of atrocities, and sort them into those that are evil and those that are acceptable. Back home, all men of moral standing would simply dismiss such a list wholesale. To them a murderer is a murderer, with no degrees.”
Luka sighed.
“But that was back home. I was a prince, remember. I wanted for nothing, lacked no luxury or finery. My father killed his enemies, but he did so using his army and his fleet, and the killing happened far away and was called war, and no one ever considered him a murderer. I never had to fight for my life, never had to wonder where the next meal was coming from and who I might have to kill to get it. I never had to brave the sea and stand at the front of a boarding raid just to put a shirt on my back and boots on my feet. I have five brothers, and not one of them would ever betray me. I think, when all’s said and done, I have been educated in the real world, sir, thanks to you. And I am reassured that even killers live by a code of conduct, however harsh, and that they are not so heartless and inured to violence that they will allow anarchy.”
“Well, there’s a blessing,” Luka smiled. “At least your time with us has not been entirely fruitless.”
Sesto smiled. “In answer to your question, no. I do not fear you.”
Luka Silvaro tutted. “I must be losing my touch.”
He rose, the work finished, and began to arm himself. The dirk went into his boot-top, and he buckled the dagger, cutlass and fine shamshir around his waist. The three wheel-locks and the presentation pistol he looped around his torso on their lanyards, and he tucked the snaphance pistols into his sash. The purse of shot and the cartridges Sesto had prepared went into a satchel at his hip. He picked up the boarding axe and clutched it in his hands.
“Well, am I ready?”
“Now I’m scared of you,” Sesto said.
Luka laughed. “Go ready yourself, Sesto. Arm up and prepare.”
“Is there any need?” Sesto asked. “You seem set to face an entire army all by yourself.”
In the late afternoon, the three ships rounded the spithead of the Golfo Naranja. It had become hot and close again, the sun burning through sweltering clouds, and thunderheads threatened in the darkening western sky. The wind had dropped, and was gusting fitfully. The sea had become as heavy as oil.
The Golfo Naranja was a wide basin, eight miles across, with a long, lean spithead at the southern end and a bluff headland to the north.
According to the chart, the bottom of the basin was beyond measure, and the bay deep right up to the steep beach. The shoreline was thick with verdant rainforest and thickets of spiny gorse. Somewhere in that green forest, and only there, bloomed the precious Flame of Estal.
Largo, at the topcastle, bellowed, “Sail,” but they all had seen it from the moment they had rounded the spit.
There, at anchor in the inner waters of the Golfo Naranja, as the witch had foretold, as Roque had calculated, and as poor, dead Salvadore Laturni had attested, sat a great crimson barque. It was two hundred and twenty paces long, and mounted forty guns. A hazy, uncanny mist seemed to roil off it.
It was the Kymera, the craft of Red Henri the Breton. The Butcher Ship.
“Strike our mark,” Luka Silvaro said to Benuto, “and raise the jolie rouge.”
XXX
Thunder rolled out across the mouth of the bay. The sky, in the sliding light, had become orange, swirled by thick, violet cloud. There was an electric charge upon the humid air, a tension that waited to snap under the weight of the gathering storm. A tension hung upon the Reivers too. As the Rumour came about, Roque brought the fighting men to quarters. The pavis raised with a clatter, and the guns ran out. The caliver men and the marksmen took their places in the rigging.
The odd quality to the air brought on by the storm did nothing to quieten the nerves of the men. They stared at the Butcher Ship ahead, sweating, pale, terrified of what it might do. Drums began thumping from the Fuega, and that added to the strain.
“Keep her steady,” Luka growled. Casaudor instructed Tende at the wheel, and Benuto relayed the commands to the yard-gangs.
“Battle quarters,” Roque’s runner reported to Luka.
“Signal the others,” Luka said to Casaudor.
The flags ran up. The Fuega acknowledged, turning wide to meet the Butcher Ship at its port side as the Rumour swung round to her starboard. The Safire ran out, lateen bulging, at the Rumour’s port flank.
“She’s just sitting there…” Tende said.
Thunder rolled again. The Kymera was still at anchor, as if asleep. No, thought Luka, asleep is the wrong word. Dormant. Like a volcano.
They closed to two miles, well inside the crescent of the Golfo Naranja. The unearthly mist continued to sob from the Butcher Ship.
The sky became very black suddenly. A crosswind picked up, and Vento’s riggers had to fight to correct the trim. Sesto, at Silvaro’s side, heard Saint Bones singing out one of his Sigmarite hymns as his men drew hard.
The light was stained brown with the overcast. Lightning flashed at their heels, drawing in from the open sea. The heavy air tingled with static.
“Why isn’t she moving?” Casaudor said.
“Close in, now,” Luka ordered. “Lose some sheets and let the Fuega ride ahead.”
“Lose the royals!” Benuto cried.
The drumming from the Estalian galleon continued as it purred in across the Butcher’s port flank. A mile and half now.
“Two points to port,” Luka said.
“Two points, aye!” Tende replied, and wound on the king spoke.
Canvas cracked and flapped above them. The wind was turning, and turning fast. The first spots of rain fell on the dry deck, dark as blood. A huge boom of thunder crashed behind them, and the sea began to white-head. Lightning flickered in the gathering gloom.
“Steady,” Luka said.
“Range in four minutes,” Casaudor reported.
“Keep steady. Keep turning out,” Luka said.
“Steady as she goes!” Benuto bawled. “Keep turning out to port, so tell!”
“The Fuega is deploying!” Casaudor said.
Luka raised his spyglass, and saw four, long launches leaving the Fuega’s port side; twelve-oar longboats, filled with marine guards. At the prow of each sat a guard, manning a swivel gun. Between the oarsmen, an inner rank of guards raised shields to protect the men. Stirring like water-skaters, the longboats sped towards the Butcher Ship. Luka knew that Captain Duero was in command of the lead boat.
The gathering storm continued to flash and crackle above them.
“Corposanto!” a rigger yelled.
Luka looked up and saw the fizzling, white-hot brushes of light burning along the Rumour’s topgallants. Saint’s Fire was a bad omen to any mariner, and everyone on board touched iron and wished for it to dissipate. A flock of cormorants was also wheeling around the Rumour, cawing in the slow rain.
“How many more ill omens can we take?” Luka murmured. “Sesto? Go fetch Tusk’s gift from my cabin.”
Sesto nodded, and went below.
“Sheerglas reports we have range,” Casaudor reported to Silvaro. “And so the daemon ship must have too. The Fuega is easily inside its shot now.”
“Why isn’t the bastard loosing then?” Benuto asked.
“Which bastard?” Luka asked. “The Butcher or our comrade Hernan?”
“Hernan, of course,” Benuto said.
“Because Captain Hernan is a wise and crafty seaman,” said Luk
a, “and he will wait until the very last, so his guns do the most damage.”
Vicious thunder exploded above them again, masking the first shots of the Fuega’s guns. Hernan had begun his combat, coming within a half mile of the Butcher Ship. The Fuega cracked out a massive broadside, covering the sea beside her with smoke, and then let loose another. Luka watched the galleon’s side flash and boom.
The cannonfire should have destroyed any ship, but the Kymera seemed unmarked. The Fuega cut loose a third and a fourth time. Now the bay was fogging with white powder-vapour, and the Rumour was running into it.
“That’s right,” Luka murmured. “Give it to the bastardo, Hernan.”
The Fuega fired two more salvoes as it closed, its launches rowing in behind it.
The Rumour and the Safire had come around through the inshore waters, circling the Butcher Ship at its starboard.
The thunder storm broke in, covering the Golfo Naranja in churning, sooty clouds and spears of lightning.
The Fuega fired yet again, another full side.
At last, the Butcher Ship woke up. Venting mist, it ran forwards, sheets swelling, ignoring any pull of anchor or direction of wind. Its sails, crimson red, were suddenly—impossibly—full and bulging with wind.
There was a terrible, overlapping series of cracks as the Kymera fired its first broadside, gunning at the Fuega.
Struck hard, the Fuega lurched away. Luka saw a mast fall and rigging strip away.
Then there was a flash. A burst of light brighter than any lightning. The Fuega vanished in a cone of fire. Luka heard a whistling shriek as an entire mast flew overhead and impaled itself, tip-down, into the headland three miles behind him.
The Kymera’s opening shots had hit the Fuega’s handling chamber and magazine, touching off with a calamitous blast. The mighty Estalian galleon, and Captain Hernan, and all his crew, had been annihilated in a blast of shocking force that lit up the entire bay. The Rumour and the Safire fought to control their courses in the shock waves that followed such a catastrophic demise.
And then they were on their own.
The Butcher Ship was closing on the Rumour. It seemed to radiate foul red light, not only from its heavy iron lanterns, but from the bloodstained hull and crimson sheets. The Reivers could taste the pestilential evil in the air. The Butcher cut through the chopping water, somehow unencumbered by the swell or the storm, as if the lashing rain and lightning suited it as sailing weather, just as a bright, fresh day would suit an ordinary vessel. Silvaro could almost believe that the storm was no coincidence. The gale, the thunder and the pitch-black sky attended the Butcher Ship like consorts.
They could see figures upon the deck, silhouettes backlit by the ruddy fog. They were grim and still, blades in their hands, as if waiting for the moment to strike.
“Hold the line!” Roque yelled, sensing that fear was beginning to spoil the firm wall of pavis and pike. A pulse was beating in his head, and he felt sick to his gut. His shoulder itched.
“She’s trying to come around on our port!” Luka cried. “Steer wide! Steer wide! By the gods, it’s like she knows which side we’re vulnerable!”
Tende raised his eyebrows. “Either side of us is vulnerable to that devil,” he spat.
“Have a care!” Casaudor roared.
The Kymera had begun to fire on the Rumour. There was a fierce, rolling crackle of guns, and cannonballs whistled at them. Some splashed the rough water beside them, others shrieked overhead, punching through the luff of the mainsail.
The Kymera fired again. Every man on the Rumours deck dropped, for this time the enemy had range. The ship quivered as if stricken, as blasts tore into hull and rail. Wood splintered, thrown high into the air, and men died. One shot hit the gilded breastwork of the Rumour’s stern, two more shredded through the quarter deck.
But the damage had only just begun. Alarmed, Luka saw that these were not regular shots they had taken. Fire sprang up at each site of impact, foul red flames that did not belong on earth. It was as if the fell sorcery of the Kymera had spread like an infection into the Rumour’s wounds.
“Douse it! Douse it there!” Benuto yelled, but no amount of water could quell the creeping red flames.
Another salvo tore in at them, doing miserable harm and killing over a dozen more men. One shot, from a small saker, hit the rail near Silvaro, bounced off, and rolled across the deck, misfired. Silvaro stared at it. The black iron ball, the size of a grapefruit, was still smoking. Its surface was studded with metal spikes, like the head of a mace. It was a foul thing, an evil star thrown out of heaven.
“Get that off my deck!” Luka cried, and Saybee hooked it up with a marlinespike to sling it over the rail. Instantly, the lee-helmsman cried out in utter disbelief. Spikes were sprouting out of the black iron sphere, like squat fingers or tendrils, and it clung to the end of his marlinespike as if intending to crawl down it like some ghastly beetle.
Saybee flung the thing, marlinespike and all, over the side.
That was enough. “Give ’em hell!” Luka yelled.
Down in the hot darkness of the gun deck, Sheerglas heard the order and signalled with his linstock.
The Rumour returned fire. With satisfaction, Luka saw the heavy shots blast into the Kymera, though they seemed to deliver far less damage than he had expected. He suddenly had the dreadful notion that the Butcher Ship might be proofed against mortal damage by some charm or ensorcelment.
“Fire again! Again! At will!” Luka shouted, and the Rumour’s batteries answered him. The Safire, which had been shadowing the Rumour’s turn, now pulled clear and began an assault of her own. The guns of both Reiver ships blazed at the crimson monster.
The Kymera showed no sign of being troubled in the least. It came on through the storm, now clearly bent on grappling with the Rumour. The vile red fires on board the Rumour were spreading with terrible fury, and despite all efforts to beat them out or drench them, they could not be quenched.
XXXI
Sesto reappeared on deck, carrying the golden box. He was sweating and dirty from smoke, having tried to assist the beating out of the fires below.
Luka grabbed the box, opened it, and took out the Bite of Daagon. At once, the red flames eating at the Rumour’s structure sputtered and went out, leaving just smouldering, black charring behind.
“That’s more like it,” Luka smiled. “A charm against a charm.”
Sheerglas fired the guns again, and now, where they struck the Kymera’s red hull, there were blasts and savage splintering. They had at last bloodied the Butcher Ship’s nose.
“Again!” Luka roared. “Put canister and faggot shot into their rigging!”
The blessed canister shot scorched out and caused wild flurries of white fire to cascade along the Kymera’s deck. Rigging tore and twanged away, and some of the shadowy figures fell. But up until the moment they fell, none had yet moved.
A volley of faggot shot went off next. These shots were metal cylinders cunningly fashioned to come apart in whizzing geometric sections. They struck the Kymera with devastating effect.
The Reivers began to cheer. “Hold the line! Hold it fast!” Roque yelled at his men-at-arms. His left shoulder was aching miserably now, and his throat was parched. He took a swig of water, but it did little to soothe the terrible dryness.
The Butcher Ship began to turn, and fired its guns once more. The Rumour took more hits, but more went wide and struck the Safire for the first time. Silke’s craft was not warded by the Bite of Daagon like the Rumour, and crackling red fire took hold of her bows.
Luka handed the Bite to Sesto. “Hold that up and keep it high,” he ordered. “It’s the only luck we’ve got in this fight.”
The Kymera had closed with them enough for the swivel guns and calivers to start their fusillade. Roque gave the order, and the muskets and long guns started to bark and fizz.
“Gods, but the Safire’s really in trouble,” Casaudor growled. Silvaro turned to look, and saw that th
e baleful red fire had spread savagely along the Safire’s starboard side. Two of Silke’s men, ablaze from head to foot, threw themselves over the sloop’s side, but the sea did not put out the flames. Swirling pink light remained visible beneath the waves as the bodies sank, still burning.
Silke was at the wheel of the Safire, and seemed hell-bent on bringing her around at the Kymera, despite the inferno sweeping across his deck. The few operational guns the Safire had left blasted at the Butcher Ship in defiance.
“Can we not help her?” Sesto asked, appalled by what he was seeing.
“How?” Silvaro replied. “We’re locked into this with the Kymera now. We can’t break off to go to Silke’s aid. And even if we could, what could we hope to do?”
“Then they must abandon her before they all burn alive,” Sesto cried. Tende, Saybee and Benuto all shuddered at the words. The dimensions of a pirate’s life were determined by water, but fire was, ironically, his nemesis. The greatest fear of any pirate was to burn alive.
Silke must have already given that order. Crewmen were leaping off the Safire’s stern into the sea. Two boats had been dropped, and some of the floundering bodies were managing to struggle into them. The Safire continued to power forward, fire leaping up at the masts and rigging, consuming the wide lateen sail like paper. They could still see Silke, alone on the burning poop, standing firm at the wheel, his long, expensive robe on fire.
“Sweet gods,” Silvaro said. “Silke, what are you doing?”
The doomed Safire, struggling, it seemed, not to die too soon, swept on across the Rumour’s bow. It looked nothing more than a fire-ship, entirely ablaze above the waterline, the raging flames lifting sparks and ash into the air in a huge stream behind it like the glittering train of a noblewoman’s gown. Silvaro now understood Silke’s last, valiant act as a Reiver.