The Sword in the Sea - Chapter Three

Admiral Acrusta regarded the dishevelled Tarcun prince and his Ezrenian peer with a baleful, knowing eye.

'Hmmm,' he grunted. 'I see that the Palace of Ezreen hasn't lost any of its inclination to entertain royal guests royally. I seem to recall your father standing in the same spot – looking much as you do now – many years ago, Young Sir. Anyway, Admiral Dirmar has already sailed and we are about to cast off. I want you two up on the forecastle on lookout – I don't fancy having to swab whatever you've got inside you off my quarterdeck.'

Sheepishly, the two princes made their way forward.

It was a clear, bright day with a fair wind from the northeast, and Storm Bringer had a swift run to the harbour mouth where Acrusta altered course onto an easy reach to the northwest as the longship passed between Kaddal's legs. Outside the harbour, Admiral Dirmar's waiting galley braced its own mainsail around and took up a position on the Tarcun vessel's port quarter.

Billus joined Ravian and Beneen at the rail.

'Ravian!' he enthused. 'What a time you missed last night! Why those Ezrenian whores screw like…'

'Uh, Billus,' Ravian interrupted him, 'this is Prince Beneen, Crown Prince of Ezreen.'

'Oh,' said Billus, his face colouring as he turned to the Ezrenian prince. 'Forgive me Your Highness. I…I didn't…'

'It's all right, My Friend,' Beneen assured him. 'The hostesses of Ezreen are artists of world renown…and a very necessary and taxable function of our port. By the way, I'm here under training just as you are – so formal address is not required or, for my part, welcome.'

'Oh…ah…well, right you are then,' Billus sputtered. 'Welcome aboard.'

Then he turned back to his friend.

'But, by the beard of Delikas, Ravian,' he exclaimed. 'You should have been with us last night! We had the time of our lives!'

'I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves, Billus,' Ravian replied, straight-faced, 'but, alas, when I step off this vessel I become a mere prince again and at the mercy of the demands of state.'

'Oh, too bad,' said Billus with patent insincerity. 'I suppose that being a member of royalty isn't all it's made out to be, eh?'

'I sense he's a good man,' said Beneen, as Billus wandered happily aft.

'Yes. Very straight forward, as you can tell,' Ravian confirmed. 'There isn't a deceitful bone in his body.'

'The loyalty of such people is something to be prized,' the Ezrenian prince said – not without a touch of bitterness. 'We all need people we don't have to watch our backs around.'

'Very true,' replied Ravian, well aware of the legendary machinations of the Ezrenian court. 'By the way, Beneen, what is the story with those hahmah cakes?'

'Ah, yes – the hahmah,' his friend replied. 'The ingredients come from a range of mountains in the far northeast of Karaal.'

'But I only had one and I felt like I had drunk a tavern dry,' said Ravian. 'You had two or three – as much as I can recall anything about last night – and yet you seemed unaffected.'

'Oh, I was affected,' Beneen told him. 'But I've been taking hahmah for years and it would seem that, to a degree, one becomes accustomed to it.'

He leaned closer and put his hand on Ravian' arm.

'But you must be careful with the hahmah, my friend,' he warned in a low voice. 'Too much hahmah – like too much wine – can make a man soft in the head.'

'What about that dancer?' Ravian asked.

'Which one?' Beneen replied innocently.

'The first one, of course!' Ravian burst out. 'What an extraordinary creature! I must know her name!'

Beneen's face softened with a sympathetic smile.

'Her name is Belice,' he said, 'and she is the most celebrated Halay dancer in the land. But, My Friend, you should understand that the art of the Halay is to create desire in a man, not necessarily to satisfy it. Also, you should know that Belice belongs to my father and the penalty for any other man to touch her – as you very nearly did last night – is an amputation of a most cruel and personal nature.'

By the mid-afternoon of that day, Ravian felt that he had acquired his sea legs enough to safely join Admiral Acrusta on the quarterdeck. He found the old warrior pacing backwards and forwards, every so often glaring astern at the Ezrenian galley.

'Is there a problem with Admiral Dirmar's vessel, Sir?' Ravian asked.

Old Crusty regarded the prince from beneath a shaggy brow.

'Only that we have to sail in company with it,' he growled. 'Look at the set of our sails, Young Sir! We have our sheets so eased that I can hardly hear myself think over the luffing of the mainsail yet, even so, Dirmar can only just keep up with us. What lumbering pigs those galleys are!'

Ravian looked astern at the Ezrenian vessel. Unlike Storm Bringer's fore and aft sails, the Ezrenian flagship was square-rigged and seemed to be making heavy work of the moderate conditions.

'I'll wager that, if it were winter, our Ezrenian friend would not have been so keen to accompany us,' Acrusta continued. 'Just one look at that ship and you can see why the Ezrenians are so happy to pay Tarcus to carry out their naval duties in the Sapphire Sea.'

'Are they really so awful, Sir?' Ravian asked.

'They have their uses,' Acrusta conceded. 'See that ram sticking out of the bow? Get into a battle with one on a day with no wind and they'll run that into you like a spear. The only chance a longship has in such a situation is to get alongside and board them before they put a hole in you. Under oars though, a galley is faster than a longship and just as manoeuvrable – not so easy to get to grips with.'

'How many crew would she be carrying, Sir?'

'A twin-decker like that one would have over one hundred and fifty men on board,' Old Crusty replied. 'But that's another problem the Ezrenians have – all but thirty of those will be slaves. Slaves will sometimes be released and fight if they think they are going to go down or burn with their ship, but most of the time they're chained to their oars. Once you're over the rail of an eastern galley you really only have to deal with a handful of archers and armoured infantrymen.'

Ravian had no doubt that the admiral spoke from personal experience.

'But those big galleys the Northerners use are a totally different proposition,' Acrusta continued. 'They don't use slaves and, with three decks, and, sometimes, even four, that can be over two hundred men on board who will all fight like maniacs.'

Ravian considered this.

'So, why don't we have any galleys, sir?'

'Well…we used to, long before I was born – but our primary need is to protect our shipping routes from piracy and that means getting somewhere fast in all weathers.

'Take a good look at that galley, Young Sir – she's struggling to stay with us even on a gentle reach. This breeze would only have to back another point or two and Dirmar would have to drop his rigging and start rowing. And look how much leeway she is making! To keep that rowing manoeuvrability they don't have much of a keel – so they tend to crab along sideways with the wind on the beam. In rough weather, they're at risk from even a moderate storm – you can see how she's got her lower oar ports plugged for sailing now, but there's not a great deal of freeboard even to the upper ports, so a decent beam sea is real risk for her. As for running before a heavy sea – if she broaches she'll go down like a stone. The only things that a galley caught outside harbour in a strong blow can do is pull down her mast, put out a sea anchor, and pray.'

Ravian frowned.

'But, Sir, if a large fleet of Northerner galleys were to come against our own navy in calm conditions, would we not be the losers?'

Acrusta regarded the young prince with a look that was difficult to fathom.

'It hasn't happened yet, Prince Ravian – although I fancy that one day the Northerners may stop bickering amongst themselves long enough to put a fleet together. But there's lot of open water between the northern shores and Tarcus, and it would be a brave commander who risked a fleet of galleys on that voyage.'

Ravian looked back at the Ezrenian ship and, despite the difficulties he could see the vessel was experiencing, the sight of her ram, periodically lifting clear of the sea, filled him with foreboding.

The wind held fair and, after running up the Ezrenian coast, the two ships continued on a northwest heading within sight of the shores of Karaal. Then, early on their fifth day out from Ezreen and not long after the lands of the East had sunk below the horizon behind them, they sighted the southernmost of the Gertal Islands. They had begun to sail past this first, small island when the lookout reported a fishing boat anchored in a sheltered western cove. Acrusta immediately ordered a change of course and Storm Bringer tacked and headed into the bay, the galley furling her sails and running out her oars to follow them.

Acrusta was almost upon the fishing boat before bringing the longship into the wind and, as the Tarcun vessel drifted to a standstill, her gently flapping sails gave the unsuspecting fishermen their first warning of her arrival. Indeed, they stopped so close to the anchored boat that Storm Bringer's bowman was able to throw a line down to the four men who stood staring up, open-mouthed, from the fishing boat's stern. As they made fast to the smaller craft, Acrusta ordered the sails furled and the port anchor let go.

It was, Ravian thought, a masterful display of seamanship.

From behind them came the splash of the Ezrenian galley's anchor and Ravian looked around in surprise. The speed with which the Dirmar's ship had followed them in under oars was impressive indeed.

Acrusta Identified the fishing boat as Dalvanian and ordered its master on board. His weathered face expressionless, the old fisherman climbed over the rail even as a dinghy brought Dirmar across from his galley.

'How long have you been fishing in these islands?' Acrusta asked the skipper when the Ezrenian admiral had joined them.

The Dalvanian slowly turned and spat over the rail, evidently unimpressed at being in the company of the commanders of the two most powerful navies in the world.

'I have been fishing in these islands all my life,' he eventually replied in heavily accented Chesa.

Acrusta showed no sign of aggravation at the unhelpful reply.

'And how long have you been on this particular fishing trip, Captain?' he asked evenly.

The Dalvanian looked the older man in the eye.

'A month…maybe more.'

'We are investigating reports of pirates in these islands,' Acrusta told him. 'Have you seen any signs of them?'

The fisherman hesitated for a long time before replying.

'We are poor fishing folk,' he finally responded. 'We have eyes only for the weather and for our nets.'

'A month is a long time away from Dalvan, Captain,' Acrusta said. 'I doubt that the market in Dallana would be interested in sea produce that was so old. Perhaps you have been able to sell rather fresher catches somewhere in these islands?'

Caught out, the Dalvanian lapsed into confused silence and Acrusta pursued his advantage.

'Perhaps you have new clients here – a lot of mouths to feed?' he probed.

The fisherman remained silent, squinting out towards the entrance to the bay.

Acrusta's tone hardened.

'And perhaps these new customers have been making unwanted calls on passing trading vessels?' he growled.

The man shrugged.

'I sell my catch to whoever pays for it,' he replied sulkily. 'The squabbles of nations are not my concern.'

Dirmar and Acrusta exchanged a meaningful glance.

'But, Captain, we are making our enquiry your concern,' said Dirmar, smoothly joining the conversation. 'Believe me, now that we are here, these new customers of yours will not be buying from you for very much longer. Besides, why would you sell your catch to them – when we will give you three times the going price for whatever you have in your boat right now?'

The Dalvanian turned to the Ezrenian admiral and his face creased into a gap-toothed smile.

'Perhaps we can do business then,' he said.

'I'm sure we can,' replied Dirmar. 'But, before we do, can I repeat my friend's question and ask – again – where we might find these new customers of yours?'

Once more, the Dalvanian looked doubtful.

'We may need to hire your boat and crew for a time – top rate,' Dirmar wheedled.

The prospect brightened the old fisherman's face and he came to a sudden decision.

'Very well,' he said. 'If you buy my catch and hire my boat, I will take you to the island that I have been selling my fish to. I don't know anything about any interference with trading vessels but I do know that there are hard men there with fast boats.'

He looked levelly at Admiral Acrusta then.

'Perhaps more men – and harder – than you are expecting,' he said ominously.

The two admirals agreed that Dirmar would accompany the fishermen on the day's sail north to the island that seemed to be the pirates' lair. The old Dalvanian finally having talked of at least ten vessels there, it seemed prudent that they spy out the situation before making any further moves. The main force would follow more slowly, discretely anchoring in the cover of a neighbouring island to await Dirmar's return.

Thus, the following afternoon found Storm Bringer and Dirmar's galley anchored in a south-facing bay of the island chosen for the rendezvous. The shoreline was devoid of vegetation or any other obvious form of life – the low, black cliffs and narrow fringe of beach reflecting the fiery sun into the windless cove with a sullen intensity. In an effort to escape the stifling heat, many of the longship's crew periodically dove into the still, blue waters – frolicking heedless of the risk of sharks and temporarily forgetting the danger of their impending clash with the pirates.

Ravian, Beneen and Billus were drying in the sun on the forecastle when the lookout atop the mast called out that a boat was rounding the point into the bay. As expected, it was the fishing boat bringing Dirmar back from his reconnaissance mission. The small craft sailed smoothly up to the port side of the longship and the Ezrenian admiral – dressed in the rough garb of a Dalvanian fisherman – vaulted lithely over the rail.

As Dirmar joined Acrusta on the quarterdeck, the older admiral beckoned the watching princes.

'You two! Beneen and Ravian! Come aft and join us!' he boomed.

'Please forgive any offence that I may bring to your nostrils,' smiled Dirmar, as the two princes joined their admirals.

Indeed, there was a distinctly fishy odour about the usually impeccable Ezrenian.

'It is much as the skipper described,' he began. 'There look to be eight sea boats – fore and aft rigged – that would probably hold about twenty crew each. As well as that, there is a three-decked Dekanian galley.'

'Dekanians!' spat Acrusta. 'I might have guessed. So…maybe three hundred men in all?'

'I would think about that number,' said Dirmar. 'We didn't go into the harbour – we just trawled a net outside the heads for a while. The anchorage faces south, protected by a high headland on the western side with a lookout station on its summit. There's a permanent camp established in the bay and our Dalvanian friend tells me that most of the men are living ashore there. I couldn't see any anchor watch on the small craft but there are certainly men on the galley.'

'Any sign of the merchantmen, Admiral?' asked Ravian.

'Aye,' Dirmar replied. 'Two from Karaal and one of our own – definitely one of the vessels taken by pirates. No sign of crew from any of them though – poor devils.'

Acrusta' face darkened.

'Well,' he growled, 'we may not have been able to save them from whatever fate they've met – but at least the presence of their vessels in the harbour gives us leave to avenge them without too much concern for the political ramifications. Admiral Dirmar, how do you see our best plan of attack?'

The Ezrenian had obviously been giving the subject some thought during his return voyage.

'The key is the lookout station,' he said. 'If we can silence the guards there, then we can get in amongst the ships at anchor with surprise on our side. I suggest that we send a small party away in the fishing boat – timing their arrival in the harbour at around dusk. The lookouts have seen that boat come and go before, so its arrival shouldn't arouse any suspicion. They can anchor just inside the headland and the men can pretend to be cleaning the catch – which is where the skipper tells me they normally do it anyway. He also thinks that it should be possible to land there so, after dark, our men can make the climb up to the lookout station and silence the guards. Once they've done that, they give us the all-clear signal. As soon as they get a reply, they return to the fishing boat and sail back to the rendezvous here.

'After sunset, we darken our vessels and bring them in close to the headland. When we see the signal from the shore party, I'll row my galley into the harbour with muffled oars and get as close as I can to the galley before I'm detected. Then I'll ram her and try to sink her. Provided the breeze is strong enough, Admiral, you can take Storm Bringer around the bay and fire the pirate boats at the same time. We don't have enough crew to man the merchant boats, and we don't want to leave them behind for the Dekanians, so I suggest you torch them as well. They are anchored further out in the bay, so whichever of us has disposed of his targets first will have a little more time to finish off the merchantmen.'

'A sound plan,' Acrusta rumbled. 'Since you will need your full complement of fighting men to deal with the watch-keepers on the Dekanian galley, I will provide the landing party from my own ship. Once the action begins, we'll need to swift about our business – the Dekanian pirates aren't going to stand idly ashore and watch their ships being burned.'

'Ravian and Beneen,' the old admiral continued, 'this will be a good experience for the pair of you. I want you to take a landing party of five – including the bosun – and deal with the lookout post. The all-clear signal will be three flashes of a lamp out to sea, where we'll be hove-to west of the headland. When you see our response, get back to the fishing boat and get out of there as fast as you can. Understood?'

'Aye, aye, Sir!' the princes chorused.

'Very well, report to the Bosun and get going,' Acrusta ordered them. 'It's getting late and you need to be there at dusk!'

The fishing boat reeked of its trade but it sailed well and they made it to the island with perfect timing.

Ravian, Beneen and the five crewmembers had dressed in clothes borrowed from the Dalvanians, who had prudently remained behind at the rendezvous. Despite the two princes' royal status and theoretical rank, it was immediately clear that the bosun was in charge of the mission.

Bosuns were the longship's foremen, responsible for executing the orders of the orders of the captain and his officers. Invariably, they were the toughest, most experienced seamen of the longship fleet and rigorous enforcers of its disciplines. Combus, bosun of the admiral's flagship, was at the pinnacle of his career, and appeared not at all daunted by the prospect of taking the princes of two nations into a hand-to-hand combat mission. Indeed, Ravian thought, as he surreptitiously observed the scarred, powerful figure at the helm, it was difficult to imagine anything that might disrupt the man's confident demeanour.

He looked about at the four other crewmembers on board and decided that he wouldn't want to be pitted alone against any of them without a sword in his hand. Combus had handpicked his team and Ravian could see that the bosun had chosen well.

Beneen joined him at the bow.

'This is your first time in combat, is it not, Cousin?' the Ezrenian prince asked, as they approached the headland guarding the pirate harbour in the softening evening light.

'Yes,' replied Ravian, conscious of a strange swirling feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

'Then let's keep close by each other,' Beneen said. 'I will be at your left shoulder and, being left-handed, we should make a formidable pair.'

Ravian turned and looked at his companion.

'And you?' he asked. 'Is this your first time?'

'No,' Beneen replied. 'Admiral Saravar has already sent me over the side with a boarding party in the Spice Sea.'

'Did you kill anyone?' Ravian asked.

'Yes,' Beneen replied evenly. 'I took two lives in that action.'

As the fishing boat passed under the headland, Combus blithely waved out to the sentries high above them, smiling with sinister satisfaction as they waved back.

'Looks like only half a dozen of them,' he said to his raiders. 'This should be easy but, remember, we must cut them down before they can give any sort of alarm.'

Combus anchored the boat just inside the harbour and they turned to the odorous task of cleaning the aging catch the Dalvanians had left on board, a squalling flock of seagulls materialising out of nowhere. As they worked inexpertly with their filleting knives, they surveyed the nearby shoreline, noting that the pockmarked, black volcanic rock that rose steeply from the water's edge was almost devoid of vegetation, but seemed to offer plenty of foot and handholds.

'As soon as it's dark, we'll go alongside directly across from where we are now,' Combus said, raising his voice above the noise of the gulls. 'There's a rock outcrop there that we can tie up to.'

'She looks like a steep climb right there, Bosun,' growled one of the crewmen. 'Maybe we should try a bit further along.'

'Aye, it'll be a tough climb,' Combus agreed. 'But if we pull in here, our masthead will be below the line of sight of those men up there – and that's what we want.'

As darkness fell, they silently raised anchor and, muffling the fishing boat's oars, they paddled her close to the rocky shore and made her fast. Sheltered from the breeze by the cliffs, the sea immediately beneath the headland was glassy calm.

Carefully, they removed their weapons from under cover in the stern of the boat, each man silently easing on his armour and arming himself with a short, heavy, naval sword. Then, bare-footed for agility and bareheaded to hear better, they slipped over the side of the boat and onto the rocks.

'If those sentries get one whiff of us, it will give the game away,' whispered Beneen, referring to the fishy perfume that lingered on all of them from the boat.

'Silence!' came Combus's venomous hiss from the darkness above them. 'I'll cut out the tongue of the next man who talks!'

They continued the climb in silence. There was no moon and they ascended towards the starry horizon mainly by feel. In what seemed to Ravian almost no time at all, they had arrived on top of the headland, a short distance north of the lookout post and creeping through the low, wind-stunted trees that crowned the ridge, they emerged onto a rough trail. Stealthily, they eased along the path towards the dim glow that marked the lookouts' position.

As they came closer, they saw that the sentries had gathered around a fire and were relaxing over their evening meal, their armour and weapons stacked to one side. One look at the piled equipment told the landing party that the sentries were no rough pirates, but Dekanian soldiers.

'Wait,' breathed Combus.

Ravian watched the bosun as the experienced older man scanned the campsite – assessing how far the six men were away from their weapons and whether or not there might be any others beyond the dim circle of firelight. As they watched, one of the sentries stood up and walked towards the blackness of the cliff edge at the southern end of the camp. The Dekanian spent some time scanning the velvety darkness from east to west before returning to the fireside. Ravian was certain that there were no other men and, moments later, Combus showed that he had formed the same conclusion.

'Now!' the bosun whispered and, before either Ravian or Beneen had taken more than two steps forward, Combus and his men had swarmed into the campsite like dark spirits.

The Tarcun sailors swiftly overpowered the sentries with quick, deadly thrusts – the only sound a stifled grown escaping from one of the unfortunate soldiers. Ravian and Beneen were still standing uncertainly at the camp's perimeter when they heard the sound of men approaching along the trail behind them.

'Kaddal save us!' hissed Beneen, as they spun around. 'It must be the relieving guard!'

There was no time for either youth to think as the first of the Dekanians – obviously unaware that he was arriving at a scene of slaughter – blundered towards them out of the darkness. Beneen brought his sword around in a sweeping arc that intersected below the leading man's chin, almost decapitating him and, immediately, Ravian stepped forward and thrust his blade into the throat of the next man in line. The Dekanian fell backwards with a surprised gurgle and, instinctively, the Tarcun prince stayed low as Beneen's sword whistled above his head – catching a third soldier on the side of the neck and dropping him like a felled ox. Then, two of their landing party charged past on either side of them, hacking the following guards to the ground although, beyond the dark tangle of struggling men, Ravian saw the last Dekanian turn and start running back down the trail. Knowing that he must not allow the man to escape, the prince set off in pursuit.

Burdened with full armour, helmet, and shield, the fleeing soldier soon cast the last item aside to speed his escape. He was no match in speed for the more lightly clad prince however, and, hearing Ravian closing behind him, he was forced to turn and defend himself.

Years of constant weapons drill guided the Tarcun prince's movements and he easily parried the desperate, unskilled swordsmanship of his opponent. Almost without thinking, he slipped inside the Dekanian's guard and drove his sword up under the man's armour – clamping his free hand over the doomed guard's mouth to muffle his scream. Warm blood gushed over his sword hand and he would later remember the sickening sensation of his blade grating against bone as the soldier fell away from him and his weapon pulled free.

Combus and Beneen arrived moments later to find him standing over the still twitching body of his adversary.

'Well done you two!' the bosun panted. 'A bit slow off the mark at the start but you certainly made up for it. Now, let's get back to the sentry post and give the signal.'

They trotted back to the campsite where, in the flickering firelight, Ravian saw that the ground was covered in blood. The stench of spilled guts and voided bowels made him suddenly feel ill and he breathed deeply in an effort not to disgrace himself.

One of the crewmen had already lit the signal lantern and, covering it with a cape from one of the dead guards, Combus walked to the edge of the cliff and showed it three times as he had been ordered. Immediately, three answering blinks of light came from the darkness below.

'Right!' said the bosun, extinguishing the lantern. 'We've done our job – twice over, in fact. Everybody back to the boat, and take care not to break you necks on the way down!'

The climb down was more difficult than the ascent – made all the more difficult for Ravian by his weak legs and shaking hands. Finally, though, they were all in the boat and, even as they cast off from shore, they saw the galley and the longship glide into the harbour like ghost ships. As quietly as they could, the raiding party rowed out of the headland's lee – searching for enough breeze to raise the sails. Looking back to the harbour, they saw flares of orange as Acrusta fired first one and then another of the pirate boats and cries carried faintly to them across the water. Then, by the growing light of the flames, they saw Dirmar's ship locked hard into the side of the Dekanian galley.

'Those poor bastards are pinched in,' muttered Combus, as their sails filled with breeze and the headland obscured their view of the battle. 'They'll have a fight on their hands now.'

They had not made it far out into open sea however, before the breeze eased and began to veer to the south-west, and it took the rest of the night, and numerous tacks, for them to sail back to the rendezvous.

As the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn and they rounded the headland into the rendezvous bay, Ravian fruitlessly scanned the northern horizon for any sign of the galley or the longship to the north. Combus anchored the fishing boat close in to a small beach in a corner of the bay where, in exhausted silence, the Tarcun raiders washed off the blood of battle as they waded ashore. Without a word to the waiting fishermen, they staggered up the beach and dropped onto the black sand – sleeping where they fell as the sun eased over the horizon.

It was mid-morning when a smiling Beneen shook Ravian awake.

'Wake up, Ravian. Our ships have returned!'

Ravian sat up and looked around, rubbing the blurriness from his eyes.

He noticed straight away that the fishermen – who had prudently insisted that they be paid in advance – had slipped away with their boat while he and the raiding party had slept. The armour and weapons they had left behind on the boat had been carefully stacked close by on the beach.

Staggering to his feet, Ravian saw the longship lead the galley into the bay – both vessels under oars. As Storm Bringer came to anchor, he saw that her bow was smashed and splintered just above the waterline. Fire had charred the Ezrenian galley's bow and the Tarcun prince could see dark stains running down her sides that he knew were blood. For a moment, he thought that she had also lost her masts – then he remembered that galleys always removed and stowed their rigging before combat.

A boat despatched from Storm Bringer picked up the raiding party and rowed them back to the longship where the two admirals waited on the quarterdeck.

'Welcome back on board, Bosun, Young Sirs,' growled Acrusta. 'As you can see, we have not completed our mission entirely unscathed.'

'What happened, Sir?' Ravian asked, looking from one admiral to another.

Dirmar, a deep gash on one cheek and dark shadows of fatigue under his eyes, smiled ruefully.

'Well, after we saw your signal,' he began. 'We went in and I rowed with full speed straight at the guts of the Dekanian galley. We hit her beautifully – perhaps a little too well – because she immediately heeled over on our ram and pinched us in. Her anchor watch woke up then and, although they weren't armoured, they were armed. There we were, locked in an embrace like a whore's thighs, with twenty or so axe-swinging Dekanians storming over the bow. Into the bargain, our rowers panicked and we lost power for a time.'

Acrusta gave Ravian a quick, meaningful glance.

'Then,' Dirmar continued, 'just to add to our woes, the Dekanian somehow caught fire – so we were not only fighting hand to hand from the bow back to amidships, but we were jammed into another vessel that was both sinking and burning. While this was happening, the men onshore had launched their boats and the first of them started to come alongside and swarm up our oars. I have to say, I have been in some tight spots in my time, but I didn't think that we were going to get out of that one. Fortunately, my good friend here was able to come to our aid.'

Acrusta cleared his throat and took up the story.

'We could see that Admiral Dirmar was pinched in and – just as we fired the last of the captured merchantmen – the breeze inside the harbour dropped almost to nothing so we had to lower our sails and run out the oars. Then we aimed for the Dekanian and rammed her in the stern quarter as hard as we could. It swung the enemy galley around enough to break Admiral Dirmar's ram free and he managed to get enough oars working to back out before the Dekanian capsized on him – it looked pretty close from where I was standing. Unfortunately, by this time, we had a number of small boats full of very angry Dekanians around us and, without enough wind to sail, we had to both fight for our lives and row for the harbour mouth at the same time. We took a number of casualties.'

Behind the Admiral, Ravian could see a sail covering what was obviously a line of bodies.

'How many, Sir?' he asked.

'Eight dead,' Acrusta replied. 'Another two who will never put to sea again – if they live. Young Petrus is among those killed, I'm afraid.'

'We lost ten of our soldiers as well,' said Saravar, 'plus sixteen slaves cut down at their benches.'

'Everything seemed to go well with the raiding party, Bosun,' Acrusta said, turning to Combus.

'No casualties, Sir,' growled the sailor. 'But we had the bad luck that their relieving guard chose to turn up just as we was dealing with their first watch. Fortunately, our two Young Sirs here took care of most of 'em.'

'Indeed?' said Acrusta.

He and Dirmar regarded the two princes with interest.

'It augers well that the sons of both royal houses have distinguished themselves so early in their careers,' said Dirmar. 'Your fathers will be delighted.'

Ravian felt his chest swell with pride, his pre-battle nerves – and his revulsion at the subsequent butchery – now forgotten.

The two vessels stayed in the bay only as long as it took to make running repairs. As was the tradition of their country in such situations, the Tarcuns sewed up their dead in shrouds of weighted sailcloth and, with a short prayer to Delikas, consigned them to the blue depths of the bay. The Ezrenians however, followed their own tradition of returning home with their dead whenever they could. Both ships, the admirals agreed, would sail directly for their homeports and, thus, Beneen prepared to transfer back to the galley.

Even though they had known each other for only a few days, the events during that time had already formed a strong bond between the princes and Ravian bade his friend goodbye with real regret.

'Don't forget, My Cousin, we are one family now,' the Ezrenian prince had said as they embraced briefly.

Storm Bringer got under way on a tack to the south, Dirmar's galley soon slipping below the horizon astern of them as the Ezrenians rowed ponderously east. Billus joined Ravian at the forecastle and they spoke for the first time since the raid.

'I must say, Ravian,' he told him, 'I was absolutely green with envy when you were picked for the raiding party! I thought that we would just be rowing around the harbour burning boats while you got all the real action up on the headland. By Delikas, how wrong I was!'

Ravian smiled. His stout friend seemed to have no idea what fear was.

'Our part of the action was going according to plan,' Billus continued, his eyes shining at the memory of the battle, 'but we could see that Dirmar was in trouble, stuck fast into the Dekanian. Old Crusty is a cool customer though. He and Dirmar may be old friends but, when the first lieutenant called out to him that the galley needed a hand, he replied "We must do our duty by our country before we can do our duty by our friends" and he didn't put the ship about until we had fired the last of the three merchantmen.

'By that stage, the Dekanian had caught fire as well. I don't know how that happened, but I think one of the pirate boats we torched must have burned through her anchor warp and drifted against her. Anyway, the Dekanians still had their mast stepped and their main furled on the yard. The flames ran up the mast and set fire to the lot so, by the time we got back to Dirmar, the whole bay was lit up as if by a giant torch. What a sight!

'We could see boat after boat of pirates rowing out from the land. A couple of them had already started to board Dirmar's galley and there was a pitched battle taking place on the upper deck. Dirmar was in the thick of it, swinging that big sword of his and cutting down men faster than I could count – what a hero!

'Pieces of burning sail were raining down all around and Dirmar's ship had already caught fire at the bow. Old Crusty gave the order to row as we had never rowed in our lives and we hit the Dekanian's quarter so hard that I thought we were going to topple our own mast. We put another hole in her and she swung clear of Dirmar's ship but then started to roll towards us. Her flaming mast came down so close that it landed on the end of our last sweep on the port side. The inboard end bounced the oarsman clear off his thwart and he landed amidships. That's how he died, poor devil – it just about took his head off.

'Dirmar got his oars going and he spun his galley around and headed for the harbour mouth. They certainly move when they want to, those things – and that was with some of his slaves dead at their stations!

'We took a lot longer to come about and, by the time we were heading in the right direction, some of the boats had caught us and we began to take on boarders over the stern. I was rowing from well aft, so I had a perfect view of Old Crusty cutting them down one by one as they came over the side. The first lieutenant ordered the last five rowers on each side off their thwarts to repel the boarders and that's how I got to be on the quarterdeck with a sword in my hand. I think that I must have killed five men myself!

'Trouble was, by taking out that many oarsmen, our speed was reduced – and more and more of their boats began to catch us. Our helmsman was killed, so someone had to stand there and hold the steering oar right at the point where we were being boarded. That was Capernal – he's a brave one, believe me. The rest of us were just trying to keep the Dekanians' swords and axes from his neck as they came over the stern rail.'

Ravian was not surprised that, while Billus had clearly been carried along by the frenzy of battle, it had been Capernal who had taken the action necessary to extricate the longship – selflessly placing himself in a position that could well have been suicidal.

'Anyway, I think that we would have been overwhelmed – but then Dirmar dropped back in line with us. He had about a dozen archers on his sterncastle and they cleared the boarders off our quarterdeck like a horse's tail swatting flies. Once that happened, Acrusta sent everybody back to their oars and we were able to leave the rest of the pirates behind – although I think they were losing interest by then anyway. What a magnificent battle!'

They expected to take four days to sail back to the White City but, towards the end of the first day, the wind started to back to the east and dark clouds began to gather on that horizon. It began to blow steadily harder and the longship, now on a reach, sailed southwards with increasing speed. Toward evening, Acrusta ordered the vessel brought up into the wind so that the mainsail could be furled and the foresail replaced with a smaller one.

'There's a bit of a blow coming,' he explained to Ravian, Billus and Capernal as the vessel got underway again – only a little more slowly than before despite the significantly shortened sail. 'My feeling is that we will have a howling northeasterly by tomorrow morning. If I'm wrong – well, we can always put more sail on again. If it comes up the way I think it will though, we don't want to be having to shorten sail in a storm in the middle of the night. That's a sure way to lose crew and we have lost too many good men already on this voyage.

'Remember lads, the time to take any action at sea is when you first think of it. By the time the sea forces you to do something – it's probably way too late.'

The three young men absorbed this gem carefully. They had no doubt that Acrusta's forecast of the weather would be borne out.

'What about Admiral Dirmar's vessel, sir?' asked Capernal. 'If there is a storm coming, won't his galley be in serious danger?'

Acrusta smiled and the boys felt a new bond with their commander – the bond of fellow veterans.

'Admiral Dirmar may be sailing a dangerous pig of a galley,' Old Crusty told them, 'but he's an experienced sea captain. He'll have seen this coming and he'll be hugging the coast during the day and looking for a safe harbour by night. I daresay it'll take him ten days at least to get back to Ezreen and, personally, with the Ezrenians' tradition of taking their dead home with them, his vessel is about the last place I would want to be by the end of that voyage. We, on the other hand, could well be back to the White City by tomorrow night.'

They drove on into the gathering darkness and, as Acrusta had predicted, the wind backed further to the north and they began to surf with the waves. To his surprise, Ravian found the motion quite comforting and, not being required for an evening watch, he slept soundly through the night.

Dawn the next day came slowly – angry and grey. The wind was now firmly in the northeast and blowing a gale.

Later in his life, Ravian would experience the terrifying sight of swells as high as hills. This day, however, as the longship ran south before the young Tarcun's first storm at sea, the grey, foam-streaked walls that marched menacingly up to the stern of the boat merely fascinated and exhilarated him. As they caught up with Storm Bringer, the waves would lift the vessel high and then thrust her onwards with a surge of rigging-rattling acceleration.

Ravian took two turns at the steering oar that morning – spells of about an hour each. As there was too much strain on the rudder for one man, two crewmen were detailed for the duty – with Combus standing close by to lend his experience and weight if required.

Between his spells on the tiller, Ravian talked with Acrusta.

'This is the strength of our fleet, Young Sir!' the admiral enthused. 'No other vessel in the world would risk leaving harbour today and yet, here we are, having the time of our lives!'

One look in the admiral's face was enough to tell Ravian that he meant what he said – there was a youthful gleam in the old mariner's eye that burned brighter with each downhill surge. Ravian had certainly found his time at the steering oar exhilarating and had been disappointed when taken off at the end of only an hour.

'I agree, Sir, but why was I relieved from steering so early?' he asked. 'I should have liked to continue awhile.'

'Helming a longship on a day like today is one of life's great pleasures Prince Ravian,' Old Crusty replied, 'but a man gets tired faster than he knows and starts to lose concentration. Next thing, even with a tiny foresail like this on, the stern has come around faster and further than you can catch it and the ship broaches down the face of a wave. A longship can usually survive that – I've seen longships go over so far that their masts have been level with the water – but it is a very dangerous and unpleasant experience.'

Ravian had no doubt that it would be so and was doubly cautious on his next spell at the steering oar, ending his watch without complaint or resentment.

Such was the speed of their passage that, by midday, a towering headland showed ahead on the storm-hazed horizon and, recognising The Horn, the northern extremity of Tarcus, Acrusta ordered a change in course three points to starboard. Ravian knew that he did so in order to be sure that they would weather The Tusk, the barren headland that marked the western extremity of the vast Golden Bay. With the wind squarely behind them, they just managed the leg without jibing – passing close below the steep cliffs of the headland a mere two hours' sail later. Altering course to the southeast, they gained some lee from the high cliffs that, except for the entrance to Belainus, ran unbroken all the way to the White City. The sea close to the coast was smoother, although plenty of wind still made it down from the cliff tops. Acrusta ordered a larger jib onto the forestay and the mainsail re-hoisted, although reefed down to less than half its usual area. Then, hugging the rugged coast all the way, they continued for the White City, the splintered bow hissing on the wind-rippled waters.

Ravian had never known such speed.

On and on the ship drove, faster than a horse could gallop, and the few landmarks sped down their port side – some houses of Neverius high on the cliff tops, the narrow entrance to Belainus. Then, the perpendicular headland of the Western Arm appeared ahead of them, marking the approach to the White City. The late afternoon sun was just starting to break through the clouds as they rounded the point and tacked into the harbour entrance and, as they passed between the guard towers, the White City gleamed ahead of them with a golden tinge.

It had only been twelve days since he had left the waters of this same harbour and yet Ravian felt that he had doubled in experience in that time. He looked aft to where Acrusta proudly paced his quarterdeck, while Billus worked the steering oar and Capernal studiously noted navigation marks in his journal.

Silently, the Tarcun prince thanked Delikas for his good fortune in being born into such a life.