Fell cargo, p.20
Fell Cargo, page 20
On the Rumour’s quarter deck, Roque drilled the men-at-arms at their battle quarters, while Casaudor checked the state and readiness of every firearm and the sharpness of every blade. Silvaro himself went below and inspected the gun decks. He explained to Sheerglas that, when battle came, he would favour the Rumour’s starboard side, so as to protect the weaker, repaired port. Sheerglas ordered three of the port-side guns to be remounted on the starboard, so the Rumour’s battery potential would not be squandered. Aguilas had provided good quality powder, as Sheerglass had requested, and also canister and faggot shot to be used against rigging and personnel. The canister shot had been blessed by the cardinal of Aguilas himself.
‘A nice touch,’ Silvaro said. ‘It may help us.’
‘Aye,’ Sheerglas nodded. ‘Just don’t expect me to handle the stuff.’
Sesto felt idle amid all the toil and industry. Every member of the crew was engaged in sailing the ship or preparing for the task ahead, and more than ever, he felt like a passenger. He told this to Ymgrawl.
‘I’d rather stand and watch others work,’ the boucaner laughed, ‘but if it’s labour thee wants…’
At Ymgrawl’s invitation, Sesto joined one of the rope-gangs, and put his back into the hard work. Saint Bones was in charge of that particular gang, and when orders came via Benuto, the man started singing his infernal hymns as a rhythm for the men to time their pulls against. The gang took sport in singing with gusto, trying to drown out the ribald chanteys of the other rope-gangs with their saintly hymns. Sesto raised his voice as loud as any of them.
They sailed north up the Estalian coast, staying no more than a mile or two from land. Distantly, on the eastern horizon, they could spy the nearest of the islands and atolls in the archipelago. By day’s end, they had long passed the lonely bay where Roque had found Salvadore Laturni’s ketch.
Night fell, and they sailed on into the darkness. The night was heavy and humid, and lightning flashed out in the south, over the open sea, but the storm failed to draw in, and remained a distant rumble and spark all night.
Once, Sesto heard Roque cry out in his sleep.
The second day was damp and cold, like a forest after rain. There was a drizzle in the air, and banks of mist covered the shoreline until well after noon. In the latter part of the day, the wind got up, and the sea darkened as it lashed and rolled. Heavy rain came out of the east and drenched everyone bone-cold.
The rain let up after dark, and the night was fair, though still cold. Long past the middle of the night, with blackness still across the world, Casaudor called Luka to the deck.
Away to the north-west, a vast pink glow, trembling slightly, lit up the sky.
‘What is that?’ Luka said.
‘My guess,’ said Casaudor, ‘is it’s Porto Espejo.’
The glow of the terrible fires remained in view all through the night, and before dawn they were even able to smell smoke on the air. As dawn came up on a thin, drab day, they saw the great, dark pall rising from beyond the northern headlands, bruising the sky in a wide brown stripe that drifted west and became fainter and yellower as it faded into the distance.
The smell of burning grew stronger.
Silvaro ordered ready quarters, and signalled this to the other ships.
By mid-morning they had come around the Espejo headland. Though the town was not yet in sight, there was no doubting that the fire had been seated there. The ships were passing under the trailing smoke, into the gloom, as the overhead smoke-bank starved the light. The scent was pungent and harsh, and scads of ash fell out of the air, like snow upon the decks.
The steady thump of drums began, echoing across the water from the regal Fuega, as the marine guards assembled.
Just before noon, they rounded the spit and got a sight of the town.
Porto Espejo was a small place, just a trading stop, with a fair natural harbour, popular with fishing boats. Not a scrap of it remained intact. The shoreline and quays showed the signs of furious bombardment, as if they had been systematically pulverised from the sea. The town itself had been torched and razed. Only the black shells and smouldering rafters of the buildings remained. The temple tower was half-fallen. From this burning ruin, the column of smoke rose into the wan sky.
The flames from the town’s destruction had spread and, through his spyglass, Silvaro could see where the woodlands and plantations on the neighbouring hills were now on fire in great swathes. There had been boats in the harbour, but all had been destroyed. Luka saw shattered, half-sunk hulls, and twisted masts poking up from the waterline.
The water of the harbour itself was littered with debris that lapped and rocked against the quayside walls. Then Luka realised it wasn’t debris. It was the corpses of the townsfolk, hundreds of them, washing together on the slow tide. Gulls circled above the water, dropping to feed on the pitiful bodies.
‘Hernan signals he wishes to put ashore,’ Roque said.
‘For what purpose? There’s no one left to save, and we know damn well what wrought that havoc. Signal him no. And bring us about. I want to quit this place and press on. I want to find that butcher.’
Silvaro went below in a black mood. Sesto found him in his cabin. Silvaro had opened his personal weapons chest and was laying every device out on the table. Dirks, daggers, boot knives, two shamshirs, a dadao, three assorted cut-lesses, swept hilt rapiers, sabres, a hooked tulwar, a hand-and-a-half greatsword from Carroburg, two axes, one beak-backed, the other round-bladed, a pole-arm…
Sesto marvelled at the collection. Luka was sorting through the weapons, flexing blades, testing sharpness, assessing feel.
‘You’re angry,’ Sesto said.
‘Damn right.’
‘Because we arrived too late to save Porto Espejo?’
Luka flexed the blade of his favourite shamshir between both hands, and then soughed a practice chop through the air. ‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘Oh, it’s a miserable scene, and I’d wish no ill on those people. But it’s the waste of it.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sesto asked.
Luka began stroking a whetstone gently along the shamshir’s edge. ‘Sesto, I’ve seen plenty in my life. I’ve seen horrors at least the match of what we just witnessed. I’ve seen atrocity, massacre, slaughterous ruin, all of it committed by pirates. In fact, I’ve done a share myself. But every last crime, every life taken, was in the name of gold and riches. For gain, Sesto. For the love of wealth.’
‘So it’s all right to slaughter when there’s money at the end of it?’
Luka laughed. ‘Not in your eyes, I know. But by my code, yes. What the Butcher Ship did here, and what it has done throughout this bleak year, is kill for killing’s sake. Those poor wretches back there did not even get to pay for their lives with gold. They were simply murdered. That sickens me. That is not part of my life, or any code.’
Sesto sat down and picked up a curved gold and ivory dagger with beautiful inlay. ‘I’ve come to know you, Luka. But sometimes, I don’t think I understand you at all. You have a skewed moral philosophy.’
‘I have the only one that works out here,’ Luka replied. He had evidently settled on the cutting weapons he wanted: the shamshir, a long dagger, a dirk, a cut-less and the round-bladed boarding axe. He placed them aside on the bench and began to return the others to his sea chest.
‘Anything you want?’ he asked Sesto.
‘No, sir. Thank you.’
‘Take the dagger. The gold makes it true and the ivory makes it lucky. It’s from Araby.’
‘My thanks, Luka, but I’m fine with what I’ve got,’ Sesto said, putting the dagger back in the chest. ‘I have enough weapons.’
‘You can’t have enough,’ Luka replied, ‘not where we’re going. Please take the dagger, as my gift to you. The luck in the ivory–’
‘Really, no.’
Luka shrugged, placed the last of the blades in the chest, and closed the lid. ‘Then help me with this,’ he said. He opened another heavy long box and began to take out his firing pieces. Sesto lent a hand. There were dozens of pistols: snaphance, wheel-lock and several heavy flintlocks. Some were matched pairs, some single pieces of exquisite inlay, some long and heavy, some small and fat. A small teak coffer contained a presentation pistol, a brass-mounted sea-service flintlock that had once been the pride of a Tilean admiral. Almost every piece was strung to a lanyard of ribbon or silk-cord. Under the pistols in the chest were the larger guns: matchlocks, muskets, calivers. Sesto took out an Arabyan miquelet-lock rifle, its triangular maplewood stock decorated with coral and gold. Luka lifted out a musketoon and a marksman’s long musket, and weighed them both.
‘All too big,’ he said. ‘Just pistols, I think.’ They put the long guns back in the chest, and then Luka sorted through the pistols, choosing a pair of small snaphance guns, three wheel-locks of various design, and the heavy presentation piece.
They laid the six pistols out on a cloth and began to clean and load them. Silvaro had the finest-quality powder and lock-oil, and well-cast shot that Sheerglas had made for him. The snaphance and wheel-locks he intended for single use, but the flintlock, with its power and smooth action, he required reloads for. As Luka oiled the guns, Sesto sorted fifteen of the best lead balls into a drawstring purse, and then prepared two dozen cartridges, carefully weighing out each powder charge on a small brass set of scales, and winding it tight in twists of paper as Roque had taught him.
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, cut-less 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 Luka, ‘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.
