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Moments later the other galley struck, farther forward. Her barrel must have
risen clear of the water at the last second, for it went off with a great
sheet of flame. From the enemy's foc'sle guns, men, and planks flew in all
directions, and the bowsprit cartwheeled through the air to splash into the
sea a hundred yards away. Then the mainmast tottered, toppled, and crashed
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down squarely on the deck of the first galley. She was dragged in alongside
her dying enemy as the fallen mast twisted about. Blade saw the smoke of
muskets suddenly spring up from both ships as both crews leaped to board or
repel boarders.
It was bad luck, being caught that way. Blade had anticipated the risk, but
there wasn't anything to be done about it. When a large sailing ship started
falling violently to pieces, there was no predicting where the pieces would
land.
Avenger was now around on the far side of the enemy line and beginning to work
her way back along it toward the flagship. The smoke and the enemy's ships now
cut off Blade's view of the attack. He heard two more thudding roars as
barrels were driven home and saw two more clouds of smoke rising through and
above the murk from the guns. He saw one tremendous flash high in the rigging
of a ship, as a powder barrel hurled by a siege engine exploded in her tops.
Both masts went down in a rain of spars and blocks and sails; then the
dismasted hull was blotted out in the smoke. All this time the guns still
rolled.
Then Blade saw something that made him take off his helmet and wave it wildly,
because he could no longer control his excitement. Two, three, four of the
Imperial sailing ships were coming about, turning away out of line, turning
their sterns to the allied galleys-turning to flee! At last the courage of
Kul-Nam's captains and crews was beginning to fade. The death that was coming
at them out of the smoke filled them with a fear that drove any thought of
what Kul-Nam might do out of their minds. All they could think of was what the
enemy galleys would do if they didn't flee.
Now the whole enemy line was falling into confusion as ship after ship tried
to turn away. It looked like a stampede of drunken elephants, as fifteen or
more large ships tried to maneuver in an area of sea that would have been
cramped for half that number. All of the ships were clumsy to begin with, and
none of them had been improved by the damage they'd sustained.
Blade saw a barrel crash down on one ship's deck and explode. It must have
been filled with sulphur, for an enormous cloud of yellowish smoke swirled up
from the deck. Flames followed, rapidly climbing the masts and reducing the
sails to blackened shreds. Blade heard the crackle and roar, heard the
explosions of powder charges on deck, saw men jump over the side with clothing
and hair aflame, preferring drowning or sharks to burning alive.
Then another sailing ship loomed out of the smoke too close to the burning one
to avoid her. They crashed together and all the masts of both ships went down.
Now they were as firmly linked as if a dozen sailors had spent hours tying
them together.
Then a galley attacked. Her barrel smashed into the second ship-and it touched
off the ship's magazines.
The explosion could not have been louder if a volcano had risen from the
bottom of the sea to create a new island. Blade clapped both hands over his
ears, quite sure that he was going to be deaf for a week.
The entire sea around Avenger seemed to be blotted out by the great flash and
the smoke that followed it.
The smoke was so thick that Blade never saw or heard any of the pieces of the
three ships and their men fall back into the sea. It was as if all three ships
and crews had been blown into dust so fine that the wind carried it away.
Avenger moved on. By now her rowers were deaf to everything except the beat of
the drums. She swept through the smoke without slowing down and broke out into
the daylight again.
Three hundred yards away rose the towering mass of Kul-Nam's flagship.
Instantly the ship let fly with an entire broadside, thirty or more guns. In
spite of the range, only one or two shots struck Avenger. Even the Emperor's
eye directly on them could no longer make the Empire's gunners shoot straight.
Without any orders, the boarding party began rushing forward, the men from the
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stern guns joining them. Avenger surged forward, and in that moment the big
galley seemed as alive and eager as the men on her decks.
Blade yelled what he hoped everyone heard as "Get down!" and threw himself
flat on the deck. The heavy gun on the bow went off. Several balls from the
flagship whistled overhead. Then Avenger drove her deadly weapon hard against
the flagship's bow.
Instead of a roaring explosion, all Blade heard was a great craaak of
splitting wood. Then he heard a tremendous crashing and crunching and was
hurled violently forward as Avenger plowed into the
flagship.
Blade slid several feet forward on his belly, picking up splinters in every
piece of skin that wasn't protected by his armor. Above him the flagship's
bowsprit and Avenger's foremast were hopelessly tangled together. Then with a
popping of breaking ropes and a crackling of wood the mast leaned gently
forward and came down across the enemy's foc'sle. Suddenly there was a perfect
bridge from Avenger onto the deck of Kul-Nam's flagship-or the other way
around.
Blade wasted no time worrying about why the barrel hadn't gone off. A glancing
blow, wet powder, who knew? In any case, there was Prince Durouman, waving his
sword and mace, leaping onto the mast and scrambling up it as nimbly as a
monkey. He was going to get his chance at a hand-to-hand grapple aboard the
Emperor's flagship after all.
This might be folly, but it was a folly the prince could not be left to commit
alone. Blade sprang to his feet. Turning aft, he shouted to the men around the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]