Ranger's Apprentice 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (11 page)

The pirate ship was a long, low galley, narrow waisted and mounting twelve oars a side. She had a small mast and a square sail but for the moment the sail was furled. As she approached the wolfship, the two banks of oars rose and fell in perfect unison.

‘Can we outrun her, Gundar?’ Halt asked.

As ever, Gundar glanced at the sky, the sail and the other ship, then sniffed the air experimentally before answering.

‘As long as this wind holds, no problem,’ he said. He called an order to the sail trimmers and they hauled on the sheets, bringing the sail to a harder curve. At the same time, he nudged the tiller slightly so that the bow of the ship swung a few degrees to port. Instantly, Will felt a tremor run through the deck as the ship leaned, then accelerated.

Halt was rubbing his beard thoughtfully, still watching the pirate galley behind them. He estimated that there were forty or fifty men in her crew and he could see her captain leaning forward to yell encouragement to his rowers as he realised that they were losing ground to this strange ship with its triangular sail.

‘And if the wind drops?’ Halt asked.

Gundar shrugged. He, too, studied the pirate craft.

‘Twelve oars a side to our eight,’ he mused aloud. ‘Under oars, she’s probably faster than us.’

Halt turned that information over in his mind, then added, ‘And she’s not likely to be the only one of her kind we sight.’

Gundar nodded. ‘The sailing notes say these waters are infested with pirates.’

The Ranger studied the pirate galley again. Under a renewed effort from her rowing crew, she had made up a little distance on
Wolfwill
. But now, after that initial surge of enthusiasm, they were beginning to drop back again.
Wolfwill
’s oars were shipped and at least half her crew were relaxing on the rowing benches, out of sight. Chances were that the pirates thought she was a trader, manned by only a dozen or so men.

‘Can you let her catch up to us without them realising you’re doing it?’ he asked.

Gundar, for once, answered immediately. ‘Easily,’ he said, grinning evilly. ‘I take it you want to give them a little surprise?’

‘Something like that.’ Halt glanced at the men on the rowing benches. ‘Get your weapons ready, but stay out of sight,’ he called. He was answered by at least a dozen wolfish grins from the Skandians. Sea wolves loved a fight, Halt thought.

Gundar, meanwhile, eased the bow a little back to starboard, and called more orders to the sail trimmers. The sail came even tauter, and the ship heeled a little further. It looked impressive, but the reality was that she came off her best point of sailing and lost speed in the manoeuvre. The pirates began to gain on them once more. There were a dozen of them gathered in the prow of the galley, yelling threats and waving weapons at their quarry.

‘They’re a raggle-tail bunch,’ Will remarked. ‘Do you want me to start the ball rolling?’

He had an arrow nocked to the bowstring and the galley was in easy range now. But Halt shook his head.

‘Not yet.’ He glanced to where Evanlyn and Alyss were standing by the rail. Evanlyn had her sling ready, slowly swinging it back and forth. Alyss, he saw, had changed her practice sabre for the real thing. She had it belted around her waist.

‘You two move back here,’ he said, indicating a position in the stern of the ship. Reluctantly, they obeyed. They might have argued with him earlier, but both of them knew that when the ship was about to go into a fight, Halt’s orders were to be obeyed without hesitation.

‘You can knock a few over with that sling as we get closer,’ Halt told Evanlyn. Then he glanced at Alyss. ‘You watch her back in case any of them get on board.’

Alyss nodded. ‘Is that likely?’ she asked, with a faint grin. She’d seen the fighting qualities of Skandians – particularly this crew – in the past.

‘I doubt it.’ Then, addressing Gundar and his crew, Halt laid out his plan. ‘We’ll turn up into them as they get closer and take them bow on bow. Grapple them, then board them over the bows and disable their ship.’

‘What about their crew?’ Nils called from the rowing benches.

‘If they get in the way, disable them too,’ he said shortly. ‘Get rid of their mast, knock holes in the hull, then get back on board.’

‘You want us to sink her?’ Gundar asked and Halt shook his head.

‘No. I want her badly damaged but capable of making it back to port. I want the word to go out that the strange ship with the red falcon ensign,’ he gestured to Evanlyn’s ensign, flying from the mast top, ‘is manned by dangerous, hairy maniacs with axes and is to be avoided at all costs.’

‘That sounds like us,’ Gundar said cheerfully. And a rumbling growl sounded in the throats of the crew. ‘Jens,’ he said now to one of the sail handlers, ‘you take eight men up to the bows. Have grapnels ready and lead the boarding party when we’ve got her secured.’

‘I’m going too, skirl!’ It was Nils Ropehander, from his position on the front port-side rowing bench. Gundar nodded.

‘First four rows from either side follow Jens aboard her,’ he said. ‘But stay out of sight for now!’

‘Show yourselves only when I give the word,’ Halt called. ‘We want the sight of your lovely faces to be a big surprise for these lads.’

Again, a growl of assent from the crew. They lived for this sort of encounter, Will realised. Several of them were already chuckling at the thought of the panic that would fill the pirates’ hearts when they realised that the helpless-looking, apparently unarmed sailing ship was literally a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A sea wolf in sheep’s clothing, in fact.

‘Evanlyn, let’s see what you can do,’ Halt said quietly. The princess needed no further urging. She already had an egg-shaped lead shot loaded into the pouch of her sling. Glancing around to make sure she was unimpeded, she whirled the sling up, let it circle twice, then released and sent the shot whizzing on its way.

They could follow the flight of the shot for a few seconds, then lost it against the mass of the galley. But a second later, one of the shouting, gesticulating pirates in the bow suddenly toppled over, folding up like an empty garment. His companions stepped away in shock, silenced for a moment, then redoubled their threats and insults, urging their rowers to go faster and catch this insolent intruder. They were a ragged group, as Will had mentioned, wearing tattered white and coloured robes and dirty turbans. They were generally thin and dark skinned. As they grew closer, Will could see that their weapons were a mixture of curved swords, dirks and knives. There seemed to be no uniformity among them and Will guessed that they were more accustomed to slaughtering helpless crews than fighting trained warriors.

Halt nodded approvingly at Evanlyn’s successful shot.

‘Interesting. Just two spins,’ he said. ‘In Arrida you spun the sling round and round a lot more before releasing.’

‘I’ve been practising,’ she said. ‘Spinning it too much warns your enemy and leaves you exposed to return shots. The ideal is to get maximum velocity in one spin, but I’m not up to that yet.’ She reached into a leather pouch slung over her shoulder and took out another of the specially shaped lead projectiles. The days of using river pebbles were long past.

‘Shall I do another?’

Halt regarded the oncoming pirates, his eyes slitted against the glare of the sun from the sea.

‘No. I think we’ve stirred up that hornets’ nest enough. Once we’ve grappled them, you can let fly at that group around the tiller as much as you like.’ He turned away to Gundar. ‘Any time you’re ready, skirl.’

Gundar judged distance and the angles and the set of his sail.

‘Coming about!’ he bellowed and leaned on the tiller. The ship swung neatly, the wind going out of the sail as she turned, leaving the canvas flapping wildly.

‘Down sail!’ he roared and the boom and sail thundered down to land on the deck. Hastily, two of the sailing crew gathered the flapping canvas in out of the way.

On board the pirate galley there was a sudden silence as their quarry unexpectedly swung round to face them.

‘Show yourselves, sea wolves!’ Halt yelled and sixteen big, heavily armed men appeared from the rowing benches to supplement those already in the bow of the ship.

The pirates, expecting to attack a dozen or so lightly armed sailors, suddenly found themselves facing at least thirty yelling, hairy denizens, all armed with double-headed battleaxes.

At the same moment, two grapnels sailed out from the bow of the ship and thudded into the woodwork of the pirate galley. The captain, aft at the tiller, started to scream orders to his men to cut the ropes that were now drawing his ship closer to the foreigners’ craft. He gesticulated to the rowers to back water and pull them away from this unexpected danger.

Will heard a quick whizzing sound as Evanlyn whirled and cast again. The pirate skipper abruptly reared up, clutching his forehead, then crashed over backwards onto the deck.

There was a grinding crunch as the two ships drew together and the yelling, battle-mad Skandians poured over their own bow and onto the deck of the galley. Most of the pirates gathered in the bow took one look at the huge men and their huge axes and ran for the stern. Some of them took a shorter escape route and dived over the rail into the sea. The few who remained to fight had little time to regret their choice. The boarding party, led now by Nils, who had forced his way past Jens, smashed through them, scattering their limp bodies to either side.

Several of the boarders, directed by Jens, dropped into the rapidly vacated rowing benches and smashed their axes into the hull’s planks below the waterline. Seawater gushed in through the massive rents they created. Satisfied with their work, they then busied themselves throwing oars overboard, while their companions hacked at the stays holding the ship’s low mast in place. One man swarmed up the mast itself and released the sail, then slid rapidly down again. The sail filled with wind and strained at the mast. Unsupported, the mast withstood the pressure for a few seconds, then there was an ugly crack and it sagged to leeward, taking a tangle of sailcloth and cordage with it.

Gundar glanced at Halt. The Ranger had been assessing the damage to the galley and her crew. Nearly half the pirates were killed or disabled and the ship was already settling at the bow. Time to let the remaining pirates make repairs and take news of this very unwelcome foreign ship back to their lairs on the coastline.

‘Bring ’em back,’ he said and Gundar bellowed to his men.

‘Back on board! Sea wolves! Back to the ship!’

The men began to scramble back to the bow of the galley, clambering from there up to
Wolfwill
, which stood higher than the pirate ship. Their comrades on board helped them over the bulwark. Nils was the last to come. Initially, he was fighting a one-man rearguard action. Then the pirates seemed to realise that there was no future in coming within reach of that whirling battleaxe and they left the deck to him. Annoyed, Nils spread his feet, brandished his axe and yelled a challenge at them.

‘Come on, you raggedy-bum backstabbers! Come face a real pirate!’

But there were no takers and he actually began to advance down the deck towards them again.

‘Nils! Get back on board, you great idiot!’

Gundar’s bellow cut through the fog of anger and battle madness that filled Nils’s mind. He stopped, shook his head, then turned and grinned sheepishly.

‘Coming, skirl!’

Will had to smile. Nils sounded like a naughty boy answering his mother’s call to dinner.

Nils made one last insulting gesture at the pirates, then turned and ran lightly back to the bows. Disdaining help, he sprang from the pirate’s bulwark back aboard.

‘Cut the grappling ropes!’ Gundar called and two axes swung and thudded in quick succession, severing the two ropes. No longer fastened together, the ships began to slowly drift apart. Gundar looked down at the last four ranks of rowers on either side – the men who had remained aboard
Wolfwill
through the brief, one-sided battle.

‘Out oars! Give way!’ he ordered. As the men reacted instantly, Will realised that the Skandians had done this sort of thing many, many times before.
Wolfwill
slowly gathered sternway under the thrust of the eight oars, and the gap to the pirate ship widened.

‘Hoist the sail!’ Gundar ordered and the boom and sail ran smoothly up the mast.

‘Sheet home! In oars!’ he called and the sail handlers hauled in on the sheets and hardened the flapping sail to the wind.
Wolfwill
’s bow swung downwind and as the skirl leaned on his tiller, she began to gather way.

Behind them, the pirate galley was bow down in the water and her men were swarming forward to repair the massive holes smashed in her planks before she went under.

Gundar nodded in satisfaction. His men had performed well. He jerked a thumb at the half-submerged pirate ship.

‘I doubt we’ll be hearing from them again,’ he said.

Selethen was watching the wallowing ship as her crew worked to stop her sinking.

‘You know,’ he said to Halt, without any trace of a smile, ‘it might have been simpler to have the two girls board her with their practice swords.’

They exchanged a long look, then Halt shook his head. ‘I needed to leave some of them alive,’ he said.