L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“Cooper!”

“Sorry, ser.” Kharl hurried across the deck, waited for a sailor with a broadsword to climb the ladder, then followed him up to the poop.

He had no sooner reached the top when Furwyl motioned for him to take a position abeam the helm, but on the port side. “You can cover more deck, and that means we can use someone else on the main deck.”

Kharl nodded. He thought he understood.

“Don’t leave your space unless you’re ordered to.” Furwyl paused. “Or unless they’ve already overrun the main deck, and no one’s climbing the poop.”

“Yes, ser.” Kharl took the assigned space, but once there, looked back shoreward. With the speed of the paddle wheels increasing, the gap between the two pirate vessels and the Seastag was no longer obviously narrowing. In fact, Kharl could begin to see the Seastag start to pull away from the leading pirate vessel.

“Port five,” ordered Hagen, standing almost directly beside the helm.

“Coming port, ser.”

Kharl could barely feel the gentle turn.

“Steady on heading, ser.”

“Steady as she goes.”

“Steady as she goes, ser.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the gap between the larger ocean trader and the pirate vessels widened, until it was more like a kay and a half.

Kharl kept checking, but the gap was still increasing, and the Seastag was edging farther and farther away from land. Hagen was trying not to lose what air he had, but to find a heading that played more to the strengths of the Seastag .

A muffled crummpt echoed through the Seastag . The entire vessel shuddered. Almost immediately flame flared from the stack, hot enough to scorch the limp lower sheets closest to the stack before fading into blackish gray smoke that settled down across the decks. The paddle wheels’ thwup-thwup-thwup slowed, finally coming to a stop.

Kharl gaped for a moment. The smoke had held, for just an instant, the barest hint of chaos about it. What had happened? Why had the engine exploded?

The gap between the pirate vessels and the Seastag began to narrow once more.

An engineman, blackened from crown to boots, pulled himself up the ladder and made his way toward the captain. Kharl tried to listen.

“Firebox…exploded, ser…awful…steam…metal…”

“Is there a fire below?” Hagen’s question was clipped.

“No fire, ser. Not now. Sand and water…got that. But…no…engine, much, neither, ser…two stokers…didn’t make it…”

The cooper looked shoreward. The pirates were closer, little more than a kay away, and the sternmost of the two had shifted course slightly, to take a heading that would come up alongside the Seastag on the port side. That made sense, unhappily, because the pirates could board from both sides, and divide the defenders’ efforts.

“Shut everything down, best you can, and bring the engine crew topside,” Hagen told the engineer.

“Yes, ser, those that can.” The engineer turned and made his way down.

“…some sort of wizardry…” muttered the captain to Furwyl.

“…put out the word about Lydiar,” returned the first mate.

“…get through this first…”

As he waited for the pirates, Kharl tried to relax, tried to recall the warm-up exercises he had not used or needed in years and replicate them, to ready himself. The wind remained light, and with their smaller craft and larger sails, the pirates steadily closed on the Seastag, until they were only rods away, then within fifty cubits, one on each side of the trader.

“Stand by to repel boarders!” ordered Furwyl, and the command was echoed by the three other mates. “Stand back from the railings until they close!”

Kharl moved back, realizing the reason for the command as an arrow whispered past his head. He immediately dropped into a kneeling position, waiting.

Clunk!

At the heavy sound, Kharl turned his head to see a pronged iron that had been catapulted over the railing and onto the deck. Several arrows skidded along the deck as well and one buried itself in the steering platform.

A seaman ran forward, crouching, with an ax and, keeping his head down, began to hack at the line attached to the grappling iron. Another iron arched over the railing, and dragged across the deck until it, too, was wedged behind the poop railing. The seaman with the ax had barely cut through the first line before there were two others wedged in place.

The young man attacked the second, but seemed to make no progress. “Friggin’ thing…wound with wire…”

Kharl’s eyes darted across the upper deck, taking in the four grapples still wedged in place. While he couldn’t see more, he had no doubts that the same tactics were being employed against the main and forward decks. The seaman managed to part the line on two more grapples, but, by that time, another three had been wedged in place.

Kharl edged forward, because he could hear voices, scuffling, and muttered curses…

“…get your friggin’ ass up…”

“…sows carry less lard ’n you…”

The cooper saw a brawny arm reach over the railing. He lunged forward and slammed the staff down on the arm, feeling the bones break, and seeing the pirate tumble backward off the rope and into the water just aft of where the two hulls rubbed against each other.

He brought the staff around in a sweep. One pirate ducked, but the lorken staff caught a second in the neck, and he sagged, then slid out of sight, while Kharl reversed the staff. His return was weak, and the one pirate was over the railing, cutlass slashing toward the cooper, and parrying the staff.

Kharl two-handed the staff, using both ends. The wood, almost as hard as iron, and springier, fended off the cuts from the pirate, who tried to circle away from Kharl, and found himself between a sailor with a spear and the cooper. In the pirate’s moment of indecision, Kharl struck with an underthrust, and the cutlass spun out of the pirate’s hand. The other sailor plunged the spear into the pirate’s belly.

Kharl turned back to the port railing, where two more pirates had appeared, one with the ubiquitous cutlass, and a taller man with a hand-and-a-half blade. Kharl took on the taller man, and found himself backing up against a man with far better blade skills than Kharl had staff capabilities.

Thwunk! The huge pirate looked stunned at the quarrel in his left shoulder.

Kharl took the moment and knocked the big blade from his hand and attacked with all his strength. Even badly wounded, the pirate weathered two blows that would have felled a lesser man and ducked away from several that could have stopped him.

Kharl managed another strike, then a solid thrust into the man’s guts. The pirate tumbled forward, and Kharl saw the blood from a deep cut across his back.

Two more pirates appeared from somewhere, and Kharl and another sailor found themselves slowly pushing the pair forward, toward the edge of the poop deck. One looked back, and took a spear. The other grabbed the railing and vaulted down.

Kharl stood for a moment, gasping, glancing around the poop deck, but it was empty, except for Kharl, the captain, the helmsman, and two other sailors from the Seastag . Below, the main deck swirled with fighters. The defenders were being pressed from both sides, although they did not seem that greatly outnumbered, and some pirates had fallen, but the attackers fought without much thought of caution, it seemed to Kharl, and kept pressing the Seastag ’s defenders inward.

The cooper glanced down at the pirate vessel to port. Only two men stood on the low rear deck, beside the steersman. All three were watching the main deck of the Seastag .