Paul Kearney: The Heretic Kings

His men understood, and began to fight their way inch by murderous inch towards the high fore- and sterncastles of the carrack which dominated the waist like the towers of a fortress. A bloody rearguard action was fought on the ladders there as the corsairs sought to follow them, but they were held. Abeleyn found himself back on the quarterdeck. Dietl was standing there holding a rope tourniquet about one elbow. His hand had been lopped off at the wrist.

“Arquebusiers, form ranks!” Abeleyn screamed. He could see none of his officers present and shoved his men about as though he were the merest sergeant. “Come on, you God-damned whoresons! Present your pieces! You sailors-get a couple of those guns pointing down into the waist; load them with canister. Quickly now!”

The Hebrian soldiers formed up in two ragged ranks at the break of the quarterdeck and aimed their arquebuses into the raging press of men below.

“Give fire!”

A line of stabbing flames staggered the front ranks of the boarders down below. Men were flung back off the ladders, tumbling down on those behind them. The waist was a toiling mass of limbs and faces.

“Fire!” Dietl yelled, and the two canister-loaded sakers which his mariners had manhandled round erupted a few seconds later. Two groups of shrieking corsairs were levelled where they stood, and the bulwarks of the carrack were intagliated with gore and viscera as the thousands of balls in the canister shot tore through their bodies. On the forecastle, another rank of arquebusiers was firing, dropping more of the enemy, whilst the men in the tops were blasting almost vertically downwards with the little falconets. The corsairs who had boarded were thus surrounded on all sides by a murderous fire. Some of them ducked into the shattered hatches of the carrack, seeking shelter in the hold below, but most of them dived overboard. Scores of them left their bodies, or what was left of them, strewn across the reeking deck.

The gunfire petered out. Farther to the north they could hear broadsides booming as the nefs fought for their lives against the other squadron, but here the corsairs were drawing off. One galleass was already awash, the sea up to her scuppers and her bow half submerged. Another was drifting slowly away from the carrack, the men in the tops having cut her grappling lines. The third was circling just out of arquebus range like a wary hound padding round a cornered stag. The water about the four vessels was crammed with swimming men and limp bodies, pieces of wreckage and fragments of yards.

“They’ll ram us now, if they can,” Dietl panted, his face as white as paper under the blood and filth that streaked it. He was holding his stump upright with his good hand. Bone glinted there, and thin jets of blood spat from the severed arteries despite the tourniquet. “They’ll draw off to gain speed and pick up their men. We have to hit them while they’re at close range.”

“Stand by the starboard guns!” Abeleyn shouted. “Sergeant Orsini, take six men and secure any enemy still on board. Load the starboard culverins, lads, and we’ll give them something to remember us by!” He bent to speak through the connecting hatch to the tillermen below, who all this time had been at their station keeping the carrack on course through the storm of the fighting. “Bring us round to due south.”

“Aye, sir! I mean Majesty.”

Abeleyn laughed. He was strangely happy. Happy to be alive, to be in command of men, to hold his life in the palm of his own hand and tackle problems that were immediate, visible, final.

The gun crews had rushed back down into the waist and were loading the starboard batteries, unfired as yet. The enemy galleass was struggling to brace round the huge lateen yards; both vessels had the wind right aft now, but the square-rigged carrack was better built to take advantage of it than the fore-and-aft yards of the galleass. She was overtaking her foe.

“Tiller there!” Dietl shouted, somehow making his failing voice carry. “Wait for my word and then bring her round to sou’-west.”

“Aye, sir!”

Dietl was going to cut around the bow of the galleass and then rake her from stem to stern with his full broadside. Abeleyn spared a look for the other enemy vessels. One was visible only as a solitary mast sticking above the packed sea. The other was taking on survivors of the failed boarding action and reducing sail at the same time. The sea was still stubbled with the bobbing heads of men.

The carrack gained on her enemy, sliding ahead. The gun crews, or what was left of them, crouched like statues by their weapons, the slow-match smoke drifting from the hands of the gun captains as they awaited the order to fire.

“If we bow-rake her, can’t she ram us amidships?” Abeleyn asked Dietl.

“Aye, sire, but she hasn’t enough way on her yet to do us any real damage. Her oarbanks are shot to hell and she’s not too happy with this stern wind. We’ll rake her until she strikes.”

The galleass was on the starboard quarter now. A few arquebus shots came cracking overhead from her, but mostly she seemed intent on putting her oarsmen and her yards in order.

“Bring her round to sou’-west!” Dietl shouted down the tiller-hatch.

The carrack curved to starboard in a beautiful arc, turning so her starboard broadside faced the beakhead of the oncoming galleass. Abeleyn glimpsed the wicked-looking ram on the enemy vessel, only just awash, and then Dietl screamed “ Fire!” with what seemed to be the last of his strength.

The air was shattered as the unholy noise began again and the culverins resumed their deadly dance. The crews had depressed the muzzles of the guns as much as they could to compensate for the larboard roll of the ship as she turned. At this range and angle the heavy balls would hit the bow and rip through the length of the enemy vessel. The carnage on her would be unbelievable. Abeleyn saw heavy timbers blasted from her hull and flung high in the air. The mainmast swayed as shot punched through its base, and then toppled into the sea, smashing a gap in the galleass’ side. The vessel lurched to larboard, but kept coming, her ram gleaming like a spearhead.

And struck. She collided amidships with the carrack and the concussion of the impact staggered Abeleyn and toppled Dietl off his feet. The gun crews of the carrack were still reloading and firing, pouring shot into the helpless hull of the galleass at point-blank range. The decks of the enemy vessel were running with blood and it poured from her scuppers in scarlet streams. Men were leaping overboard to escape the murderous barrage, and a desperate party of them came swarming up the carrack’s side but were beaten back and flung into the sea.

“Port your helm!” Abeleyn yelled to the tillermen. Dietl was unconscious in a pool of his own blood on the deck.

There was a grating noise, a deep, grinding shudder as the wind worked on the carrack and tore her free of the stricken galleass. She was sluggish, like a tired prizefighter who knows he has thrown his best punch, but finally she was free of the wrecked enemy vessel. There were half a dozen fires raging on board the corsairs’ craft and she was no longer under command. She drifted downwind, burning steadily as the carrack edged away.

The third galleass was already in flight, having picked up as many of the corsairs as she could. She spread her sails and set off to the south-east like a startled bird, leaving scores of helpless men struggling in the water behind her.

An explosion that sent timbers and yards a hundred feet into the air as the crippled galleass which remained burned unchecked. Abeleyn had to shout himself even hoarser as flaming wreckage fell among the carrack’s rigging and started minor fires. The exhausted crew climbed the shrouds and doused the flames. The carpenter, Burian, appeared on the quarterdeck looking like a dripping rat.