Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"Spanker! Spanker!" Zamira cried, and everyone on the quarterdeck looked up in unison as the Orchid's spanker sail was unfurled in the most unseamanlike fashion possible by the small crew detailed to it. Fluttering down to full extension, it was braced in place with desperate speed. Ordinarily, the fore-and-aft sail would never have been placed side-on to a wind, but in this case the stiff breeze from the east pushed against it by intention, heaving the Orchid's stern away from contact with the Dread Sovereign. Mumchance hauled his wheel to starboard now, trying to help the process along.

There was a series of screams and snapping noises from forward; the Dread Sovereign's bowsprit was destroying or fouling much of the forward rigging, but Drakasha's plan appeared to be working. That bowsprit hadn't punched a hole in the hull, and now Rodanov's starboard bow was the only part of his ship in contact with Drakasha's larboard side. From high above, Locke thought, the gods might have seen the two ships as drunken fencers, their bowsprits crossed but doing relatively little harm as they waved about.

Unseen things clawed the air with a snakelike hiss, and Locke realized that arrows were raining around him. The fight had well and truly begun.

"Clever Syresti bitch," muttered Rodanov and he crawled back to his feet after the collision. Drakasha was using her spanker for leverage to prevent full broadside-to-broadside contact. So be it; he had his own advantages ready to play. "Let "em loose!" he shouted.

A crewman standing well back from the rear of the three cages (with shield-bearers flanking him) pulled the rope that released their doors. These were set just inches back from the collapsible section of the rail, which had been conveniently knocked clean away when the ships met.

A trio of adult valcona — starving, shaken up and pissed off beyond all measure — exploded from their confinement shrieking like the vengeful undead. The first thing they laid eyes on was the group of Orchids lining up across the way. Though heavily armed and armoured, Zami-ra's people had no doubt expected to repel human boarders first.

The three attack birds launched themselves through the air and landed amidst shields and polearms, laying about with their beaks and their dagger-sized claws. Orchids screamed, shoved against one another and caused utter chaos in their desperate struggle either to swing at or flee from the ferocious beasts.

Rodanov grinned fiercely. Thed'r been worth it — even though thed'r cost too much in Prodigal, even though thed'r stunk up the hold, even though thed'r be dead soon enough. Every Orchid they mutilated was one less for his people to face, and it was always impossible to put a price on making your enemy shit their breeches. "Away boats," he yelled. "Sovereigns! On me!"

The screams from forward were more than human; Locke scrambled up the quarterdeck stairs on his hands and knees, straining to see what was going on. Brown shapes were flailing about within the packed masses of Zamira's "legions" along the larboard side. What the hell was that? Drakasha herself dashed past, twin sabres out, running for the point of greatest chaos.

Several sailors aboard Rodanov's ship hurled grappling hooks across the gap between the vessels. A team of Drakasha's crewfolk, waiting for this, hurried to the larboard rail to sever the grappling lines with hatchets. One of them toppled with an arrow in his throat; the rest made short work of every line Locke could see.

A sharp, flat thwack told of an arrow landing nearby; Jean grabbed him by his tunic collar and hauled him all the way onto the quarterdeck. His "flying company" was crouched behind their small shields; Malakasti was using hers to cover Mumchance as well, who manned the wheel from a crouch. Someone screamed and fell from the rigging aboard the Sovereign; a second later Jabril cried, "Gah!" as an arrow struck splinters from the taffrail beside his head.

To Locke's surprise, Gwillem suddenly stood up in the midst of all this and, with a placid look on his face, began to whirl a bullet overhand in the cradle of his sling. As his arm went up he released one of the sling's cords, and a second later a bowman on the Sovereign's quarterdeck fell backward. Jean pulled Gwillem back to the deck when the Vadran began to reach for another projectile. "Boats," hollered Streva, "boats coming around her!"

Two boats, each carrying about twenty sailors, were pulling fast from behind the Dread Sovereign, curving around to approach the Orchid's stern. Locke wished mightily for a few arrows to season their passage, but the archers above had orders to ignore the boats. They were strictly the business of that legendary hero of the plunging beer-cask, Orrin Ravelle.

He did, however, have one major advantage, and as usual its name was Jean Tannen. Sitting incongruously on the polished witchwood planks of the deck were several large, round stones, plucked laboriously from the ship's ballast. "Do the brute thing, Jerome," Locke shouted.

As the first boat of Sovereigns approached the taffrail, a pair of sailors armed with crossbows stood up to clear the way for a woman readying a grappling hook. Gwillem wound up and flung one of his stones downward, opening a bowman's head and toppling his body backward into the mess of would-be boarders. A moment later Jean stepped to the taffrail, hoisting a ninety-pound rock the size of an ordinary man's chest over his head. He hollered wordlessly and flung it down into the boat, where it shattered not just the legs of two rowers but the deck of the little craft itself. As water began to gush up through the hole, panic ensued.

Then crossbow bolts came from the second boat. Streva, caught up watching the travails of the first, took one in the ribs and fell backward onto Locke. He pushed the unfortunate young man away, knowing it was beyond his power to help. The deck was already bright red with blood. A moment later Malakasti gasped as an arrow from the Sovereign's upper yards punched through her back; she fell against the taffrail and her shield went over the side.

Jabril pushed her spear away and yanked her down to the deck. Locke could see that the arrow had punctured one of her lungs, and the wet-sounding breaths she was fighting for now would be her last. Jabril, anguish on his face, tried to cover her with his body until Locke shouted at him: "More coming! Don't lose your fucking head!" Gods-damned hypocrite, he thought to himself, heart hammering.

On the sinking boat below, another sailor wound up to toss a grappling hook. Gwillem struck again, shattering the man's arm. Yet another rock followed from Jean. That was it for the remaining Sovereigns; with the boat going down and corpses crowding the seats, the survivors were spilling over the side. They might be trouble again in a few minutes, but for now they were out of the fight.

So was a third of Locke's "company". The second enemy boat came on, wary enough of the stones to keep well back. It circled around the stern and darted for the starboard side, a shark with wounded prey.

Zamira pulled her sabre from the body of the last valcona and hollered at her people along the larboard side: "Re-form! Re-form! Plug the fucking gap, there!"

Valcona! Damn Rodanov for a clever bastard; at least five of her people lay dead because of the bloody things, and gods knew how many more had been injured or shaken. He" d been expecting her to try to go broadside-to-bow; the beasts had been waiting like a spring-loaded trap.

And there he was — impossible to miss, nearly the size of two men, wearing a dark coat and those damned gauntlets of his. In his hands, a club that must have weighed twenty pounds. His people flooded around him, cheering, and they poured against her first rank through the gap Rodanov had somehow contrived in his starboard rail. The point of decision was exactly the mess she'd expected: stabbing spears, flailing shields, corpses and living fighters alike too pressed by the crowd on either side to move, except downward. Some slipped through the ever-changing gap between ships, to be drowned or ground to a pulp as the two vessels scraped together again. "Crossbows," she yelled, "crossbows!"