Джеффри Лорд: Pirates Of Gohar

Another dive, and they swam aft along the side of the rammed Sarumi. Air was beginning to bubble out of her through ruptured seams as she sank lower and lower. They came up under the overhanging stern of the ship. For the first time in several minutes they could see Kloret's galley. She was still driving in at nearly full speed, her decks packed with archers and soldiers. Blade could make out Kloret himself in gilded armor, standing by the break of the foc'sle.

Now it was impossible to doubt that Kloret was headed for Lioness, and hard to doubt that he was planning to ram. Both Mythorans and Sarumi stopped fighting, to stare at the massive green hull driving down upon them. Then the archers on Kloret's foc'sle let fly, some of the starers fell, and the rest scrambled wildly for the railing.

Kloret's rowers trailed their oars, and a moment later his galley rammed Lioness. The smaller galley was thrown nearly on her beam ends, and the foremast went over the side to crush swimmers in the water. Her ram twisted free of the planks of the Sarumi ship, and air poured out in great bursts of foam as water poured in. As the Sarumi ship's bow disappeared below the surface, Blade and Khraishamo took their bearings on Kloret's galley, gulped air, and dove.

Kloret's flagship was so large Blade saw its shadow in the water the moment he went under. It was easy to keep a straight course toward it, then surface alongside. Khraishamo surfaced beside Blade, his knife already drawn. He gripped a trailing oar with one hand, pulled himself up until he could reach the leather seal of the oarport, and slashed away with the knife.

In three cuts, the leather was gone. Blade put both hands on the port sill and hauled himself up until he could look in. As he'd expected, three grim faces stared back at him. Two were Sarumi, one was human, and all three were pinched with starvation and exhaustion. All three men were chained to the bench under him, and both of the Sarumi had fresh lash marks across back and shoulders.

For two men to attack Kloret's galley would have been madness even in the middle of a confused and desperate battle, except for one thing. Most of Gohar's galleys were rowed by free men who could double as fighters. The work of rowing the big two-deckers was too brutal to let a rower also remain in shape. So the big flagships carried their fighting men on deck, and were rowed by two or three hundred chained Goharan and Sarumi slaves. Blade intended to unchain the ones aboard Kloret's ship.

He shifted his grip, then heaved himself completely out of the water. One of the Sarumi stopped staring and gave Blade a hand. Blade practically flew through the port and sprawled across the knees of the three slaves.

«Huh, what gives here?» came a shout almost in Blade's ear. It was an overseer who'd run aft between the benches. Blade coughed and choked, pretending to be half-drowned, until he saw that the man was within striking distance. He also saw that the overseer carried a bunch of keys at his waist.

Blade rolled off the knees of the galley slaves, fell to the deck, gripped both the overseer's ankles, and jerked his feet out from under him. He fell with a crash and a surprised yell, then let out another kind of yell as Blade chopped him across the throat. With one hand Blade drew his sword, with the other he picked up the keys and handed them to the nearest slave.

«Get yourself loose.»

An arrow whistled past Blade and struck a slave on another bench. He screamed and fell to the deck, nearly rolling under Khraishamo's feet as the pirate climbed in through the hatch. He spotted the archer standing amidships and nocking another arrow, snatched up a wooden bucket, and threw it as hard as he could. It didn't hit the archer but it spoiled his aim. Before he could shoot again, Blade and Khraishamo were on him. The archer went down and didn't get up again. If he wasn't dead from Blade's sword, he certainly died as the first of the freed galley slaves swarmed over him.

Blade and Khraishamo charged ahead of the slaves, their swords and knives slashing a path through the guards. They didn't bother killing, just knocked the guards down or disabled them and left them for the galley slaves.

The lower deck of Kloret's flagship quickly turned into an inferno of blood, weapons, and screaming or dying men. Bench after bench of slaves set themselves free. As word of what was happening reached the soldiers above, they swarmed down the main ladder. Blade and Khraishamo stationed themselves just out of bowshot, one on each side of the ladder, and tackled the soldiers as they came down.

Blade put his sword into a soldier's throat, then jerked the weapon free to parry a club swung by a second man. The soldier with the slashed throat reeled off, into the arms of the galley slaves. The man with the club was good. He and Blade stood toe-to-toe for nearly a minute before Khraishamo ran the soldier through from behind. Khraishamo left his position to do this, though, and two soldiers got off the ladder on to the deck. One of them stepped on a dying slave, who bit him in the ankle. The soldier screamed and fell against his comrade, knocking the man against the stairs and making him drop his sword. Another slave snatched up the fallen weapon and attacked both soldiers.

At last the flow of soldiers down the ladder slowed, and Blade noticed that among the slaves Sarumi and humans were fighting side by side. He saw a blond-bearded man trip a soldier so that a pirate could stamp him into the deck. He saw two Sarumi pull a soldier off a human's back with their bare hands, both taking wounds in the process.

If you'd been a slave aboard this ship, it didn't matter whether you were human or Sarumi. You were a friend.

Then the soldiers stopped coming down the ladder. Khraishamo was only a moment behind Blade as they both scrambled up the ladder to the ship's middle deck. As they came up through the hatch, they dropped to the deck and rolled one to either side: Several arrows smacked the deck where they'd been. Then they were up and charging the archers.

The middle deck of the galley was clear except for two hatches and the three masts, and completely covered over. It provided a sheltered place for the soldiers and sailors to sleep, cook, and wait for battle. Most of the soldiers and sailors were either on the upper deck fighting or down below getting killed by the galley slaves. Blade and Khraishamo went to work on the few left, closing in to avoid being targets for the archers.

An archer was trying to block Blade's sword with his bow when Khraishamo shouted.

«Blade! It's him!»

Blade whirled. There was only one man aboard this ship Khraishamo would call «him.»

Kloret was hurrying down the ladder from the upper deck, wearing gold-scaled armor and with silver-armored guards on either side of him. As his foot touched the deck, Blade snatched a fallen spear from the deck, fended off the clumsy lunge of a soldier, aimed for the Prime Minister's groin, and threw.

One of the guards leaped forward, throwing himself in front of his master. He took the spear in the thigh, howled in pain, and reeled. As he reeled, he crashed heavily against the Prime Minister. Kloret was in the act of drawing his sword, and had only one hand free to fight for balance. It wasn't enough. He stumbled on the raised edge of the after hatch, let out a scream of sheer terror, then vanished down the hatch with a clatter and a crash.

There was a moment's silence, while everyone on the main deck stood paralyzed. Then an animal howl from fifty throats rose from the hatch, followed by a single man's gurgling scream. Blade started looking for the nearest ladder to the upper deck. He didn't need to worry about Kloret anymore. When a man falls into a pool of hungry sharks, you don't need to watch each bite they take out of him to know he's dead.