Corsair (36 page)

Then he went to Dafflemere, who was standing to one side, sipping a glass of Axkiller as if waiting for a party to begin back on Freebooter’s Island.

“I don’t envy you, Gareth,” Dafflemere said. “Your way will be hard.”

Gareth forced a smile. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Dafflemere said. “My friends are out there” — he waved his hand at the bay — “wanting battle, for the Slavers damage creatures as well as men. They’ve never really had a chance to wreak revenge, you know.

“I count myself proud to stand with them.

“There’s some beings as good — mayhap better — than any man I’ve dealt with, even though they affright the eye.”

Gareth’s eyes were smarting a little, and he nodded farewell, hurried to N’b’ry.

“You remember what Cosyra told me about martyrdom?”

N’b’ry grinned, seemingly unconcerned.

“Tell that to the fastest runner in all Saros; the man, I must remind you, who consistently outran you up hill and down dale. I need no reminder, and I’ll catch up to you spavined sailors inside a day after I fire up these bastards’ bums.

“Now, get you gone, or all this stupid nobility and fine sentiment will end up wasted.”

• • •

It was just dawn, and the Linyati fleet was sailing into the bay.

Gareth ordered the men to a halt. They were on a knoll half a mile beyond Noorat, just high enough above the jungle to see the city and bay.

The Linyati ships were the three-masted great warships that had attacked before, but there were far more than fifteen now.

They sailed in the center of the passage in threes, moving as if chained together.

Gareth counted fifty through his glass, guessed the Slavers had decided to deal with the pirates massively, killing mice with sledges. He wondered if Lord Quindolphin had somehow discovered the expedition’s real destination and alerted the Slavers to play this trap.

But if so, that, too, had to be set aside for the present.

He saw a swirl in the middle of the column and gaped.

Something that might have been a squid, but with three beaked heads, came out of the water. It was twice the size of the ship it was next to.

He saw the smoke of cannonfire as the monster’s tentacles curled over the ship’s rail, had its mast, and overturned it, spilling cannon and men into the bay.

Sharks swirled up — even bigger than basking sharks, but with the tearing savagery of blues, ripping into the swimming, drowning Linyati.

There were other creatures, sea serpents, long eels with plumes and great fanged jaws, monsters like the swimming dragons of mythology. Gareth had a moment to wonder if these brutes were natural beasts, tamed by Dafflemere, or created or brought from other, nightmare worlds, and realized he’d never know the answer.

Now the sounds of battle came: screams of dying Linyati, the shrilling of Runners, and the howl of Dafflemere’s fiends as cannonballs took them and they spouted blood, rolled over, dying, proving they were as mortal as any.

Other beasts, equally fabulous, swarmed at the Linyati, but the Slavers’ magic struck, and they writhed in
con
vulsions. Gareth somehow knew Dafflemere was dying with them, a brave man, among the bravest, whether the Linyati had stolen his soul or not, whether he was a ghost or demon.

A wave of smoke appeared along the shore, and then the Shockwave of N’b’ry’s broadside rolled toward them, the treetops waving as if tossed by a hurricane.

Gareth saw ships hit, swaying out of line and crashing aground as the last of Dafflemere’s “friends” savaged the Slavers.

“Come on,” he ordered
.
“Let’s make sure their dying gave us the time we need.”

And they began the long march toward home.

The column marched appallingly slowly. The sailors weren’t used to marching, weren’t used to soldiering, weren’t used to jungles, and weren’t used to obeying growled orders from sweating sergeants.

The mercenaries, never a civil lot at best to seamen, who in turn ragged them unmercifully aboard ship, were snarling beasts before the company had gone more than two leagues.

Slow though they were traveling, at least, thought Gareth, they were moving, and away from the coast.

He wanted to keep the men as close to the ocean as possible on their march east. When they were close to Batan, he’d chance sending scouts to see if the city was alerted, which he assumed it would be. They’d then have to continue on to the next settlement, Kashi or Linyati, to find ships or, in the worst case, seize and hold a town long enough to build them.

He tried to keep his mind on the future, on what they should do, to keep himself from mourning poor Knoll N’b’ry.

Cosyra was marching close behind. She forced a smile, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me about this part of pirating?”

Gareth tried to think of something flip, saw Tehidy, tears having cut runnels down his smoke-blackened cheeks, and said nothing.

At dusk, Gareth had the column make camp along the narrow animal trail they were following, then summoned all of the infantry officers, all ships’ officers, Dihr, and any of the men of Kashi.

“Things have changed, as you see,” he began.

Some of them managed a bit of laughter.

“You soldiers, now we’re in your hands, and will have to learn to fight by your rules,” he said. “I want you to divide your men into small fighting units, which would be …”

“The smallest that’s practical for fighting is about twenty,” an elaborately mustachioed giant of a man said. Gareth remembered his name was Iset, and that he was a captain.

“Twenty men,” Gareth repeated. “Then break your men down into ten-man groups, and you’ll have ten of my sailors to train in each group.”

“I don’t think,” Iset said, “we’ll be able to make up a proper contingent. We’ve been hit hard, y’know.”

“Then five men and fifteen sea dogs,” Gareth said.

Iset made a face.

“A problem?” Petrich, once captain of Quindolphin’s
Naijak,
said.

“Meaning no offense, sir,” Iset said. “But that doesn’t give us much in the way of experienced fighters.”

“Sailors have no trouble fighting,” Gareth said. “Especially not my roughnecks.”

There was a ripple of amusement.

“You’ll have to train them to do the rest,” he went on. “Scouting and knowing how to make attacks and like that. And we’ll scatter officers, mates, and bosuns through the column. They may not know how to march or make a flanking attack, but they know how to order men.”

The sailors nodded, waited for Iset or one of the others to disagree.

“Parlous times,” Iset said instead. “But I suppose there’s no other option.”

“When we march, we’ll alternate units, so everyone gets experience breaking trail,” Gareth went on. He explained his plan.

“Dihr, I want you and any Kashi men in separate units behind the men in front, then scattered through the column,” he said. “We’ll need your knowledge.”

“There’s only a couple of us, men who we freed in Noorat, who know these jungles,” Dihr said. “Just because we’re all brown doesn’t mean we’re the same.”

“Of course not,” Gareth said, a bit impatiently. “And don’t think I’m judging you quickly. But you might have a bit more knowledge in common than you think. What sort of plants are around a swamp. What noises a little animal makes, and those of a big killer one.

“Maybe even what fruits we can eat, or plants we can boil.”

“Mmmh,” Dihr said. “Sorry, Cap’n. I spoke too fast.”

“Break your men into … oh, ten-man units,” Gareth went on. “Put men who’ve served for a while in charge of each team.”

“That can be done.”

Gareth was about to continue when he heard shouts.

Men were on their feet, grabbing muskets, swords, when the call came up the line: “Two men, coming up from the rear. They’re not Linyati.”

“Tehidy,” Gareth said. “Take five men and go collect those stragglers.”

“Sir.”

Cosyra unobtrusively held up crossed, hopeful fingers, and Gareth nodded.

“The rest of you, back to your men,” Gareth went on. “One more thing. Anyone with any experience cooking, send him up here. We’re short on provisions and won’t be able to afford separate messing like we did aboard ship.”

A few minutes after the officers had dispersed, Knoll N’b’ry and one of his volunteers came into the middle of the camp.

“Evenin’,” he said, as casually as if he’d encountered Gareth strolling along the banks of the Nalta River after evening meal.

Gareth might have been willing to play along, but Cosyra wasn’t.

“
Damn
you,” she said fiercely. “You can make someone worry.”

“Now, now,” N’b’ry said. “Didn’t I promise I wouldn’t let them get me?”

“I’m glad you’re a man of your word.”

“I am that,” N’b’ry said. “But I had to come along in a bit of a hurry. It seems you’ve got friends.”

Gareth’s smile vanished.

“After the broadside, my friend here and I took off at our best speed in your tracks,” N’b’ry went on. “Which was a very good thing, for the damned Linyati landed, took no more than an hour to search Noorat and realize it was empty, then their troops promptly found our trail, like they were damned hounds or something, and are only about three hours behind.

“Moving slow, but steady,” he said. “About a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred of them. All soldiers, with armor and muskets and all.”

“Son of a bitch!” Cosyra said.

“Perhaps,” N’b’ry said, “about dawn, you’d like to go back and have a look?”

• • •

“I think,” Gareth said, lowering his glass, “Cosyra spoke for all of us last night.”

Labala, without asking, took up the telescope, peered through it.

There were the two of them, plus four soldiers for security, Iset, and Thom Tehidy.

Just on the far side of the great swampy clearing, the Linyati wound into sight. There were three columns, moving parallel with the rough animal track Gareth was following, which slowed them down a bit, but was intended to keep them from being ambushed.

Even Gareth could tell they were trained infantry, wearing breastplates, knee boots, and curved, open-faced helmets. They were heavily armed, and Gareth had seen six Linyati men staggering along under the weight of a tiny, short-barreled moyen carried in a cradle. He counted five other guns.

“The thing that I don’t like,” Gareth said, “besides their being here at all, is that they were able to mount the pursuit so handily. Labala?”

“You’re right,” the big man said, lowering the glass. “I see men in robes, muttering as they walk. They’ve got wizards scenting us.”

“Can you block them?”

Labala thought, then grinned, not pleasantly.

“If I can consult with the good captain Iset for a moment, perhaps I can come up with something nasty.”

• • •

The creek was just too deep to wade across, and a dozen and a half feet wide, with steep banks. Just downstream, the water shallowed into a deep swamp, and upstream the banks were higher and the trees thicker.

There was more than enough evidence of the pirates’ crossing here. The Linyati put out a line of muskets along their bank and ordered a handful of scouts across.

They slid into the water, splashed, flailed, and one of them showed near-humanity, shrieking as he went under.

The Slaver’s commander sent two men downstream to try to rescue him, and had a man doff his armor and go across with a rope.

The scouts tried again, pulling on the rope, naked but for their sword belts, and this time made it across.

They went, as ordered, a dozen yards into the brush, then came back, reported the crossing was clear.

The commander put a company on the other side, and by that time the rest of his formation had closed on the river, packing the banks. Five ropes were over, and soldiers were pulling their way across.

“Now,” Iset whispered, and brush was ripped away from the mouth of the two cannon just upstream from the crossing.

Grapeshot tore into the packed Linyati, and they shrieked, panicked, and wallowed back.

Tehidy and his gunners reloaded and men with muskets moved past them, sent a volley, then another, into the Slavers on their bank.

They, too, broke, dropped their weapons and jumped into the water.

The cannon blasted once more, one into the far shore, the other into the men in the water.

“Go,” Gareth said, and men took the ropes of one cannon and began pulling it away, back onto the trail.

“You too,” he told Labala, who stopped muttering words and went after the cannon.

The second cannon fired another blast, then it, too, retreated with the covering soldiery.

Gareth, following Iset and Labala’s plan, had dropped off two cannon, the magician, and three groups of soldiers, and ordered the column to march on, leaving as wide and sloppy a track as they could. The cannon had been moved back to the ford, and the men waited for their target, while Labala cast what he called an “easy dissemblance … Dafflemere taught me this one.”

“That little ambush we laid,” Iset said, “is called a buttonhook.”

“Thank you, sir, for your invaluable illustration of an obscure principle,” Gareth said politely.

“It damned certain discourages anyone on your trail from closing too fast,” the soldier said. “I think we put it to them well.”

“Let’s make sure they’ve learned their lesson,” Gareth said.

Twice more that day, but without the balky cannon, picked men fell out of line, waited for the Linyati to approach, fired one volley, then ran before the Slavers could charge. By nightfall, Gareth had taken only three casualties, all wounded, with no idea of how many Slavers he’d killed.

• • •

Then it was the Linyati’s turn. They must have picked a small unit, no more than fifty men, and marched all night until they closed on the pirates’ circled camp.

At dawn, as men were waking, stumbling about, they fired once, then charged with pike and sword.

The corsairs fell back in shock, then regrouped and counterattacked, shattering their foe.

If any Linyati lived through that, they must have fled quickly. The Slaver infantry must have been accustomed to fighting primitive tribesmen, not trained men-at-arms.