Spira Mirabilis (46 page)

‘They mean to push us onto the
niponti
,’ cried Khoril, and changed the glass in the lantern to yellow. At his signal yet more xebecs broke rank and went for the enemy in four groups of two, each pair aimed at a lantern.

Between each of the Moor’s five lanterns sheltered ten ‘regulars’ of the Golden Fleet, and with the wind now in their favour, they came forth to meet the approaching xebecs, targeting them with cannon.

The heavy swell would inevitably impede accuracy. ‘Wait for the upward roll,’ the Moor cautioned, though the
San Barabaso
’s gun crews knew their work as well as any.

Then he roared, ‘Fire!’

One of the xebecs was immediately dealt a crippling blow; its shattered mainmast toppled sideways and smashed through the starboard oars before plunging down to the abyssal depths. The other lanterns, drawn by the scent of weakness, turned about to target it.

All of the heavy cannon were on the lanterns, and most of their fire flew harmlessly over the low-lying xebecs, which began weaving, as if to confound the unfixed guns.

The Moor was puzzled. Such little ships couldn’t possibly hope to board them, or sink them by ramming …

He signalled to the four siphon-ships to prepare. Their fuel would be quickly exhausted and he had planned to save them for
later in the engagement – but it could not be helped. He delayed until the xebecs were in range, then shouted: ‘Fire!’

Eight burning swords illuminated the morning gloom, forming great arcs until they intersected. When each pair met, the flames strove to consume each other like fugitive stars brought to earth. The weaving xebec pairs could not dodge them – and they did not try. They passed through with their momentum unchecked, transformed from menacing black darts to fiery arrows. Below deck, the drummers beat them to ramming-speed, the Lazars chanted, ‘
Deus lo Volt!
’ and they rowed for the Contessa’s son. They had lived with pain all their lives; it was easy enough to ignore the smoke and falling embers, the dripping pitch and melting tar. The glowing ships pushed forward, faster and faster, throwing a sizzling bow-wave in front and trailing a cloud of steam.

When the Moor finally realised what they meant to do, the first sincere prayer he had ever made escaped his lips – but no one was listening. The xebec-arrows were aimed at their hearts: the magazines on board, which were all dangerously overstocked since Veii. The great wooden world rocked as the first xebec struck, splintering timbers with her small but deathly-sharp ram. Men fell screaming from the rigging, the lucky ones hitting the water. Those few who had managed to hang on were dislodged when the second arrow stuck home.

The Moor was one of the few on deck to keep his feet. He leaped out of the way of a falling block and looked down the line. The two most easterly lanterns were hit too; the closest to the
San Barabaso
had managed to avoid one of the suicide-boats, which had instead collided with the galley next to the siphon-ship, impaling itself in its magazine with horribly predictable results.

The blast of scalding air and licking flames enveloped its neighbours and the siphon-ship expired like a sea-serpent flailing its tentacles in general outrage at the world. A cracking explosion made the Moor turn to port just in time to see the lantern closest
to the Syracusan coast erupt in white light, raining incendiary drops and flaming spars upon its neighbours.

As a hot wind brushed by, he watched incredulously as some Ariminumese officers rushed down into the
San Barabaso’s
hold carrying sloshing water-buckets. Such fools gave heroism a bad name. He cast away his great cloak, cried, ‘Swim for your lives!’ and bolted, not waiting to see who followed.

The deck beneath his feet buckled as if suppressed by some great weight and he waited no longer: he leaped the rails and dived in a great arc as behind him, the night detonated.

The main mast shot skywards like a great javelin, trailing all manner of things caught up in the rigging: men cooked like spitted pigs, smoking cannon, charred blocks and twisted hot metal that hummed as it flew through the air and sighed sadly when it hit the water. And everything was shrouded in the deadly shredding cloud of a great forest reduced to splinters.

Under the waves, the Moor opened his eyes and saw the surface of the water above him was
glowing
like midsummer noon. Its beauty was so distracting that it was a moment before he noticed the water itself was beginning to boil. He swam deeper, and let the strange currents carry him away from his ruined ship before pulling himself free. He resurfaced next to one of the inner galleys and took a breath of scalding –
delicious
– air before surveying the destruction.

A less jaded mariner might have quailed at the apocalyptic vista. Though the neat order of his line had vanished together with the other three lanterns, he still had the numbers – and his quarry still had nowhere to flee. Scorning to be hauled aboard on a bosun’s chair, he scrambled up the ratlines and threw himself on deck. The traumatised crew of the
Mars
stood gawping at him.

‘Not a bad overture, gentlemen,’ he said cheerily. ‘Let’s show them our appreciation, shall we? Step lively now!’

*

Leagues to the north, a dozen galleys fired steadily into the strait, but it was hard enough to keep both wings in line while remaining stationary, so they drew no closer. Had Scaevola been less cautious, the trap would have been perfect; as it was, at least the xebecs did not have to navigate the
niponti
under very close fire.

Even so, the crossing proved immediately fatal as a chasm suddenly opened in front of the first xebec, and the other nine watched in horror as the whirlpool dashed the ship against one of the
niponti
. With no way to help and no time to grieve, they immediately turned to the next channel, which luckily proved to be vortex-free – but still the ceaseless battery contrived to complicate their progress.

Scaevola was not surprised when the first five through turned for the mainland – west was certain death at the hands of the endlessly wheeling maelstrom. He had the eastern wing hold fire till the xebecs made their run, and when he finally gave the signal, the din was stunning. Soon a dirty cloud drifted over the strait, blinding friend and foe alike.

By the time the sixth xebec zipped through the strait, the gunnery of the western wing had found their range and an excellent shot broke through the xebec’s mast. The next found its target too, less spectacularly but no less destructively, breaking through below the waterline, and the stricken vessel stopped midway in the channel. With that way blocked, the final three xebecs were forced to divide and risk the next two channels. The
Solomon
was lucky, as was the ship following, but the third was not. The Ariminumese took potshots as it spun in its death-spiral.

The sound of the shallow reef scraping the
Solomon
’s hull was awful, but once they had cleared it, their ears were assaulted by something worse: Charybdis’ endless roar. Her sons might roam, but she was chained eternally to the seabed. The luck of the ship behind ran out as it impaled itself on a rocky outcrop; it was an
easy target stranded there, and there was nothing the
Solomon
could do.

Even if they could have got close enough to rescue anyone, they had their own dilemma: an unenviable choice between likely or certain death, whether to risk the long passage east, exposing her beams to the both wings’ fire, or—

‘Are you certain you can do this, Mistress?’

‘This is no time to start doubting me, Bakhbukh. Straight ahead!’

*

Scaevola signalled the most westerly galley, the
Bellicose
, to tackle the
Solomon
and then watched nonplussed as the xebec sailed directly into the maws of Charybdis.

The
Bernoulli
’s tillerman was equally bemused. ‘They’re either fools or suicides.’

‘Then let us not detain them,’ said Scaevola, who was more concerned at the queer behaviour of the xebecs which had crossed first. The Contessa must surely be on one of these five vessels, now aligned in a row and racing towards the distant craggy cliffs of the Sybaritic coast. It was sensible to use each other’s slipstreams like that – but why were they were running so close to the eastern wing, allowing their guns to pound them so remorselessly?

In order to keep their cannon fixed on the fast-moving targets, the eastern wing had gradually tilted away, out of line. All at once the xebecs turned, each aiming for a different ship. Scaevola, watching from afar, was dumbfounded, but the intention was immediately clear to his far more experienced captains on board – bound as they were, no evasion would be possible. All they could do was to pour fire at the incoming xebecs and brace themselves.

One of the xebecs was quickly crippled, but the other four found their targets simultaneously.

*

The tension on the
Solomon
was palpable. Bakhbukh was standing at the bow, watching Sofia. Her cool exterior was no front; it was clear her only concern now was Iscanno, safe in his cot in her cabin. Whatever happened to her, he
must
survive this day. He doubted the child would be sleeping. He responded to people’s mood as a sail to the wind.

Sofia gave the nod and Bakhbukh roared, ‘Now!’

Up went the oars – just in time, for Charybdis grabbed them in the next moment. Bakhbukh tried to ignore the feeling of mounting pressure under his feet, and the foreboding that this day would end tragically. ‘How’s this supposed to work, exactly?’

‘I’m exactly damned if I know,’ Sofia said, her grin slightly manic. ‘But if it does, I’ll be useless for a spell. It’ll be up to the Sicarii.’

‘We shall not fail you.’

Sofia tutted. ‘You didn’t say God willing.’

‘God has willed
you
, Mistress. There is no
if
any more.’

The
Solomon
was dragged in a great circle with less volition than a leaf carried away on a mountain torrent. They passed by the innermost line of chained galleys – who totally ignored them, now that they were in the monster’s grip – then bore west, and then back till the southern coasts of the Sicilies faced them. Below deck, the Lazars sat at their posts, conserving their energy and waiting for the Grand Master to beat the drum.

The timing must be precise.

She didn’t know if it could be done – or if it could, for how long. She had seen Giovanni stop a Wave, though the effort had ripped him apart. She’d never moved much more than a glassful. Was this folly? Had she condemned them all? What if—?

No: the Darkness was trying to intimidate her with these doubts; they were shadows that had been burned away in the Sands. There was no essential difference between a glass and a maelstrom; water was water. A drop contained a sea.

She raised her hands from her sides and a wind, unfelt by any other on deck, assailed her. She leaned back into it, tipping over impossibly. Tonnes of water hammered against her back and the beams of the fragile vessel creaked as a splintering crack came from the mast and the planks she stood on buckled, but still she did not cry out. She did not move.

Then – a thing that had not been seen since the Great Flood: the maelstrom stopped. In the suddenly stilled water, a thousand doomed sea creatures scuttled and swam for freedom. Charybdis roared in outraged majesty.

The helmsman gave Bakhbukh the nod and he turned and roared, ‘Now!’ down the hatchway.

Fulk pounded the drum and twenty oars hit the water as one. Sofia had begun when they were bearing east, away from the Sicilies, and carried along by momentum in addition to the heaving oar-power they were now approaching the innermost chain again.

At last, with everyone below straining together, with Bakhbukh and the helmsman wrestling the tiller and Sofia feeling that her body must surely crack in two just as the mast had done, they broke free.

The crew’s cheer was drowned by a hideous sucking noise as the unleashed monster stirred the seas behind them. They were a missile now, aimed straight at the Ariminumese galley.

Bakhbukh caught Sofia as she fell. ‘Mistress, you did it!’

‘Iscanno,’ she whispered. Her eyes were open, but she was spent. He carried her to the cabin and laid her down beside her son – then he paused awkwardly.

‘Go where you’re needed, you chivalrous fool,’ she rasped.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He rushed out of the cabin, glancing above as he loaded his sling. The Sicarii in the rigging were weaving between the hail of arrows from the
Bellicose
so they must be close now. He shot out the eye of a crossbow sniper
then took to the beams where the reserve Lazars were lined up, grappling hooks at the ready.

‘For the Contessa!’ he shouted.

Across the diminishing gap, they heard the captain of the
Bellicose
cry, ‘Brace yourselves, lads. Have courage!’ – though this last looked to be in scarce supply, for the
Solomon
’s miraculous escape from Charybdis had obviously awed his superstitious mariners.

The impact threw the Sicarii forward and like the seedpods of those thorny succulents that explode across the Sands only once a century they flew across the void and caught in the
Bellicose’s
rigging, even as the arsenalotti were shaken loose, falling to the deck or into the water. Those who did manage to hold on were faced with another terrifying shock: an invasion of savage fighters as adept at climbing as they.

Once secured to the
Bellicose
, the Lazar oarsmen abandoned their oars to join their brothers. Fulk fought his way, his axe swinging, to Bakhbukh’s side.

The gaps between the chained ships had lessened with the westerly-tending wind. The next ship over, the
Ariminus
, was in range, but reluctant to fire on one of their own; they had not yet recognised that the
Bellicose
was already lost.

The invaders had varied tactics – the Sicarii worked in pairs while the Lazars preferred one-on-one duels – but all were unknown to the Moor’s men, who were accustomed to fighting terrified seamen. As the battle drew to a close, the Sicarii made death-defying leaps to invade the rigging of the
Ariminus
, while the Lazars took control of the
Bellicose’s
cannons and raked the lantern’s deck. They were not practised enough to be precise, but at this range precision was irrelevant: any shots that missed the
Ariminus
struck the enchained ships behind her.