The Black Ships

 

The monsoon season died, and the rains receded, so that they came daily over the sea, rather than in the ageless storms that lasted for weeks.  Birds ventured over the water, and the winds blew again from the east, sending the trade ships and fleets once more across the azure sea.  This was the time of year when the colonies forged by the Mordani invaders gathered their accumulated wealth and sent it home across the waters.  This was the season when poor men became rich men, and rich men became princes.

In the harbor of the great city of Sinasekan, walled in by white cliffs and guarded by stone towers, the black fleet gathered.  Six ships, then ten, then a dozen.  Day and night, slaves carried the treasure of the islands over the gangplanks and into the dark holds under the watchful eyes of armored guards.  All year the mines of the islands were worked, gathering a fortune in silver and gold in the court of the viceroy, and when the rains ended, the treasure was loaded aboard ships with white sails and black hulls, and then the fleet sailed away, over the long course to Morda, on the other side of the world, there to make the king even richer, to pay for the wars with Achen and Savindria, so that the black stallion banner would fly over new lands and new conquests.

For three weeks the ships gathered, loaded until they were slung low in the water.  The port city seethed with spies and counterspies as corsairs sought the exact date of the departure and the Viceroy’s agents sought to conceal it, catch those who sought it.  Spies for the pirate brotherhoods were caught and hanged from gibbets, slaves who spoke too freely had their tongues torn out with red-hot pincers, and gossips who spoke unguarded were arrested and had their eyes put out, whether woman or child.

Lookouts on the cliffsides and headlands kept their eyes on the far horizons, for they knew the black fleet could not sail without warships to guard it.  The treasure ships were so loaded with wealth there was no room for fighting men or for much powder for the guns.  Each was so heavy that they wallowed like pigs in muck, and would be so slow they would be easy prey for any raider.  The traveled in a fleet so that even if one was picked off by a buccaneer, the others would escape while the one was looted.  In the twenty years since the ships began to sail, not one had been lost.

That year the signs were bad, and there was much greater zeal to protect the fleet.  The corsair brotherhoods were in turmoil, many of their hidden coves and meeting places rooted out and burned.  Tarakan had been lost to a slave revolt, and the port town of Jinan put to the torch.  Stories were told of a pirate queen of the Utan, with a fleet of stolen ships and followers who gladly died in her service.  There was fear that a slave revolt might spread, and so any resistance from any slave was treated with the greatest harshness.  The whipping posts and gallows were kept busy, and bloody examples always hung from the city gates or beside the harbor entrance.

It was the dark of the moon when the ships all slipped their moorings and nosed out of the harbor, feeling their way by the expert seamanship of the fleet captain.  At the bows the men swung their plumb lines and took the depths as the ships crept around the point and headed out into the cool night wind, sails bellying and gathering strength to begin to push the ships to speed.  Eyes watched from the shoreline, peering from among the trees and rocks along the jagged coast.

Before dawn the ships were well out to sea, tacking with the trade winds, and at the helm of the lead ship was the tall and scar-faced shape of the man who commanded the fleet, who would steer it across the seas to a great reward.  The once-pirate who men named Lozonarre.

o0o

Jaya was belowdecks aboard her ship, the Unjarah, and she was gathered at a wooden table where a map of the islands was pinned in place with knifeblades.  A lantern swung overhead, moving as the ship rolled in the gentle seas just before dawn.  Gathered here were her captains and her trusted companions.  Dhatun was here, and Bastar, Wana who led her gun-women, and Aratna, her one-eyed spymaster.

“In other years, they took the course west through the Red Sea, as that is the most direct route to their home waters,” Aratna said, tracing a line on the map west from Sinasekan.  “This time they have taken another way to seek to throw off raiders.  They are following the Taman Nagai coast northward into the Parai Sea.  The way is longer, but they plan to meet with their warships here, along the way.”  He looked at her.  “They left port three nights ago when the moon was dark, and by now they will be here.”  He touched the map.  “The winds have been favorable, but not too swift.”

Jaya looked at him.  “How many died to learn this?” she said.

“Sixteen,” he said.  “None betrayed us, though they were tortured.  We know what we must know, and they do not know we have learned it, but the cost was bloody.”

“Then we will make our blow count,” she said.  “The warships will be here,” she said.  “That is the only anchorage suitable for such large ships along the coast.  Fog comes off the land before dawn, so we will get there before they meet and hide in the mist.  Some of us will trap the warships against the shore, while the rest cripple the black ships.”  She smiled.  “They do not think that anyone can take all of them at once, but we have forty ships at sea.  Ten will hold the warships at bay while the rest cut down the fleet.”

“None of our ships are equal to a warship,” Bastar cautioned.  “You have not seen the size of them.”

“Size will not let them maneuver in the shallows so close to land,” she said.  In the darkness and the mist we will cut them to pieces.  The usurper of my kingdom will bleed silver and gold before the day is done.”  She looked at them all.  “Get to your ships, we sail with the dawn tide.  Go.”

She waited while they all left the cabin, while she studied the map as though by staring she could discern what was hidden from her.  She spoke with confidence, but a thousand things could go wrong with her plan.  The warships might not be where she supposed, and even if they could ambush them, her smaller, more nimble ships would still be hard-pressed in battle with the immense war-craft.  She had never seen one, but Bastar had told her that they mounted fifty or more guns on a side and might contain several hundred fighting men.

Dhatun lingered, but she looked at him and nodded for him to go.  He gave Bastar a last glare and then left them alone.  Jaya often found she could speak more freely with the giant Mordani pirate.  He served her, but he did not believe she was a goddess, did not really believe in gods at all.  She might have found that blasphemous, but instead it was a comfort.

“You think four warships in the escort,” she said.

“This year, surely.  They know you are out here, even if they do not believe the stories.  Jinan burned and the island lost are not just stories.  They fear you, even if they do not know who you are.”  He stood close, looking at the map.  “You have never seen a ship of war like these.  They are immense, even compared to the largest ships.  They can move fast, but they are slow to turn, slow to come up to speed.  You can outmaneuver them, but ships like those you command cannot stand on the firing line against them.”

“We will drive them onto land in the shallows, against the cliffs,” she said.  “The black fleet will be mine.”

“That will stir a hornet’s nest,” he said.  “I told you.  It will weaken the viceroy, but also stir him to action.  He will come against you with everything he can gather.  It will be war to the death.”

“That is what I seek,” she said.  “I want a war, and I will draw him out so I can burn him to the sea.”

He put his hand on the small of her back, fingertips brushing her skin, and she shivered, leaned against him.  She should not, but she did not want to deny herself.  Every time she gave in to her desire, she thought it would be the last time, but it was never true.

She turned into him, craned her neck up to kiss him, their mouths open and wanting.  He was so much taller, he lifted her so easily to carry her to the bed.  His hands were warm and rough on her skin, baring her, touching her everywhere.  They went down onto the bed, breathing each others’ breath.  They set a fire there in the morning light, as they had many times before.

o0o

The cliffs of Taman Nagai rose up from the sea, the stone yellow-gold in the light of the dawn as the sun touched them.  Beyond, the land rose up and up in fortresses of dark, jungle-covered hills until it reached the black mass of the central mountains that jutted up the pierce the clouds.  Mist filled the hollows and ridges of the hills, and as the winds shifted with the morning, the fog began to pour down from the highlands like a tide, growing thicker as it flowed over the cliffs and rushed down to spread over the sea.  The shorebirds cried out and rose in masses to fly over the mist, circling as the warmer winds came from the land down to the waters.

Jaya’s fleet came creeping in from the southeast, slipping into the heavy fog bank, tacking against the seaward breeze.  She knew the mists would not last long, as the sun would come up and burn them off, even as the wind grew stronger and scattered it out to sea.  But for now, it hid her ships from any who were seeking them, and that was what she needed in this hour.  There was enough clarity in the fog that her ships could see one another and maneuver, but the rest of the world was a white cloud.

Ahead was the bay where she thought the warships would likely lie at anchor, and she gave the signal for ten of her ships to separate and head for land.  She had put Dhatun in command of this force, and she had to trust he could take the enemy unaware and trap them against the shore where they would not be able to maneuver.  The rest of her fleet spread out in a wide net facing the south.  The black fleet was coming, and they would have to pass this way.  They would blunder into her trap and then she would close on them like a fist.

The morning dragged on, the mist beginning to thin out and fade away.  She passed signals by hand from ship to ship, spreading her fleet out to cover a wider area as visibility improved.  She did not want the fleet to slip past her, unseen.  She could easily overtake them, but she did not want them to be able to join forces with their escort.  The warships could pin down her attack while the treasure ships escaped, and that she would not allow.  She watched breathless, her eyes seeking through the fading fog for a sign – any sign that her quarry was near.

She saw shadows in the mist, coming clear as the dawn began to break, and she trembled with how close her prey was come.  Her hand touched the hilt of her sword, ready to draw and scream for battle.  A little closer, just a little closer.  She watched the ship grow larger, too large.  A mighty ship of war emerged from the haze, cutting the sea with a black prow and a figurehead in the shape of a rearing horse with golden eyes.  The escort ships had already joined the fleet, and her whole stratagem was cast to the winds.

Now she had only two choices.  Either flee, or call on the gods and strike.  She would not get another moment like this in her life, and she knew it and could not abandon it.  “To war!” she screamed.  “Full sail ahead and man the guns!  Today we stain the water red and burn our enemies on the waves!”

Her ship came alive, as did all the others as the signal was passed down.  She saw shapes running on the deck of the enemy ship, and sailors swarmed over the sails to steer it.  It was going to try and turn broadside to her, but which way?  She had to guess, feeling the wind and seeing the currents under her keel.  “Starboard!”  She bellowed.  “Hard to starboard!”  She spun the wheel even as men ran to adjust the sails.

She kept her eye on the warship, hoping she had been right and it would choose to turn to port, taking advantage of the slightly stronger wind from that quarter to drive the turn.  Behind it she saw another warship, and then the black-hulled shapes of the treasure fleet beyond.  Her own ships were spread out, and she saw them all twisting and turning, angling for better position as battle broke upon them.

Cannonfire began to speak, single shots as men fired to get the range and test the wind.  All along the hull of the warship she saw ports open, a dozen, two dozen, five.  There were so many guns on a single broadside she flinched to imagine it loosed as one.  One such blast would chop a small ship into pieces.

The warship heeled slowly over to port, and she bared her teeth.  She was closest, and that meant she would cut across their bow, away from that deadly barrage of gunfire.  Her men were racing to the rails, gathering up their spears and sabers.  She had Ekwa and Tau’ta aboard her ship, warriors painted for battle in red and black.  Belowdecks her gunners ran out the cannon.  She had a dozen on one side, and she had to make them count.

The mist lifted as if it burned away on a breath, and for a moment in the rising dawn she saw the sea filled with ships, her own spread around her, turning and weaving as they maneuvered.  The wind rose and the sails pulled tight, and then she was crossing the enemy bow and she judged the waves and the angle as the ship rose and fell.  She narrowed her eyes, took a breath, and screamed for the cannons to fire.

Her gunners touched fire as one, and her guns went off in the space of a single breath.  She had chosen her moment well, and the shots blasted against the enemy hull just above the waterline, splintering wood and sending water and shards of oak geysering into the morning air.

Other ships fired, and she saw splashes where shots missed, saw the impacts on the hard-sided warship as the cannon shots glanced off or punched through, and then the great broadside spoke like thunder.  It did not come all as one, but like a rippling wave, gouting smoke outward into the air over the sea.  She watched, unable to do anything, as one of her ships was caught in the hail of shot and seemed to come alive as the deck and hull blasted apart, rippling and splitting and ripping open.  Two masts split and fell aside, dragging into the sea, and then there was a final blast of a dozen guns and the hull of the ship broke in two.

Jaya stared in helpless fury as men leaped into the sea.  The ship foundered, water rushing into the torn-open hull, and she heard screams.  The bow chasers on the warship fired and a cannonball glanced off the deck of the Unjarah and buzzed as it flew past her no more than two paces away.  Jaya spat and spun the wheel, keeping them turning as the immense warship began to wheel back to starboard, trying to bring them into the range of the port guns.  Jaya did not plan on making herself an easy target.

More ships fired, and she saw another of the warships closing, firing bow guns her way as her smaller craft shot at it from the sides.  The broadside crashed again and her ships twisted and wove to get out of the way.  One of them was holed above the waterline, the other lost a bowsprit.  Their own shots seemed to have little effect on the vast enemy ship.  She had not really believed how dangerous the floating fortresses could be, how tough their hulls or how destructive their armament.

Turning, she cut across the path of the warship as it closed, trying to turn and give her the port broadside before she could escape.  She laughed, because the Unjarah was too quick for the lumbering sea beast.  Closer than the first time, she judged the distance and gave the command to fire when the ship was almost on top of them.

Her gunners blazed away like a single shot, and the effect at this range was a thing to see.  The shots ripped into the bow of the ship, tearing into the hull, splitting the planks, and she saw the ship settle into the waves as water began to pour into the hold through the gaps.  Smoke boiled into the air, obscuring the sky, and the rising sun.  Jaya tasted blood and laughed into the teeth of her enemies.

She let the wind catch the sails, and the Unjarah leaped ahead.  The treasure ships were trying to race through the battle and escape, and she swung out around the nearest one, using it to shield her from the broadside of the warship.  Her men fired on command and the blasting cannon shot away the black ship’s rudder and dismasted her, left the ship wallowing and all but helpless as Unjarah raced on.

The sea was filling with smoke as the battle dissolved into near chaos.  The warships were powerful, but they were outnumbered and could not maneuver like the lighter craft.  Cannons fired in a constant roar as her fleet closed like hungry jaws on the treasure ships, shooting down their masts and punching holes in their sides, bathing their decks in blood.

She brought the Unjarah sweeping through the gunfire, cutting through the seas scattered with broken wood and slicks of blood.  This time she cut around the back of the warship as it struggled with the flooded bow, and she cried for her gunners to loose.  This time they used shot heated in braziers, and the red-hot iron smashed through the hull and splintered the rudder.  One shot punched deep into the hold and a moment later a huge explosion ripped open the side of the ship and sent smoke billowing high above the deck as a store of powder went up.

The moment they cleared the end of the ship they came under fire, and she saw that the second warship was waiting for them.  Guns thundered and gouted forth smoke as the sixty guns fired on them, and she roared and worked the wheel like a madwoman, twisting to avoid the plunging shot that splashed around them.  She felt the impacts as the cannonballs struck her hull, saw parts of the rail torn away and the deck smashed in as the shots bounced off.  Three men were torn apart and splashed the deck with blood, and she roared her fury as she spun the wheel and aimed her prow right at the warship, weaving through continuous fire.

The ship loomed bigger and bigger before her, and then more ships came looming out of the smoke.  For a moment she was not sure what she was seeing, but then she realized it was Dhatun’s force coming to the sound of battle.  They came in a line, all passing behind the warship and firing in turn, crushing in the stern, shattering the rudder, blasting through the hull until water rushed in and the vast ship began to sink down into the water as her hold filled.  Two explosions of powder came, tearing holes in the sides and hurling men into the sky, and Jaya laughed.  She spun the wheel and came about, ready to hunt for the treasure ships before they could try to slip away into the smoke.

o0o

She caught the last black ship as it emerged from the tattered cloud of smoke.  The sun was high and the sea was brilliant blue as the Unjarah emerged from the haze of battle and pounced.  Even with holes in her sails and dents in her hull she moved faster than the heavily laden vessel, and they closed the distance rapidly.  The treasure ship fired stern chasers as they came in, but the gunnery was poor and slow.  Jaya had no intention of firing on this ship more than she had to, she wanted it intact.

Catching it easily, she cut across the stern and fired chain shot over the deck, ripping through the masts and sails, bringing it all crashing down in a mess of cloth and ropes.  Her men surged to the rail as they came alongside, and she gave the wheel to Bastar as grapples were flung and the other ship hauled in close.

Jaya jumped to the deck and drew her sword and pistol.  Her men gathered, chanting the battle-calls of the Tau’ta and the Ekwa, all of them clashing their weapons together, seething for blood.  Gunfire snapped in the rigging as marksmen on both sides picked at each other, and then the planks dropped and Jaya led the charge across.

A ragged blast of musket fire threw out a wall of smoke and sent some of her men pitching down with bloody wounds, and then she was through and crashing into the wall of boarding pikes.  She hacked through the hafts and pushed through as her men came in a wave behind her, and the line of resistance dissolved into a bloody melee.  She cut down two men, shot another through the throat and clubbed him down as he gagged on his own blood.  Then the smoke parted and she saw him there like an apparition out of time.  It was Lozonarre, older and leaner, still favoring the leg she had wounded years ago.  He saw her and his face went white.

She laughed now, uncontrollably, feeling a swelling in her chest like a fire growing in the wind.  To come to him now, at this moment, was a gift from the gods and she could feel them infusing her with their power, with the will to do what they asked of her.  She came for him on a tide of gladness like euphoria, the sting scars on her arms tingling with memory.

Jaya was ten times the fighter she had been when they last met, and she closed with him in a storm of steel, her sword flashing in the sun.  She threw away her empty pistol and drew her long knife, and together the blades wove an intricate pattern he could not stop.  She cut his arm, then again, and as he drew back she hacked off his sword hand.  He cried out and stumbled back, fell to the blackened and smoking deck, and she pounced on him, pinning his other arm to the deck with her knife through his wrist.

“Now you see the thing you have done,” she said.  “For though the gods may have caused you to walk upon this path so that I might follow my own, still I do not forgive, and I do not pardon.  You slew my father and brought death to my people, and so in answer, I bring it in return!”  She pressed the edge of her blade against his throat and set her hand against the back.  She bore down, pushing the keen steel into his neck piece by piece as he struggled, until the flesh parted and the blood sprayed out around her hands, until she pushed the edge through and he gagged as she severed the cords of his life.  He thrashed under her, eyes wide and red as she sawed through until she crushed through his spine and tore his head free, watching as the last light went out of his eyes, the horror in them as he knew what was done to him before the end.

The deck was quiet, and she stood with her trophy head swinging by his hair.  The air was thick with smoke and the smells of death, and the deck was painted red and smeared with blood.  The enemy crew had been slaughtered to the last, and now the ship was hers.  The black fleet was hers, and she had struck a terrible blow against her enemy.  She looked at the smoke-blackened faces of her crewmen, the Tau’ta she had known all their lives, the Ekwa who followed her like a savior, the Utani who had become her people and the few faces of her disciples marked by the tiger goddess.  This was the empire she would forge, and the weapon she would wield to conquer.

She held up the head of her enemy and howled her victory call, and it was answered by a hundred throats.  She held iron and gold on a bloody sea, and all paths led onward into war.