Empire Of Blood

For a moment Blade considered mentioning the Steppeman's treachery with the snake. Then he decided against it. In the present mood of the pirates, that would lead straight to a pitched battle with the Steppemen. The Steppemen were probably ready for a battle, but the pirates certainly were not. Such a confrontation could very well undo the results of his victory by getting the pirates and himself and Prince Durouman all slaughtered together. Even if they won, the pirates would be weakened, and many hundreds of men would die for no reason.

No one would hear of the snake if he kept his mouth shut. He hoped that the pirates kept a very good watch tonight-and that dawn would see the Steppemen well on their way home.

Then Prince Durouman and Dzhai were each catching him under one arm and hoisting him upon their shoulders. All of Kukon's men were crowding around, screaming at the top of their lungs, waving swords, spears, and muskets, and beyond them were the pirates making even more noise.

Chapter 23

Blade munched a piece of boiled salt pork on a toasted ship's biscuit and looked out across the dark water toward the shore. Lights flickered there, cooking fires among the tents of the Steppemen, lanterns in the house of the Seven Brothers, campfires and torches among the huts of the tribesmen, where the pirates were celebrating Blade's victory and their new alliance.

Blade did not blame them for celebrating. The new alliance meant an end to the terrible feeling of being alone against whatever Kul-Nam might hurl at them.

Unfortunately, it also meant a relaxation of their guard. Blade didn't like that at all, and he spoke against it as long and as loudly as he dared. He accomplished nothing, and neither did Prince Durouman. In the end both men gave up. Their new alliance might not survive their openly telling the pirates that they were fools.

The pirates were still prepared to meet attack from the sea. All thirty galleys were anchored in a great half-circle, bows pointing seaward. Their guns could easily fire on an enemy approaching from that direction. It would also be easy for them to weigh anchor and row out against that same enemy, as soon as the rowers were back on board.

There was the problem. Tonight at least half the pirates were ashore, drinking beer and captured wine, gambling, wrestling, competing for the favors of the tribal girls and women. Their barges, boats, and fishing craft were lined up three deep along the beach, ready to take them back aboard their ships at dawn. How fast could they regain their ships in the darkness?

Inside the half-circle Kukon lay at anchor. She was in the place of honor, normally reserved for the senior captain's own ship. There all could see her and no enemy could come at her without passing through the ring of galleys around her.

The honor was flattering, even to Blade and Prince Durouman. It seemed to mean that the pirates were genuinely interested in making this strange alliance work.

It also meant that Kukon lay anchored within two hundred yards of the shore. To both Blade and the prince, that was far more important. Both expected trouble tonight; both expected it would come on land-from the Steppemen.

Neither man could believe the Steppemen would do nothing to avenge their defeat. If they'd been prepared to stoop to treachery to win the duel, they would almost certainly be unprepared to tamely accept losing it. With more than three thousand warriors camped fifteen minutes' fast walking from the celebrating pirates, they could do a good deal. Perhaps they could do enough to cripple the pirates, making them fatally vulnerable to Kul-Nam.

Not that the Steppemen would really wish to serve the cause of His Magnificence Kul-Nam. They would not be thinking of him or of Saram at all, only of vengeance on enemies who had humiliated them. They would take that vengeance if they possibly could, and in taking that vengeance they might give Prince Durouman's cause a blow from which it could never recover.

The Steppemen could afford to be indifferent to that. Blade and Prince Durouman could not.

So after the two men failed to persuade the pirate captains to keep their men aboard ship until after the Steppemen had left, they returned to Kukon. There they gave certain orders, and then settled down to wait out the night.

Blade had been waiting in the darkness now for nearly four hours.

«Aaaarrgggh!»

The cry carried faintly across the water. Blade strode to the extreme bow and sca

Blade stiffened. A shadowy figure was stealing along the water's edge toward the pirate boats drawn up along the beach. Behind it crept at least four others.

Someone on one of the boats shouted, in surprise or as a challenge. Fire flared in the darkness as one of the moving shadows lit a torch and raised it over his head. Then the shrill, yipping warcries of the Steppemen exploded and the shadowy figures darted forward. They moved clumsily, as Steppemen always did on foot. But they moved forward with a furious energy that told Blade all he needed to know.

More shadows were springing out of the darkness along the shore as Blade spun around to give his orders. He did not shout so that he would not warn the enemy. In any case, the key men aboard Kukon already knew what they had to do and were doing it without waiting for Blade's orders.

To port, twenty sailors were scrambling down into a barge tied alongside. Each sailor carried a bow across his back and a sword in his belt. Oars flashed and dipped into the water, and the barge shot away from the galley's side toward the shore.

Dzhai and Prince Durouman came ru

In his good hand Dzhai carried an axe. He sprang up onto the foc'sle, raised the axe high, and brought it down with a chunk! It bit through the anchor cable, and Kukon was free to move.

Prince Durouman turned as his guards came clattering up on deck, gesturing furiously, waving them to silence. Fifteen of the green-liveried musketeers were there. So were the eight surviving guards of the treacherous commandant of Parine. They had begged to be allowed to join in the next fight, to regain the honor they'd lost through their leader's treason. Blade and Prince Durouman listened to that plea. Now the eight would have their chance.

To starboard a fishing boat was tied to the galley's side. The men in its bow pulled it in; then Prince Durouman's party began scrambling down into it. The prince himself waited until all were aboard, then leaped down. He misjudged the distance, landed off balance, and fell with a clatter of armor and an explosion of curses from the men under him. Plenty of noise there to carry across the water and alert the Steppemen! Or rather, there would have been plenty of noise if the battle on shore hadn't already been making its own uproar.

Blade watched and listened. Flames were already flickering around several of the pirates' boats. The glow of torches showed where Steppemen were moving among the boats to set more fires. Slowly the light grew.

Around the house of the Seven Brothers moving figures swirled light occasionally playing on swords and armor. From farther back in the darkness came the flashes and bangs of muskets. The pirates were slowly waking to realize what was happening. Would they wake fast enough? Blade doubted it.

He had no doubt at all of what was happening. The Steppemen knew that half the pirates were ashore, so they were sending a small party-perhaps no more than a couple of hundred men-to set fire to the boats on the beach. That would trap all the pirates on shore and keep the ones on board the galleys from sending reinforcements. Then the main force of Steppemen would sweep in on horseback against the trapped and disorganized pirates. It would be a massacre, not a battle.