Pirates Of Gohar

«It's starting?»

«I'll be surprised if it doesn't in another hour. The Emperor may be joining Kloret's fleet.»

«The Emp-«

Blade put a finger to his lips. «Yes. At least I think I recognize King Bull. Harkrat's arrival may get Kloret moving. If it does, the Sarumi will have to attack before the two fleets can join against them.»

Khraishamo nodded. «We'll be moving up to the head of the line?»

«There will be plenty of fighting all along the line. No one will question our courage if we stay here. I want to be where I can watch Kloret's movements. The man himself, not just his fleet.»

Khraishamo showed all his teeth in a grin. «I won't ask what your plan is, Blade. But if you need me at your back-«

A shout came from the masthead. «Hulloooo, the deck! The Bloodskins are getting underway toward us!»

Blade's eyes met Khraishamo's, and he smiled. «Thanks. I may need you very badly.»

The lookouts all along the lines had seen the same thing. Blade heard their shouts and saw men ru

From far away, a faint murmur reached Blade's ears-the drums and flutes of the Sarumi as their ships got underway.

For the moment, Blade's biggest and nearly only job was to keep track of what everybody was doing. Khraishamo could give any urgent orders aboard Lioness and the other ships would be fighting their own battles. So he scrambled aloft again, and reached the masthead just as the Sarumi's tactics became clear. Their fleet was dividing itself into two lines, to pass down both sides of the Mythoran fleet.

Blade watched the maneuver with the eye of an experienced sea fighter and realized that the sheer numbers of the Sarumi were going to handicap them. They were good sailors and shiphandlers, but until today they'd never needed a system of fleet tactics. They could handle three or four ships as a unit, but not two columns of sixty or more.

This meant the Sarumi couldn't possibly beat the Mythorans, at least before the Goharan fleet came into action. After that the Sarumi could either die or run. Blade didn't much care, as long as they didn't beat the Mythorans. If a large part of the rebels' fighting strength was destroyed today, Kloret might find the temptation to finish them off too much to resist.

The battle took shape slowly. This was inevitable, when the same men were going to have to row their ships into action and then fight all day. That was another advantage the Mythorans had-they could wait for the enemy to come to them. Apart from Lioness only half a dozen galleys had their oars out, and even these were only using them to hold position.

Minutes crawled past, giving the impression of being hours. Blade kept looking at the sun, always surprised that it wasn't past noon or even getting toward twilight. Damn it, he told himself. You've been in too many battles to start getting nervous over this one. You don't even have much responsibility when the fighting starts.

Strictly speaking, this was true. It would be a battle of every ship for herself, and Blade was sure the Mythorans, Goharans, and Maghri all knew their jobs. But driving off the Sarumi was only part of today's work. In fact, it was the less important part. All the Sarumi together were less of a menace to this Dimension than one man, Prime Minister Kloret.

More minutes. The Sarumi seemed to want to get into a position to attack the whole Mythoran fleet at once. That was fine with Blade. The longer the Mythoran fleet's horde of Maghri archers could stay hidden, the better.

The morning haze was burning off as the sun rose higher. Now the sunlight blazed from the sea until Blade had to shade his eyes in order to see anything at all. Over Mythor faint curls of smoke rose from forges and watchfires along the walls. Even if Mythor could defend itself on land, Blade hoped it wouldn't have to. Such a battle would be even bloodier than one at sea, leave deeper scars, and make peace between the two great cities of the Sea far more difficult. He hadn't joined the Mythorans to start a perpetual war in this Dimension.

Blade blinked. Was it just a trick his half-dazzled eyes were playing on him, or were the Goharan ships moving? He blinked again, looked away, and then looked more carefully, searching for Kloret's ship.

The Goharans were moving. He could see the foam their oars were leaving behind, and their battleflags fluttering at mastheads. They were moving almost as raggedly as the Sarumi, with little clusters of ships following their own paths. Kloret's ship was well out ahead of one cluster, bearing off to port. The big ship Blade thought might be King Bull wasn't moving yet.

The Sarumi came on, the Goharans came on, the Mythorans stayed where they were and waited. Blade's grip on the railing tightened until he felt splinters of wood forcing their way into his skin. Suddenly the flutes and drums of the Sarumi started to die away. Then one pirate ship after another put her helm over and bore down on the Mythorans. It was a remarkably well-done maneuver, considering how badly the Sarumi had done up until now.

Then suddenly one of Degyat's galleys was on the move, wheeling to present her ram to a pirate ship. She couldn't work up much speed, so her ram blow missed the enemy's hull. But as she slid along the enemy's side, the ram ploughed through the pirate's oars. Blade could imagine the screams and cracking wood. Then the galley's deck turned dark, as the archers swarmed up from below-mostly Maghri, but with Mythorans and Goharan sailors mixed in with them. Blade saw a faint haze flickering over the deck of the pirate ship as the arrows came down. Then the pirate ship was blundering on, the movements on her deck now strangely confused and erratic. Even from where he was, Blade could see the pirate's deck slowly turning red under the dead and the dying. Against this many archers striking all at once, the Sarumi tactics of lying down on the deck wouldn't be much help.

If Blade had used a radio, he couldn't have done more to get all the captains in the Mythoran fleet to act together. Every Mythoran ship in sight of the first fight started spewing out archers. As fast as their neighbors saw what was happening, their archers came up too. In five minutes every Mythoran ship was blazing away as fast as her archers could shoot, and most of Degyat's galleys were underway.

The trap was sprung, but a little too soon. If the Sarumi admirals could order their ships clear in time, they still might get most of them away. The Goharans were coming on steadily, but not fast.

Degyat's flagship rammed a Sarumi, then found herself grappled by two more. Boarders swarmed over the decks of all four ships, even the one sinking under their feet. It was hard to tell what Degyat's archers might have done before the close action started, and now Degyat's men were badly outnumbered. Then the galley backed free, Degyat's ba

Blade saw other rammings, farther off. He also saw Sarumi ships drifting helplessly, so many men dead or wounded that the survivors couldn't handle the ship. Sometimes Sarumi ships would come alongside their crippled comrades and pass towlines. Other times they would be ignored until one of Degyat's galleys came up and rammed or boarded.

After a while it was impossible to pick individual combats out of the vast sprawling chaos of fighting men and ships. Blade couldn't tell who was wi

So far there were no enemies within easy striking distance of Lioness. Blade looked to see the Goharans begi