Birds of Prey

"If El Grang is beaten, he will try to escape with all his army across the sea to Arabia," Hal told Ned Tyler and Aboli, as they listened to the ceaseless pandemonium of the ca

It was past noon when the Golden Bough took up her station off the mouth of the bay and shortened sail. The sound of the guns never ceased and Hal climbed to the masthead and focused his telescope on the wide plain beyond Zulla where the two great hosts were locked in the death struggle.

Through the curtains of dust and smoke he could make out the tiny shapes of the horsemen as they charged and counter-charged, wraithlike in the dust of their own hoofs. He saw the long flashes of the great guns, pale red in the sunlight, and the snaking regiments of foot-soldiers winding through the red fog like dying serpents, their spearheads glistening like the reptiles" scales.

Slowly the battle rolled towards the shoreline and Hal saw a charge of cavalry sweep along the top of the cliffs and tear into a loose, untidy formation of infantry. The sabres rose and fell and the foot-soldiers scattered before them. Men began to hurl themselves from the cliffs into the sea below.

"Who are they?" Hal fretted. "Whose horses are those?" And then through the lens he made out the white cross of Ethiopia at the head of the mass of horsemen as they raced on towards Zutla.

"Nazet has beaten them," said Aboli. "El Grang's army is in rout!"

"Put a leadsman to take soundings, Mister Tyler. Take us in closer."

The Golden Bough glided silently into the mouth of the bay, cruising only a cable's length offshore. From the masthead Hal watched the dun clouds of war roll ponderously towards the beach, and the rabble of El Grang's defeated army streaming back before the Ethiopian cavalry squadrons.

They threw down their weapons and stumbled down to the water's edge to find any vessel to take them off, A motley armada of dhows of every size and condition, packed with fugitives, set out from the beaches around the blazing port of Zulla towards the opening of the bay.

"Sweet heavens!" laughed Big Daniel. "They are so thick upon the water that a man might cross from one side of the bay to the other over their crowded hulls without wetting his feet."

"Run out your guns, please, Master Daniel, and let us see if we can wet more than their feet for them," Hal ordered. The Golden Bough ploughed into this vast fleet and the little boats tried to flee, but she overhauled them effortlessly and her guns began to thunder. One after the other they were shattered and capsized, and their cargoes of exhausted, defeated troops hurled into the water. Their armour bore them down swiftly.

It was such a terrible massacre that the gu

He, also, was sickened by the slaughter, and longed for the setting of the sun, or any other chance to cease the carnage. That opportunity came from an unlooked-for direction.

Aboli left his station at the starboard battery of ca

"That ship with the red sail. The man in the stern. Do you see him, Gundwane?"

Hal felt the prickle of apprehension on his arms and the cold sweat sliding down his back as he recognized the tall figure standing and leaning back against the tiller arm. He was clean-shaven now, the spiked moustaches were gone. He wore a turban of yellow, and the heavily embroidered dolman of an Islamic grandee over baggy white breeches and soft knee-high boots, but his pale face stood out like a mirror among the dark-bearded men around him. There may have been others with the same wide set of shoulders and tall athletic figure, but none with the same sword upon the hip, in its scabbard of embossed gold.

"Bring the ship about, Mister Tyler. Heave to alongside that dhow with the red sail," Hal ordered.

Ned looked where he pointed then swore. "Son of a bawd, that's Schreuder! May the devil damn him to hell." The Arab crew ran to the side of the dhow as the tall frigate bore down upon them. They jumped overboard and tried to swim back towards the beach, choosing the sabres of the Ethiopian cavalry rather than the gaping culver ins of the Golden Bough's broadside. Schreuder stood alone in the stern and looked up at the frigate with his cold, unrelenting expression. As they drew closer, Hal saw that his face was streaked with dust and powder soot, and that his clothing was torn and soiled with the muck of the battlefield.

Hal strode to the rail and returned his stare. They were so close that Hal had hardly to raise his voice to make himself heard. "Colonel Schreuder, sir, you have my sword."

"Then, sir, would you care to come down and take it from me?" Schreuder asked.

"Mister Tyler, you have the con in my absence. Take me closer to the dhow so that I may board her.

"This is madness, Gundwane,"Aboli said softly.

"Make sure neither you nor any man intervenes, Aboli," Hal said, and went to the entry port As the little dhow bobbed close alongside, he slid down the ladder and jumped across the narrow gap of water, landing lightly on her single deck.

He drew his sword and looked to the stern. Schreuder stepped away from the tiller bar and shrugged out of the stiff dolman tunic.

"You are a "romantic fool, Henry Courtney," he murmured, and the blade of the Neptune sword whispered softly from its scabbard.

"To the death?" Hal asked, as he drew his own blade. "Naturally." Schreuder nodded gravely. "For I am going to kill you."