Scimitar Sun by Chris A. Jackson Page B

kedged off of the mangroves, sat a sleek-hulled corsair. The peeling golden paint on her transom read “ Cutthroat ” and a small catboat lay tied to her side like a tender. Two men at the corsair’s taffrail pointed their loaded ballistae away from King Gull ’s prow when a voice boomed out to stand down.
    “It’s the Gull , boys!” a shriller voice called out, eliciting a ragged cheer from the deck crew. Captain Seoril recognized the slim form standing upon the poop of the corsair.
    “Ahoy, Cutthroat ! Is that you, Sam?”
    “Aye, Captain! Tell me you brung a cask of spiced Scarport rum and I’ll kiss you!” The girl who hopped up atop the taffrail was skinny as a yardarm and not more than fifteen, but she wore a cutlass at her hip and was well acquainted with its use; a pirate as true as any that sailed the sea.
    “By the Nine Hells, I’ll kiss you myself if you brought a cask of Northumberland single malt!” Captain Parek bellowed, joining Sam at the rail. “Why are you late, Seoril? I expected you a fortnight ago! Thought you were sunk, or ratted us out for the price of a cheap doxy.”
    “It’d take more than one cheap doxy to tempt me to rat you out, Parek.” He shouted some orders to his crew to bring King Gull into the north bank and kedge off, then turned back to the captain of the Cutthroat and bellowed, “Maybe two cheap doxies! I was held up at Rockport, tryin’ to unload that rotten load of wool. Didn’t get near what you wanted for it, neither! Seems it got wet and went moldy.”
    “Well, as long as you brought us some stores, I’ll not hang you for it. Bring a cask of rum over when you come. We got business to conduct.”
    “Aye, and I got news you ain’t gonna like, Captain Parek. Best have a tot or two before I unload it on ya.”
    “Aye. Nothin’ makes bad news go down easier than smooth grog, ay lads?”
    The massed crew of the Cutthroat roared in a ragged cheer. They launched their only skiff to help offload the provisions King Gull had bought with their hard-earned plunder.
    ≈
    “Fire boarding hooks!” Feldrin Brelak bellowed as Orin’s Pride came up on the freebooter galley’s beam. The two ballistae mounted on the schooner’s port side cracked in unison, and wrist-thick shafts of iron-tipped hardwood plunged into the galley’s hull.
    “Slack sheets and haul on the capstan!” he ordered, racing forward from the wheel as the sails flapped, and dodging a ragged volley of arrows that flew from behind the shields that studded the pirate ship’s bulwarks. One man screamed and fell, but most had known to take cover. The heavy lines trailing from the imbedded ballistae bolts came taut as five men cranked madly at the windlass, and the two hulls met with a crash of splintering wood.
    “Arrows!” someone shouted, and Feldrin ducked behind a row of lines purposefully coiled and stowed on the shroud belaying pins. A barbed shaft quivered in the wood of the cap rail a hand-span from his knee, and he leapt up before the enemy archers could fire another volley. “Now! Boarders with me!”
    Twenty well-armed sailors lunged up and leapt over the row of colorfully painted shields into the midst of the enemy. One of Feldrin’s boarding axes clove a man’s skull like a melon, even before his feet met the deck of the enemy ship. A shipmate to his left went down with a spear through his leg, but put his cutlass into his assailant’s belly as he fell. Feldrin hacked down a bewildered archer and took a step to cover the fallen man, knocking aside another spearman’s weapon with his right-hand axe and gutting him with his left.
    Something hit his shoulder from behind hard enough to penetrate his thick leather corselet, and momentarily numbed his right arm. He slashed back without looking, and was rewarded with a meaty thock and a horrible scream. He turned to see the swordsman crumple, his hands clutching his destroyed face. He ended the man’s agony with a quick stroke and turned,