Ilus Rises: Chapter 8 Part 1 of 2

Chapter 8:

Petor staved off a yawn. He’d empowered Desari till he went to sleep some seven hours ago. Three hours into his watch he looked through the masts, the sails pulled up and stored away.

Something caught Petor’s eye in the near-morning sun.

He focused on the area where he’d seen it, almost like a flash of-there!

He pulled out Mya’s spyglass.

Light reflected off the bottom of clouds. Lightning? No, lightning went through clouds, this was reflecting off of them.

“Mya!” He yelled.

“What’s up?” Her voice coming from right beside him.

“Flashes of light, like a dozen at once and then nothing.”

“Halfway between the left side and the front of the ship.”

“Port and bow,” Mya said in the voice of someone focusing on something else.

The flashes rippled again.

“There!”

“Cannon fire.” There was a surety to Mya’s tone. “Pennants tell me the winds are still working against us. I can work the sails with some tacking and jibbing to increase our speed.”

He felt the oars pace change, the pennants shifting lazily in the wind as the ship groaned onto its new path.

“Tell me what you can see.”

“Right.” Petor scanned the horizon, checking for other oddities. It wouldn’t do to just focus on the point of interest and let other ships or beasts close with them.

“On a ship its Aye mister Petor,” Mya called out as sails unraveled, cranks moving unmanned as the ship shifted to catch the wind.

“Keep that in mind, captain Mya aye?” He called back. He heard her chuckling, settling his nerves somewhat as he climbed up the rigging.

Minutes moved by, the flashes slowed and then started to increase, becoming more ragged.

The sails dropped under Petor, the wind cutting at his clothes as he took in their surroundings again.

Desari must be awake.

The wind filled the sails and their speed surged.

“Ships!” Petor yelled. “Five in total, looks like two against three. The two are trying to head to the right, they’ve got fires and are smoking. A mast just fell down!”

The mast caught on ropes and sails, tangled up as it hooked into the water, the ship turning with its new oar.

“Get down here, I’ll need that spyglass,” Mya said.

Petor leaped over the side of the crows nest, dropping straight down, ready to grab onto the rigging as he hit the small platform where the mast met the yard.

He took the impact with his knees, dropped, grabbing the platform with one hand and dropped again, hitting the larger platform below. He repeated until he reached the upper deck. Valter was uncorking the cannons  and checking the ropes as he moved down the deck.

Desari was directing the air and parting the sea ahead of them. Petor ran for the poop deck, a jump launching him onto the deck he skidded to a halt. Mya walked past him, the helm held by a rope, she extended her hand. Petor slapped the spyglass into it.

“Cannons need readying Mister Petor.” She said, raising the spyglass.

“Aye captain.”

He ran past her and dropped onto the upper deck.

“Deck below!” Valter pointed down.

“On it!”

Petor ran to a ladder and dropped down again.

He ran down the port side, unlocking the hatches and pulling out the corks, hanging them up to the side. He turned to the starboard side, finding Valter.

“I’m heading down, I’ll do all the ports then start up the starboards from the bottom!”

“Got it!” Valter threw up a thumb as he pulled out a cork.

Petor raced down and did as he said, readying all the decks. It would take but pulling on the hatch and cannon pulley, which Mesurial could do herself, and they’d be ready to fire.

He worked down into the bottom of the ship, the wood and undead groaning two decks below his feet as he finished up his cannons and moved to the other side, meeting Valter.

“Good?”

“Good,” Valter agreed.

They hurried up the ladders to the upper deck.

Mya was back at her place behind the helm.

“Ready on guns!”

Petor moved to the gun nearest the poopdeck on the port side, Valter on the staboard.

“What we looking at?” Petor asked.

“Two merchants by their ship types. Maximum hold, few guns. One is fleeing and trying to cover its friend, the one with its mast in the water.”

Petor felt the fluctuation of mana, looking up at Mya, her eyes flaring in white flame. “Three pirates.”

“What’s the plan?” Desari asked as the silence dragged.

“We’ll keep on our current heading north west, we’re moving fast and right at them, with the sails up it’ll be hard for them to tell how many masts we have. They’ll see the height, but not our length. We’re coming in on an angle towards their starboard aft. The wind is cutting south east so they can use it to turn and bring their guns to face our side as we come across their rear. Then we’ll hurl shots right up their asses, gut them from aft to bow.”

“Their ships are in a triangular formation, two closest to the demasted ship. I think they cut off their friend to greed. It is firing and moving to chase the other merchant. They have a foresail they’re using to get some speed. Pirates don’t have anything they can shift into the wind so they’re firing what they can and relying on their cannons.

“I’m going to use the Upper deck and Middle gun deck on the first ship we come across. Starboard side. Valter, Petor you get reloading as soon as those guns are back. I’ll fire into the second ship with the main gun deck and the lower gun deck  into the second ship.”

“On it,” Petor said.

“I’ll fire from the bow to the aft so best to get to the front.” She raised her voice the oars beating a steady pace, Mesurial creaking as the sails snapped with the wind, the water hissing as it parted on their bow. “Once we’ve shot their asses full of round I’ll heave us starboard and cut us on a North east heading, that’ll cut the distance between us and bring us behind them again. Keep loading the starboard cannons. I’ll bring us back for the third pass and hit them with what we’ve got ready.”

“Aye Captain,” Valter growled.

Mya chuckled, mirth threading with something drawn from the depths. “Three warships against one. They didn’t call me Cap’n Mad Mya for nothing.”

Petor felt an itch in his spine as his face split into a grin, that wildness on Valter’s face as well.

“Starboard cannons it is!”

Petor dodged across the deck, reaching the bow of the ship, twin cannons facing forward. He ducked under the foresail to peer forward, Valter behind him.

“Tell me what you see Petor.”

He drew out his compass.

“Ships nearly directly north west, more north than west.” He traded compass for spyglass and eyed the ships.

“Nearest ship, bottom of the triangle is closing with the demasted trader’s rear, range four thousand seven hundred meters. Can’t get a read on the other ship that’s next to the demasted ship. They’ve got ropes out between them and the water’s all stirred up.” He shifted the spyglass. “Last ship, near five thousand three hundred meters, probably direct north.”

“Understood. Lets bring them under two thousand that should do it,” Mya said.

Petor held onto the foremast. The oars threw the ship forward with each pull, he rocked with it, the wind beating at his face as the distance closed rapidly.

“Hate the waiting,” He muttered.

“Its always the worst part,” Valter agreed.

***

The yells from Spindle’s crew were nearly gone as the crew of the Silver Oar hurried to reload their cannons, stained with black powder, eyes wide.

The liberator redeem us. Crixim offered up a silent prayer.

The attack had come as the morning sun was just peering through the clouds. Every person aboard that knew how to manipulate water was working to increase their speed and keep the water out of the half dozen holes that littered their hull.

It was a small mercy that the pirates wanted their stores intact.

“We have to do something Zilthor!” Crixim hissed, his eye twitching from the blood that dripped from a head wound. Some piece of wood giving him a new scar.

“There ain’t nothing to be done Crixim,” Zilthor growled, low so the others wouldn’t hear. He was trying to sound strict but the wavering fear in his voice gave him away.

The Lizardian merchant had green-yellow scales and yellow eyes, unsettling at the best of times and giving away little of his thoughts and expression. His curled shoulders and the shakes in his hands gave him away. Crixim might be the ship’s captain, but Zilthor was the trader and owned the ship.

There was also the fact he was right.

Cannons fired, Crixim barely holding himself back from ducking as everyone else did.

The sound arrived, several hitting the water, he could tell by the way they went high pitched, three whizzed by as if the air was angry with them. One turned a railing to a mist of splinters, the dull meaty thud and seared in image of a poor crew member being in the path of that seared into Crixim’s mind.

Crew screamed out as he stepped forward to the bannister, Zilthor still ducked behind the navigation table. The wet spot on his clothes had been there since this morning.

“Get those cannons loaded! Clear the deck!” His throat raw, cutting through the screams of the wounded, the sobs of some.

A few of the steady hands set to the guns, others picking up the wounded and getting them lower to the ship’s ‘doctor’ thankfully she was somewhat sober today and doctor was a stretch.

Everything was on Zilthor’ dime.

Crixim focused on the foresail, pulled out to the starboard side to gather what wind she could and keep them advancing. It was the only thing that they could rely on.

The gills around his neck fluttered, being a half-mer gave him instinct for the seas and the ability to live within them. Every instinct told him that the seas today were against him.

He grabbed the helm, infusing his mana into it, to ease their passage, if only to get them a bit more speed. If only they had a true water mage! Not a bunch of half-mer and human hybrids used to the shallows instead of the deeps.

“Sail Ahoy!” Caelum cried out.

Could’ve kept it to yourself boy. He grimaced, anyone that was up in the crows nest for this all didn’t deserve to be called a boy anymore.

He looked up and frowned. Looking aft?

“Where boy?” He called out.

“Holy shit she’s a big-un! Them masts! I ain’t seen no thing like ‘er!”

“Direction!” Crixim secured the helm. A chunk missing from it where the cannon ball that killed Nereida went through.

“Aft! To the south! She’s coming in fast, full sail!” He walked to the rear of the ship, casting upon the horizon spell.

His blood chilled in a way he only though reptiles could.

“She’s a ship of the line,” He couldn’t help but raise his voice.  “Good gods! Look at the size of her!” He was stuck, watching her as hatches opened, his skin tightening and what little hair he had standing on edge.

Cannons ran forward along the length of the ship in the hundreds. He looked to the ships that were attacked the Spindle. The rearmost was turning, the other focused on boarding the ship. The last ship trying to get around them, reloading their forward-most cannons.

They’re too far from the ships, there ain’t no way they can hit that. His thoughts sunk into the slang-speak he’d educated out of himself to become a ‘proper captain’.

The oncoming warship’s cannons glowed. Smoke plumed, running down the ship across two decks from forward to aft.

Hits struck the water around the rear-most pirate ship, the sound of the shot and the impact reaching at near the same time.

The not of the impacts changed, into the crumping dullness that came from cannonball striking ship.

Gouts of timber turned shrapnel spalled out of the ship.

Masts cracked under the fury.

One deonation went of, then others that came at nearly the same time, breaking and then scattering the ship.

Essence flowed to Crixim in a rush he had never experienced before.

They only fired two decks of cannons.

***