Deadhouse Landing

With the sweeps working, and crewmen pushing off rocks, the Honest Avarice headed out into the centre of the cove’s mouth. Now came the tricky, and potentially deadly, manoeuvre of turning and catching the driving wind without forcing the vessel on to the waiting rocks.

Griff’s gaze was fixed on the foremast. There hands waited, gripping lines, their eyes on the old man. Glancing to the shore, he nodded, and the hands yanked the lines. The lateen fores’l rose and Griff fought to throw the rudder. The bows heaved over, the ship leaping and yawing. Then the old man’s feet slipped on the wet deck and he stumbled. Startled, Cartheron caught the tiller, but in that instant the ship’s prow swung dangerously towards shore. Cartheron slammed the arm over; the old man’s timing would have been perfect, but now they were too far behind in the arc of their turn.

Sailors yelled their alarm; Bezil came storming up to the stern deck, glaring rage at Cartheron. Yet even he was not foolish enough to interfere as the sleek corsair yawed over, timbers groaning, and the wet rocks of the shore slid past seemingly within arm’s reach.

They passed the small headland – all hands bracing for that terrifying judder and squeal of timber over rock – and slid onward, scudding the coast. Bezil relaxed, letting go of the hilt of his sword, but still glared just as murderously.

‘Damned Napan! Trying to get us killed?’

Griff rose unsteadily, holding his head. ‘No, captain. The lad saved us.’

‘Saved us? Blasted near sank us!’ Bezil jabbed a finger at Griff. ‘Get us out to sea.’

‘Have to gain some room and headway before we can turn into the wind.’

Bezil waved him on. ‘Yes, yes. Just get it done.’ He turned on Cartheron. ‘You – stop interfering and ready your weapons. You’re with the boarding crew.’

Cartheron gingerly relinquished the arm to Griff. ‘Aye … captain.’

Bezil stamped off. The old man offered Cartheron a look of commiseration; the Napan could only shrug.

Griff singled out their target among the line of sluggish merchantmen and came closing in on the vessel from behind. Cartheron watched the action from among the assembled boarding crew. He caught intermittent glimpses of other lean wolf raiders darting in now upon the convoy. Jagged tongues of lightning lit Mock’s three men-o-war out among the heaving waves as they engaged the escort of five barques.

The Honest Avarice was close enough now to steal the wind from their quarry and the vessel lost nearly all headway, rocking unsteadily in the rough contrary waves. Cartheron carried twinned long-knives, both broad parrying daggers, more blades at the rear of his belt, and two on a baldric across his chest. He was ready for a fight, but still he hoped to see the white flag climb the mainmast ahead. As a Napan privateer himself, he knew raiders could be notoriously murderous when their quarry failed to submit. It was perhaps their strongest weapon: fear and savagery at sea.

Ahead, on the taller deck of the merchantman, Cartheron glimpsed sailors readying for boarding. So, it would be a fight. Perhaps they counted on the rough sea to make a difference in the engagement.

Now that the Honest Avarice was almost upon their quarry, Bezil called out, ‘Ready grapnels!’

As they came alongside, crewmen threw line after line across the slim gap. ‘Heave!’ went the call. Lines went round bollards and even the masts as sailors pulled to bring them in closer. Some snapped under the strain. The sea churned between the vessels, shooting upwards and spraying all. Sailors on board the merchantman took pot shots with crossbows, but with both vessels rising and falling most went astray.

Now came the hard part. To his credit, Bezil set one booted foot up on the rail, a line in his hand. ‘Up and at ’em!’ he bellowed, and started climbing.

With an animal roar that momentarily drowned out the sea, the near-entire crew of the Honest Avarice followed.

Sailors on the merchantman now chopped frantically at the lines above. Cartheron surged up hand over hand, desperate to make it before his was cut.

He made the railing and rolled over to land on the rain-slick deck. The sailors had retreated from the side and gathered together round the companionways and cargo hatches, swords and knives readied.

‘Yield!’ Orwen, Bezil’s first mate, shouted.

‘Come and die, Malazan scum!’ someone answered from among the crew.

Cartheron thought it damned odd that they should retreat from the side and be ready to fight on though clearly outnumbered. Usually most crews submitted rather than be slaughtered wholesale. But Orwen waved the Malazans forward, charging, and calling, ‘At ’em!’

Cartheron surged forward with the rest. He engaged a fellow armed with a shortsword, parried, edged the blade over, and thrust, only to feel his long-knife skitter, rebounding. Armour? There beneath the man’s torn shirt gleamed iron. A cuirass! What in the Lad’s name …

He shifted backwards, disengaging. Bloody Abyss …