The Dame

TWENTY-THREE

We might be able to get to smoother and deeper water,” the helmsman reported to Dawson as he ran back amidships. “I’m betting Lady Dreamer can run from them warships when the swells ain’t so tall.”

“Aye, and what o’ Shelligan’s, then? She’s not so fleet,” another crewman reminded.

“What of her, then?” the first replied angrily. “If we’re to fight beside her, then we’re to drown beside her!”

“Enough o’ that,” Dawson implored. He turned to Cormack and particularly to Milkeila. “You’ve got some magic, I’m hoping.”

Milkeila glanced at the vast and powerful ocean waters, then back at Dawson doubtfully.

“A few tricks?” asked Dawson.

Both the young fighters nodded reluctantly.

“And so we aren’t leaving Shelligan’s Run,” Dawson declared loudly. He focused his gaze on the helmsman. “A sorry group o’ friends we’d be and a sorrier commander by far for meself if we’d leave our friends to certain doom.”

“But it’s certain doom for them if we stay and fight, too,” the helmsman stubbornly reminded.

“Aye, might well be, but we’ll sting the Palmaristown dogs, don’t you doubt. And we won’t be sailing the seas the rest of our days remembering them we let die!”

That last statement had the crewmen gathered about pumping their fists with determination.

“Signal Shelligan’s,” Dawson ordered. “Fill the sails and start east and just a bit north. We’ll split them wider as they try to box us, then turn back to fight two on two to start it up.”

“Two on four, ye mean, since they’re twice our size,” the helmsman grumbled, but the man beside him slapped the back of his head and bid him shut his mouth.

Lady Dreamer signaled her sister ship and waited patiently as she readied her sails. All the while the five Palmaristown ships continued weaving their net, two to the south, one to the north, and two more coming straight in at the prey from the west.

“Go then!” Dawson called when Shelligan’s Run signaled she was ready and began to tack, turning her prow east. “And don’t outrun Shelligan’s!”

The chase was on, seven ships crashing through the swells at full sails, oak beams creaking and groaning in protest, crewmen pulling hard on the ropes to try to keep the sails angled perfectly to make the most of the strong spring breeze. As the ships leaped away, it seemed like they were holding their own against the two in pursuit. Dawson briefly wondered if they might just try to keep running.

But the Palmaristown caravel in the north was too fast and would soon enough be able to turn south to cut them off and slow them enough for the two behind to catch and rake their decks with volleys of arrows and giant ballista bolts.

Dawson moved to the taffrail, Cormack and Milkeila beside him, watching the run, gauging the progress of the chasing warships and the one in the north. He had to make his dramatic turn before that one started south, or it would catch them before they could get in a straight run again.

He’d wait until the last moment, for that northern ship was outdistancing the two chasers, and the two by the coast were making no move to close, instead ensuring no escape to the coast and freedom.

“Did you see that?” Milkeila asked suddenly, pointing. Both Cormack and Dawson turned to her, following her finger to the north, to the Palmaristown ship. Angled strangely, her prow suddenly too much pointed northward, her sails slack, her momentum stolen.

“She hit a rock!” Cormack exclaimed, for indeed it appeared as if the ship had struck something, and hard.

“No rocks, no reefs this far out,” Dawson muttered with certainty. He knew every bit of the gulf waters better than any man alive.

But the other ship was stopped. She shuddered again as they watched, her masts trembling violently, her sails whipping back and forth. They were too far away to make out any distinct movements on her deck, but they saw commotion there, sailors running about.

“What is it?” Cormack asked.

“I’m not knowing,” said Dawson. “Break north!” he shouted to his crew. “And signal Shelligan’s to the same!”

Heartbeats later Lady Dreamer leaned low to port, Shelligan’s Run in her wake.

Yach, but they got her!” Shiknickel cried to his crew, a score of bandy-legged powries pedaling hard to turn the screw on their deadly, ram-headed barrel boat. “Cracked her wood and told the sea to come aboard!” The powries gave a cheer.

“Well, turn us to her, then, so’s I can wet me cap in human blood!” one cried to the agreement of all.

“What ho now?” Shiknickel asked, glancing to the side out the one conning tower on the cylindrical, mostly submerged boat. “Two more coming to play.”

“Two o’ her friends, or the two they were chasing?” asked one of the crew.

“The runners. They’re thinking the way clear, they are. Yach, but we’ll show them the bottom!”

Others cheered, but two dwarves near the back of the barrel boat glanced at each other and stopped their leg pumping. One hopped up and made his way forward.

“What’re ye about?” Shiknickel demanded as he came to the side of the sturdy captain.

“About seeing the flag on them new-coming boats,” answered the dwarf, a recent addition to Shiknickel’s crew.

“Well what’re ye knowin’, Mcwigik?” Shiknickel asked, showing great deference for this one, who had been hailed as the savior of a lost powrie band that had been missing for one hundred years.

Shiknickel stepped aside as Mcwigik moved to the small top port to climb the three-step ladder and poke his head out, staring to the south.

“Dame Gwydre’s flag?” called Bikelbrin from the back.

Mcwigik strained to make out the pennant. “Aye!” he said at length. “Flying the flag we seen over Castle Pellinor.”

“The Vanguard queen who sent ye back to fetch our lost kin?” Shiknickel asked.

“That don’t matter!” one of the bloodthirsty crew protested.

“Shut yer mouth, or I’ll be fillin’ it with me fist!” Shiknickel barked at him, for indeed, three of the dwarves who had been retrieved from Mithranidoon, including gray-beard Kriminig, were of Shiknickel’s own clan. Kriminig, whose beret glowed as brightly as any dwarf’s in all the Julianthes, had long been regarded as a (missing) hero of the dwarf captain’s clan.

“Aye, it’s Gwydre’s boat,” Mcwigik replied when the captain looked his way.

“And ye don’t want us to hit it?”

“Not with bigger boats chasing it,” Mcwigik reasoned, assured that he had hit a good note when Shiknickel’s face brightened. The captain pulled out a small, reflective device to signal the other barrel boats in the water, moving past Mcwigik to the top. Shiknickel stopped Mcwigik when he started back for his seat.

“Stay beside me a bit,” he ordered. “We’ll be going close by them littler ones, and if they’re not what ye’re thinking they’ll be the first to drown.”

More than one set of eyes focused on Dawson when the screaming started from the Palmaristown ship to the north. Something terrible was happening there, and Lady Dreamer was sailing right toward it.

The warship shuddered again and her mainmast lurched over to port, and, even from this distance, the crew of Lady Dreamer could discern that it had cracked down by its base. The ship was taking on water, evidenced by a pronounced list.

“What’s hitting her?” more than one crewman asked, voices tinged with fear.

Dawson, too, was more than a little afraid of this course that would bring them so close to Whatever was destroying a great warship so efficiently, but when he glanced behind, he saw the two Palmaristown ships in full pursuit. To stop or even turn was to fight them; to fight them was surely to die.

“Powries.” The almost breathless call came from a crewman working hard at the rigging at the bow.

“Powries?” Cormack echoed beside Dawson. Cormack and Milkeila chased him to the rail.

In the distance they saw the rounded wood and the small conning tower of a strange craft, her barrellike shape and terrible ram smashing through a swell before settling into the dark water.

Blood drained from Dawson’s face, and a million thoughts swirled in his mind as he finally came upon a desperate plan: Join with the Palmaristown ships against the even more ruthless powrie enemy.

Yach, but we’re takin’ her down, Gwydre’s boat or no!” Captain Shiknickel cried. “ ’E’s wearing a powrie cap, he is! Double-time left!”

As calls for the righthand turn echoed the length, Mcwigik’s eyes opened wide. “A powrie cap?” he mouthed. Gulping hard, he shoved his way back to the short tower to stand beside Shiknickel.

Below, the dwarves shouted and sang of getting to ramming speed, of dipping their berets in the blood of men.

Shiknickel’s call of “Hold yer feet!” stopped them cold.

Shoot it dead!” one man cried, but Dawson held his hand to belay that order and to keep everyone calm as they stared at the powrie barrel boat, nearly stopped and splashing in the rough waters barely thirty yards off Lady Dreamer’s starboard bow. A red-bearded dwarf crawled from the conning tower, holding it fast as he settled his feet on the concave deck, waves rolling over the wood.

“Mcwigik,” Cormack and Milkeila said in unison before Dawson could mutter the same.

“Yach, ye dogs, and know yer good deed’s not been forgotten,” the dwarf hailed them as Lady Dreamer fast closed on the barrel boat. “Ye keep on running with yer partner there, and we’ll be giving a good poke to them two that’re chasing ye, not to worry.”

Dawson swallowed hard and looked to his companions.

“Good Mcwigik, and the best to yer kin!” Cormack yelled, taking the cue and moving up beside Dawson.

“Aye, and Bikelbrin’s below!” the dwarf replied.

“How many boats have you?” Cormack called.

“More than a few, and good ones. Ye wanting them’s wearing that flag as them’s chasing ye put to the bottom? Hope ye do, because that’s where they’re going, don’t ye doubt!”

“You will let the ships under the flag of Dame Gwydre pass?” Milkeila dared to ask.

“Aye, a debt repaid, and fun repaying!”

Mcwigik gave a great laugh then as Lady Dreamer glided past, a chuckle filled with such wickedness that Dawson, Cormack, and Milkeila were glad to have him on their side.

“We should tell them to be gone from the gulf,” Cormack said quietly to Dawson.

“Aye, but that’s giving the waters to Panlamaris, now ain’t it?” the older Vanguard sailor replied.

Ahead, the Palmaristown ship keeled over, dropping sailors into the cold waters. Like sharks, a trio of powrie boats rushed the scene, dwarves scrambling on the decks, serrated knives in hand. Dawson and the others on Lady Dreamer watched in revulsion as one poor woman was hauled up by the hair onto the side of the powrie boat, her throat quickly slashed open. Powries swarmed over her, slapping with their berets.

The three on Lady Dreamer glanced back to the boat carrying Mcwigik, already pedaling fast to the south to intercept the Palmaristown ships.

“Weren’t a thing we could do to stop them, anyway,” Dawson mumbled. Given the carnage just ahead, his justification rang hollow even to him.

“Every choice we make, every battle we fight, takes a piece of my soul,” Cormack said and leaned heavily on the rail.

Lady Dreamer and Shelligan’s Run continued to the northeast under full sail for a long time, long after the two ships giving chase broke apart under powrie rams, long after the screams of more Palmaristown men and women rent the early spring air, long after the remaining Palmaristown ships, hugging the coast, turned and fled west.

Finally, the two Vanguard ships dared to separate, Shelligan’s Run turning north to deliver Gwydre’s message to Vanguard, Lady Dreamer turning straight east on their critical mission to ally with Laird Ethelbert.

There was no cheering on either boat for their improbable escape. Nearly every sailor on both of the ships more than once uttered the justification that “the Palmaristown crews would’ve shown us no mercy.”

They had to say that, and had to believe it, given the sight of powries with knives slaughtering helpless crewmen as they splashed about in the dark and cold waters. They had to say that, because they had left fellow men of Honce to the merciless, brutal dwarves.

They had to say that, and so they did, and like Cormack, every one of them lost a little bit of his soul.