With the final force of wind and gathered speed, Tavi brushed the side of Edrif, the Sufak vessel’s starboard oars splintering as shouts of pain and panic came from her pits. Sufaki rowers deserted their benches and scrambled for very life, their officers cursing at them in vain.
“Take in sail!” Kta shouted, and Tavi’s blue sail began to come in. Quickly she lost the force of the wind and glided under momentum.
“Helm!” Kta shouted. “Starboard oars… in water… and pull!”
Tavi was already beginning to turn about under her helm, and the one-sided bite of her oars took her hard about again, timbers groaning. There was a crack like a shot and a scream: one of the long sweeps had snapped under the strain and tumbled a man bleeding into the next bench. The next man leaned to let him fall, but kept the pace, and one of the deck crew ran to aid him, dragging him from the pit. Arrows hissed across the deck. Sufaki archers.
“Portside oars!” Kta shouted, as those men, well-drilled, had already run out their oars to be ready. “All hold! In water… and pull!”
Forty-five oars hit the water together, muscles rippled across glistening backs-stroke-and stroke-and stroke, and Edrif astern and helpless with half her oarage hanging in ruin and her deck littered with splinter-wounded men. The arrows fell short now, impotent. The breathing of Tavf’s men was in unison and loud, like the ship drawing wind, as if all the crew and the ship they sailed had become one living entity as she drove herself northward, widening the distance.
“First shift,” Kta shouted. “Up oars!”
With a single clash of wood the oars came up and held level, dipping and rising slightly with the give of the sea and the oarsmen’s panting bodies.
“Ship oars and secure. Second shift, hold for new pace. Take your beat. Now… two… three…”
They accepted the more leisurely pace, and Kta let go a great sigh and looked down at his men. The first shift still leaned over the wooden shafts, heaving with the effort to breathe. Some coughed rackingly, striving with clumsy hands to pull their discarded cloaks up over their drenched shoulders.
“Well done, my friends,” said Kta. “It was very well done.”
Lun and several others lifted a hand and signaled a wordless salute, without breath to speak.
“Hya, Pan, you men. It was as fine a job as I have seen. Get coverings for all those men in the pits. A sip of water too. Kurt, help there, will you?”
Kurt moved, glad at last to find himself useful, and took a pitcher of water to the side of the pit. Two of the men were overcome with exhaustion and had to be lifted out
and laid on the deck beside the man whose splintered oar had gashed his belly. It proved an ugly wound, but the belly cavity was not pierced. The man was vowing he would be fit for duty in a day, but Kta ordered otherwise.
Edrif was far astern now, a mere speck, not attempting to follow them. Val gave the helm to Pan and walked forward to join Kta and Kurt.
“The hull took it well,” Val reported. “Chal just came up from checking it. But Edrif will be a while mending.”
“Shan t’Tefur has a mighty hate for us,” said Kta, “not lessened by this humiliation. As soon as they can bind up their wounds and fit new oars, they will follow.”
“It was bloody chaos on her deck,” said Val with satisfaction. “I had a clear view of it. Shan t’Tefur has reason to chase us, but those Sufaki seamen may decide they have had enough. They ought to know we could have sunk them if we had wished.”
“The thought, may occur to them, but I doubt it will win us their gratitude. We will win as much time as We can.” He scanned the pits. “I have not pulled an oar in several years, but it will do me no harm. And you, friend Kurt, you are due gentler care after what you have endured, but we need you.”
Kurt shrugged cheerfully enough. “I will learn.”