A quick grab and Nugai had the bow, and taking the Turk’s still-warm right hand he worried off the horn-and-copper thumb ring, which proved to be a fair fit on his own right thumb. Then he began to look about for the arquebusier.
A glance at the archer’s death wound showed the Kalmyk that the shot must have been fired from almost on a level with its target, not much higher, surely no lower. The keen eyes of the nomad horseman searched the rigging of the enemy ship and presently spied six gunmen in a line on a long, narrow platform affixed in place of a true fighting-top to the mizzen-mast of the French galleon.
Drawing out one of the short arrows from the brace of cylinders at the dead Turk’s belt, Nugai nocked the shaft and fully drew the bow, aimed, then loosed. That first arrow was a clean miss. But the second one took a gunman low in his belly, between his belt and his crotch.
Nugai watched the distant gunman drop his long, heavy piece, then fall—arms and legs windmilling—from his perch. Blank-faced, he fitted another shaft to bowstring and with it felled another arquebusier. He had dropped all but two before they spied out his position and sent a ball humming in his direction, only to hit the dead Turk in the chest. Nugai skewered the one gunman while he was aiming and the second before he could finish reloading, spanning, and priming his weapon.
The Kalmyk checked the contents of the cylinders, combined them into one, and hung that one on his own belt along with the bow. Then he loosed the dead Turk’s waist lashings, making sure that the body fell onto a deck and not into the sea. Taking the security strap in his teeth, he climbed higher in the shrouds, to where he had a better view of the battle raging on the decks of the enemy galleon.
It had been many years since he had had a bow of this sort in his hands, but such bows had been the principal missile weapon of the Kalmyks for untold centuries prior to their adoption of prods and crossbows from Teutons, Goths, and Magyars. He would enjoy himself with the bow as long as the arrow supply held out, then he would climb down to add his cunning and ferocity to the melee seething on those blood-slimy decks so far below.
CHAPTER
THE FIFTH
When Walid Pasha saw desperate seamen, some of them with fresh, bleeding wounds, casting themselves out of the open gunports of the French ship, he breathed a long sigh of relief. Boarders apparently had reached and were clearing the enemy’s gundecks, so there would be no more of those punishing salvos and he could safely put his carpenters to work on the damages already wrought.
Smiling, he turned to Fahrooq. “All right, you may commit the reserves. I’ll have no more need of your men on the guns. Those are friendlies on those gundecks yonder, now.”
The boarders from off the Bigod sloop grappled at the French galleon’s stern were just killing the last gun crewmen on the main gundeck when Sir Ali and his boarders climbed up to it.
“Well, then, gentlemen.” His smile flashed a brilliant white against a dark complexion darkened even further by an overlay of smoke grime. “Let us to see what to find above we may.”
They found nothing but destruction and death on the lowest level of the sterncastle; whatever had exploded and however many explosions there had been, they had no way of ascertaining. Their horrified eyes could only witness and record the facts that every bulkhead had been blown down, every stern window and side window had been blown out. Some guns—there were sakers and minions on this part of this deck—had been completely or partially dismounted by the force of the explosion or explosions, others had been buried in debris, and bits and pieces of an indefinite number of men were splattered on every visible surface in the smoky slice of hell that that deck was become.
Halting the combined boarding force for the nonce in the deathly peace of the charnel-house scene, Sir Ali saw to it that every pistol was reloaded, then headed his command toward the blown-open double doors leading out to the open deck and the ongoing battle.
Bass had had the cinquedea dagger blade break about a span above the point and now was fighting with the Lochaber-style ax of one of the men he had earlier shot down. All of his pistols now were empty — as were all within easy sight aboard the ship — and matters were simply too intense to allow for reloading in safety. It seemed to him that the fight had raged on now for hours and he was weary unto death, but somehow he found the requisite strength and energy to fight on — chopping, slashing with the heavy, cleaverlike blade, stabbing with the spike, leaping aside and dodging thrusts of pike or blade, taking cuts on helmet or armor, sometimes able to deflect them down the iron-strapped haft of his captured weapon.
On his right fought a brace of his galloglaiches with their own long axes — of a somewhat different pattern from his but just as deadly and all showing close antecedents — while a knot of Turkish marines wreaked gory havoc with boarding pikes and cursive swords on his left and, beyond them, Sir Calum and the Baron Melchoro stood back to back, plying Irish shortswords and spiked bucklers to fearsome effect, while shouting gruesome jokes to one another and roaring out snatches of bawdy songs.
And Bass was worried. There were far too many familiar bodies out there, foot- trampled, on the deck. He and his score and a half or so of men here against the sterncastle and an approximate equal number backed against the forecastle were all that was now left of the boarders. Despite the singularly deadly slaughter, the French had fought hard and well, still outnumbered them, and were pressing them hard.
As he had done once before, at the cavalry encounter now famed as the Battle of Bloody Rye, Bass took out his worry and his frustration on the foemen facing him. Snarling, his lips peeled back from his teeth, he stamped forward, swinging his weighty ax as if it had been a feather, and Frenchmen recoiled from him, as much from a primal fear of the bestial growls and snarls as from the hacking steel blade.
The two galloglaicnes, shouting with exhilaration, followed him closely, as too did Sir Calum, Baron Melchoro, the Turks, and all the rest, driving a steelshod wedge forcefully into the mob of Frenchmen.
Sir Ali’s arrival with his relatively fresh force was timely in the extreme. The more numerous French had but just closed to completely encircle Bass and his following when the Arabian knight emerged from the sterncastle to smite the foemen with cold steel and hot lead. And although a degree of heavy fighting yet remained, the boarding of Fahrooq and his reserves was an almost unnecessary anticlimax.
In the aftermath of the fierce battle for La Sentinelle du Nord, as the commanders and ship captains toted up losses, it became painfully obvious that they must head directly for home port, praying constantly for fair weather, because the loss of experienced seamen—few of whom had gone into the fight as well armored or well armed as the soldiers—had been no less than staggering.
The prize galleon, moreover, could not be sailed in her present condition, with or without a crew, and the open ocean only a few leagues off the hostile French coast was certainly no place to undertake repairs of any save the most basic nature; all were in agreement on this. Therefore, Walid Pasha had two stout cables rove from Revenge to the prize, put Fahrooq and six Turkish marines, a carpenter’s mate, three seamen, and a dozen galloglaiches aboard her, and took her under tow. By prearrangement, the caravel, Krystal, and the three Bigod sloops kept pace in clear sight of Revenge and the rich prize.
And if any doubt existed that she had been rich, one had but to penetrate the ranks of full-armed guards ranged before the double-bolted door to Bass’s quarters and gaze upon the gold, the silver, the uncut gemstones and pearls, plus the fine furs, the supple hides, shaggy robes, and light cotton cloth which were samples taken from bales and bolts still aboard the French galleon.
Within the confines of the now-crowded cabin, Baron Melchoro and Sir Calum—both of whom read French with some ease—pored over stacks of documents, notes, and ledgers, while Sir Ali and Nugai, with scales and quills and parchment, weighed and counted up the gold and silver ingots, coins, and jewelry. Close by the stern window, Bass was poring over one of the maps that had been taken from the prize, wondering at the so-familiar outlines all here labeled with alien names in unfamiliar languages.