Alt Mer’s hands flew to the controls. Shrikes in league with enemy warships. How could that be? Who controlled the birds? But he knew the answer as soon as he asked himself the question. It would take magic to bring War Shrikes into line like this. Someone, or something, aboard those ships possessed such magic.
The Ilse Witch? he wondered. Come out from inland, where she had gone to find the others?
There was no time to ponder it.
“Black Beard!” he yelled down to Spanner Frew. “Place the men on both sides, down in the fighting pits. Use bows and arrows and keep those Shrikes at bay!”
His hands steady on the controls, he watched the warships and birds loom up in front of him, too close to avoid. He couldn’t get above them or swing around fast enough to put sufficient distance between them. He had no choice. On his first pass, he would have to go right through them.
“Hold fast!” he yelled to Spanner Frew.
Then the closest of the warships were on top of them, moving swiftly out of the haze, all bulk and darkness in the early morning gloom. Redden Alt Mer had been here before, and he knew what to do. He didn’t try to avoid a collision. Instead, he initiated one, turning the Jerle Shannara toward the smallest ship in the line. The radian draws hummed as they funneled the ambient light into the parse tubes and the diapson crystals turned it to energy, a peculiar, tinny sound. The ship responded with a surge as he levered forward on the controls, tilted the hull slightly to port, and sliced through the enemy ship’s foremast and sails, taking them down in a single sweep that left the vessel foundering.
Shrikes wheeled about them, but in close quarters they could not come in more than two at a time, and the bowmen fired arrows at them with deadly accuracy, causing injuries and screams of rage.
“Helm port!” Big Red shouted in warning as a second vessel tried to close from the left.
As the crew braced, he swung the wheel all the way about, bringing the rams to bear on this new threat. The Jerle Shannara shuddered and lurched as the parse tubes emitted fresh discharges of converted light, then shot forward across the enemy’s stern, raking her decking and snapping off pieces of railing like dead-wood. Redden Alt Mer had only a few moments to glance over at the enemy crew. A Mwellret clutched the helm, crouched down in the pilot box to weather the impact of the collision. He gestured and yelled toward his men, but their response was oddly slow and mechanical, as if they were just coming out of a deep sleep, as if further information was needed before action could be taken. Redden Alt Mer watched their faces turn toward him, blank and empty, devoid of emotion or recognition. Eyes stared up at him, as hard and milky white as sea stones.
“Shades!” the Rover Captain whispered.
They were the eyes of the dead, yet the men themselves were still moving around. For a moment, he was so stunned that he lost his concentration completely. Though he had seen other strange things, he had never seen dead men walk. He had not believed he ever would. Yet he was seeing them now.
“Spanner!” he shouted down at the shipwright.
Spanner Frew had seen them, as well. He looked at Redden Alt Mer and shook his wooly black head like an angry bear.
Then the Jerle Shannara was past the second ship and lifting above the others, and Alt Mer brought her all the way around and headed her inland, out of the fray. The enemy ships gave chase at once, coming at her from all directions, but they were strung out along the coastline and too far away to close effectively. How had they found her in the first place? he wondered. For a second, he considered the possibility of betrayal by one of his men, but quickly dismissed the idea. Magic, possibly. If whoever commanded this fleet could enslave Shrikes and make the dead come alive, he could find a band of Rovers easily enough. It was more than likely that he had used the Shrikes to track them.