Half the ship's hold was filled with barrels of oil for cooking and making firepots, so her catching fire was almost an explosion. Before the canoe carrying the fire party was safely away, flames were towering as high as the ship's mastheads. Sails vanished like dew in the morning, balls of fire danced up and down the tarred rigging, flames gushed out of every port and began to creep out from gaping seams.
The Protector's galley swung to starboard, away from the blazing ship, backing the oars on one side to turn faster than Blade had expected. She did turn, though. She had to. Between the burning ship and the next one, there wasn't enough room for the galley to pass. The only clear water now lay between the other two ships. The Protector's galley stopped turning and backed off another hundred yards. Then the drums started pounding out a fast stroke and the galley surged forward, straight at the gap between the two ships.
Blade let out a sigh of relief. Very little could go wrong now that could defeat his plan. The Protector's galley came on, the other four turning now to follow in her wake. Blade leaned over the railing and shouted to the men below, then axes cut the last shrouds of the mainmast. Wood cracked like gunshots and ropes flailed about wildly. A flying block clipped a bone ornament from Swebon's hair without making him blink. Then the ship's mainmast went over like a toppling pine, plunging into the water just ahead of the Protector's galley.
Blade would have liked to time the mast's fall to bring it right down on the galley's deck. But you couldn't always have everything so neat in a battle. The galley was still too close to the falling mast to stop, and plowed into it with a cracking of timbers and oars and a chorus of screams from the galley slaves below. A good many of the soldiers on the galley's deck were knocked off their feet, and the four galleys astern of the flagship had to back oars frantically to keep from ramming her or each other.
For the moment, the Protector's whole squadron was as immobilized as if it was aground, well within bowshot of all the waiting archers. Blade jumped up and waved a yellow scarf back and forth, as furiously as if the world would end the moment he stopped. Helmets sprouted all along the wall, and the men lying on the decks of Blade's two ships sprang to their feet. Then arrows and bolts poured down onto the decks of all five galleys.
Now it was the turn of the Sons of Hapanu to go down as if they were being machine-gunned. The crossbows could drill through any armor they wore, while the laminated bows could fire three times as fast as anything the Protector's men had ever faced. Before Blade scrambled down to the deck of his own ship, the decks of all five galleys were carpeted with dead and dying Guardsmen. Where the planks weren't covered with bodies, they shone a gruesome red. Blade leaped down into the first canoe to come alongside and ordered the paddlers to take him to the Protector's galley. He climbed up onto the deck just as the Protector himself burst out of the cabin under the fo'csle.
Before he saw the Protector coming at him, Blade hadn't felt the slightest interest in being chivalrous toward the man. He wouldn't have cared if the man died filled with arrows or fell overboard and was eaten by the Horned Ones. Now he saw the Protector advancing toward him, a sword in one hand, the great jeweled staff of office in the other, and tears streaming down his face. Blade wasn't sure what the Protector was weeping for-friends and comrades, lovers, or merely the disastrous end of both his power and his life. He did know that the Protector deserved a fighting man's death.
Blade was carrying a gladiator's shield and a broadsword, and wore only a gladiator's fighting outfit. The Protector came in so fast that his shorter sword left a red line across Blade's ribs and another on his shoulder before Blade could get his shield into position. That was almost the last time the Protector hit Blade, but Blade found he couldn't get through to the Protector either. In spite of his grief and the slippery deck underfoot, the man was as fast and deadly as a hungry leopard.
The two men went around and around, treading on the bodies and the bloody planks, so close together that Blade's archers couldn't risk shooting at the Protector. Blade began to wonder how long this fight could go on, knew that he could eventually wear the Protector down, but also knew that the man might get lucky before then. It wouldn't take much of an edge to let him put his sword into Blade, and he was desperate enough to take almost any risk. Blade decided that he'd better draw the Protector into taking that risk at a time of Blade's own choosing.
Suddenly Blade wheeled to the right, opening his normally shielded side to the Protector. The Protector thrust, Blade wheeled back, and the sharp edge of his shield caught the Protector's sword arm. The sword's point pricked Blade's ribs again, then it clattered to the deck as the Protector's arm dangled limp and streaming blood.
With incredible speed the Protector raised the staff and swung it, knocking Blade's sword out of his hand. Blade blocked the Protector's next swing with his shield, then closed and grabbed the staff. The Protector struggled to tear it loose, then tried to kick Blade in the groin. Blade brought his shield edge down on the Protector's leg and the man went down. Blade dropped the shield and hammered away with the staff until Swebon came up and pulled him to his feet. The great staff could indeed crack a man's skull.
Blade went over to the side and held onto the railing until he felt completely firm on his legs. The thought of the size of the gamble he'd taken chilled him. Yet there could be no doubt-he'd won. The five galleys drifted under an umbrella of smoke from the burning ship. All of them were surrounded by the canoes of the Forest People, and their decks swarmed with warriors and men of Gerhaa. On one, the surviving galley slaves were already being released and led up on deck.
Much more interesting to Blade was a small ship heading up the harbor as fast as her sweeps would take her. From her foremast flew the Emperor's standard, and above it a white flag.
Blade found his voice. He pointed to the ship with two flags. «Swebon, I'll kill any man who fires on that ship with my bare hands.»
«I see it comes from the Emperor.»
«Yes, and I think it brings some words we'd better hear.»
By the time the dead aboard the flagships were separated from the living and laid out on deck, the truce ship was closing in. As the burning ship sank in a cloud of steam, the truce ship came alongside the flagship. Somehow Blade wasn't at all surprised to see Ho-Marn standing at the ship's railing, with an embroidered blue robe over his armor.
«Greetings, Ho-Marn!» called Blade.
«Greetings, Blade,» replied the soldier.
Blade took a deep breath. «Ho-Marn, I think the time has come to ask you a few questions.»
Ho-Marn laughed. «Blade, I think the time has come to answer them. You have done all I hoped you would do and more.»
«And-if I hadn't done what you hoped?»
«Another tool, another time.»
«I understand. Come aboard, Ho-Marn.»
Chapter 23
Five men sat on the balcony to the main room of what had been the Protector's palace. There was Richard Blade, sitting in the Protector's whitewashed chair with the Protector's staff leaning against it. There was Kuka, Swebon, and Ho-Marn, all still in fighting gear. Finally there was a short, sturdy dark man with gray hair, the general of the Emperor of Kylan. Swebon couldn't begin to pronounce his name or titles, but was willing to call him «Prince,» as Blade did.
They were sitting on the balcony because Blade guessed right when he said the Emperor was the enemy of the Protector, even if he might not be the friend of the Forest People. Swebon remembered Blade's describing what the Emperor thought, and was glad that Blade was there to describe it for him. It was good that Blade hadn't gone back to England at once. Swebon would need him for a little while more at least, to teach the Forest People how to understand all the new things which were still coming to them.