“Same as before,” Rig whispered.
They looked toward the ship’s starboard side, where nearly two dozen Knights of Takhisis stood against the railing, watching the fire.
“I don’t think so,” Dhamon said quietly. He pointed at midships, then gestured at the mainmast, where a knight stood perched in the crow’s nest. The knight had noticed them.
“Pirates!” the knight bellowed, instantly drawing everyone’s attention away from the fire. The knight waved his arm toward Rig and Dhamon.
“We could use some help up here!” Rig called over the side. He felt for his daggers. “Damn! Used ’em all.”
“Here!” Dhamon passed him the two daggers he had retrieved, then darted forward, meeting the charge of the first three knights. This is suicide, he thought. He ducked below a wide swing and stabbed up with his long sword. The blade dug into one knight, and Dhamon leapt back just as the man pitched forward.
He did not leap far enough, and the knight’s falling body knocked him over. Dhamon scrambled out from under the corpse and leapt to his feet as one of the other advancing knights stabbed his thigh. Dhamon swung toward a knight wearing black chain mail. The sword bounced off the armor. Dhamon jumped back a few steps. Both of the knights rushing toward him were wearing chain mail; four more in leather were behind him somewhere.
“Suicide,” he repeated half under his breath.
Several yards behind him, Rig was engaging a pair of unarmored knights. A third lay on the ground with two daggers protruding from his chest. The mariner had snatched a sword from the body and was deftly parrying the knights’ swings and hurling insults at them at the same time.
The thunder of more footsteps from below made Dhamon swallow hard. He was good with a blade but overwhelming odds were another matter. And a ship this size would have dozens of men on board—not to mention dozens of slaves chained in the hold and at the oar ports. Suicide definitely.
“Oh no you don’t!” taunted Blister. “You leave Dhamon alone!” The kender had climbed onto the deck and was expertly pelting the knights attacking Dhamon. Sea shells she’d gathered from somewhere struck the backs of their heads.
The knights lifted their hands to protect them from the fusillade, giving Dhamon an opening. He kicked out at one knight, forcing the man back and impaling him on the out thrust sword of one of four advancing knights. At the same moment, he slashed hard to his left, cutting through links of chain to find the skin beneath. The knight howled, and Dhamon followed through with a strong thrust that pushed the long sword deep into the man’s belly.
Dhamon tugged his blade free just as Feril darted past him. The Kagonesti was heading toward the mast, down which the knight who’d been in the crow’s nest was climbing. Agile as a monkey, Feril scrambled up the rigging and kicked out at the man. He held tight to the mast and drew his sword, but she kicked again, ferociously and repeatedly, until man and blade fell to the deck.
“Cut the sail while you’re up there!” Rig called to her.
She paused.
“Unfurl it!” Rig bellowed. “Let it down to catch the wind!”
A quartet of knights drew Dhamon’s attention back to the battle. He guessed that counting the ones who’d just come up from below, there must be at least three dozen on deck to contend with. He backed toward the rail, parrying blows, although one got through his defenses, wounding his arm.
“Swim for it!” one of the knights shouted.
Dhamon had no intention of jumping over the side, he just wanted to feel the rail at his back. Several feet away, he noticed Fiona, her armor gleaming in the light of the lanterns spaced around the deck. She had her back to Rig, and the two of them were keeping another quartet of knights busy. Other knights crowded around, looking for an opening.
“The carracks!” Feril called from the rigging. “They’re raising their sails. All three of them!”
Rig muttered a string of curses. “We’re gonna have more company than we can handle!” he yelled. Under his breath, he added, “I didn’t think they’d all come over here.”
“Let’s finish this fight quickly!” Fiona called.
“Finish it?” The voice belonged to Jasper. The dwarf awkwardly climbed over the rail and fumbled with the sack at his waist. Groller climbed over behind him and headed toward midships. “Finish it? They’re going to finish us.” Jasper pulled the Fist of E’li from the sack and smacked it into the leg of an approaching knight. The man doubled over and Jasper swung the Fist into his head, grimacing as he heard the man’s skull crack. The dwarf stepped over the body and waded into the fray.
“The half-ogre!” a knight bellowed. “And an Ergothian! These are the ones we came here for! And they came right to us! Kill them all! Malys will reward us!”
Groller met the charge of two knights, pitching one over the side. He barreled into the other, pinning him to the deck. His big hands found their way to the man’s throat and squeezed. The knight struggled for several moments, then lay still.
Groller pushed himself off the knight and caught a blow to his arm. The cut was deep, and the half-ogre howled as he brought his uninjured arm up to punch the knight. The man was momentarily stunned, and Groller pressed his attack, kicking the knight in the chest, then tugging a belaying pin from his belt and cracking it against the side of the man’s head. Four more knights were heading his way.
“We can win this!” Rig shouted above the clash of swords.
“Losing’s not an alternative I want to think about!” the kender called back. She’d climbed onto the capstan and was hurling sea shells, rocks, buttons, and an assortment of other oddities with her sling. She caught a couple of the knights off-guard, buying Rig a little time with his cutlass. Then she looked about for Dhamon.
The mariner had downed two men and whirled to take on one of Fiona’s targets.
“I don’t need help!” Fiona yelled.
“Just being honorable,” he returned.
“Be honorable to those over there!” She gestured toward a pair of knights who had stepped up to take their fallen comrades’ places. Rig leapt back from one of the two Knights of Takhisis, who thrust upward with his blade. Had the mariner not moved, the sword would have pierced his heart. Rig ducked below another swing, then twisted to the side and drove his blade into the knight. A moment later, he heard Fiona’s target fall to the deck.
More than a dozen knights had been killed, but there were three times that many still on their feet. Rig suspected there were still more below deck putting on armor and grabbing weapons.
“See why we couldn’t steal a galley?” Rig called as he stood back-to-back with Fiona again, careful not to trip over the bodies. “It takes too many sailors to man her!”
“Too many to man a carrack, too,” Blister muttered.
The canvas dropped from the mainmast and billowed, and the Kagonesti dropped in a crouch.
“That’s great, Feril!” Rig yelled. “But we aren’t going anywhere with the anchor still down.”
“I’ll get it!” the Kagonesti called to him, then sprinted toward the rear of the ship, leaping over a fallen knight and sidestepping another.
“It’s got two anchors!” he yelled. But the Kagonesti was too far away, and the sounds of the battle drowned any hope of being heard. “One at the front,” he added to himself.
“Get the kender!” a knight cried.
“No!” Dhamon had dispatched the four knights in leather, suffering more than a few cuts in the process. Now he was fighting a towering man, whom he could tell was a commander, perhaps the man to whom the spy was supposed to report.
“Dhamon Grimwulf,” the towering commander hissed between clenched teeth. “Don’t quite match your description. Thought you had blond hair. Malys wants you alive.” The commander shifted the grip of his sword, intending to strike Dhamon with the flat of the blade. “I can take you alive.”