The thunder of Robert's war cry had scarcely faded before Arthur forced his thoughts away from the king and back to the battle before them.
War was won by numbers as often as courage.
Arthur let his gaze travel down the long crescent of anchored ships, counting men instead of hulls. Near ten thousand soldiers had answered the king's summons for this venture, though scarcely half sailed with him now. The remainder had gone south with the second fleet, awaiting Aurane's arrival to spring the trap from the pirates' rear. If the gods proved kind, the corsairs would soon find themselves caught between hammer and anvil.
Arthur had never trusted the gods overmuch, so what he possessed now would have to suffice.
Nearly three thousand fighting men had come from the banners of the great lords. Stormlanders. Crownlanders. Riverlanders and beyond. Knights in bright plate, veteran men-at-arms, seasoned archers, sellswords and their camp followers who had spent their lives marching dusty roads instead of balancing upon a rolling deck.
A knight might be fearless upon land, yet become little more than a frightened child once timber pitched beneath his feet and the sea rose around him. The sea humbled proud men quicker than any battlefield.
Along with them almost two thousand mariners of White Harbor filled the fleet, his own men.
The Mariners were soldiers of the sea. Most had been born with salt upon their lips. Their fathers had fished the Bite. Their grandfathers had hunted pirates long before Arthur had drawn his first breath
They had been trained from boyhood to wage war upon the sea. They climbed rigging as easily as castle walls, could leap from one deck to another without breaking stride, and knew every cruel trick a boarding fight demanded. They fought with short axes that bit deep into oak and bone alike, hooked bills to drag shields aside, and broad-bladed boarding swords made for cramped decks.
Each of his great carracks carried over a hundred mariners besides fifty sailors to work the rigging, trim the sails, and keep the ship alive beneath their feet. The caravels, lean and swift, bore twenty mariners and half as many sailors. The galleys were another beast entirely. One and half hundred oarsmen bent their backs below the decks while a hundred mariners stood above with shields ready, waiting for the order to board or repel boarders.
In times of peace, scarcely half those numbers would suffice. Merchant voyages had little need for so many blades but war always demanded more.
Arthur's gaze swept the length of the Mermaid's Tears.The deck had fallen into the ordered silence that always came before battle. Every man knew his place now. There was no shouting save that of the officers. No idle speech. Only the groan of timber, the hiss of waves against the hull, and the distant thunder of pirate drums carrying over the narrowing water.
Arthur saw the marchers who stood with great yew longbows as tall as themselves, seasoned men whose fathers and grandfathers had hunted deer and Dornish alike among the Red Mountains. Their weathered hands moved with practiced ease as they rubbed wax along hemp strings and tested the bend of polished staves.
Arthur trusted those bows. A stormlander longbow in skilled hands could kill a knight at two hundred yards. They would come in hand here for firing at the galleys at a distance.
But in most his own mariners Arthur had filled them with heavy crossbows that were stout enough to punch through brigandine and mail when ships came together. Others carried shorter ash bows, quicker to loose within the cramped confines of a fighting deck where speed often mattered more than range.
Arthur looked at the incoming galleys and noted the pirates had crossed half the distance. It was time.
His voice carried across the flagship. "Archers!" Arthur gave the commands, "Take your positions."
The order rippled outward as boatswains and serjeants repeated it from ship to ship. "ARCHERS TO THE CASTLES!"
Men hurried without panic. Crossbowmen climbed narrow ladders toward the forecastles and sterncastles, taking advantage of every foot of height their towering carracks offered. Others spread along the waist of the ship, kneeling behind stout oak bulwarks where narrow arrow slits had been cut for just such a day.
The longbowmen claimed the highest ground. They planted boots wide upon rain-darkened planks, fitted arrows to string, then waited with bows held low. Crossbow windlasses clicked in steady rhythm. Iron claws turned. Bowstrings groaned tighter and tighter. Bolts slid into polished walnut stocks with hard wooden knocks.
Arthur's eyes shifted toward the stern. "Engineers. Man the trebuchets."
The head engineer saluted. "Aye, mi'lord."
Teams of sweating men rolled the squat engines into their prepared places. Unlike the great siege trebuchets that battered castle walls, these were compact machines built for decks instead of dry ground. Their throwing arms were shorter, their frames broader, lashed tight with iron bands so the recoil would not split the timbers beneath them. Wood creaked. Pins were driven home with heavy mallets. Counterweights were secured.
Beside every engine waited neat piles of smooth river stones. Elsewhere rested sealed clay jars filled with pitch, resin, rendered fat, and lamp oil. Their necks had already been wrapped in oily cloth. One was more than enough to turn a ship into a floating pyre.
Nearby sailors lifted heavy buckets of sand and seawater into easy reach. Fire killed friend as readily as foe. Arthur had drilled them never to forget that.
Along the fighting deck, shieldmen formed into disciplined ranks. Round shields rose together with a deep wooden thud. Oak faced with iron. They spread along the broadside rails of the carracks, finding whatever perch they could among rope coils and mast bases. They locked themselves before the archers, creating living walls against the storm of arrows certain to come.
Behind them swords rasped from leather and wood. Axes slid free. Polehooks were stacked along the rails, ready to seize enemy gunwales when the ships finally crashed together. A young soldier kissed two fingers and touched the Seven-pointed Star carved into his axe haft. Every army prayed before battle, but the dead never answered whether the gods had listened or not.
Arthur rested one mailed hand upon the worn hilt of Nightfall. The ancient blade slid an inch from its scabbard with a whisper like silk before he eased it back again. His blade will have its fill of blood before the day is done.
Ahead, the pirate fleet continued its relentless advance. The beat of their drums grew louder. Boom. Boom.
Arthur watched through his far-eye as their galleys shifted formation within the narrow stretch of water between the islands. The ships were packed tight together, oars churning the sea into white foam. Men crowded their decks like ants upon rotten wood. They wore patched mail, boiled leather, bright silks stolen from merchants, Myrish helmets beside Lysene shields, Summer Island bows and Tyroshi spears.
Pirates from half the known world had gathered beneath one black banner.
Then he saw the movement he had been waiting for. Five of the pirate war galleys broke from the fleet and surged forward, their banks of oars striking the water in quick rhythm as they came on hard toward the flagship.
"They're breaking formation," Donnel observed.
Arthur lowered the far-eye and answered, "No, this is a part of it. Their probing strike."
"Raise the green flag!" the commodore shouted. "Signal our galleys to engage!"
Arthur's head turned sharply. "Nay, belay that," he called at once. "This is a trap."
Hothor frowned. "They mean to pull us apart."
"Aye." Arthur replied, "That is why we hold the ground."
If his galleys rushed forward now they would break the crescent and expose their center. The pirates would be waiting for that. The five galleys came on regardless, their oarsmen pulling with savage strength. Arthur could hear the faint beat of drums across the water urging them faster.
One galley gradually crept ahead of the others until it led the attack alone. It was larger than the rest. Its prow had been sheathed in blackened iron, forged into the shape of some snarling sea beast with jaws agape. The bronze ram gleamed wetly beneath the clearing sky.
Its purpose could not have been plainer. Punch through the flagship. Kill the commander.
"Steady," Arthur commanded.
"They're coming for us," Ser Arys Oakheart said quietly.
Robert Baratheon only grinned. "Finally."
The pirate galley came thundering forward. Its drum beat faster now. The bearded captain upon its prow raised his axe. Behind him his boarders screamed like madmen.
Arthur never took his eyes from them. "Fire at will," he commanded, "Shoot the rowers!"
The decks exploded into motion. Hundreds of bowstrings thrummed together. The air darkened beneath a cloud of arrows. Shafts hammered down upon the open benches where the oarsmen strained. Crossbows cracked with heavy, brutal snaps as quarrels screamed low across the water.
Men died where they sat. One oarsman jerked backward with an arrow buried through his eye, his hands still clenched around the loom of his oar. Another pitched sideways clutching at three shafts jutting from his chest. A quarrel smashed through a man's jaw, spraying teeth and blood across those beside him.
Oars collided. Some dipped too deep. Others stopped altogether as dead men slumped across them. Still the galley came on.
The pirate captain must have believed the charge would shatter the carrack. Many aboard the Mermaid's Tears likely thought the same. A war galley striking a ship broadside was no small thing. Its bronze ram had sent proud captains to feed the crabs.
They had thought his flagship vulnerable, but it rested exactly where she was meant to be. Now they will learn what their error was.
Seeing the flagship still stand exactly as it was, the enemy began to wonder. Soon enough realization dawned on the enemy captain.
But it was too late. Far too late.
Arthur saw panic spread across the enemy deck. The captain shouted frantically. But it would not matter for the ship's momentum had become its master.
The enemy galley had come too fast to halt. The ram slammed into the broadside of the Mermaid's Tears with a thudding crash. The impact crashed across the sea like thunder. Bronze shrieked against oak. Splinters burst into the air. Several men aboard the Mermaid's Tears stumbled as the heavy hull shuddered beneath their feet.
But the proud Carrack held fast. Instead of biting through the hull, the ram scraped uselessly across the angled wood with a terrible grinding scream. The galley slid helplessly along the carrack's flank like a sword glancing from a knight's breastplate. Its own speed betrayed it.
Unable to stop, the pirate vessel shot straight into the narrow gap between two anchored carracks.
Then came the reef. The hidden rocks rose beneath the water like the jaws of some sleeping beast. The galley's prow struck first. The crack echoed across the channel. Her keel slammed onto stone.
The entire vessel lurched so violently that men were thrown sprawling across the deck. Another grinding crash followed. Timbers split. The bronze ram bent upward. Half the bow climbed the rocks while the stern remained afloat, twisting the hull until every plank groaned in agony.
The ship stopped dead.
Arthur did not hesitate. "Fire!"
The archers needed no second bidding. Arrows poured from both neighboring carracks. Crossbow bolts followed. The trapped pirates had nowhere left to flee. The first ranks disappeared beneath the storm. One man trying to climb over the rail took a shaft through the throat. He clawed uselessly at the wood before toppling backward into his comrades.
Another reached for a boarding hook. Three arrows struck him almost together, one through the shoulder, another beneath the ribs, the last burying itself in his mouth. He collapsed without a sound.
The bearded captain bellowed for his men to board regardless. A quarrel answered him. It punched clean through his shield before burying itself deep beneath his collarbone. He staggered. Another shaft struck his neck. Blood fountained across the deck.
The pirate dropped his axe. Then pitched headfirst over the prow into the sea below. The water swallowed him in a bloom of crimson. Then the slaughter continued.
Some pirates threw themselves overboard rather than remain upon the killing ground. The sea claimed many of them. Weighted by mail and soaked leather, they vanished beneath the waves before they could cry for help.
Others clung to floating wreckage only to be struck again by arrows descending from above. Within moments the galley's deck had become a butcher's yard. Bodies lay tangled among shattered oars, broken shields, and pools of blood washing slowly toward the scuppers with each gentle swell.
Arthur's gaze drifted beyond the wreck pinned upon the reef. The stranded galley was finished. Her deck had become a mound of corpses. He spared it no further thought. One ship did not win a battle.
The rest of the pirate fleet had seen enough. Even across the water Arthur could sense the hesitation that rippled through their ranks. Their advance slackened for only a heartbeat before fresh drums began to thunder.
"Commodore Hothor."
"My lord?"
Arthur kept his eyes upon the gathering enemy. "Be ready now. Signal the trebuchets. Bring the caravels into their stations."
Hothor bared his teeth like a shark that had scented blood. "Aye my lord." He turned toward the signalmen and began barking orders. "Raise the fire flags!"
A sailor fumbled with the halyard. Hothor cuffed him hard enough to send the lad sprawling. "Move, you sons of whores! Unless you'd rather swim!"
Two banners climbed the mast of the Mermaid's Tears. One was black, bearing a crimson disk at its heart. The second was green with the same device. They cracked sharply in the sea breeze. Across the crescent, answering flags climbed mast after mast until the command rippled through Arthur's fleet without a single shouted word.
Helmsmen spun their tillers. Between the anchored carracks the lighter caravels slipped into motion. Graceful vessels compared with the towering castles of oak around them. They glided through the narrow gaps with scarcely a splash, taking their assigned places like hounds circling behind a hunter's shield. Each carried crossbowmen upon their forecastles and grapnels coiled beside the rails.
Arthur watched as the pirate fleet had gathered themselves now. Their galleys moved together in a dense formation, oars rising and falling like the legs of some great insect skittering across the water. The narrow stretch between Tarth and Morne left them little room to spread wide.
Arthur counted quickly. Ten ships were charging. The narrow mouth of the reef protected them. The pirates had no room to widen their front. Should they attempt to spread farther, one galley would foul another's oars. Should they turn too sharply, they would drift into the reef.
There was only one path. Straight into the mouth of the crescent.
"They've committed." Arthur muttered to himself.
Beside Arthur, Robert Baratheon leaned forward over the rail like a man watching a tourney tilt. His eyes shone brighter than they had ever in King's Landing.
"Now it begins," the king said, his voice thick with eager delight.
The commodore drew a deep breath. "ENGINEERS!" Hothor roared, "Load them up!"
The engineers needed no further command. They bent over the squat trebuchets with practiced hands, hauling the throwing arms down inch by inch until the ropes groaned beneath the strain. Sweating men carried forward heavy clay jars. The smell alone was enough to sting the eyes.
"Load!" one engineer cried.
The jars settled carefully into the leather slings. "Ready!"
The master engineer looked toward Arthur who lowered his hand.
The first trebuchet answered with a deep wooden crack. Its arm whipped skyward. The burning jar climbed high above the fleet, tumbling end over end against the clearing sky. Then another followed. And another. Soon every carrack thundered in turn.
Robert Baratheon let out a booming laugh. "Ha! Give the bastards hell!"
Arthur scarcely heard him. His eyes remained fixed upon the enemy. The Mermaid's Tears stood nearest the point of the crescent, giving her engines the clearest field.
The first burning jar descended among the foremost pirate galleys. It burst upon the forward deck with a loud crack. Clay exploded into jagged fragments. Boiling pitch splashed in every direction. Black tar coated planks.
It drenched stacked shields. It clung to rigging. One stumbled blindly, his beard and hair soaked black. He clawed frantically at the pitch spreading across his face. Another jar smashed against the railing of the galley behind. The clay shattered. Sticky tar burst over a knot of oarsmen waiting their turn to board.
Men cursed as the thick black muck glued cloaks to armor and hands to oars. They had scarcely begun wiping it away when more jars descended. The other carracks found their range as well. More jars followed. Some shattered upon decks. Others burst against masts. Few overshot entirely before smashing into the sea. Clay shattered upon pirate decks in bursts of dark liquid. The pirates shouted in confusion.
"Longbowmen," Arthur called, his voice sharp across the deck. "Take your marks."
Tall men from Nightsong, Blackhaven, and Harvest Hall stepped onto the forecastle and fighting tops. Their great yew bows were nearly the height of younger squires. They planted their feet wide against the rolling deck. Arrow bundles were opened. Sailors hurried forward carrying braziers suspended upon iron poles.
The coals glowed white. Each archer lowered his arrowhead into the waiting flames. One after another. Steel blackened. Then reddened. Then cloth wrapping soaked in oil caught on fire.The smell of burning resin drifted across the fleet.
The great bows bent. Wood groaned beneath impossible strength. Hundreds of bowstrings drew back together. The sound reminded Arthur of frozen trees straining beneath winter winds.
Arthur raised his hand. "Fire at will."
A roar of snapping hemp burst across the crescent. The sky darkened with arrows. Hundreds of flaming arrows leapt skyward. They climbed together in one blazing cloud before the wind seized them. For an instant they seemed like a flock of fiery phoenix crossing the morning sky. Then they fell.
The first volley vanished into the tar-splattered galleys, and the sea answered with fire. Pitch welcomed the flames greedily. Orange tongues raced along black-slick rails, licking across planks and climbing rigging with terrifying speed. Fire ran over the decks as though alive, finding every smear of tar left by Arthur's trebuchets.
A pirate standing near the bow threw up his shield too late. A burning arrow punched through the leather and buried itself in his chest. The pitch soaking his furs ignited at once. He screamed. The sound carried clearly across the water. His beard caught first. Then his hair. Then the flames devoured his tunic until the man became little more than a walking torch.
Blinded and shrieking, he stumbled into three of his companions. His burning arms wrapped around one in blind panic. The fire spread from man to man. One hacked desperately at the burning cloth with an axe. Another leapt over the rail before the flames reached his face. He vanished beneath the waves.
A heartbeat later he burst back to the surface screaming louder still. Pitch floated upon the sea. So did fire. The water itself had become an enemy.
Elsewhere another galley suffered worse. Half a dozen burning shafts struck the sail where Arthur's engines had drenched it in pitch. The canvas blackened. Then it bloomed into flame. The wind caught it immediately. The mast became a towering pillar of fire. Burning ropes snapped one after another. The great yard came crashing onto the deck below. Men disappeared beneath blazing timber.
But even as the fire consumed them, the captains aboard the galleys shouted and sailors scrambled. Buckets flew from hand to hand. Men cursed. Others prayed. Some beat at the flames with cloaks. Some hacked burning rigging apart. Many simply burned. Greasy black smoke climbed into the brightening sky until it seemed another storm had risen between Tarth and Morne.
Despite it all the oars kept pulling, driving them ever closer toward the waiting crescent. Arthur watched the burning ships advance through the smoke. The fear of death had not mastered them. Not yet for they would come on regardless.
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