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on the oncoming enemy. The men at the heavy gun aft made it first. Blade
turned his head in time to see the master gunner apply his match to the
touchhole.
Then a vast sheet of flame and smoke erupted from Kukon's stern as the gun
exploded.
Jagged chunks of iron the size of a man's bead flew in all directions at the
speed of musket balls. Blade threw himself flat on the deck, with a dozen men
under him and a dozen more on top of him in a packed mass of panic-stricken
humanity. He was momentarily blind, but not deaf. Nothing could drown out the
screams of those torn apart in the explosion of the flying fragments of iron.
Like a swimmer struggling up from deep water, Blade rose out of the tangle of
bodies and stood up. He took the single step that was all his chain would
allow him, nearly tripped over a severed head, then slipped on a patch of
plank covered by a man's scattered guts and fell backward. Fortunately, the
man he landed on was already dead or at least beyond feeling Blade's two
hundred and ten pounds crashing down on his chest.
Before Blade could make a single move to rise again, the pirate galley drove
her ram into Kukon's side.
It did not go in deeply, but the starboard oars were scattered in all
directions. For the moment Blade didn't even try to get up. It would do nobody
any good if he got his skull split open by a swinging oar.
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Then the screams and the clattering of oars gave way to shouts and shrill war
cries. The pirates were swarming forward along their deck to board Kukon.
Blade sprang to his feet, looking around for something he could use to cut
himself free or at least to defend himself. He didn't know what the exploding
cannon might have done to Kukon's fighting men. He doubted if there were
enough of them left to defend her against the boarders.
In the smoke and confusion he saw Dzhai making his way along the port gangway.
He had a sword thrust into his belt and his axe over his shoulder. Blade
cupped his hands and shouted. Dzhai turned and stared. Blade shouted again,
waving one hand furiously.
Dzhai nodded, and the axe flashed in the gloom as he swung it over his head.
Then it was flying through the air toward Blade, settling into his hand as
neatly as a homing bird.
Chapter 14
Blade knew he had to work fast. Nothing, not even a pirate boarding party,
would keep a slavemaster
or an officer from killing a slave he saw trying to escape. A live man was
lying across the heavy iron ring in the deck to which Blade's chain was
attached. Blade prodded the man in the ribs, not gently. He rolled clear.
Blade went to work, hacking away furiously at the deck. Splinters flew and the
wood began to gape white around the ring.
Blade shifted his grip on the axe, now smashing the back of the head against
the ring. Bit by bit, he felt it loosening. He dropped the axe and bent down
to grip the ring with both hands. Every muscle and every breath in Blade's
body went into a single tremendous heave. Torn wood groaned, strained metal
protested, and the ring sprang out of the deck so suddenly that Blade nearly
lost his balance and sprawled backward again.
He stayed on his feet and snatched up the axe from the deck. "Here," he said,
thrusting it into the hands of the nearest slave. The man gaped at Blade,
gaped at the axe, then suddenly realized what he held in his hands and started
hacking away at the deck as furiously as Blade had done.
So far no one had noticed Blade, either pirates or Kukon's own fighters, but
that might change at any moment. Blade looked around for a weapon. All of the
living fighters were on the starboard gangway, and none of the bodies lay
anywhere near Blade.
As he looked around, he saw an eight-foot length of shattered oar lying almost
at his feet. He picked it up and swung it experimentally. It wasn't a perfect
weapon, but it was the best he could do and anybody he hit with it wasn't
going to get up again for a while. Blade lifted the oar in both hands, raising
it high over his head. Then he advanced into the battle, the chain on his
ankle clattering behind him.
He reached the starboard side just as the first pirate leaped across onto an
undefended portion of the gangway. Blade let out a yell and charged. The
pirate saw a gigantic, naked figure charge out of the smoke at him, a figure
smeared from head to foot with soot and blood, whirling a broken oar around
his head like a straw and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
The pirate stopped in midstride, his mouth open and his sword frozen over his
head. If he didn't die of fright in that moment, he died seconds later as
Blade swung the oar. The lead-weighted end crashed against the pirate's skull
and he vanished over the side as if he'd dissolved into the smoke.
Blade sprang up onto the gangway and thrust the oar forward. The splintered
end caught a pirate in the mouth as he clambered over his own ship's bulwarks.
He roared an oath through smashed teeth and tried to climb back to safety.
Blade whirled the oar end for end, smashing it down on the man's shoulder. He
screamed, lost his grip, and splashed into the water between the two ships.
A third pirate sprang into view. He held a loaded musket, swinging the muzzle
toward Blade. Blade jabbed forward with the weighted end of the oar and caught
the pirate in his unprotected stomach. The man gasped and toppled over
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backward. The musket clattered to the deck beside him and went off with a
bang. Blade threw the oar into the murk ahead of him, then leaped after it
onto the pirate galley's deck.
He had always been a believer in carrying the fight to the enemy.
The pirate who'd carried the musket was gasping and trying to sit up. Blade
chopped him across the throat with the edge of his right hand. Someone in the
smoke fired at Blade, sending a ball whistling close over his head. Blade
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