«Pirates! The pirates! Dead to seaward! The pirates are on us!» Another wordless cry, turning into a choking scream of sheer terror. «We are lost! Lost! We areaaaagh!» A crossbow went spung and the panicky squalling broke off; the lookout plunged to the deck with a crunch of shattering bones. He was already dead, the crossbow quarrel driven deep into his chest. Kukon's captain nodded briefly to the archer who'd fired. Duty had been done and cowardice punished. The look on the captain's face, though, was utterly grim. There was good reason for it.

The seaward horizon was sprouting lateen sails and low, rakish black hulls, five, ten, more than twenty in all. They were sweeping in toward the Imperial galleys in a long crescent, hemming them in, trapping them. If the squadron fled into the islands, they would be split up, overtaken, and destroyed one by one. If they fled seaward, they would meet the pirates head-on. The long line of black galleys would coil around the squadron like a great snake around a deer.

Either way, the Imperial squadron had no hope now of doing anything except dying gallantly-not against odds of better than three to one. The pirate galleys were smaller than the Imperial ones, but they carried no slaves. Every man aboard, from captain to cook's boy, was free and armed. The lighter pirate galleys could not stand up well to Imperial gunfire or do much damage by ramming, but they could and did maneuver swiftly, choosing the moment to close in and pour a superior force of boarders onto an enemy's deck.

Then there would be red, bloody slaughter, as always. The pirates ransomed very few prisoners. Able-bodied men they sold to the mainland tribes in return for lumber, tar, cordage, and salt meat. Able-bodied women they kept for themselves. Those who could neither pay nor labor were killed on the spot.

Now the drums were beating out the alarm. Even louder than the drums were the pounding feet of the sailors running to weigh anchor and the soldiers and gunners running to their posts. The slavemasters dashed forward and aft, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed with desperation and fear, furiously and pointlessly cracking their whips across the backs of slaves who were already scrambling into position.

The anchor windlass rattled around as the sailors heaved furiously on it. The anchor broke water, dripping and slimy green with weeds. As the sailors worked to stow it, the drummers began beating out the rowing cadence. Cruising stroke for the moment, but that wouldn't last long!

Kukon's ninety oars rose high in the air, like the wings of a bird ready to take flight, then dipped in a swirl of foam. She was underway, heading out to battle, the other six galleys with her.

Blade settled into the stroke, then took a brief look around him. Admiral Sukar's flagship was moving up into the lead, one, two, three Imperial battle standards flying from her masts beside the admiral's personal flag. The admiral was at least going to die grandly. Blade would have been more sympathetic if the dying hadn't been so bloody unnecessary!

Closer to hand, Kukon's captain stood at his battle station between the great drums. His face was now as expressionless as the planks of his ship's deck, but it was also as white as the foam churned up by her oars. He was a man who knew he was doomed, hated the fact and the folly that had made it a fact, but also accepted it as part of his duty.

Blade accepted no such thing. If the coming battle didn't offer him an opportunity to improve his situation, he would bloody well make that opportunity! He hoped Dzhai would see things the same way. Together they could do far more than either could on his own.

The pirate fleet was now striking their sails and closing up their formation. They had seen Admiral Sukar's challenge and were accepting it. A gun crashed out from the bow of one of the Imperial galleys. Some nervous gunner, Blade thought. The pirates were still more than three miles away. There wasn't a gun in the squadron that could reach more than half that far.

Now the pirates' crescent stretched two miles from tip to tip, squarely across the path of the Imperial squadron. The pirates' oars hardly seemed to be moving. Why should they waste the strength their men would need for fighting? The enemy was coming straight into their arms.

The drummers flourished their drum hammers over their heads. One dropped his, drawing an explosion of curses from the captain beside him. The man was not quite as calm as he seemed. The clumsy drummer snatched up his hammers; then both drummers began beating out a new stroke-the approach to battle.

Kukon's heavy bow gun went off with a deafening roar and a shock that made the deck seem to ripple and heave under Blade's feet. For a moment he thought he would lose his balance. A man on the oar opposite him did fall, knocking down one of his mates. Their oar wobbled and fell out of the stroke as the remaining man struggled to control it.

Instantly two slavemasters were at the fallen men, laying on furiously with their whips. Both men struggled to their feet. One screamed in agony as a whip caught him across the eye.

The lighter guns forward went off, all three of them together, and the deck shuddered again. Their foul-tasting smoke swirled back, making Blade cough, then swirled away. The heavy gun fired again. This time Blade held his breath until the smoke was gone, then gulped in air and looked forward.

He was in time to see the shot from the heavy gun throw up a white fountain of spray only a hundred yards from the bow of a pirate galley. He also saw that Kukon was farthest to port in the Imperial squadron. If she held her present course, she would slice through the pirates' crescent near one tip.

That could be helpful. Certainly the first and fiercest fighting would be in the center of the crescent, as Sukar's flagship and its flankers crashed into the pirates. The pirates would be doing their best to give Sukar the gallant and spectacular death he seemed to want. They might not pay as much attention to their wings, and a fast-moving galley might-

The thunder of Kukon's guns interrupted Blade's thoughts. This time all four fired together. As the smoke cleared, Blade saw fountains of spray rising practically alongside an enemy.

Then smoke and orange flame spurted from the bows of all the pirate galleys. A noise like immense sheets of canvas ripping apart sounded overhead as a ball flew low over Kukon's deck and struck the sea just astern. Blade felt himself sweating from more than his labor at the oars. Each side was in range of the other now, and Kukon was approaching the pirates almost bows-on. Only a little lower, and a shot would strike her in the bow and plow the length of her deck, straight through the massed rowers.

Another shot ripped through the air above Kukon's deck. This one flew straight into the foremast. Splinters flew in all directions. Then there was a crackling and tearing sound of tough wood giving way and the mast itself toppled.

Men shrieked as flying splinters gouged their flesh. The lookouts on the foremast screamed as they felt the mast hurling them down to death in the sea. Then the mast fell across the port gangway and the bulwarks with a tremendous splintering crash. More screams sounded as oars were jerked out of rowers' hands, the weighted shafts lashing about like giant clubs. Blade saw a man struck across the forehead by an oar, the solid bone of his skull split apart so that the brains showed. Then the mast heaved up and rolled over the side, to be left astern as the galley's oars steadied onto the stroke again.

The slavemasters leaped down from the gangways, cutting the wounded and dead loose from their oars, dragging them clear. The drummers began pounding out the attack stroke. The clatter and crash of flailing oars swelled, fighting against the roar of the cannon forward and the terrible whistle and rip of enemy shot overhead, drowning them out. Blade heaved back and forth on his oar, fighting to maintain his awareness of what was going on around him. He could not afford to miss any chance to strike for freedom, not when he might get only one.