“Can we outrun them?” Kiya wanted to know.

Darpo shook his head, looking grave. “A lean lugger in a morning gale might, but this tub will never outspeed that pair of quinquiremes. Ships that size have crews of forty not counting rowers. The galleots’ll have a dozen each.” Including Torwalder’s crew, there were only seventeen souls on the Blue Gull.

When the galleys were first spotted, Captain Torwalder had turned Blue Gull away from her northwest course; he was now running before the wind north by east. The gulf narrowed ahead. They could see tantalizing hints of land off the port side. By the time the sun rose out of the eastern sea, the coast of Ergoth was plainly visible, though still leagues away.

“Why don’t we just run for shore?” asked Miya, eyeing the distant coast wistfully.

“The pirates would overtake us long before we reached it,” Darpo said. “They’d box us in, cut off our room to maneuver, and have us in their hands like a ripe plum!”

Torwalder had no intention of being trapped. The cunning young captain steered for shallow water. His lightly laden roundship drew far less than the heavy galleys. The galleots could pursue them in even shallower waters, but the odds for Blue Gull would be much improved if she could shed the two powerful quinquiremes.

The sea chase settled into a protracted affair. Whenever the pirates crowded Torwalder, he zigzagged toward shore; the deep-draft galleys fell back, and Torwalder would dash out to sea again. After a time, the Dom-shu sisters grew frustrated with the tiresome chase.

“Let’s have at them!” Miya declared loudly. “Enough running away!”

Torwalder had climbed the ladder to the sterncastle to see their pursuers more clearly. Her words carried easily to him, as they were meant to.

“You don’t want to fight them,” he said, once he was back on the deck again. “Them they don’t kill outright end up chained to an oar, where you row until you die. You womenfolk they might sell ashore as slaves-after they tired of you.”

Pulling his curly brimmed hat down to shade his eyes, Torwalder studied the pirate squadron. “Can’t make out the ensign at this distance,” he grunted. “Don’t know who they are.”

Among the numerous freebooters haunting the gulf, some were especially notorious. These included Morojin, a vicious, one-eyed pirate; Xanka, self-styled King of the Sea; the brothers Hagy and Drom, known as the Firebrands from their habit of burning captured vessels-usually with the hapless crews still on board; the female pirate, Hexylle, who commanded an all-woman crew; and Hagbor, the fearsome sea ogre, who was said to eat his prisoners.

Around noon, the wind died. Blue Gull, which had been churning along at a decent rate, slowed to crawl. They were on the outward leg of one of Torwalder’s zigzags, in deep water near the center of the gulf. At the captain’s command, sailors dragged buckets of seawater up the masts and drenched the limp sails.

“Painting the sails,” Darpo told his comrades. Wet canvas caught even the tiniest breath of breeze.

It didn’t help. Slowly the two gray galleys closed in. The galleots dashed ahead of their bigger brothers, steering on either side of the roundship. Torwalder ordered his men to arms. Pikes and cutlasses were distributed. Four sailors armed with bows took to the rigging.

“Where would you like us?” Tol asked.

“Choose your own ground,” the captain replied stonily. “One part of the deck is as good as another to die on.”

Tol chose to defend the sterncastle. Frez and Darpo pried loose the ladders leading up from the lower deck and hauled them up. Blue Gull sat much higher in the water than the galleots, so at least the defenders would have the advantage of height.

“Two points port,” Torwalder cried. The man on the steering board bent to his task. A freshening breeze caught the sails, and the roundship surged ahead, bearing hard for the galleot on their left. The captain of the pirate craft either misread Torwalder’s intentions or simply failed to grasp his desperate purpose. The pirate ship held to its straight course. When the other captain finally woke to Torwalder’s plan, it Was too late.

“He means to ram!” Frez shouted.

Tol barked, “Hold on!”

In the last moment the galleot tried to sheer off, pivoting on its own length to elude the roundship. Sails swelling, Blue Gull drove on, snapping the pirate’s starboard oars like kindling. The oaken cutwater hit the galleot’s light planking. Although braced for the impact, Tol and his people were thrown to the deck. A deafening cracking sound filled the air.

Torwalder roared orders even as Blue Gull ground the enemy under its prow. The port side of the galleot rolled out of the water, oars flailing helplessly in the air. Screams rang out. With irresistible momentum, the roundship tore the pirate vessel in two.

Kiya got to her knees and crawled to the rail in time to see the stern half of the galleot rise high in the air before it sank. The slave rowers, chained to their benches, shrieked for help as the water rose around them. Heavily armed pirates scrambled over the side, but they were in little better shape. They couldn’t swim long or far weighed down by armor.

“The slaves are dying!” Kiya cried, seizing Tol’s arm.

“There’s nothing we can do!” he shouted over the grinding crunch of shattering wood.

Blue Gull tore free of the galleot. Torwalder turned his ship smartly on a reverse tack and sped away. Sailors lined the rails, jeering their drowning foes.

Tol and his people crowded the rail as well, mesmerized by the spectacle. The rear half of the galleot slipped beneath the waves, and they saw only a few heads still bobbing on the surface. Blue Gull’s archers sniped at the survivors from the rigging.

Torwalder had no time to enjoy his success. The other galleot had turned away to avoid the fate of its sister, but the big quinquiremes had put on speed and were bearing down on Blue Gull. Pennants fluttered from pole masts. Largest of these flags was a forked banner in red and white.

“The flag of Xanka,” said Torwalder grimly. Their pursuer was the so-called King of the Sea.

White water curled from the heavy bronze ram on the snout of each quinquireme. Just as Blue Gull had smashed the galleot, so too could the pirates’ rams pierce the roundship.

The galleys drew apart, coming up on either side of Torwalder’s ship. Pirates were massed on the foredecks. Sunlight glittered off their naked blades. The ships were close enough that Tol could see the leers on the pirates’ faces as they caught sight of Miya and Kiya.

Torwalder commanded his men to erect a boom from the mainmast as they had when the horses were hauled aboard. A spare anchor was winched up from this yard. When a pirate ship came alongside, Torwalder would swing the boom over their deck and drop the anchor. It might not smash all the way through the galley’s hull, but the weighty hook was bound to wreak havoc among the pirates crowded together on deck.

The battle-god Corij and the Blue Phoenix, god of the sea, favored them. The wind improved, and Blue Gull crept ahead. On the leeward side, quinquireme pirates were manhandling a catapult forward to the bow. Tol told Kiya to aim her arrows at the catapult’s crew when the time came. The Dom-shu woman swore that any who approached the machine would die.

The chase continued for half the afternoon. Even Torwalder became anxious. Why didn’t Xanka close in? The galleys could overtake them any time they chose, but they seemed content merely to stalk the roundship. Once the sun began sinking in the west, the truth became clear.

A lookout on Blue Gull’s masthead sang out. “Ships off the starboard bow!” A heartbeat later he added, “More ships to port!”