We bolted down the narrow hallway, unsure about what we might find when we reached the rowing bay. The crew member was in the lead and Aleyda trotted right behind him. I followed Aleyda and Xeng and Patrick were behind me. The crewman led us to a wide door, incongruous in its size, and as we arrived we could hear the sounds of battle on the other side of it.
After I nodded at Aleyda, she threw open the door and we all charged in. The room we entered was surprisingly spacious. I guess it had to be to allow the oars to be pulled in at night. We were greeted with a disheartening sight. The oars were no longer propelling us downstream. Instead, a battle had erupted around the floor of the chamber. Several rowers were already down and I could see the likely cause. Just as Captain Benedek had feared, a couple of the rowers were turncoats. When others were distracted, rowing for all of our lives, they had pulled knives and attacked the other rowers around them. There were already five of the river pirates that had boarded. The rowers were armed with knives while the pirates had much better weapons. Additional rowers had already fallen to the attacks of the pirates. What a fucking mess.
We had to rally the crew and take back the compartment. If we didn’t, we would be done for. There were too many other boats closing with our position, and although I didn’t doubt the competency of my people, numbers do make a difference. I charged in, leaping over rowing benches to try to close the distance between us and the attackers. The first one I encountered was one of the traitors. He had just started to turn towards me when I scythed a strike with my sword into the side of his head. The sound was like someone had slammed an overripe melon with a hammer. He dropped to the deck and I didn’t think he would be getting up again, at least not in this life.
The rest of my people weren’t idle. When I glanced down the chamber, I realized that there was at least one other of the false crew already down. It looked like Xeng had gotten to him as he showed evidence of a couple of axe wounds. I made a mental note not to get too close to Xeng. While he could generate a massive amount of power, he still lacked quite a bit of control. As nearly as I could tell, the only opponents we had left were the river pirates. The rowers started streaming back behind our lines as we leapt forward to engage.
Right now, we had close to even numbers, but the other boats had likely already closed and other opponents were almost certainly climbing up to join the fray. We needed to end this as quickly as we could. There was another bay with more rowers on the other side of the ship and more opponents would be waiting for us there. Unless some of the other fighters topside purchased a clue and headed below, we were going to be hard pressed to come out of this alive. I idly wished that we had brought Sathebeena and Bowen along with us. Two more people would make a world of difference.
While I was taking stock of the situation, the other three with me were not idle. They had already moved to engage the river pirates. I quickly moved up to join them. Some of the river pirates were competent fighters, while others of them looked like they had never been in a battle before. In my peripheral vision, I could see a head poke through one of the oar ports on my side. I stepped forward with a lunge, burying the somewhat blunt tip of my sword in the top of his head. He must have lost his grip from the impact because one second he was there and the next he was gone. I quickly hacked at the rope attached to the grapnel the was embedded in the oar port. Within a couple of strikes, I had sliced through the rope.
I turned my attention back to the fight. Aleyda was dueling one of the pirates that actually had some skill. He wielded a cutlass, which was quite cliché. Patrick was beside her, keeping her from getting flanked. Xeng was ahead of them both, swinging his axe like a madman. I could see that he was already bleeding. That didn’t surprise me. Xeng never paid much attention to defense. I noticed the crumpled form of one of the pirates already at his feet. Movement flashed out of the corner of my eye and another of the pirates stepped back with a grunt, a knife impaling him in his shoulder. One of the rowers must have been skilled at throwing knives. I was appreciative even though I knew there wasn’t much room for error on the pitching deck. That knife thrown could have easily gone awry and hit one of us instead. Patrick didn’t let the opening go to waste and struck at the injured pirate once, twice, three times. Unable to raise his arm to defend himself, he ate every strike, finally slumping to the deck after the third. Patrick was nothing if not a practical fighter. He rained another series of blows down on the prone figure, making certain that the pirate stayed down for good.
Since my compatriots were now dealing with even numbers, I realized that the best use of my time was to keep other pirates from boarding. Part of me wanted to help the others but I realized that the most help I could be would be to keep our numbers close to even. I turned to the remaining crew members.
“They’re vulnerable when they try to board,” I screamed out. “Spread out, cut any ropes that you see, and attack them when they can’t fight back.”
The crew members quickly understood that this was a decent plan. I felt pretty proud of myself. I thought it was one of my better ones as well. There were perhaps twenty rowers who were not dead or too injured to help. They spread out through the secured portion of the hold. I noticed one of them had found an axe somewhere. They each occupied one of the oar ports that weren’t behind the pirate lines. I could see several swearing as they madly sawed at the thick rope that attached the grappling hooks to the ship.
Seeing that they had the situation in that part of the bay well in hand, I sprinted forward towards the ongoing fight. Aleyda had finally stopped toying with her opponent and he was down. She struck at him a few more times to make certain he was out of the fight and there were only two pirates remaining. Whoops, make that three. Another had just made it into the ship from an oar port behind the pirate lines. We had to cut off the reinforcements somehow, so throwing caution to the wind, I charged him. His eyes widened as he saw me rapidly approaching and he started swinging his sword to ward me off.
I got there about the same time his machete struck me, cutting deeply into the top of my left arm. I didn’t much give a shit. I knew I would heal. I lowered my other shoulder and powered into his waist in a textbook tackle, blasting him off his feet. I ended up on top of him but the strike to my left arm had made me drop my sword. I reared back my head and butted him in the face. Ouch, that hurt. The movies had always made it look so painless. His head bounced back against the deck, momentarily stunning him. I started striking him with my right elbow and I was merciless. Time after time I reared back and swung it into his noggin. One of my strikes must have been a little off because I hit my funny bone. An electrical jolt erupted down my arm making it tingly and numb but I did not relent. Finally, he stopped struggling and I got up, reached out, grabbed his machete with my weaker hand and ended the fight.
I had lost track of what was going on around me during this time. That’s nothing new, you know that by now. I dropped the machete and gathered up my sword. The other two pirates were down and Aleyda, Bowen and Patrick were busy repelling boarders and cutting ropes. They looked like they had things well in hand. Understanding that we had an entire other compartment to clear, I grabbed some of the crew members to replace them.
“There are better weapons on the deck,” I called out. “Grab them and keep anyone else from boarding down here.” The rowers must have thought that was a splendid idea because they quickly moved to comply.
“Let’s go,” I said to the other three. “We have to deal with the other side of the ship.”
We made our way out of the bay and back into the hallway. Almost parallel with the door we entered was another similar one. When we burst into the hallway, I noticed that Fekhlachev what’s his name had finally purchased a clue and brought his men below. They were spread out around the door and were keeping any of the pirates from entering the hallway. I didn’t think their fighting position boded well for the fate of the rowers who had been in that bay. They had probably all perished before help had arrived. One of Fekhlachev’s men spun as we exited the bay but seeing who we were and recognizing us, he did not attack.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“We have this side secured,” I told him. “Where do you need us?”
“There are too many onboard on this side,” he said. “We can’t push into the bay to end the threat.”
Well, damn. How were we going to improve this situation? The pirates didn’t seem to be the live and let live sort and even if they retreated I could see them trying to sabotage the riverboat somehow. I turned to Xeng, who was the most injured among us, given that my shoulder was already healing.
“Xeng, go up and have our people gather the valuables,” I said. “We need to be prepared to get off this boat if the pirates are able to sabotage it somehow. And have someone see to your wounds as well. You are bleeding all over the place again.”
“Got it,” he said. Then he ran down the hallway back towards the upper deck access.
Turning back to the man I had been talking to, I continued. “Unless we can kill them all here on the ship, I expect they will try to sabotage the boat somehow and then try to pick us off back on land. The three of us can step in a relieve your people to keep them from busting out but unless we can rout them, we are in for a very long day.”
“I understand,” he said. “I need to make certain our clients are ready to abandon ship.” Then, without another word, he also ran down the hallway towards the upper decks.
I shouldered my way past the others in the passageway until I reached Fekhlachev, who was not currently fighting. He had obviously seen some action because he was bloodied and breathing hard. I didn’t think much of the blood was his own.
“You know if they can’t bust out they will just sabotage the ship and try to pick us off on land, right?” I asked.
“Yes, I know that,” he yelled back. “I am not simple. But there are too many of them in there. They have to number in the double digits at this point. We are doing all we can to keep them bottled up. What would you have me do?”
“One of your men has already gone off to prepare your clients to abandon ship,” I replied. “I am making preparations with my people to do the same. I want to make a deal. If we do have to abandon ship, I want us all to stay together. If we group up, we will be stronger and may be able to make it to Kollavik in one piece. If we separate, then we will all be easy pickings for the remaining pirates.”
“I agree to your plan,” he said. “We will definitely be stronger together.”
As we talked, the pressure against his men at the doorway had lessened. Through the stench of blood and voided bowels I suddenly caught a different tang on the air.
“That’s oil of some kind,” I said. “They are preparing to set the riverboat ablaze.”
One of the greatest fears of sailors, whether they ply the deep ocean or make their living transporting goods or passengers on the river, is fire. There are a lot of flammable things on boats and I had read somewhere, that at least back on my Earth, many crew members didn’t know how to swim.
“Shit,” I said, peering into the bay. Many of the pirates had already evacuated back through the oar ports, leaving just a token force to hold the door. “I need to warn Captain Benedek. I hope he has a plan for this.”
“Go,” Fekhlachev said. “We will hold here and then join you soon.”
Gesturing at the others, we ran as fast as we could down the hallway and back above deck. When we arrived topside, I noticed the only progress we were making was due to the strength of the current. I headed over to the steps up to the riverboat’s bridge area. Most of the armed crew were guarding it, milling around uncertainly. When they saw us, a few stepped out to meet us.
“The bridge is for crew members only,” one screamed at me, murder is his eyes.
“We are not here to attack you,” I said. “The Captain should be aware that the pirates either have already lit a blaze in the starboard oar bay or they are about to.”
He wilted at my pronouncement. “Let me get Captain Benedek,” he said.
One of his men ran up the steps and returned with Captain Benedek. He took in our battered appearance and then spat out a single word. “Report,” he said.
“We managed to secure the port oar bay,” I said. “You were right, the pirates had infiltrated your crew. They have managed to take over the starboard bay and are preparing to set the ship ablaze.”
He ran over to the starboard side of the riverboat and I followed him. Several of the pirate boats had already disengaged from the riverboat, the pirates rowing madly to gain some distance.
“This is not good,” he said.
“You’ve got that right,” I replied.
“The road to Kollavik is on our port side,” he said. “But it is at least a day’s travel on foot away. We must prepare to abandon the riverboat. What were they using to start the fire?”
“Some sort of oil, I believe.”
“We will make landfall on the port side of the river and I will evacuate everyone. There isn’t a whole lot to burn in the oar bays. We may be able to recover from this.”
I was a little unhappy that he was more worried about his boat than the people onboard it, but now was not the time to argue with him. He ran back to the bridge and started shouting orders. I immediately felt the left bank of the river drawing closer. Then he reappeared at the entrance to the bridge and ordered several of his men to prepare to drop the aft anchors. They quickly moved to comply.
Looking over at the entrance to the area below decks, I could see smoke wisping out into the afternoon air. I prepared myself to go below decks to rescue the rest of our people but then noticed that they were already standing in a group on the deck with their traveling gear on. Near them stood Fekhlachev and the clients. The clients did not look nearly as well prepared to abandon ship. In fact, several of them seemed to be arguing with their bodyguards.
The riverboat started lurching as we made our way out of the main channel, striking one underwater obstruction after another. Maintaining balance was proving to be difficult. I walked over to our group. “Sit down,” I said. “We don’t need anyone to fall and break any bones.”
We sat on the deck absorbing the increasing amount of punishment. Captain Benedek reappeared and ordered that the anchors be run out. The obstructions under the water were already slowing our pace and the anchors brought us to a complete stop. I got back to my feet and ran over to the railing. I could see that we were still twenty feet or more from the riverbank. That distance was going to be a problem.
Thankfully, Captain Benedek had a solution. One of the crew jumped overboard, pulling a thick rope of some kind with him. He managed to make it to the bank and wound it around several stout trees, tying it in one of those knots that only people who worked on boats seemed to know. The other end of the rope was wrapped around a capstan and the crew lined up and physically heaved us closer to shore, inch by inch. By this time, the wisps of smoke from below decks had become a solid plume. Once we were within a few feet of the bank, a gangplank was run out to the shore down from the deck at a steep angle. Walking down it was going to be treacherous, especially since the riverboat was still bobbing around, but it was our best bet. It was far better than burning to death on a riverboat with the shore in sight.
“Let’s go,” I said, rushing over to the gangplank. Then, I say down on it and scooted down to shore on my rear end. It didn’t look very dignified, but I didn’t care. Soon, the rest of my people had joined me without mishap, although we did lose one pack on the way down. I hoped that it was clothing or something and didn’t contain anything valuable.
We rested on the shore while Fekhlachev ushered his clients down the gangplank. One of them was too proud to use my method and tried to walk down. He was quickly bounced off and had to be fished out of the river downstream. He didn’t look very pleased. I thought he was an idiot.
Soon, our two groups had joined together. “Let’s go find that road,” I said. Then we set off through the thick brush surrounding the riverbank, a group of more than twenty five. The crew didn’t follow us. They sat morosely on the side of the river hoping that the fire would burn itself out.