Ghassan raised an eyebrow questioningly in the shadow of the wall.
“S’alright cap’n. I can manage.”
Nodding at Ursa, Ghassan turned away from the first officer and his three companions and crept along the edge of the building until he rounded the corner to join the rest of the crew once more, disappearing from sight.
Ursa heaved a sigh, though he wasn’t sure that it was one of relief. It was entirely possible that this brother was crazier than their own captain. However, the big man had to admit, there was enough innovation and general brilliance about the man’s thinking that it was not hard to see how the Wind of God had been such a hazard to them over the years. Ghassan and Samir were certainly of a kind.
Stretching, he gestured to the men with him to pay attention to their surroundings. Was he equally insane to agree to such a dangerous mission with so few men? He almost laughed out loud.
Returning to his tense waiting, he cast his eyes round at his companions once more. Hidden within the shadow cast by the L-shaped exterior of one of the port’s many warehouses, the four pirates crouched, hidden and watching the complex opposite intently. The only positive thing that Ursa could really say about the plan was that they would be unlikely to bump into folk here. This area was a long way from the taverns and populated areas. Here, the guards’ compound stood out starkly among jumbled clusters of warehouses and few people would tread at night, the legitimate folk of M’Dahz having no reason to be here and the less savoury staying a good distance from the centre of the town guard’s control.
Funny really, how the presence of the law was the thing that kept the streets empty enough for the criminals and fugitives to move around safely and unobserved.
Ursa grinned. Two decades ago, as a young man, he’d been part of the M’Dahz militia based in this very port and in those days the buildings across the road and their perimeter wall had been his home. Then had come the Empire’s collapse and Ursa, like so many others, had been driven to piracy to sustain himself. Having served as an oarsman and then commander of a boarding party on the Gorgon’s Revenge, he’d come to the Dark Empress under captain Khmun as a solid officer with a good reputation.
There, after years of sliding into the depravity that went with the life of a resident of Lassos, he had begun to reclaim both his self-respect and his sense of right under the man that he had considered the best captain the sea had to offer… until Samir. What Khmun had begun by instilling a sense of honour and mercy into his crew, Samir had completed by systematically weeding out those who he considered unfit for his crew. It was almost laughable to Ursa that he would take the word and honour of any man on board the Empress before that of the legitimate navy, and yet it was this that kept him loyally with Samir.
Since Imperial power had been reinstated in the Sea of Storms, the activities of most of the captains of Lassos had become more and more brutal in the constant struggle to stay ahead of the increasingly powerful navy. And yet the Empress had, in this time, somehow maintained her reputation while actually reducing their activity. Likely most of the pirates, even of his own crew, had been oblivious to this, but Ursa was an old hand, and he noticed how his captain was going out of his way to improve their reputation among the ordinary folk and to draw ever further from the twisted authorities in Lassos.
Something was afoot. Samir’s plan was continually picking up pace; Ursa could feel it happening without being able to identify any specific move in the game. The young captain was so damn subtle it was hard just working out what he’d already done, let alone what he was going to do.
The first bell of the midnight watch rang out.
— Clang.
“Steady, lads.”
— Clang.
And now their former nemesis was with them, professing loyalty and deeply involved in Samir’s plan without knowing himself what he was working toward.
— Clang.
Yet there was no accident to this, Ursa was sure. If Ghassan was with them now, it had been in Samir’s mind for a long time and was yet another thread woven into the plot.
— Clang.
And it had to be said that this man, for all his history of mindless subservience to the navy, seemed to have a similar mind to his brother. Amazing, really. Should these brothers truly work together, there would be little they couldn’t achieve.
— Clang.
Ursa frowned. How many was that? Damn it, he must stop getting sidetracked. Nodding, he put thoughts of his two commanders and their relationship aside and concentrated.
— Clang.
That must be the sixth? Yes, the sixth.
— Clang.
“Ready lads?” he whispered. “Know where you’re all going?”
— Clang.
There was a low murmur of affirmative noises.
— Clang.
Good. Ursa tensed.
— Clang.
“Ready…”
— Clang.
“Go!”
As the last bell tolled, the four men hurtled out of the shadows like cockroaches in sudden light. The perimeter wall of the compound was thick and solid and around eight feet high, but not wide enough for a walkway. Broken sherds of pot had been cemented into the top to prevent easy access and the guards patrolled around the inside edge every few minutes.
Ursa and his companion made straight across from the shadows and to the wall opposite, behind which he could just make out the apex of the tile roof. The other two men veered off to the right, heading toward their second phase.
As the big man reached the wall, counting slowly under his breath in order to keep the perfect timing this would need, he crouched and cradled his hands. The second man reached him, put his foot in that huge grip, and launched himself up and onto the wall. The heavy leather bracers he wore on his forearms were a last minute idea, but proved invaluable as he landed on the sharp pottery tips and struggled quietly across onto the roof.
Turning, he threw the heavy blanket from his shoulder over the sherds and reached down, quickly hauling the heavy first officer up after him.
Ursa tipped over onto the roof as quietly as he could. From here they could see the entire compound and therefore could be seen from it. However, the guard changed at midnight and the two men now on patrol were at the far side, hidden from this angle by both the bunk house and the stockade. They would have little more than a minute before the two guards emerged from either end of the buildings, heading round the periphery to converge on this spot before crossing paths and continuing on their way. There would be a man at the door to the shed, but he would be looking out the other way across the compound and should remain unaware of their presence, given the crackling of the brazier next to which he stood, so long as they were quiet enough.
The first officer, familiar with the layout of the ammunition shed from the previous night, gestured to the man with him and the two began to hurriedly lift the tiles from the roof, placing them quietly nearby.
As the covering gradually disappeared and a hole formed, the room below obscured only partially by the supporting beams, Ursa pointed down and grinned.
Directly below them, wooden shelves contained small pots of liquid fire for use as grenades in ship to ship combat. The two men smiled and nodded at one another, reaching into their jackets. With a deep breath, they withdrew two ceramic flasks each, marked with the strange language of the northern barbarians. It broke Ursa’s heart to discard such rare and expensive liquor this way, but when needs must…
With a deep breath, the two men uncorked the flasks and liberally emptied their contents through the hole onto the pots below and the straw and wood shelving beneath them. As the last few drops fell and they carefully placed the flasks on the roof, Ursa clenched his teeth and removed the bundle of sticks and wadding from his jacket. Retrieving flint and steel, he began to strike as quietly as he could, praying devoutly until the showing sparks finally caught on the bundle.
61… Timing was getting too tight for comfort.
With a deeper breath, he dropped the flaming mass into the hole and the two men slid down the tiles and off the edge. They dropped the eight feet from the roof onto the soft gravel with a crunch that was altogether too loud for Ursa’s liking. Here, the two men stood, hunched into the corner formed by the meeting of the perimeter wall with the ammunition shed. The main light within this area of the compound: the brazier in front of this very building, cast a deep shadow here and the two men held their breath.
Across the compound, the patrolling guards emerged from behind the other buildings. This would only work if the timing was right…
Suddenly, the wall behind the big man seemed to actually bulge and buckle for a moment, trying to contain the pressure from within. There was a series of deep thumps from within as several of the pots exploded. The interior of the ammunition store would now be wreathed in fire, but the building had been constructed with this possibility in mind. The heavy walls contained it, and the huge pots would survive intact, so long as the fire was put out quick enough.
A cry of alarm issued from round the corner at the front of the building as the guard by the door realised what had happened. Sure enough, just as Ursa had expected, the two soldiers on patrol came hurtling directly across the compound toward the building as the guard struggled with his keys to open the door. There were several more bangs from within and flames were now issuing from the roof in an impressive column. As the approaching guards reached the front of the shed, occupied with the fire and the noise, distracted by the dancing flames within, Ursa and his companion took the opportunity to run along the wall, heading toward the compound gates.
They were only halfway there when the ox cart that marked phase two burst through the wooden portal, shattering the beam that held the gate fast and coming on unstoppably.
Briefly, Ursa had to feel for the oxen. They were huge and strong creatures, but to be driven directly into the gate must have been excruciating for them. The heavy cart thundered into the compound, the two drivers turning slightly and heading for the next gate; the one in the stockade.
Behind the cart, Ursa and his companion ran to keep up.
All hell was now breaking loose in the compound. Most of the soldiers were holed up either asleep in the bunkhouse or drinking and sheltering in the guard room. Men emerged from the doors, expressions of shock and surprise plastered across their faces; many of them unarmed and unarmoured, caught in an off-duty state.
Confusion reigned and the newly-arrived guards panicked, most of them rushing off toward the burning ammunition store. They would have to get the flames under control before the larger pots caught or they could lose a lot of the warehouse district to fire in the night. A few men who could see beyond this immediate danger turned and ran for the cart. The first, stupidly, tried to grab the reins of the oxen as they thundered past. There was no hope of stopping the huge bovines with this amount of momentum, and the unfortunate man was dragged beneath and trampled to a bloody pulp.
As others tried to keep pace with the heavy, unstoppable cart, Ursa caught up with it, panting and running along behind with his companion, moments before the vehicle hit and burst through the stockade gate.
Screams and shouts of alarm issued from within as the captive pirates and other criminals threw themselves out of the way of the rolling nightmare. As they passed the threshold, the two pirate drivers threw themselves from the cart and rolled to their feet.
Ever-prepared, the men of the Dark Empress began to emerge from the stockade at a run. Ursa heaved a deep breath and bellowed “To the Empress!”
The pursuing guards pulled up sharply as previously-caged criminals of numerous varieties poured out of the stockade with a taste for freedom and many a grudge against their wardens.
As the two dozen men of the Empress ran toward the gate, Ursa shook his head sympathetically at the plight of the guardsmen around him as they struggled amid the wreckage of shattered stockades and gates to control the ever increasing fire at the ammunition store that threatened the whole district, while several dozen vicious criminals took the opportunity to either flee or exact their vengeance on any figure of authority they spotted.
Ghassan had been explicit that he wanted the body-count kept as low as prudence allowed; preferably nil. To Ursa’s knowledge, the only direct casualty had been the man beneath the oxen but, he thought sadly as he ran toward the jetties with his shipmates, the number of deaths caused by fire and escaping prisoners could yet be appalling.
Nothing he could do about that, now, though. His duty was to the Dark Empress, her crew and her captain, wherever he might be.