Episode L - Shoalstrike

            The sea was still, soft and silent.  Its slick black surface played out a dance between the restless shadows of ships and the violet light of the moon.  It lapped against the sides of a small boat as Ellis gingerly stepped into it, trying not to overbalance, before taking his place in the middle, next to the emergency oars he would hopefully not be manning for long, as this was a modified version of the Shoalstrike vessels designed by the Former Baron, Miss Barkcastle and Rockspark.  In the stern Gulliver had the tiller and control over the hypostatick engines and, crouched in the bow, Toby Pontificus served as navigator.

All along the wharf similar vessels were being filled with their own tiny crews, made up of Ellis’ companions and Siren’s old crewmates.  Every movement was made as silently as possible, so that all that could be heard were the soft splashes of the sea, as on any other calm night.  Ellis watched as all the boats were loaded and then waited for the signal to begin rowing, tension knotting his gut.  Siren was navigator in the lead vessel and it was she who would direct all their actions from now until the Ebon Crest was secured.

A whisper travelled along the line of vessels and one by one the boats began to push away from the wharf and cut through the jet black waves, between the hulls of massive ships and towards the open water.  Toby whispered that all was clear and then Ellis began to pull on the oars with long, even strokes.  The tiny boat slid across the black mirror sea after the others and operation Shoalstrike had begun.

The first part of the plan was to send the majority of the operation’s personnel out into the bay beyond the harbour, where the manned vessels would spread out to cover as much water as possible.  Meanwhile, Rockspark, M. Marveille and the Mosskind were in charge of the rest of the unmanned vessels which were to split into two groups.  One group, led by a flotilla of smaller vessels piloted by a couple of the Mosskind, was to approach the Dusk Raider and the Ebon Crest as they came into the harbour.  Using some weaponry designed primarily to annoy, rather than to damage, they would then produce a big enough disturbance to lure the two vessels back out into the bay – a calculation based on Harker’s renowned persistence and inability to allow himself to be bested by anyone.  The other group, including one manned vessel containing Rockspark and Marveille, was to remain in the harbour until the Raider and the Crest had left and was then to pursue at a safe distance until clear of all the other vessels.  Once the entire operation had moved into the bay proper, the assault on the two ships would begin in earnest.

Siren and M. Marveille had considered a great many approaches to the problem of how to overwhelm two full-sized pirate galleons with fewer than thirty people.  Whilst there was some merit to the idea of taking on the ships when they were fully berthed and unable to get moving again for some time, the issue of the superior numbers of Harker’s two crews and the confined spaces on board the vessels themselves and within the constraints of the harbour in general meant that the odds would have been heavily stacked against them.  By taking on the two galleons at sea they risked both the ships’ manoeuvrability and their weaponry, but they could take full advantage of their own manufactured fleet and, if the worst came to the worst, there was plenty of open sea for them to retreat into.

Ellis had never actually rowed before, but he had been given a crash course on it earlier in the evening and he was finding it less difficult than he feared it might be.  In fact, he was actually enjoying the exercise and the only real difficulty was in making sure the oars didn't splash too often or too loudly.  After a few minutes of experimentation he managed to get into a smooth rhythm of deep strokes which cut into and out of the waves at clean angles and disturbed the water very little.

Facing backwards as he was he was unable to see the extent of their little fleet ahead and instead he found his gaze drifting across the hulls of the great ships that filled the harbour.  He remembered how impressive many of them had seemed the day Siren had taken him to the Maelstrom's Heart, but from this lower vantage point they were even more so, especially in the darkness.  Each now seemed like a monstrous shadow, the creaks and groans of hulls and rigging only adding to the illusion.

Gulliver suddenly pulled the tiller hard over and began steering them sharply to starboard and Ellis' eyes widened as the shadow of something truly enormous seemed to drift ever-so-slowly by on their port side.  It's barnacle-encrusted hull was too vast to see the deck properly, so he had no idea what it was they had just passed, but he wondered how it had managed to progress this far into the harbour in the first place, or how it might ever leave.

Gradually the island-like hulls with their mast forests thinned until the rowing boats were completely beyond the reach of the wharves and quays and berths and a line of dimly-lit buoys marked the outer edge of the massive harbour.  Ellis watched them bob as their boat passed and felt a thrill of excitement.  I'm at sea, he thought, I've crossed into a whole new frontier on this strange world.  Even so, however strange it was to him, he was aware that this was where Siren felt most at home and he found himself absorbing every detail for what it might tell him about her.

They rowed the boats out further into the bay, until the line of buoys was just another set of lights beneath the rising starfield of lights that was the district of Shalereef.  To Ellis it was almost as if the whole of Shadow were laid out before him, for certainly all of that which he had seen and explored in the past two weeks was.  He could even see where the lights thinned on the northern slope of the hill, marking where the Borough began, and to the south he could see the illuminated sides of the pyramid he had spotted on his first day in the city.  It was a wild vista, even when coded into lights, where buildings became silhouettes piled onto silhouettes and the city’s hilly, ramshackle aspect became stylised like a Halloween backdrop.

The extent of the city was also clear to Ellis as in no way before except on the long journey back from Blackfeather, and that he had mostly spent fast asleep.  All along the coast, as far as the eye could see, the lights of the city twinkled – and not just along the coast, but deep inland as well, even the distant mountains were speckled with lights.  As Ellis rowed his curiosity made him turn his head to see if he could see any land out at sea and, sure enough, there were hundreds of little islands, each lit up like the Blackpool illuminations.  The pale, violet moon – so calm overhead – looked down on a world encrusted with chaotic civilisation.

At a signal from Siren the boats came to a surprisingly sudden halt a fair distance out into the bay.  Each boat was then manoeuvred so that they made a sparsely populated double line across most of the bay.  Once Siren was happy and her signal had been passed along the line, the oars were stashed.  When they needed to move again they would be using hypostatick engines instead.

The world seemed to fall completely silent, but for the soft splash of the waves as the extended crew stared out towards the harbour to await sign of the other half of their fleet.

“I think I saw the Raider and the Crest making their way into the harbour on the other side as we cleared the last ships,” Toby whispered, “so hopefully we won’t be waiting too long.”

Ellis tried to see if he could work out where that would have been, and if anything was happening there now, but they were too far away from the harbour now to see anything at all clearly.  He knew he would just have to wait and be patient.  That Toby was correct, however, was demonstrated a few minutes later when a series of loud booms echoed out across the bay.

“I think it’s begun,” Gulliver said and all eyes were trained on the source of the noise.

More booms rang out and Ellis noticed that a small cloud of smoke was drifting up from the harbour, obscuring the lights of the city behind it.

“I ‘ope those weapons aren’t causin’ too much damage.  Siren will not be pleased if they do.”

“Aren’t they mostly just setting off flashes and firing canisters of paint?” Toby asked, in an effort to be reassuring.

Ellis nodded, but didn’t look towards the young navigator or the lanky pirate manning the tiller.  His focus was now solely on the events taking place in the harbour, even though he was still unable to see any of what was actually going on.

Then, at the edge of the harbour, there was a flash of light, followed closely by another boom.  Another one followed and this time the flash lit up the scene at its source, highlighting the edges of reefed sails and the licking along the bow of what appeared to be a large, four-masted galleon, progressing out of the harbour under the power of an hypostatick engine.

“I think that’s the Dusk Raider,” Gulliver observed.

More flashes lit the bay and the booms which followed rolled over the small flotilla as they watched the galleon approaching and were soon able to make out the smaller vessels speeding ahead of it.  Of the Ebon Crest there was no sign.

“Where’s Siren’s ship?”  Elis asked, as the Dusk Raider drew ever closer and there was still no evidence of the other galleon sailing behind it.

“I don’t know,” Gulliver replied, sounding a little worried, “per’aps somethin’ went wrong, or per’aps ‘Arker knows what’s ‘appening’ and doesn’t want to ‘and ‘er over to us.”

“He can’t know the plan, can he?”

“Probably not, but ‘e does know who ‘is enemies are and Siren’s likely to be ‘igh up that list.  ‘E’s not goin’ to ‘and ‘er ship over easy, like.”

“What do we do if the Crest doesn’t appear?”

“That’ll depend on Siren, but I would imagine that we fight for the Raider and force ‘Arker’s ‘and.”

The Dusk Raider was now clearly visible as it advanced towards them across the calm waters.  From their vantage point just above the waves it seemed enormous, despite being quite small compared to some of the ships they had passed in the harbour.  Its sails were being unfurled now it was back out into the open water and a good breeze was already starting to fill them, making it look all the more proud and fierce, despite the splashes of multicoloured paint which now decorated its hull.  Just beneath the bowsprit a figurehead of a dragon-like creature seemed to roar at the boats of the Mosskind just in front of it whilst men took pot-shots at them from the Fo’c’sle.

“You’d better draw your weapon,” Gulliver said, readying one hand on the tiller and flicking switches on the side of the engine with the other.

Ellis reached down beside the oars to where he had placed the weapon the Former Baron had handed him – had handed to each of the oarsmen – as they lined up to go into the boats.  It was a kind of firearm, vaguely resembling a rifle, with a long, thin barrel to which was attached all manner of pipework and switches.  Ellis had asked if he needed to know what any of those did, to which the Former Baron had replied, “Oh, no, no, no.  Not unless you actually have to fire the thing,” before moving on to the next person in line.  Now Ellis stared at it as if it were some kind of monster which might bite him if he made a wrong move.

“Don’t worry about what Franck said,” Toby said from the bow, “I’m sure you’ll be fine if you just point and pull the trigger.”

“Yeah, and remember, we’re lookin’ to incapacitate and confuse, not to kill, so you don’t ‘ave to be too accurate.  Aiming for the sails is probably best for now, but just try to avoid people’s ‘eads, okay?”

Ellis nodded.  His hands were shaking and he felt cold sweat dripping down his back.  To the east the bow of the Dusk Raider was steadily approaching and the booms of the Mosskind’s weaponry and Harker’s sharpshooters were now almost deafening.  The world seemed to slow down, Ellis’ vision turned to smoke and all the booms of weapons fire filling the air became tansmuted into the thump of his own heartbeat.  Seconds ticked by in his mind like days.

“Go!” shouted Siren and then all the engines of the manned boats whirred to life and Ellis was jolted back to reality, gun in hand, as he, Toby and Gulliver, began to sail towards the mighty galleon of the pirate Harker Blake.


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