Chapter 22: Two on Two

Our opponents stayed close together. Very close, to the point where it was obvious that they intended to board us from both ships at once. Unfortunately, not close enough that they could collide with each other. Clearly, they’d done this before. Still, it was possible that we could use the front one as cover from the back one, making the front one choose between getting damaged or getting in the back one’s way.

That was what you were supposed to do in a swordfight when you were facing two men. If you were a better swordsman, you tried to take one out immediately. If you could do that then you concentrated on the second one. If you were faster than them, you tried to move to where one of them was in the middle, keeping the other one from reaching you. Of course, at the same time they would try to get YOU in the middle, between the two of them.

When faced by multiple opponents, if you weren’t a better swordsman and you weren’t faster than them, you mostly just died. That was why Weldon had stationed three men at David’s shop. They didn’t have to be good fighters, if they had numbers on their side. It was simply their misfortune for them to face Eric, an Earthman who had studied and practiced for years. Eric was a better swordsman than them, and was faster than them to boot. Yet, even he had asked me to keep Stumpy -Aaron- busy as he didn’t want to face three at once.

This was the same thing, only incredibly slowly, like a Bruce Lee movie that was shown in slow motion so that the viewers could tell what happened. From the time we saw them and turned to close to the time when we were in range of our launchers felt like hours. It probably wasn’t, probably less than an hour, but certainly more than half an hour. Plenty long enough to start worrying about having made a terrible mistake.

Filo was hanging back where he could support us as needed or stay out of it if we had everything under control. Okay, he was probably going as fast as he could without rowing. We were simply moving faster than they were. I appreciated that. If things went wrong we were really, really going to need his six Guardsmen even more than the eight archers he’d taken.

We sailed directly at them for as long as I could stand it before putting the rudder over to sail downwind. They had dropped their yard and were only rowing towards us. I knew it would take forever to turn and I didn’t want them boarding us first, so I gave the order about a hundred yards out.

Time sped up, then. We started to turn left or port, and the nearest pirate ship started to slide over to our right. The other pirate was behind him and I tried to get them entangled but they were smarter than that and too well separated. Still, it took more time for them to turn than they had, and we were well away before the back one got anywhere near us.

The starboard-side missile launcher was Garth’s, and he knew that I didn’t want either ship sunk if we could help it. He waited until the ship’s roll had his launcher aimed up just a little, and this time his shot didn’t penetrate the hull. We didn’t have a lot of experience, but this was the first time that one of our missiles had bounced.

It tumbled, though, and it made an unholy mess along the side of the lead pirate ship as it slid down the hull. Half of the oars were broken, including the steering oar on the back. The pirate ship almost immediately spun and hid that side from us, but that was because the other side’s oars were still working, pushing that side of the ship around. We heard a lot of screaming, too, so I figured they had some casualties.

Jen stood up and waved from where he was watching. The two launchers were right next to each other, and their crews would swap and help each other as needed. Anytime they weren’t arguing about which crew was better. “One pirate ship crippled as requested, Captain!”

Jono was standing beside me and said “They’ll just move some oars from the other side until they have the same number on either side.”

“Do they carry enough spare oars to completely recover from that? How about steering oars?”

“No. They may have one or two spares, but not many. I doubt if they have any spare steering oars. They may use one of their regular rowing oars as a replacement.”

“So no, they can’t completely recover from that. They will be slower, both rowing and turning.”

“Yes, Lord. I don’t want to say that they are crippled yet, but they will be slower.”

“Okay, good. For now, we need to continue like this for a few minutes to ensure we are clear before we tack and get back upwind for another run. This time, I want them on our right side if we can. Jen needs his chance to show Garth how it should be done.”

Jono grinned. “Yes, Lord, of course. We don’t want the children squabbling.”

“The problem is, we need to cripple the second one before we do anything else. Unless we can go between them, they will be on our right again. Jen won’t like that.”

“The children are going to be squabbling again.”

“Yes, I think so.”

Time passed. When it became clear to them that we would get away they steered for the Sea Fortune. Dammit, those guys won’t have a chance if they get boarded from both sides.

Filo was no dummy. As soon as he saw that, he turned downwind and ran for it. They would eventually lose the race, but they didn’t have to get away. All they had to do was stay away long enough for us to catch up.

The pirates raised their sails but kept rowing, adding speed. We turned around to chase after them.

More time passed. In adventure games and novels, that can mean anything from a few seconds while the fighters catch their breath, up to a couple of decades as the hungry orphan boy grows up to be a mighty warrior. In this case, it was forever, at least half an hour, before the pirates accepted that we would catch them before they caught the Sea Fortune.

Both pirates took in their sails and turned again to close on us, letting Sea Fortune go. They probably talked it over; they were certainly close enough to talk. Maybe the original pirate was just keeping his prize nearby so he didn’t lose it.

Still, we found ourselves running downwind towards them while they rowed upwind towards us. Haven’t we already done this once? And how long would it take for their rowers to get tired? I asked Jono about that.

“All day, probably. They are used to rowing all day, every day when there is no wind. Besides, they probably have a hundred men who can take over if needed. They won’t get tired enough to make a difference here.”

“Yes, but can they change out their rowers while they row? Surely that would cause trouble if one oar stops while the rest of them are still going.”

Jono thought about that and laughed. “You’re probably right. They will have to at least stop rowing while they change rowers.”

We found out later that we were wrong, they could do it easily. The rower just raised his end, lowering the business end of the oar farther into the water to be below the other oars and out of their way. If he was really good, he would turn the oar so that it was edge-on and not cause any drag. His replacement would step up, they’d hand the oar off, and the tired rower would get out of the way.

Quick, simple, and easy. As long as everyone knew what they were doing. It probably didn’t work well the first few times they tried it, but once they were all up to skill they could trade off rowers whenever they wanted. With their large crews, they could probably row all day AND all night, if there was no wind. Or if the wind was from the wrong direction.

All we knew at the time was that they could row in any direction for as long as they wanted, and if they were doing downwind they could add their sails and go a lot faster. They had a good system. Without a better sailing rig, no one could evade them for long.

We, with our clean hull, larger sail area, and better rig, could go faster than them in any direction except within a few points of the wind. We couldn’t exactly run rings around them, but we could stay clear.

Unless the wind died down. We’d be in a lot of trouble if that happened.

Still, getting away from them wasn’t what we were out here for. We were out here to stop the piracy, and the best way to do that was to sink or capture all their ships and kill or capture all the pirates.

Okay, we were really out here just to test the new rig, but we kept running into pirates. Was the ocean full of them?

Probably not. If I understood where the mainland was and where the Pirate Isles were, the series of islands and shoals off the south-east corner of Hunter Island was an area pretty much every pirate ship had to pass by in both directions. They’d pass by headed east when they first set out, like the Sea Fortune had been, and they’d pass by headed west again when they were done, laden with loot and escorting a prize like these two were.