Several of the crew looked up from their tasks to smell the air. Conversations died abruptly and only the creaks and whispers of the sails continued. The water seemed to stop reflecting the light of the sun and grow dark. Rodrigo wheeled from his position and opened a desk which revealed charts.
Anthony broke the uneasy silence, "What malfiesience is this, m'lord?"
Ander glanced at the first mate, then back out over the dark, cloudless horizon, "I don't know, but I think we'd best be on our toes."
Anthony looked back at the navigator. Rodrigo shook his head and turned his palms upward. Anthony stopped and called out across the ship's main deck, "You men keep alert! Sailor, mind that downhaul, the wind is coming up."
He turned to face Ander, "Captain, the wind is changing, coming strong I should think", he gestured toward the portside aft quarter.
"Yes...", Ander rubbed his chin. "This ship's windage is fairly high... almost like we are to be blown that way", Ander pointed, "Hand me the glass."
At the horizon's edge, a feature revealed itself under the gentle magnification the telescope provided. "It could be another ship. Anthony, hold this course, drop the top sails and the stays too, reef the main. With this cross wind, we should out run it. Go. Rodrigo! I have a funny feeling about this... You watch the sky between us and the speck on the horizon, tell me if you see anything develop, anything... odd."
As the first mate barked out orders, the deck became alive with activity. As Anthony had predicted, a strong wind now blew from the south south west. For his part Ander began to move among the crew speaking with them each briefly. As instructed Rodrigo focused on the sky above, occasionally glancing out at the mysterious horizon.
The shout cut through the timber of the deck above and arrived a muffled kind of whump. Ander skipped two steps to the ladder and climbed with one hand on the rungs and the other clutching Kirena, the naginata with a white sliver blade, cherry stained shaft and yellow characters inscribed near the top. Out on the deck, he headed aft where Anthony was busy looking skyward to starboard.
"Look for yourself sir, there's a weird cloud forming up there"
Above and between the two ships, a strange cloud was forming, and shearing back toward Le Rou. Ander turned his attention to the other vessel for a moment, then broke away and faced the other officers. "Gentlemen, the other ship is closing on us."
Indeed, the ship was visible to the naked eye. Aboard the Le Rou, brief luffs darted from sail to sail. The coulds from above were descending and threatening rain. Rodrigo began to explain how our wind was swirling, but was cut off as the sky shrieked. A flaming giant whirling frizbee bore in on Le Rou. A collective gasp rose up from among the crew as the projectile spashed harmlessly to starboard. "Steady on men, Stay at your posts!", Anthony barked.
Rodrigo's words burst through a curtain of disbelief, "They've got 200 yards on us in range, and their wind is still full!"
Ander cleared a bit of sea spray from his top lip using his bottom row of teeth. "Uh, it gets worse than that. Take a look at their deck, kind of gives new meaning to the phrase 'skeleton crew'. Alright listen up, their wind, I believe has been 'designed' to overcome ours. My guess is they intend for us to flee. Our current rig won't lose too much when the wind switches, but they'll have first pick of the breeze and that catapult can pepper us while we're running leeward. Now our hull shape is caravel like, right?, their bow wake looks like its coming from a full keel, what does that suggest to you?"
The two men looked at one another, then up into their heads as if to discern both the nature of the question and its answer. Anthony spoke first, "They are likely to be most maneuverable when running with the wind, but sluggish into the wind?"
Ander smiled, "Right! If we get them going into the wind, although it will be close, we should be able to turn, broadside them, then use this ship's natural windage along the hull and deckside and that nice deep rudder we've got to start our turn in the other direction, in reverse."
It dawned on Rodrigo, "We will be able to fire at them all day, night, whatever the hell this place is."
Anthony remained skeptical, "What about their catapult? If they get wise to our plan, won't they simply drop their sails, come about and hammer us?"
"I have an idea", Ander began, lowering his head so as not to let the enemy (far our of earshot) hear, "This is my plan..."
"Ander, you are captian of this ship. A captain shouldn't do that!" Anthony protested.
"Very well, for me to have suggested such a thing shows considerable incompetence on my part. Anthony, I think this should have been done a long time ago. As of this moment, I'm resigning whatever captaincy I had and promoting you to the position. Rodrigo, you are the new first mate, got it? My sister is in charge of the Amber Navy. She told you to follow my orders. Now, if you two can help me pull this off, I'd like to be there at the official promotion back in Amber"
"Uh, .., I-, um"
"Don't 'I um'! Dammit, you are the captain of this ship now! Congratulations!"
Anthony opened his mouth, then closed it and blinked. He drew a deep breath and began, "Very well. I accept. I will consider you a kind of deputy to the highest authority and like that. Continue with the plan but, since I'm the Captain, may I suggest we instead conduct the first barrage from this side, because ..."
"Tend that lanyard, Sailor!" "Coming to run!" "Jenny Rise!"
The confusion that is sailing thrived across the decks of Le Rou as she turned to face the unknown attackers. Another of the whirling projectiles splashed perilously close to where the ship would have been without the sudden action from helm. Now the two ships were closing as quickly as possible.
Whoever was tending the helm of mystery ship seemed to waver ever so slightly. Then the beamy ship turned slightly for the sake of the catapult mounted at the ship's forecastle. It fired and the truculent frizbee slashed the foremost sail. The crew of Le Rou was ready, nearly dropping the sail before the projectile struck. They splashed the smoldering sheet with water. A prepared net was readied by the starboard gunners, while the port side crew manned their weapons.
The two vessels closed before the catapult could be reloaded.
A quick motion at the helm steered Le Rou's quarry to port and the guns blazed. After the first salvo, the net was thrown over to the other ship's main deck and the other ends tied anchoring aboard Le Rou. A dozen men, Ander among them swung over to the other ship's forecastle and began to scatter these skeleton's bones across decking and into the sea. The netlines tightened as the two ships passed each other and the weights were thrown overboard. As the net raked across the deck it swallowed the knobs and joints of this bony crew with ease and carried them to a second and probably wattery grave. The blitzkrieg completed brought relative silence to the battle scene. The catapult crew was dispatched, the deck crew severly cut down, damage to the deck from Le Rou's blast was abundant and only a handful of the skeletons chattered forward toward the band of marines who'd captured the catapult. Le Rou herself was turning to fire the starboard guns at the enemy's aft decks.
Tune in next week, kids, when Mr. Danger and his sidekick little Bob say "No! Not the Atomics!"