"2566-09" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bigge Jerome - Warlady 4 - 2566 Ad)2566 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Nine "Signal from Huntress!" Sela heard the midshipman cry out. "Enemy in sight! Am now in pursuit!" Sela could see Huntress' top sails there on the azure horizon where the blue green sea met the glowing azure of the sky. A few wispy clouds floating above. Squala bashing through the swell as men scurried over her deck like ants when their nest has been disturbed. The ballistae be- ing now wound up, the arms of the catapults drawn back. Javelins and catapult shot now being readied for use. The warrioresses in their chain mail checking their bows. The new Imperial compound bows that allowed one to "reach out" to two hundred fifty yards. "Ask if they can make out the type of ship," Sela spoke in soft tones. She prayed it would not be the North Star. Her own brother was married to the younger sister of the Queen of Dularn. "Query received," Mark breathed as the message was sent. He did not envy the captain of Huntress. The Dularnian could very easily wheel about and put "paid" to Huntress easily if she couldn't outmaneuver the heavier ship. The Dularnians were fast, perhaps even faster than the Huntress. He did not envy its com- mander out there racing across the blue-green ocean! On the oth- er hand Janice Hill was perhaps their most "able" commander now!* * This was her "rank" at the time these events took place. (LR) "Message from the Queen," the first lieutenant observed, watching the signal light flash there from Seawolf's deck. Mark nodded, smiled to himself. He would need no "help" in this task! No Dularnian raider was a match for a ship like the Squala so far as he knew. Especially not with Huntress there too to help out! "Tell her we can handle it," Mark smiled, glancing at Sela. Wondering to himself what a woman like her would be like in bed? He had held that small slim body in his arms, felt its curves pressed up against his when they danced there in the royal palace of the Empress. She had been "friendly", but yet "reserved", the sort of a woman who quickly let you know what your "status" was! "`My confidence is with you all: Lorraine'," the midshipman read, watching the flashes there from the Seawolf's forecastle. "We are ordered to relay her words to Huntress," the boy added. ***************************************************************** "Message received, your majesty," Captain Charles Hawkins said to me, his gray eyes burning into mine. I wondered if he feared that I might now order the Seawolf to support the Squala as it grew smaller by the minute there on the gleaming horizon? "Why did you `lose' the North Star when this ship is sup- posed to be `faster'," I suddenly spoke, wishing to get to the "bottom" of these "rumors" and "innuendoes" that were being spo- ken about Sela's apparent lack of "courage" while under fire! Since she had faced me back there in La Paz with only a sword against my terrifying Lorr force saber, I did not doubt her cour- age in a fight, but battle at sea where you must stand there and wait for the enemy to fire upon you does take a special sort of "courage"! I wondered if even I would prove adequate to that!!! "We got off a couple good broadsides into the North Star, but we got taken all aback and before we could recover the North Star sailed off into a fog bank and we lost her in the fog," he answered almost as if he had earlier rehearsed these very words! "That was some pretty `lousy' seamanship!" I snapped back. A schooner, even a big heavyweight like Seawolf can be easily gotten back under control by proper use of the sails, especially the jib and spanker, which are the "control sails" for a fore and aft rigged vessel. The jib controlling the bow while the spanker in turn controls the stern of the ship. The jib serves to push the ship off the wind while the spanker in turn pushes it into the wind. By loosening or tightening these sails you can sail the ship without a rudder, a trick that I'd often done on Squala! "We took some pretty heavy losses and the crew was pretty `inexperienced' in taking in and letting out sail under fire," he answered, his voice just a bit too "calm" for my own liking now! "And Sela?" I asked, wondering what his answer would be. "She stood right here and watched everything," he answered, looking over my shoulder at the Nighthawk some miles off to the east. The Corsica quite invisible, being below our horizon now. I could just see the tips of Squala's mastheads now as she sailed out further to be assistance to the Huntress. I hoped the young but experienced commander of Huntress had enough sense not to try to engage one of the swift three masted Dularnians or there wouldn't be much left of her little "command" after such a fight! "And afterwards?" I challenged, my eyes "burning" into his. "Sela said that our marksmanship and seamanship `needed work'," he answered. She had put that in her report to me too. The heavier firepower of a ship of this class should have been more effective against a ship such as the North Star than it had! "Then I would suggest that we work on those `problems'," I smiled back, hoping that my suspicions about Sela weren't true!!! ***************************************************************** "What do you make of her?" Mark called up to the look out perched there in the crows nest a good ninety feet over their heads. Sela's dark eyes looking up into his. He felt the urge to take her in his arms, hold her close, and stroke that thick black hair. She didn't belong out here, not a woman like her, he mused to himself. Maybe someone like Lorraine, who was probably the greatest warrioress who ever lived, but not someone like her! Sela was the sort of a Princess who should grace some royal pal- ace, not stand on the deck of a "man of war" and face enemy fire! "Three masts, well raked, and bigger than the Huntress," the man called down. The Dularnian was running for it. A wise "move" considering the sizes of what was now in pursuit of him! "A `North' class," Sela breathed softly, standing there. Dularn had three such vessels in commission. North Wind, North Star, and Northland, the latest and newest of the class. There was also Swiftstar, which would be a match in speed for even the big "Squalas" although no "match" in a fight of course for one! "They say she's a very beautiful woman," Mark mused then. "If you prefer that type," Sela answered, a bit annoyed al- though she could not say just why it was "important" to her now. Mark smiled to himself, and turned away before the beautiful lit- tle Princess of Talon noticed the look there now on his face. He had no doubts now that she was "attracted" to him, and that he just might, if he "played his cards right", even do "better yet"! "We're pulling up on Huntress," Mark announced a moment lat- er, the smaller schooner now hull up on the horizon ahead of them. The mastheads of the Dularnian visible now as she fled to the North. Towards distant Dularn from which she had once come!! A row of clouds there on the distant horizon breaking the blue of the sky in that direction, Mark noted with some displeasure now!! ***************************************************************** "We could take that little Imperial, your majesty," the of- ficer spoke, looking into the beautiful emerald eyes of his gold- en haired Queen. The North Star's sails drawing well as she fled her little pursuer, Maris Jord being "experienced" enough to know that no such vessel would be chasing her unless there was some- thing "bigger" following just behind. And that no doubt might just now be the Squala itself with Lorraine Richards in command! "And if we turn and fight, what happens if one of Lorraine's big `Squalas' comes sailing over the horizon?" Maris challenged. "We `outfought' that last one, that `Seawolf'," he argued. "And can we expect that level of `incompetency' again?" the Queen of Dularn challenged. She had "lucky" that time. Far more "lucky" than she or any other Dularnian commander deserved to be! They had been careless, feeling "safe" in the fog banks when the big Imperial "first rate" came suddenly sailing out of the fog towards them. Only her seamanship and the skill of her expe- rienced and seasoned crew against the incredible incompetency of the Imperials had save the day! And that was something she knew Lorraine would never allow to happen again! No doubt those re- sponsible had already suffered court martials for their actions. The Warlady of California was not one to stand for such things! "Sail Ho!" the lookout called down. "Dead astern too!" A chill of terror momentarily grasped the young Queen's heart. Her question had been answered. There was a "support" ship for the little "annoyance" chasing them. And anything Lorraine had was sure to be "big" enough to deal with the North Star in a fight!!! "Battle stations, rig for battle?" her officer asked her. A question for which there could be but one answer if they were to live. Ahead was a line of clouds, "storm clouds", and "safety"! "Set stunsails, everything we have," Maris answered him. In the green depths of her beautiful eyes he saw not the terror that now clutched at her young heart. That dread of a certain tall and stern featured brunette before whom she had once knelt as a slave girl. The terror of knowing of what could happen to her!* * I had the opportunity to discuss these matters with Queen Maris when I was recovering from the nearly fatal wound I received from being shot by Darl Jord. It was a rare chance to "see" myself as another might see me. I had never understood why Maris was so "terrified" of me, but I now suspect the "answer" and who was the person "responsible" for so terrifying Maris. (Lorraine Richards) "And if we can't outrun them?" the officer breathed, glanc- ing back despite himself at what was now coming in pursuit. The three masts all in a row that spoke of an Imperial "first rate"! And the way it raced after them spoke of a well trained crew too! "Then we take as many of them as we can with us to greet Lys," Maris answered, her hand on the golden hilt of her sword. The rise and fall of her firm young breasts beneath the blue of her tunic speaking the truth of her feelings. She was a beauti- ful woman, one who many men had at one time or another "lusted" for. She had given her heart only to one, and he was married to another, to that tall stern featured brunette who terrified her!* * Maris Jord claimed in my conversations with her that she did indeed love Jon Richards, but that he did not love her in return. Jon "claims" the opposite. I have written in "2565" that she "spurned" his offer of marriage. Saying to him that she had no wish to become the wife of a mere Dularnian sea officer. It is my belief here that Maris has convinced herself that she actually did "offer" herself to Jon, but that "he" turned "her" down! (LR) "Perhaps it's `better' this way," Maris mused to herself. Better than the humiliation of being married to a man who had as a teenage boy raped his own younger sister. A man who had little use for her even as a mere "figurehead" while he ruled Dularn by intrigue and the selling of "favors" to the highest bidder! She would "die bravely in battle" and no one would ever know that she had taken command of this ship only to escape a loveless marriage with every day a constant humiliation as her husband paid more "attention" to his many slave girls than he ever did to her now!! ***************************************************************** "I wonder?" Mark mused to himself, unaware of Sela there. "Wonder what?" Sela asked, touching his arm. His strength, his manhood a comfort to her just then. She wanted him to take her below, use her as a woman, make her arch and moan, sweat, and make her forget what laid ahead for them if the Dularnian fought! Only her pride, her "breeding" prevented her from speaking thus! "Why Queen Maris is willing to take command of a raider?" he smiled. That had been the topic of discussion among everyone mow for the past month now that it was known that she was the captain of the North Star. That she had stood on its quarterdeck in bat- tle, tall and golden, an example to her crew and everyone else! "Perhaps Lorraine's suspicions are true," Sela smiled back. ***************************************************************** "Close up on the Squala," I ordered, the mastheads now al- most gone below the horizon there ahead. A faint line of clouds speaking of a storm there in the distance. We could still "lose" the Dularnian in such a storm, I knew from what Jon had told me. "Get the stunsails set!" captain Hawkins barked. He seemed "competent" enough to me, although one can never tell about such. There is a "difference" in being able to command a ship and do so in battle when the enemy's missiles are flying about your decks! "Signal the rest of the squadron to set full sail," I said. "Those damm landlubbers!" Hawkins barked, it being obvious that the crew lacked something in "seamanship". They having a certain "slackness" about them, much like the ship itself, I not- ed. How well they would do in a fight was something else too!!! I would not have cared to face Maris Marn and her North Star with the Seawolf. Not with the sort of lubbers that I now had to use! 2566 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Nine "Signal from Huntress!" Sela heard the midshipman cry out. "Enemy in sight! Am now in pursuit!" Sela could see Huntress' top sails there on the azure horizon where the blue green sea met the glowing azure of the sky. A few wispy clouds floating above. Squala bashing through the swell as men scurried over her deck like ants when their nest has been disturbed. The ballistae be- ing now wound up, the arms of the catapults drawn back. Javelins and catapult shot now being readied for use. The warrioresses in their chain mail checking their bows. The new Imperial compound bows that allowed one to "reach out" to two hundred fifty yards. "Ask if they can make out the type of ship," Sela spoke in soft tones. She prayed it would not be the North Star. Her own brother was married to the younger sister of the Queen of Dularn. "Query received," Mark breathed as the message was sent. He did not envy the captain of Huntress. The Dularnian could very easily wheel about and put "paid" to Huntress easily if she couldn't outmaneuver the heavier ship. The Dularnians were fast, perhaps even faster than the Huntress. He did not envy its com- mander out there racing across the blue-green ocean! On the oth- er hand Janice Hill was perhaps their most "able" commander now!* * This was her "rank" at the time these events took place. (LR) "Message from the Queen," the first lieutenant observed, watching the signal light flash there from Seawolf's deck. Mark nodded, smiled to himself. He would need no "help" in this task! No Dularnian raider was a match for a ship like the Squala so far as he knew. Especially not with Huntress there too to help out! "Tell her we can handle it," Mark smiled, glancing at Sela. Wondering to himself what a woman like her would be like in bed? He had held that small slim body in his arms, felt its curves pressed up against his when they danced there in the royal palace of the Empress. She had been "friendly", but yet "reserved", the sort of a woman who quickly let you know what your "status" was! "`My confidence is with you all: Lorraine'," the midshipman read, watching the flashes there from the Seawolf's forecastle. "We are ordered to relay her words to Huntress," the boy added. ***************************************************************** "Message received, your majesty," Captain Charles Hawkins said to me, his gray eyes burning into mine. I wondered if he feared that I might now order the Seawolf to support the Squala as it grew smaller by the minute there on the gleaming horizon? "Why did you `lose' the North Star when this ship is sup- posed to be `faster'," I suddenly spoke, wishing to get to the "bottom" of these "rumors" and "innuendoes" that were being spo- ken about Sela's apparent lack of "courage" while under fire! Since she had faced me back there in La Paz with only a sword against my terrifying Lorr force saber, I did not doubt her cour- age in a fight, but battle at sea where you must stand there and wait for the enemy to fire upon you does take a special sort of "courage"! I wondered if even I would prove adequate to that!!! "We got off a couple good broadsides into the North Star, but we got taken all aback and before we could recover the North Star sailed off into a fog bank and we lost her in the fog," he answered almost as if he had earlier rehearsed these very words! "That was some pretty `lousy' seamanship!" I snapped back. A schooner, even a big heavyweight like Seawolf can be easily gotten back under control by proper use of the sails, especially the jib and spanker, which are the "control sails" for a fore and aft rigged vessel. The jib controlling the bow while the spanker in turn controls the stern of the ship. The jib serves to push the ship off the wind while the spanker in turn pushes it into the wind. By loosening or tightening these sails you can sail the ship without a rudder, a trick that I'd often done on Squala! "We took some pretty heavy losses and the crew was pretty `inexperienced' in taking in and letting out sail under fire," he answered, his voice just a bit too "calm" for my own liking now! "And Sela?" I asked, wondering what his answer would be. "She stood right here and watched everything," he answered, looking over my shoulder at the Nighthawk some miles off to the east. The Corsica quite invisible, being below our horizon now. I could just see the tips of Squala's mastheads now as she sailed out further to be assistance to the Huntress. I hoped the young but experienced commander of Huntress had enough sense not to try to engage one of the swift three masted Dularnians or there wouldn't be much left of her little "command" after such a fight! "And afterwards?" I challenged, my eyes "burning" into his. "Sela said that our marksmanship and seamanship `needed work'," he answered. She had put that in her report to me too. The heavier firepower of a ship of this class should have been more effective against a ship such as the North Star than it had! "Then I would suggest that we work on those `problems'," I smiled back, hoping that my suspicions about Sela weren't true!!! ***************************************************************** "What do you make of her?" Mark called up to the look out perched there in the crows nest a good ninety feet over their heads. Sela's dark eyes looking up into his. He felt the urge to take her in his arms, hold her close, and stroke that thick black hair. She didn't belong out here, not a woman like her, he mused to himself. Maybe someone like Lorraine, who was probably the greatest warrioress who ever lived, but not someone like her! Sela was the sort of a Princess who should grace some royal pal- ace, not stand on the deck of a "man of war" and face enemy fire! "Three masts, well raked, and bigger than the Huntress," the man called down. The Dularnian was running for it. A wise "move" considering the sizes of what was now in pursuit of him! "A `North' class," Sela breathed softly, standing there. Dularn had three such vessels in commission. North Wind, North Star, and Northland, the latest and newest of the class. There was also Swiftstar, which would be a match in speed for even the big "Squalas" although no "match" in a fight of course for one! "They say she's a very beautiful woman," Mark mused then. "If you prefer that type," Sela answered, a bit annoyed al- though she could not say just why it was "important" to her now. Mark smiled to himself, and turned away before the beautiful lit- tle Princess of Talon noticed the look there now on his face. He had no doubts now that she was "attracted" to him, and that he just might, if he "played his cards right", even do "better yet"! "We're pulling up on Huntress," Mark announced a moment lat- er, the smaller schooner now hull up on the horizon ahead of them. The mastheads of the Dularnian visible now as she fled to the North. Towards distant Dularn from which she had once come!! A row of clouds there on the distant horizon breaking the blue of the sky in that direction, Mark noted with some displeasure now!! ***************************************************************** "We could take that little Imperial, your majesty," the of- ficer spoke, looking into the beautiful emerald eyes of his gold- en haired Queen. The North Star's sails drawing well as she fled her little pursuer, Maris Jord being "experienced" enough to know that no such vessel would be chasing her unless there was some- thing "bigger" following just behind. And that no doubt might just now be the Squala itself with Lorraine Richards in command! "And if we turn and fight, what happens if one of Lorraine's big `Squalas' comes sailing over the horizon?" Maris challenged. "We `outfought' that last one, that `Seawolf'," he argued. "And can we expect that level of `incompetency' again?" the Queen of Dularn challenged. She had "lucky" that time. Far more "lucky" than she or any other Dularnian commander deserved to be! They had been careless, feeling "safe" in the fog banks when the big Imperial "first rate" came suddenly sailing out of the fog towards them. Only her seamanship and the skill of her expe- rienced and seasoned crew against the incredible incompetency of the Imperials had save the day! And that was something she knew Lorraine would never allow to happen again! No doubt those re- sponsible had already suffered court martials for their actions. The Warlady of California was not one to stand for such things! "Sail Ho!" the lookout called down. "Dead astern too!" A chill of terror momentarily grasped the young Queen's heart. Her question had been answered. There was a "support" ship for the little "annoyance" chasing them. And anything Lorraine had was sure to be "big" enough to deal with the North Star in a fight!!! "Battle stations, rig for battle?" her officer asked her. A question for which there could be but one answer if they were to live. Ahead was a line of clouds, "storm clouds", and "safety"! "Set stunsails, everything we have," Maris answered him. In the green depths of her beautiful eyes he saw not the terror that now clutched at her young heart. That dread of a certain tall and stern featured brunette before whom she had once knelt as a slave girl. The terror of knowing of what could happen to her!* * I had the opportunity to discuss these matters with Queen Maris when I was recovering from the nearly fatal wound I received from being shot by Darl Jord. It was a rare chance to "see" myself as another might see me. I had never understood why Maris was so "terrified" of me, but I now suspect the "answer" and who was the person "responsible" for so terrifying Maris. (Lorraine Richards) "And if we can't outrun them?" the officer breathed, glanc- ing back despite himself at what was now coming in pursuit. The three masts all in a row that spoke of an Imperial "first rate"! And the way it raced after them spoke of a well trained crew too! "Then we take as many of them as we can with us to greet Lys," Maris answered, her hand on the golden hilt of her sword. The rise and fall of her firm young breasts beneath the blue of her tunic speaking the truth of her feelings. She was a beauti- ful woman, one who many men had at one time or another "lusted" for. She had given her heart only to one, and he was married to another, to that tall stern featured brunette who terrified her!* * Maris Jord claimed in my conversations with her that she did indeed love Jon Richards, but that he did not love her in return. Jon "claims" the opposite. I have written in "2565" that she "spurned" his offer of marriage. Saying to him that she had no wish to become the wife of a mere Dularnian sea officer. It is my belief here that Maris has convinced herself that she actually did "offer" herself to Jon, but that "he" turned "her" down! (LR) "Perhaps it's `better' this way," Maris mused to herself. Better than the humiliation of being married to a man who had as a teenage boy raped his own younger sister. A man who had little use for her even as a mere "figurehead" while he ruled Dularn by intrigue and the selling of "favors" to the highest bidder! She would "die bravely in battle" and no one would ever know that she had taken command of this ship only to escape a loveless marriage with every day a constant humiliation as her husband paid more "attention" to his many slave girls than he ever did to her now!! ***************************************************************** "I wonder?" Mark mused to himself, unaware of Sela there. "Wonder what?" Sela asked, touching his arm. His strength, his manhood a comfort to her just then. She wanted him to take her below, use her as a woman, make her arch and moan, sweat, and make her forget what laid ahead for them if the Dularnian fought! Only her pride, her "breeding" prevented her from speaking thus! "Why Queen Maris is willing to take command of a raider?" he smiled. That had been the topic of discussion among everyone mow for the past month now that it was known that she was the captain of the North Star. That she had stood on its quarterdeck in bat- tle, tall and golden, an example to her crew and everyone else! "Perhaps Lorraine's suspicions are true," Sela smiled back. ***************************************************************** "Close up on the Squala," I ordered, the mastheads now al- most gone below the horizon there ahead. A faint line of clouds speaking of a storm there in the distance. We could still "lose" the Dularnian in such a storm, I knew from what Jon had told me. "Get the stunsails set!" captain Hawkins barked. He seemed "competent" enough to me, although one can never tell about such. There is a "difference" in being able to command a ship and do so in battle when the enemy's missiles are flying about your decks! "Signal the rest of the squadron to set full sail," I said. "Those damm landlubbers!" Hawkins barked, it being obvious that the crew lacked something in "seamanship". They having a certain "slackness" about them, much like the ship itself, I not- ed. How well they would do in a fight was something else too!!! I would not have cared to face Maris Marn and her North Star with the Seawolf. Not with the sort of lubbers that I now had to use! |
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