Arc One: Memories
Chapter Four: Opening Assaults
Toothrot grimaced as he watched the eight corsair ships began rowing in earnest toward the four unknown ships.
Clearly they were all eager for some new looting and plundering. The last ship they'd hit was a sea otter vessel, some type of barge carrying a variety of fish from one sea otter petty kingdom to another. He believed It had been called the Rose, but that had been five days ago and since then much of the corsairs had been growing restless without anything to kill.
Even worse since very few of the ships actually attacked the Rose.
Still, though a part of him was eager to see these arrogant unknowns destroyed, another part of him was worried and what was worse, he couldn't quite say why he was worried.
Perhaps It was simply the sheer size of the unknown ships, they were much bigger then any of Blackmane's galleys, the distance was still great enough that Toothrot couldn't make out specifics, but they had to be at least twice the size of any of the galleys at minimum. Possibly the were even bigger, nay the had to be.
Only sheer size would explain why the unknowns seemed so certain that they could defeat eight ships with only four of their own. And perhaps If the chosen galleys' captains were incompetent or fools, they could have won, but none of Blackmane's captains were incompetent or fools, all those that had been were dead.
Still, there was the chance that the unknowns had a surprise in store for the corsairs. Toothrot could see, they had what appeared like great crossbows on the unknown ships' fores and aft ends. Though he noted they didn't quite look like the great crossbows that Blackmane's ships had.
Below, he watched the two lines of ships approached, the corsair ships pairing off to double team a single unknown ship and as the range fell even further, the attack was launched from both sides.
Bolts launched from both sides' great crossbows, though neither side landed a hit, Goretide came awfully close to being struck by one of the unknown's bolts.
It was as Toothrot winced from the near hit upon Goretide, they he saw something he'd nearly missed. Leaning over the railing of the watchtower, he shouted as loud as he could.
"There's another ship!"
"This plan is absurd," Captain Tellerado of the Imperial great frigate, Vigilante Profundo, said even as he watched the other four great frigates of his detachment extended their oars and began rowing in earnest toward the eight corsair galleys.
The Folk sighed and, eyeing briefly the sea otter near him, called, "Colonel, if you would come here. We've much to discuss."
The colonel he had mentioned was a tall, somewhat skinny Folk, but he was also the Colonel of the naval detachment's half strength marine tercio. And thus was a rather important part of their plan for the island.
The entire plan had had to be thrown together at the last minute, Tellerado certainly wasn't expecting to have to fight a battle before they even reached the Eastern Continent, which thanks to the otter near him, they now knew was real.
No, the issue was the existence of a sizable corsair force upon the waves, one that could raid the Imperial supply ships that would inevitably be coming to supply Colonel Alexander's expedition. With corsairs upon the waves, especially ones as numerous as this "Blackmane's" forces, they could wreak untold havoc on their supplies for the land operation.
It was unacceptable and had to be dealt with immediately.
The corsairs however, numbered nearly fifty five hundred, Colonel Carrlado's tercio was half-strength, with only fifteen hundred, add along another five hundred for the marine's of each great frigate and you had a battle of fifty five hundred against two thousand. It was not the worst odds that had ever faced the Empire, but those fights had always happened when the Imperial forces had their full artillery detachment—ballista, catapults and lighter scorpions—a marine tercio, one assigned to a detachment of ships was not only at half-strength, they also lacked their heavy artillery and only had half of their lighter scorpions.
Though not everything was looking bad, with eight corsair ships leaving to fight with the rest of the detachment, or so told the forward scouts he'd deployed days previously, It took away roughly eighteen hundred, leaving behind thirty eight hundred, or so.
Their second advantage was the slaves the corsairs kept, according to their sea otter guide, there were around three hundred slaves per ship, with three per oar, leading to there being seventy five hundred oar-slaves specifically on the island—minus twenty four hundred who were on the eight corsair ships—and another three thousand slaves so called house-slaves who took care of the cooking, cleaning and building on the isle of Sampetra, as their otter guide called It. That meant there were ten thousand five hundred slaves on Sampetra, with twenty four hundred currently on corsair ships, that left eighty one hundred on the Isle.
A powerful addition to their forces, should Carrlado's Folk be able to carry out their part of Admiral Alonso's plan.
An absolute rabbit-brained plan at that, Tellerado thought as the Colonel slid up next to him.
"Yes, captain?" Carrlado's suave, velvet tones heralded the end to Tellerado's internal monologue.
"Colonel, the admiral told us in broad strokes what he wants done, and now we must discuss the specifics of how we are going to carry his plan out. If you have any ideas on how you'll guarantee victory on land, I'd like to hear them now."
"I have ideas yes, for now they are more basic until I can see what the corsair's little kingdom looks like personally."
"I'd like to hear them anyway."
Shrugging, Carrlado began to speak. "The plan I have been bouncing back and forth in my mind, is a rapid sea assault. Wherein you bring the Vigilante Profundo in close to their docks and with excessive use of alchemical munitions for your ship's weapons, blow the other corsair galleys out of the water, then bombard their guard houses. With chaos and confusion erupting within the corsair's forces, I can slip a smaller force to release the slaves and arm them with anything we can get our hands on."
"Unfortunately, we can't do that." Tellerado said, "I'd very much like to sink the corsair's other galleys, but the admiral was very clear in his instructions."
"Yes, he wants us to come from the other side of the island, and go over land to bring battle to the corsairs. My second plan is based with this in mind, We need to move fast and get all of my tercio onto land, along with our scorpions. With heavy use of my scorpion's alchemical munitions I should be able to drive the corsairs into panic, If things go properly, they'll retreat to their little stronghold, giving me free access to the rest of the Isle.
But, this may not go as I wish It and they may be particularly bloodthirsty and force their way through our alchemical fire. If that were to happen, my tercio would have to fight against a force outnumbering them a couple thousand, but our armaments should be better, enough that we should win the field. I will have pikes and long-crossbows, whereas their armament is random and not at all appropriate for a land engagement."
"While true that you pikes are a big advantage, the corsairs may have bows and crossbows of their own, and none of your troops have armour."
That was among the biggest issues facing them and the only one that could spell their defeat. While great frigates were very large ships, unless you had well over a dozen for one marine tercio, the tercio would have to leave their armour behind. It would take up to much weight and space, It was that same reason that marine tercios were half strength and why they lacked a tercio's standard heavy artillery and only with half a tercio's standard scorpion number.
"They may, but I'm counting on them not being as common." Carrlado nodded toward the otter, who during their conversation had been drifting steadily closer, and added. "According to our friend there ranged weapons are relatively uncommon among the corsairs."
"Aye, they are," The otter said, "I was telling the truth when I told you that, three ships attacked the Rose and among them were maybe forty bowbeasts."
"The issues with that, Ser Otter, Is that none of the corsairs are particularly standardized, In addition they could have an armoury upon their shores that store a number of different weapons, which may include ranged weaponry." Tellerado said, "The truth of the matter is that there is no way for us to know for certain until we begin."
Even as he said this, far to their port and now slightly behind them, bolts began to fly back and forth between the two opposing groups of ships.
For now, It was agreed that the four distracting ships would try to hold off on using alchemical projectiles. It was to ensure that the corsairs remained In a unaware state of how much danger they were truly in.
A great frigate, with its artillery deck of four long-ballistas per side, with alchemical projectiles, could deal a great deal of damage very quickly.
But, the counterside to this was that alchemical projectiles were only a small percentage of any Folk artillery piece's ammunition. They were hard to make, and took a fair bit of time, not to mention that they were also somewhat expensive.
It made It a rather risky action for Carrlado to have to lean so heavily on his scorpion's special munitions, for who knows when he'd receive resupply for them.
No matter, Tellerado thought even as he shouted the orders for oars to be lowered, There's no time to whine over things.
"Carrlado, you should start to get your tercio ready." He said, "We have to move fast when we near the Isle's opposite side, we haven't enough boats to unload more then a couple hundred at a time."
Carrlado nodded, "We'll have to unload the marines themselves first, they can go forward and distract and skirmish the corsair forces with their crossbows while my tercio is unloading. If all goes well, they'll by me enough time to get set up on land."
Blackmane had returned to his palace fortress and flopped over onto his throne, which sat at the head of a long table—one the corsair captains used for meetings and occasional banquets.
Though he wasn't alone, It very much felt like that, as Captains Sharpear and Targ were nursing a cup of wine each and speaking in low tones over some planned raid the two had been working on.
Blackmane could have involved himself and plotted with them, but he did not, he let his captains have a fairly loose collar so long as they payed tribute and answered to him.
Sudden shouting outside the throne-room's double pine doors drew Blackmane's attention instantly to them, even as they were thrown open. Rising smoothly, his cutlass slid from its scabbard with an ease of long practice. Both Sharpear and Targ had risen as well, the former with a cutlass much like Blackmane's while the latter had a pair of cruel, hooked daggers.
The corsair that stumbled into the room looked panicked, though not at the sight of their armaments, instantly knowing something had awry. Blackmane growled, "What in the name of Hellgates is going on out there!"
"Your Majesty, there's another ship, a fifth one!"
Freezing in place for but a second, Blackmane's tactical knowledge took over in an instant. "What are they doing." He demanded.
"Landing fighters on the eastern shore, just slightly south of the east cove."
"So, It seems the Woodlanders have had enough of our wonderful presence, who Is It? The sea otters?" Blackmane grunted.
Shifting uncomfortably, the ferret that had brought news, said. "They're not Woodlanders, sire."
"Other vermin then?"
"No sire, they're not reptiles either, I'm...not sure what they are, none of us are. They're all pale, seemingly none of them have fur, some o' the corsairs are calling them spirits, on account of them looking ghostly."
"A new species then?"
The ferret nodded, "Aye sire."
"Why are they attacking us then?" Blackmane muttered confused briefly before shaking It off. "Whatever, It doesn't matter, I want all corsairs armed and ready for battle, we'll bring the fight to them before they do whatever they're seeking to."
The corsair's forward scout feel before them like wheat before a scythe.
With crossbow bolts sticking in their corpses, over thirty assorted vermin were laying dead in the field before the steadily advancing marines.
Sarano, a tall female folk marine, and also the—current—ranking officer among the marines as a captain. She, like all marines bore a light crossbow, with a draw weight of around five hundred pounds and a built in reloading lever system, the Imperial light crossbow was actually quite fast to fire. Other then this, she bore a sidesword and rondal dagger, with her—and her marines—only armour being a cloth long jacket. Which fit them snugly, but also continued down to their knees to protect the legs, with slits in the front and back to facilitate proper movement.
Her booted feet trampled grass and plants as she jogged forward in a staggered skirmishing line.
Before them, loomed the palace fortress of the corsairs and below It a somewhat large village, that presumably all the corsairs lived within. And beyond that was the docks and the distant figures of the dueling ships.
But what held her attention was the steadily increasing blob of vermin gathering at the villages edge, toward the approaching Imperial forces.
The distance was far still, but she could clearly make out the distant outline of bows among the many weapons the corsairs were gathering.
"It looks like the otter was wrong about the number of bows we'd be facing." One of her subordinates, sergeant Gelard shouted from her right, three folk down.
"It seems to be so, no matter, we'll stall them no matter what they're armed with." She shouted back, before them the mob of corsairs seemed to coalesce into a united unit and began closing. "Gather," she shouted even louder, "Gathering into launching lines and ready yourselves."
With a speed and professionalism that put their foes to shame, the marines assembled into lines a hundred long, and five deep.
They presented a larger target, but their formation would also allow them to concentrate their crossbow launches into proper volleys instead of a more scattered launch. To have a better chance of both killing and causing notable shock to their, she hesitated to call that blob a formation.
The corsairs grew closer and closer by the heartbeat, as they closed the distance, she eyed every bow they had within an intense scrutiny. If they only had shortbows, she was confident in her troops ability to out shoot them, but if they had longbows the balance would shift in but an instant.
They grew even closer.
She could start to make out the corsair's distant features.
"Aim!" she barked.
Another second and, "Release!"
The simultaneous twang of five hundred crossbows loosing at once was near deafening. And as the wave of lethal projectiles flew through the air, Sarano had already shouted, "Load!"
Then, the bolts landed among the incoming corsairs.
Screams and shouts of pain erupted from scores of throats as corsairs were struck. Dozens dropped dead, others stumbled to a halt, clutching bolt-wounds and others turned and ran.
As fast as she could, Sarano loaded another bolt, but by then It was too late, the corsairs had grown too close and scores of bows, were being drawn back.
"Aim and Loose!" She shouted, as crossbows and bows twanged.
The second volley of crossbow bolts slammed home all around Blackmane and vermin screamed and died.
The wildcat himself had ducked back, watching as their own arrow volley struck home and over a dozen of the strange creatures cried out in pain. But, he could see In an instant It wasn't enough. His forces would be mauled too badly by this back and forth projectile battle, and he doubted they'd simply stand still and let his close range fighters get to grips with them.
If he did send them charging ahead of the archers, the crossbow wielders would simply fall back and turn their projectiles onto his fighters.
Fighters he'd need, Blackmane's gaze flicked to the enemy reinforcements coming ashore, they didn't number as much as his forces, but they were trained land fighters, his corsairs were not.
He had to chose the battlefield carefully to achieve victory.
Strategies flicked through his mind as his archers sent another volley downrange and as the arrows reached their halfway point, he bellowed out. "Retreat, all Corsairs to the palace!"
He wouldn't take this battle to them, that was what they wanted, no, he'd make them come to him, while his forces had walls and barred gates to defend, and ramparts to take cover behind.
Blackmane spun around and in a flurry of shouts and cries, departed the battlefield, with his army behind him.
