"Harley! Joshua! Take your crews below and find the hatchets! Cut the wood from around those hooks stuck in our hull as fast as you can! Don't forget to bring axes up to the deck! Felix, get our best snipers on the main deck to cover us. Get MacHorn - he's the finest shot! Eli, rudder hard to starboard! And all gun crews at their cannons; you're ready to fire inside the minute! The rest of you get these grapples off us!"

Judith's voice was all iron, but inside she was nearly sick with dread. How had the enemy bested them so quickly and completely? How? She had played the perfect hand, held every advantage, and had still been trumped. And now they were totally exposed, being dragged through the water into the Tribunal's deadly embrace.

The grapple ropes groaned with the effort of yoking the Implacable across the waves. She brought up her telescope and scanned the enemy ship. She could see where the ropes led to, disappearing into the gun ports or hatches on deck where, no doubt, they were spooling onto giant winches. She could see two or three of the deck's cannonades sitting idle, their spears unfired. Judith's face twisted with outrage. They hadn't even felt the need to fire all arms, she thought.

Beside her, Nick had drawn his blade, a hefty, battleworn cutlass. The grapples were connected to their ropes by a good ten feet of wrought-iron chain, and Nick didn't like his chances of splitting through it with his sword, but it demanded a try. He raised the cutlass over his head and brought it down with both paws, but received nothing for his effort beyond a shower of sparks and a fresh notch in his blade.

"It's no good; we'd need a hammer and cold chisel and a team of smiths to break these," Judith groaned. Just then, however, their plan B arrived, as the leopard Harley and his crew emerged from below deck, bundles of cloth in their arms. They unrolled these onto the deck, and several short-handled lumber hatchets clattered out.

"Cut the wood around these grapples and get them off us! Hurry, we don't have long," Judith ordered. The strongest sailors took up the axes and started hacking holes in the deck, trying desperately to dislodge the snare.

Then there was a loud blast, and one axe-wielding hippo stumbled backwards in a gout of blood, crashing to the ground. A second musket ball whipped by, gouging a chunk from the railing and missing Nick by inches. They had come within range of the enemy's better shots. In response, sailors rushed to the cover of the gunwales, levelling muskets over the edge and opening fire. Suddenly the air was alive with deadly shot.

Nick leaped towards the gunwales, scooping a musket out of the paws of a felled sailor and propping it against the rail. It was about 80 yards to the enemy ship – a tough shot to take on solid ground and without return fire. Nick closed one eye and pressed his weight against the butt of the musket, his barrel following one Porcine sailor who was trying to barrel-load his musket. He held his breath.

Then he jumped, startled, as something heavy slammed down on the rail next to him. He saw the barrel of an absolutely monstrous paw-cannon, in the hands of an absolutely monstrous rhinoceros, MacHorn. The rifled barrel of his weapon must have been beyond an inch wide, and a bayonet the length and weight of a short sword tapered off its end. It bore the inscription Absentia Misereri on its stock.

Nick looked at his own paltry weapon, and glanced back at MacHorn. "Perhaps I'll leave this one in your paws?" he said with a grin. MacHorn raised one irritable eyebrow at the fox, and then sighted back towards the Tribunal. His breath paused, and the rifle exploded with fang-rattling power. On the enemy ship, one unfortunate sailor was lifted off their trotters and sent pinwheeling backwards across the deck.

Nick stared in wide-eyed shock for a moment, before shrinking back into cover as a return volley shredded the rail. MacHorn, on the other hand, simply set about reloading his beast of a firearm; evidently, he was the cover. Nick was shortly joined by Felix and a gang of four other sailors, all clutching loaded muskets to their chests.

"Alright, lads! Three provide covering fire, the other two snipe the ropes on those grapples. Aim keen and fire true; we don't have the luxury of time for missed shots. Clear?"

There was a chorus of ascent. Felix turned to Nick, fixing him with a look.

"Are you any good with that musket, Redcoat?" he asked.

"I know which end is the noisiest."

"Try to keep the enemy's lead off us for a few moments, then," growled the panther, pressing his weapon to his chest. "Covering fire!"

The three other sailors propped their muskets against the ship and fired. Nick followed suit, sighting a hog sniper who was drawing a bead on some other target. Nick held his breath and discharged his musket, and watched at the ball slapped the pig in the shoulder, knocking him sideways and out of sight. Felix rose and propped his musket against the rail, and fired it with a spray of gun smoke. The shot cut through the rope of one of the grapples protruding from the lower hull. It held for a second, before the titanic forces between the ships led the remaining threads to fray and snap. The rope went slack, splashing into the water.

But there were still nine grapples thrust into the Implacable hull, and the two ships were drawing dangerously close. Nick sprung up to find more ammunition, when something cracked violently in front of him, knocking him off his feet and sending him rolling backwards. When he came to rest, he realised a shot had bounced off his musket barrel, warping it beyond use.

"Better you than me," he gasped, and scrambled onto his feet, falling back to the cover of the masts. There he found Judith, directing sailors to the bow of the ship to lay fire on the enemy's snipers' nest.

"We'd have a better chance of breathing underwater through a mouthful of toffee than cutting free of the Tribunal!" Nick shouted. "This is going to come down to swords and axes!"

Judith was still collected, if breathing rapidly. "I want you and Felix amidships and on the very front! They'll gain the advantage if they take ground on our deck!" She spun to her Orders Officer, who kept low as a ball bounced off the mast, throwing a handful of splinters and dust into the air. "Once our cannons are loaded, have them fire on the enemy gun ports! Blow some of those lines down! Maybe we can slow the speed we're being drawn in at!"

"Wait! Wait, no!" Nick urged, catching her by the wrist.

Judith paused, looking at him in disbelief. Was this a joke? Was Nick really picking this moment to ruffle her fur?

"Severing those snares is a lost cause!" he continued. "Now you need to secure the advantage in the melee! You can do that with your cannons, but only if your timing is perfect!"

Judith glowered at him, her teeth bared, and Nick knew he was in dangerous territory, dancing a fine line between counsel and treachery. "What are you suggesting?" she growled.

"Hold your fire until we're directly aside them - until the very last possible moment - and then fire point blank at their weather deck, on every enemy sailor fool enough to be standing in the open! Shrink their numbers advantage in one fell blow! You'll blunt their sword before it's even drawn!"

Judith bit her lip, her eyes darting from left to right. This was not the time to be indecisive. She opened her mouth to speak, when a horse cry resounded out of the bedlam.

"Enemy grapeshot from the cannonades! Take cover!"

Judith gasped, grabbed Nick by his coat collar and yanked him down on top of her. A split-second later, there was a terrific cacophony, the terrible whistle of a grapeshot barrage, and a swarm of lead pellets and shredded wood detonated across the ship. Shocked screams of pain followed it shortly. When Judith opened her eyes, she found she was inches from Nick's own boggling stare, his anxious breath ruffling the fur of her neck.

"Are you alive, Captain?" he asked.

"I'm fine. On your feet, please."

They both stood quickly, Judith checking herself for injuries. She didn't find so much as a scratch. "Are you hurt?" she asked Nick. Nick spread his coat, and found the grapeshot had bitten fresh holes all through it. None of the shot had touched his body.

He grinned like a drunk fool. "See, Ma'am? I told you holes were lucky…"

Judith let out a gasp of relieved laughter, thumping Nick on the arm, and then turned to her Orders Officer. "Riley, are you still breathing?"

"They've shot holes in my wool, Captain!" the sheep roared with indignity.

"Orders for the gun crews! Hold fire until my signal! And pack the cannons with all the spare pellets and scrap they can muster!"

"Yes, Captain!" Riley gave a salute and disappeared from the deck.

"Alright, Wilde! Let's go see if these pigs care for the taste of Zoohavenite steel," Judith called, and leaped away from the gun deck, rushing amidships on agile lapine paws.

She and Nick found cover next to Felix, who was cycling muskets with another sailor who reloaded them so he could keep up a steady stream of fire.

"Captain! We're losing paws quickly! Those bloody swine are good shots!" Felix shouted.

"The Deck Paws know to take the injured below to the surgeon! Hold your position, and be ready to cut them down when they start coming over the edge!" Judith replied. She drew her pistol, an elegantly-wrought polished-walnut flintlock, and turned to Nick. "We fire as soon as they drop their gangplanks?"

"Barely a moment sooner," Nick muttered. His eye was on one Porcine sailor who, while still holding cover behind some crates, had a weighted rope in his trotter. He was spinning it, and Nick figured the pig was still testing the distance between the two ships in his mind, waiting until he was sure the grapple would make it.

"Cannons–"

"Wait!" Nick hissed. The pig was drawing back for a throw.

Felix fired his musket again, and then tossed it aside, drawing his blade and pistol. "Those pigs mean to cross to our ship!" he cried. "Ready your small arms!" Sailors all around began dropping unloaded muskets and reaching for sword handles.

Nick's pig stepped out of cover, and gave his grapple a mighty heave, sending it spinning through the air towards the Implacable's rigging.

"Now!" Nick cried.

"Fire!"

It was apocalyptic. The sound of every cannon, from the weather to lower deck, blasting towards the enemy shook the world itself. Sent pillars of smoke rocketing into the sky. Choked the sun. Shook every tooth and deafened every ear aboard the Implacable.

The assault turned the enemy deck into an abattoir - a cascade of wood splinters, scattershot and other ruinous shrapnel. The cannon balls punched through timbers with ease, sending razor-sharp fragments flying in all directions. Sailors slumped, gaping wounds in their chests. Some screamed over missing arms and legs. The pig throwing the first grapple vanished in a cloud of red mist.

Finally, the chaos ceased, and the noise of the guns was replaced by the harmonizing cries of the injured and dying, a symphony of anguish.

"Skies of fire…" Felix breathed, mouth agape. "It's the jaws of death…"

"The mouth of hell…" another sailor gasped.

"That will have shaken them, but they're far from beaten!" Judith called. "Make ready for combat!"

She was underscored by the whistle of thrown boarding ropes, hurling out of the swirling cloud of cannon smoke, catching on ropes and sails and beams, drawing taut as blood-thirsty swine, recovered from the shock of the Zoohaven tactics, readied to swing aboard.

Judith cast a quick look to Nick, who had cutlass and pistol at hand as well. "By the way, did you call me Carrots back there, Nick?" she asked.

"Uh…I wouldn't dream…"

"I'm sure I heard it."

"I might have. Yes."

"I'm going to flog you for that," she said with a smirk.

"I certainly hope I survive to be flogged," replied Nick.

Then, through the haze, Judith heard the thump of boots; saw a shape emerging, axe in one hand, the other drawing a dagger, and she raised her pistol.