Chapter Twelve
The battle didn't last much longer after that - but its spectacular final act was one that nobeast anticipated.
The rat fighters piled aboard the Scorpiontail and took up defensive positions all around the railings. The first mate Gribbon and Lutar's top lieutenant Corprew assumed an unspoken joint command of the vessel in their captain's absence, with Corprew coordinating the defenses while Gribbon concentrated on getting the craft underway and out of danger.
Urthblood's forces closed in from both sides. Now that the head of the dock was clear of the rat swarm, dozens of Gawtrybe arrayed themselves in a wide shooting arc in front of the tavern on shore, their quickly-improvised flaming arrows falling in a continuous hail upon the Scorpiontail. A few of the squirrels fell to searat arrows, but most of the shafts loosed from the pirate ship fell short, while nearly every Gawtrybe arrow found its mark.
The shooting squirrels didn't have to worry about being attacked from behind by the rats who'd been holed up in the tavern. Kurdyla and the other slaves had made it there, and were exacting a heavy toll upon their former masters. The besieged rats were too busy fighting for their very lives to give the Gawtrybe any trouble.
Meanwhile, along the northward-facing starboard railing of the searat dreadnought, Corprew had his remaining archers fire wildly at the approaching logboats. The rats were most surprised when their arrows were answered with a volley of shafts from the fleet of tiny boats. Several rats screamed and tumbled overboard, short shrew arrows protruding from their chests or necks. Otter slingstones mingled with the shrew missiles, claiming a searat or two of their own.
"What?" Corprew cried in dismay. "Shrews ain't s'posed t' be usin' arrers!"
"Guess nobeast told 'em that, 'tenant," Shuke the bosun said, and received a solid cuff across the ear for his trouble.
There came a chorus of splashes out of the night as a squad of otters dove from the logboats and stroked their way toward the Scorpiontail. The black waters hid them completely, and they were at the hull of the craft and working at it with drills and prybars and axes before the rats could do anything about it.
In spite of all this, it was looking to be a protracted and drawn-out battle of attrition in which both sides would lose many lives. Even after the shrews started lighting their own arrows afire, there were simply too many rats aboard the Scorpiontail for this tactic to be effective. No matter how many flaming shafts the Gawtrybe and shrews unleashed at their target, there was always a rat at paw to extinguish the flames before they could take and spread, regardless of where the fiery arrows fell. Perhaps the diligence with which the crewrats undertook their firefighting duties should have told the woodlanders something, but the significance of this behavior was lost in the confusion of battle.
With scores of rats to take the oars, the searats would surely be well away before the otters could successfully hole the hull enough to flood belowdecks. It was beginning to look as if Urthblood's forces would have to attack the Scorpiontail more directly, and perhaps even board her, if they wanted to prevent her from escaping. The toll in lives in such a venture would be staggering.
But Lord Urthblood had said not to leave a single rat alive, and his captains were determined to carry out those orders.
The mooring ropes were untied, the oarsrats bent their backs to their task, and the Scorpiontail began to edge away from the pier.
"Aha! There we go!" Corprew roared in victory. "We'll be away from 'ere afore they c'n damage us! Death to anybeast who comes 'tween us an' th' high seas!"
Shuke ran up to Corprew in a panic. "Lieutenant, sir, a gang o' otters attacked th' stern! We was able t' kill three or four of 'em, but they chopped off our rudder!"
"Don't we have a spare down in stores?"
"Uh, yeah, but we won't be able t' steer until we get it put on."
"Just get us away from shore!" Corprew shouted. "Once we're out on th' open main, an' no longer under attack, we c'n take as long as we please t' make repairs!"
"Er, aye aye, sir!"
The Gawtrybe on the shore, seeing the Scorpiontail starting to shift her position, crowded onto the head of the dock, but never slacked off in their volley of fiery arrows. Some rats aboard the ship were still falling under that barrage, but many more were not.
"Captain, should we go out after them?" Lieutenant Perricone asked. The squirrel archermaid obviously meant farther out along the pier, since the Gawtrybe had no way to pursue their quarry across the water as the shrews and otters could.
Matowick pursed his lips in contemplation, then nodded. "Okay, let's give our otter and shrew comrades what help we can while that ship's still in arrow range. Gawtrybe! Out onto the dock!"
He couldn't know it at the time, but Matowick's momentary hesitation had saved the lives of many of his squirrels.
It would never be known which of Captain Riveroll's otters dealt the Scorpiontail her fatal blow. It was certain that the otter in question couldn't have suspected what it was about to unleash. But somewhere along the port side of the searat ship back toward the stern, an otter's twisting awl drillbit chewed its way into a compartment containing a new weapon of the Searat King's. The steel bit hit a heavy nail in the hull, there was a spark, and the sulfur, cardon and saltpeter mixture within the compartment reacted in the only way it could.
The explosion blasted a gaping hole in the Scorpiontail's side, rocking the immense vessel clear up out of the water. Dock planks peeled away like toothpicks, and even the mostly-submerged Wavehauler swayed up and down. Corpses of otters and searats alike, caught unawares by this unexpected and impossible destruction, flew high into the night air like limp rag dolls. Flames that no army of searats could hope to extinguish quickly engulfed the stern of the dreadnought, even as she tilted prow-up and began to slip beneath the waves.
The rats who'd been belowdecks, in the rowing galley or checking for hull breaches, were mostly killed or stunned by the explosion, and very few were able to make their way topside in the time it took for the Scorpiontail to sink. But the situation there was little better, and any rat who didn't want to find itself floundering in the icy winter sea would have to literally jump ship for what was left of the dock.
Squirrels and shrews and otters and slaves and the few surviving rats in the camp all stared openmouthed at the burning, shattered ship, their ears ringing from the concussion. There was scarcely a beast among them that realized what had actually happened. In the first moments after the cataclysm, the woodland warriors worried that this might be some totally unanticipated means the searats had of defending themselves, but it quickly became apparent that the Scorpiontail herself had suffered the most from the explosion. The cause was still a total mystery, even to the creatures who'd caused it.
"What in the name of fur, tooth and bloody claw were those shrews and otters carrying with 'em?" Perricone muttered.
"Beats the brush off of me," Matowick said, "but if Lord Urthblood was gonna test out some new weapon of his on this mission, he shoulda told us!"
Saybrook, who'd stayed ashore with the squirrels after delivering his message, clapped the Gawtrybe commander on the shoulder. "Well, matey, I did say t'was all right t' burn that ship, an' it shore looks like she's burnin' just fine t' me!"
"Yeah, but at what cost?" Matowick bemoaned. "I think you just lost a lot of your mates out there, Saybrook. An' if that blast had come any later, a lot of my squirrels would have been out on this dock right alongside her when she blew."
"Well, mebbe we'll get ourselves a proper explanation after all th' dust settles," the otter captain said. "But right now, I see some business we gotta take care of first."
Well over a hundred searats - mostly fighters of Lieutenant Corprew's - had managed to clamber onto the dock from the sinking vessel. But many had lost their weapons in the explosion and the resulting stampede to abandon ship, and now milled helplessly atop the wobbling, patchwork pier.
"Don't suppose we'll get lucky and that dock will collapse all the way, taking that lot with it?" Perricone said hopefully.
"I'm not counting on it, Perri." Matowick studied the situation before him. The surviving rats were stranded on the pier; if they tried to come ashore, they would run into the Gawtrybe archers, and if they stayed where they were, the shrews and otters who'd survived the explosion would soon have them encircled. Those rats were not getting out of this either way.
"Lieutenant," Matowick said to Perricone with grim determination, "call down all the archers from the guard towers and bring them forward. We're ending this here and now."
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It was nearly midnight, and Ostrok was the last rat left alive of the more than four hundred who'd been at the mill and aboard the Scorpiontail at the start of that day.
The mill manager was holed up in his stone overseer's tower, the door barricaded with whatever furniture the portly rat could drag in front of it. All the large glass panes of the third floor office had been shot out by arrows, javelins and slingstones, but when several of the Gawtrybe climbed the tower from the outside, they found that the doorway down into the structure had also been blocked.
Urthblood's forces opted to ignore the quarantined rat for the moment, since he was clearly going nowhere. The squirrels, otters and shrews went through the tavern, pulling out any food, drink and supplies they thought might be of use, then setting fire to the saloon. It burned wonderfully.
Matowick had planned to do the same thing to the mill factory, which was now the only structure other than Ostrok's tower still standing on these grounds, but the shrew and otter captains had stayed the squirrel's paw.
"We need a field hospital," Flusk the shrew commander said, "an' we need one bad. Lotsa shrews an' even more otters got wounded when that ship blew. That mill's perfect fer it - big, well-lit, lotsa floor space t' lay 'em out an' minister to 'em, an' it'll keep out th' worst o' th' winter night's chill." Flusk glanced around at all the burning buildings, some now smoldering piles of ash. "Not that it's all that cold 'round here t'night."
The slaves standing nearby were somewhat disappointed. The mill represented all they'd been enslaved for, and they would have relished the sight of it burning to the ground. But they also recognized the needs of their rescuers, and it was true that some of the slaves who'd chosen to fight were in need of medical attention too. The mill could always be burned down another time, after its usefulness was finished.
"Yeah, did we ever find out what made that ship explode like that?" Matowick asked. "We thought maybe it was some new weapon of Lord Urthblood's ... "
Flusk shook his head. "We thought th' same thing 'bout you Gawtrybe. I assure you, we had naught but blades 'n' bows with us, plus our otters' slings 'n' javelins ... an' their tools fer dismantlin' that ship below water. One of our fire arrows musta landed in their stocks o' cookin' oil, or sumpthin' ... "
"Oil doesn't go off like that," Matowick begged to differ. "It burns, sure, but that stuff ripped apart one of Tratton's biggest attack ships in one breath. It must've been something aboard that rat vessel - something we haven't seen before. Something that Lord Urthblood really needs to be told about." He looked to Saybrook. "Has Captain Riveroll turned up yet?"
Saybrook hung his head. "Nay. An' if he coulda, he woulda, you c'n be shore o' that. Looks like we're back down t' one otter captain here, an' I'm it."
"We're still pullin' our dead outta th' water," said Flusk. "Just about every otter who was anywhere near that ship lost its life, an' Cap'n Riveroll was leadin' his team. I reckon near half 'is squad's gone."
"And I lost about a score of my squirrels," Matowick added. "Tratton had some good fighters here. It's a good thing we were able to wipe them all out. They would have been a real threat to the lands."
"We've wiped out all but one." Flusk's smoky-eyed gaze went to the stone tower standing at the center of the ruined camp.
"Ah, yes." Matowick nodded. "What to do about that one ... "
One of the Gawtrybe medics ran up to Matowick. "Excuse me, sir, but we've barely got enough medicine and cloth to deal with all the wounded ... "
"What about the spirits and napkins and tablecloths we took from the tavern?"
"They're a big help, Captain, but we really need more."
One of the former slavemice stepped forward. "Excuse me, Captain Squirrel, sir?"
The Gawtrybe commander smiled at the trepidatious beast. "My name's Matowick, friend."
The mouse returned the smile. "Mine's Wexford, and I used to play mouseservant to Ostrok sometimes. I know he keeps some spirits and medicines in his overseer's tower. And some very fine linens too."
Matowick's eyebrows shot up in interest. "Does he really now?"
"Indeed he does, sir. That's his home as well as his office, and he liked the very best."
"A rat with taste, hm? Well, we'll just have to look into this. Come along, friends." Matowick started toward the stone tower, motioning for the others to follow.
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The squirrel captain's paw fell heavily on the solid oak door. "You in there! Ostrok! Open this door!"
"No!" came the muffled reply through the firmly-barred portal. "Ye'll kill me!"
"Listen up, chum-fer-brains! You got stuff in there we need, an' we're comin' in one way or another! Now, if you make us batter an' chop our way in, we'll slay you just as a matter of principle for puttin' us to all that extra trouble. But if you cooperate, I'll be more inclined to show you mercy. Make it easy on us, an' we'll make it easy on you."
"I don't berlieve ya!" Ostrok yelled from his side of the door. "I saw what y' did to my rats out there! Ye'll slay me no matter what!"
"Not true. I'm willing to make a deal. You come out on your own, and I'll guarantee that no squirrel, otter or shrew of Lord Urthblood's army will lay a paw on you or cause you harm. You will be safe from us."
"Ye're lyin'!"
"Okay, rat. You made your grave - now lie in it!" Matowick gave the waiting Captain Saybrook a nod, and the burly otter heaved to with a large battle axe. The oak shuddered and splintered under his forceful blows.
As Saybrook pulled back for his third chop, the rat's panicked voice could be heard from within. "Wait! Wait!"
Matowick held up a paw for Saybrook to hold. "Ready to bargain now, rat?"
"You promise you 'n' yer soldiers won't hurt me if'n I open this door an' come out there?"
"I swear on my honor as a woodlander, and an officer of Lord Urthblood's forces, no soldierbeast out here will lay paw, weapon, shaft or stone upon you. No creature under my command will harm you."
"Okay. Okay, then ... gimme a moment, an' I'll be right out ... " There came the sound of scraping and banging as Ostrok cleared his improvised barricades from against the inside of the door. Matowick and Saybrook stood and waited patiently for the rotund rat to finish his labors. After what seemed an interminable period, the door finally opened, and Ostrok hesitantly stepped out into the flame-flickering winter night.
Immediately a mouse and a hedgehog moved in behind him and pinned his paws behind his back. The corpulent searat snarled at Matowick, "Hey, you swore y' wouldn't hurt me!"
"Those beasts are not under my command," the Gawtrybe captain replied coolly. "I swore only that no soldier of Lord Urthblood's would cause you harm. We did not extend you our protection from the other creatures out here. And I believe they have some unsettled issues to take up with you ... "
Ostrok cursed and spat at Matowick, but his protests trailed away to a frozen silence of terror as he saw Kurdyla the Strangler advancing inexorably upon him, manacle chains raised between his paws. The cold smile on the otter slave's face was enough to freeze the heart of even the most ferocious sea vermin.