Another red-clothed head immediately popped over — a new arrival using her comrade as a scaling ladder. Not without a twinge, Maia brought her bill around to hook the ankle of her earlier foe, yanking the leg from its mooring. Both invaders fell … to the deck of the other ship, she hoped. Though, if they splashed between the creaking, banging hulls, she shouldn't care. The code of battle said as much. "Honest risk in honest struggle."
You're not getting Renna! That voiceless cry lent Maia strength. Adrenaline overwhelmed pain as she whirled her stave to assist the woman to her left, who had helped her the moment before. Now Thalia was corps a corps with a grim-faced reaver several centimeters taller and much heavier. Seeing no other way, Maia cut a sharp blow to the raider's thigh. The woman buckled. Taking advantage, Thalia used the yoke portion of her bill to pin her foe to the ground. An eye-flick of thanks was all she could spare.
"Virgie, watch out!"
The yell accompanied a flash overhead. Swiveling barely in time, Maia ducked a noose cast by an attacker riding one of the foe-vessel's mast spars. It was a nasty tactic that risked strangling the victim. Maia seized the dangling cord and gave a savage yank with all her might. The screaming invader fell a long time before crashing into a tangle of fellow red-bandannas.
Something changed in the roar of combat, palpably spreading from that event. The rising tide, till now fed by pressure below, seemed to lose momentum. For an instant, the rail near Maia was clear for meters in both directions. "Well done!" Naroin cried, offering Maia a grin.
There was just time for a moment's thrill before another voice — Renna's, she realized — screamed one chilling word: "Treason!"
The starman's cry made Maia glance back just in time to flinch as Thalia collided with her, backpedaling before a fierce assault. Maia's former cottage-mate desperately fended blows from an unexpected quarter, behind the defensive line. Struggling to keep her footing, Maia gasped, recognizing the assailant …
Baltha! The hireling's trepp bill whirled like the vanes of a wind generator, slapping and toying with Thalia's frenetic efforts to parry. Nor was Baltha alone in her betrayal. With a pang, Maia saw the entire squad of Southern Isles mercenaries had donned scarlet bandannas, falling on the defenders from behind. Several headed straight toward where Naroin and most of the other rads went on, blithely unaware, confidently dealing with more groping hands at the rail.
"Watch out!" Maia yelled. But her voice was overwhelmed by the roar of confused battle. Trapped behind Thalia, she knew there was nothing she could do for either of her comrades. Fractions of seconds seemed to stretch endlessly as she worked her way around writhing, struggling forms, trying to bring her own weapon up, watching helplessly as Naroin was struck from behind with an unsporting head shot that toppled the small woman like a poleaxed steer.
Maia yelled in rage. She found her opening and launched herself at the bosun's assailants in a fury, catching one with a belly blow that sent her to the deck, gasping. The other southerling parried Maia's strike and fought back with an expression that shifted from grimness to amusement as she recognized the young fiver who liked playing men's games.
The ironic smile faded as Maia attacked in a blur of energetic, if inexpert blows, driving the traitor away from Naroin's crumpled form, step by step, right up to the port-side rail.
More red bandannas appeared. Maia managed to slash one pair of hands a glancing stroke while still pressing her attack on the turncoat. The hands fell away, to be replaced by others. This time a younger face, soot-stained, flushed with heat and adrenaline, hove into view.
Maia blocked a heavy buffet from her chief opponent's bill, and caught it in the yoke-hook of her own. Twisting with all her strength, she managed to yank her foe's trepp away.
That face …
To evade Maia's followup, the panicked southerling flung herself over the railing. Maia wasted no time swiveling to divert her strike at the newcomer now struggling to bring her own weapon up.
Maia froze, halting as if she had been quick-frozen. Sweat-blinded, save through a crimson-rimmed tunnel of terror and wrath, she peered at the face — a mirror to her own.
"Le … Le …" she goggled.
Recognition also lit the young reaver's eyes. "I'll be a bleedin' clan-mother," she said with a wry, familiar smile. "It's my atyp twin."
Too stunned to move, Maia heard Renna's voice shouting through her muzzy shock. But Leie's presence filled every space, engulfing her brain. Glancing past Maia's shoulder, her sister said, "You better duck, honey."
Slowly, glacially, Maia tried to turn.
There was a distant crumping tumult of polished wood striking somebody's skull. She had come to know the nuances of such sounds, and pitied the poor victim.
