Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,354

the truth, even if all of Avon and a hundred dragons rose against the invaders, there was no turning back.

CHAPTER 25

THE STRAITS OF MANN

THE UGLY LITTLE YELLOW PONY skittered right, and then left, working hard to compensate for the rocking motion of the rough sea. Oliver seemed quite content up on Threadbare’s back, though. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes bright, a far contrast from his last sea voyage, which he spent mostly at the rail.

“My horse, he likes the water,” the halfling quipped to Katerin, whenever she happened by. She merely shook her head in disbelief.

The woman had little time to pause and consider the always-curious halfling, though, for the ship, Dozier’s Dream, and the forty others sailing about it, would soon round a bend along the northwestern coast of Avon, moving into the narrowest part of the Straits of Mann. The stronghold of Eornfast lay less than twenty miles across the channel and Mannington just a few miles more on this side of the dark waters.

The lead ship, barely two hundred yards ahead of Dozier’s Dream, hadn’t even fully executed the turn when the enemy was revealed. Balls of flaming pitch streamed through the air, sputtering into the water all about the leading Eriadoran vessels. Crews tacked hard, turning out to the wider waters, dropping the sails to battle mast on those ships that could not escape.

“Katerin, to me!” cried old Phelpsi Dozier from the wheel.

Katerin rushed over to join with the weathered old mariner. This was his ship, the command given out of respect to Port Charley’s oldest sailor, but Phelpsi was wise enough to understand and admit to his limitations. “Get ’em ready!” he said to Katerin. The old man paused when he glanced behind the woman, and like Katerin, shook his head. “And will ye get down from that stupid pony!” he yelled at Oliver.

“Horse!” Oliver corrected, and when Threadbare, as though the pony understood the old man’s insults, stomped hard on the deck, the halfling promptly added, “And my Threadbare is not stupid!”

Most of the ships were turning to the west, putting out away from the coast, and as they sailed around the bend, Katerin saw the truth of their enemy. At least as many Avon sails were up to match the Eriadorans, forty to fifty war galleons, no doubt all manned by experienced crews, cyclopian and human. Katerin’s fellows were skilled seaman, but only a handful in the entire Eriadoran fleet had ever waged battle upon ships of this size and caliber.

Where they were lacking in skill, though, the Eriadorans were determined to make up in sheer courage. So it was then for Katerin. She saw many ships turning out, and many Avon ships angling to intercept. The leading Eriadoran galleon on this side of the channel, though, would soon be surrounded, with nowhere to run. The ship took a flaming hit, then another, and the crew was soon too busy battling fires to consider the fast-closing Avonese warships.

Katerin called for full sail, straight on.

From his unusually high vantage point, Oliver saw what she meant to do, and recognized the risk that the woman of Hale was so willingly accepting. “Why do I always pick crazy-type peoples for my friends?” the halfling lamented.

“So says the halfling sitting on a pony on the deck of a ship,” Katerin was quick to reply.

“Horse,” Oliver corrected.

“If you sit up there that you might look important, then act important,” Katerin scolded. “Put the archers in line, port side, and tell them to hold their shots until we’re close enough to jump across. Same for the catapult crew!”

Oliver nodded, then paused, staring blankly at Katerin.

“The left side,” the woman explained.

“I knew that,” Oliver remarked, gingerly turning Threadbare about and clip-clopping off down the deck.

“Left,” Katerin said again after him.

The lead Eriadoran exchanged heavy fire—catapult, ballista, and bow—with two Avon ships, one on either side. None of the three were sailing; none dared unfurl a sail in that barrage of bolt and flame. The rough tide battered the outer Avon ship the hardest, that one being to the starboard of the Eriadoran and thus the farthest out from the coast. Waves rolled against the Avonese relentlessly, driving both it and the Eriadoran toward shore and forcing all three of the ships even closer together.

Katerin tried to gauge her distance, and the speed of the drifting trio. She honestly didn’t know if she could get between the Eriadoran and the Avon ship closest to shore.

“Ye’ve got the courage of a