Corsair Read Free Page A

three-masted war galley, a ship that would be equally handy under sail or oar. Geran couldn’t make out any name from where he was hiding, but the figurehead was clear—a mermaidlike creature whose fishy tail was instead a mass of kraken arms. He’d never seen anything like it. There couldn’t be too many ships on the Moonsea with that device.
    As the sun set, the pirates built a bonfire on the beach and broke out casks of wine taken from their prize. Geran judged that it was dark enough to make his way back up to where he’d left his horse. But just as he was
    about to crawl out from under the gorse, he heard a scream. From behind the hull of the pirate ship, two crewmen dragged a young woman in a fine, blue dress with a bodice of dove gray into sight and roughly tied her to the pirate vessel’s kedging anchor up on the beach. She’d been hidden on the far side of the ship from Geran’s vantage point. One of the ruffians knotted his hand in the woman’s long, golden hair, pressed his bearded face against hers, and forced a kiss. Then he reached up with his other hand and stripped her to the waist, tearing away her bodice. She snarled at him and struggled to get free, but her hands were bound behind her back. The pirate laughed and sauntered away. Geran started to draw his blade and surge from his hiding place, but he forced himself to stop and consider his actions. If he acted rashly, he could get both himself and the woman killed.
    “Ah, damn it all,” Geran muttered. “Now what do I do?” A moment ago there would have been no shame in slipping away and making sure the tale of the Sokol ship’s fate reached Hulburg. He wouldn’t have lost a moment’s sleep over leaving a scene where the murders had already taken place. But it was all too clear what a beautiful woman unfortunate enough to have been a passenger on the wrong ship could expect in the pirates’ camp. If he rode off and abandoned her to her fate, he’d hear her screams in his conscience for a long time. He had to do something. The only question was, what? He might have considered attacking a handful of enemies who weren’t expecting trouble, but there must have been sixty or seventy men on the beach and likely more he just hadn’t seen yet. Pirate vessels carried large crews so that they could overwhelm their victims through weight of numbers.
    It’ll have to be stealth, he realized. Or a diversion of some kind. I need something to take their attention away from her long enough to cut her free and spirit her away. And the longer I wait, the better—they’ll get themselves falling-down drunk if I give them the chance. But how long will they wait before they turn their attention on the woman? And are there other captives I haven’t seen yet?
    Geran waited impatiently, watching from his hiding place. The pirates tapped another cask and drank eagerly, roaring with laughter and admiring their spoils. Several times he tensed and prepared to burst out of his place of concealment when one or another of the crewmen approached the woman, but each time the pirate retreated. Finally Geran decided that the master of the pirate ship must have been saving her for himself. She was
    certainly pretty enough. She slumped with her chin down, held upright by the lashings that bound her to the anchor. He wondered who she was and how she’d come to be on the ship.
    Finally, he judged that the moment was as right as it would ever be. It was possible that more of the pirates would drink themselves into a stupor if he waited longer, but the leader might appear and rape or kill the woman at any time. Besides, Geran could see a silver glimmer to the southeast that hinted at a big, bright moon. Scowling at the foolishness of his own conscience, he slipped out of the brush and darted down to the water’s edge. There was no surf to speak of, just small wavelets less than a foot tall. Wading out into the cold darkness until he was thigh-deep in water, he crouched down and