Free Voyage of the Fox Rider by Dennis L. McKiernan

Man aloft in a crow’s nest, skimming the top of this lost cloud, and he’s guiding them, sighting upon our rigging jutting up out of the mist.”
    “Vash!”
hissed Aravan, his voice low. “Where away and how far?”
    Yon
, indicated Jatu, a point or two aft of starboard. “Mayhap a candlemark at the rate they move.”
    “Well, there’s nothing for it then except to stand and fight. Even so, wert thou sighted, Jatu? Nay? Hai, then they may yet believe to surprise us, knowing not that we know of them. Take two Men and ease the anchor back gently to the bottom.”
    Aravan strode down the line, coming to wing-helmed Bokar. “Armsmaster, ready the boarding ropes and a corvus or three. We shall carry the fight to them.”
    Through his red beard Bokar grinned fiercely, his dark eyes alight, then passed the word to his Dwarven fightersas well as to all the Men. Yardarm ropes were loosed from their belaying pins, there on the starboard side, warriors and sailors grasping the lines. And in three separate places, broad, lengthy planks ending in long curving hooks were affixed to the
Eroean
’s toprail, devised to fall as would a drawbridge—the iron hooks set to grasp the enemy vessel—each plank a corvus for invading ship to ship.
    Again Aravan strode the length of the line. “Down and hide, let them draw alongside thinking we yet sleep.”
    Moments passed, and now all could hear the stealthy dip of oars. And through the runoffs they could see a vague shape darkly loom forth from the fog, drawing alongside the larger
Eroean
. Yet at last an obscure silhouette could be discerned: it was a two-masted junk, high sterned and low prowed, raised lugsails fore and aft with battens running across.
    “Wait,” breathed Aravan to the Dwarven armsmaster.
    Now the junk came up amidships, and at a soft command the vessel’s oars were shipped as the rowers ceased rowing and took up weaponry, and on her decks could dimly be seen moving figures readying for boarding.
    With a muffled
thmp-tmp
of fenders between, softly the hull of the junk came into cushioned contact with her intended prey.
    “Wait,” breathed Aravan yet again.
    Thnk
. A cloth-wrapped grapnel was lobbed up over the
Eroean
’s rail, swiftly followed by three more, and the junk was haled snug and cinched against the hull of the Elvenship.
    “Now,” hissed Aravan—“Now!” roared Bokar—
NOW!
howled all the crew—and with thunderous crashes the boarding bridges slammed down on the decks of the pirate vessel, long iron corvine claws clutching and holding, trapping the coastal raider against the
Eroean
’s hull. And bellowing the ancient Dwarven battle cry—
“Châkka-shok! Châkka-cor!”
—a shout echoed by all the Dwarves—axe in hand Bokar thundered down and across a fog-shrouded bridge, giant Jatu at his back, with Aravan in his grey leathers swinging on a rope above them like a ghost in the mist, steel glimmering in theElf’s grasp, while at one and the same time, with bloodcurdling shouts and savage wordless cries, Dwarven warriors and Human sailors, weapons clenched, charged across the spans or swung through the mist-laden air on yardarm ropes to assail the beclouded Jūngarian ship.
    Bokar slammed into a mass of shocked reavers, the Dwarf’s double-bitted axe reaping foe, cleaving flesh, blood flying, while Jatu’s warbar smashed pirates aside, skulls crushed, bones broken. Like some mist-wrapped demon, Aravan hurtled out from the fog to land square on the poop deck, the grey cloud swirling, mist tendrils clinging, his sword licking out to fell the startled steersman. The Elf turned in time to fend a whistling blow from a tulwar wielded by a cursing swarthy Man, the pirate in a leather vest, copper plates sewn thereon.
Shing, shang
, skirled steel on steel, and Aravan pressed the enemy hindward, the Man to topple howling over the taffrail and fall yowling into the sea below.
    The mass of the
Eroean
’s crew poured aboard the junk and hurled the