He spun around, his voice more urgent than ever. "They're keeping us tied down here. Kago's main force has probably already gone after our base."
Jorah's face went deathly pale. His Lynesse was still at Torturer's Deep.
"Torturer's Deep is easy to defend and hard to attack. Could they really take it?"
Jorah gradually calmed down and began to reason it out.
"There are only a thousand defenders at Torturer's Deep right now! Kago must think we've sailed out in full force and left it undefended."
Liu Qian spoke rapidly. "Turn back immediately. Return at full speed."
He shouted the order toward Rollo's squadron up ahead, and the signalman immediately raised the flags for an emergency retreat.
The fleet hastily changed course in the darkness. Heavy oars thrashed the sea, carving urgent white wakes as the ships raced desperately toward Torturer's Deep.
An inky darkness hung over the sea. The stars were sparse, and thick clouds hid the moon. Only the lights at the bows flickered in the boundless night, like feeble fireflies.
Distant islands and reefs cast ghostly silhouettes in the darkness, rising and falling with the waves.
Liu Qian stood on the sterncastle and forced himself to calm down, his mind racing through every move Kago might make.
The defenses at Torturer's Deep... Jelena holding command... Kago's cunning... An even more frightening thought surfaced.
"No!" Liu Qian's voice cut through the tension. "Kago might not be attacking Torturer's Deep at all. Even with only a thousand men, Jelena could hold out for a while behind our reinforced defenses. If they storm Torturer's Deep and we come back to reinforce it, they'll be trapped in the cleft channel, caught between us. They'd be doomed."
A flicker of understanding crossed Jorah's clouded eyes, and he blurted out, "You mean... we're their real target? They're waiting to ambush us on the way back?"
"Exactly." Liu Qian's gaze swept the dark sea, sharp as a blade. "Rollo, along the fastest route back to Torturer's Deep, where would be the best place for an ambush?"
Rollo was already beside the chart. By the faint lamplight, his finger darted toward a marked location. "Tidal Reef, my lord. We passed it on the way here today... At high tide during the day, the water there is deep enough for ships to pass, but when the tide goes out at night..."
Rollo broke off. His cloudy old eyes widened, and he sucked in a breath. "At low tide tonight, a whole stretch of submerged reefs will be exposed. It becomes a natural hiding place for an ambush."
"Precisely."
A cold smile curled Liu Qian's lips. "So Shipbreaker isn't a complete fool after all. He wants to wait here for us to walk into his trap? Pass the order: hard to starboard. Avoid the main channel and circle around the outside. I'm going to hit him from behind."
Under Rollo's precise guidance, the fleet changed course silently in the darkness like a band of ghosts. They made a wide circuit and approached Tidal Reef from the rear flank.
Tidal Reef.
The night was black as ink, and the vast reef had revealed its savage face with the falling tide.
Jagged black rocks pierced the sea like the fangs of some ancient beast, gleaming cold and wet beneath the faint moonlight.
Dozens of oared ships of varying sizes lay motionless, like venomous snakes lurking in the shadows of the rocks.
The five largest warships, each with two banks of oars, resembled five silent sea beasts. On one particularly tall sterncastle, the hulking figure of Kago the Shipbreaker almost blended into the darkness.
He was bare-chested, gripping a heavy double-bladed battle-axe. Its edges occasionally flashed coldly in the shadows.
"Kago, shouldn't they be here by now?" A wiry leader clad in leather armor approached him, grumbling impatiently.
Kago glared viciously at him with his remaining right eye, but his mouth split into a cruel grin, revealing yellowed teeth. "What's the hurry? Our ships have those young pups tied down over at Razor Reef, running around like headless chickens. Be patient. When they come rushing home in a panic and sail straight into our arms... heh heh..."
He hefted the battle-axe in his hand. "I'll use their hull planks to make a few new oars for our fleet."
The scrawny man chuckled too. "You really are a clever one. They'll think we've gone after their base and rush back in a panic. They'd never dream we're waiting right on the route they have to take home. Once we smash and sink a few of their ships, the rest... will be ours to slaughter, won't they?"
As the two spoke in low voices, imagining the slaughter to come, a vast shadow emerged soundlessly from the deep water off the reef's rear flank, like a silent ghost.
It was Liu Qian's main fleet.
Under cover of the rocks and the darkness, they had already completed their flanking maneuver.
"Fire!"
Liu Qian's icy voice rang out from the sterncastle of the Crab's Nest. The signalman slashed his command flag downward.
Whooo-whummm!
Shrill whistles tore through the silence of the night.
The catapults, primed and ready, gave deep roars. Heavy stone shot screamed through the darkness and slammed into the densely packed enemy ships deep within the reef.
At the same time, bolts as thick as a man's arm shot from the heavy ballistae with terrifying force, shrieking toward the enemy ships' masts and waterlines with deadly accuracy.
Boom! Crack! Thunk!
Disaster struck in an instant.
A massive stone smashed through the middle of a Cleftjaw Island ship's mast. The heavy sail and rigging crashed down, crushing the men beneath them to pulp.
A heavy ballista bolt punched through the side of a two-banked warship at the waterline, and seawater poured in.
Chaos engulfed the reef. Screams rose everywhere, the sounds of rupturing hulls, splintering wood, and dying moans weaving together into a symphony from hell.
The sudden attack left Kago stunned, then filled him with towering rage.
"Enemy attack! It's the bastards from Torturer's Deep! They've circled around us! Warriors, don't fucking panic! Ram them! Sink them!"
His face twisted with fury, his lone eye instantly bloodshot as he roared like a beast. The ferocity bred into the Cleftjaw Island pirates was unleashed.
Ramming was the tactic that had earned Kago his name: Shipbreaker.
The bows of his warships carried long, reinforced, bronze-clad rams with sharp points, and their hulls had been specially strengthened.
At his roar, the surviving Cleftjaw Island ships sprang into action like wounded, maddened sharks. The oarsmen howled desperately, their oars spinning like wheels as the ships turned. Ignoring the danger of the rocks, they charged out of the chaotic reef at astonishing speed, hurtling toward Liu Qian's fleet with a savage willingness to die alongside their enemies,
closing in.
They aimed straight for the relatively vulnerable oared ships, intent on ripping apart the enemy line by the most brutal means possible.
Liu Qian stood on the sterncastle, his keen, hawklike gaze sweeping rapidly over the charging enemy fleet as he searched for Kago's flagship.
The Dragonbone Bow was already in his hand, its cold frame pulsing with a hunger for battle.
If he could just lock onto that hulking figure, one arrow would end the battle.
But at that very moment, a thick bank of clouds completely obscured the already faint moonlight. The sea plunged into deeper darkness, and the enemy ships became indistinct silhouettes, difficult to tell apart.
Damn it! Liu Qian cursed inwardly.
The Dragonbone Bow's black arrows were far too precious to waste on a blind shot with no certainty of hitting.
As Kago's fleet surged closer like a raging tide, its sharp rams flashing with a deadly chill in the darkness, Liu Qian knew a head-on boarding battle was now unavoidable.
"Jorah, Rollo, prepare to board! Fight to the death! No retreat!"
His roar drowned out the howling sea wind.
Before you continue