The attack came without a trumpet blast or a battle shout.
Out of the choking white sea-fog, fifty paces off the port bow of The Iron Cormorant, three long, black shapes emerged like iron sharks gliding through milk.
They were heavy trade ring ram-skiffs. Thirty-foot timber longboats built from three-inch pine. Their flat bows were heavy with forged iron crash plates four feet high, designed to crush the planking of common fishing boats. On the thwarts of each skiff sat eight powerful oarsmen, rowing with short, rapid strokes, their oar-looms wrapped in greasy sheepskin to stifle the rattle of the rowlocks.
In the bow of the lead skiff stood Bailiff Gault, his single eye blazing with manic, yellow fury, an iron-wood crossbow clutched in his hands, his black coat flapping in the salt wind.
Behind him stood six hired blades in iron-riveted brigandines. It held long boarding pikes tipped with serrated steel hooks, and three men cradling large clay pot fire-pots. Ball-shaped jars filled with boiling pitch, turpentine, and sulfur, with smoldering hemp fuses smoking in the damp air.
“Ram the stern timber!” Gault screamed, pointing his crossbow directly at the barge’s wheelhouse. “Drive the iron through her bottom! Throw the fire-pots into the coal bunkers! Burn the dogs in the hold!”
