Vampire Armada (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 7) by Dan Davis

Author:Dan Davis [Davis, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2019-11-23T03:00:00+00:00

11. The Straits

1578

The Cape of Virgins, they called it. A more inappropriate name will never be found. By God, it looked frightening. Columns of jagged grey-black rocks jutting up from the sea in a series of sharp promontories, with shards like sharks’ teeth descending into the waves away from them, as if the cliffs were about to rise up from beneath our hulls and rip us to pieces.

I am certain that we all felt a profound sense of dread as we inched closer, taking soundings with every yard.

What Drake felt, though, was not dread at what the seas would throw at us. He felt the dread of the crew and he was ever sensitive to their emotions, reading them like a book and playing them like the virginals. And so he called a stop before we rounded that cape, commanded our guns fire a salute to the queen, held a service on the decks with much kneeling and praying, and then rechristened the Pelican. From that moment on, it would be known as the Golden Hind.

“Why the Golden Hind?” I asked him afterwards.

He shrugged. “That is the family crest of Sir Christopher Hatton. He was one of the first on the Privy Council who gave us our support and it can do no harm to show our continued loyalty by this.”

I nodded slowly. “And Hatton is a good friend to Doughty, so you wish to fend off some of the anger he may feel about what we have done.”

“You disapprove?”

“Quite the opposite,” I replied. “You are far shrewder at this sort of thing than I have ever been. Some of my friends tell me I am too proud while others say I am too foolish.”

He smiled. “And which is it?”

“I have had many centuries now to come to terms with being a proud fool. But I like this. A new name, a fresh start. It is a fine idea.”

“And a cannonade to blast the old away and welcome the new.” Staring up, he started at some sign in the rigging or the sails that I could not see. “See now, sir, the wind favours us finally and we can begin.”

He turned and called out to the master, rushing aft, and soon we began to enter the shark mouth of the strait. I clung to the side and stayed out of the way until I was needed to haul on a rope or perform some other task. We crept forward, with every man not actively engaged in sailing instead peering over the side at the shoals, ensuring that we stayed in the centre of the channel. Our other ships came on behind in single file, the only sounds the creaking of the rigging and the calling out and relaying of the depth. After passing the cape, we found the land to either side low and flat but soon the land came closer and closer until we were passing through two sets of narrows with less than a league of water from bank to bank.

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