“Help!” cried the fellow in the water, grasping upward. He was trying to climb the piling, but slipped on it. He could not reach the surface of the remains of the walkway. The piece of broken walkway which had been to the right was now back, a few feet from the torn end of the walkway, floating in the inner harbor.
“Stop!” I ordered the approaching Cosians.
They, puzzled, stopped.
The fellow whose leg I had cut was backing away, toward his fellows, limping. Blood flowed down his leg, running among, and over, the thongs of the high, bootlike sandal he wore. His retreat could be traced in the trail of blood on the walkway.
I put down my shield on the walkway, and extended my hand down to the fellow in the water. There were fewer fish about now, I was sure, but I did not think he would be likely to thrash alone for more than a moment or two. I could already see two dark shapes beneath him.
“Do not move,” said the officer to his men.
The man in the water, frenzied with terror, his eyes bulging, seized my hand and I drew him to his stomach, to the walkway. He lay there on the drenched boards, trembling. I do not think I could have managed this as little as a quarter of an Ahn earlier. I think it likely he would then have been seized in the jaws of some fish or other, perhaps one of the visitors from the river, drawn eastward by the traces of blood in the water.
I then stepped back, and faced the Cosians, some yards toward the landing.
The officer lifted his sword to me, in salute. I returned this salute. The men with him smote with their steel on their shields. I acknowledged their tribute as well.
“On my own authority,” called the officer, “and at my own risk, that of my life for yours, should this not be found meet by Aristimines, I again offer you the gold of Cos!”
I sheathed my sword. “I am not taking fee today,” I said.
“Lower spears,” said the officer to his men. “Swordsmen, flank.”
I turned, suddenly, then, and ran to the end of the walkway. There I leapt from the walkway out, over the water, to the piece of half-submerged wreckage, cut from the walkway. It sank down a foot or two into the water, but then rose up, again. A moment or so later a dozen or so Cosians crowded the charred end of the walkway. None of them, as I had anticipated, cared to attempt the same leap. I had had a running start. I had known where the wreckage was. I had kept it in mind. I did not think that one of them, given the crowding on the walkway, would attempt the same leap. If he did, and managed to reach the wreckage, I would be waiting there, sword drawn. My ankles were under water. The force of my leap had thrust the piece of wreckage out further, toward the piers. The men on the walkway and I regarded one another. Several lifted their weapons in salute. I lifted my hand, too, to them. It was, I suppose, one of the odd moments that sometimes occur in war, one of those moments in which the rose of gallantry suddenly emerges from the background of danger and blood. A great, long body suddenly emerged from the water and lay half on the wreckage. With my foot I thrust it back into the water. I saw some small craft from the landing approaching, with crossbowmen in them. But then, too, I saw the rowers of these small vessels, rest on their oars. About the piece of wreckage on which I stood, then, were small boats from the piers. On one of them I saw the young fellow with the crossbow. No quarrels were exchanged. I stepped from the wreckage into one of the small boats. We then put about, and I was rowed slowly toward the piers.
20
The Piers
I climbed from the small boat to one of the piers.
Men lifted their weapons, saluting me.
“Come with me,” said a fellow.
I passed among wounded men. I saw there, Marsias, the grizzled fellow, the men who had originally stood with me on the walkway, and many others. I passed, too, among many women and children.
I was conducted into the presence of Aemilianus.
“You did well, to hold the walkway, you and others,” said Aemilianus.
He was sitting on a pier, propped up against some boxes. These piers are the main harbor piers, between the inner harbor, that between them and the citadel landing, and the outer harbor, which leads to the river. The outer harbor, now, of course, was blocked, a few hundred yards out, with the chain of rafts and, behind them, five ships.
“These would be dead now,” said he, gesturing about himself, “had you and those with you not done so.”
I looked back to the walkway in the distance, across the inner harbor. “The standard of Cos now surmounts it,” I said.
“You held it for the time that was needed,” said Aemilianus, “the time required to seal off the piers.”
It interested me that Cos would bother setting its standard there, at the end of that charred walk, jutting out toward the piers. Apparently we had made it mean something to them.
I looked back, too, to the citadel, and the city. The citadel was afire. Fires, too, still, after all these days, burned in the city.
“You are not Marsias,” said a man to me. “Who are you?”
“Ar’s Station is gone,” I said to Aemilianus.
“No,” he said. “Its Home Stone survives.”
“It was taken from the city?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Weeks ago it was smuggled from the city, and sent south to Ar, where, if all went well, it must now be.”
“So long ago,” I said, “you did not expect relief from Ar?”
“I was right,” he said, bitterly.
I nodded. One does not keep secret the siege of a city such as Ar’s Station. It was one of the largest of the ports on the Vosk. Too, anyone can read a calendar.
“You maintained a brave front,” I said.
“And what would you have done, had you been commander in Ar’s Station?”
I shrugged. “Much the same, I suppose,” I said.
“So,” said Aemilianus, “though I did continue to hope, I would not risk the Home Stone. I sent it south.”
“By tarnsman?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Cos controls the skies. I sent it south in the wagon of a tradesman, Septimus Entrates.”
“It may have escaped notice, then,” I said, “among the innumerable wagons, the carts, the strings of refugees, and such, fleeing south.”
“That is my hope,” he said.
It seemed to me that I might, somewhere, have heard the name, Septimus Entrates. But then one hears many names, thousands of names, here and there.
“Cos,” said a man, “prepares to attack.”
“From both sides?” asked Aemilianus.
“It would seem so,” said a fellow. “The chain of rafts has been opened in three places. The ships of Cos now enter the harbor. Too, there are other rafts from the river. Rafts, and boats, too, are now coming out from the landing.”
“The Cosians will spend time in barrages of fire,” said Aemilianus, “from the boats, from the rafts. The sky will be dark with their metal. Use the bodies of the slain, and the wounded, as shields.” He did not tell them to tear boards from the piers themselves, to construct makeshift hurdles and barricades. Perhaps that could be done later, but now this would, interestingly, have dismantled the very platform on which we stood, so crowded they were. Indeed, it would be difficult to use weapons here, except in thrusting. “When the Cosians ascend the piers themselves,” continued Aemilianus, “we will meet them, with what men we still have, and make them pay for every board they cross. Carry me now to the side facing the inner harbor.”
“But you are wounded,” said his aide.
“Of course, you fool,” said Aemilianus, angrily. “What do you think? Do you think I would have given an order I would not be willing, under similar circumstances, to obey? My body, as it is wounded, will serve as a shield in the fighting. It is all that it is good for now.”
“We need Aemilianus, our commander,” said a man, “not a body for a shield.”
Aemilianus tried, angrily, to rise to his feet.
At the same instant, from beneath th
e bandage bound about his body there emerged a bright, fresh stain of crimson.
Aemilianus sank back, to a sitting position. “Surilius,” said he. “The sword, use it now. Then there will be no more quibbling about bodies and shields.”
“No, Commander,” said he.
“I have never known you to refuse an order,” said Aemilianus, puzzled.
“If there must be a body for a shield, use mine, instead,” he said. He drew his own sword.
“No, old friend!” begged Aemilianus.
He called Surilius stood ready to pierce his own heart with his sword.
“You,” said Aemilianus, lifting his hand to me. “Strike me with your sword.”
“I am weary,” I said.
“Draw my own sword,” he begged. “Hold it, that I may throw myself upon it.”
“No,” I said.
“No?” said Aemilianus.
“I am not of Ar’s Station,” I said. “Do not presume to command one who has no fondness for either Ar or Ar’s Station.”
“But you have fought for us!” said Aemilianus.
“I saw things that did not please me,” I said, “and I have fought, but so, too, might a tarn fly and a kaiila run.”
Men shuddered. Warriors, it is said in the codes, have a common Home Stone. Its name is battle.
“Your word, Surilius,” protested Aemilianus, turning again to the aide, his friend.
“My word is sacred to me,” said Surilius, “but so, too, are the terms of my word, and they require only that I do not permit you to fall, when you yourself could not avoid it, into the hands of Cosians. Then, but then only, am I prepared to strike.”
“You are a good soldier,” said Aemilianus. “I beg your forgiveness, my friend.” He then grimaced. Fresh blood appeared again beneath the bandage, running to his waist.
“Let him rest,” I said.
A fellow lowered Aemilianus to the boards, amidst the feet about him.
Aemilianus lifted his hand to his friend.
“I will be at your side,” said Surilius.
“They are coming,” said a fellow. “There must be a hundred rafts and boats, from both sides.”
“It will not be long now, will it, dear friend,” said Aemilianus.
“No, dear friend,” said Surilius, “I do not think it will be long now.”
“Look off there,” said a fellow, pointing toward the harbor. “I did not know they had so many ships.”
“What!” I said.
“There,” said the man pointing, out toward the river.
I could see, out beyond the wall of chained rafts, opened now in three places, a flotilla of sails, long and low, triangular, sloping, those of lateen-rigged galleys.
“They are coming for the kill,” said a man.
“Where is a glass,” I cried, “a builder’s glass, a glass of the builders!”
Even as we watched we saw the sail of the first ship furled to its sloping yard and the yard swung, parallel to the keel, and lowered. In a moment the mast, too, had been lifted, and lowered. The other ships followed suit. The hair on the back of my neck rose. These are preparations of galleys for entering battle. They would now be under oar power alone. It was hard now to even see the ships at the distance. Those were not round ships. They were long ships, ramships. They were shallow drafted, low, like knives in the water.
“Bring me a glass!” I cried.
“A glass!” called more than one man.
“One of the ships of Cos is putting about,” said a man.
“I do not understand,” said another.
“See them come,” said another fellow.
“How many are there?” said another.
“Where could Cos find such ships?” asked another.
“The Cosians on the rafts and boats are approaching,” said another. “In a moment they will open fire.”
We saw a tarnsman streaking by, coming from the direction of the river, in flight over the piers, speeding toward the landing, or the citadel.
“Shields to the edges of the piers!” called out Surilius. He had drawn his sword.
Women and children huddled toward the center of the piers, crouching down. Many of the women had their heads down, clutching children, shielding them with their own bodies. There was very little noise.
“Here is a glass,” said a fellow. I lifted the apparatus to my eye. In a moment or two I had adjusted it, and had it trained on the flagship of the approaching flotilla. I sought the flag tugging and snapping on the stem line, run between the bow and the stem castle. Then I lowered the glass, closing it.
“What are their colors?” asked a man.
“It is the blue of Cos,” I said.
I saw Surilius, grasping his sword, look down at the unconscious figure of Aemilianus.
“Cos does not have such force on the river,” said a man.
“Look at the fellows on the rafts out there,” said another fellow.
“They seem to be in great agitation,” said a man.
“May I look?” asked a fellow.
I handed him the glass.
Quickly he looked out at the mouth of the harbor. The ships were closer now. Now one could clearly see the blue fluttering at the stem line of the flagship.
“That is not the flag of Cos!” he cried.
“Surely then it is a variant of the flag of Cos,” I said, “perhaps the flag of their forces on the river.”
“It is the flag of Port Cos!” he cried. “It is the flag of Port Cos!”
“The flag of Port Cos!” cried others.
“What does it matter, then?” I asked. “Port Cos is a colony of Cos, the very citadel of her power on the Vosk.”
“The topaz!” cried a man.
“The topaz! The topaz!” cried others, hundreds of voices.
Surilius was shaking Aemilianus, trying to arouse him. Tears were flowing from his eyes. “The topaz!” he cried to Aemilianus. “Marcus got through! It is Calliodorus, of Port Cos! It is the pledge of the topaz!”
“I do not understand,” I said.
Suddenly I saw the flagship, knifing through an opening in the chain of rafts, literally sheer oars from the side of the Cosian ship put about in the harbor. I then saw another Cosian ship rammed amidships. The other three Cosian ships were trying to make a landfall at the sides of the harbor. I saw one run aground there, by a guard station. The fellows at the rafts were trying to close the chains, to close the harbor. I then saw four or five of the ram ships, their bows high, the rams out of the water, dripping water into the harbor, literally ride over, scraping and sliding, the rafts, and plunge into the harbor. The crews of the other two Cosian ships which had been in the harbor, those not injured, and that not run aground, leapt over the sides, and, waist deep, waded to shore. I saw some other ships draw alongside the chains, and men swarm out onto the rafts. The Cosians that had been there fled before them. There remained the three openings, then, in the chain of rafts. Indeed, two trains of rafts now floated untethered in the harbor, and the other two trains floated loose, fastened only at one end, each still fastened to great pilings driven into the sand near guard stations, one on each side of the harbor. Out in the harbor itself the small boats and rafts of Cosians which had been approaching to attack were now hurrying to the shore, to one side or another, to take shelter near the most convenient guard station. One ship after another of the newcomers then entered the harbor. The flagship, even now, was easing itself against the outer pier.
“I do not understand what is going on,” I said. “What is all this about a topaz?”
“You are then indeed a stranger to Ar’s Station, and to the river,” said a fellow. “The pledge of the topaz was originally an agreement between river pirates, a pledge of mutual assistance and, in crisis, alliance, between them, those of the eastern and western Vosk, between Policrates in the east and Ragnar Voskjard in the west. When the ports of the river, and their men, rose up against the predations, the tolls and tributes, of these pi
rates, the topaz fell into the hands of the victorious rebels. From such fighting came the formation of the Vosk League.”
I knew something of the Vosk League. Its headquarters was in the town of Victoria, on the northern bank of the Vosk, between Fina and Tafa. Due to its patrols and presence piracy, and certainly large-scale, institutionalized piracy, had been largely removed from the Vosk, from east of White Water, near Lara, a town of the Salerian Confederation at the confluence of the Vosk and Olni, to the delta.
“But a topaz is a stone,” I said, “a kind of semiprecious stone.”
“And such a stone is the symbol of the pledge,” said the fellow. “It was originally a quite unusual stone, one which bore in its markings and coloration a remarkable configuration, that of a river galley. The stone was broken, however, into two pieces. One does not see the ship in the separate parts of the stone for the isolated marks and colorings seem meaningless. When the parts are joined, however, the ship appears. One part of the stone was originally held by Ragnar Voskjard, chief of pirates in the west, and the other by Policrates, chief of pirates in the east. Each, when in need of counsel or support, would send his part of the stone to the other. They would then join forces.”
“What has the topaz to do with the Vosk League?” I asked.
“It has nothing to do with the Vosk League itself,” said the fellow. “It is now a private pledge between Port Cos and Ar’s Station.”
“But the sympathies of Port Cos are surely with her mother ubarate,” I said, “and those of Ar’s Station with Ar.”
I could see several galleys now drawing up at the piers. Men with shields leapt from them to the piers, hurrying to the sides facing the inner harbor. Cosians attempting to climb to the piers there would encounter fresh, dangerous armed men, in hundreds.
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