Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29]

by Alan Burt Akers

  “We're lit up like puppets on a stage,” grumbled Pompino.

  A huge midriff bumped me and Chandarlie craned to get a better look. He was wheezing like a runner dragging his feet out of mud at every stride. His eyes screwed up as he measured distances. If our vessel could be swung at precisely the right moment we stood a good chance of letting the swordship overrun us and of smashing up his oars. Chandarlie poised, watchful as a hawk above a sparrow.

  If the maneuver was not carried out correctly, by employing the headsails rather than the rudder, the argenter would simply present her quarter and beam to be rammed. Maybe, I was thinking, just maybe it might be better not to try to be clever and swing at all—just let the fellow's rostrum go into our stern and hope it would be forced down below us. He could be swamped, then...

  “Now!” bellowed Chandarlie.

  In the midst of drawing and loosing, of picking likely targets and moving with the swing of the vessel, the first sideways swing went unnoticed. Then the ram of the swordship veered away, the foam of water spouted up. A rock hit the wood near us and splinters flew. A shriek from aloft and a heavy thump on the planking told of one poor devil who'd been shafted on our sterncastle.

  Had Linson's topmen been quick enough—had he backed his main topsail and maincourse, and thus, in taking way off us suddenly, allowed the swordship to swoop past and smash up his oars—had this happened we might have gotten away with it. But the helmsman, no doubt hoping to hasten the swing of the vessel, put just too much rudder into the evolution. It happened very rapidly. One moment we were sensing the swing, watching the bow of the swordship and the cluster of prijikers there, the next the whole ship shook with the crunch of the ram hitting us.

  If the swordship skipper observed our movements and compensated by turning into us must remain conjectural. I grabbed for support, regained my feet, and saw the whole howling mob of warriors come swarming inboard.

  “Hit ‘em!” Murkizon foamed and roared into action.

  There was a dead feel to Tuscurs Maiden. We met and fronted that first savage attack. Swords blurred down. It was hard brutal work in the confines of the after castle. We had a great advantage in that the attackers must force their way through the ports. We cut them down as they strove to gain entrance. In a sudden and deathly affray we stopped them and flung the remnants back. Murkizon peered out, ignoring a few shafts that winged toward us.

  “By the Tangled Lice-Ridden Hair of the Divine Lady of Belschutz,” he raved. “I'll settle your hash for you, you—!"

  With that he leaped bodily onto the small forecastle of the swordship. Pompino, shoving forward and whirling his bloody sword, leaped after. The Rapa pressed up. There was little I could do but follow. We had smashed their first attack, now we could carry the fight to them. We stood a good chance of smashing them utterly.

  So, over the stern I went and down onto the swordship's forecastle. The jump was steep. I landed agilely enough, but a rolling lurch of the ship toppled me forward. Pompino's sword flashed above my head. I rolled, hacked the legs from under a fellow with a pike, dove headlong at three men clustered together and wielding axes. Three blows, mingled with two feints and a duck, disposed of them. I looked about, the sword dripping.

  Wilma and Alwim extended their swords, and both were as bloodied as mine. Three of our Pachaks, their tail-hands gripping gory daggers, finished off the last of the swordship's forecastle party.

  Naghan Pelamoin raged up, shouting.

  “Tuscurs Maiden! Look!"

  There was a moment, before the next assault, to look back. The argenter, under full sail, was drawing off. The swordship's oars ceased to beat. In the heat of the combat, the skipper and the oarmaster had ordered the men to stop pulling. They would be near exhaustion after the pursuit, and no doubt it was felt that the swordship had rammed and the prey was theirs. Well, in that they miscalculated. The turn had done enough for the ram to strike obliquely. Tuscurs Maiden was not decisively rammed. The bronze rostrum had not smashed through her timbers. Now she sailed on—and we were left stranded in the swordship.

  The imminent approach of suns set struck me forcibly. With the argenter sailing so grandly off, we'd be more than likely to lose her during the night. So there was nothing else left for it.

  “Forward!” I yelled, like any storyteller's tin pot hero. “Hit them! We must take the ship!” With that, and a rousing yell of: “Hai! Jikai!” I bounded down onto the catwalk.

  Soldiers clustered by the foremast, and someone shot an arrow. I flicked it away and went bullheaded on. There was an awareness of bodies at my back, pressing on swiftly after me. We hit the group at the foot of the foremast and swept them away and roared on aft. Up on the stumpy sterncastle the wink of steel glowed crimson and jade in the dying light.

  “Jikai! Jikai!"

  We smashed up the ladders, they were hardly companion-ways, and roared in a shouting, struggling melee across the scrap of deck. The men at the whipstaff went down like sickled wheat. A confused impression of uplifted arms, of striking steel, of men shrieking and blood spouting, and we staggered back to our senses. We looked about. A man ran away from us, ran forward along the gangway, screaming. He threw himself off the beakhead over which we had entered his ship. He was the last.

  Pompino said: “Well, and what now?"

  Darkness fell about us.

  Murkizon boomed: “We showed ‘em, the cramphs!"

  “Aye, Captain,” said Pelamoin. “But, as Horter Pompino says, what now?"

  “Why, we take possession of the ship and rejoin that imbecile Linson. When I see him I'll—I'll—"

  “Yes, Captain,” observed Pompino, gently. I saw that my comrade was fully himself, ready to put the boot in or ready to soothe, as the mood took him. I did not doubt that I would have to listen to an account of his exploits in thus taking a swordship—and from an argenter. Indeed, this would mightily enhance his own prowess in his eyes. Veritably, so!

  The oarsmen were slave.

  Chained to their benches, eight to an oar, they sat slumped in the apathy of exhaustion. It took some time for them to understand that we would not enslave them in our turn.

  Lanterns were lit. Some of the people who had leaped into the ship with us went off to see about food. Wine was discovered and brought on deck. Chandarlie the Gut went off to inspect for himself the forepart of the vessel. She might not have rammed in the sense of a real ram; but she could have sustained damage there. He came back to reassure us. All was well...

  Pompino said, “Then this is a new addition to my fleet. Very well. You, Captain Murkizon, will take command. Naghan Pelamoin, you will be Ship Hikdar. Chandarlie, if you can get your gut about the narrowness of the vessel, will be Ship Deldar."

  We all laughed. It was the aftermath of battle, and men and women do strange things at those times.

  The two varterist sisters took up goblets of wine and went off to inspect the ballistae upon the forecastle. We had lost one of the Pachaks, and only the three remained. Larghos the Flatch had a scratch down one cheek. A Brokelsh was stuck through the guts and would die by morning. We made him comfortable. Then we totted up accounts.

  There were twenty-one of us, twenty-one fighting men and women. Well, that was ample to run the swordship if we were cautious. I do not think anyone of us had much idea of being cautious. Incessantly the paktuns and the seamen went over the details of the fight. By Vox! They seemed to remember far more of it than I did, or cared to do...

  We were in the process of unshackling the oarsmen, slaves no longer, when Rondas the Bold came on deck prodding with one of his swords. So the fellow who had run the length of the gangway and flung himself overboard had not been the last, then...

  “Found him cowering and mewling in a little cubbyhole,” announced Rondas. He poked. “I thought I'd get some shut-eye and this confounded miserable specimen woke me up."

  Someone yelled, high and delighted. “Chuck him overboard!"

  “Hold on,” I said.


  Now I was well aware that my position was an ambiguous one. I had no obvious function aboard. I was the friend of the owner; that gave me no right to question the captain or his officers.

  “Why should we not chuck the scum over the side?” Demanded Murkizon. He looked ready to bristle up.

  “He can give us information. And,” I said, nodding to the rowing benches where the poor naked shock-headed mass of humanity was groaning and coming back to life. “It might be amusing to let him pull an oar for a time."

  “Aye!” roared our fellows.

  “Well—"

  “Ask him,” said Pompino, and that settled that.

  The fellow turned out to be the purser, the officer Kregans call the palinter, and his stomach, while no rival to the splendor of Chandarlie's, bespoke a man who lived well. He was in a dreadful state. He looked as though his world had crashed in ruins about his head. Well, in a very real sense, it had. He told us that this swordship was out of the island kingdom of Nogoya, which we knew, that her name was Flame of Nogoya, which made us laugh and jeer, uncaring. We inspected the name, and found it to be painted over an area of woodwork planed clean, so this ship had been taken from somewhere and renamed by the Nogoyans. The palinter, this miserable Nog the Rations, also said that we would all be taken and hanged by the heels by his king, for his king was puissant upon the oceans and demanded tribute from all who sailed his waters.

  “I see he keeps slaves,” I said conversationally.

  “That is all they are good for, to pull an oar."

  “Are they criminals, prisoners, of your country?"

  “No. They have been taken at sea for not paying the just dues demanded by the king, and—"

  “And that is what would have happened to us peaceful seamen if your Pandrite-forsaken captain had taken our ship!” bellowed Murkizon. “All the honest sailorfolk know of your rotten island kingdom!"

  “The pirates—"

  “You're no better than pirates, yourself. At least they pull their own oars."

  So, after this Nog the Rations had told us things needful for us to know, he was taken down to the rowing benches and shackled up. I abhor slavery. But I viewed this in the light of sentence passed by a court of justice. At least the fellow had his life, such as it was. He'd be set free at the end of this adventure, if he still lived.

  Murkizon and Pelamoin, with the ready paunch of Chandarlie, sorted out the oarsmen. When it was put to them, they saw the justice and wisdom of continuing. After all, if we were to succeed in our mission, we needed strong backs and arms to haul the oars. They were no longer slaves. They were free men and women with us, consigned to fetching up safely at a port and there resuming a life of liberty. They cheered.

  We collected up the whips and threw them overboard.

  More cheers greeted this. And then a hairy wretch with many scars across his naked shoulders shouted out fiercely, “And where is the whip to lash on Nog the Rations?"

  “Leave him to me,” said Chandarlie the Gut.

  Pompino announced, with a flourish of his whiskers, that for good and sufficient reasons—and obvious ones, to boot—he intended to name this ship Redfang. The name pleased us.

  * * *

  Chapter thirteen

  The Star Lords call for action

  Redfang sailed north. We were now entering waters where in the old days sailors from Pandahem kept a ceaseless lookout for the swift raiding galleons of Vallia.

  During the Time of Troubles in the island empire of Vallia most of her splendid galleon fleet had been dispersed or destroyed. Then we had built up our aerial squadron. Still, galleons were being built once again and much trade was carried on, and every now and again some venturesome Vallian captain would snuff about looking for an enemy to board and plunder.

  If my dreams of uniting all the lands of Paz became the reality it could be and, by Zair, ought to be in any decently run world, fellow seamen from Pandahem and Vallia, instead of fighting, would join in opposing the fish-headed Shanks who raided us all. Vallia had concluded treaties of friendship with a number of countries after the defeat and expulsion of the Hamalian forces; diplomacy must continue to bring forward fresh treaties. And making treaties is an activity to drive a fellow to exhaustion. Down in Ruathytu we'd had some...

  “Sail ho!"

  The yell brought everyone hurrying up, in the usual way, when only the lookout perched in the cross-trees could see that distant speck of the horizon rim. This time, I did go up and have a look myself, carrying one of the telescopes we'd found in the swordship's miniature charthouse.

  Once the far-off sail had been centered in the glass, a single look told me she was no galleon out of a Vallian port.

  “What d'you make of her?” bellowed up Murkizon.

  The lookout screeched down what information we had, that the vessel was on a reciprocal course and appeared to be of sufficient size to warrant a goodly crew of renders changing course to intercept and cut her off and cut her up and devour all her goodness. I stared at the lookout, not so much shocked as in surprise.

  He saw me looking at him after his outburst.

  He wore nondescript clothes, a blue shirt and a breech clout, was bare of feet and with a green scarf knotted around his head. His face, of the narrow kind, held a taut constipated look, as though he seethed impotently within.

  “You've been a render, then, dom,” I said.

  “Aye. This swordship—with a fine gang of cutthroats. We could make a fat living for ourselves here."

  “Well, Asnar the Grolt, you would have to speak to Horter Pompino on that score—aye, and your comrades."

  Watching the distant speck of sail, we continued this odd conversation. “As to the owner,” said Asnar the Grolt, “we signed on to serve, and that is why we sail north now. But—"

  “There are more important things to do in life besides piratically storming peaceful ships."

  “You, then, have never roved the seas in search of plunder."

  I did not disabuse him. I'd been a render in my time fighting with that remarkable lady pirate, Viridia the Render. She operated among the Hoboling Islands, off the northwest of Pandahem. As always, as always, I wondered what had happened to her and her cutthroat crews.

  The sail vanished over the horizon rim, but I did not descend to the deck. The motion of the vessel, the light, the glorious tangy Kregan air, all combined to detain me. I thought of Viridia the Render, and naturally this led me on to think of many of those other folk I had met during my life on Kregen.

  During that life on Kregen, I have met very many people of all kinds. Some of them simply wandered across my path, busy about their own purposes and impinging only to the extent that their actions, thoughts and emotions affected mine. Then they drifted away. This fact of life is generally learned by children when they first lose a bosom friend whom they met yesterday or the day before. Nursery and Primary Schools, First Grades, are filled with these tragedies. People just encounter, communicate, part, like vollers passing on a night of Notor Zan, ships passing in the night. Sometimes we spend a fraught period in the company of fresh acquaintances, and then call the remberees and go our separate ways.

  Some folk, particularly on this Earth, still have not caught up with this simple fact of life. They complain when what one might call minor characters appear and disappear. One can only suppose that these critical complaints are voiced by people who are in constant communication with every single person they have ever met in their whole lives.

  Bringing me back to the cross-trees of Pompino's Redfang, Asnar the Grolt observed: “The breeze is turning fluky."

  “Aye. We're in for a spell of calm—"

  “I think so, too. At least we have oars."

  “And that is interesting in view of your comments about renders—"

  He laughed, narrow-faced, dark, mocking himself as much as the concept of piratical brotherhood. “You mean we all take our turn at the looms?"

  “Precisely."

  He lift
ed his telescope and trained it forrard.

  “What do you make of that?"

  I looked. A dark wedge of smoke lifted above the horizon rim.

  “A ship burns."

  I swept the circle of the horizon. The line lay bare of all save that ugly blot of smoke.

  Something was happening and we could not see, could not know what that might be. We could only guess. This situation where one saw little clues, caught faint whiffs of reality, this was the very stuff of life to an old ship captain, a tactician and strategist in naval matters. Piracy? Or something more sinister? Even as that thought occurred to me I heard the raucous squawking from over my head.

  The old feeling of resentment hit me, to be immediately brushed aside. I knew that Asnar the Grolt could not hear that mocking croak. He could not see the glorious scarlet and golden bird that planed on stiff wings down out of the suns glare, circling around my head. I looked up. I shook my fist. Asnar sat, rigid, unmoving, a lump carved from stone.

  Circling in the air the giant raptor from the Star Lords regarded me from bright black eyes. This was the Gdoinye, messenger and spy for the Everoinye.

  “Well, you bird of ill omen,” I roared up, “and now what do you want?"

  “You act as though you carry the approval of the Star Lords, Dray Prescot. You and the kregoinye, Pompino."

  “We act because we wish to act, bird!"

  The screech mocked. “Onker! There are more than one brand of Leem Lovers—as you know—"

  “I know!"

  “The Everoinye do not wish you to fail in this."

  Staring up at the gorgeously glinting bird, a blaze of gold and scarlet, I wondered who was the onker, the idiot, in this situation. There was no sign of the white dove from the Savanti to keep an eye on me. I bellowed.

  “By Makki Grodno's disgusting diseased liver and lights! D'you think Pompino or I wish to fail? Onker!"

  “Make sure you do not."

  With a final insulting screech the bird winged up, turning, shimmering in light, vanishing.