Many of those we passed asked me, "Is it true, Admiral, that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar?" and I responded to them, as I had to the man before, "If you will have it true, it will be true."
I saw the man at the tiller of one of the boats put about.
There were now torches on both sides of the canals, in long lines, following us, and boats, too, began to follow us.
"Where are you going?" asked a man from a window of the passing throng.
"I think to the Council of Captains," said one of the men on the walk. "It is said that there is now a Home Stone in Port Kar."
And I heard men behind him cry, "There is a Home Stone in Port Kar! There is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" This cry was taken up by thousands, and everywhere I saw men pause in their flight, and boats put about, and men pour from the entryways of their buildings onto the walks lining the canals. I saw bundles thrown down and arms unsheathed, and behind us, in throngs of thousands now, came the people of Port Kar, following us to the great piazza before the hall of the Council of Captains.
Even before the man in the bow had tied the tharlarion-prowed longboat to a mooring post at the piazza, I had leaped up to the tiles and was striding, robes swirling, across the squares of the broad piazza toward the great door of the hall of the Council of Captains.
Four members of the Council Guard, beneath the two great braziers set at the entrance, leaped to attention, the butts of their pikes striking on the tiles.
I swept past them and into the hall.
Candles were lit on several of the tables. Papers were strewn about. There were few scribes or pages there. Of the usual seventy or eighty, or so, captains of the approximately one hundred and twenty entitled to sit in the council, only some thirty or forty were present.
And even as I entered some two or three left the hall.
The scribe, haggard behind the great table, sitting before the book of the council, looked up at me.
I glanced about.
The captains sat silently. Samos was there, and I saw that short-cropped white hair buried in his rough hands, his elbows on his knees.
Two more captains rose to their feet and left the room.
One of them stopped beside Samos. "Make your ships ready," he said. "There is not much time to flee."
Samos shook him away.
I took my chair. "I petition," said I to the scribe, as though it might be an ordinary meeting, "to address the council."
The scribe was puzzled.
The captains looked up.
"Speak," said the Scribe.
"How many of you," asked I of the captains, "stand ready to undertake the defense of your city?"
Dark, long-haired Bejar was there. "Do not jest," said he, "Captain." He spoke irritably. "Most of the captains have already fled. And hundreds of the lesser captains. The round ships and the long ships leave the harbor of Port Kar. The people, as they can, flee. Panic has swept the city. We cannot find ships to fight."
"The people," said Antisthenes, "flee. They will not fight. They are truly of Port Kar."
"Who knows what it is to be truly of Port Kar?" I asked Antisthenes.
Samos lifted his head and regarded me.
"The people flee," said Bejar.
"Listen!" I cried. "Hear them! They are outside!"
The men of the council lifted their heads. Through the thick walls, and the high, narrow windows of the hall of the Council of Captains, there came a great, rumbling cry, the thunderous mixture of roiling shouts.
Bejar swept his sword from his sheath. "They have come to kill us!" he cried.
Samos lifted his hand. "No," he said, "listen."
"What is it they are saying?" asked a man.
A page rushed into the hall. "The people!" he cried. "They crowd the piazza. Torches! Thousands!"
"What is it that they cry!" demanded Bejar.
"They cry," said the boy, in his silk and velvet, "that in Port Kar there is a Home Stone!"
"There is no Home Stone in Port Kar," said Antisthenes.
"There is," I said.
The captains looked at me.
Samos threw back his head and roared with laughter, pounding the arms of his curule chair.
Then the other captains, too, laughed.
"There is no Home Stone in Port Kar!" laughed Samos.
"I have seen it," said a voice near me. I was startled. I looked about and, to my wonder, saw, standing near me, the slave boy Fish. Slaves are not permitted in the hall of the captains. He had followed me in, through the guards, in the darkness.
"Bind that slave and beat him!" cried the scribe.
Samos, with a gesture, silenced the scribe.
"Who are you?" asked Samos.
"A slave," said the boy. "My name is Fish."
The men laughed.
"But," said the boy, "I have seen the Home Stone of Port Kar."
"There is no Home Stone of Port Kar, Boy," said Samos.
Then, slowly, from my robes, I removed the object which I had hidden there. No one spoke. All eyes were upon me. I slowly unwrapped the silk.
"It is the Home Stone of Port Kar," said the boy.
The men were silent.
Then Samos said, "Port Kar has no Home Stone."
"Captains," said I, "accompany me to the steps of the hall."
They followed me, and I left the chamber of the council, and, in a few moments, stood on the top of the broad marbled steps leading up to the hall of the Council of Captains.
"It is Bosk," cried the people. "It is Bosk, Admiral!"
I looked out into the thousands of faces, the hundreds of torches.
I could see the canals far away, over the heads of the people, crowded even to the distant waters bordering the great piazza. And in those waters beyond there were crowded hundreds of boats, filled with men, many of them holding torches, the flames' reflections flickering on the walls of the buildings and on the water.
I said nothing, but faced the crowd for a long moment.
And then, suddenly, I lifted my right arm, and held in my right hand, high over my head, was the stone.
"I have seen it!" cried a man, weeping. "I have seen it! The Home Stone of Port Kar!"
"The Home Stone of Port Kar!" cried thousands. "The stone!"
There were great cheers, and cries, and shouts, and the lifting of torches and weapons. I saw men weep. And women. And I saw fathers lift their sons upon their shoulders that they might see the stone.
I think the cries of joy in the piazza might have carried even to the moons of Gor.
"I see," said Samos, standing near to me, his voice indistinct in the wild cries of the crowd, "that there is indeed a Home Stone in Port Kar."
"You did not flee," I said, "nor did the others, nor have these people."
He looked at me, puzzled.
"I think," I said, "that there has always been a Home Stone in Port Kar. It is only that until this night it had not been found."
We looked out over the vast throng, shaken in its jubilation and its tears.
Samos smiled. "I think," said he, "Captain, you are right."
Near to me, tears in his eyes, shouting, was the slave boy Fish. And I saw tears, too, in the eyes of the vast crowds, with their torches, before me.
There was much shouting, and a great crying out.
"Yes, Captain," said Samos, "I think that you are right."
17
How Bosk Conducted the Affairs of Port Kar Upon Thassa
I stood in the swaying basket at the height of the mast of the Dorna, the glass of the builders in hand.
It was a very beautiful sight, the great lines of ships in the distance, extending to the ends of the horizons, the sails like yellow and purple flags, in their thousands, in the sun of the ninth Gorean hour, an Ahn before noon.
Port Kar had mustered what ships she could.
In the hurrying of our formations and the drawing of battle plans, I was not even certain of the numbers of ships engaged in our various ven
tures. The nearest estimations I could make were that we were bringing, at the time of the engagement, in the neighborhood of twenty-five hundred ships, fourteen hundred of them only round ships, against the joint fleet of Cos and Tyros, of some forty-two hundred ships, all tarn ships, now approaching from the west. We had all of the arsenal ships that were available, some seven hundred out of an approximate thousand. So many were in the arsenal because of the lateness of the season. As I may have mentioned, most Gorean sailing, particularly by tarn ships, is done in the spring and summer. Of the seven hundred arsenal ships, three hundred and forty were tarn ships, and three hundred and sixty were round ships. Our fleet was further supplemented by some fourteen hundred ships furnished by private captains, minor captains of Port Kar, most of which were round ships. Beyond this, we had three hundred and fifty ships furnished by the captains of the council who had not, prior to the time of the showing of the Home Stone, fled. Of these three hundred and fifty ships, approximately two hundred, happily, were tarn ships. My own ships counted in with these of the captains of the council. Lastly, I was pleased, though astonished, to accept the service of thirty-five ships of two of Port Kar's Ubars, twenty from the squat, brilliant Chung, and fifteen from tall, long-haired Nigel, like a war lord from Torvaldsland. These were all the ships that were left to these two Ubars after the fires of En'Kara. None of the ships of the Ubars Eteocles or Sullius Maximus had been pledged to the fleet, nor, of course, none of those of Henrius Sevarius, under the command of his regent, Claudius, once of Tyros.
Had it not been for the finding of the Home Stone of Port Kar, if one may so speak, I doubt that we could have brought more than four or five hundred ships against Cos and Tyros.
I snapped shut the glass of the builders and descended the narrow rope ladder to the deck of the Dorna.
I had scarcely set foot on the deck when I saw, near the mast well, the boy Fish.
"I told you," I cried, "to remain ashore!"
"Beat me later," said he, "Captain."
I turned to an officer. "Give him a sword," I said.
"Thank you, Captain," said the boy.
I strode to the stern castle of the Dorna.
"Greetings, Oar-master," said I.
"Greetings, Captain," said he.
I climbed the stairs past the helm deck to the captain's deck of the stern castle.
I looked out.
Astern there were, each separated by about one hundred yards, four tarn ships of Port Kar, and behind this four, there was another, and behind that another, and behind that another. The Dorna was thus leading a relatively close formation of sixteen tarn ships. This was one of fifty such task forces, consisting altogether of eight hundred tarn ships. The attacking fleet, in order to provide its net to prevent escape from Port Kar, had overextended its lines. Their ships were only four deep and widely spaced. Our sets of sixteen ships, each in a position not to interfere with but support one another, could cut such a line easily. We would cut it in fifty places. As soon as the ships broke through the line they would spread in predesignated pairs, attacking where possible from the rear, but always conjointly. Each pair would single out a given ship by signals and as it maneuvered to meet one the other could make its strike. The balance, the great majority of ships in the joint fleet, thus, would remain, at least for the time, unengaged, apart from the battles. Once more it would not be so much a question of absolute numbers of ships as concentrating superior numbers at strategic points. With their lines cut in fifty places, for no extended handful of tarn ships, part of a great line, could resist a close-set formation of sixteen tarn ships, I hoped that many of the ships would turn to face the attackers, now in their rear. Each of my fifty sets of attacking tarn ships would be followed, by some half of an Ahn, by another pair of my tarn ships, which, hopefully, would be able to take a number of these come-about ships of Cos and Tyros from the rear. I recalled the Dorna, under similar circumstances, had done great damage. The original pairs, of the fifty sets of sixteen tarn ships, after cutting the line and fighting, would, if possible, regroup with their sixteen and recut the line again, this time moving toward Port Kar, and repeat these tactics. I had, however, little hope that we could successfully, in many cases, cut the line more than once. By that time the ships of Cos and Tyros would have concentrated in their numbers and shortened their lines. After the first cutting I expected a free combat, except insofar as the designated pairs of ships could continue to work together. The predesignation of fighting pairs, incidentally, and my injunctions to refuse to engage singly if possible, even withdrawing from equal odds, I am told, was new in Gorean naval warfare, though the pairing principle, on a more informal basis, is as old as the triangle tactic, which may be remembered from the engagement of my nondiversion ships with the ships which had been left behind to guard the treasure fleet. I had also arranged signals whereby my ships, those of my task forces and others, might, if the pairs became separated, switch partners, thus retaining the possibility of pair-attacks on single ships even if the members of the original pairs should become separated.
The first two waves of my attack consisted, thus, of fifty task forces of sixteen tarn ships apiece and, following each of the task forces, at an interval of half an Ahn, another pair of tarn ships. This meant the first wave consisted of eight hundred ships, and the second of one hundred.
This left me approximately one hundred and eighty-five tarn ships, and the large numbers, fourteen hundred, of round ships.
I signaled that the sixteen tarn ships with me should proceed. They pulled away, acknowledging with flags my message. The Dorna dropped back.
I would have preferred to go with them, but, as a commander, I could not.
My third wave, following the second by an Ahn, would consist of a long extended line of round ships, some fourteen hundred. It was my hope that by the time they arrived at the engagement the fleet of Cos and Tyros, responding to my first two waves, would have shortened their lines and concentrated their ships. Thus the round ships might, hopefully, be able to envelop their formation, surround it, and attack on the flanks, with their not inconsiderable barrage of flaming javelins, heated stones, burning pitch and showers of crossbow bolts. Further, when the ships of Cos and Tyros turned upon these round ships I did not think they would find them common foes. Each was rowed either by citizens of Port Kar or by eager slaves, armed and unchained, that they might, if they chose, fight for their freedom and the Home Stone of a city. Only slaves whose origin was of Cos or Tyros, or their allies, had been taken from the ships and left behind, chained in the warehouses of Port Kar. Besides having large numbers of unchained, armed men in their rowing holds, these round ships, moreover, were, below decks, and in the turrets and the stem and stern castles, crowded with armed, able-bodied men, citizens of Port Kar who had swarmed aboard, that they might fight. There were crews on these ships armed with grappling irons and each of the ships carried two or more "grappling bridges." These resemble sturdy, heavy gangplanks, some five feet in width, with a heavy spike or nail, some two feet in length and some four inches in width, on the underside. They are to be fastened at one end to the round ship and are intended to be dropped, with their ponderous spiked ends, into the deck of an enemy ship, thus nailing, or fastening, the ships together. The round ship has a substantially higher freeboard area than the ram-ship, which is lower, and so this boarding arrangement is feasible. Commonly, of course, it is the round ship, with her normally small, free crews, which attempts to evade boarding. But now I expected, to the surprise of attacking ram-ships which might attempt to board them, they would find themselves boarded, and their decks overwhelmed with swarms of armed, free men. We had crowded far more armed men into each of these round ships than would be carried even in the normal crew of a heavy-class tarn ship. The common strategy with a round ship is to shear and board, because, normally, one wishes not to sink the ship but take it as a prize. This strategy, however, we expected would work, under the present conditions, to our advantage. And
if the tarn ships of Cos and Tyros should use their rams, we hoped that, in the moments it would take to disengage the ram, the grappling irons and the grappling bridges might be brought into play. Meanwhile, of course, the numerous bowmen, and the men at the springals, catapults and onagers would be keeping up a heavy fire, the more devastating, the closer the distance. It was my hope that my round ships, with their large, free crews, and their artillery, and their boarding potentialities, might be a match for even heavy-class tarn ships. In effect, rather than do sea battle, they would attempt to close with the enemy and, via the rails and the grappling bridges, board her and fight what would be, for most practical purposes, a land engagement at sea.
My fourth wave consisted of fifty tarn ships, instructed not to lower their masts, which would follow the round ships by an Ahn. Coming on the heels of the round ships, with their masts high, these, I assumed, might well be taken for more round ships, for the mast of a tarn ship is always lowered before battle. Accordingly I hoped the tarn ships of Cos and Tyros, seeing the sails, would think their new enemies were single-masted round ships, of which there are some types, and either misjudge their speeds or rush on them unwarily, finding out, too late, that they were plunging headlong toward swift, maneuverable, deadly, ram-carrying tarn ships. These ships would then, when free to do so, support the round ships in their battle, destroying tarn ships which might, unaware of the new danger, be attempting to close with them.
My fifth wave, following the fourth by half an Ahn, consisted of two fleets of forty tarn ships apiece, one attacking from the north and the other from the south. I did not think I had the ships to make this pincer attack truly devastating, but, in the turmoil of a battle at sea, without the clearest understanding of the position and numbers of the enemy, such flanking attacks might have unusual psychological value. The admiral of Cos and Tyros, Chenbar I supposed, could not know the exact numbers and disposition of our forces. Indeed, we ourselves, until early this morning, had not a full comprehension of our plans, or, indeed, even the ships we would have to carry them out. I hoped that Chenbar might assume that many of the ships which had fled from Port Kar might have come about and decided to join the battle, or he might infer that he had, before he could ascertain the ships involved in the flanking attacks, seriously misjudged our numbers. The flanking attack, of course, was mounted as late as it was because, until the fleet of Cos and Tyros had shortened their lines and concentrated their ships, to meet our earlier moves, it would have been impractical. Hopefully, the terror of being taken in the flank might cause many captains, or even Chenbar himself, to have the fleet put about, and, if so, this would make their ships the most vulnerable to our own.
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