Earl Mikalegon stamped and chewed handfuls of his beard; but on the sea the tall ship, their ship, turned and turned again, then—as her captain saw escape useless— flung round to charge at the galleys' midst. Stones flew as specks; a hole and another came in her sails, she was almost riding down one of the galleys and may have hurt it badly as the nimble craft dodged, for it drifted away in a manner that showed oars smashed, but before this could advantage Os Erigu, another and another had driven their sharp rams in her side. The Earl's ship hung, with men leaping to light on decks or fall into the sea, she rolled back and right over, while along the castle wall went up a cry of fury and despite. There was for a little time a commotion and gathering round where the Erigan ship went down; then the navies of the Twelve Cities put forth their flat sails again, and again resumed order to come past cape and castle, slowly, nearer than before, so that laughing and hooting could be heard from them, pointing to their yardarms where a few shapes jounced and dangled.
Said a voice: "Master Airar, you have told me you love; if you do not prove it by saving me from that man, I shall die."
It was she, and gone before another word. Black evening and black night came down on Os Erigu, succeeded by days of grim. Off the shore there were always two or three of the galleys lying, clear in view by day, showing lights by night, sometimes running in to throw catapult shot toward the three ships that still lay close along the cover of the pier. No other ships came and no tidings; what had happened to the force of Os Erigu on the sea, none knew, and the great Earl behaved like a man half out of his wits, striding gloomily around. The blood seemed gone out of him; it was as though his heart were in the wooden sides of those vessels now invisible. He would stand on the shoreward battlement, gaze sourly at where the Vulkings under mantlets poured down trees and rubble over the scars of the burned causeway to build it anew; take voung Visto by the hand and lead him to the Black Tower, from which the air would presently carry some snatch of drunken song. The Vulking towers advanced, nor were restrained even when Pleiander brought a heavy catapult to bear and squashed some of their people like beetles. It was all Pleiander now in the command, with Evadne; the final word on that hint of treachery was that the Princesses should be allowed to speak to none but the one attendant they shared—a one-time dancing girl with a figure now somewhat out of fashion.
Pleiander and Evadne; it was as though she triumphed amid the troubles and was possessed of a demon. She was everywhere—to the walls in a mail cap to cry "Hearts up!" or exchange bawdy jokes with those at labor balancing the trebuchet; at the council table of an evening to wind her arms around lank Erb's neck and smile on him when he spoke ill of their chance of winning—even to kiss Mikalegon through his black beard, bid him show her the Tower and make him laugh rough and embarrassed he understanding such play no more than Airar. Her brothers pledged her in cups from a store now dwindling— "Evander!" and Airar was almost persuaded to admire her again till a chance word spoken about the Stassian damsels brought hatred's dark flash to her eye. Yet for all that, Evander-Evadne it was who walked abroad to the pier one night when the wind blew wild enough to toss waves on the stones and the lights of the bloclung galleys were gone, they driven from their posts by the gale.
There she found flotsam and brought it to the council hall, supporting it in her arms—Rogai, half-naked and wholly exhausted, gasping that he owed her a life as he drank a dram; he could not have swum much longer. The Earl had gone to rest; Airar also, so he heard the tale when called from sleep; Pleiander was at the battlements, where the enemy had moved so near they had an engine working from one of their towers. By time they were met the Mariolan was somewhat more himself; could talk, sneezing and croaking. He was full of excitements; all north Dalarna (he said) was underly burning, two castellas had been taken in Korosh, and Count Vulk using much of his terciary strength to hold the roads secure—"which, by the Well, he'll not find easy if you but hold here till snow-fly."
Earl Mikalegon grunted: "Not easy that, on our side; I fear you talk to doomed men. Our provision's small and the blue sea held against us that has always stood our aid. We might run a ship through and chance wreck in such a storm as beats tonight, yet there are three left only, and dare I dare it? so losing our one hope of escape should they break down the door of this rat-hole."
"I had thought you were more of a man of war. Attack these southerners."
"We saw how it fared the once. Their oar-moving ships are too curst agile for our sailors when they're so many in number." (Outside the sea beat up by the storm sounded boom and withdrew again on the rocks; a shivering gust leaked through the shutters and the Earl bit his knuckles.)
"Phlew!" said ebullient Rogai, "You talk like a Scroby knight-at-arms, all courtliness. Do you play a game, or fight for victory? Bah, fah, the wood-rat of Permandos runs by day and sleeps sound o' nights or when storms blow . . . Ha—chish! . . . Strike him in his hole, catch him when he's not a-swim."
"What do you mean?" asked Mikalegon in a voice doubtful but somewhat new.
"Why, our friend Alsander . . . coff . . . sees it clear enough." He motioned to where the Carrhoene captain moistened a right forefinger, touched the left palm, and slapped the opposite fist therein. "Clear enough. These rowgalleys of the Permandenes are all but those on duty laid to the shore by night in Bear Fjord —did you not know? Nay, you're sieged, cut-off. I joy that I came with this tiding you might have missed. Well, there they all are, like kernels on an ear of corn, a stockade built to the land side since they attend attack from thither by my merry miners of Korosh or the painted Mictons. But the sea? They think they rule it and give it never a thought. What if you ran in on them by night and storm with a gift of firebrands? What if you lost a ship or two? They'll eat meager in Bear Fjord with winter upon them."
Said Airar, rapidly: "Lord, this wind tonight is from the northwest and blows on shore. I do not know your northern weather, but in Vastmanstad 'twould last all night and the free-fishers I lead can live in it like otters. Let us make the essay this very hour."
Somewhat doubtfully, yet as a man waking from a dream, Earl Mikalegon looked at Alsander. "Old meatchopper," said the Carrhoene, "he has right. Essay! Take the sea before driven by their engines and power of the causeway."
"I say so, too—" Pleiander. "A siege must go up or down, and ours has been all down since Sthenophon made alliance with the County Vulk."
"Why, then, let us try it," said Earl Mikalegon slowly. "But I'll make a proviso—that I am one with this enterprise as a private volunteer, the sea-eagle under the master-cat, miaouw. Bag-of-bones, I here name you my lieutenant and heir if aught go wrong."
"I too," said Rogai, "if his lordship has a half-helm to lend, ha-chuff!"
"And I," said Evimenes, generous thrusting forth his sword-hilt for Airar to touch in mastery; but Alsander and Evadne both frowned on this and reminded him that their brotherhood bade them go all or none to peril, whereas Alsander stood now forbidden to go by his new lieutenancy.
At the pier, Airar found that Evimenes (one could count on him for this!) had had firepots made, with sparks streaming to the gale. Erb called the men, who came forth lobster-eyed from first sleep. The tall fisher chuckled as he reckoned them and reminded Airar of his first sailing as a leader, which was the flight from Vagai, "and I call down no curses on a, Master Sharpsight, but who just thought then we free-fishers would follow warlocks so far? Or if my sister Ervilla knew what a's old man did?" Airar answered no word direct; here were a few of Os Erigu's people with the Earl, and he was ordering them.
Under the heaving surf the ship growled and pounded against the quay as they tried to cast off, like to break her seams. Only a rag of sail could be set, and Mariola-Rogai got a fall that was like to break his bones, yet kept gay as a lark, and Airar looked at him with new eyes—unled he might be, and reckless, but there was no more fearless companion when the wild hawk of adventure screamed. They broke free, midwatch of the night, with Airar thinking half on his d
arling dear and half on this that they must do.
It was a hard claw off the iron-bound coast with the ship's high side catching the storm-wind, and they were not above forty swords, though Airar lost count whenever he tried to reckon them up precisely. The clouds and rain that would follow this wind were not yet come; there were stars, blotted by the outline of the iron mountains of Korosh against the eastern rim. Earl Mikalegon had a battle-axe; he stood on the poop and gripped a stay while the free-fishers shouted round in their dialect of the islands. The Lord of Os Erigu spoke : " . . . a change of ordering," was all Airar caught above the roar of wind and he leaned his face nearer to ask a repetition.
"My father had wrong!" bawled the Earl with the strength of his lungs. "That said men would be faithful to a banner if each followed it from free choice. They need orders— tomorrow's instant punishment or reward. As for those cowardly captains who have deserted me, I will hang them up, for by God, they deserve it."
But Airar was unwilling to give thought to such questions on the rocking poop with battle near; and off the starboard bow the line of foam along the rocks was blacked with the wide entrance to Bear Fjord, the ship swung to a chorus of cries, and her motion became easier as she rode along the waves instead of bucking them. It came to the young man that he had not seen Meliboe the enchanter the night—and for why? A heart-warming thought that perhaps the old man was aiding them by spell, for the tyrant of Permandos against whom they sailed would possess no such immunity to magic as the sons of Vulk. No! That was behind, he had for the moment forgotten, spell led to spell and ever deeper, and now the wind was harrying them along between tall walls of black while up beyond did not the faint false grey of coming dawn a little light the sky?
The fjord turned and broadened; along the farther bay could now be seen a few points of light where the sons of the wood-rat did keep their camp. "Now look-a to weapons, young Master," said Erb, who had been shipmaster, and Rogai tried to stifle another sneeze. Airar as chief had ordered that the few of Os Erigu with certain of the fishers should earliest prance ashore, fire tents and booths and lead the fighting there; the rest, under Erb, run one of the galleys free for escape (since no sailed ship could work out of that gut against such weather), then fire the rest with the ship that brought them. Himself held a trumpet to blow signals, one blast for the onset, two to recall. Forty against a thousand—or more; how many would return?
"Ready all," cried Airar, "The torches, ho!" The ship turned again under Erb's skilled hand and drove toward where the galleys lay dim along the shore, right in, right in among them with sails aloft and a splintering crash of wood as some spar jarred loose among the breaking hulls. Airar blew one blast and leaped to the side-runway of a galley. A startled head came out clearly from under the forecastle cabin into the light of torches borne behind. Os Erigu leaped past, roaring; Airar saw him drive his battleaxe down on the head which burst as a torch-man pushed past the falling body to fire the forepart of the vessel—all this caught in the flash of glance before Alvar's son ran across the deck to leap down on wet shingle. "This way!" he shouted; Nene of Busk's voice gave a wild cat-yell behind him.
A dozen yards ahead was a booth with a man emerging to cry something, Airar's memory later told him it was to know what passed but into him now the lad of Trangsted plunged his sword through the middle and looked for, fenced with, and dropped another before remembering he was a leader. He turned as a torch was flung past his head into the thatch of the booth, catching at once as sparks streamed down the gust—and there another booth blazed up.
The camp was beginning to rouse and run and shout, but in the flamelight all the running was clearly to leftward, away from where Earl Mikalegon's battle-cry sounded heartily. We are well in that quarter; Airar turned rightward toward the upper end of the beach, where Erb would be trying to get a galley free, and ran past tall shadowy ram-beaks shining with bronze. No men; he stumbled over something and, the trumpet in his hand hampering, fell prone. A reached hand caught him up; he footed it once more, and round the corner of the galleyprows men moved, while in the distance a flame ran up and flared against the sky from the shaking masts of the tall ship.
One leaped against him, crying, "Here's one!" as a sword was heaved aloft, but he knew it in time for a fisher-voice and dodged, shouting "Dalarna!"
"My sorrow, Master," said the man who would have struck. Erb's voice said "Heave!" and under the galley-edge men moved in unified effort.
"What's here? How goes it?" demanded Airar.
Tall Erb turned a puckered face. "Cannot get a loose. A was brought up with winches, and to stir we need more hands."
Airar thought quickly—sound the trumpet for recall and bring Mikalegon and his men, who might bear the foemen with them in on the group before the ship was loose. Yet there the tall ship flared against the sky, casting brands afar, and 'twas no part of the plan that she should burn so soon. He lifted the trumpet, but it was struck from his hand by Sewald, face aglow in the red shine—"A will all come!" his voice high.
"Let them," said Airar. As Sewald snatched, he swept his own blade round furiously to send the fellow down with a great grisly wound, thinking only that there fell a bad man as he blew twice. An arrow from somewhere shot past his head and stuck in the prow of the galley, and Erb pointed; three of the fisher-spearmen doubled down and ran in the direction whence it had come, their faces hard. A form scuttled across a firelit gap, and a thrown fisher-spear seemed to go right through the man, but he ran till another caught him in the legs and down he went with a shriek. Shout and shout; a wild pennon of flame was leaping from thatch to thatch. "Get more beams for heaving!" cried Erb, then turned to Airar and, touching his hand, said urgently: "Master, if we die here, know I bear no malice for that the woman I wish to lie with, lies with you," after which say he turned to shoot a twist-spear at a hurrying Permandene form.
For there was panic in the ranks of those enemies, with some crying "Help, help!" and "alas!" as they ran toward burning ships and booths, most not knowing what was toward, the boldest stricken down and none leading. Many of the galleys had now been summer-long on the beach, where heat oozed the pitch from their joints; they burst into flame like shooting stars as some of the Earl's people began to fall in toward the rest, Airar blowing again, most of them so quivering-excited that Erb could hardly get them to give a heave.
Yet he did; heave, heave, and she moved, and someone cried, "Go now!" but Airar struck him down with the hilt, crying that never should Dalarna abandon friends. He lifted the trumpet and blew once more, terribly; then not knowing whether they had all come, stood ankle-deep with sword out, but few were the enemies that dared follow against the spears of Vagai, with camp and ships behind them burning. "Come!" cried Erb; a hand dragged him over the side, bumping his belly on the bulwark. Every man must take an oar, even Mikalegon laughing and whooping but there was no pursuit as they forged down the fjord with all the flames combining in one great fire behind.
Mikalegon rested on his oar a moment: "Young Master, this is verily a deed of arms; old Bag-of-Bones is nothing with his capture of Poliolis. Yourself did it—you may tell your grandchildren—and by sounding the recall so precisely. I had no other thought than to have gone on breaking skulls at the moment and would have left my bones to be burned with those rat-eaters. Oh, aye, a feat of arms, for wars are won by wits, and I have met my better; take my allegiance."
"Row!" cried tall Erb, and they pushed out into the stormy sea where clouds of dawn were now blowing in, heavy with a promise of rain.
31 Farewell to Os Erigu
SAID MELIBOE the enchanter: "You have to learn, young master, this—there is no joy in any doing, save that of having done to one's own joy. Do you labor to hear words of praise from men? Find that drunken harper and give him an aura. For myself, I'd rather you had borne defeat from which you barely escaped, yet borne it well."
"She said her life hung on it—and now no word."
"Gratitude is the virtue of a go
od dog. You were better with Evadne of Carrhoene; no gratitudes given or asked in that one, only strong impulses that would keep you ever alight. You, young master, are one that may turn to a turnip without some such."
Airar laughed outright. "You have taken a divination on't? It was otherwise that time when you said I must be pushing but advised young Visto to marry. Now I see myself growing in the ground, with green hair."
Meliboe smiled with red lips between his beard. "Unhappy it is that without divinations none will believe the inevitable till it has happened. But do you laugh, joy, and be scornful exactly in this fashion; since you'll not use advice and must wait on luck, why, let luck have her play." He rose. "So now your time is elapsed, as you said, before you go to the battlement and see what Master Pleiander makes with his instrument. This is a notable and vigilant captain, now so emulous of your feat at the fjord that his heart's engaged—wherefore we may expect miracles."
Outside, the first few flakes of early snow ran past from blue clouds, and melted where they fell. Airar had to put on his armor and duck low along the battlements through shards of splintered stone, for engines were now working from both Vulking towers, and the walls of Os Erigu had taken on a worn appearance. His helmet must have shown some flesh of reflection; a steel bolt shot past him and against the wall. But on the broad space of the upper platform Pleiander had set heavy mantlets, all now bruised and battered, with the tall leg of the trebuchet standing through its frame like the sweep of one of those pumpwells they have in Hestinga.
He had never seen such a machine before, and knew they were not easy to build aright. It was near to use, with the ropes tense, but they were still putting fragments of rock into the throwing basket as he came. Pleiander turned as a mantlet quivered to the shock of a crashing ball.
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