by John Norman
We backed from the wreckage, much of it flaming. The smell of pitch was in the air.
Dozens of ships, trying to come about, maneuvering, milling, struck by other ships, had been trapped against the chain.
There were hundreds of men in the water. Hundreds of oars, like sticks, had been snapped in the stresses involved, even against the hulls of their own vessels.
Archer shields, of heavy wicker, floated in the water, and ruptured posts and strakes, and parts of oars.
Vosk gulls dove and glided among the carnage, hunting for fish.
"Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus.
I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain.
"Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus. He was no fool. He would not risk open battle, not even on even terms, with ships such as those of the Voskjard.
"We have been fortunate," said a man.
"Yes," said another.
"The Voskjard will be angry," said another.
"I fear so," said another.
"There is still time to flee," said another.
Then the Tina, with the Mira to starboard and the Talender to port, lay to in our lines. The ships of Port Cos, now only the Tais and four others, resumed their station at our right flank. Had it not been for these ships of Port Cos it is difficult to know how we might have fared. They had taken heavy toll of the enemy before he had turned the wedge to face them, and then, as confused, he, struck by our unexpected attack, that of the independent ships and those of Ar's Station, had turned to face us, the Tais and her sisters had renewed their attack on his flank. I thought it not improbable that the Voskjard had lost in the neighborhood of thirty ships. Yet now we conjectured some fifty ships still faced us, for the chain, clearly, no longer provided a barrier north of his position. Those ships which we had for so long prevented from joining him had, by now, amplified his forces. I could not but think, bitterly, that if the Voskjard, truly, had had only some fifty ships, as we had gathered from the intelligences supplied to us by Callisthenes, we, if supplemented by the twenty ships of Callisthenes, yet to appear, would now have outnumbered him. In such a situation it was not unlikely that he would have come about and, at his leisure, still in strength, withdrawn to the west. We lay to, waiting. Now, in our lines, there were only seventeen ships, including those of Port Cos, on which we so crucially depended.
"The enemy fleet is marshaling," said a man.
"Is it again the wedge?" asked a man.
"One ship is astern and to the starboard of another," said a man.
"They will come with care, and hunt us in pairs," said a man.
"There is still time to flee," repeated a man.
"I recommend, Captain," said an officer above and behind me on the stem-castle deck, "immediate withdrawal."
"We must hold the line for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.
"Draw back to the south guard station. Join him there," pressed an officer.
"To be outflanked and trapped between the chain and the southern shore?" asked Callimachus.
"I counsel retreat," said the officer.
"Their ships are faster than ours," said Callimachus.
"Not faster than the Tina," said the officer.
"Am I then to abandon the fleet?" asked Callimachus.
The officer looked at him, angrily.
"You counsel not retreat, my friend," said Callimachus, "but rout, and slaughter."
"What, then, shall we do?" asked the man.
"Wait for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.
"Withdraw," said the officer.
"And leave Callisthenes to face fifty ships?" asked Callimachus.
"Forget about Callisthenes," said the officer.
"I will not forget about him," said Callimachus, "as he would not forget about me."
"Withdraw," said the officer.
"It is here that we are to be joined by Callisthenes," said Callimachus. "It is here that we will wait for him."
"Where is Callisthenes?" asked the man next to me.
"I do not know," I said.
I noted the approach of the Voskjard's fleet, the ships moving in pairs, with more than a hundred yards between the pairs. It is difficult, of course, for a single ship to protect itself against a brace of assailants. The members of the pair circle about, so as to attack at right angles to one another. It is thus impossible to protect oneself, if caught, against both. One's hull must be exposed to the strike of at least one ram.
"We must hold the line," said a man beside me, tensely.
"Yes," I said. "That is true."
Another fellow, near me, lifted his bow, an arrow fitted to the string. He bent the bow, drawing the string back, the arrow at a sharp angle. Then he relaxed the bow, but did not remove the shaft from the string. "They will soon be within range," he said.
"Withdraw!" begged the officer above and behind us on the stem castle with Callimachus. "Withdraw!" he begged.
"They would be upon us before we could come about," said Callimachus.
I heard steel leaving sheaths about me.
"Sound the battle horns," said Callimachus.
"Sound the battle horns!" called the officer beside him.
The bronze horns of battle then smote with their shrill trumpeting the air of the Vosk.
I withdrew my sword from its sheath.
5
I See the Tamira;
I Consider the Tuka
I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving back pirates. One of my feet was on the Tina. The other was on the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the Tina, using loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart. There was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together, protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships. The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn, splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height, some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been turned like tin. A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching, grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman, below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its flight. Only the blood at the pirate's throat marked its passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the screaming men. I leaped onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number. I nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the Tina, too on the pirate's vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck board the Tina, literally with the pirates. He struck a defender's pike away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the Tina. Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates. I heard timbers creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the Tina. We had ten or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her stem castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling hooks. "Rogue!" cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands, grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not have been pleased. I lifted my head, wildly. The ships were now drifting apart. They were held close only at the sterns. I smelled fire. I saw a man on the Tina plunge backward, his hands clutching at an arrow protruding from his forehead. In two steps I climbed the archer's platform and leape
d behind the blind. I passed my blade into the fellow's body, and he fell, turning, from the platform, arrows spilling, like rattling sticks, to the deck. A pirate leaped toward me and I cut him from the platform. Arrows sped toward me, two of them, and caught, tearing, in the wicker. Behind me I could see another pirate vessel looming. Near the stem castle I saw some of my fellows cutting through pirates. Burning pitch flamed upon the deck.
"This way, Lads!" I called, leaping down from the archer's platform. An arrow struck into the deck at my feet.
We sped down the deck. The ship shuddered as the great catapult loosed a stone which shattered into the rowing frame on the port side of the Tina.
In moments I and the others, now some seven men, cutting at pirates, severing ropes, separated the two vessels and, as they slipped loose of one another, leaped onto the stern of the Tina, falling upon the pirates who had boarded her there. The pirates, pressed by our defenders, and attacked now from their own vessel, fought for their lives. We forced them to the railing, and over it, those who were not cut down, into the Vosk.
"Are there no more?" I inquired.
"Are you disappointed?" asked a man.
"Our decks are cleared of the sleen," said a man.
"They fought well," said a man.
"They are men of the Voskjard," said another.
Our deck was run with blood. It was splintered. Arrows protruded from it. The port rowing frame was half struck away. Damage had already been incurred by our stern castle in an earlier engagement. Our starboard shearing blade was awry.
We sought our men in the water, throwing them ropes. "Aiii!" I cried.
"What is it?" asked a man.
"That ship," I said, pointing, to a vessel less than some hundred yards away, engaged in war. "That is the Tamira!"
This legend was emblazoned on her starboard bow. Doubtless it appeared, as well, on her port bow. The same legend also appeared on her stern. Gorean merchantmen are often identified at these three points.
"So what of it?" asked a man.
"She is not our ship," said another.
"She flies the pennons of the Voskjard," said another.
"She is the ship which, in the Vosk, east of the chain, with the Telia, captained by Sirnak, of the men of Policrates, took the Flower of Siba!" These things I had learned while held captive in the holding of Policrates.
"What of it?" asked a man.
"She is captained by Reginald, in the fee of Ragnar Voskjard," I cried. "She is the scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard."
"What of it?" asked a man.
"She came to clear the way for the passage of the Voskjard east," I said. "But," I said, anxiously, "was the rendezvous with the Voskjard's fleet at his holding or was it in the river?"
"What difference does it make?" asked a man. He threw a rope to one of our fellows, struggling in the water.
"Perhaps no difference," I said. "Perhaps no difference."
"Would you engage her?" laughed a man.
"She is supported by heavy galleys," said another man.
"That she is!" I said, elated.
"That pleases you?" asked a man.
"It suggests to me that the rendezvous was, indeed, made in the river, and not at the Voskjard's holding."
"Is that good?" asked a man.
"It could be splendid," I said. "But, too, it might make no difference."
"You are mad," laughed a man.
We then heard again battle horns. Swiftly I gave my aid to drawing two more men from the water. They were survivors from the Claudia, she of Point Alfred.
Fifty yards astern we saw the jury-rigged ram of the Sita, a converted merchantman of Jort's Ferry, take a ship of the Voskjard in the stern.
"To the benches!" called an officer. I, too, ran to the benches and seized an oar.
Behind us we heard the rending of strakes. The Sita herself, extricating herself from her victim, sluggish, half-listing, underoared, was stove in on the port and starboard sides by ramships of the Voskjard.
"Where are the ships of Callisthenes!" cried a man.
"Stroke! Stroke!" called the oar master.
"To starboard, hard to starboard!" cried an officer.
The helmsmen thrust against the tillers.
"Oars inboard!" cried the oar master. The great levers, scraping, were hauled inboard.
A ramship of the Voskjard, her ram missing our port bow by inches slid rapidly past. Arrows struck solidly into the rowing frame.
We heard oars of the enemy snapping against our hull. Then there was a crash and tearing astern as our port rudder was torn away.
"Oars outboard!" called the oar master, and we slid the wood through the thole ports.
The Daphne of Port Cos was in flames. The Andromache and Aspasia had already gone down.
Abeam on the starboard side we saw a ship bearing down upon us and then, suddenly, though it could have smote us, it veered away.
"It is a ship of the Voskjard!" cried a man.
"No!" said another. "It flies the pennons of Ar's Station!"
"Ar's Station has no such ships," cried a man.
"It did not strike us!" a fellow pointed out.
As the ship slipped past we saw, indeed, that it bristled with the helmets of Ar's Station.
"How can it be?" asked a man.
"It is reinforcements!" cried a man, elatedly.
"No!" said a man. "That is not a ship of Ar's Station. They do not have such ships. It is a ship of the Voskjard! It has been taken as a prize!"
"How could that be?" asked a man. "Ar's Station is unskilled upon the river. Their ships are undermanned!"
To be sure we had noted, earlier, the wreckage of at least four of the ships of Ar's Station, including two of her heavy-class galleys, the Tullia and the Publia. It seemed to me not unlikely that others of her galleys, as well, might by now have met a similar fate. It was not clear to me why Ar's Station had resorted to such vessels as she had. They were too squat and sluggish; their holds were too large; their lines were clumsy; they were too slow, too unresponsive to their helms; they seemed little other than fat merchantmen, fit less for war than for the placid transportation of weighty cargoes. Did Ar's Station truly think to match such swollen, ponderous freighters against the swift, sleek menace of the Voskjard's warships? And to aggravate the situation the ships of Ar's Station seemed undermanned. What luscious fruit they must seem for picking. How attractive, how inviting, they must appear to the predators of the Voskjard!
A mighty rock, then, suddenly, not more than ten feet from my bench, plummeted through our deck, splintering the wood upward, exploding it upward, in a shower of sharpened fragments. We had not even seen from whence the stone came. A looping bowl of flaming pitch traced its trajectory off our starboard bow and fell into the water.
"Stroke!" called the oar master.
We began to nose our way among flaming and shattered ships.
Our benches vibrated as our own major catapult hurled a stone skyward.
The smell of burning pitch was in the air. I heard men crying out in the water.
"We must seek our sister ships, to stand with them!" called the oar master. "It is thus that Callimachus commands!"
"The Portia is off the starboard bowl" called an officer. "She is sorely beset!"
"Two ships approach her!" cried another man. "They will draw alongside of her! She is to be boarded and taken!"
"To the rescue of the Portia!" cried the officer on the stem castle. "Two points to starboard! Stroke!"
"Stroke!" called the oar master.
"Hold! Back oars!" cried the oar master, miserably. "Steady!" he called to the two helmsmen, now at a single tiller.
In the distance involved, at full strike, with the lost port rudder, we could not have come about in time to attain the attack course.
"Now, stroke!" called the oar master.
"Hold!" called the officer, miserably.
"Hold, hold!" cried the oar master.
In the delay a ship o
f the Voskjard had interposed herself between us and the Portia. Our rams, separated by some fifty yards, faced one another. We backed slowly away. No longer was the Tina alert to her helms. Even low and shallow-drafted she could no longer veer in a matter of yards. She had been designed for a double-helm system. The port rudder was now gone. Additional open water was now required in which she might maneuver. The ship of the Voskjard lay to. She did not attack. It may be that from her position she could not detect the missing port rudder. Or it might be that she was waiting for support.
"Shall we not attack?" asked a man.
"That will do little to aid the Portia," said another man.
The Tina lying to, several of us stood upon our benches, that we might observe the Portia's fate.
"Can we not yet press to her aid?" asked a man.
"If we did so," said another man, glumly, pointing to the rocking galley of the Voskjard off our bow, "she would take us in the hull like a speared tarsk."
"The Portia is done for," said a man.
"Gone," said another.
Grimly we watched the efficient approach of the Voskjard's ships, one to the port of the Portia, the other to her starboard. On the deck of the Portia there seemed no more than fifteen or twenty figures.
"What are they doing?" asked a man.
"I do not know," I said.
Men on the masts of the Portia were unslinging the ropes which held the tops of the long, heavy planked constructions back against the masts. These constructions were mounted on platforms. When freed of the masts they leaned back against the platforms. Other men were busying themselves at the foot of the masts, where they were lengthening and playing out the chains that attached the platforms to the masts. When they had done this other men, with shoulders and levers, and hauling on ropes, moved the platforms, which were on long, solid rollers, with their planked constructions, away from the masts, one to port, the other to starboard. At this point the fellows who had been handling the chains adjusted them to the appropriate lengths. Still by these chains, of course, the platforms with their planked constructions, were held to the ship's masts. I saw the rollers then locked in position.