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, under-oared, 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 bow!" 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 of 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.
Pirates crowded to the rails of their ships. I saw grappling irons, on their lines, hurled over the bulwarks of the _Portia_.
But almost at the same time the planked constructions, on their platforms, were pulled downward by ropes. These constructions, some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven feet in width, as the pirates scattered back in their path, crashed downward, their great bent spikes shattering into the decking of the pirate ships, anchoring the ships together, yet holding them some seven or eight feet apart.
At the same time battle horns of Ar sounded from the galley and hatches were thrown open.
The pirates, startled, unable to reach the ship, stood confused along their railings.
"Infantrymen of Ar!" cried a man on the _Tina_.
Out of the opened hatches poured warriors of Ar, grimly helmeted, bearing great, rounded shields and mighty spears, bronze-headed and tapering.
Pirates rushed to the planked road bearing ingress to their ship, but a dozen spears, and then another dozen, hurled by running men devastated resistance, and then, on the run, swords drawn, their shields struck by arrows, buffeting, slashing, driving men into the water, the soldiers of Ar rushed over the bridges linking the ships. Half turned toward the stem of the vessel and half to the stern. The pirates' lines, thin, strung out for boarding, were instantly cut. Vicious and swift, clean, exact, merciless, was the steel of professional warriors. In moments had the decks of both pirate vessels been cleared. And still soldiers emerged from the hold. In all, I had little doubt that they outnumbered the pirates eleven or twelve to one. The spacious hold of the _Portia_ had been crammed with men.
"It was an infantry battle," said a man beside me, in awe.
"But it was fought at sea," said another.
We watched the great planked constructions being pried up from the decks of the pirate ships. We saw flags of Ar's Station being run out upon their stem-castle lines.
"Ar knows what she does best," said a man.
"Yes," said another.
The ship of the Voskjard which had been lying to, preventing us from joining the fray, now backed away from us.
I think all of us, both friend and foe, had from that moment on a new respect for the ships of Ar's Station.
"Let us join our sisters!" called Callimachus.
We then made our way toward the _Portia_ and her prizes.
"It will be dark soon," said a man.
"We can slip away under the cover of darkness," said a man.
"Callimachus will not abandon Callisthenes," I said.
"Where is Callisthenes?" asked a man.
"I do not know," I said.
"Surely we cannot last another day," said a man.
"Not without the support of Callisthenes," said another fellow.
"It would be the third day of fighting," said a man.
"Callisthenes will be here before morning," said a man.
"How do you know?" asked a fellow.
"He must," shrugged the fellow.
"We must rig a new port rudder," I said. "We can obtain materials from the wreckage."
"I will help," said a man.
"I, too," said another.
The thought of the _Tamira_ crossed my mind. I had been within a hundred yards of her today.
"We shall seek permission to put down the longboat," said one of my fellows.
"Do so," I said.
The thought, too, of the _Tuka_, crossed my mind. She had been the lead ship of the Voskjard's fast wedge attack. She now lay damaged, unmanned, stranded on a bar near the chain, not more than a pasang away. It was said that she was a well-known ship of the Voskjard. Too, she was a heavy class galley, with a large hold. "What are you thinking of?" asked a man. "Nothing," I said "Nothing."
Chapter 6 - WE AWAIT SUPPORT FROM CALLISTHENES; IT DOES NOT COME; THE THIRD FLEET OF THE VOSKJARD; AGAIN WE SOUND OUR BATTLE HORNS
We saw the _Leda_ of Port Cos taken full in the hull.
"Back oars!" cried the oar master.
The _Tina_ shook in the water and, swerving, slid back. A medium-class galley of the Voskjard slipped past our bow, the tooth of her ram failing to feed, the water from her cleft passage, swelling away from her, forcing us to port. I saw one of her great eyes, that on her starboard bow, slide balefully by. Our own ram, as she passed, gouged a furrow, the length of a spear, the wet wood squeaking, in her flank. A man screamed on the stern of the _Portia_, to starboard, not more than forty yards away, and tumbling, reeling, like a torch, his clothing soaked with flaming pitch, fell into the water.
"Back oars!" called the oar master. "Steady! Hold!"
Many of our benches were empty. Blood was on the thwarts.
A set of javelins, five of them, from a springal, struck from their guides by a forward-springing plank, raked the interior wall of the starboard rowing frame.
There was a grinding astern and a dozen men from one of the Voskjard's pressing ships, close in the crowded waters, leapt aboard.
"Repel boarders!" I heard cry. "Keep the benches!" cried the oar master.
Men fled past us to strike the visitors from the stern. I kept my bench, my hands on the oar.
"Back oars!" called the oar master.
"The decks are cleared!" cried a man.
"The _Portia_ has been stricken!" cried an officer. I saw one of our archers, his chest transfixed with an arrow, tumble from the stern castle. A spume of water rose like a geyser from the water near us, marking the miss of a huge stone hurled from an enemy catapult.
I saw, peering through the thole port, the _Leda_'s bow lift suddenly at a sharp angle from the water, the ram and hull dripping water, glistening, and then, in a moment, she slipped back, three-quarters below the surface. Her stern was in the mud of the river bottom. The bow, then, in the current, with men clinging to it, swung toward the chain.
"Back oars!" called the oar master.
The ram of a Voskjard ship smote the jutting bow of the _Leda_. Men leaped from it into the water, mixing in the water with the striking oars of the Voskjard's ship. Archers on the Voskjard's ship, leaning over her gunnels, fired down on the struggling swimmers. Elsewhere I saw men fighting in the water.
"Two points to port!" called an officer.
We swung to port. Our ram, now, threatened the Voskjard's ship. The archers scattered behind the bulwarks. Consternation held sudden sway upon her decks. Oars, like startled limbs, not in unison, unevenly, rose from the water. We saw rudder activity, not synchronized between the port and starboard rudders. Oars, one and two, and more, at a time, began to slash down at the water. She, too, swung to port. Then she had slipped away behind the shattered bow of the _Leda_. We had not charged her. Off the starboard bow lay a galley of the Voskjard, rocking on the water, seemingly somnolent, but we knew, in an instant, if we exposed our flank to her, she would come alive, springing to the attack. "Beware the sleen that seems to sleep," is a Gorean proverb.
A bowl of flaming pitch, streaming smoke behind it looped toward us, flung by a ship near the chain. It struck in the water to the starboard side.
"Back oars, back oars," said the oar mas
ter. "Back oars, gently, Lads."
In moments we had drawn alongside of the _Olivia_, which had been the flagship of the fleet from Ar's Station, commanded by Aemilianus. She and the _Portia_ had been the last of the original ten ships which had constituted that small fleet. The _Portia_, now, was gone. To the starboard side of the _Olivia_ was the _Tais_, slender, scarred, indefatigable, valiant, of Port Cos, which held the center of our line. On her starboard side were the _Talender_, of Fina and the _Hermione_, a prize taken in battle, manned by soldiers of Ar's Station.
Norman, John - Gor 16 - Guardsman Of Gor v2.txt Page 5