Knights of the Crown

Chapter 17

Much of the time, Grimsoar One-Eye did not miss his lost eye. Without it he had lost some of his power to judge distances, but that was a loss a man could live with, except in a fight and sometimes even then.

Today would be a fight that everyone who survived it, human or minotaur, would retell to his grandchildren as long as he had breath in his body. A man who could not tell whether a minotaur with an axe was in striking range might have to survive in the stories other men told.

At least he would die among men who would see that his body received decent rites and his death was properly reported to the brothers. That would ensure the lawful division of what he had left behind.

Grimsoar shifted his gaze from the onrushing minotaur ships to study the decks of Golden Cup. Lady Eskaia lacked the wits to go entirely below, but remained on the aftercastle. She looked to be well guarded and alert, which was about as much as anyone could contrive now. Up there was a less likely victim of stray arrows or stones, and if the aftercastle fell, Golden Cup was doomed anyway Gazing forward, Grimsoar sought Tarothin. So did some of the men beside him, the largest, strongest, and most finished fighters aboard. The fore- and aftercastle had to be held, but the longer it took the minotaurs to fight their way onto the midships deck (the waist, as sailors called it) …

Grimsoar saw no wizard; neither did his comrades, and some of them cursed. Grimsoar clamped a hand on the shoulder of the loudest.

“Tarothin can’t do a blessed thing except heal in this battle. Otherwise, we’ve gone beyond the limits of honor, and the minotaurs will fight to the death. Ours or theirs, it won’t matter.”

The sailor was suddenly stricken mute. In the next moment a dozen voices cried out as one. A minotaur slid down to the ram of the leading ship, guiding himself with one hand while he held a shatang-the heavy, barbed minotaur throwing spear-in the other. Balancing as if on the level sand of the arena, he raised the shatang and flung it.

“Stand!” Grimsoar bellowed, echoed by Kurulus and the captain. “Flinch, and they’ll fight harder.”

Nobody flinched, and mercifully the shatang flew high. It cleared the bulwarks and sank a hand’s-breadth into the tough wood of the mainmast’s stump. Everyone stared at the quivering shaft until Grimsoar walked over to the mast, jerked the spear free, and snapped it over his knee. Then he held up the broken pieces, and made an unmistakable gesture with them. The minotaur spearman shook both fists at Grimsoar, then scrambled back onto the deck of his ship.

No further minotaurs made any such grand gestures; the ships were too close. Indeed, the nearer ship was now within easy bowshot. Golden Cup archers let fly from both fore and aft, but Grimsoar saw they’d been given the right orders. None of the arrows sank into minotaur flesh; they merely sprouted from bulwarks, decks, oars, and gear. The minotaurs had been warned, not hurt, let alone enraged.

Not that it ever takes much to get a minotaur into a rage, Grimsoar reminded himself. Even the most honorable ones act like they were born in a bad mood.

The first ship was slowing now, and some of its oars were disappearing through the oar ports. Grimsoar heard someone shout a taunt, but knew that this could hardly be good news for Golden Cup.

The next moment proved it. The rowers below were leaving their oars, arming themselves, and swarming on deck. More spears flew, and not warnings or defiant gestures now, but aimed to kill.

Only one shatang found a mark. With its barbed head and the impetus of a minotaur’s throw behind it, the spear not only pierced a sailor’s throat, it nearly took his head off. His blood was the first to spread across Golden Cup’s deck as two of the ship’s boys ran to pour sand on it.

Hope we don’t run out of sand, was Grimsoar’s vagrant thought.

Then the second ship swept past its comrade, oars flashing and rainbows blazing in the spray, driving straight at Golden Cup. Its crew seemed determined to show that no beings created by the gods could row like minotaurs.

This ship is supposed to be proof against ramming, Grimsoar reminded himself. Then somewhere in his mind something impudent added: But did anyone tell the minotaurs?

Then the show ended, as the second minotaur ship drove its ram into Golden Cup’s side. Grimsoar jerked his head back just as the deck quivered under him. He still needed a good grip to keep from sprawling, and he heard tortured metal screaming and overburdened wood cracking. He could not tell which ship was giving off those agonized sounds.

He could tell the minotaurs’ tactics at a glance, however. With the ram wedged in Golden Cup’s side, the minotaur whip might not have given the enemy a mortal wound, but it was a wide, firm bridge to let the minotaur crew reach the larger vessel’s side amidships.

Reach it, and perhaps swarm onto Golden Cup’s decks in numbers that-

Trumpets blared from both sides, drums drowned out the trumpets, and war cries fought to drown out both. The minotaurs’ bellowing gave them the advantage in this war of dreadful sounds, but they weren’t relying heavily on their stout lungs and deep chests.

The crew of the second ship was already swarming aboard its comrade. Meanwhile, the crew of the first was rushing forward. Some held lines ending in grappling hooks, some hooked poles, and still others light ladders (at least “light” by the measure of minotaurs).

All of them carried more than one weapon, but wore them on their belts or across chests and backs, to leave their hands free for climbing.

Grimsoar finished his previous thought: We may just have too many minotaurs coming aboard to do them much damage with a rearguard action.

Again the blare of trumpets, but this time only from Golden Cup, and before they died, Grimsoar heard the whine and hiss of arrows.

* * * * *

Pirvan and Haimya did their best to stay under cover, move quickly, and avoid leaving a trail as they fled the place of their battle with the sentries. The moment the men were found, the hunt would be up, perhaps less merciless because the men were not dead, perhaps not.

On this ground, it was impossible for the thief and warrior-maid to do all three tasks at once, until the rain began. By the time the rain was in full spate, they might as well have been marching under a waterfall. Their footprints vanished before they’d covered fifty paces, the rain itself was as opaque as the undergrowth and much easier to push through, and they hardly needed to move quickly. Nobody was likely to be following them.

“Nobody may need to follow us, either, if we fall down a cliff in this murk,” Haimya reminded Pirvan. She had to put her mouth close to his ear, spit rain out of her mouth, brush strands of hair from her face with her free hand, and then shout to be heard above the rain. When thunder rumbled and crashed across the land, no human voice could make itself heard.

“Are you suggesting we find shelter?” Pirvan replied, making himself understood after four tries. “Look for it, anyway. In this rain I don’t know if anything but a cave will do, and somebody may have already claimed it.”

“The black dragon?” Haimya asked.

“I was thinking more of sentries who don’t want to face the rain. I’m sure you’ve known that breed.”

Haimya had enough wits left to grin at Pirvan’s words. “Then you suggest we go on?”

“It’s the last thing anybody will be expecting us to do. That makes it the best way of keeping our surprise.”

Haimya had the grace to look up at the sky and shake a fist at it before nodding. Pirvan dug in his staff and took the lead.

I hope I don’t have to use the Spell of Seeing the Expected, the thief thought. How does one look like a rainstorm, anyway?

* * * * *

As the minotaurs swarmed up Golden Cup’s side, to Lady Eskaia they looked like a rockslide-solid brown, black, and gray masses moving in an irresistible wall. Except that this rockslide was sliding up rather than down, each “rock” a strong, seasoned, and well-armed fighter, and there was no safety out of their immediate path. This avalanche would pursue every human aboard Golden Cup to death or slavery, unless the humans could fight it to a standstill.

Eskaia began to wonder if she’d been wise to remain on deck. She could hardly do much up here except perhaps get useful fighters killed trying to protect her, and fighting her own fear would be harder. She wanted to put her hand in her mouth and bite down on it hard to stifle a whimper of terror.

But a look over the side told her that the archers’ shafts had flown true, once they started shooting to hit live targets. At least one minotaur was sitting down, with a shaft in one arm and another in his left thigh. He was awkwardly trying to work the second arrow clear, when a human archer put a third shaft into his eye. He threw up both arms, fell over backward, and lay still except for a trickle of blood from his mouth.

He wasn’t the only minotaur who needed to pluck encumbering shafts from his body, but he was the only one who fell. The rest came on, streaming blood or with rag dressings about their wounds. The first minotaur to reach the deck actually had the stub of an arrow protruding from his belly. Eskaia closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought of how the minotaur must feel.

That much pain ought to be unlawful.…

“Are you well?”

Eskaia opened her eyes and saw Kurulus beside her. His voice was tight, and that almost frightened her into another shudder.

“Frightened, yes. Is that a sickness?”

“Right now, it’s good sense.” Kurulus looked her up and down. “I take that back about the good sense. Is that helmet all the gear you have?”

Eskaia patted her dagger. “I have everything I know how to use. In a fight, anything else is just extra weight.”

“You’ve been listening to that sellsword maid of yours-” Kurulus began.

“She is a shrewder fighter than most aboard this ship, I tell you,” Eskaia snapped.

“I don’t deny that,” Kurulus said. “I only wish she and Pirvan were here now,”

“I could wish for a pair of siege engines and fifty Qualinesti archers, too,” Eskaia snapped, “but my wish would be as futile as yours.”

From below, a sling stone whistled up, parting Kurulus’s hair. A finger’s-breadth lower and it would have split his skull. The mate drew his sword, a broadsword rather than a sailor’s cutlass, and pointed toward the stern.

“Stay behind me. War luck may save you from the minotaurs, but if it doesn’t, nothing will save me from Jemar.”

“Jemar-?” Eskaia began, knowing she’d heard something not really intended for her ears. But Kurulus was balancing on the railing, then leaped down to the next deck, and at last vanished into the swirling chaos that was now Golden Cup’s deck amidships.

Another stone flew, and this one took a sailor in the arm. Before he could cry out, Eskaia was beside him, urging him to the deck while she drew clean cloth and a flask of healing potion from her purse.

With her hands busy, it became almost easy not to think of what might happen next, even not listen to the charnel house din of what was happening now.

* * * * *

Pirvan and Haimya found their cliff only after the rain had slackened. In civilized lands, it would still have been called heavy rain, enough to break a drought or send streams out of their banks, but Crater Gulf was not a civilized land.

The thief mentally amended his resolve to avoid quests that took him to sea. He would also try to avoid those that took him into jungles, at least during the rainy season (though it had begun to seem doubtful that this coast had any other).

They still had ample warning of the cliff. Unfortunately, this warning did them little good. The sixty-foot drop was by far the easiest way down. Indeed, as the rain lifted more, they saw that it was virtually the only way down on their present route. Elsewhere the descents were either higher, more dangerous, or waterfalls swollen by the rain.

The only other alternative was retracing their steps and taking their chances with alerted sentries, not to mention patrols from the two camps also probably warned by now. Following this route to the castle had at least the same virtue as marching in the rain-it was something that no sane person would be expected to do.

“We’d better lower our heavy packs first,” Pirvan said. “Easier and safer than pulling them after us.”

At least Haimya made no protest at the idea of climbing down. Her face seemed the same hue as when she had been seasick, but she began unbuckling her pack with steady hands.

It took both ropes together to get the packs safely down, and for a while afterward Pirvan wasn’t sure if the slipknot was going to slip. Finally it did its duty and he hauled the rope in hand over hand, watching carefully for places where it might snag or fray against sharp edges.

“This face seems fairly smooth,” he said, as he examined the rope.

“Also fairly visible to anyone who wanders by,” Haimya said. She looked down. “Oh, pardon. I see that rock spur a trifle farther down the valley. Anyone beyond it won’t be able to see the cliff.”

“No, and on a day like this nobody is going to be wandering about from idle curiosity,” Pirvan said.

“Or perhaps even strictly ordered duty,” Haimya said.

“You’re the soldier,” Pirvan said. She grinned. “Now I want you to move around as if you were dancing,” he added. “A lively dance, like something sea barbarians would do in a tavern.”

Haimya looked at the cliff. “Let me step back a few paces.”

It did not surprise Pirvan to see that each one of Haimya’s movements flowed naturally into the next. Had she been dancing in a tavern, she would have danced on silver by the end of the evening.

“Good.” He stepped forward and began undoing the knots on one of her pouches.

She raised a hand and gently pushed his away. “Pirvan, what are you doing?”

“Sorry. I should have explained.” He told her briefly about the need for having all one’s gear balanced while climbing.

“I balanced mine without thinking, but I nearly forgot that you don’t have a thief’s training.”

“Perhaps I should gain it,” Haimya said. This time she made no protest when he started rearranging her gear.

Pirvan shook his head. “Ten years ago I would have said that. Now-I don’t know.”

“Night work is hard for one who is more good than not, I suppose.”

“You flatter me, Haimya. I’ll go where the gods put me, when they tell me where that is. But meanwhile, I wouldn’t mind work that let me sleep easier of nights. I beg your pardon,” he added, realizing that his hands were roaming over parts of Haimya’s body that might give offense.

“None needed,” Haimya said. Her smile showed a good many teeth; also true warmth. “But do keep your thoughts on the serious work. Else we shall end up sleeping together at the bottom of this cliff never to wake.”

* * * * *

Grimsoar One-Eye had fought minotaurs twice before, once in a wrestling bout that not only began friendly but remained that way, and once in a brawl that was unfriendly from beginning to end. It had taken a skilled healer to put his back and hip in order after the brawl, which had left him willing thereafter to keep his distance from minotaurs.

Now he found himself close enough to half a score of minotaurs to bite their ears or gouge their eyes if it came to that-which it might, as these minotaurs seemed to put wide limits on what was honorable in fighting humans.…

At least they followed minotaur tradition in not using shields. But it was hard to reach the life in those massive bodies with most human weapons without coming in reach of the deadly sweep of the minotaurs’ arsenals. They were following tradition in another respect as well-most of them had foresworn shields in order to wield two weapons at once.

About all that had kept the minotaurs from sweeping the decks was the close quarters of the fight. The minotaurs could not choose their distance and chop their smaller opponents apart like a kitchen maid with a cabbage. There was simply no room for that, and many chances for humans to slip under the swing of the kausin or the clabbard and thrust or slash at a minotaur’s unprotected flesh.

Grimsoar had an improvised shield, a barrel lid. In the next moment it saved him, as a minotaur thrust with a katar. Not all minotaur weapons needed room. Grimsoar caught the katar’s point in the barrel lid, felt it being twisted out of his grasp by sheer brute strength, and slashed crosswise with his cutlass.

The heavy blade rode up the minotaur’s chest and caught him across the throat. It drew blood but did not reach his life, as he wore a collar of bone plates. Grimsoar snatched his cutlass free and wished he were as agile as Pirvan, able to kick up under the shield and take the minotaur in a painful if not deadly spot. That would end the big bull’s enthusiasm for hacking a reputation out of human bodies.

Instead of kicking, Grimsoar spun and rammed the edge of the barrel lid where he had planned to land his foot. The effect was similar. As the minotaur bellowed and doubled over, the big man also rammed his head up under the minotaur’s jaw. He wondered if he’d cracked his skull, but knew that the minotaur was no longer in front of him.

His head aching, Grimsoar plunged through the gap left by the wounded minotaur. His shield splintered under a tessto blow, but he snatched his arm clear in time and opened the tessto wielder’s arm with his cutlass. That would be the end of the tessto wielding for today; the huge spiked club was a brutally heavy weapon even for a minotaur.

Arrows whined past, thudding into wood or flesh. Grimsoar roared a wordless protest at such wild archery from the castles, then realized he’d completely pierced the minotaurs’ line. He was behind them, where the archers fore and aft had been showering arrows to keep the minotaurs on the ships from joining their comrades.

They hadn’t completely succeeded, judging from the number of minotaurs fighting aboard Golden Cup. Grimsoar decided to help the archers, even at the risk of taking a friendly arrow between his ribs.

He whirled and slashed a minotaur across the back of both knees. The wounds weren’t deep, but they maddened the opponent even more. He whirled in turn, swinging a double-bitted axe with all his unimpaired speed and strength.

Speed and strength might have been unimpaired; judgment was not. The minotaur was heedless of his comrades and only the axe turning in his hand saved two of them from serious wounds. The two minotaurs mistakenly assaulted turned on their comrade, raising their own weapons and completely ignoring Grimsoar.

The human had plenty of time to slash one minotaur’s good arm (he was the tessto wielder, now without his club but with a shortened shatang that looked quite capable of killing any human who ever walked). The pain didn’t make him drop his remaining weapon, but it made him thrust wildly. Grimsoar caught the shaft in his free hand and heaved. Off balance, the minotaur stumbled into his comrade, just as the other axe victim was throwing a punch at the axe wielder.

The punch connected-with the side of the tessto wielder’s head. A horn snapped off nearly at the root, all three minotaurs bellowed loudly enough to drown out the rest of the battle, and Grimsoar knew that he’d pushed his luck far enough. Fighting with minotaurs front and back and friendly arrows above could have only one ending, and that soon.

A flight of arrows finished off the tessto wielder the moment Grimsoar burst through the minotaur line and rejoined the human ranks.

* * * * *

Haimya went down the cliff first.

“I can hold you if you fall, but I doubt the same is true the other way,” Pirvan said.

“I was not going to argue,” Haimya replied. “Really.”

Pirvan raised one eyebrow. Haimya clenched a fist and mock-punched him in the jaw. Then she stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down.

“I wouldn’t do that-” Pirvan began.

This time Haimya’s face was grim as she turned to him. “I have to know how much it frightens me.”

What blood does flow in your veins, my lady comrade? Pirvan thought. Admitting one’s fear might not everywhere and always be called the highest form of courage, but it showed loyalty to those who depended on you.

Such a woman would also demand that same high loyalty from others. Can I offer it? And even if I can, does it matter?

It was clearer than ever to Pirvan, that something good would pass out of his life when Haimya and Gerik Ginfrayson were reunited. Better that, however, than something good passing out of the world entirely by Haimya’s falling down the cliff.

It would help if we don’t have to do this very often, he mused. Indeed, there is much to be said for questing on level ground, if one’s comrade is not a thief-trained climber.

* * * * *

Eskaia forgot how many men she’d treated when the healing potions and the clean cloths ran out. She’d barely noticed that both purse and flask were empty when a ship’s boy thrust another wad of cloth at her.

“I need more potion,” she snapped. “Where is Tarothin?”

“Don’t know, milady. For’ard, I think. That’s where the worst hurts been going, mostly.”

Eskaia thought sailors’ words about boys who could not tell you anything useful, then straightened up. Her head was throbbing from the sun beating on the helmet, and her back and arms ached from the bending and healing. She pressed both hands to the small of her back and gave a little sigh as the pain eased.

Standing, she had a view of the deck amidships. Humans and minotaurs now had Golden Cup’s waist divided between them. The minotaurs were outnumbered, thanks to hard fighting on deck and the human archery playing on their reinforcements from the ships. But they’d also strewn the deck with enough human dead that the humans below had no hope of driving the boarders back to their ships.

To Eskaia, it seemed that no one would ever again question the courage or honor of these minotaurs, through all the ages to come. She herself would not listen to a breath uttered against that courage and honor-though their judgment might be another matter.

Minotaurs on deck bellowed, and others replied from the ships. Four of the minotaurs on deck turned to face the humans. The others-Eskaia thought she counted seven-turned aft. One of them bellowed again.

Then they charged the ladder to the aftercastles.

The charge caught the men on the lowest deck by surprise, and four went down in bloody ruin almost before they knew they were in danger. One of the survivors thrust a pike wildly at a minotaur’s throat, and by sheer chance drove the point home. The minotaur wrenched the weapon free, snatched it from its wielder, swung it like a club, and broke the man’s skull.

Then the minotaur fell backward on to the deck, knocking down a comrade. The throat-pierced minotaur did not rise again, as his blood joined all the rest on the deck. The second minotaur gave the loudest bellow Eskaia had yet heard from any hostile throat in this ear-piercing battle, and returned to the attack.

Five men remained, two of them archers. The archers scrambled stern ward, one of them nearly knocking Eskaia down as he climbed over the railing. But they had no weapons for close work other than daggers, and they began shooting again the moment they were safe.

Three men against six minotaurs was not a fight. It was a massacre. To do them justice, the minotaurs did not play with their smaller opponents, like cats with mice. They simply drove at them from three sides, wielding kausins, clabbards, and katans. One minotaur also had the hideous mandoll, with a silvered spike on the armored gauntlet-or at least Eskaia thought it was silvered under the blood.

The merchant princess did not realize how fast the minotaurs were coming until one of them reached over the railing toward her. She wanted to run, but discovered that sheer terror had joined fatigue to root her feet to the deck. The minotaur was the one with the mandoll, and now the spike looked as large as a spear as the attacker drew back his arm for a straight punch at Eskaia’s head, to splatter her brains across Golden Cup’s deck-

Fury boiled up in Eskaia, ending the paralysis. She dived as the mandoll lunged forward, and the spike only scraped across her helmet. She landed rolling, drawing her dagger as she rolled, taking boots in the head and ribs as sailors tried to get out of her way, and ended up lying by the railing.

It took her a moment to realize that she was invisible to the minotaur, but that she could see his whole chest and stomach through the railing. His whole unarmored chest and stomach.

In the next moment, the minotaur discovered that Lady Eskaia knew precisely how to use her dagger. Haimya had taught her well, though she lacked the strength of wrist and arm to make a deadly thrust with those alone.

Instead, she put not just wrist and arm, but shoulders, back, and all her slight weight into the thrust. It was like carving overdried meat or piercing thick leather, but she’d done both before and she did as well now.

The minotaur did not bellow. He howled like a hundred lost souls crying out from the Abyss, and clutched at the railing. Wood cracked, and as Eskaia gripped the dagger in both hands for a second thrust, the railing suddenly vanished in front of her.

By then it was too late for her to stop her thrust. It went home, and the minotaur convulsed as she reached his life. The minotaur’s death throes plucked the dagger from her hand, but not before they also pulled her through the shattered railing and onto the deck below, in the midst of the five remaining minotaurs.

* * * * *

Pirvan did not breathe easily until Haimya stood on solid ground at the foot of the cliff and raised both hands in the agreed signal for a safe landing. Indeed, he could have sworn he did not breathe at all, but knew that, as he was not a sea elf, this was impossible.

What was not impossible was his slipping and breaking his own neck or other vital parts through carelessness on his own way down. Haimya’s safety was necessary for the completion of their quest; it was not by itself sufficient.

Pirvan was more careful than usual to breathe steadily and stop whenever his hands shook. He had learned these and other elementary safety precautions of climbing before he had seen his nineteenth year, but they did not seem as easy to remember now as they had before he had entered the Encuintras estate-it seemed years ago, now.

All his caution made the descent slower and noisier than it might have been. His hands were shaking harder than ever as he finally coiled up the rope, and he had a rope burn on one cheek.

But he could see (or rather hear) that no one was going to easily discover them here. A rain-swollen stream boiled past only twenty paces away, filling the valley with an endless echoing roar and hiss. A dozen hearty dwarven smiths all working hard at their forges would have been lost in the tumult of the stream. It was also the only way out of the valley-unless they felt equal to a climb back up the cliff.

Pirvan felt weary even thinking of that course. Instead he began collecting their packs and studying them for damage, while Haimya contemplated the ribbon of silver spray and churning greenness.

“I think there’s a shallower spot a trifle farther downstream,” she said, pointing. He noticed for the first time that part of her left forearm was scraped red, almost bloody, from some brush with the rocks.

“Shallow enough to let us cross dryshod?”

“Not unless Hipparan flies down to carry us or Paladin himself builds a bridge. But it looks as if we won’t be swept away if we use the ropes. Oh, and on this passage, I think I should be the leader.”

It made sense, since she swam better than he and climbing would not be needed. More sense than the other way around, and infinitely more sense than a quarrel.

None of this good sense, however, will do much for the pain of seeing her drown before my eyes, thought Pirvan.

* * * * *

Eskaia did the first thing that came to her mind, which was not screaming. Instead, it was kicking. Her first kick landed on a minotaur’s ankle, and had about the same effect as kicking a mature oak tree.

The second kick, she aimed higher, aware that her gown was likely to leave her quite immodestly garbed and totally indifferent to the fact. The second kick enjoyed better luck, as it struck a minotaur who was stooping down to clutch this rare prize suddenly fallen at his feet.

Delivered by Grimsoar One-Eye or even Haimya, the kick might have done real injury to the minotaur’s person. As it was, it injured his balance and self-command. He reeled backward, throwing out his arms with a bellow of rage. One arm struck a jutting splinter of railing, hard enough to drive barbed wood through hairy, leathery hide. The minotaur bellowed louder.

At this point, one of his comrades clutched at his flailing arm, to immobilize it and extract the splinter. This put two minotaurs momentarily out of the fight, leaving only three to seize Eskaia.

The two archers above promptly reduced this number by one more. At close range, both arrows pierced the minotaur’s chest. He plucked one arrow out, but the other was deep in a lung. Feeling death in him, he lunged for the men above, gripping one by the ankle. He heaved, and the man flew over his head. The man’s head struck the deck a hammerblow, also breaking his neck. Then the minotaur grasped the second arrow, gasped as it came free, coughed blood, and fell.

He nearly fell on Lady Eskaia, and her survival under those circumstances (and that minotaur) would have been precarious. However, he fell beside her, where the two free minotaurs had to step over or around him to be within reach of Eskaia.

Before they could do this, arrows and men hit them from above and men hit them from below. Also, Lady Eskaia hit them from within their own ranks, wielding a katar she’d snatched up. She had to use both hands for it, but the crossbar hilt gave plenty of room. She thrust into the back of a minotaur’s thigh, then slashed another wound across his posterior as he whirled to skewer her with his shatang.

The spear pierced her gown without piercing her flesh. She was pinned to the deck, but the shatang’s head drove so far into the planks that the minotaur had to fight to free it. This battle cost him more time than he could afford; Kurulus leaped up behind him and hamstrung him with two quick, brutal slashes of his sword.

Then Eskaia’s greatest danger was being trampled to death before she could free herself. She finally rolled desperately, tearing her gown free of the shatang. As she staggered to her feet, she hoped she had not torn it entirely free of her body as well.

Then two hands large enough to belong to a minotaur gripped Eskaia under the shoulders and heaved her upward. She flew through the air, until four smaller hands caught her and lowered her to the next deck stern ward.

She gripped the nearest solid objects, not caring whether they were animate or inanimate, or even minotaur or human. She would not fall down in a faint over a mere narrow escape from capture or death by minotaurs. She would save that for something serious, such as a proposal of marriage or being with child.

One immodest thought led to another-how much was left of her gown? She had the undeniable sensation of breezes blowing on places that should not have been exposed to breezes. Before she could look down, someone behind her reached over her shoulder and handed her a sailor’s cloak. It was large enough to make a tent for two women her size, but it certainly satisfied all possible requirements of modesty.

It did not, however, satisfy the requirements of mobility. It dragged on the deck, and on her third step Eskaia stumbled over the heavy wool. She would have fallen if one of those large hands hadn’t held her up.

“Grimsoar?”

“What would Haimya and Pirvan say if you were killed? Compared to them, minotaurs are a trifle.”

He tried to keep her turned away from the ship’s waist, but she looked anyway. She counted more than twenty bodies, human and minotaur, and could not find a stretch of unbloodied deck larger than a man’s hand. Two of the ship’s boys lay dead beside their overturned sand buckets, one impaled on a shatang, the other with his head split-

“Excuse me.”

Eskaia gripped her dignity for a few moments longer, then dashed for the side. She almost reached it. Grimsoar waited until her stomach was empty, then offered her a clean cloth dipped in clean water-something, she suspected, by now almost as precious as healing potion.

That brought Tarothin back to her mind.

“We have to begin the healing work. Are the minotaurs driven off? Is Tarothin safe? Where is he? Is there any more healing potion? I need a new gown before I can-”

Grimsoar pointed over the side. Both minotaur ships now rested on their oars just out of bowshot. The sides of the one that had rammed Golden Cup was smeared with blood and seemed to be lower in the water.

“They’ll be back. They’ve left bodies aboard, and they can’t do that without losing honor.”

“Suppose we threw the bodies-?”

Grimsoar said something that shocked even Eskaia’s newly hardened ears. “Then they’ll fight to the death, and if they capture anybody, they’ll torture him to death. Don’t even think that again. They might have a mage aboard, as witness, and some minotaur mages can read thoughts.”

“Then let me find Tarothin, and we can try to heal any who are still alive. After we’ve done the work with our own-”

“No time for that. The lookouts have sighted two more ships approaching. One’s too far off to identify, but the one in the lead is minotaur-rigged.”

Eskaia wished she knew ail of Grimsoar’s words and a few more besides, preferably in the minotaur tongue so that she could curse them and be understood by even the meanest rower among them That wish might not be granted. What could she hope for?

“Very well. If we have to treat the bodies honorably, let us drag them off the open deck. They will not be the better for being trodden on by their comrades. Nor will we be the better for stumbling over them.

“Any who survive can be healed when we have leisure. But none will survive if they must endure another battle-”

“Aye, aye, Captain Eskaia,” Grimsoar said, in chorus with Kurulus. The mate had joined them during Eskaia’s outburst.

“If you are mocking-” Eskaia began.

“Your pardon,” Kurulus said, and his stricken tone told her that he was sincere. “You are wise and honorable, and we will do as you suggest.”

“Thank you,” Eskaia said. She hoped they would do it without her watching. She needed to sit down, drink something (even water), and change her gown. The dignity of House Encuintras, as well as her own, required that last measure.