Mariners of Gor

Chapter Thirty-Two

Dust was roiling in the courtyard from the beating of wings.

I feared it was too late.

The great birds did not land, but hovered, some yards from the ground; long knotted ropes, fastened to their saddle rings, spilled to the earth. Each bird could carry, for a short way, some seven or eight men. In such a way men may be borne over the walls of a city, in a raid, to set it afire, to attack a Ubar, to free a fellow, to fight to open a gate. In a city, of course, one risks swaying, almost invisible tarn wire, capable of disemboweling or beheading a bird, cutting away a wing in flight.

I, and others, including Leros, Aeacus, and Philoctetes, seized a rope, and, elsewhere, others of the high watches, and several mariners, did likewise.

Already the Pani with their vessels of oil, and their torches, had begun the descent of the wharf trail. Too, at its end would be other Pani, who would let them pass, but not others.

“Aii!” I said, as I felt the tearing jerk on my hands, anchored behind one of the knots, as I felt my feet pulled away, upward, away from the courtyard, and, for a sickening moment, I saw the ground dropping away below me.

I heard cries below, and sensed Pani rushing out from the barracks, to the courtyard.

Something went past, like a bird, a fierce whisper of wind, the rushing of a fletched shaft toward the starlit sky.

Then we were over the walls.

A drum began to beat. I heard alarmed blasts, twice, the second more distant, on one of the Pani’s conch horns, perhaps kept on the parapet.

The trail, with its tortuous twisting, taking advantage of the side of the mountain, was better than a pasang in length, but, it seemed in a moment, I saw the wharf. Almost at its end the Pani, with their flammables, and lifted torches, looked up, startled.

A fire bowl was ignited, I think by the rider of the lead tarn, it flown, I suspected, by Tarl Cabot himself, and the bowl, trailing its tiny flag of fire, descended gracefully toward the stone flooring of the trail, before the defensive barricade, and splashed into the combustibles put there on the night of the desertion, to deter a rushing of the barricade. Suddenly the entire width of the trail, within its walls, for better than forty yards, began to roar with flame. The Pani, descending the trail, arrested in their descent, by angry sheets of fire, backed away, for the heat, and could not proceed. The Pani at the barricade looked up, startled, crying out, in futility. A moment later, the birds hovering over the deck, men loosed their grip on the ropes, and dropped to the planking.

“Hurry! Hurry!” cried the high, wild voice of Tersites, from the stem castle.

I felt the deck beneath my feet, and was sliding across it, and then released the rope.

I was conscious of mariners rushing to the ratlines on each side of the ship.

Angry Pani were shouting below.

They had no way to climb to the deck. No Pani were on the ship, having been withdrawn in the afternoon.

“Cut the mooring ropes! Cast off!” I heard. I recognized the voice. It was that of Aetius, apprentice to Tersites, who had captained the ship in its lengthy, incredible, unprecedented voyage.

I remembered that the great ship now had eyes.

“Hurry!” cried Tersites.

Mariners rushed about me.

An ax was thrust into my hands, and I rushed to one of the long, mooring lines, cutting it, even striking sparks from its broad cleat, anchored in the deck.

The sound of drums reached us, from afar, probably from the walls, far above.

“Good fortune to you!” cried a voice. It was that of Tarl Cabot. Then his tarn lifted away from the vicinity of the ship, the ropes dangling behind it.

I heard a flood of canvas loosed from a yard, with a great, snapping noise, and then another.

I rushed to another mooring line, and then another.

Four more tarns flighted from the ship.

“Wait!” I called. “Wait!”

“You,” screamed Aetius to me, pointing, “that line, the last! Cut it, now!”

I cried out with rage, but rushed back, along the broads, toward the stern. It was the last line. The ship moved a bit from the wharf at the bow, moving to port, but there was a jerk and a vibration of line, and the ship was stopped, pulling against the line. I saw a number of Pani rushing toward the ship with torches, hurrying through scattered, subsiding flames.

An arrow sped past.

Two mariners were at the helm.

There was an odd tension on the last line, not adjusted to the motion of the ship, as it might ease from its berth.

Men were climbing the line.

I struck down, frenziedly, at the line, sparks flashing from the cleat, and the line parted, and jerked away. Men, clinging to it, Pani, climbing it, had fallen to the water, between the wharf and the ship.

Much canvas had now been spread, but it hung slack.

“Well done, fellow,” screamed Aetius.

I looked about, wildly.

The last tarn, unnoted, had flown.

“I must go back!” I said.

“They will not burn my ship!” screamed Tersites. “Blow, wind, blow!”

The Pani, of course, would wish to burn the ship, that our armsmen would be stranded, here, at the World’s End, without recourse, that all hope of escape would fade, and that their eyes must now turn perforce to undesired, unwelcome war. Here, escape precluded, they must stay. If they would survive, they must fight. The Pani had seen to it that they would discharge their fee. No longer had they a choice.

I ran to the rail.

“Alcinoe!” I cried. “Alcinoe! Alcinoe!”

I heard a creaking of the foremast.

There was a cheer from a dozen mariners.

“She lives! My ship lives!” cried Tersites.

I saw the opening of the cove before the bow. The tide was with the ship. A soft breeze from the shore swelled the sails.

The wharf was now yards away.

One or two torches were flung toward the ship, but fell short, and struck the water, hissing.

“What are you doing?” exclaimed Philoctetes, at my side.

“I am going back!” I said. I tore away my cloak.

“You will be killed!” said Philoctetes. “Aeacus!” he cried. “Leros, Leros!”

“Let me go!” I cried.

We struggled. Then, in a moment, I was held, as well, by Aeacus and Leros.

“Let me go!” I said. “Let me go!”

I felt rope being looped about my body. I struggled. “Alcinoe!” I wept. “Alcinoe!”

“She is only a slave,” said Leros.

“Yes,” I said, helpless. “She is only a slave.”

A light rain, one such as is common in the islands, began to fall.

“There are lights ahead!” called a fellow, partway up the ratlines to starboard.

“It is the fleet of Lord Yamada,” said a man.

“We will clear the cove,” said Philoctetes. “We will run without lights.”

“I think we have time,” said Aeacus.

“They will not catch us,” said Leros.

I felt the rain on my face, and was aware, too, of the taste of salt.