Swordships of Scorpio

CHAPTER TEN

“Swordships!”

I eyed the lean low-lying leem-shapes surging through smothers of foam all about us. Slender, cranky, spray-drenched craft, they clearly had put out from some pirates’ lair hidden on a nearby island. They were closing in for the kill. Soon our decks would run red with blood.

“Oh, Dray!” said Tilda, grasping my arm in a convulsive grip. Snuggled against her side and held by her other arm, Pando — who was a Kov although he did not know it — stared with all his boyish excitement and venom out to sea and those slender hungry shapes.

A hail from forward distracted my attention from the swordships for a moment. Then I saw the cause. Tangled together in a raffle of mutual destruction two other argenters from our shattered armada wallowed toward the shore. I saw the scheme of the swordships now. They would wait until Dram Constant had run athwart those other two dismal wrecks and then they would have us all, three fat ponshos, in the killing circle.

On the drifting wrecks the frantic forms of men ran and scuttled, and I caught the gleam of weapons across the water.

Very well.

We would fight.

Captain Alkers, pale but determined, gave his orders and his men were issued with axes and spears, boarding pikes and bows. Bows! Yes — to begin with, a little artillery might soften up the opposition. I disengaged my arm, very gently, from Tilda.

“You did Inch and me the great honor of asking us to be your champions, Tilda the Beautiful. Now, we will see about honoring our side of the bargain.”

“But, Dray!” she wailed. “There are so many of them.”

About to make the habitual response, I checked, as Inch, with a gusty laugh, said it for me.

“All the more of them to kill, Tilda of the Many Veils!”

I cocked an eye at the suns as I went aft to the staterooms to collect my Lohvian longbow that was built of true Yerthyr wood. How old that bow might be I did not know; but it was of great, price, and I thanked Sosie once again as I brought it forth. I buckled my Krozair long sword at my waist, along with the rapier. There would be need of those later.

Ax in hand, Inch waited my return.

“It will be dark in three burs or so,” I said. A Kregan bur, being some forty Earth minutes long, meant we had two hours before we stood a chance of escape in the darkness. Like any Kregan, I carried a kind of almanac of the motions of the seven moons in my head, and I knew we had a bur or so of true darkness, lit only fitfully by a small and hurtling lesser moon, before the twins, the two second moons of Kregen, eternally orbiting each other as they orbit the planet, would rise to cast down their pinkish light. Would they rise before we could escape? Would we all be dead before the last orange glow of Zim faded from the western sky?

Soon after the twins would rise She of the Veils. Then the darkness would be dispelled completely. We had to hold out against the swordships. We must!

The corsairs opened away before us and a single bank of oars flashed, dripping, rising and falling, from each lean flank as the swordships heaved and rolled in the running sea after the gale. Two-masters, the swordships, with a low profile extending into a familiar beak and rostrum forward, a compact forecastle, a sweeping length of deck packed with men and half-men half-beasts, and a single-decked castle aft from which blazed and fluttered many gaudy flags and banners. The swordships carried varters mounted forward and on the broadside. All our varter and catapult artillery had been smashed and swept away in the hurricane.

We were not entirely defenseless. I watched a swordship surging up alongside, as a ponsho-trag herding a straying ponsho, worrying, attempts to push the recalcitrant animal back among the others, and I saw the way the water broke over her deck. I saw the spume shooting up, and the way the oars flailed and lost their rhythm, and the quick falling-off of the head to the wind to ease the swordship’s motion. Waterlogged, Dram Constant rolled sluggishly onward, steady as a half submerged rock. Lifting the bow and doing all the instinctive complicated mathematics of wind and relative velocities instantly in my head, without conscious thought, I loosed. The shaft struck the helmsman. He threw both arms up and pitched forward.

A great yell went up from Dram Constant.

The next instant the swordship abaft the one I had so suddenly and summarily deprived of her steersman loosed her starboard bow varter. The chunk of rock, as large as a fine amphora, flew over our wreckage-cumbered decks and splashed into the sea well forward of our starboard beam. Again the crew of Dram Constant cheered.

But there were bowmen of Loh aboard the swifters, also, and a dozen multicolored arrows sprouted from the timbers of the argenter, and a crewman staggered back, cursing wildly, a long shaft embedded in his shoulder, the dark blood running down.

Wasting arrows has been a pastime in which I have never been interested. I shot only when absolutely sure of hitting a target; and I made of those targets the chief men of the swordships, for one oarsman more or less will not halt a galleass in full course.

The island richly clothed in a choked and brilliant vegetation toward which we drifted was appreciably closer now. The swordships closed in. There were seven of them, and they worked as one, obviously under the orders of a single commander. I call them galleasses because, in truth, lean and low in the water though they were, they were built with a far greater freeboard than the swifters of the Eye of the World. They would have need of that freeboard on the outer oceans. To add to the correctness of my description they carried varters in the broadside position, shooting over the single bank of oars. When an arrow feathered itself into the planking hard by Pando, and Tilda screamed, I told Inch to take them both into the aft staterooms. I wanted Inch out of this long-range stuff, just as much as Tilda and her son, for his ax would be invaluable at close-quarters; now he was merely a target. The swordships kept on with their attack. I fancied they were as unhandy in the sea as is any compromise between the out-and-out galley form and the complete sailing vessel. They looked dangerous ships — dangerous to those who sailed them.

The very aftermath of the storm, the long deep-swell waves, were aiding us by preventing the typical galley tactic of ram and board.

Soon, however, we must tangle up with those other two hopeless wrecks and strike the shore. When that happened the swordships’ crews would beach and board us. We had little chance, for the pirate ships carried large crews.

The long-range artillery duel went on as we drifted closer to the island and I grew more and more miserly in my husbanding of shafts. The swifters in which I had commanded varters had soon, under my brand of discipline, acquired accuracy and speed in rate of loosing. A King’s Ship with the ever-present memory of Nelson to jog heart and mind and sinew is the best training ground for rapid shooting, even if accuracy is a subject scarcely mentioned, to my annoyance. But these swordship varter-men were plainly inept. Only twice they hit us. One chunk of rock smashed clear through the aftercabin and destroyed the crockery the storm had left unsmashed there. The other mashed three crewmen into a red puddle. That was all.

There is callousness and callousness. Do not think I did not grieve for those three men, still practically strangers; but I had seen all this before, and Tilda, Pando, and Inch were on my mind.

“Not long now, Dray Prescot,” said Captain Alkers. He held his rapier in his hand, and he fiddled with the gay golden tassel dangling from the hilt. “We will give them a fight, though, before they take us.”

I had seen on the nearest swordship a man strutting importantly on the low forecastle, shouting at the varter-men, and before I answered Captain Alkers I spitted the swordship varterist through the chest. He fell over the side and was much beaten by the oars, which pleased me. Then I answered the captain.

“We can hold them off long enough to get the women and children off and into the island, can we not?”

There is callousness and callousness, as I have said. That varterist did not merit overmuch regret, I warrant.

In this, as you will hear, I perhaps did the man an injustice.

On that particular swordship, a larger vessel with three masts, a bowman had been having a go at me with some consistency. His arrows had sung past my ears, three had buried themselves in the timbers of Dram Constant’s rail shaving close, and one had slain a Rapa waister who had been set to collecting incoming arrows. Captain Alkers cursed.

“I didn’t mean the fool Rapa to collect an arrow in himself, Opaz take him!”

These arrows, of which I took only the automatic notice of a fighting-man engaged in an archery duel -

which meant that I examined them with minute care — were feathered all with lush and lovely royal blue flights. Although I had never seen that gorgeous lambent shot-silk blue before, I knew exactly what they were and from which bird they had been taken. Seg had told me. They were the flights from the king korf, the largest bird of Erthyrdrin. The king korf was large; but it was nowhere near the size of the corth of the Hostile Territories; it was not a saddle bird. From this I knew I was up against a master bowman of Erthyrdrin on that swordship. It was extraordinarily difficult to pick him out on the deck clustered with men shooting. On the forepart of the aftercastle that extended into a quasi-quarterdeck stood a figure in brilliant and, the fleeting thought occurred to me, dashingly discordant clothing. A pendulous figure, with a mass of plumes waving above its helmet, the shine and wink of gems all about it, in a profusion; yet I caught the impression of uncaring scruffiness there. Twice I had shot at this figure, which appeared to me to be the captain of the swordship, and twice a mere chance had deflected the shafts. Captain Alkers came back, cursing.

“We will strike the shore in a jumble of wreckage with the other two argenters. One is poor Captain Loki’s Tombor Adventurer. The other is too far gone for me to be really sure just who she is-”

At that moment a blue-flighted arrow sprouted from the deck between us. I jerked it free, ran my fingers along the shaft to feel the sweet trueness of it, saw the head was a plain arrow-barb, nocked it, drew, loosed, and lost that flaunting blue in the mass of men crowding the deck of the swordship. Now we were within close range of the shore the movements of the ships became more discernible. The sword-ships were swooping up and down in the sea. We surged on, sluggishly, and in a moment the shattered stump of our bowsprit tangled with the tattered bravado of the sterncastle of Tombor Adventurer and together, with the other argenter now a mere waterlogged mass disintegrating visibly, the three ships grounded. We swung broadside amid a great rending of wood. Outside of us now the swordships nosed in. Our keel grated on sand, we heeled, heaved as a wave caught us, and smashed down solidly onto the sand. Dram Constant had made her last landfall. Some confusion ensued. I put it like that to let you understand that some of us wanted to stand and fight and some wanted to run into the shrouding vegetation of the island. Inch appeared with his great ax cocked over a shoulder, carrying our most precious possessions bundled into a canvas dunnage bag in the other hand. Tilda kept fast hold of young Pando, who was brandishing a dagger. Captain Alkers formed his crew. The swordship carrying the blue-flight archer with whom I had been having that duel bumped our seaward side, going up and down like an elevator through the giant plants of Aphrasoe. I glanced back. People were pouring off the three ships and racing up the beach. A number of the swordships had landed farther along and pirates were running from them, waving weapons.

“Inch!” I put all the old deviltry and arrogance and unpleasant authority into my voice. “Take Tilda and Pando and get into those trees. Hurry! I will join you later.”

“But — Dray-”

“Don’t argue, man! Move!”

He looked at my face. He nodded, once, and his own lean face went tight and intense. He and Tilda and Pando hared off.

We met the first pirate rush in a smothering welter of blades that left many a sea-bandit screeching and toppling into the water in the gap between the two hulls. The sword-ship was going up and down confusingly. Men tried to leap aboard, and missed, and so were crushed. Others reached the decks and were cut down. I had been handed a fresh sheaf of arrows by a Fristle deputed to the task, and with these, standing back a little, I shot out those men who climbed the rigging in their passionate attempts to board. Arrows splintered the deck about me and one sliced my thigh; I did not think I could last much longer.

A quick glance showed me the beach deserted, and the pirates from the grounded swordships now preparing to attack us from the landward side. Men on the other two argenters were yelling and fighting and dying. Pirates forced their way onto the foredeck of Dram Constant. Captain Alkers was yelling his men on, clutching his left arm from which the blood splattered.

“Get into them, you calsanys! Fight! Fight!”

I slung the bow and ripped out my long sword. I leaped for the deck where the pirates were now shoving and pushing aft, shouting in triumph. I leaped — and I, too, shouted.

“Hai! Jikai!”

The Krozair brand gleamed brilliantly silver in the air; then it reeked a crimson gleam more dreadful as I lifted it for the next blow. With the argenter’s crew I pressed forward. The pirates fought well, employing a miscellany of weapons; but we concentrated our strength and, just for the moment, were too many for the few who had boarded. We cleared the deck. But now, from the two shoreward ships came fresh sounds of conflict. In moments we would be attacked on two sides.

Captain Alkers’ arm was bandaged; blood soaked through already. He glared about, panting, the rapier in his fist dripping blood.

“They want our valuables and our goods. They will overpower us for sure. We have done all we can, as honest sailors.”

One of his mates, blood seeping from a slash across his forehead, shouted: “By Pandrite the Glorious!

We have done that, Captain!”

“Abandon ship!”

Of that call so horrific to a sailor, Captain Alkers made a benediction and a curse, all in one. I knew he was right I suppose, left to my own devices and being in the middle of a little fight, I might have stayed and tackled the swordship renders for the sheer hell of it. It is not in my nature to run from a fight. But I had the responsibility of Tilda and Pando — as well as Inch — and so I, Dray Prescot also went with the crew as we jumped across the other argenters which were already deserted, leaped to the sand, and after a brisk rearguard action gained the shelter of the trees.

Tolly, the squat little Hoboling who knew these islands, took the lead and we hurried into the interior. We met up with the passengers and I was reunited with my three traveling companions. Tolly led us to a safe resting place and then went back to reconnoiter the coast. Inch, with a somewhat sour comment to me about staying with our charges, went with him. When Tolly and Inch returned they reported the argenters about stripped and the swordships preparing to leave.

After that, feeling empty and let-down, we trailed off to a fishing village Tolly knew, where we were welcomed by the headman, who looked remarkably like an older version of Tolly, and where we were able to obtain food and drink and a roof for the night. That bur or so of darkness had passed and now the moons of Kregen shone refulgently in the sky. Tilda and Pando fell asleep at once. I stayed up with Inch talking with Tolly and Captain Alkers and some of his mates with the headman, one Tandy. Tandy expressed a deep hatred and contempt for the swordships.

“They ruin trade,” he said. “And our fishing. We are simple people and we live simply. But we are never likely to make contact with the outer world while the swordships by their depredations prevent commercial contact.”

We argued and talked into the night and then I slept. But I made it a point to give Tandy a fine jeweled dagger I had picked up — I had severed it and the fist grasping it from its previous owner’s arm — and tried to smile at him. I felt that he and his people would be valuable, situated as they were on an island in the midst of this strategic but isolated sea battleground. They’d be down to the stranded ships first light tearing them to pieces. The sea brought them harvests.

We made the necessary arrangements to secure a passage to the nearest port fortress of Tomboram, situated on an island a little to the southward. They existed in an attempt to suppress the swordships, an attempt, I fear, largely futile. They ran their own little fleet of swordships which flew hither and yon chasing the pirates — a thankless life.

From there we shipped aboard Pride of Pomdermam, Captain Galna, and made an easy passage direct to Tomboram’s chief port and capital, Pomdermam, and so I sailed into the next period of my life in Pandahem. Vallia lay to the north. I would reach there, one day, soon. That, I vowed.