The Crystal Seas

Chapter EIGHT

Blade let go of the ladder and dropped backward, down into the crystal seas. The water closed over him almost without a splash. He straightened out, shoved himself away from the ship's bottom with its faint mustache of weed, and swam down.

He had been under the crystal seas many times now and often with full war gear. This was the first time he had plunged down into the blue-greenness knowing that somewhere not too far away might lurk enemies. For a moment he stopped and drifted downward, head first, searching the bottom as far as he could see it. The weeds rippled gently, but nothing else moved. Blade raised himself back to the vertical again with gentle movements of his fins.

One by one the rest of the ship's raiding company dropped into the water and drifted down to float around Blade. Finally came Nezdorn, commanding the company. With quick hand signals he formed the forty men into three lines, one above the other. Then he pointed his short-sword away to the east, and the company moved out.

On land Blade held the leadership of a sesg (like a platoon) and the rank of armsmaster to Nezdorn's company. But under the crystal seas he was only an ordinary fighter of the Guards. He was willing to leave things that way for a time, until he learned all the complicated tactics and the even more complex code of signals the Talgarans had devised for fighting under the sea.

Blade was in the second, or middle, line. Like the other men armed with short-swords and spears, he was close to the center of the line. There he could swim rapidly to either flank to reinforce the archers. And from where he was, he could defend the spare weapons and masks and the men who towed the floater nets containing the firepots that would be dropped into Fishmen dwellings.

They swam on through the crystal seas. Far out to the left, Blade could see the dimly moving shapes of another company of raiders from another ship. The bottom was beginning to rise toward them, showing purple-blue masses of coral and patches of sand with a golden tint. Nezdorn dove down to sample the sand. He came back up quickly, making the hand signals that meant, «Approaching reefs.» He had no need to make the signal «Stay alert!»

A school of slate-gray trinzans glided past between the company and the surface. They had the sleek outlines of Home Dimension sharks, and from what Blade had heard, the same nasty dispositions. But they seldom attacked large groups of men, unless they had been driven to a frenzy by blood in the water. That, however, could easily happen before the end of this day. Blade reached down to make sure that both his swords were still held in their scabbards by their quick-release clips.

The trinzans were barely out of sight when Nezdorn suddenly tipped headfirst and stared toward the bottom. The eyes of his men followed him. On the bottom sixty feet below was a conical pile of coral blocks with a hole in the top. Sitting around the hole were four bluish-white human shapes. They wore no airmasks.

The Fishmen must have been watching the trinzans also. They saw Nezdorn's approaching raiders at the same moment Nezdorn saw them, but they reacted faster. One of the Fishmen plunged down through the hole in the top of the cone. The other three sprang upward, finned feet churning the water. They arrowed away toward the east, legs moving so fast that they seemed mere flickering ghosts.

Nezdorn spun completely around in the water. One hand shot down toward the Fishmen sentry house, and four raiders from the left flank shot down, carrying a firepot. He spun farther, and his other hand shot out toward the sentries who were fleeing to give the alarm. Blade and five others from the right went arrowing away after them.

The Fishmen had a head start and the desperate need to give the alarm to their comrades. But Blade and his companions had an equally desperate need to keep that alarm from being given. Both parties plunged through the water faster than Blade had ever believed anything human could swim. But then the Fishmen lived in the sea, and the diving warriors of Talgar were much at home in it.

Soon Blade and his comrades were overtaking the Fishmen. One of the enemy had a bow, but they were still outside underwater bowshot, barely fifty feet. Not for long, however. Suddenly the Fishmen made a dive for the bottom, heading for a rearing mass of pasty-white coral that loomed on the sea bottom like a crumbling mansion out of a ghost story. Blade could see holes in the mass easily large enough to admit a man. If the three Fishmen got in there, finding them in time would be impossible.

So Blade poured out his strength, plunging furiously after the three fugitives. He remembered not to draw his swords until the last moment, so that he could use both hands for swimming. He remembered to keep head-on to the enemy, presenting the smallest target to their archer. He passed into bowshot, saw the archer raise his spring-loaded crossbow and saw something flash out from it. A rippling in the water, and the bolt was sailing away into the sea. A moment later Blade was up with the three Fishmen.

Suddenly he was unable to remember that he had no real quarrel with the Fishmen. As always, he accepted the laws of a battle-kill or be killed. And Blade was always firmly determined to be as hard to kill as possible.

So his short-swords leaped from their scabbards and darted out toward the Fishmen. Underwater fighting was almost all thrusting, with weapons that presented the smallest resistance to the water moving along the straightest and shortest line to their target. A man trying to wave a long sword around underwater would be skewered six times over by one armed with a short-sword.

The first Fishman jerked his leg out of the path of Blade's first thrust and replied with a thrust of his own at Blade's left arm. Blade had to twist and spin in turn to get the arm clear. But that left him in a better position to make a quick high thrust for the second Fishman's chest. The sword went in deep, almost jamming between the ribs. Blade barely had time to pull it free and plunge downward. A thrust from the first Fishman drove through the water where his back had been.

Blade did a complete somersault in the water and came up facing his opponents, his back to the nearest hole in the white coral. The dying merman was drifting, trailing smoky blood from his wide-gaping mouth and punctured chest. The second came at Blade. The third broke away and headed for open water. Blade could only hope that the other raiders would catch that one. Then he had to turn his full attention to his present opponent.

This one was good. He must know that he had only a few minutes of life remaining, but he fought as though he would be carrying Blade's head home in triumph at the end of the battle. He matched Blade thrust for thrust and parry for parry. Blade's strongest strokes clanged into the circular guards of swords that seemed to be everywhere at once.

But Blade was half a head taller than the Fishman and must have outweighed him by a good forty pounds. He rammed one sword directly into the guard of one of his opponent's weapons, hooking and immobilizing it. Slowly he forced the other's arm back, until it was hopelessly out of position. The Fishman kicked at Blade, but only succeeded in twisting himself further out of position. Slowly the two cartwheeled in the water, as Blade forced the Fishmen's guard wider and wider open. He was waiting for a moment when the Fishman was not thrusting with his free sword.

That moment came. Blade's own sword slashed down, a blow that traveled barely six inches, offering little chance for the water to grip and slow it. With all the strength of Blade's right arm and shoulder behind it, the sword bit into the Fishman's left wrist. His left hand opened and the sword spun out of it. Before the Fishman could draw back an inch, Blade drove home a conventional thrust. The Fishman stared at Blade for a moment, his mouth seeming to open in a smile as though he were acknowledging his defeat. Then the eyes glazed over, and the mouth twisted out of shape and began gushing blood. The dying Fishman twisted himself off Blade's sword and went on twisting slowly down to the bottom. Thirty feet below, he caught on an outcropping of coral and came to rest there, draped over it like a length of seaweed.

Blade did not wait around after that. He sprang up to rejoin the other five raiders, who gathered around him and clapped him on the back and shoulders. He managed to smile, then made the signal inquiring, «Did you get the third?»

There were bleak looks and headshakes from all five. Blade shrugged and joined them as they swam up to join the company. He suspected there would be an even bleaker look from Nezdorn when he heard the news.

There was. But like Blade, the captain recognized there was nothing to be done now. Nothing except to move forward as fast as possible in the greatest strength possible, to do as much damage with the least danger in whatever time remained before the Fishmen brought up superior strength. He signaled the company to re-form. The usual underwater ballet swirled and twisted and the men darted into position.

As the three lines started off again, there was the unmistakable thump and ear-squeezing pressure wave of an underwater explosion behind them. Blade looked inquiringly at Nezdorn. The captain ginned, and signaled that a firepot had just gone off in the Fishmen sentrypost.

(«Get any?»)

(«Three more.»)

So the first clash had cost the Fishmen five warriors and a sentry post, without so much as one man among the raiders scratched. There could be worse beginnings to a battle-Blade had to admit that. And it was obvious that the company thought so too. They looked proud and confident of beating anything they met, as they swam on through the crystal seas, deeper into the territory of the Fishmen.