Fires of Scorpio (13 page)

The lookout bellowed down that the swordship had disappeared. Pompino looked worried.

“If my beautiful
Blackfang
is sunk...”

“That could have been a rascally render,” I said. “If so, let us hope he is sunk.”

Presently the lookout, a new man relieving the old, shouted down that smoke wafted over the horizon.

“There,” said Captain Linson. “She was a Pandrite-forsaken render and she is burning one of our convoy.”

Truth to tell, these distant events did seem to bear out that theory.

Captain Murkizon came on deck wearing a long roll of blue cloth swathed about him. His hair bristled everywhere. He rolled as though he was a part of the ship.

He and Larghos the Hatch put their heads together and spent some time talking. Although I saw no gold change hands, I felt sure a man of Murkizon’s stamp would for the sake of his own honor richly reward the man who had jumped into the sea to save him. This seemed fitting.

A vague shape on the larboard horizon that vanished astern was probably the island under whose lee we had sheltered during the earlier part of the storm before we had at last been blown downwind. We sailed on, a fine bluff argenter, smashing into the sea, leaving a broad creamy wake aft.

Pompino was so far recovered as to sit down to a light meal toward the latter end of the afternoon. He made a number of uncomplimentary observations upon the habits of waves and storms, and mentioned that his insides must have been reamed out cleaner than a milk churn before milking time. We were all, in our various ways, kind to him. I managed to refrain from mentioning fatty vosk rashers; but with Pompino to goad into a frenzy the temptation was sore.

Captain Murkizon reassured him, insisting that
Blackfang
still floated and was a perfect sailing and fighting instrument when he’d last seen her — in everything except her captain.

Linson put a hand to his face.

“It is a pity, Captain, that you did not have the time to knock your crew into shape.” He kept his hand half-concealing his smile, very sharp. “I’ll allow that if it had been me I’d have been tempted — with a crew like that — to have
jumped
overboard.”

“Why, you—!” began Murkizon in a strangled scream.

A sailor burst unceremoniously into the cabin.

“Swordship!” he shouted. He looked wild, clinging to the door. “Swordship! She broke through a squall — she’s right on top of us!”

In a yelling rout we broke for the deck. Sure enough, a squall feathered darkly away across the sea. Ahead, all her oars rising and falling like the wings of a bird of prey, the narrow shape of a swordship hurtled down on us.

“Beat to quarters!”

The scurry and rush, the slap of bare feet across planking, the clang and scrape of metal on metal as the varters were prepared, the insane racket of the alarm drum, all these things blended into a pandemonium that ceased as the Ship Deldar, Chandarlie the Gut, blew a long trill on his pipe. The ship stilled.

“Cleared for action, Captain!”

“Very good, Hikdar,” said Linson to Naghan Pelamoin.

The hush laced with the slap of the sea, the creak of rigging and groan of timbers, impressed us all. One had to admit that Linson ran a taut ship.

“Who is she?” demanded Pompino. He was clearly agitated. “She is not
Blackfang
?”

Linson handed across his telescope.

“See for yourself, horter.”

Pompino studied the racing shape ahead.

“All I can see is a black wedge and oars like wings.”

“Aye. And her flags?”

I caught Pelamoin’s eye. “Your telescope, Hikdar, if I may?”

He handed the brass bound leather wrapped tube across without comment. I put it to my eye and studied the onrushing vessel. Well, yes, she was a swordship, and Pompino’s description was apt. The shape of her, wedgelike, low, with those banks of oars glistening and rising and falling, beating her on. The smother of white around her ram passed swiftly away aft. Her flags? Blue and green, with gold devices, stiff in the wind, difficult to make out.

“You know her, Captain?”

“She is not one of our escort, horter.”

“I see.”

Bearing to quarters was not a precautionary measure, then. I handed the telescope back.

“I’ll just fetch a few weapons from the armory, Pompino. Maybe we can fletch a few before they board.”

At this he changed completely. From a landlubber who had recently bought a fleet of ships — with the gold given him by the Star Lords, of course — and in constant anxiety for the well-being of his beautiful vessels, he became my companion of old, a rough tough fighting man contemptuous of opposition, ready to fight with the best. Out of his element he had been becoming almost querulous. Now there was the prospect of a few handstrokes in the offing, he reverted to his usual arrogant happy Khibil self. He brushed his whiskers up fiercely.

“Aye Jak! We’ll show the cramphs!” We fetched weapons. We prepared. With the men at their stations and the girls at their varters, the complement of
Tuscurs Maiden
waited for the coming attack.

Chapter twelve

Concerning the Swordship Redfang

The Suns of Scorpio hung low above the horizon streaming their mingled opaz radiance across the sea in paths of viridian and vermilion. A scattering of sea birds screamed and swung away. The dark blot of an island showed stark against the sky as the squall whisked past. The swordship had shot from the island’s shelter. The squall had concealed her. Now she bore down upon us with her cruel bronze ram slicing through the sea as it would slice through our timbers.

Although clearly Captain Linson was a consummate seaman, the task of handling
Tuscurs Maiden
in battle against a swordship was of the order of scaling a mountain peak with your hands tied behind your back and wearing skis.

His sharpness was never in more evidence.

His orders rapped out. The hands rushed to obey. The yards braced around, the argenter’s head fell off, and with the wind up her tail
Tuscurs Maiden
took off directly eastwards. The evolution was conducted smartly. With a vessel of even moderate speed, speed equal to that of the swordship chasing us, or the speed of a Vallian galleon, he would have outrun our pursuer. But the vessel was an argenter, slow and lubberly.

The swordship balked in her first initial rush to ram, swung about to follow, sheeted in spray, like a crocodile smashing through the water.

Pelamoin said: “Nogoya. She’s a damned swordship out of Nogoya.”

Pompino shook his sword at the pursuing vessel.

“That Pandrite-forsaken island is too big for its boots. They think they own the seas.”

“At least, they control the seas here, and we have strayed into their area. They will not seek to destroy us, Horter Pompino, but to board and enslave us. They use slaves.”

“Then my hand is turned against them,” I said.

Captain Murkizon swaggered forrard from the after castle. He carried three swords in various hangings from his belt, and he swung a vicious looking double-headed axe.

“The best way to deal with these rasts is to hit ’em before they know! Hit ’em, knock ’em down, and jump on ’em!”

This seemed an eminently sensible idea. As to its practicability, that would have to be proved.

On a dead run to leeward the swordship hoisted a scrap of sail on her foremast. She leaped after us. I walked aft, up through the sterncastle, and peered out alongside a varter which snouted from its port.

Wilma the Shot said: “I’ll guarantee to land a rock right on the head of that fellow up front.”

A light laugh from the gloom of the aftercastle drew my attention to Wilma’s sister. Alwim the Eye patted her varter. A heavy and exceedingly ugly-looking dart lay in the trough. The dart was of iron, and multi-barbed.

“And I’ll shove this right down the gullet of that archer next to your fellow, sister.”

From the armory I’d taken one of Pompino’s bows. It was compound, reflex, a sound weapon if without the range of a Lohvian longbow. For the kind of work we envisaged, this boy would suit perfectly.

“And what do you ladies leave me?”

“Why — that rast at their bow varter.”

“I see him.” He wore a leather jerkin whose brass studs winked brightly in the dying light. As I watched he bent to the weapon. “He is about to loose.”

“More fool him,” said Wilma.

The rock struck somewhere below. The water muffled its force. The brass-studded figure bent frantically to his windlass. In only a moment more, as the ships neared, the range would be admirable. Had Seg been here, with his bow, he’d have shafted the whole forecastle party, the whole lot of the prijikers who clustered ready to leap onto our deck.

Pompino joined me with Murkizon. We watched as the swordship swept in on our tail.

“He’ll have a job trying to ram and board from there,” said Murkizon, “may the Crooked Left Arm of the Divine Lady of Belschutz smite him.”

Chandarlie the Gut appeared, squinting over the stern.

“The cap’n says for me to shout when that damned swordship is about to ram.”

“Aye,” said Murkizon. “Then he’ll swing his stern. He’ll make the cramph miss, if he’s lucky and fast enough.”

Pompino looked at me and I said: “Don’t pin your hopes on it. Swordships have a habit of sticking their teeth in.”

“I do not relish being made slave.”

“Who does?”

Men clustered above us on the open top of the stern castle. Their feet drummed on the planking. Wilma bent to her varter. The arms were drawn fully back, the string taught, the rock positioned. Her sister called across. “My dart first, I think, sister.”

“Aye, sister.”

The dart flew.

The archer took the dart in his midriff, and the fellow abaft of him took the dart, also, as well as the third in that group. Alwim the Eye let out a delighted crow and bent to the windlass. The Rapa, Rondas the Bold, bulky in his mail, bent to help her. I felt surprise, and then pleasure.

The other varter clanged. The rock squashed down on the head of the fellow Wilma had pointed out. She, too, let out a pleased cry. I lifted the bow. Before I loosed, an arrow streaked across the narrowing gap and pierced through the varterist who had been my target. Someone on the top of our sterncastle, with the advantage of height, had loosed first.

That, then, was where I should have been — as an archer. As a swordsman I would be better where I was.

My own shaft took the varterist’s mate.

Then a shower of arrows whistled toward us, and some stuck in the wood and a few shrieked through the stern ports. No one was hit. I nocked another shaft and loosed. The varters clanged again. The ram of the swordship foamed on, drawing closer and closer. The shadows angled more levelly across the deck from the stern ports, and soon the swordship would be a mere lump of darkness against the suns set.

“We’re lit up like puppets on a stage,” grumbled Pompino.

A huge midriff bumped me and Chandarlie craned to get a better look. He was wheezing like a runner dragging his feet out of mud at every stride. His eyes screwed up as he measured distances. If our vessel could be swung at precisely the right moment we stood a good chance of letting the swordship overrun us and of smashing up his oars. Chandarlie poised, watchful as a hawk above a sparrow.

If the maneuver was not carried out correctly, by employing the headsails rather than the rudder, the argenter would simply present her quarter and beam to be rammed. Maybe, I was thinking, just maybe it might be better not to try to be clever and swing at all — just let the fellow’s rostrum go into our stern and hope it would be forced down below us. He could be swamped, then...

“Now!” bellowed Chandarlie.

In the midst of drawing and loosing, of picking likely targets and moving with the swing of the vessel, the first sideways swing went unnoticed. Then the ram of the swordship veered away, the foam of water spouted up. A rock hit the wood near us and splinters flew. A shriek from aloft and a heavy thump on the planking told of one poor devil who’d been shafted on our sterncastle.

Had Linson’s topmen been quick enough — had he backed his main topsail and maincourse, and thus, in taking way off us suddenly, allowed the swordship to swoop past and smash up his oars — had this happened we might have gotten away with it. But the helmsman, no doubt hoping to hasten the swing of the vessel, put just too much rudder into the evolution. It happened very rapidly. One moment we were sensing the swing, watching the bow of the swordship and the cluster of prijikers there, the next the whole ship shook with the crunch of the ram hitting us.

If the swordship skipper observed our movements and compensated by turning into us must remain conjectural. I grabbed for support, regained my feet, and saw the whole howling mob of warriors come swarming inboard.

“Hit ’em!” Murkizon foamed and roared into action.

There was a dead feel to
Tuscurs Maiden
. We met and fronted that first savage attack. Swords blurred down. It was hard brutal work in the confines of the after castle. We had a great advantage in that the attackers must force their way through the ports. We cut them down as they strove to gain entrance. In a sudden and deathly affray we stopped them and flung the remnants back. Murkizon peered out, ignoring a few shafts that winged toward us.

“By the Tangled Lice-Ridden Hair of the Divine Lady of Belschutz,” he raved. “I’ll settle your hash for you, you—!”

With that he leaped bodily onto the small forecastle of the swordship. Pompino, shoving forward and whirling his bloody sword, leaped after. The Rapa pressed up. There was little I could do but follow. We had smashed their first attack, now we could carry the fight to them. We stood a good chance of smashing them utterly.

So, over the stern I went and down onto the swordship’s forecastle. The jump was steep. I landed agilely enough, but a rolling lurch of the ship toppled me forward. Pompino’s sword flashed above my head. I rolled, hacked the legs from under a fellow with a pike, dove headlong at three men clustered together and wielding axes. Three blows, mingled with two feints and a duck, disposed of them. I looked about, the sword dripping.