by Lin Carter
For the men of the Scimitar had no choice but to sail with their erstwhile brethren to the looting of Patanga, for all that their secret sympathies lay with Thongor’s unsuspecting and beleaguered city. It was sail with the rest, or be suspected of black treason and hang from the yardarm.
Fat, friendly Blay and lean, dour, one-eyed old Durgan stood at the rail watching the red roofs of Tarakus fall away astern. The moon-faced old Kovian, no longer jovial, heaved a hearty sigh. And he exchanged a gloomy look with his lank and leathery comrade.
“How can we do it, mate?” Blay wheezed dispiritedly. “How can we hack and murther like the rest o’ these wolves, in the rapine of a city of our friends? What will the little lad say when his old comrades come a-knockin’ at the gates o’ his father’s royal city, with naked cutlasses in they hands, eh? O, ’twas a dark day for poor ol’ Blay when he decided to turn pirate and seek his fortune on the high seas, that it were!”
Durgan grunted, and spat over the side.
“Never you mind, mate,” he said. And, cocking his one good eye towards the tall and stalwart figure that stood black against the dawn-lit sky on the quarterdeck, he added in a low conspiratorial whisper: “As for me, I puts my trust in the Cap’n yonder! He’s a deep one, he is … if any manjack of the lot o’ us can figger a clear channel through these here troubled waters, why, it be him, and no other. You lay your confidence with ’im, ’cause I’ll wager my share he’s got a plan. A deep one, the Cap’n, aye … and a good one for plans, he is!”
“Aye, well… by Shastadian’s green beard, comrade, I hope yer right,” Blay groaned. “I do hope you be right …”
SLOWLY the towering heights of Tarakus fell away astern. A dark and hulking mountain of black shadow was Tarakus, looming up against the gold and crimson tapestries of dawn. White morning mist mantled the surface of the dark mirror that was its harbor. Above, moment by moment, the sky brightened. Pure golden flame spread blindingly, and now the topmost towers of the shadow-drowned city flamed with rose and lavender and palest gold as they caught the level shafts of light
By now the last ships had left the harbor and rode under full sail upon the open waters of the Gulf. Far above, sunflame caught and edged with purest gold the crisp, curled clouds. The shadow-thronged dome of the sky lightened gradually to pale and luminous azure. And it was day.
At the quarterdeck rail, glowering out on the dancing waves, his great fiery red-gold bush of beard blowing in the brisk wind, Captain Barim pondered what he could do to shield helpless Patanga from the raging sea wolves of the Pirate City.
His chief officer, a small, dark-faced seaman named Angar Zend, his scarred face half-hidden behind thick bushy black whiskers, a gaudy red kerchief wound about his brows, came over to where the Captain stood.
“Well?” Angar Zend demanded. “What’s the plan? Love o’ Heaven, Cap’n, are ye going t’ let us just sail right into Patanga harbor and put all them folk to the sword? Surely, ye have worked out some plan, sly dog that ye be. Let’s hear it—out with it, Cap’n, by the Scarlet Hells!”
“Belay that bluff and swagger, Zend, ye black dog,” the Captain roared. “Bluster at the men below, but I’ll not have such temper on my quarterdeck—”
Charn Thovis came over to where they stood arguing.
“Yes, but Captain—what is your plan?” he asked.
Barim Redbeard narrowed his fierce blue eyes, squinting against the sun-glare.
“Well, men, here it is. We can’t outrace Kashtar’s whole armada and reach Patanga in time to give warning—not when we are sailing with the bloody armada, least-wise! And we can’t fall back and lose them through a ruse, then somehow out-distance them to get there first. D’ye follow me, lads?”
“Aye, we’re right on course with ye, Cap’n; so?” little Angar Zend growled.
“Very well, then. Now, Patanga has at least a fighting chance, look you, for her flying patrols are bound to spot the vanguard of the fleet long ere it heaves into port. Those flying airboats, armed with them lightning guns that clever sage, Iothondus, contrived some years agone, give them a powerful advantage, even against so mighty a fighting fleet as this, see?”
Charn Thovis and the first mate nodded.
“So, the way I sees it, the one thing that gives Kashtar an edge against the might o’ Patanga is that cursed and devilish weapon bolted there on the foredeck of the Red Wolf—that Ray of Madness. Belshathla thinks to sweep the aerial navy from the skies with it, to sweep the harbor clean o’ men, to drive mad whatever force comes up against the sea wolves … but if we can disable that hellish contraption and wreck the filthy thing, Patanga has a fighting chance to survive this whole fleet, aye, a damned good chance, sink me if it be not so!”
Angar Zend chewed on a tuft, of bristling black whiskers, eyeing his captain sourly.
“Aye, all well and good, Cap’n, but how in blazes do ye expect to get at the raygun on the flagship, an us here in the very last rank o’ the corsair fleet?” he growled.
The Redbeard winked conspiratorially, and laid one finger beside his nose. “Ah! As fer that, Zend, the fleet will be a-sailin’ all day, and p’raps all night as well. But there be mighty fogs on the great Gulf in this cold month, drawing towards winter, and mayhap—in the darkness o’ night, thick with fog—we can detach ourselves from the main body o’ the fleet and sail around to the front, and then—”
“Well? And then—what?” Angar Zend demanded.
A stern light shone in Redbeard’s eyes, and for a moment a certain grim nobility came over him. His voice dropped to low tones.
“And then, my lads, we ram the Red Wolf amidships, and sink her with all hands,” he said quietly. “Even if it means the death of all of us. Which I think it will …”
They looked at one another in silence.
SUDDENLY, Barim Redbeard stiffened and his bronzed features went pale. He had turned from Charn Thovis and Angar Zend, and his gaze had swept the nearby beaches of Ptartha past which they were sailing in the rear of the great fleet. An expression of utter astonishment flickered across his features.
“Now sink me for a lubber,” he gasped. “Father Gorm Almighty! It—cannot—be!”
“What’s the matter, Captain?” Charn Thovis asked. His eyes searched the beaches that lay across the sparkling blue waves of the Gulf, but he could see nothing untoward, and said as much.
“Of course ye can’t, lad, being but a lubber. It takes the keen eyes of an ol’ sea hawk the likes o’ Barim Redbeard, used to squintin’ against the sun—Zend, Zend, you blackavised old rogue, give me the glass. The glass, man, or I’ll keel-haul ye!”
He made a fierce, urgent gesture at the battered brassbound spyglass thrust through the sash that the mate wore about his lean middle. Blinking puzzledly at Charn Thovis, the little mate took out the glass and offered it to Captain Redbeard, who all but snatched it from his hand in his hurry to clap the glass against his right eye.
“That little cove there … Gods of Sea and Sky, can it be?”
For a long, tense moment he glared through the extended glass at the small cove that lay only a little ways from the base of the promontory whereon was builded Tarakus. Then he snatched the glass away.
“It is, by the Eleven Scarlet Hells! Ahoy, Minga!” he bellowed to a slant-eyed Cadornyana aloft in the rigging. “Minga, you yellow dog! Break out the signal flags—inform Kashtar aboard the Red Wolf that Scimitar has—has sprung a leak below her waterline and must draw in to shore for a bit to patch ’er up. Tell the rogue we’ll catch up with the main body o’ the fleet in an hour—hurry, blast you!”
“He’s gone mad, mad I say!” Angar Zend gawped. “We’ve no leak in the bloomin’ ship, I’d stake me life on it!”
“Hah!” Barim Redbeard snorted, grinning hugely. “Mad, is it? Mad, am I?” He thrust the spyglass into the hands of Angar Zend with a lusty roar. “Clap yer eye to that glass and point ’er at yonder cove, you black rogue, and then tell me if I be mad or sane!”
> For a long moment, the black-whiskered little mate peered through the spyglass, and then he stiffened and his jaw dropped in sheer astonishment.
“Great … Gods … above!” he gasped, while Barim Redbeard chuckled thunderously, exchanging huge winks with the mystified Charn Thovis.
Then Angar Zend thrust the spyglass back into the sash about his middle, turned on his heel and strode smartly to the mid-ship rail. He cocked one eye aloft to see that Minga had completed his exchange of signals with the flagship of the fleet and learned from the wave of Minga’s arm that permission to beach had been received. Then he glared fiercely below to where Thangmar, the grinning blond Kodanga giant, was at the wheel.
“Ho, Thangmar, you yellow-haired savage!” the little mate bellowed in an amazingly deep voice. “About ship, you great rogue, ten points to yer starboard bow … quick now, look alive … heave to in that little cove we just be passin’—quick, you great savage!”
And the Scimitar faltered, lost speed, and curved away from the main bulk of the armada and was lost behind.
The young Patangan chanthar, Charn Thovis, was still mystified at this baffling maneuver. But as the lean black hull of Redbeard’s ship entered the little cove and he got a good look at the curve of jungle-clad beach, he understood.
And a vast and thrilling joy went through him. His eyes, of a sudden, filled with tears, and deep in his hear he gave profound thanks to the Nineteen Gods Who Watch Over The World …
CHAPTER 12:
WHEN COMRADES MEET
Thus through the pathless jungle way,
Whose thousand perils had he passed,
Came Thongor at the dawn of day,
When long-lost comrades meet at last.
—Thongor’s Saga, Stave XIX
AS Thongor stepped through the edges of the jungle to look upon the city of Tarakus where it rose black and grim against the flame of the morning sky—the dark figure of a lithe fighting-man suddenly appeared in his path. The quick eyes of the Barbarian caught the cold glitter of steel as the needle-blade of a naked rapier in the hands of his unknown opponent flashed for his unshielded heart.
Swift as a striking cobra his hand flew to the hilt of the great Valkarthan broadsword that lay against his thigh. In a blur of motion he whipped the long blade from its scabbard, in a hiss of steel rasping against leather, and blocked the darting point that strove for his naked flesh.
Steel rang against steel, and the blade of the other was torn from his grip and went spinning into the thick leaves that lay to either side.
His opponent sprang back, reaching for a dirk. As he did so, in stepping back he permitted the faint red glare of dawn to paint his features, and Thongor started, then laughed.
“Belarba, Karm Karvus, would you cut down an old comrade?”
The Prince of Tsargol—for of course it was he—staggered with amazement and paled at the thought of what he had attempted to do. He all but rubbed his eyes, staring open-mouthed at this incredible figure that had melted out of the darkness of the jungle path before him like some apparition conjured up by a wizard’s rune.
“Thongor! Is it you! Now, by all the Gods,” he swore delightedly, “well-met! I had not thought to find you within half a hundred leagues of this place …”
They clasped hands, grinning with relief and joy in this most timely and fortunate of meetings.
“As for myself, Karm Karvus, I had hardly thought to see you alive in this world,” Thongor replied gravely, “for few men escape whole from the clutches of the Red Wolf of Tarakus. But who is this young woman who companions you?”
“This is the Princess Yian of Cadorna, daughter of Prince Kazan, Lord of that city, and my fellow-prisoner. We have just completed our escape from the Pirate City, and had thought that we would have to tramp many leagues through the jungles of Ptartha before we found a friend. Princess, may I present to you the Lord Thongor, Prince of Patanga and Lord of the Six Cities?”
As Karm Karvus went to retrieve his sword and Thongor bowed over her hand, the Cadornyana girl stared at him wide-eyed with astonishment. Much had she heard of the fabulous and heroic exploits of the mighty Warrior of the West, of the greatness of his golden Empire and the splendor of his court. Could this wild ruffian, this broad-shouldered barbarian in plain warrior’s harness, his bare chest and arms slashed with half-healed wounds and black with dried mud, be the glorious Warrior of the West, the tale of whose epic adventures had reached even the far-off city of her birth?
“I shall not waste time by asking how in the world we come to meet you here amidst the jungles of Ptartha,” Karm Karvus laughed, “for time is precious. I presume you have moored your airboat nearby and have stepped forth to reconnoitre—we must hasten back to Patanga without delay, Thongor, for this very dawn Kashtar Red Wolf and all his corsairs set sail to raise war against the City of the Flame, armed with the terror of the Gray Death—that very ray of madness that struck down my trireme upon the high seas!”
The light faded from Thongor’s dark impassive face and his strange gold eyes went grim and bleak.
“This is dark news indeed, Karm Karvus,” he growled. “For on foot and alone have I hewn my path through leagues of jungle to this place, and I have no airboat to hand.”
“No? But—how come you here?”
“Aboard the Scimitar, a corsair galley out of Tarakus whose captain, Barim Redbeard, is my friend and fellow-countryman. Alas, a sea monster attacked the vessel on our second day out of Patanga and in the confusion I was swept overboard and found myself half-drowned but still alive on the beaches of Ptartha. From thence I have made my way on foot and by raft down Amadon the Jungle River. Where the Scimitar may be, and what hath happened to my pirate friends since I took my rather hasty and precipitous departure from their decks, I cannot know. You say the fleet is sailing for Patanga even now?”
“Aye,” Karm Karvus nodded. “Unless some timely accident has intervened to cause a change of plan.”
Thongor nodded to his right. “Let us see. The beaches of the Gulf lie only a few yards in that direction; come!” And without another word the giant Barbarian turned on his heel and was swallowed up in the thick greenery. Karm Karvus and the girl he had rescued from the clutches of the pirates followed his broad shoulders. Through the dawn-lit jungles they went, emerging at length into the full glory of morning.
Here a small cove met their eyes. A narrow crescent of beach, washed by the sparkling blue waves, separated the looming wall of the green jungles and the glittering expanse of the mighty Gulf.
Shielding his eyes from the blaze of sun upon the dancing waves, Thongor peered out into the Gulf. And it was even as Karm Karvus had said: he could see the billowing sails, the glittering prows, the lean black hulls of a tremendous fleet of ships. They were sailing directly north to the head of the Gulf, where the Twin Rivers of the Ysar and the Saan emptied into the Gulf. Between the mouths of these two rivers, on a narrow spit of land, rose the great City of the Flame.
Karm Karvus and Yian of Cadorna came up to where Thongor stood, arms folded upon his great chest, staring silently out across the waves as rank on rank of ships sailed past to bring red war and the Gray Death to his kingdom.
“Would to Gorm that I did indeed have an airboat moored nearby,” Thongor grunted. “In my folly, I feared an airboat might be seen if it approached too closely to the walls of Tarakus—so I shipped instead with Barim Redbeard and his men, who, being themselves Tarakans, could bring me directly into the Pirate City itself without arousing suspicion …”
“What can we do?” demanded Karm Karvus helplessly.
Thongor shrugged.
“That is still to be seen,” he growled. “We yet live, and while we live, we may hope. There is clearly no way by which we may come to Patanga before the pirate fleet, so there is no use in mourning our inability to do so. Your own city of Tsargol lies at least two days by sea from here … Pelorm is far nearer, and as it is a city of the Empire we can find friends there, and a
contingent of airboats as well.”
“Dense jungles lie between Tarakus and Pelorm,” Karm Karvus observed. Again, Thongor shrugged.
“As I have just come through them alone, they are not impassable,” he observed. “And now we are three. I have my own broadsword and I see you wear a Tsargolian rapier, while the Princess may take your dirk. The three of us shall travel no slower than one, I trust, and against the fearsome predators that infest the jungles of Ptartha, three blades should prove far better than one. I suggest we waste no time, but begin our journey at once …”
Yian, who had been staring out to sea, sudden stifled a small cry and laid her slim hand on Thongor’s forearm.
“What is it?”
“That ship … look, Lord Thongor, one of the pirates is turning aside from the main mass of the fleet and seems to be sailing directly for this cove wherein we stand!”
Thongor narrowed his eyes against the glare, and saw that the girl had spoken truth. One lean-hulled galley was coming directly for them, and swiftly, its brass-beaked brow slicing through the sparkling waves.
He rumbled a primal challenge deep in his chest, and his eyes flashed. Could their small figures have been glimpsed from aboard one of the passing ships of the Tarakan fleet? Indeed, it was not at all impossible. Seamen have keen eyes, and a spyglass would doubtless reveal them …
“Had we not best be gone, then?” Karm Karvus suggested. “They may have seen us, but we can be quite some distance away before they beach … and surely they would not attempt to follow us on foot through the trackless jungles?”
“You are right,” Thongor grunted. “And yet …
“And yet—what?” asked the Tsargolian.
“And yet … there is something about that ship that seems … familiar.” Thongor mused. His keen eyes searched the on-coming corsair galley. For there was indeed something very familiar about that long, low, rakish black hull, that brass-beaked dragon prow, that spread of scarlet sails … and then it struck him!
