Swordships of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  “The war was not going well when I — ah — left.”

  “If that idiot Pando gets himself killed — although,” I spoke hopefully— “I expect he would be held for ransom.”

  “We didn’t handle him the best way. The Kovnate went to his head a little.”

  “Agreed. And, Inch, that was my fault. I was a fool.”

  Inch had not broken any taboos as yet since boarding Strigicaw, and I had swiftly adjusted to remembering. Now he shook his head. “Not so, Dray. You could always control him, and in the best way, without a strap. I tried. But after you went he turned wild. There was no holding him.”

  “Tilda?”

  He smiled. “She is a good mother, and a wonderful woman and a superb actress. But I think being a Kovneva was a trifle out of her experience. She tries to cope, but she has been drinking—”

  “No!”

  “I am afraid so.”

  “We’ll have to go back, Inch, and sort them out.”

  “Yes. It seems to me that is a task laid on us, for our sins.”

  “For our sins, Zair be thanked.”

  And so — what of Vallia? What of Delia of Delphond?

  The strongest doubts existed that this wallowing swordship Strigicaw would ever live through a passage across the open sea. She was a swift galley built for coastal waters, up among the islands. Now, through the sheets of spray, our consorts were a full dwabur upwind of us, and going hull down. Vallia would have to wait. Delia — I know I prayed she would understand and forgive me. But I was tortured by the thought that her resistance had been broken down, and she had given into that imperial majesty, her father, and married the oaf of his choice.

  “By Ngrangi!” exclaimed Inch as the ship rolled and the wind tore at our canvas and water slopped green. “This tub will founder beneath us!”

  “Spitz!” I yelled to the archer from Loh. “Before the flagship disappears! Hoist the white flag from the main yard!”

  With a yell Spitz ran to obey.

  That white flag from our yardarm, plus the simultaneous hauling down of the pirate flag from the main truck, would indicate to Viridia, if her officers could pick the signal out, that we had been forced to return to Careful Repose.

  In the midst of giving the orders that would turn our head toward the easiest point of the compass for the ship, Valka sprang up through the canvas coverings we had spread over the rowing benches to keep the sea out and raced along the central gangway toward me. He glared up to the quarterdeck.

  “Only just about in time, Captain, if you ask me! The seams are working something horrible. We’re shipping water faster than the pumps can clear.”

  “Muster a baling party,” I told Valka. “See they jump to it. I’m taking this ship home — never fear — unless something better comes along.”

  They all laughed at that, as though it were a jest.

  The new course, off the wind and sea, eased the ship and I made a tour of inspection in the wildly leaping vessel, feeling her working in the sea, and realized just how close we had been. The inspection I had given her before we sailed had not been as thorough as I would have liked, and now I could see that Viridia had been cheated — although, no doubt, that troubled her not a whit. The new swordship she had just taken would be fitted and ready by the time she returned from this cruise. Much of the underwater planking was rotten, and I could push the point of my dagger into the wood with ease. I began to entertain a conviction that the bottom would drop out before we made port. And all through the rush of departure!

  Thinking baleful thoughts I climbed up on deck again and ordered a tot of good red wine for every man.

  When Spitz, having hauled down the white flag, began to rehoist the pirate flag I growled at him. “Belay that!”

  Certain ideas were meeting and melding in my head. I knew I was sick of the pirate trade — and yet, its fascination and its rewards, given that we would plunder only enemies, could not be denied.

  “Sail ho!”

  I stood on my ridiculous quarterdeck as we pitched and rolled and struggled in that sea, with a scrap of canvas showing to keep us from being merely a waterlogged lump of drifting wreckage, and watched as, on almost a reciprocal bearing, so close to the wind was she, a magnificent ship foamed toward us. She passed like a queen of the seas. She took absolutely no notice of us at all. In reality, working as we were, boarding would have been an operation too costly, as I judged. As it was that beautiful ship beat past us, leaning over, all her canvas as taut and trim as a guardsman’s tunic, her colors snapping out insolently.

  I gazed on that ship and on those colors.

  A galleon, jutting of beak, sheer of line and curve, bold in the sea, built low with forecastle and quarterdeck and a small poop, four-masted, raked, aglitter with bright gilding and flamboyant colors. She moved surely against that sea in which we floundered. A galleon. A race-built galleon.

  And the flags! A yellow cross, a saltire, on a red field.

  I glanced up at my own flag.

  That yellow Saint Andrew’s cross on a red ground — I knew it. I knew from whence that proud ship hailed. From Vallia!

  The galleon from Vallia roared past and was gone and was soon hull down and then the last scrap of her canvas winked over the sea horizon to the east.

  “Damn the Vallians!” said Spitz. He held his Lohvian longbow in his hand, a kind of nervous reflex. “They think they own the sea and all who sail on it! By Hlo-Hli! They think they’ve been anointed and given the scepter of all Kregen!”

  We struggled on and, to our vast relief, the sea went down, the wind backed, and we were able to make better weather of it. The twin suns of Kregen were slipping down toward the western horizon, first Genodras and then Zim, and soon the nightly procession of moons would arch through the swarming stars.

  Again came the hail that warms a render’s heart.

  “Sail ho!”

  She was a swordship from Yumapan, the country south of Lome, on the other side of the massive mountains that divide the island into North and South Pandahem, Her colors of vertical bars of green and blue in keeping with Pandahemic tradition fluttered in the dying breeze. She had seen us and was closing fast, and even as I watched she sprouted her oars and the long looms held, as though ruled parallel, like wings on either beam, before the drum-deldar gave his first stroke and the oars dipped as one.

  Valka yelled at me, pointing.

  “No oars!” I shouted back.

  Now Spitz and others of my officers were shouting. I leaped into the main shrouds and roared them to silence.

  “They are big and powerful and can take us — and who among you wants to row for the Yumapanim? Eh? Any volunteers?”

  There rose a few scattered, uncertain laughs.

  Yumapan, being situated across the sea to the east from Walfarg, had been one of that robust nation’s first conquests on her road to empire in the long ago. Now that Walfarg’s empire had crumbled, the Yumapan remembered, and aped those old ways; and they had long memories. Men even said they preferred a queen on the throne in Yumapan, in remembrance of the old Queens of Pain of Loh.

  “But, Dray!” shouted Valka. “No oars! How can we fight?”

  “We let her ram us, of course, you hairy calsany! Let her stick her rostrum up our guts — poor old Strigicaw is done for, anyway! Then, my sea-leem — then!”

  “Aye!” they roared it back at me. “Then, Dray Prescot — then!”

  And so, rolling like a washtub in the sea, we awaited the bronze-rammed shock from the Yumapan swordship.

  When it came, with a roaring rending of wood and the screeching of bronze against iron nails, the smash of white water and the solid reeling shock as we nearly overset, my men knew what was required of them and knew the plan. Before the swordship captain could back his oars and draw free we were up over our side. Grapnels flew. Men leaped down from our rigging.

  With Spitz in masterly control of our bowmen we shot out their quarterdeck. I went in at the head of my sea-
leems, handing up over the bronze ram, up past the proembolion which was fashioned in bronze in the likeness of a zhantil-mask, up to the side of the beak and so, with a heave and a squirm, over onto the beak gangwalk. I snatched out my sword and, roaring and shouting, led my men down onto the central gangway. We fought. Oh, yes, we fought. We knew that if we failed we would either die and be tossed overside or be chained naked at the rowing beaches.

  This was a fight that had some meaning to it.

  This was a fight we had to win.

  I saw Inch with a great ax, almost the equal of his own mighty weapon he had lost back in Bormark, smiting and smiting. In expert hands the great Saxon ax of Danish pattern is a frightful weapon of destruction. It cleaved a red path through the Yumapanim. Many men leaped overboard, shrieking, rather than face the tall form of Inch with those incredibly long arms smashing that gory ax in swaths of destruction.

  And, obeying my orders, selected hands of my crew were jumping down between the rowing beaches, kicking away the ponsho skins, smashing the padlocks and breaking the chains. How those oar-slaves rose to us! With snatched-up weapons parceled out by my men, the ex-slaves vomited into the battle. We began at the prow and we finished at the taffrail, and all between was mine!

  Of course, looking back, how can I take a pride in all that destruction of life? How can I feel a glow of satisfaction that good sailormen had been slain and thrown overboard? But then, at the head of my sea-leem, my bloodstained rapier in my hand, I felt the full tide of gratification and lust of conquest. I had scarcely heeded that this was a part of the render’s trade. Yumapan was a foe of Vallia, was a foe of Tomboram — and, as I knew, was a foe also to Zenicce and Strombor. It was all part of the struggle that, all unbeknown, I was waging on Kregen under the Suns of Scorpio.

  Poor Strigicaw was almost gone.

  Before the waves closed over her we took what was necessary and transferred our goods and chattels to my new command.

  That brave flag of mine, the brilliant yellow cross on the scarlet field I personally bent and hoisted, high, high at the truck of the mainmast. And there it blew, proclaiming to all that this swordship was mine!

  Pride, and possession, and power — disastrous, disastrous!

  The released slaves would join us.

  The name of the swordship had been a long and complicated farrago of high-flown pomp and circumstance, which boiled down to her and her captain being the best on the sea, and the queen of Yumapan being the greatest Queen of Pain who had ever lived. I gave orders for the whole name to be expunged, and this was done by a certain amount of high-spirited chisel work and a triple splash in the sea.

  I gathered everyone aft and addressed them from the quarterdeck, which was wide and spacious for a galleass, and ornate with fittings that already I had my eye on as further consignments to the deep.

  “This swordship is now named Freedom.”

  They cheered at that.

  “We return to Careless Repose. There is work set to my hand, work that will bring rich loot, plunder beyond your wildest dreams, prizes — gold, silver, wine and women! Do you follow me, lads?”

  “Aye!” They roared it out. “Aye, Captain Prescot. We will follow you to the Ice Floes of Sicce!”

  I saw Inch looking sideways at me, and I did not wink; but I know he took the gist of what I meant.

  Freedom was indeed a fine ship. She rowed forty oars a side, and there were nine men on each bench — according to the Kregen and not the Earthly way of reckoning. So that meant seven hundred and twenty men hauled and pushed the oars. Also, there were the sailors, and the marines — so that she had to be a large vessel. Quite unlike the swifters, with their dangerously low freeboards and their serpentine lines, she had some run to her underwater lines, and with her three masts and spritsail could hold a wind. Compared with a galleon, of course, she sailed like a barge. Even then, even then, that proud and haughty Vallian galleon could not match the qualities of a first-class frigate of my own day, let us not forget that!

  Her freeboard seemed immense, and her varters and catapults mounted on the broadside had a superb arc of training and commanding height. I felt I could sail her to Vallia, if the need arose — if the need arose!

  How far I had come! Tilda and Pando must be sorted out and when that task had been accomplished to my satisfaction, then, then I would turn the proud beak of this beauty northeastwards to Vallia!

  Inch was let into all the plans I had formulated, with the exception that he knew only that I intended to sail to Vallia, and, being a footloose mercenary warrior, that suited him fine. Valka and Spitz and the other of my officers were told enough to keep them happy. They were well-primed to do their work. I knew that by the time we arrived at the island of Careless Repose I would have a whole swordship crew devoted to carrying out what I wanted done, demanding, pleading, desperate to sail on my business.

  If I have a good ship’s crew ready to my hand I sometimes fancy I might move mountains.

  At the pirates’ lair we talked and held out dazzling promises and suborned good men. The big breakthrough came when a swordship brought in an argenter from The Bloody Menaham. The renders had taken to copying Viridia and instead of butchering their prisoners and burning the ships, ransomed them instead. Now I heard that The Bloody Menaham were on the attack against Tomboram, had marched in to invade Bormark, had crossed that Kovnate and were advancing on the capital, Pomdermam.

  “Let us hit these Bloody Menaham, where it hurts, at home!” I urged the sea-leems. By the time Viridia returned, with but a poor coaster to show for her efforts, and thoroughly out of sorts, she was, willy-nilly, swept up in the feral enthusiasm.

  By careful sea passages we could reach south of the islands, coast along the north shore of Pandahem, come storming in on the rear of The Bloody Menaham, from a quarter where they least expected assault. There was a great deal of flashing blades and shouts of “Hai! Jikai!” but I kept busily preparing plans for every swordship captain, and as the news of a great venture whose final destination was a secret from all but the captains buzzed around the islands, swordship after swordship nosed in until the anchorage filled and they had to lie up in secondary harbors.

  For some time, everyone said, the renders had been aching to go on a great Jikai. Now, all agreed, was the time.

  If you think me blind to what I was doing, then, in all humility, I suppose I was. But I wanted to get to Vallia, and I could not leave until I had honored my promise to Tilda and Pando.

  The great day came at last. We had filled every quiver. All the ammunition lockers were filled to overflowing. Wine, water, food, arms, everything was crammed into the sword-ships. In a great fluttering of flags and booming of stentor horns, we lifted our hooks and pulled for the sea and Pandahem.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Scorpion returns

  As we shipped our oars and from the yards the topmen let fall our canvas and we began to heel to the breeze, I saw above me and flying in those familiar wide planing circles the gorgeous scarlet and gold form of the Gdoinye, the raptor sent as observer and sentinel by the Star Lords. Although I did not see the Savanti dove, I was heartened by the sight of the Gdoinye, taking it as a good omen for my venture. In this, as you will hear, I was foolishly naive.

  We made a fine passage south and east, swinging wide of the northwest tip of Pandahem where the land of Lome meets the sea, and cruising eastward to make the island of Panderk which lies off the western end of the enormous Bay of Panderk, immediately north of the border between The Bloody Menaham and Tomboram. Here we sent spies ashore.

  The news they brought back infuriated me — and drove me to commit a folly that nearly destroyed the fleet of render swordships and would have totally undone me; but then I believed I was acting out some small part of the scheme the Star Lords planned for Kregen, and so I believed that I would not fail.

  The spies reported that the Menaham army was slogging on toward the capital of Tomboram, Pomdermam, and thereby keeping i
n play King Nemo and all his forces. But, secretly, across the wide waters of the Bay of Panderk, a mighty armada of ships of all descriptions was sailing on, packed with men, to come upon Pomdermam from the sea and in a sudden and savagely unexpected onslaught rout the Tomboramin utterly.

  This was bad enough. But, at least for Inch and me, there was far worse information. One of the spies, an agile pirate who hailed from Menaham and had been consigned to the galleys and subsequently followed the usual path to the island of Careless Repose, reported a choice tidbit of gossip. The Kov of Bormark — “a mere stripling!” — and his mother had been forced to flee and were hiding somewhere, Pandrite knew where.

  I said one word: “Murlock!”

  Inch nodded. “It would be like him, the obvious thing for him to do.”

  “But he must be mad! Blind! Cannot he see that Menaham will use him and then toss him aside? He’ll never recover his estates and his title, by the Black Chunkrah!”

  “Murlock Marsilus,” said the spy, his blackened teeth exposed as he smiled knowingly. “That’s the name. But he is not with the fleet for Pomdermam. He was seen — a girl I know told me, with many giggles — heading for Pomdermam itself, astride a zorca that he rowelled as though Armipand himself, may Opaz rot him, was after him.”

  Then, bringing the problem squarely before me, the Menaham pirate nodded over the bulwark to the northeastern horizon. Black thunderheads piled there. All about our island anchorage the water lay listless and still, glassy, unbreathing.

  “By Diproo the Nimble-fingered!” said the pirate, and spat — by which I knew him to have been a member of the thieves’ fraternity. “That fleet may just scrape through to Pomdermam, but no ship will follow for days!”

  Everyone, it seemed all of a sudden, was looking at me. I could feel their eyes, like scarlet leeches, sucking at me.

  An instant decision would be easy, perhaps fatally wrong. Just how far these pirates would follow my lead remained also a factor to be considered. I grunted something to Inch and Valka and went into my cabin. I automatically looked around for the scarlet-coated marine sentry at attention with his musket and bayonet — so far gone aboard ship was I in problems.