Renegade of Kregen [Dray Prescot #13]

by Alan Burt Akers

  The rashoon swooped down on us and the suns vanished in gloom as the dark cloak of Notor Zan enveloped us. The wind screeched and whitecaps ran and were blown away across the tumbling sea. A galley is no ship to ride in during a blow. Men were frantically baling, and I took a hand, with Duhrra, cursing and swearing. The boat-sail was torn to shreds. In the gloom and the heaving movement, the wild shriek of the wind, the roil of the sea, I took a savage and bestial delight in battling those natural native elements, for the Everoinye had no part of this.

  When, at last, the rashoon blew itself past, its violence intense and short-lived, we saw the scattered mess in which the convoy had been left. Mind you, Duhrra had a hard time not to crow aloud in his glee.

  “Keep your black-fanged wine-spout shut, Guhrra! And that stupid grin off your chart-top!” I was harsh with him, for his own good, as he knew.

  We had in sight across the still tumbling sea some fifty or so of the broad ships. They were scattered, but already sails were breaking out aboard and they began to straggle back into formation. I scanned the horizons; past the sails of the convoy, around over that islandless sea, and could make out not a single other swifter. Well, I knew Volgodont's Fang had been handled superbly. She had kept up to the wind, being as weatherly as any lubberly galley ever can be, and the other swifters had all been blown down to leeward.

  They'd row back when the breeze finally died. We set about sorting the convoy and heading on for our destination on Benarej Island.

  “Sail ho!” bellowed down from the lookout perched on the high prow beside the beakhead swivels. Then: “Red!"

  Swifters of the Eye of the World commonly carry three sets of sails, white for normal duties, black for night work, and red or green for business, depending on which side of the sea they harbor. I felt a thump of the old heart, at that call of “Red!” I can tell you.

  Many of the Zairians ship blue sails as well as red, for red is a color not conducive to slipping up unseen, and their hulls, too, are often blue instead of red. It is a matter of common sense. When the strange sail showed, gleaming a bright ruby-crimson in the opaline light, I saw moments later the long, lean hull show up with the same brave color.

  This fellow was a fighter, then...

  A tremendous bustle and scurry thundered along the three rowing decks of the swifter as the slaves were rousted out and the spare slaves brought up for extra power. They were whipped and rope's ended along to their benches and shackled down. Every oar would be in use and every loom would be fully manned. The green sail came in, in a booming rustle, and was fought into a long sausage-roll shape and stowed. Soldiers poured up onto the upperworks from their quarters on the open upper deck. The varters were cast loose and the men bent to the windlasses.

  Gafard, the Sea-Zhantil, appeared on his quarterdeck gorgeous in white and green, with an enormous mass of feathers in his helmet to mark him. I stood nearby, ready to hand, with my green feathers in my helmet.

  The drum-Deldar, in obedience to the orders of the oar-master in his tabernacle, raised the beat. The double note sounded, treble and bass, thumping out the rhythm. Now the whistles all stilled. The sound of water hissing past the sides reached everyone. The creak of the woodwork and the rush of water, the long groaning sigh of the slaves as they pushed and pulled, the sounds of the oars grinding, made a pattern of sound very familiar. Also familiar, dreadfully so, were the sharp, vicious cracks as the long whips snapped over the backs of the slaves. A snapping crack and a jerked shriek, and then the usual sounds until another lashing blow produced another agonized screech.

  The whip-Deldars of the swifters of Magdag are skilled with old-snake.

  And, too, there sounded the shouted word I hate, the vicious, sadistic bawling of: “Grak! Grak, you cramphs! Grak!"

  Grak means work and slave and jump to it until you can work no longer and are dead. Grak! Oh, yes, I have heard that foul word many and many a time on Kregen, and many and many a time in evil Magdag and on her hellish swifters.

  “Wenda!” bellowed the ship-Deldar, bashing his fist against the quarterdeck rail. “Wenda!"[3]

  [3 Wenda: Let's go.]

  Gafard stood still, his head lifted, grand in his armor and blazonry. He looked across the starboard bow. Over there the square red sail still bore on with the wind. But even as we looked so it shriveled, shrank in size, became distorted and so disappeared to be rolled and stowed out of the way, as we had stowed our green sail.

  Very quietly Gafard said to his ship-Hikdar, Nath ti Hagon, “Break ‘em out, Nath."

  “Your orders, my commands, gernu!"

  Nath bellowed his orders and the hands ran. I watched, fascinated, for it had been a long time.

  From the masts raised along the sides of the swifter's apostis broke the green flags of Grodnim. Two parallel rows, those flags enclosed the ship in a box of green power. With an apostis some one hundred thirty feet in length and the flag-masts set at ten-foot intervals, there was room for some twenty-eight flags. This coruscating mass of green and gold and white fluttered in the dying breeze, magnificent, really, bold, daring—and damned well green.

  I saw that the standard of the Lady of the Stars had been placed right forward on the larboard side. The standard of Gafard matched it on the starboard. I looked at Gafard and caught his eye as he turned to survey his quarterdeck, and I nodded my head, hitched up my sword, and started off forward.

  I was used to fighting an Earthly ship from the quarterdeck. In swifters and swordships it was often preferable to fight them from the beakhead itself.

  The Norsemen of Earth, those hard, tough warriors and their enemies called Vikings, held to the tradition of the fighting-man being right forward. They called the warrior selected to fight in the prow stafnbui, stem-fighter; the Kregans call him prijiker, which is much the same thing.

  As a stem-fighter I could wish to have Nath and Zolta with me. But what they would say of me now, as I went forward with every prospect of coming to hand-strokes with men of Zair, I did not care to contemplate.

  As for Duhrra, I had spoken to him most severely. If he could get across to the Zairian without being killed he would do so, win or lose. Otherwise he would stay close in his cabin and hope to escape detection, and failing that—and it was a remote chance—must plead illness, an old wound, his stump giving him trouble. I knew he would never strike against a Zairian. He would hope to escape among his comrades. I just did not know, as I strode past all that panoply of the Green, just what I would do.

  I thought of the Lady of the Stars. She had entrusted her standard to my care, and had given me a little valkavol symbol as a sign. If a tough, carefree Zairian sailor tried to slash that standard down and carry it back to Sanurkazz or any other Zairian town in triumph—what would I do? Could I cut him down? Could I let the standard go? For the sake of my Lady, who trusted me, I really believe I might have cut a Zairian to pieces. I thought of Delia, and I knew my decision would not be affected.

  Across the narrowing stretch of water the Red oar blades all lifted and fell as one. The swifter came on as though on tracks, every oar parallel, rising and falling like the red wings of a great raptor of the air.

  The bronze rostrum cut through the water with a swirl of blue and white, curling into a white line tumbling and flowing past her sides. That cruel ram would rip the guts out of a ship. Above it the center wales curved to join at the proembolion, which would force the rammed ship off and thus prevent her in her sinking from dragging down her victorious enemy with her. The beakhead was lifted and men in the brave red worked there ready to drop it with stunning force onto our deck, or to run it out ready to form a boarding gangway. The two forward varter platforms showed busy activity, as did ours.

  The first darts flew, massive, long bolts of wood tipped with iron. Soon bolts entirely of iron would be used as the range, closing minute by minute, dropped. And then the chunks of rock, which would smash and rend their way through wood and flesh alike. A dart hissed in to pierce a varterist n
ear me clean through. Blood burst from his back, spraying everywhere as he gave a last screech and spun and toppled overboard. He went under the thrashing lines of oars. Another man of the Green stepped up to take his place at the windlass. The varter clanged and a wicked bolt flew off in reply. The air filled with missiles as more and more varters and bows could be brought to bear.

  The two swifters bore down on each other, their whip-Deldars frantic with lashing, their drum-Deldars banging out the stroke, the oar-masters bellowing the time, and the two opposing captains watching and waiting for the first glimpse of intention in their enemy. One or the other must sheer. The diekplus might be used, the ram-to-ram, the straight shear. The time for decision was running out with gathering speed. And then I, an unfrocked Krozair of Zy, deciphered the devices of those red flags. I stood ready to engage in bloody combat with a swifter of the Krozairs of Zy themselves.

  Could I, even Apushniad as I was, fight and slay my Red Brothers in Zair?

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  The Golden Chavonth leads us a dance

  The two swifters leaped across the last gap of water at each other like sea-leems.

  The answer to the question that formed in my mind was: Of course I damned well could! I was an old mercenary, an old reiver. When men sought to slay me no matter who they were—by the Black Chunkrah!—I'd slay them first! And there was the green standard of my Lady of the Stars to consider. Was a man's life, the life of a Brother Krozair of Zy, worth more or less than a scrap of green silk given into my care by a girl? How could such idiotic and callous thoughts even occur to me? Had this girl, this beloved of Gafard, this Lady of the Stars, addled my wits?

  There had to be a way—a way of honor.

  The arrows rained down about me now and I cursed the stupidity of the men of the inner sea, no less than of Vallia and Segesthes, that they despised the shield as the coward's artifice. Turko the Shield should be with me now, his great shield upraised, deflecting the arrow storm.

  I flicked away two arrows that would have pierced me.

  An officer at my side, a Chulik mercenary and a man with long experience in artillery, in command of the bow varters, coughed gently to himself. He pulled an arrow from his arm where the keen steel head had bitten clean through his mail. He threw the two halves to the deck, with a Chulik curse.

  The gap of blue sea between those two closing rams narrowed with dreadful rapidity.

  I stared wolfishly at the Red swifter. She was two-banked and the two tiers were set closely together. Her beam appeared broader than I would have thought necessary. I could see the heads of the men clustered abaft her forward breastwork, across the forecastle. The beak remained aloft, ready to drop down if her captain chose to board. Our beak likewise remained lifted. Both captains considered this to be ram work.

  How quick would Gafard be?

  He was a fine swifter captain—he must of necessity be so to have earned his reputation. He was called the Sea-Zhantil, a name taken from the Zairians, a name taken from the renowned Krozair, the Lord of Strombor. He measured himself against that long-dead Krozair, did Gafard. Whatever Pur Dray had done, Gafard, the King's Striker, would do better—or die in the attempt.

  The hail from aft reached me attenuated and thin. The breeze had almost died after the rashoon. The order of command from the Red swifter reached me as clearly.

  Both swifters hauled out, spinning. I had thought the Zairian would try the diekplus, the maneuver in which the attacking swifter abruptly swivels and turns so as to smash her ram hard against the leading oars and the apostis forward frame, what the Ancient Greeks called the epotis. As I have said, in the swifters of the inner sea this framework remained a supporting member and, forward, a true cathead of substantial construction, designed not only to secure the anchor but also to smash on down the line of oars, was fitted with that intention. The diekplus was thus rendered less of a formidable weapon than of yore. In a ram-to-ram the stronger cathead would win the day, provided the attacker's oars could be hoicked up out of the way, and this presented difficulties.

  I had thought that a two-banker would not try the ram-to-ram against a three-banker.

  I was right in that. And I was wrong about the diekplus. Gafard had thought the same and had sought to take his vessel into the accepted method of attacking defense: a rapid wheel and a reversal so he had the enemy's tail in front of his ram.

  But the Zairian went on spinning. She turned past the ninety-degree point, turned more, and then all her oars went down as one and she shot off, away from us. Gafard's vessel, still turning, the water a welter of white along its sides, was left facing at an oblique angle. I could hear Gafard raving as he bellowed his orders to bring the swifter back on line.

  As the Zairian thus impudently fooled us I saw the bows flash past, turning. I had seen the men there, close. And I had recognized the Krozair Brother in command, the prijiker in command of his party of prijikers. Their hard bronzed faces in the glittering helmets turned as they flew past. Arrows crisscrossed, but no man flinched.

  That was Pur Kardazh over there, one of the five Krozair Brothers who had been accepted into the Krozairs of Zy at the same time as I was. I would have thought he would have reached higher in the hierarchy than a prijiker commander, no matter the glory and honor of such a position. Perhaps he had taken the world-stance, as had I, and the call had brought him back to the service. As the swifters bore on I pondered. Could I slay an old friend, Pur Kardazh, for the sake of a scrap of green silk?

  The ship-Hikdar, Nath, came running forward again, bellowing. He was not satisfied with our bow varters’ performance. That the Chulik in command had an arrow wound in his arm meant nothing. In that, of course, he was right.

  “The cramph! You see what he is after!"

  Indeed, I did see, and I felt most pleased.

  For the Zairian was not after a fight with the Magdaggian. He was after the plump chickens of the convoy. As the breeze dropped so conditions became impossible for the sailing broad ships and ideal for swifter work. The Red swifter made no attempt to take prizes. With Volgodont's Fang on her tail there was no time for that luxury.

  Sharp cries of anger rose from the men. They were filled with rage that they were standing idly by. For long, graceful streamers of smoke rose from the Red swifter, arching over, curving to land with precision on the decks and in the rigging of the broad ships. First one and then another burned. We were flying along at full speed, every slave hurling every ounce of his being onto the looms. But the Red swifter kept ahead, and the fire-pots blossomed from her, and she left a blazing wake of ruin as she went.

  “By Grodno! I'd like to drop our beakhead on her quarterdeck now!"

  “That would prove interesting,” I said.

  Nath shook a fist at the Krozair swifter.

  “Krozairs! The bane of Grodno! They are damned and doomed to all eternity! May the Green strike them."

  I didn't bother to reply. I now realized what had puzzled me at first about that double-banked galley as she had pulled toward us. I'd lost a great deal of the sharpness of a swifter captain. The two banks of oars had been lifting and falling at a speed much below that of Volgodont's Fang. I had assumed that to be because not only was Gafard's swifter in perfect fighting trim with a trained crew, but more probably because the Krozair swifter had been newly commissioned with an inexperienced crew. More than ship quality, crew quality can win an action.

  Now the Red swifter's wings beat in furious tempo.

  In a bur or so the slaves being lashed by Gafard's whip-Deldars would be unable to keep up the stroke. His spare oarsmen would be insufficient to make up the numbers required to propel the swifter at her top speed, and the time taken to change rowers would disrupt her smooth effort. But the Red swifter's oarsmen were fresher. She could outrun Volgodont's Fang, that was certain.

  And, too, I had noticed that the Zairian, with the figurehead of a chavonth, had possessed no less than thirty-six oars in each of her b
anks. I had counted them quite automatically as she flashed past, as I had recognized Pur Kardazh, as I had stood under the arrow hail. She was of the long-keel construction, then. Slow to turn, perhaps, although her spin when she broke and fooled Gafard had been executed smartly enough. She would be very fast. It was clear that Gafard had come to the same conclusion.

  The oar-master shouted, and the drum-Deldar subtly smoothed his frenzied banging and the bass and treble rang out with a slower rhythm. The Green swifter plowed more slowly through the calm blue sea.

  Now Gafard showed his seamanship.

  The contest presented itself to me as a problem. The Krozair swifter had cut through the convoy in a straight line. Now she was beginning to turn. Gafard followed, more slowly, and pulled out free of the convoy flank. Orders rattled and the whistles blew and the oars came up, level and still.

  Like a faithful rark guarding a flock of chunkrah, the Green swifter hovered, ready to dart larboard or starboard to catch the Red swifter in the flank as she bore in again.

  The oars in the Krozair swifter leveled.

  Both vessels drifted.

  If this was a waiting game, then every advantage lay with Gafard. As though to confirm that a hail reached us and the news flashed like wildfire about the swifter.

  “Swifters! Coming up fast!” And, then, “Green!"

  The Krozair captain made out the fresh vessels at about the same time. Immediately he put up his helm.

  “He's running! May Grotal the Reducer grind his bones!"

  By the time the Green swifters, four of them from the scattered squadron, hove up, the Red swifter was a brilliant dot on the horizon. I gazed after that speck of color, and I sighed. I wondered who her captain might be. He had struck a shrewd blow for Zair. He had struck like a leem and destroyed, and had vanished the moment the odds altered. He had acted as a proper ship captain and not as so often the Krozairs did as a crusader willing to die for no good purpose.