The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales

by L. Sprague De Camp

  He gave her passion for passion, but stubbornly refused even to defer his sailing for a day or two. She was still asleep when he stole from the palace with Ryn before dawn. As the Zhyskan galley creaked and crawled out of Sederado Harbor, Vakar leaned on the after rail, staring somberly back at the graceful city, pink in the sunrise. Ryn at his elbow said:

  "Cheer up, my boy. Just think of me; you may have loved and lost, but with my hump I never—"

  "Shut your mouth, you old fool! No, I don't really mean that. But if I'm killed on this expedition I'll haunt you to your urn."

  -

  XIX. – THE BAY OF KORT

  At the grim craggy walls of Mneset, Vakar reined up as the guards crossed their halberds and said: "I'm Prince Vakar! Let me through, fools!"

  "What's that?" said one of the guards. "Everybody knows Prince Vakar went a-travelling over the earth and fell off the edge."

  "He do look something like the prince," said the other. "Who can identify you, sir?"

  "Oh, hells!" growled Vakar.

  He had ridden on ahead of Ryn in his impatience to learn how things went in Lorsk, and now he had to sit his panting mount until Ryn's chariot rattled up. Then the guards were profuse with apologies to which Vakar paid little heed as he spurred for the castle.

  The first person of rank he met there was the chamberlain, whom he asked: "Where is everybody? Where are my father and brother?"

  "The king lies sick, sir, and Prince Kuros has gone to the Bay of Kort with the army."

  Vakar went quickly to his father's chambers. King Zhabutir lay on his bed, surrounded by servants and adherents and looking blankly up. Vakar pushed through them and said:

  "Hail, Father."

  The king's eyes looked out of their sunken sockets. He said faintly:

  "Oh, Vakar. Where did you come from, dear boy? Have you been away? I haven't seen you lately."

  Vakar exchanged glances with the people who crowded the room, and it seemed to him that they looked at him with pity. The king continued:

  "How did you get that scar on your face, son? Cut yourself shaving?"

  Then Ryn came in and steered Vakar out by his elbow. The old wizard said:

  "He's been like this for a month, gradually sinking until now he seldom talks sense."

  "Shouldn't I stay until he either mends or dies?"

  "Nay. He might go any time and again he might last months more, while the army fights the Gorgons. We must set out for the Bay of Kort now, trusting to luck he'll still be alive when we return."

  "Shouldn't I stop to sacrifice to Lyr and Okma, then, for bringing me through so many perils?"

  "Not now. After all this time they can wait a few days."

  Vakar went to his chambers feeling shaken, for though he had never been very close to his father the loss of a near relative is sobering. He armed himself with his jazerine cuirass of gilded bronze scales, his second-best helmet (not the solid gold one, which was too soft) and a bronze shield like that he had started his journey with. He kept the sword of star-metal, which in odd moments he had honed down to razor sharpness. Then he and Ryn set out for the Bay of Kort, where the Gorgonian fleet was expected.

  -

  Four days later they reached the pass through the hills around the bay, where from a bend in the road they could see the whole bay and the crescent of flatland between it and the hills spread out below like a dinner-plate. The cool autumnal wind whipped their cloaks. In the foreground lay the Lorskan camp.

  "Lyr's barnacles!" cried Vakar.

  The Gorgon fleet was already drawn up along the beach in a line miles long, hundreds of vessels great and small with sails furled, oars shipped, and bows resting on the strand. The Gorgonian army had disembarked and was drawing up in a great rectangular mass, in regular ranks with big wood-and-leather shields and helms in exact alignment, bristling with spears, while clumps of archers gathered on the flanks. Over each unit floated its vexilla, hanging from a gilded cross-yard.

  A half-mile inland from the Gorgonian array, the forces of Lorsk were strung out in loose aggregations, each group comprising the followers of some lord or high officer.

  "The damned fool!" croaked Ryn. "He told me he meant to attack while they were disembarking! A good enough plan, but it's gone somehow awry. Having failed to catch them with their kilts wet, he should withdraw into the hills to ambush and block them, meanwhile harrassing them with cavalry, of which they have none. On the plain that Gorgonian meat-grinder will make short work of our gallant individualists."

  "We have an advantage of numbers."

  "That'll avail us little. The headstrong fool..."

  "Perhaps he's planned it that way," said Vakar, and told Ryn of the words of the dying Sol.

  "Ye gods! Why haven't you told me before?"

  "I left Mneset in such a rush I had no time, and so much happened later that it slipped my mind."

  Ryn muttered something about the dynasty's ending in a fitter of halfwits, then said: "Let's get on to the battle."

  "It'll take us an hour," said Vakar, but started his horse down the slope. Ryn's chariot bumped behind.

  As Vakar rode he saw the course of the battle like a game played on a table-top. The shrill Lorskan trumpets rang out and the horsemen and light chariots moved out to harrass the foe, dashing up to within a few feet of them to discharge bows or cast javelins, then wheeling away. A few such skirmishers swirled around the ends of the Gorgonian line, but the archers drove them off with flights of bone-tipped arrows.

  Others galloped towards the ships drawn up along the beach beyond the ends of the Gorgonian army. As they came, these ships pushed off. Vakar saw the Lorskans catch one still beached. There was a scurrying of little figures and a twinkle of weapons in the sunlight, and then smoke rose from the ship as the Lorskans set it afire.

  Now the deeper tones of the Gorgonian trumpets answered those of Lorsk. Vakar saw a ripple of motion go through the Gorgonian array as the phalanx began to advance. The Lorskan chariots and horses bolted back through the gaps in their own force to the rear, and the towering kilted Lorskan foot-soldiers loped forward under their bison banners, yelling and whirling their weapons.

  Then Vakar could see clearly no more, for he had reached the level of the plain. Now the battle was a dark writhing line of figures on the horizon, the plan and progress of the battle being hidden from view by the backs of the rearmost Lorskans and by the clouds of dust that now arose.

  "I halt here I" called Ryn. "I'll cast a few spells; you go on and see what you can do."

  Vakar rode forward, skirting the Lorskan camp whence camp-followers yelled unintelligibly at him. The roar of battle strengthened until he could make out individual shrieks. Behind the main battle-front the Lorskan cavalry and chariotry stood awaiting orders. As Vakar approached he glimpsed the faces of foot-soldiers, first a few, then here, there, and everywhere. That meant that they were facing the wrong way—were running away. Had the battle been lost already?

  The fleeing foot zigzagged between the horses and chariots and ran past Vakar through the grass towards the hills: first one or two, then hundreds, most without weapons. Now the cavalry and chariots too began to move retrograde, sweeping past Vakar and overtaking and passing the infantry. Once Vakar glimpsed his brother Kuros, riding rearwards with the rest. Kuros would naturally be among the first to flee, knowing that his men would soon follow his example and that his secret pact with King Zeluud would thereby be carried out. It was a full-fledged rout.

  Vakar caught one foot-soldier by his crest. The chin-strap kept the helmet from coming off, and the jerk nearly broke the man's neck.

  "What's happened?" roared Vakar into the dazed man's face.

  "Magic!" gasped the man. "They had creatures like great lizards in front of their line, and as we closed with them the lizards hissed at us and our men fell as if struck by thunderbolts. Let me go! What can mere men do against such magic?"

  Vakar released the man, who resumed his flight. The bulk of t
he Lorskan army had now swept past Vakar, who almost wept with rage. Never in the memory of man had the proud men of Lorsk suffered such a disgraceful defeat. After the Lorskans came the Gorgons under their swaying octopus banners, the sun gleaming on their cuirasses. Most of them had dropped their heavy shields of wood and bull's hide to run faster after their foes. In their pursuit they had abandoned their rigid rectilinear formation so that they now surged forward in a great irregular and scattered mass. From his height Vakar could see over the heads of the Gorgons the bodies of thousands of Lorskans lying stiff and stark in the grass. Off to his right King Zeluud stood in the Gorgons' only chariot, trotting at the head of his men.

  Vakar drew his sword and put his horse towards one of the gaps in the Gorgonian line. The Gorgons stared at the single horseman hurling himself into their midst. One or two took a few steps in Vakar's direction, but he went past them like a whirlwind. A plumed Gorgonian helmet appeared in front of him. The Gorgon swung a battle-ax, but before he could strike, Vakar drove his sword into the man's face. He felt the crunch of thin bones and wrenched his point out as the man fell. Then he was through the hostile array and pulled up to look around.

  Back towards the hills he now saw the backs of the Gorgon mass, still running after the Lorskans. Their officers urged them on with hoarse shouts; nobody bothered with the lone horseman whose mount had evidently gone mad and carried him willy-nilly through the army.

  Between Vakar and the sea the victims of the medusa attack lay in long rows, in stiffly unnatural positions like statues toppled from their pedestals. Their heads lay towards the sea, for when the screams of the medusas had petrified them in mid-charge their momentum had caused nearly all of them to fall forward.

  Between Vakar and the fallen Lorskans he saw what he sought: the medusas and their attendant priests of Entigta. There were nine reptiles, each on a leash. At the start of the battle the priests had been spaced evenly along the Gorgonian front, but now that their part was over they were gathering in a single group in the middle of their line, a few hundred feet to Vakar's right as he faced the sea. Half a dozen of them had congregated there already, and the remaining three were walking towards this group.

  Vakar spurred his horse and cantered in a wide curve that brought him up to the last of the priests from behind. Before he reached the Gorgon, the priest, aroused by hoof-beats behind him, looked around. The priest pointed at Vakar and spoke to the medusa, which opened its beak and hissed.

  The horse shied, and Vakar felt a vibration run through him, but gripping the magical sword he plunged at the pair. So long as he gripped the hilt, the contact between his hand and the tang of the blade protected him. A downright slash sank into the medusa's scaly head and then he was past, sparing only a glance back to see the reptile writhing in the dust.

  Then he was on the second. A sweeping backhand cut shore through the snaky neck and sent the medusa's head flying.

  He swept past the clump of priests and rode towards the remaining individual who had not yet reached them. His swing missed a vital spot and sheared off one of the medusa's ears; he jerked his horse around in a tight circle and came back. This time another head flew off.

  "Prince Vakar!" cried the priest, and Vakar recognized Qasigan.

  But now he had no time to settle old scores with mere men. He rode at the remaining six priests who stood in a group and watched uncertainly. At the last minute they grasped what he was doing. There was a flurry of movement as they tried to form a circle around the medusas, drawing knives from their belts to defend their beasts with their lives. Then Vakar crashed squarely into the group. There were screams of men and medusas as bones crushed under the horse's hooves and Vakar's sword flashed down on shaven polls and scaly crania.

  Then he was through and wheeling to charge back, blood spraying from his sword as he whirled it, yelling wordlessly. Crash! A sharp pain in his leg told him that one of them had gotten home with a knife, but he kept on, slashing and thrusting ...

  And he was chasing one surviving medusa over the grass. The reptile went in buck-jumps like a rabbit, the golden chain attached to its collar leaping and snaking behind it. Vakar rode it down and left it writhing with its entrails oozing out. Four priests, including Qasigan, were running for their ships, hiking up their robes to give their legs free play.

  Back towards the hills the Gorgonian army still receded in pursuit of the Lorskans. Vakar knew that the road up to the pass would get jammed and the Gorgons would have a holiday massacre. And now what? The sword that had destroyed the medusas would also revive the fallen Lorskans, whom the Gorgons had not taken time to bind or slay.

  Down at the waterfront, among the beaks of the beached ships, men were pointing at Vakar and shouting, but seemed undecided what to do. Most of them were mere unarmed servants.

  Vakar rode down to one end of the windrows of stricken Lorskans and turned back. Holding his horse's mane with his shield-hand he leaned down as he passed the bodies and slapped them on faces and hands with the flat of his blade. As he did so they lost their rigidity and scrambled up. Vakar shouted:

  "Get up! Get in formation! Pick up your arms!"

  There seemed to be no end to the process. He had to keep looping back to touch men whom he had missed, hundreds and hundreds of them. It was as tiring as a battle. But the crowd of recovered Lorskans grew and grew. For want of other guidance they obeyed him. Down at the shore the Gorgonian galleys, alarmed by the springing to life of an army of corpses, were putting to sea.

  Time passed. Vakar's arm ached. Only a few-score more bodies to go... Vakar speeded up, careless of slicing off an occasional nose or ear. And then they were all on their feet. He rode back to the middle of the line and waved the sword, shouting:

  "Get in line and follow me! The magical powers of the Gorgons have been destroyed. We can take them in the rear and wipe them out!"

  He harangued them and got them into motion across the plain at a fast mile-eating walk: tall bearded Lorskan yeomen with their miscellany of weapons. As they neared the edge of the coastal plain, Vakar could see what was happening ahead. Many of the Gorgons had abandoned the pursuit to sack the Lorskan camp, where they were amusing themselves by butchering the cooks and sutlers and raping the women. The rest had caught the fugitives funnelling into the road leading up to the pass and had fallen upon them with spear and sword. The slaughter of the mixed mass of Lorskan soldiers and camp-followers had been terrific, checked only by the fact that the front ranks became so jammed up that they had no room to swing a weapon.

  As Vakar neared the Gorgon rear with his force he could see Gorgonian officers rushing around trying to get then-men faced about to receive the new attack. Vakar, judging the distance, yelled: "Charge!"

  Forward they went at a run with deep roars, stumbling over bodies. They plunged through the camp, sweeping the plunderers before them and trampling them down, and then the lines met with a crash and a crush that lifted men off their feet and snapped the shafts and spears and halberds. Weapons rose and fell like flails. Behind the Gorgonian array the Lorskan fugitives picked up courage and instead of trying frantically to elbow their way up the road or to scale the steep hillsides to safety, some turned back, picked up discarded weapons, and plunged into the fight. As most of the Gorgons now lacked shields, their advantage in equipment was neutralized.

  Howls of dismay rose from the Gorgons as they realized that they were trapped. Vakar, caught in the melée, hewed at every plume-crested head he saw until he could scarcely swing his blade. A spear-point gashed his leg again; another drove through the chest of the already wounded horse. With a scream the animal died, but such was the press that it could not fall, but gradually subsided on to a struggling knot of fighters. Vakar, exhausted, dragged himself clear and then was knocked over and buried under a welter of bodies.

  He dragged himself out from under the pile of wounded and dead, battered and bruised and covered with his own and others' blood, to find that the Gorgons had been split into s
everal small groups being ground to nothing. In the midst of the largest knot rose King Zeluud's chariot. The horses had been killed and the king stood in the vehicle, swinging over his followers' heads with a long two-handed sword at any Lorskan who tried to break through to reach him. Vakar began to push through the press towards the chariot. The Gorgons around the chariot fought like fiends until a huge Lorskan burst through to climb up behind the king, seize him by the neck, and drag him over the side. King Zeluud disappeared.

  Now the Gorgons began to lose heart. Some cast down their arms and cried for quarter. Most of these the infuriated Lorskans struck down without mercy, but Vakar managed to save a few from slaughter. There was much about Gorgonia that he wished to know, and dead men could tell him nothing.

  The sounds of battle died away, leaving several thousand Lorskans leaning on the shafts of their weapons and panting. Those who had the breath to do so raised the shout of victory. Some cut the throats of the Gorgon wounded; others dragged their own wounded out from the piles of dead to see if they looked salvageable or whether they too should, as an act of mercy, have their throats cut. The ground was carpeted with bodies and severed members and with helmets, shields, swords, spears, daggers, axes, maces, halberds, trumpets, and all the other paraphernalia of war. Tattered battle-standards lay among the fitter, some so bloodstained that the bison of Lorsk could hardly be distinguished from the octopus of Gorgonia.