Norman, John - Gor 16 - Guardsman Of Gor v2.txt

by Guardsman of Gor [lit]

  "Run flags on the stem-castle lines," called Callimachus. "Blood for Port Cos!"

  There was a cheer from our benches.

  I watched the _Tais_ draw away from the disabled vessel. Then I saw the stern of the vessel swing eccentrically about.

  "She is caught on a bar," said a man near to me.

  "Yes," I said. No longer did she move sluggishly, turning, carried by the current, toward the chain.

  "It is the _Tuka_," said a man near me.

  "Is that a well-known ship of the Voskjard?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "It is the wedge again!" cried a man.

  I looked out, over the railing, northward. The enemy fleet had reformed.

  The crew of the _Tuka_ had swum west of the chain.

  "They are approaching at only half stroke," said a man.

  "They will not repeat their first mistake," said another.

  This time it was their intention to force our line apart with consistent pressure, not as a shattering bolt, but as a flood, a pressing, an avalanche of wood and steel, regulated, controlled, responsive to the tactical situation instant by instant. Not again would the point of the wedge be lost fruitlessly behind our lines, spending itself in vain against emptiness and spray.

  Flags, torn by the wind, snapping, sped to our stem-castle lines. Signal cloths, pennons and squares, in mixed colors and designs, acknowledging these commands, ran fluttering and streaming onto the stem-castle lines of the _Tais_.

  "She is at full stroke!" said a man.

  The _Tais_, her stern low in the water, her ram half lifted from it, knifed to the northeast.

  "The wedge of the Voskjard approaches!" called an officer on our stem castle.

  "Let us chain the ships together, while we may!" begged another officer.

  "No," said Callimachus.

  "Look!" cried a man, miserably, clinging to a projection on our stem castle. "Look!" he cried. He was pointing to the east. "The _Tais_ is leaving our lines! The ships of Port Cos attend her!"

  "Our flank is unguarded!" cried a man in fear. There seemed consternation on our benches.

  "The Voskjard is committed to the wedge!" I said to the man next to me.

  "Our flank is in no immediate danger," said he. He set an arrow to the string of a short ship's bow.

  "No!" I cried laughing. "No! Look! It is the flank of the Voskjard which is now unguarded!"

  The _Tais_ and her swift, lean sisters, emerging unexpectedly, circling, from behind our lines, stern quarters low in the water, rams half lifted from the water, wet and glistening in the sun, at full stroke, oars beating, drums pounding, like loosened weapons, sped toward the wedge.

  Our oarsmen stood on their benches cheering.

  The lead ship of the wedge was trying to come about, swinging to starboard. Her immediate support ship, fifty yards astern, could not check her flight. Her ram took the lead ship in the stern, tearing away wood and breaking loose the starboard rudder. Almost at the same time the seven ships of Port Cos, fanning out, each choosing an undefended hull, exposed, helpless before the hurtling strike of the ram's brutal spike, to the tearing of wood, the rushing of water, the screaming of men, made contact with the enemy. Efficiently did they address themselves to the harsh labors of war.

  I did not see how Ar, in her disputes with Cos upon the Vosk, could hope to match such ships and men. The ships of Ar's Station, with the fleet, seemed more round ships than long ships. Some lacked even rams and shearing blades. All were permanently masted. Few of these ships boasted more than twenty oars. All seemed undermanned. Ar, I thought, might be advised to tread lightly in her politics on the Vosk.

  The ships of Port Cos, led by the _Tais_, backed from the subsiding, shattered hulks they had smitten. The Voskjard's fleet was in confusion. Ship struck ship. Signal horns sounded frantically. Ships struggled, crowded together, trapped in the wedge, to come about. Again, and again, hunting as single marine predators, the _Tais_ and her sisters, prowling the outskirts of that confused, sluggish city of wood, almost at will, almost fastidiously, selected their victims.

  How could Ar, I asked myself, compete with such men and ships upon the mighty Vosk?

  Laughable were the miserable, squat ships of Ar's Station when compared with the sleek carnivores of Port Cos or, indeed, those of Ragnar Voskjard.

  "The _Tais_ has made her third kill!" cried a man.

  There was cheering upon the _Tina_.

  On each of the ships of Ar's Station there were long, heavy sets of planks, fastened together by transverse crosspieces. These heavy constructions were some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven or eight feet in width. They were mounted on high platforms near the masts, one at each mast, and could be run out on rollers from the mast, to which they were fastened by adjustable lengths of chain. At the tops these constructions leaned back toward the masts, to which, at the top, they were secured by ropes. Projecting outwards from the top of each of these constructions there was, like a curved nail, a bent, gigantic, forged spike.

  "The fleet is coming about!" criers a man.

  To be sure, amidst the wreckage and crowding, and even grinding against the chain, the fleet of the Voskjard had managed to come about.

  "Flee!" cried a man near me to the crews of the _Tais_ and her sisters, as though they could have heard him over the water. "Flee!"

  "They must run or they will be crushed!" cried a man. The rams of the Voskjard's fleet swung toward the _Tais_ and her sisters. Between them, drifting apart, listing or awash, lay what must have been the wreckage of some eighteen ships. Several had already gone down.

  "Run! Run!" cried more than one man near me. But the _Tais_ and her sisters of Port Cos lay to.

  "The fleet of the Voskjard has been marshaled," said a man next to me.

  "Pity the brave lads of Port Cos," muttered a man.

  "Stroke!" called Callimachus.

  "Stroke!" called his officer.

  "Stroke!" cried the oar master. The ringing of the copper covered drum struck with the fur-wrapped wooden mallets suddenly rang out behind us.

  "Yes, yes!" I cried. "The Voskjard has exposed his flank to us!"

  The _Tina_ and her line movers forward.

  ***

  "Withdraw! Reform!" called Callimachus.

  That island of wood in the midst of the Vosk, those grating, striking ships, twisted at the chain. Rams now, and concave bows, threatened us.

  We backed from the wreckage.

  We, the line of our ships, had caught the fleet of the Voskjard in its right flank, as it had turned to confront and punish the _Tais_ and her sisters of Port Cos. This audacious act on our part had taken the fleet of the Voskjard by surprise. That ships such as those of Ar's Station and of the independent towns, mostly refitted merchantmen, would dare to leave the security of their lines to launch their own attack, not bolstered by the ships of Port Cos, had not entered its ken. They did not know, perhaps, that one named Callimachus stood upon our stem castle.

  We backed from the wreckage, much of it flaming. The smell of pitch was in the air.

  Dozens of ships, trying to come about, maneuvering, milling, struck by other ships, had been trapped against the chain.

  There were hundreds of men in the water. Hundreds of oars, like sticks, had been snapped in the stresses involved, even against the hulls of their own vessels.

  Archer shields, of heavy wicker, floated in the water, and ruptured posts and strakes, and parts of oars.

  Vosk gulls dove and glided among the carnage, hunting for fish.

  "Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus.

  I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain.

  "Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus. He was no fool. He would not risk open battle, not even on even terms, with ships such as those of the Voskjard.

  "We have been fortunate," said a man.

  "Yes," said another.

  "The Voskjard will be angry," said another.


  "I fear so," said another.

  "There is still time to flee," said another.

  Then the _Tina_, with the _Mira_ to starboard and the _Talender_ to port, lay to in our lines. The ships of Port Cos, now only the _Tais_ and four others, resumed their station at our right flank. Had it not been for these ships of Port Cos it is difficult to know how we might have fared. They had taken heavy toll of the enemy before he had turned the wedge to face them, and then, as confused, he, struck by our unexpected attack, that of the independent ships and those of Ar's Station, had turned to face us, the _Tais_ and her sisters had renewed their attack on his flank.

  I thought it not improbable that the Voskjard had lost in the neighborhood of thirty ships. Yet now we conjectured some fifty ships still faced us, for the chain, clearly, no longer provided a barrier north of his position. Those ships which we had for so long prevented from joining him had, by now, amplified his forces. I could not but think, bitterly, that if the Voskjard, truly, had had only some fifty ships, as we had gathered from the intelligences supplied to us by Callisthenes, we, if supplemented by the twenty ships of Callisthenes, yet to appear, would now have outnumbered him. In such a situation it was not unlikely that he would have come about and, at his leisure, still in strength, withdrawn to the west. We lay to, waiting. Now, in our lines, there were only seventeen ships, including those of Port Cos, on which we so crucially depended.

  "The enemy fleet is marshaling," said a man.

  "Is it again the wedge?" asked a man.

  "One ship is astern and to the starboard of another," said a man.

  "They will come with care, and hunt us in pairs," said a man.

  "There is still time to flee," repeated a man.

  "I recommend, Captain," said an officer above and behind me on the stem-castle deck, "immediate withdrawal."

  "We must hold the line for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.

  "Draw back to the south guard station. Join him there," pressed an officer.

  "To be outflanked and trapped between the chain and the southern shore?" asked Callimachus.

  "I counsel retreat," said the officer.

  "Their ships are faster than ours," said Callimachus.

  "Not faster than the _Tina_," said the officer.

  "Am I then to abandon the fleet?" asked Callimachus.

  The officer looked at him, angrily.

  "You counsel not retreat, my friend," said Callimachus, "but rout, and slaughter."

  "What, then, shall we do?" asked the man.

  "Wait for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.

  "Withdraw," said the officer.

  "And leave Callisthenes to face fifty ships?" asked Callimachus.

  "Forget about Callisthenes," said the officer.

  "I will not forget about him," said Callimachus, "as he would not forget about me."

  "Withdraw," said the officer.

  "It is here that we are to be joined by Callisthenes," said Callimachus. "It is here that we will wait for him."

  "Where is Callisthenes?" asked the man next to me.

  "I do not know," I said.

  I noted the approach of the Voskjard's fleet, the ships moving in pairs, with more than a hundred yards between the pairs. It is difficult, of course, for a single ship to protect itself against a brace of assailants. The members of the pair circle about, so as to attack at right angles to one another. It is thus impossible to protect oneself, if caught, against both. One's hull must be exposed to the strike of at least one ram.

  "We must hold the line," said a man beside me, tensely.

  "Yes," I said. "That is true."

  Another fellow, near me, lifted his bow, an arrow fitted to the string. He bent the bow, drawing the string back, the arrow at a sharp angle. Then he relaxed the bow, but did not remove the shaft from the string. "They will soon be within range," he said.

  "Withdraw!" begged the officer above and behind us on the stem castle with Callimachus. "Withdraw!" he begged.

  "They would be upon us before we could come about," said Callimachus.

  I heard steel leaving sheaths about me.

  "Sound the battle horns," said Callimachus.

  "Sound the battle horns!" called the officer beside him.

  The bronze horns of battle then smote with their shrill trumpeting the air of the Vosk.

  I withdrew my sword from its sheath.

  Chapter 5 - I SEE THE _TAMIRA_; I CONSIDER THE _TUKA_

  I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving back pirates.

  One of my feet was on the _Tina_. The other was on the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the _Tina_, using loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart.

  There was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together, protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships. The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn, splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height, some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been turned like tin.

  A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching, grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman, below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its flight. Only the blood at the pirate's throat marked its passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the screaming men.

  I leaped onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number.

  I nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the _Tina_, too on the pirate's vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck board the _Tina_, literally with the pirates. He struck a defender's pike away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the _Tina_. Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates.

  I heard timbers creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the _Tina_. We had ten or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her stem castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling hooks. "Rogue!" cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands, grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not have been pleased.

  I lifted my head, wildly. The ships were now drifting apart. They were held close only at the sterns. I smelled fire. I saw a man on the _Tina_ plunge backward, his hands clutching at an arrow protruding from his forehead. In two steps I climbed the archer's platform and leaped behind the blind. I passed my blade into the fellow's body, and he fell, turning, from the platform, arrows spilling, like rattling sticks, to the deck. A pirate leaped toward me and I cut him from the platform. Arrows sped toward me, two of them, and caught, tearing, in the wicker. Behind me I could see another pirate vessel looming. Near the stem castle I saw some of my fellows cutting through pirates. Burning pitch flamed upon the deck.

  "This way, Lads!" I called, leaping down from the archer's platform. An arrow struck into the deck at my feet.

  We sped down the deck. The ship shuddered as the great catapult loosed a stone which shattered into the rowing frame on the port side of the _Tina_.

  In moments I and the others, now some seven men, cutting at pirates, severing ropes, separated the two vessels and, as they slipped loose of one another, leaped onto the stern of the _Tina_, falling upon the pi
rates who had boarded her there.

  The pirates, pressed by our defenders, and attacked now from their own vessel, fought for their lives. We forced them to the railing, and over it, those who were not cut down, into the Vosk.

  "Are there no more?" I inquired.

  "Are you disappointed?" asked a man.

  "Our decks are cleared of the sleen," said a man.

  "They fought well," said a man.

  "They are men of the Voskjard," said another.