by John Norman
“For Ahn we rowed swiftly,” said Tab.
“The corsairs torture the island with pain, spurring it to greater and greater speed,” said Sakim. “I wonder that they have not killed it by now.”
“Clearly the Dorna has seen action,” said Clitus.
“Twice,” said Tab. “In the first engagement I used the tactic of the ‘separation of foes’. I pretended to flee and the enemy hastened after me, the fastest enemy naturally closest to me, the second-fastest enemy behind him, and the third-fastest behind him, and so on. Thus I hoped to engage in a series of single combats, one against one, rather than finding myself surrounded and overwhelmed.”
“You could not outdistance the foes?” said Clitus.
“It seemed they were tireless,” said Tab.
“They were doubtless heavily crewed,” I said, “and had the services of transported mercenaries, making possible frequent shifts of rowers.”
“I turned about,” said Tab, “and, circling, and charging, for the Dorna, for her size, is like a tabuk, stove in the hull of the nearest pursuer, but the ram anchored itself athwart the keel of the enemy, and before I could disengage it, my oars were being sheared, rudders torn away, and planking ruptured at the waterline.”
“You sank one of the enemy,” said Clitus.
“Yes,” said Tab.
“But the foes did not finish you off,” said Thurnock.
“No,” said Tab. “As I soon realized, they had a use for me.”
“As bait in a trap,” said Thurnock.
“I tried to warn you away,” said Tab.
“Ho!” cried a mariner on the stern deck of the Dorna, pointing abeam, to his starboard side, “a mast, a mast!”
“That is a signal,” I said, “the raising of a mast.”
“Doubtless,” said Tab.
Whereas the typical shallow-drafted Gorean vessel, low in the water, mast down, as noted, can be difficult to detect, its presence is much more easily marked when its mast is raised. Much depends, of course, on a variety of factors, the height of the mast, the type of sail on the yard, say, a fair-weather sail or storm sail, or such, and the point from which the observation is made, say, from the main deck or the height of one’s own mast, and so on.
“There is another!” called the mariner pointing abeam, past the Tesephone, to his port side.
Shortly thereafter he had called out thrice more.
Five masts had now been raised. The raised mast of the first ship, which doubtless had the Admiral of the corsair fleet on board, had signaled the readiness for action. The other four ships had then raised their own masts, acknowledging the signal.
“The net is cast,” said Clitus.
“Five ships,” said Thurnock. “Now they are moving. They approach.”
“They close the net,” said Clitus.
“Lower your mast,” said Tab, tensely. “Flee. Your oarsmen are rested. You may have time. There may be a chance. Flee!”
“But we have not yet had our paga,” I said.
“They lower their masts!” called the mariner on the stern deck of the Dorna.
The Gorean warship lowers its mast before entering battle.
“Mast down!” I called to my men.
Chapter Fifty-Three
We Find our Position Perilous; A Stratagem; We Seek Darkness and Open Water
“Why do they not charge?” asked Clitus.
“Steady,” I said to the benches. Oars were in the water. The keleustes grasped his mallet. I was on the stern deck, the common position of command when battle is imminent or in process. This position provides a height sufficient to survey action and provides immediate communication with the helm deck. Captain Tab was similarly ensconced on the stern deck of the crippled Dorna. We had now drawn away from the Dorna to where we might come about, unimpeded.
Five ships, quiet, were within fifty yards of the Dorna and the Tesephone.
“Perhaps they wish to parley,” said Clitus.
“They give no sign of that,” I said.
“For what then do they wait?” asked Thurnock, impatiently.
“Be patient,” I said. “We do not yet know.”
“They are in a position to impose harsh conditions,” said Clitus.
“Their position is such that they need not impose conditions, at all,” I said.
“Then why do they not attack?” said Clitus.
“They have lost two ships,” I said. “I think they do not care to risk another.”
“It is some sort of standoff then?” said Clitus.
“Hardly,” I said.
“Should we not attack?” asked Thurnock.
“Which ship could we attack without being outflanked and rammed by another?” I asked.
“The Dorna is lame,” said Sakim. “We might support her, but she would be of little help to us.”
“I do not understand,” said Clitus. “Why do they not move? Why do they not act?”
“The answer to your question approaches,” I said, pointing.
“Tents in the sea, like sails, men with ladders?” said Thurnock.
“They are using the island, the living island!” cried a man.
“It is like land, living land, rushing upon us!” cried a helmsman.
“Steady,” I said. “Steady.”
“Tragic, innocent, overloaded, abused beast,” said Thurnock.
Men with burning irons were thrusting them into the body of the island, while it, as if it would escape from the pain, was driving toward us. I caught the scent of living, burning flesh.
“Thus,” said Thurnock, “they turn a dumb animal into a weapon.”
“It must be in agony,” said a man.
“Perhaps such things cannot feel,” said another.
“It will find no food here,” said Sakim, “only pain.”
“That is perhaps to our advantage,” I said.
The Dorna was between us and the onrushing behemoth, the living island. On its present trajectory it would make contact with the Dorna full on her starboard side. The mercenaries on the island, swarming forward, were intent to bring their ladders into play a moment after the island’s impact on the Dorna’s hull, perhaps then stove in. But Tab, by oars and rudders, was already struggling to bring the prow of the Dorna toward the island, which maneuver would minimize the width of the expected impact.
“Good Tab!” I cried.
The iron-shod ram, mounted in such a way as to withstand the grievous shock of tearing through reinforced planking, cut a short, sharp, linear, bloody furrow in the hide of the living island and then, as it was riding over the beast, the beast, reflexively, reared upward, like a hill of muscles, as though to dislodge some predator, which caused the Dorna, given its inertia, to ride over the crest of this hill, pause for a moment, and then plunge downward, slicing through the massed mercenaries, dividing and disrupting their formation, and crushing several. There was much screaming, much confusion, a splintering of ladders, a tumbling of rectangular blocks of stone, intended originally to be ammunition for the great catapults, the tearing loose of tent pegs which had been pounded into the flesh of the island, and a scattering of tents rising from the back of the island like startled birds. At the same time the island, with a great roaring noise, exhaled a towering, violent spume of warm air and water. This rose a hundred feet into the air, and droplets fell like warm rain, drenching the island.
The flesh of the island then began reacting to the trauma of its wound, to shudder and ripple, contracting and expanding, its edges, or coasts, disappearing on one side or the other for a moment and then rising again, shining and dripping. Some parts of the island, more central parts, remained dry, but elsewhere, like tides, water washed its surface to a man’s knees and then his waist.
“The island is sinking!” screamed a man.
The faces of many of the mercenaries were pale with horror.
Several, here and there, fought, and slew one another, to attain a place, sometimes no more than a yard high and wide, on one or another of the modest prominences in the flesh of the beast, a footing on certain irregularities, corrugations, blemishes, sealed lesions, and layers of twisted, knotted scar tissue.
Given the unexpected action of the Dorna, its inadvertent plunging into the ranks of the mercenaries, scattering all and crushing many, and the ensuing behavior of the injured, perhaps maddened, beast, war was far from the minds of most of the mercenaries, that despite the urgings and howling of certain officers, some of whom were knee deep in water.
Nature herself, it seemed, had declared a truce.
The hill-like mound of flesh which had risen under the Dorna, reacting to its inadvertent, bloody intrusion, had shrunk down, considerably, almost immediately, a moment after the Dorna’s plunge amongst the mercenaries. The ship was now rocking, its planking holding, the ship responsive to the continuing agitation of the surface beneath it. The few serviceable oars of the Dorna were out from the thole ports, almost like narrow wooden legs to keep the tormented craft from pitching on its side. Several oarsmen had leapt over the gunwales and were trying to force the Dorna back into the churning water, that it might once more find itself in its proper element. At the same time I had had the Tesephone brought to a position where it would be abeam of the Dorna should that craft manage to extricate itself from its current position and require assistance, and if it could not do so, we would be close enough to take swimmers aboard. Many Gorean vessels, when not in port, beach, or half-beach, themselves at night, where a camp is made, one sometimes rudely fortified. I mention this lest it seem surprising, or improbable, that portions of the Dorna’s crew were outboard, attempting to free their ship from the shore of the living island. Their travail was brief, however, for the shore of the island drew back under them, and inclined downward, as though, water rushing in, it would so rid itself of an unwelcome visitor. Men clambered back aboard the Dorna.
I cupped my hands to my mouth and called to Tab, “Back, back into open water!”
“Flee!” he called back.
“We decline to do so,” I said.
“Consider,” he cried. “Confusion abounds. Two enemy ships are blocked by the island. The island itself is injured. It may not be able to lead ships to you. The Tesephone is swift! You may be able to elude the enemy, even with his shifts of rowers, until dark. In the night you may slip sway!”
“Back,” I called, “free yourself in the open water.”
“The Dorna is crippled,” he said. “She ships water. She cannot keep up with you. Flee!”
“Come aboard,” I said, “you and your crew.”
“No,” he said. “We decided that matter, long before you arrived.”
“Speak,” I cried.
“While the Dorna sees, while the Dorna lives,” he said, “we will not leave her.”
“We will not leave you!” I said.
“Abandon us!” he demanded.
“It cannot be done,” I said.
“Why not?” he said.
“The Dorna sees, the Dorna lives,” I said.
Tab had the Dorna backoared from the Brigand Island, whose tremors had now subsided, and whose pilots were already struggling to rekindle fires in which irons might be heated, enabling them to control the course and speed of their vast mount. Mercenaries, outraged but no longer discomfited, shouted, brandished their weapons, and shook their fists. Thurnock brushed them a kiss from his fingertips as we withdrew, which gesture doubtless incensed them further. As I knew Thurnock, the massive, wily peasant, this was no idle, childish gratification but a movement designed with war in mind. It is a foolish and often short-lived enemy whose steel is subject to hatred and blinding emotion; beware more the blade subject to the wary mind, the blade whose lightning is patient and cunning. The thought of Pa-Kur, Master of the Black Caste, the Assassins, briefly crossed my mind. Soon I had come about in such a way that the Dorna was between the Brigand Island and the Tesephone. In this way I hoped to shield her from the two corsair vessels to port and the three to starboard.
“Prow to Thera,” I told the helmsmen.
In a moment the mallet of the keleustes rang on the drum.
“You are rushing into the jaws of the larl,” said Sakim.
“I do not think so,” I said.
“You cannot withstand the attack of three knife ships,” said Sakim.
“True,” I said. Certainly that was the case without the support of the Dorna.
“Fly to Chios,” said Sakim.
“That is impractical, given the condition of the Dorna,” I said. “We would be intercepted by the two corsair ships to port, and possibly the Brigand Island. Then, engaged, we would be at the mercy, as well, of the three corsair vessels in our wake.”
“I see little to choose from,” said Sakim.
“The three corsair vessels to starboard are, for the moment, inert,” I said. “I do not think they realize what has occurred here. Their strategy, I suspect, was to take the Dorna, either by further damaging her or beaching her on the Brigand Island. Clearly the mercenaries, given their ladders and formation, were intending, if possible, to board her in one way or another, either from the Brigand Island or the beach.”
“They want the Dorna?” said Sakim.
“And possibly the Tesephone,” I said.
“Why do you think this?” asked Sakim.
“Because we found the Dorna alive,” I said. “She was crippled. If they wished, they could easily have sunk her.”
“But they did not,” said Sakim.
“I think they were waiting for the Tesephone,” I said.
“So they could have two ships,” he said.
“I think so,” I said.
“And both crews,” he said.
“I would suppose so,” I said.
I listened to the pounding of the drum.
“Why are the corsair ships waiting?” asked Sakim.
“They will move shortly,” I said. “I suspect they were not immediately aware of what occurred near the island. Perhaps they could not believe their strategy had failed. They may have thought, seeing the Dorna and Tesephone together, that we had been boarded and captured, that their plan had been successful.”
“They will not think so for long,” said Sakim, “as our oars taste Thassa and our prows are set for Thera.”
Clitus, who had a glass of the Builders, and was on the stem deck, called back, “Three ships, to starboard, oars outboard!” And a moment later the sound of a drum, and then two others, carried over the water.
“Burdened with the Dorna,” said Sakim. “We cannot escape.”
“Shall we leave her?” I asked.
“No,” said Sakim.
“How do you see things?” I asked.
“It would be easy for them, given our handicap,” he said, “to ram us abeam, or at stem or stern, or to shear away oars.”
“At the possible loss of one or two of their vessels?” I said.
“Possibly one, it seems clear,” said Sakim. “The Tesephone, in free water, is like a flighted javelin.”
“And in this very act, that of making our strike, we would presumably be rammed by one or two other ships,” I said.
“Presumably,” he said.
“But in such an action at least two ships would be lost,” I said, “the Tesephone and at least one of theirs.”
“Yes,” he said.
“The enemy has already lost two ships,” I said, “one to the Dorna and one to the hith.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Sakim.
“I am thinking the enemy would be reluctant to risk more ships, and would much prefer to replace his losses with two prizes, t
he Dorna and the Tesephone.”
“Ah,” said Sakim, “as you said, the Dorna was not destroyed when she was at the mercy of the corsairs.”
“No,” I said, “and they waited, it seems, for the Tesephone to join her.”
“A second ship,” said Sakim.
“I do not think the enemy wishes to use his rams and shearing blades,” I said.
“He wants to board,” said Sakim.
“And he has many fighting men ready to do so,” I said, “skilled soldiers, evacuated from Chios.”
“It is much easier to ram than board,” said Sakim.
“And less dangerous,” I said.
Consider the maneuvering required to draw alongside, the employment of fending oars, the closure with the enemy, facilitating the use of missiles at close range, the shifting gap between hulls, the uncertainty of footing, the sea destabilizing the two platforms involved, the temporary exposure of attackers, the resolution and desperation of defenders.
“I do not think the enemy will mind expending his mercenaries in that endeavor,” said Sakim.
“I am sure he will be generous in their application,” I said.
“They will earn their pay,” said Sakim.
“I fear there is little booty for them here,” I said.
The pay of mercenaries is often much in the form of whatever booty they can manage to seize and carry. Sometimes they are apprehended and slain in retreats due to their own unwillingness to cast aside earlier obtained spoils.
“I suspect that few of them have ever fought at sea,” said Sakim.
“They will expect a small land action, only in a different venue,” I said.
“A tiny land of wood, possibly awash, shifting beneath their feet,” said Sakim.
“Steady,” I called down to the keleustes, “slow, be as if on some excursion.”
“Is this a suitable beat?” inquired Sakim. “The Dorna, even crippled, can manage more than this.”
“Let the enemy rejoice,” I said. “Let them think we can do no better. Let them think they can have us when they please.”
“You gamble for time,” said Sakim.
“Hopefully,” I said, “they will do no more than keep us in sight until they are joined by the two ships to port.”
