Mariners of Gor (51 page)

Several yards from the torchlit, screaming, raucous shore, the clash of metal, the cries of enraged men, of frightened men, of dying men, Cabot turned the galley. “Back oars!” he commanded, and the stern of the galley, backing, pushed its way through small boats and wading men, and, a moment later, he cried “Hold!” and we lifted the oars, and we felt the keel of the galley grate on sloping, submerged sand, at the foot of the shore. We were some dozen or so feet from the beach. Dozens of terrified men rushed about us, wading in the water, seizing oars, trying to climb aboard. Shortly thereafter the galleys of Pertinax and Turgus, turned as well, lay to, at the shore, and were similarly subjected to clambering men. I saw several of the small boats returning to the shore from the ship. They had come back for their fellows. My heart was gladdened.

“Callias!” called Cabot to me, and I rose at the bench, amongst the swarming men.

“Commander?” I called.

“Prepare to command,” he said. “I am going ashore.”

“With commander’s permission,” I said, “I, too, am going ashore.”

“Stay aboard,” he said.

“I am coming with you,” I said.

“You understand the danger?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“I do not expect to return to the ship,” he said.

“Neither then, commander,” I said, “will I.”

“You are indeed a fool,” he said. He then called to Philoctetes. “Take the galley back to the ship. Return. Save whom you can!”

“Yes, commander,” said Philoctetes.

“Let tarnsmen, armed, who dare, return with you,” said Cabot.

“Yes, commander,” called Philoctetes. There were now three or four men at a bench, which should hold two, and the galley was crowded amidships, and fore and aft. Then Cabot, I following him, leaped into the water amongst men trying to board the galley, and, water to our waist, we waded to shore. Once on the beach he paused only to issue similar instructions to Pertinax and Turgus.

“I am coming with you!” cried Pertinax.

“No, you are not,” warned Cabot, with an unexpected ferocity that brooked no demur.

“Oars,” called Pertinax, taken aback, his voice cracking with misery, “Stroke!”

The galley now captained by Philoctetes had already moved from shore, outside the light of the torches. I watched the galley of Pertinax, now crowded, low in the water, pulling away, toward the ship, dark in the distance. Small boats were about it, some coming, some going. In some of the small boats there were lanterns. A number of men were about, some back of us, in the water.

“Your friend wished to accompany you,” I said. “Might his sword not have been of value?”

“He is a high officer,” said Cabot. “He is not to be risked.”

“Surely you are higher than he,” I said.

“But I command,” said Cabot.

“You would not risk him,” I said. “You fear you will not return to the ship.”

“Much depends on the tarn cavalry,” he said.

“It may not be flighted,” I said.

“It will not be,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I have a plan,” he said.

“Seek safety,” I said.

“I will not abandon the men ashore,” he said.

“Nor will I,” I said.

He looked about himself, in the din, fatigued, frightened men, many wounded, moving past us, toward the water, the hope of a boat. He shook his head.

“It is worse than I feared,” he said.

There were many torches high in the defile, above the beach. I sensed many men were there. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Good Callias,” he said, “hurry to the galley of Turgus. There is time, a little. Board the galley, or a small boat, return to the ship.”

“No,” I said, “I am with you.”

“I did not know the men of Cos had such courage,” he said.

“Nor I those of Port Kar,” I said.

“You are fearsome enemies,” he grinned.

“And loyal friends,” I said.

A man, bleeding, ran past us, toward the water, toward a small boat. Much was confusion. We were jostled in the press. Torches threw strange lights and shadows on the sand. Shouts, and the clash of weapons, seemed closer. I gathered our men were being forced toward the water. I turned about, and saw the galley of Turgus, oars striking the water, drawing away. I heard a weird cry behind us, in the water. In the light of a lantern, held by a fellow on a small boat, I saw a fellow’s arm disappear beneath the water. I saw the lantern’s light flash on a twisting fin, and then another. The tumult, the confusion, the striking of oars, the splashing of men in the water, had doubtless attracted the attention of marine predators, presumably sharks. The attack I had witnessed had taken place in less than three feet of water. The great ship lay some half pasang from shore, in the darkness. Some, of those who could swim, may have reached her. When I had been on the ship, I had, however, noted none who had reached her ropes and ladders from the water. In the distance up the beach, toward the defile, I heard a drum. It was not ours. Given the irregularity of the beat, I took it that its role was tactical, signaling orders. If this were so, the enemy, I thought, must be professional, disciplined, trained. One was not dealing with the disorderly frontal rushings of barbarians or savages, counting on the simple avalanche of numbers. Cabot, his blade now drawn, moved toward the front, while men continued to stream past him, toward the water. I saw his blade move quickly, and a fellow, mixed in with others, clad in black, the uniform of the night, staggered back, was buffeted, fell, and was trampled. Some fifty Pani from the great ship had preceded our hundreds of mariners and armsmen ashore. There were, facing the enemy, some seven or eight lines of our men, strung across an arc of the beach, some seventy yards in width, defending frontally and on the flanks. Behind this wall of steel, its interwoven columns seething forward and backward, giving way, and pressing back, the men at the beach were seeking flight. Had these lines of skilled, hardened men, selected with care by the Pani, veterans, mercenaries, killers, bandits, brigands, and pirates, from enlisted crews, rural gangs, disbanded cohorts, and scattered free companies, not checked the enemy, few if any of our forces would have escaped death. To be sure, these particular men were not so different from the others. That these particular men were where they were was, I supposed, as much an accident of battle as anything else. It doubtless depended on where the enemy had first struck. They knew that if they turned their backs, they would die. They constituted the fragile, dangerous wall behind which swirled panic-stricken rout, the wall without which our forces would be slaughtered, like penned verr, against the sea. I feared the defensive lines might break. A moment of panic, an unpredictable loss of nerve, can, in a moment, turn rows of desperate, brave men into disorganized, fugitive, vulnerable prey. One man in flight, followed by another, and another, can break a line. To be sure, it is reputed infamy to die with a wound in one’s back. Indeed, in some cities, men returning with such wounds are put to death. I was at Cabot’s side, to protect his left. And, as a man fell, he was at the left of a Pani warrior, with a large, horned, face-concealing helmet. The Pani warrior clutched a long, curved sword with two hands. A glaive struck at him, and one of the hands that bore it flew to the side, blood spurting from the severed wrist. Two foes lay at his feet, impeding the approach of others toward him. I thrust aside a glaive and tried to reach the fellow who wielded it, but it was drawn back. Another was striking downward and I managed to bend forward and catch it behind the blade, though I was forced down to one knee. I lunged upward and caught this darkly clad figure in the throat, below the black helmet. Blood ran upon the overlapping plates of leather mail. It was only later that I realized this was the attack of the doubled glaive, in which the first thrusts horizontally, and the second, on the chance that the defender’s attention is distracted, strikes downward. I had a moment’s respite. Such things oddly, intermittently, occur, inexplicable eddies in the crashing surf of war. I sensed the line a few feet to my right was, like an ebbing wave, washing back.

“Hold! Hold!” called a familiar voice and the wave held, and washed a bit forward, and I knew he in the great, horned helmet was Lord Nishida. Some Pani were about him, to his immediate right. I now have little doubt that it was his firmness, and leadership, and those of his fellows, Pani and others, which had organized and stiffened that resolute defense behind which the frenzied withdrawal of our primary forces, apparently ambushed, charged, and outnumbered, was in desperate progress. As the line had begun to constrict and hold, bodies, ours and theirs, had begun to encumber the immediate field. Four bodies, sprawled and dark, now lay between Cabot and Lord Nishida. I sensed that some of the dark figures before us were now reluctant to approach those two. Far off in the defile, above the beach, I could see, as before, a large number of torches. These, as it turned out, and as I feared, were lifted amongst ample reserves, not yet committed. A hundred yards or so, toward the defile, I heard the command drums of the enemy. Slowly, before us, facing us, the lines of the present enemy began to back away.

“Hold!” called Lord Nishida. I gathered he knew war, and would not permit his line to move forward, against a methodically retreating, ready foe. This withdrawal tactic is designed to encourage a line to break forward, in pursuit, after which its irregularity may be exploited by an even, frontal counter and pursuit. A similar danger is to pursue a broken foe, or an apparently broken foe, while the foe’s marshaled reserves, ready at hand, or even hidden at hand, as in trenches, or amongst trees, are ready to strike from the flank. At this point, I might have ordered a careful, patient withdrawal, by means of which to tighten our line and more closely approach the sea, where lay our avenue of escape, if there were to be any such. But Lord Nishida did not order such a withdrawal. I shortly understood why. Availing myself of this lull, I looked back, toward the sea. I was pleased to see that the three galleys had now returned. They were being boarded by dozens of men. The apparent retreat of the enemy halted some twenty yards before us, toward the defile. If we had turned and fled, as I was tempted to do, we could have been caught against the sea and cut down before we could embark. I heard the drum again, now pounding with an intensity that literally suggested vexation, the drummer perhaps having caught the anger, disappointment, or frustration of whoever might be in charge of dictating the signals. For a few Ehn the two forces faced one another, in the strange light of the torch bearers. Shortly thereafter I understood why Lord Nishida had not ordered the seemingly judicious retreat I would have expected. The original ambush in the defile had begun with a rain of arrow fire, which had taken a heavy toll on our fellows, Pani and otherwise. Archery, later, as the forces had come together, had been substantially discontinued, save for occasional desultory fire, largely undirected, over the heads of the combatants, at generally unseen targets, often out of range, toward the beach. Now, however, to a new drum signal, hurrying between suddenly opening, evenly spaced gaps in the enemy forces, we saw what must have been one hundred to one hundred and fifty archers, with the large Pani bows. These men were not even in position when Lord Nishida signaled to his left flank and right flank, the left commanded by Tajima, of his retinue, whom I knew primarily as a Pani tarnsman, liaison to, or lieutenant to, Cabot, in the tarn cavalry, and the strange warrior, Nodachi, commanding the right flank. I now realized the reason for holding the line as it was, for the bodies with which the field in our vicinity, before us and behind us, was strewn were lifted up, held up, even piled on one another. A given body, held erect, constituted a post, barrier, or hurdle, behind which a column of crouching men might shelter themselves. A number of such bodies, aligned, constituted a set of palings between which it was difficult to find targets. The Pani archers took up their position some fifteen to seventeen yards before our line, some five to three before the infantry of the enemy. This would allow them to withdraw conveniently to the protection of their own forces before we could reach them, if charging. Four bodies were placed before Cabot and Lord Nishida, held by four men, and I, as they, took advantage of this shelter. The Pani bow is powerful but, like the common peasant bow, it, given the lightness of its missile, and that it is drawn by the strength of a human arm, can rarely tear its way through a human body, and its force, even if passing through an arm or throat, is largely spent in its passage. It is unlike an engine-driven shaft, as on a ballista, which might shatter a wall. The thrust spear, of course, impelled by the force of a strong man, may penetrate a four-layered shield or a human body, but then the spear is lost until its retraction. So deep a thrust, like the deep thrust of a blade, is foolish, unless intended to, say, encumber a shield, rendering it useless, preparatory to a blade attack. I heard, for the first time at this range, the sudden, unmistakable sound, so solid, so quick and frightening, of an arrow striking a body, and then its repetition, again, and again. Some of the arrows passed over us, the fletching streaking in the wind, like a darting bird, a whisper of light, almost invisible. Then, again and again, I heard the striking of arrows, one following on another, into the inert barriers, once alive, interposed between us and the Pani bowmen. Certain arrows skinned others, with a shaving, splintering sound. Few arrows found their desiderated marks; arrows bristled from the tragic barriers before us. I thought no single marksman, given the liberty of his judgment, would have continued to fire arrows with such little effect, but, I gathered, this action, with its largely futile waste of missiles, was in accord with the command of the drum, the captain of which, most likely, was well behind the lines, and ignorant, at least now, of the situation in the field. Training and discipline, and obedience to command, is usually, undeniably, of enormous military value. At other times, in altered situations, it is wasteful, unproductive, even stupid. Men who will lose their heads if they do not obey are likely to obey, even if the command is awry, uninformed, foolish, even dangerous.