Raiders of Gor (41 page)

removed or attached; the three main types of sail used are all lateens, and

differ largely in their size; there is a large, fair-weather sail, used with

light winds; there is a smaller sail, used with strong winds astem; and yet a

smaller sail, a storm sail, used most often in riding out storms. It was the

latter sail which, although it was unusual, the round ships were using for

tacking; had they Used either of the larger sails, with the sharp wind, they

would have heeled dangerously toward the water, perhaps shipping water through

the leeward thole ports.

I smiled as the ships swept past. Their decks were al- most deserted. But I knew

that, crowded in the stem and stern castles, in the turrets, below decks, in the

rowing and cargo holds, there were hundreds of men.

I resumed my watch, lifting again the glass of the builders toward the west.

The ships of my farst wave had now struck the lines of the fleet of Cos and

Tyros.

It was cold in the basket.

Behind them, scattered across the cold waters of Thassa, I could see the pairs

of the second wave proceeding, swiftly gliding, oars dipping, toward the long

lines of yel- low and purple sails in the distance, yellow for Tyros, purple for

Cos.

I wondered how many men would die.

I pulled the admiral's cloak more closely about me. I asked myself who I was,

and I told myself, I did not know. I knew only that I was cold, and that I was

alone, and that, far in the distance, men were :fighting, and so, too, would

others.

I wondered if my plans had been gbod ones, and I told myself I did not know

that, either. There were so many thousands of factors, impossible to foresee, so

much that might alter, or shift unaccountably.

I knew Chenbar to be a brilliant Ubar and captain, but even he, the brilliant

Chenbar, could not well have understood our plans, our dispositions and our

ventures, for we ourselves, until hours before, had not known with what we might

work and how it might be used.

I did not expect to win the day.

It seemed to me a fool's choice that I had not, when it had been possible, fled

Port Kar. Surely many captains, of the council and otherwise, had done so, their

holds filled with their chained slaves and secured treasures. Why had I not

fled? Why had not these others? Were all men fools? Now men would die. Is

anything worth so much as a human life? Is not the most ab ect surrender

preferable to the risk of its loss? Is it not better to grovel as a slave,

begging the favor of life from a master, than to risk the loss of even one life?

I recalled that I, once, in the far marshes of the delta of the Vosk, had whined

and groveled that I might live, and now, I, that same coward, wrapped in the

robes of an admiral, watched the locking of the lines of battle, watched men

move to fates and destructions, or victories, to which I had sent them, knowing

as little as I did of life, or war, or fortunes.

Surely there must be others more fitted than I to assume the responsibilities of

such words sending men forth to fight, to die or live. What would they think of

me as they fell beneath the cold waters of Thassa or reeled from the blows of

sword blades, their death's blood in their mouths? Would they sing me then? And

what guilt must I bear for each of those deaths, for it had been my words, those

of an ignorant fool, which had sent them to the waters and the blades?

I should have told them all to flee. Instead I had given them a Home Stone.

“Admiral!” cried a voice below. “Look!” The voice came from a seaman, he, too,

with a glass, high on the prow of the Dorna. “The Veniaal” he cried. “She has

broken throughl”

I lifted the glass to the west. There, far off, I could see my tarn ship, the

Venna. She had struck the line of Cos and Tyros, had torn her way through, and

was now coming about, to strike again. With her was her sister ship, the Tela. I

saw two of the tarn ships of Cos and Tyros, one heeled over in the water, the

other slipping stern first beneath the waves. There was wreckage in the water.

The Venna was under the command of the incomparable Tab.

There was a cheer from the men below me.

Well done, I thought well done.

Several of the ships in the lines near the point where my task force had struck

were now coming about to meet their enemy.

But, behind them, low in the water, no inasts, came the second wave of my

attack.

I saw the lines of Cos and Tyros shortening, com- pressing their formations to

bring more ships into play at given points. As they deepened their lines I could

now see the borders of their fleet, as I had not been able to before.

Behind my second-wave ships, I saw, scattered in its long enveloping line

stretching from horizon to hori n aemss Thassa, their small storm sails pounded

by the wind, the third wave, that of the round ships.

I glanced back. Astern of the Dorna, not hurrying, at half beat, came fifty tarn

ships, their masts high, storm sails bound to their long, sloping yards. In the

turmoil of the battle I had little doubt that they would be taken, at first, and

per- haps until it was too late, as a second wave of round ships.

Following the fourth wave, its own attack timed to occur half an Ahn after that

of the fourth wave, would come the fifth wave, the two small fleets of tam

ships, of forty ships apiece, masts down, who would initiate their pincers

attack from the north and the south.

And simultaneously with the initiation of the pincers attack the balance of my

fleet, the reserves, one hundred and five tam ships, should draw within signal

distance of the Doma.

With the reserves would come ten more round ships, wide-beamed lumber ships from

the arsenal. Their cargoes were unknown even to my highest officers.

All the factors which had entered into my calculations were now in motion.

But there would be other factors, always others.

I glanced to the north. Then I opened the glass and studied the waters to the

north. I snapped shut the glass. Above the waters to the north there was now a

towering blackness. Overhead the white clouds swept past, like white, leaping

Tabuk fleeing from the jaws of the black- maned lart.

It was late in the season.

I had not counted on Thassa herself, her swiftness and her moods.

I was cold in the basket, and I chewed on another piece of dried tarsk meat. The

water had now frozen in the gourd, splitting it.

I reopened the glass of the builders, turning it again to the west.

For better than three Ahn I had sat in the basket at the masthead of the Dorna,

whipped by the wind, my fingers numb on the glass of the builders, observing the

battle.

I had watched my first wave break in dozens of places the long lines of Cos and

Tyros, and had seen the ships of the great fleet turn to face them, and had

witnessed their vulnerability to the slender second wave of ships, each wreaking

destruction beyond what might be expected of their sizes and weights. Then, as

the lines of Cos and Tyros had closed and deepened, to match formations with my

task forces, the great encircling line of round ships had cast its net about

them. Hundreds of ships had. turned to destroy these clumsy intruders, but, of

these hundreds, great numbers discovered, too late, that they fought not common

round ships but floating fortresses jammed with armed men, eager to engage. And

then I had seen fleet ships, in their fifties, come about to move against what

they had taken to be a new wave of round ships, only to be taken off guard by

the rams and shearing blades of ships as swift and terrible as their own. I was

proud of my men and their ships. I think they did well. And I did not feel my

strategies were negligible. And yet, as I sat there, I felt that in time the

weight of ships and numbers would be felt. I had only some twenty-five hundred

ships, most of them round ships, to bring against a fleet of prime vessels, some

forty-two hundred in strength, each a tam ship with fierce ram and shearing

blades.

I could see numerous ships burning in the dark, windswept afternoon. Sparks and

flames were carried from one ship to another. In places ships were crowded

together, in tens and twelves, ae floating wooden islands in the sea.

The sea was now growing high, and the darkness in the north was now half the

sky, looming like a beast with wild fur rooting and sniffing for its prey.

The fifth wave was late.

The Dorna fought her anchors. We had lifted them that she might swing into the

wind, and bad then dropped them once more, but still she shook and reared,

lifted and dropped into the waters. Her timbers groaned, and I could hear the

creaking of the bolts, the irons and great chains that, in places, reinforced

her beams.

My fifth wave was divided into two portions, the pin- cer blade striking from

the north under the command of the tall, long-haired Nigel, with his fifteen

ships, supple- mented by twenty-five of the arsenal, and the pincer blade from

the south under the command of Chung, with his twenty ships, supplemented by

another twenty, from the arsenal. AU of these ships were tam ships.

But I did not see the fifth wave.

I could see, now, approaching -the Dorna, from the east, the reserves, the

hundred and five tarn ships, and the ten wide-beamed round ships, lumber ships

from the arsenal, whose cargoes were unknown even to my highest officers.

I wondered if I should have trusted the Ubars Nigel and Chung.

The command ship of the reserves heaved to within hailing distance of the Doma.

With the glass I saw, on her stem castle, Antisthenes, that captain of the

council whose name had been always first on her rolls.

The other ships took their places in four lines behind the command ship of the

reserves.

And between them, heavy, their hulls buffeted by the wind, even their small

storm sails now furled to their yards, came the ten round ships, the lumber

ships from the arsenal. Even they, broad-beamed and deep-keeled, pitched and

bucked in the roiling waters of late Se'Kara on Thassa.

I turned the glass again to the west, to the smoke in the distance.

I saw now that the tam ships of Cos and Tyros were, where possible, not engaging

the round ships, but con- centrating their superior numbers on my tarn ships.

The round ships, slow, much at the mercy of the wind, were now being abandoned

as antagonists.

I smiled. Chenbar was an excellent admiral. He chose to fight wars in which he

was most familiar. He would use his superior numbers on my tam ships, leaving

the round ships for later, when they might be struck by as many as four or five

tam ships simultaneously. The round ships, of course, were too slow to offer the

swift, decisive support to my tam ships which they would surely need shortly.

I Closed the glass, and blew on my fingers. It was very cold, and it now seemed

to me that the outcome of the battle was written on that great board, the width

of the horizon, the pieces ships and men, which lay burning and smoking in the

distance.

The wind whipped past.

Then I heard a cry from below me, and a cheer. The man on the height of the

prow, his builders' glass slung about his shoulder, standing his feet fixed in

ropes, was waving his cap'in the air. The oarsmen below were cry- ing out and

waving their caps.

I snapped open the glass of the builders. From both the north and the south,

like distant black slivers knifing through the cold waters of Thassa, masts

down, came the fleets of the fifth wave.

I grinned.

Chung had been forced to beat his way northward against the wind. Nigel, wise in

the ways of sea war, had held back his ships, the wind pounding behind them,

that the blades of the pincers might strike simultaneously, as though wielded by

a single hand and will.

I let the builders' glass, attached to the strap about my shoulder, fall to my

side. I crammed the last of the tarsk meat into my mouth and, chewing, climbed

down the narrow rope ladder, fastened to the deck near the mast well.

I leaped from the ladder to the deck of the Doma and waved my hand to

Antisthenes, some hundred yards away on the stem castle of the command ship of

the reserves. He, in turn, ran a flag up the halyard running to the height of

the stem turret.

I climbed to my own stem castle.

To cries of wonder from my men, and those of other ships nearby, the deck

planking of the ten round ships was lifted and thrown aside.

The tam is a land bird, generally of mountainous origin, though there are

brightly-plumaged jungle tarns. The tarns crowded into the holds of the round

ships were hooded. Feeling the wind and the cold suddenly strike them they threw

back their heads and beat their wings, pulled against the chains that bound them

to the keel timbers.

One was unhooded, the straps that bound its beak un- buckled.

It uttered its scream, that pierced even the freezing winds of Thassa.

Men shook with fear.

It is extremely difficult to take a tarn far out over the water.

I did not know if they could be controlled at sea.