Raiders of Gor (43 page)

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“Tab!” they cried. “Tab!”

It was the Venna, thrust through to free us.

I briefly saw Tab, sweating even in the cold, in a torn tunic, a sword in his

hand on the stem castle of the Venna.

Then, on the other side, was the Tela, the Venna's sister ship. The heavy,

protective wales, the parallel beams protecting her hull, were fresh scarred and

half cut away.

My men eagerly leaped aboard these two ships.

I waved away other tamsmen, returning to the flagship to pick up men.

I could see ships burning in the distance.

Then flames shot up through the deck planking of the flagship.

The last of the men of Tyros aboard the ship leaped free to the cold waters to

swim to their own ships. I could see some, a hundred yards-away, climbing the

wales of tarn ships, some clinging to their oars.

Chenbar and I remained alone on the deck of the stern castle of the flagship.

I climbed to the saddle.

A crossbow bolt dropped past me, striking into the burning deck.

Chenbar shook his head, and leaped to his feet, his wrists in manacles. “Fightl”

he screamed to his distant ships. “Fight!”

I drew on the one-strap and the tam, against the wind, took flight and Chenbar

of Kasra, LThar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen, in the manacles of a common slave,

swung free below us, helpless and pendant in the furies of the wind and the

sleeting rain, the captive of Bosk, a captain of Port Kar, admiral of her fleet.

18
   
How Bosk Returned to His Home

When we struck the icy, wind-driven decks of the Dorna MY men rose at their

benches and, cheering, waved their caps.

“Take this prisoner,” I told an officer, “and chain him below decks. The council

will decide what is to be done with him.”

There was another cheer.

Chenbar stood facing me for an instant, his fists clenched, fury in his eyes,

and then he was rudely turned about and, by two seamen, forced below decks.

“I expect,” said the oar-master, “that in the rag of a slave he will eventually

find his place at the bench of an arsenal round ship.”

“Admiral!” cried the voice from the masthead. “The fleet of Cos and Tyros is

putting aboutf They fly!”

I shook with emotion. I could not speak. The men were cheering about me. Then I

said, “Recall our ships.”

Men ran to signal ships among the reserves, that they might draw toward our

engaged fleet, recalling it.

The Doma now heaved and pitched like a snared sleen. She, like most tarn ships,

was a narrow vessel, long and of shallow draft. I looked to the round ships.

Even they leaped in the water. I did not think the Dorna would long live in such

a sea unless she might run before it.

“Lift the anchors,” I said. “Set the storm sail!”

Men hastened to do what I had told them, and, as they did so, I sent signals to

reserve ships, to be conveyed to the balance of the fleet, that they might save

themselves while they could. There could be no question of following up what had

appeared to be the victory over the fleets of Cos and Tyros.

I stood on the icy, wind-struck deck of the Doma, my back turned to the storm.

My admirals cloak, brought with my returning men from the round ship, was given

to me and I wrapped it about my shoulders. A vessel of hot Paga was brought,

too.

“The victory draught,” said the oar-master.

I grinned. I did not feel victorious. I was cold. I was alive. I swallowed the

hot paga.

The yard had been lowered and the small, triangular storm sail was attached to

it. The anchors were raised and the yard, on its ropes and pulleys, began to

climb toward the masthead. Meanwhile, the starboard oars, under the call of the

oar-master began swinging the vessel about, to bring her stern into the wind.

The wind struck the side of the hull and the ship heeled to leeward. The deck

was suddenly washed with cold waves, and then the waters had slipped back. The

two helmsmen strained with their side rudders, bringing the ship about. Then the

wind was at the stern and the oar-master began his count, easing the ship ahead

until the storm sail was caught by the blasts. When it was it was like a fist

striking the sail and the mast screamed, and the bow, for a terrible moment

dipped in the water and then, dripping the cold waters, the bow leaped up and

tilted to the sky.

“Stroke!” called the oar-master, his cry almost lost in the sleet and wind

“Stroke! Stroke!”

The beating of the copper drum of the keleustes took UP maximum beat.

The tiny storm sail, swollen with the black wind and sleet, tore at the yard and

the brail ropes. The Dorna knifed ahead, leaping between the waves that rose

towering on either side.

She would live.

I did not know if the victory we had won, for victory it surely seemed to be,

was decisive or not, but I well knew that the twenty-fifth of Se'Kara, for that

was the day on which this battle had been fought, would not be soon forgotten in

Port Kar, that city once called squalid and malignant, but which had now found a

Home Stone, that city once called the scourge of gleaming Thassa, but which

might now be better spoken of, as she had been by some of her citizens

aforetimes, as her jewel, the jewel of gleaming Thassa. I wondered how many men

would claim to have fought on the twenty-fiftb of Se'Kara, abroad on Thassa. I

smiled. This day would doubtless be made holiday in Port Kar. And those who had

fought here would be, in years to come, as comrades and brothers. I am English.

And I recalled another vic- tory, in another time, on a distant world. I

supposed that in time to come men might, on this holiday, show their wounds to

slaves and wondering children, saying to them, “These I had in SeKara.” Would

this battle be sung as had that one? Not in England, I knew. But on Gor, it

would. And yet songs 'I told myself, are lies. And those that had died this day

did not sing. And yet, I asked myself, had they lived, would they not have sung?

And I told myself, I thought yes. And so, then, I asked Myself, might we not

then sing for them, and for ourselves as well, and could there not be, in some

way that was hard to understand, but good, truth in songs?

I went to the tarn that I had ridden back to the Dorna. I took off my Admiral's

cloak and threw it over the shivering bird.

Standing near it was the slave boy Fish.

I looked intc, his eyes, and I saw, to my surprise, that he understood what I

must do.

“I am coming with you,” he said.

I knew that the ships of Eteocles and Suilius Maximus had not been added to bur

fleet. I also knew that the blockade about the last major holding of Sevarius

had been lifted, that its ships, arsenal ships, might participate in the day's

battle. There had been, I knew, exchanges of

information between Claudius, regent for Renrius Sevarius, and Cos and Tyros. I

was not disposed to think that there had not been similar communications between

COS and Tyros and Eteocles and Sullius Maximus. Doubtless there would be

coordinated actions. The hall of the council itself might now be in flames. The

two Ubars, and Claudius, regent for Renrius Sevarius, I supposed, might already

have claimed power, as a triumvirate, in Port Kar. Their power, of course, would

not last long. Port Kar had not lost the battle. When the storm abated, whether

in hours or in one or two days, the fleet would put about and return to Port

Kar. But in the meantime I knew that the two Ubars and Claudius, confident but

ignorant of the outcome of the battle, would be attempting to rid the city of

those who stood against them.

I wondered if my holding still stood.

I had meat brought for the tarn, great chunks of tarsk, thighs and shoulders,

which I had thrown before it, on the cold deck. It tore at them greedily. I had

had the bones removed from the meat. If it had been bosk I would not, but the

bones of the tarsk are thinner and splinter easily. Then I had water brought for

the tarn, in a leather bucket, the ice broken through that coated the water like

a lid. It drank.

“I am coming with you,” said the boy.

In the belt of his tunic he had thrust the sword that I had had the officer give

him before the battle.

I shook my head. “You are only a boy,” I told him. “No,” he said, “I am a man.”

I smiled at him.

“Why would you come to my holding?” I asked.

“It is to be done,” he said.

“Does the girl Vina mean so much to you?” I asked.

He looked at me, and, flustered, looked down at the deck. He kicked at the deck.

“She is a mere slave,” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

“And,” said he, defiantly, “a man does not concern himself for a mere female

slave.”

“of course not,” I admitted.

“Even if it were not for her,” he said, looking up, angrily, “I would accompany

you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You are my captain,” he said, puzzled. “Remain here,” I told him, gently.

He drew the sword I had had given him.

“Test me!” he demanded.

“put away”, I said, “the tools of men.”

“Defend yourself!” be cried.

My blade leaped from its sheath and I parried his blow. He had come to me much

more swiftly than I had expected.

Men gathered about. “It is sport,” said one of them.

I moved the blade toward the boy and he parried it. I was impressed, for I had

intended to touch him that time.

Then, moving about, on the pitching deck, in the sleet,

we matched blades. After an Ehn or two I replaced my blade in its sheath. “At

four times,” I said, “I could have killed you.”

He dropped his blade, and looked at me agonized.

“But,” I said, “You have learned your lessons well. I have fought with warriors

who were less swift than you.”

He grinned. Some of the seamen pounded their left shoulders with their right

fists.

The boy, Fish, was a favorite with them. How else, I asked myself, had he been

able to take an oat on the long. boat in the canals when I had gone to the hall

of the Council of Captains, or been able to board the Dorna, or taken his place

in the longboat that had ferried me to the round ship? I, too, was not unfond of

the boy. I saw in him, in this boy, wearing a collar, branded, clad in the

garment of a kitchen slave, as most others would not, a young Ubar.

“You may not come with me,” I told him. “You are too young to die.”

“At what age,” asked he, “is a man ready for death?”

“To go where I am to go,” I told him, “and do what I must do, is the action of a

fool.”

He grinned. I saw a tear in his eye.

“Yes,” said he, “Captain.”

“It is the action of a fool!” I told him.

“Each man,” said the boy, “has the right, does he not, to perform, if he wishes,

the act of a fool?”

“Yes,” I said, “each man may, if he wishes, choose such acts.”

“Then,” said he, “Captain, the bird having rested, let us be on our way.”

“Bring a woolen cloak for a young fool,” I told a seaman. “And, too, bring a

belt and scabbard.”

“Yes, Captain,” cried the man.

“Do you think you can cling,” asked I, “to a knotted rope for hours.”

“Of course, Captain,” said he.

In a few moments the tarn spread his wings before the black wind and, caught in

the blast, was hurled before the Dorna, and began, in dizzying circles, to climb

in the wind and slee't. The boy, his feet braced on a knot in the swaying rope,

his hands clenched on its fibers, swung below me. Far below I saw the Dorna,

lifting and failing in the troughs of the waves, and, separated from her, tlae

ships of the fleet, round ships and tarn ships, storm sails set, oars dipping,

flying before the storm.

I did not see any of the ships of Cos or Tyros.

Terence of Treve, mercenary captain of the tamsmen, had refused to return to

Port Kar before the return of the fleet. The environs of Port Kar might now be

filled with tarnsmen, other mercenaries, but in the hire of the re- bellious

Ubars, and Claudius, regent of Henrius Sevarius. “We men of Treve are brave,”

had said be, “but we are not mad.”

The bird was buffeted by the storm, but it was a strong bird. I did not know the

width of the storm, but I hoped its front- would be only a few pasangs. The bird

could not fly a direct line to Port Kar, because of the wind, and we managed an

oblique path, cutting away from the fleet. From time to time the bird, tiring,

its wings wet, cold, coated with sleet, would drop sickeningly downward, but

then again it would beat its way on the level, half driven by the wind, half

flying.

The boy, Fish, cold, numb, wet, his hair and clothing iced with sleet, clung to

the rope dangling beneath the bird.

Once the bird fell so low that the boy's feet and the bottom of the rope on

which he stood splashed a path in the -churning waters, and then the bird,

responding to my fierce pressures on the one-strap, beat its way up again and

again flew, but then only yards over the black, rear- ing waves, the roaring

sea.

And then the sleet became only pelting rain, and the rain became only a cruel

wind, and then the cruelty of the wind yielded to only the cold rushing air at