The Return of Kavin (21 page)

Behind him, five other cloaked figures moved, and a dozen of the little, sure-footed beasts called elami bore heavy loads, following the men. Gann did not look back at them; nor speak to them. He did not need to.

The leading man of the five was, or had once been, Mang Elap. Behind him, four others of his tribe walked, and each man’s face was as empty as a skull’s. Their eyes were blank, and none of them spoke as they went, plodding steadily down the long trail toward the known lands at the base of the mountains.

It had been simple enough to perform the operation needed to make these simple creatures into useful workers. Gann knew the procedure well; in his own world it had been common. Now Mang and the others were no more than machines, less free than the beasts they led, but much more useful. As all such should be, Gann knew.

There was a second advantage gained from the thing he had done to the hillmen; he now possessed a great deal of what they had known, knowledge of great use to him.
Their language, for one, a tongue which, with variations, seemed to be nearly the same in the more civilized areas where Gann must go.
Strange, he thought, a world where so many different peoples speak the same basic tongue. It would imply that this was truly a young world; yet, from other evidence, it was immensely old. There should have been time for a mighty civilization to grow here, Gann thought.

That strange internal compass pointed toward the west, where there was a seacoast, according to the maps he had found. The
Other
was there, but moving again, steadily away. Perhaps that
Other
was on a ship again; if so, it would be necessary to cross the sea after him.

Gann would do so, then. He knew that he ought to feel some anger, some sense of fury directed at his quarry; the
Other
seemed almost to sense his coming. Yet he could feel nothing. It was strange, he thought, but it had advantages, this utter cold that lay upon him. He remembered incidents when he had allowed rage or
caution
to seize him for a brief moment, and had thereby erred in judgment. Or even worse, compassion. Now, he need fear those enemies within no longer.

The trail turned, and the land below began to be visible. Deep pine forests stretched downward in long slopes toward a distant river; and many miles away, he saw a thin blueness of smoke, and a tiny pattern of rooftops. A town, Gann thought. And a river, that might prove a road to the sea, and to the
Other
.

He strode on, steadily, and the human machines followed.

TEN

On either side, as far as Hugon could see, the gray ocean was dotted with ships. To port, a covey of slim fighting galleys plowed swiftly, while starboard there
lay
a huge war galleon that was unmistakably of Meryon build. It was triple decked, and from shuttered ports on its sides, the bronze cannon that were still rarely found in the world could fire. A dreadful and untrustworthy tool of war, Hugon thought; by the favor of the gods, the fashion for those monstrous things had never spread far, though the black powder had been known for a long time now.

Hugon, whose agile brain possessed a truly remarkable assortment of information, had once delved into the mysteries of chemical art. Though the exact means of mixing black powder was a guild mystery, he knew that it required three elements, two of which were easy to find. The third, the white salts, were not easily gathered, and therefore the art of making the black stuff was, to his great satisfaction, little practiced.

Also, only in Meryon were really strong cannon cast; their smiths had secrets known to no others. Even after the black powder had been acquired, with much trouble, a war lord might find that a badly cast cannon could slay more of his own men than those of the enemy.

But at such times as this, the cannon came again into use; those great galleons were their most suitable home. Hugon watched the giant, under towers of sail, plowing steadily along; and there, behind it, another, and then a third.

Farther away, toward the horizon, he counted seven big vessels, warships of Grothan make; and in the other direction, nine more, these of varying rigs and sizes.

Every one of them was filled with fighting men, Hugon knew. Some were mercenaries out for loot; but many more were exiles of Mazain, ruined men and landless now, whose relatives had been slain by the mad Emperor, men who would take joy in slaying any who still served Sharamash.
Also, men of the Meryon Kingdom, who had come to the ships with no command of their own king to send them, but none to forbid, either.
These would fight with almost as much fire as the exiles and rebels; the memory of the landing of Imperial force on the soil of Meryon was fresh and new as spilled blood.

The ship on which Hugon and the others now sailed was a slim, swift little vessel, with hardly any cover from the weather, crewed by four dour men. Both the ship and the four crewmen had a distinct air of having once been engaged in much less respectable trades; but Hugon thought it would be just as well not to ask about that.

It was fast, this little boat; it bore a rather well-made carving of a winged girl at the prow, and the name Swift Virgin. The virginity Hugon took to be merely symbolic; the speed was a fact. And, like other virgins, Hugon noticed, she gave a rough ride; he was forced to keep a hand close to a rail, even in the light winds that presently drove her.

One man was at the helm, and a second squatted, watchfully, atop the foremast step, one arm around the mast. Then that man rose suddenly, hand over his eyes, peering.

“Signaling, up ahead,” he called to the helmsman. After a moment, he added, “Three smokes… and there, the galleon’s running up a pennant.”

“Below, there,” Hugon called out. Zamor’s head emerged from a hatch, and he looked inquiringly up.
“The Imperials.
They’re close ahead, might be.”

Zamor came up, yawning, and dragging up the long axe which he had kept from the fight aboard the Turtle. He had declared it a fine weapon indeed, and he had ever begun to ornament it with small and intricate carvings on the haft. Behind him, Kavin came also, and Thuramon followed.

“There’s a strange whiff below there,” Kavin said, moving toward the rail. He grinned. “It must have been a queer mixture of cargoes that this ship held last.”

“Best not to ask,” Hugon said. “One thing is plain enough; what passes for a bed down there was never meant for human bones. Fraak liked those bunks well enough, but he’s not as fragile as I am.” He groaned, and stretched. “I’d sell my honor for a night in a real bed, even a night alone in one.”

“If you could find a buyer for honor,” Zamor grunted.

“If I had it to sell,” Hugon answered. “Ha! Look there!
Sails!”

Zamor peered, and uttered a low curse. “We’ll have no chance at all to let blood with them,” he muttered.

“None,” Hugon agreed, “I’m glad to say. The rebel admiral, our friend Farzakk, upon whose head the sea-god should send a special protection, made that absolutely clear. We are to slip by, with the light footed discretion of a virgin in peril of her purity, avoiding all combat as a virgin should. Thus, our vessel’s name will be kept honored,” and he rolled his eyes upward.

“I want to try my Steel Moon again,” Zamor said, and twirled the axe slowly around and around.

“Kindly remember, friend, there’s little room to dodge,” Hugon said, moving back. “Could you arrange for that Moon of yours to suffer eclipse for a while? There’ll be ample chance of blood once we’re ashore in Mazain. I ask the gods that the blood should be somebody else’s, only that.”

The distant sails were taking shape now; swift galleys, single bankers in a broad half circle ahead, at least twenty of them. But behind, a line of what could only be two and three banked ships, from their size, massive and huge hulls filled with armed men, on whose decks weapons bristled. There would be arrow engines that could spit a death storm of shafts; catapults, to hurl round stones, or firepots and dolphin throwers, that could cast a gigantic fish-shaped metal bolt up and over, to crash through a ship’s keel.

Trumpets blared nearby, and were echoed by others farther away. The ships of the rebel fleet moved into a new pattern, one planned much earlier by the cunning of Farzakk. The huge galleons turned, one this way, another that, moving out toward the wings of the Imperial line. It was entirely against tradition; it was usual for fleets to encounter, line upon line. For a fleet to thus open its center, and permit an enemy to enter its midst, must have seemed clumsy foolishness to the Imperial commanders.

It was a long, slow, stately movement, this sea-fighting. Hugon, watching, found it enchanting, but he was a chess player. Zamor muttered and paced the deck impatiently, while Kavin sat, relaxed and impassive.

The apparent errors of Farzakk were not to be ignored; the Imperials lunged forward, like a pack of hounds into a wood. Their line had become a wedge, its point forward,
the
swifter galleys far ahead. Meanwhile, the Swift Virgin had tacked down away along the outer edge of the whole melee. She was far past her own fleet by now, but it seemed that no Imperial vessel wished to notice so small a prey.

By now Fraak was awake, too; he flew high over the Virgin, returning occasionally with bits of news. However, much of what happened was clearly visible, even from the distance.

Like hounds the galleys had come, and now they were hounds in a wood, encircled by leopards that they had not expected. Each galley found
itself
drawn off alone, and swiftly set upon, in a series of actions that had obviously been most carefully planned. As soon as a galley was cut off, two or three rebel ships would turn toward it, and come slashing down on either side, reaping a harvest of broken oars. The wind was with the rebels; their own galleys sailed.

Then, the attackers would claw the victim between them; a ship grappled at
either side, and
often a third to aid them, and a roaring horde of swordsmen poured into the doomed ship. But, again and again, as soon as the armed men had boarded, the rebel ship would swiftly draw away, and turn to a new engagement, leaving those she had sent to fight on.

Hugon, soon enough, caught the sense of it. The Imperials outnumbered the rebels in ships; yet, by this means, they were repeatedly outnumbered themselves. And the rebel ships had been packed, shoulder to shoulder, with fighters; though dangerously overloaded, none had been swamped. Yet, that had allowed them to hurl a mass of men into one ship after another, as they had been doing. The maneuver allowed boarders no chance to retreat to their own decks, but to many of these desperate men, that mattered not at all. Here and there a galley testified to the success of the method, as the ship turned to fight beside its recent enemies, taken over by its boarders.

But now the heavier Imperial ships should have been able to plunge into the conflict. They lay, turning slowly, in a disorganized mass like penned cattle; unable to charge, ram, and board as they should have done, because the cannon of the galleons were well able to pound them to matchwood first. Two that had tried to charge lay burning in the water
southward,
and a third was already gone.

Among the others, chaos increased; their lighter and fewer cannon were intended only to fire at close ranges, and were useless now. Nor could catapults and firepots help much. Slowly, the huge galleons edged closer, turning in a stately dance; as each side came about, the cannon thundered. A sheet of orange flame swept across the Imperial ships, and death shrieked about their falling masts.

The thunder of the guns was fainter now, like the rumble of a distant storm, as the Virgin sped onward. The men on her deck could see only a low cloud of drifting smoke behind them; the rumble of broadsides seemed less frequent, as well. It was likely that other rebel ships, having made their first victories, were flocking in toward the doomed fleet, to board, ram, and burn. There would be little mercy there, in the cold sea, either from the sea’s grip or man’s weapons.

The rigging creaked, and the water hissed beneath the Virgin’s keel; seabirds cried hoarsely in the air, where Fraak sailed over the mast top. But on the deck, the group of men stood silent, each watching.

Far astern, a smoke-hazed shape came, moving slowly in their track; a light galley, masts gone, bulwarks broken away, drawing a tangled trail of wreckage as it moved. A few oars still beat, in irregular, wild strokes, like the kicking legs of a dying spider. Zamor straightened, with a hopeful growl, and Hugon dropped the lute at which he had been picking idly, and rose.

But it was obvious that the galley was not pursuing them; it had simply blundered out of the slaughter, like a dumb beast, to prolong its life by a few more minutes. They saw it, trailing smoke as it came, listing more and more, till one oar bank lifted clear of the water, and the other must have gone below the water line. The stern lifted, higher, till the distant galley stood for a moment, like a monumental column, straight up; then it dived, and was gone.

“He’s broken them, by the Snake’s teeth,” Zamor said, in a low voice. “That admiral’s a man of his craft. But I still wish we’d been able to take a little of that for ourselves.”

“Never mind, you blood-drinker,” Hugon told him. “We’ll be ashore before dawn, if we’re lucky. You can slay the first fool we meet, and give his liver to the Great Snake. That’s the custom, isn’t it?”

Zamor glanced at him and laughed. “The first fool we meet? Shall I let you off that list, brother?”

Hugon scratched his chin, thoughtfully. “I never thought of that point, brother Zamor. Damn it, I’d best not come with you to your Mumori land after all if they sacrifice fools
all
of the time.”

“Only during full moon,” Zamor told him calmly. “Fear not, we’ve as many fools in Mumori as you do hereabouts. And we’ll look after you well, little brother; you’ll be a rarity. Most of our own fools are black like
myself
.” He chuckled, and began to polish Steel Moon with a rag.