Authors: John; Norman
I saw the grapnel jerk against the rail, and twist in stress, and knew one or more men were climbing the rope.
“There will be others!” cried Cabot.
“Do not let them anchor!” cried Cabot. “Throw them over the side. Cut the ropes, behind the chain!”
He had hardly spoken when two, and then ten or more, such devices dropped to the deck.
Men hurled some back over the side, before they could catch. The knife, the sword, slashed at the ropes of others. Many, however, given the swiftness with which they were drawn back, caught against the rail. Once this was done, they were difficult to dislodge, for the stress on the device, and the chain.
I saw one of the enemy Pani put an arm over the rail and he dropped back, headless, and fell into the sea. Nodachi drew back, readying himself for another stroke.
I retrieved a sword from the deck, and went to the side.
I also heard a striking at the sides of the great ship, like a rain of wood, and smelled burning pitch.
Each of the small boats, as far as I could tell, was similarly equipped. Each grapnel, with its rope and chain, was launched from a small engine, a tiny catapult, mounted between the benches. And behind the catapult was a vat, filled, from the odor, with burning pitch. Archers were dipping arrows, whose shaft, behind the point, was wrapped in cloth, which cloth was then saturated with flaming pitch, which arrows, one after another, were then being fired into the hull.
This, doubtless, was what had been determined earlier by Cabot, with the glass of the Builders.
One could not well cut the chain behind the grapnels, but axes cut at the rails, and several of the grapnels, given the stress of climbers, broke loose.
We heard men plunge back, into the sea, or onto the small boats at our hull.
I heard more striking of arrows into the hull.
I saw more than one man, trying to free the hold of a grapnel, felled by a long arrow, fired from one of the small boats.
Some enemy Pani did attain the deck, mostly forward, on the port side. They were met by our Pani and armsmen.
I saw no mercy shown, on either side.
Meanwhile, in accord with the instructions of Lord Okimoto, the great ship had come about, toward the warning ship, and there was a rending crash, as the great ship crushed the smoldering remains of our galley, almost at water level, and eight or ten of the small boats, caught between the grinding hull of the great ship and the drifting warning ship, with its dozens of armed Pani on its deck, and its grisly cargo of death. Indeed, the warning ship itself was partly afire, on its starboard side, where the flaming mast of the galley, with its lateen sail, had collapsed against its aft bulwarks.
“Draw away!” urged Lord Nishida.
Lord Okimoto issued orders to Tyrtaios.
Tyrtaios called out, to the lines of men about him, “Boarding nets!” he cried.
These nets were cast.
The Pani below, not uneagerly, readied themselves.
“Prepare to board!” called Tyrtaios.
I doubted that Tyrtaios, under the circumstances, thought it well advised, given fire and our own troubles, to board the warning ship, but he failed to demur. I did not think he was ignorant, or a sycophant; I thought it rather that he was concerned to ascend in the favor of Lord Okimoto, steadily, relentlessly, for his own purposes. Lord Okimoto, on the other hand, was well aware of the sizable complement of fighting men on board, a small army, who would, in any likely contest, as on an open field, far outnumber the enemy Pani in the small boats and on the warning ship, perhaps by as many as four or five to one; and was, accordingly, prepared to expend his men liberally, using his superior numbers to sweep aside opposition. I wondered, too, if his apparent hatred for this Lord Yamada, and his indignation, certainly not misplaced, at the misuse of a warning ship, might not have colored, if not obscured, his judgment.
The greatest danger, of course, was fire.
If the enemy had any idea of the men on the great ship they would not expect to take the ship by arms. On the other hand, and the thought alarmed me, the boarding might well serve to distract from, and delay attention to, what might be the latent but paramount intention of the attack, the destruction of the great ship by fire. Is not the name of war deception?
The nets had been cast.
Armsmen swarmed over the side.
To be sure, nets, like roads, may be traveled in more than one direction.
“Recall the men!” said Lord Nishida to Lord Okimoto.
“Enemies yet live,” said Lord Okimoto, peering toward the deck of the warning ship, where men fought, under swaying bodies suspended from the yards, amongst bodies nailed in place.
I looked, too, and our fellows, I was pleased to see, accredited themselves well. Those whom the Pani had recruited were on the whole large, strong, agile, skilled men, many from the free companies, many from the occupation forces fugitive from Ar, and many, I fear, from amongst brigands and renegades. They had recruited less for honor and loyalty, I feared, than for the capacity to endure hardship, march, and kill. And the Pani who served Lords Nishida and Okimoto, I gathered, though perhaps on the whole of a nobler breed, were likely to be extremely dangerous men, winnowed by years of conflict, men largely the survivors of lengthy, bloody wars.
“The warning ship is afire!” said Lord Nishida. “It is done! Recall the men!”
“No,” said Lord Okimoto.
“This shall be called to the attention of Lord Temmu,” said Lord Nishida.
I had no idea, at the time, who this Lord Temmu might be. I would learn later it was the name of the high lord, or
shogun
, to whom Lords Nishida and Okimoto were pledged.
“You dare not!” said Lord Okimoto. It was the first time I had seen the equanimity of this Pani nobleman jarred.
Lord Nishida did not speak.
“I am senior, I am first,” said Lord Okimoto.
“Though it means the knife,” said Lord Nishida.
I understood little of this conversation.
I looked about, sword in hand.
Tarl Cabot was forward, on the port side, with his friend, Pertinax, and the Pani tarnsman, Tajima, fighting with our Pani against boarders, who were heaviest in that quarter. I thought to join them, and moved a bit toward them, but then hesitated, curious.
I saw two Pani whom I did not recognize from the ship, though both wore yellow, the color of the livery of Lord Okimoto’s men. I did not know them, but they must be ours, I thought. Our Pani kept much to themselves. What struck me as odd was not that they had not joined in the fighting for us, but, rather, slipped through the engaged men, looking about, across the largely open deck. At almost the same instant, it seemed they had descried their objective, for each, with both hands on a long handled sword, uttering no sound, ran toward us. I was some seven or eight feet behind Lords Nishida and Okimoto, for I had already moved toward the fighting at the forward port quarter.
As the first fellow passed me, I cut to my left, and hit the side of his neck, and his body, the head half gone, spun to the side, momentarily interfering with the progress of his fellow, a pace or two behind him. Tyrtaios, alerted by the sounds, turned and blocked a blow that would have cleft the head of Lord Okimoto. At the same time I, behind the fellow, seized the opportunity, and cut apart the spinal column at the base of his skull. This had all happened very quickly, and I think that Tyrtaios was as startled as I. Both of us had reacted instinctively.
The two Pani, in yellow livery, were on the deck then, the planks run with blood, at our feet.
“Assassins,” said Lord Nishida.
We heard a cry, from the port side. The last boarder there had been thrust back, over the rail.
The Pani who had been engaged there, with the exception of some two or three left guard at the rail, now rushed elsewhere.
I gave little for the chances of any remaining boarders.
Most perished, but several, who had time to turn their back, threw themselves over the rail, back to the water, presumably to be picked up by the small boats still about.
I was startled to see Seremides, hobbling on his crutch, near the forward port rail, where fighting had taken place. He held a sword, doubtless taken from the weaponry earlier spilled upon the deck. The sword was bloodied. As few could not, by simple movement, a subtle alteration of position, a simple variance of attack, quickly dispatch a foe so handicapped, I thought Seremides must be a fellow of great courage, to have dragged himself to the deck, and worked his way, painfully, awkwardly, his body suspended on his crutch, step by step, toward the fighting. I had thought he would have cowered below decks, perhaps in a kitchen, or in the darkness of a storeroom. But he had not. He had come to the open deck, and found a weapon. He was, it seemed, of the ship. He might no longer wear the yellow livery of Lord Okimoto’s retinue, but now, it seemed, he had made it clear, and to all, that he was such as had worn it well.
I could smell smoke.
“Recall the men, lord,” said Lord Nishida. “We must attend to the ship.”
“We must not leave a living enemy behind us,” said Lord Okimoto.
Tarl Cabot, wiping an arm across his eyes, his sword bloody, approached us. He looked about. “The deck is clear,” he said.
“I fear the loss of the ship,” said Lord Nishida.
“No enemies are to be left behind us,” said Lord Okimoto.
“The main timbers of the ship,” said Tarl Cabot, “are Tur wood. It burns longer than softer wood, such as that of needle trees, but it is harder to ignite.”
“Surely there is danger,” said Lord Nishida.
“Certainly,” said Cabot.
“We have time to exterminate the vermin about,” said Lord Okimoto.
“No,” said Cabot.
“I do not understand,” said Lord Okimoto, politely.
“We do not have the time,” said Cabot.
“It is true,” said Lord Okimoto, “the small boats will scatter, and the matter will be difficult.”
“I fear,” said Lord Nishida, “the difficulty the commander has in mind is quite different.”
“You may speak,” said Lord Okimoto.
“I take it,” said Cabot, “that we are not, as far as you know, near to land.”
“No,” said Lord Nishida, “we are only days from the Vine Sea.”
“The small boats are not seagoing vessels, certainly not in their numbers, no more than our ship’s boats.”
“Ah!” said Lord Okimoto.
At this moment there was a cry from the platform and ring, high above us. “Sails, ho! Ships! Ships!”
“How many?” called Cabot.
Aeacus, who was above, scanned the horizon with the Builder’s glass.
“Ten, twelve!” he called down to the deck.
“It is the fleet of Lord Yamada,” said Lord Okimoto.
“I feared so,” said Lord Nishida.
“They will be warships,” said Lord Okimoto. “We cannot match them, ship to ship.”
“No,” said Lord Nishida.
Lord Okimoto turned to Tyrtaios, regretfully. “Inform the deck watch,” he said. “Sound the recall.”
“No!” said Cabot.
“No?” said Lord Nishida.
“Not yet!” he said. “Tajima!” he called.
“Captain san,” said Tajima.
Cabot then spoke hurriedly to Tajima, the tarnsman, in a language I did not recognize. It was not Gorean. And Tajima, to my astonishment, responded in what I took to be the same language.
Within a handful of Ehn forty riders of the tarn cavalry were at the rail, each armed with the small Tuchuk bow, used by the tarn cavalry, a weapon of considerable power, which may be swept easily from one side of a saddle to the other.
“Now,” said Cabot, “sound the recall.”
The ship’s bar rang the recall.
Our men backed to the moving hull of the great ship, turning, grasping the rope rungs of the boarding nets. The enemy rushed forward, but only some yards, before turning back, stumbling over falling bodies, riddled by arrows.
The retreat of our armsmen had been satisfactorily covered.
“Hard to port! All canvas!” called Aëtius from the stern castle.
Some of the enemy managed to reach the nets, as well, and began to climb, but, after a few yards, they dropped back in the water and swam to the wreckage of the galley, and that of some small boats, from which they were drawn to the deck of the warning ship, now falling back.
“It is regrettable,” said Lord Okimoto, “that we have left living enemies behind us.”
“It is the fortunes of war,” said Lord Nishida.
“Our presence is now known,” said Lord Okimoto.
“It was known before,” said Lord Nishida.
“But,” said Lord Okimoto, “perhaps not its nature, the ship, our numbers.”
“No,” said Lord Nishida.
“The enemy now knows much,” said Lord Okimoto.
“But our greatest secret may not be known,” said Lord Nishida.
“At least,” said Lord Okimoto, “its size, its appearance, its stamina, its range of flight, its terribleness.”