John Norman - Guardsman of Gor

A ship to my left, Spined Tharlarion , the flagship of Ragnar Voskjard, was aflame. I heard a ram strike a ship nearby, with a great splintering of wood. This made no sense to me, for the pirate ships, so closely packed, so struggling, could not, even by accident, have achieved the momentum for such an impact.

Smoke stung my nostrils. I clung to the blade. The flagship of Policrates was now swinging about. I heard more battle horns, from both-upriver and downriver. I heard the devastating impact of yet another ram pounding into a hull somewhere. There was screaming from pirate ships.

I leaped from the blade mount to the port rail and, struggling, pulled myself upward. In a moment, crouching, I was on the deck of the ship. A man lunged toward me, with a sword. I dove under the blade and, seizing his ankles, utilizing his momentum, threw him upward and over my shoulders. He disappeared over the rail, grasping at it, screaming. Another man struck down at me and I, slipped to the side, seized him about the chest with my right arm and hurled him back against the forward wall of the high stem castle. He grunted. With the heel of my right hand under his chin I smashed his head back into the wood of the stem castle. He slumped to the deck. His sword was mine.

I heard, from somewhere to starboard, the splintering of another hull. Policrates was crying out orders on the height of the stem castle above me. I thrust the sword into the wood above me, where I could seize it, and, putting my feet and hands into the ornate carving of the stem castle, climbed a yard and a half from the deck. My heart leaped.

The river seemed alive with ships. I saw the Tais , captained by the indomitable Calliodorus, and other ships of Port Cos. They must needs be the fleet which Callisthenes had commanded, and had withdrawn to Port Cos, not permitting them to engage in the battle at the chain. With them, too, I saw ships with the banners of Tafa, Ven, Tetrapoli and even distant Turmus. They had come from the west, from downriver.

To starboard, from upriver, the river bristled with armed merchantmen. I saw the colors, there, of more than a dozen towns. The banners and pennons of Victoria were there, and of Fina and Hammerfest, of Sulport, Sais, Siba and Jasmine, of Jort’s Ferry and Point Alfred, of Iskander, of Tancred’s Landing and Forest Port. Too, among other pennons, I saw colors hailing from so afar east as White Water and Lara, at the very confluence of the Vosk and Olni. The patience of the honest men had at last been exhausted.

I drew the sword from the wood and leaped down to the deck. The flagship of Policrates rocked, struck by another pirate ship, it lurching to port. I lost my footing, and then regained it. I ran to the starboard rail and leaped down to the starboard shearing blade.

“Jason!” cried Callimachus, bound upon it.

In an instant I had severed the bonds which held his ankles and, holding his arms, cut apart the ropes that bound his wrists. He drew himself, trembling, to the blade mount. “You are free,” he said “What is going on?”

“The towns are rising,” I said. “They come from the east and the west, from upriver and downriver, with men and ships. In their heart is war. Policrates and the Voskjard are finished!”

“Get me a sword!” said Callimachus.

“Are you strong enough?” I asked. “There is little you need do.”

“A sword!” said Callimachus. “I must have a sword!”

I grinned. “Doubtless one may be found on deck,” I said.

Scarcely had we climbed to the deck than the pirate ship to starboard, shifting, grated laterally along the flagship. The shearing blades locked and we felt timber being torn from the sides of the ships.

“Back oars!” screamed Policrates, on the stem castle. “Back oars!” We heard a pirate ship, somewhere to starboard, being boarded. Callimachus strode to an oarsman. Oarsmen, of course, face the stern in rowing, for greater leverage. Callimachus drew the fellow’s sword from his sheath. He looked about and then, white-faced, hurled himself over the rail. Callimachus looked up the stairs to the height of the stem castle. It was then that Policrates saw him. Behind him was Callisthenes. Two men rushed down the steps toward Callimachus. Policrates and Callisthenes drew their swords. I saw the two men fall, one to each side of Callimachus. I had scarcely seen his blade move. He was not unskilled with the weapon. Policrates and Callisthenes, white-faced, regarded him. “I am with you,” I told him. “No,” said Callimachus, “these are mine.”

I regarded him. He smiled. “Fetch Ragnar Voskjard,” he said. I grinned, and turned away from him. Behind me, in a moment, I heard the sound of swords.

I looked over the port rail. Some forty yards away, across the water, some hundred yards or so out in the river, off the wharves, half afire, I saw the ship of Ragnar Voskjard. Timbers and wreckage strewed the waters between the ships. I could almost cross to his ship on the debris between us. More battle horns sounded. Not far off I could hear the clash of weaponry betokening yet another fierce ingress of boarders upon the deck of some vessel of hapless buccaneers. A dozen ships off the wharves must have been in flames.

I bit at the leather binding on the handle of the sword I carried. I tore loose a strip of it and, with this cordage, improvised a wrist sling. If it were necessary to use my hands in the water I did not wish to risk losing the weapon. Then, clutching the weapon, the sling about my wrist, I vaulted the rail and, feet first, entered the water. I swam to a raft of planking. There is commonly little danger of eels near Victoria, save near the shadows and shallows of the wharves themselves.

Scarcely had I ascended the heavy planking then, approaching rapidly, bearing down on me, I saw a medium galley, thrusting itself between the flagship of Policrates and Spined Tharlarion , the flagship of Ragnar Voskjard. It flew the banners of Tafa. I dove to the port side of the vessel. In a moment I was caught in its bow wave and, lifted, hurled toward Spined Tharlarion . Sputtering, lifting my head, spitting water, trying to clear my eyes, I saw another shape approaching. I struck out for the hull of Spined Tharlarion .

The encroaching shape seemed to veer toward me, and then I realized, to my horror, that she intended to shear the starboard oars of Spined Tharlarion . I was now between the two vessels. There was a grating, shearing noise and snapping oars. I put out my hand and touched the strakes of the shuddering Spined Tharlarion . I saw the shearing blade sliding toward me. Scarring and ripping timber, snapping oars, it scraped and scored its way toward me. I dove under the ship. The greatest danger to a swimmer, incidentally, is not the blade itself, for its lower curve is usually at least a foot out of the water, and it is not difficult to avoid it. Indeed, one may even go between the blade and the ship on which it is mounted, if one wishes. The greatest danger to a swimmer, usually, is the grating together of hulls, behind the blades. Few captains are so skillful as to manage a clean, parallel shearing. Both ships are moving, and the angles vary instant by instant.

Looking above me, up through the water, I saw the long, lean hull of the attacking vessel pass overhead. Then there was a rending noise as it gouged the starboard strakes of Spined Tharlarion . It had come in at too sharp an angle. The hulls then, grinding, swung together. When I saw the light of open water between them I surfaced. I found myself in a welter of debris and splinters. Oars were thrusting out from the attacking vessel, to force the ships apart. I seized a broken oar from Spined Tharlarion , its blade gone, its shaft swinging loose in the thole port. I climbed on the oar, the sword dangling from its wrist sling. I got my hand to the wood beside the thole port. I could see the bench inside had been abandoned. I gathered many of the crew of Spined Tharlarion had abandoned the vessel.