John Norman - Guardsman of Gor

I heard rams clash to port and starboard. Then one of the supporting galleys was struck in the stern by a following ship, unable to check its momentum. The pirate galleys began to back oars, frantically to extricate themselves, but, clumsily, half swung about, they must accept our fire. Two other ships from behind them, unable to slow themselves sufficiently, struck into the milling ships.

I turned about. The first galley, isolated behind our lines, was trying to swing to the southeast, to avoid the chain and find the open water to the cast. As she did so the Tais , come from our right flank to reinforce the line, circling about her, took her full in the port side. The strike was high, but water poured into her hold. I saw men dive from her decks. She lay then in the water, listing, unmanned. As she lay the rupture in her hull was lifted above the water line. I saw men from the Tais board her, moving about on the tilted deck. Then, in a short time, they returned to their ship.

“Run flags on the stem-castle lines,” called Callimachus. “Blood for Port Cos!”

There was a cheer from our benches.

I watched the Tais draw away from the disabled vessel. Then I saw the stern of the vessel swing eccentrically about.

“She is caught on a bar,” said a man near to me.

“Yes,” I said. No longer did she move sluggishly, turning, carried by the current, toward the chain.

“It is the Tuka ,” said a man near me.

“Is that a well-known ship of the Voskjard?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“It is the wedge again!” cried a man.

I looked out, over the railing, northward. The enemy fleet had reformed.

The crew of the Tuka had swum west of the chain.

“They are approaching at only half stroke,” said a man.

“They will not repeat their first mistake,” said another.

This time it was their intention to force our line apart with consistent pressure, not as a shattering bolt, but as a flood, a pressing, an avalanche of wood and steel, regulated, controlled, responsive to the tactical situation instant by instant. Not again would the point of the wedge be lost fruitlessly behind our lines, spending itself in vain against emptiness and spray.

Flags, torn by the wind, snapping, sped to our stem-castle lines. Signal cloths, pennons and squares, in mixed colors and designs, acknowledging these commands, ran fluttering and streaming onto the stem-castle lines of the Tais .

“She is at full stroke!” said a man.

The Tais , her stern low in the water, her ram half lifted from it, knifed to the northeast.

“The wedge of the Voskjard approaches!” called an officer on our stem castle.

“Let us chain the ships together, while we may!” begged another officer.

“No,” said Callimachus.

“Look!” cried a man, miserably, clinging to a projection on our stem castle. “Look!” he cried. He was pointing to the east. “The Tais is leaving our lines! The ships of Port Cos attend her!”

“Our flank is unguarded!” cried a man in fear. There seemed consternation on our benches.

“The Voskjard is committed to the wedge!” I said to the man next to me.

“Our flank is in no immediate danger,” said he. He set an arrow to the string of a short ship’s bow.

“No!” I cried laughing. “No! Look! It is the flank of the Voskjard which is now unguarded!”

The Tais and her swift, lean sisters, emerging unexpectedly, circling, from behind our lines, stern quarters low in the water, rams half lifted from the water, wet and glistening in the sun, at full stroke, oars beating, drums pounding, like loosened weapons, sped toward the wedge.

Our oarsmen stood on their benches cheering.

The lead ship of the wedge was trying to come about, swinging to starboard. Her immediate support ship, fifty yards astern, could not check her flight. Her ram took the lead ship in the stern, tearing away wood and breaking loose the starboard rudder. Almost at the same time the seven ships of Port Cos, fanning out, each choosing an undefended hull, exposed, helpless before the hurtling strike of the ram’s brutal spike, to the tearing of wood, the rushing of water, the screaming of men, made contact with the enemy. Efficiently did they address themselves to the harsh labors of war.

I did not see how Ar, in her disputes with Cos upon the Vosk, could hope to match such ships and men. The ships of Ar’s Station, with the fleet, seemed more round ships than long ships. Some lacked even rams and shearing blades. All were permanently masted. Few of these ships boasted more than twenty oars. All seemed undermanned. Ar, I thought, might be advised to tread lightly in her politics on the Vosk.

The ships of Port Cos, led by the Tais , backed from the subsiding, shattered hulks they had smitten. The Voskjard’s fleet was in confusion. Ship struck ship. Signal horns sounded frantically. Ships struggled, crowded together, trapped in the wedge, to come about. Again, and again, hunting as single marine predators, the Tais and her sisters, prowling the outskirts of that confused, sluggish city of wood, almost at will, almost fastidiously, selected their victims.

How could Ar, I asked myself, compete with such men and ships upon the mighty Vosk?

Laughable were the miserable, squat ships of Ar’s Station when compared with the sleek carnivores of Port Cos or, indeed, those of Ragnar Voskjard.

“The Tais has made her third kill!” cried a man.

There was cheering upon the Tina .

On each of the ships of Ar’s Station there were long, heavy sets of planks, fastened together by transverse crosspieces. These heavy constructions were some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven or eight feet in width. They were mounted on high platforms near the masts, one at each mast, and could be run out on rollers from the mast, to which they were fastened by adjustable lengths of chain. At the tops these constructions leaned back toward the masts, to which, at the top, they were secured by ropes. Projecting outwards from the top of each of these constructions there was, like a curved nail, a bent, gigantic, forged spike.

“The fleet is coming about!” criers a man.

To be sure, amidst the wreckage and crowding, and even grinding against the chain, the fleet of the Voskjard had managed to come about.

“Flee!” cried a man near me to the crews of the Tais and her sisters, as though they could have heard him over the water. “Flee!”

“They must run or they will be crushed!” cried a man. The rams of the Voskjard’s fleet swung toward the Tais and her sisters. Between them, drifting apart, listing or awash, lay what must have been the wreckage of some eighteen ships. Several had already gone down.

“Run! Run!” cried more than one man near me. But the Tais and her sisters of Port Cos lay to.

“The fleet of the Voskjard has been marshaled,” said a man next to me.

“Pity the brave lads of Port Cos,” muttered a man.

“Stroke!” called Callimachus.

“Stroke!” called his officer.

“Stroke!” cried the oar master. The ringing of the copper covered drum struck with the fur-wrapped wooden mallets suddenly rang out behind us.

“Yes, yes!” I cried. “The Voskjard has exposed his flank to us!”

The Tina and her line movers forward.

“Withdraw! Reform!” called Callimachus.

That island of wood in the midst of the Vosk, those grating, striking ships, twisted at the chain. Rams now, and concave bows, threatened us.

We backed from the wreckage.

We, the line of our ships, had caught the fleet of the Voskjard in its right flank, as it had turned to confront and punish the Tais and her sisters of Port Cos. This audacious act on our part had taken the fleet of the Voskjard by surprise. That ships such as those of Ar’s Station and of the independent towns, mostly refitted merchantmen, would dare to leave the security of their lines to launch their own attack, not bolstered by the ships of Port Cos, had not entered its ken. They did not know, perhaps, that one named Callimachus stood upon our stem castle.