John Norman - Guardsman of Gor

We backed from the wreckage, much of it flaming. The smell of pitch was in the air.

Dozens of ships, trying to come about, maneuvering, milling, struck by other ships, had been trapped against the chain.

There were hundreds of men in the water. Hundreds of oars, like sticks, had been snapped in the stresses involved, even against the hulls of their own vessels.

Archer shields, of heavy wicker, floated in the water, and ruptured posts and strakes, and parts of oars.

Vosk gulls dove and glided among the carnage, hunting for fish.

“Back oars! Reform our lines!” called Callimachus.

I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain.

“Back oars! Reform our lines!” called Callimachus. He was no fool. He would not risk open battle, not even on even terms, with ships such as those of the Voskjard.

“We have been fortunate,” said a man.

“Yes,” said another.

“The Voskjard will be angry,” said another.

“I fear so,” said another.

“There is still time to flee,” said another.

Then the Tina , with the Mira to starboard and the Talender to port, lay to in our lines. The ships of Port Cos, now only the Tais and four others, resumed their station at our right flank. Had it not been for these ships of Port Cos it is difficult to know how we might have fared. They had taken heavy toll of the enemy before he had turned the wedge to face them, and then, as confused, he, struck by our unexpected attack, that of the independent ships and those of Ar’s Station, had turned to face us, the Tais and her sisters had renewed their attack on his flank.

I thought it not improbable that the Voskjard had lost in the neighborhood of thirty ships. Yet now we conjectured some fifty ships still faced us, for the chain, clearly, no longer provided a barrier north of his position. Those ships which we had for so long prevented from joining him had, by now, amplified his forces. I could not but think, bitterly, that if the Voskjard, truly, had had only some fifty ships, as we had gathered from the intelligences supplied to us by Callisthenes, we, if supplemented by the twenty ships of Callisthenes, yet to appear, would now have outnumbered him. In such a situation it was not unlikely that he would have come about and, at his leisure, still in strength, withdrawn to the west. We lay to, waiting. Now, in our lines, there were only seventeen ships, including those of Port Cos, on which we so crucially depended.

“The enemy fleet is marshaling,” said a man.

“Is it again the wedge?” asked a man.

“One ship is astern and to the starboard of another,” said a man.

“They will come with care, and hunt us in pairs,” said a man.

“There is still time to flee,” repeated a man.

“I recommend, Captain,” said an officer above and behind me on the stem-castle deck, “immediate withdrawal.”

“We must hold the line for Callisthenes,” said Callimachus.

“Draw back to the south guard station. Join him there,” pressed an officer.

“To be outflanked and trapped between the chain and the southern shore?” asked Callimachus.

“I counsel retreat,” said the officer.

“Their ships are faster than ours,” said Callimachus.

“Not faster than the Tina ,” said the officer.

“Am I then to abandon the fleet?” asked Callimachus.

The officer looked at him, angrily.

“You counsel not retreat, my friend,” said Callimachus, “but rout, and slaughter.”

“What, then, shall we do?” asked the man.

“Wait for Callisthenes,” said Callimachus.

“Withdraw,” said the officer.

“And leave Callisthenes to face fifty ships?” asked Callimachus.

“Forget about Callisthenes,” said the officer.

“I will not forget about him,” said Callimachus, “as he would not forget about me.”

“Withdraw,” said the officer.

“It is here that we are to be joined by Callisthenes,” said Callimachus. “It is here that we will wait for him.”

“Where is Callisthenes?” asked the man next to me.

“I do not know,” I said.

I noted the approach of the Voskjard’s fleet, the ships moving in pairs, with more than a hundred yards between the pairs. It is difficult, of course, for a single ship to protect itself against a brace of assailants. The members of the pair circle about, so as to attack at right angles to one another. It is thus impossible to protect oneself, if caught, against both. One’s hull must be exposed to the strike of at least one ram.

“We must hold the line,” said a man beside me, tensely.

“Yes,” I said. “That is true.”

Another fellow, near me, lifted his bow, an arrow fitted to the string. He bent the bow, drawing the string back, the arrow at a sharp angle. Then he relaxed the bow, but did not remove the shaft from the string. “They will soon be within range,” he said.

“Withdraw!” begged the officer above and behind us on the stem castle with Callimachus. “Withdraw!” he begged.

“They would be upon us before we could come about,” said Callimachus.

I heard steel leaving sheaths about me.

“Sound the battle horns,” said Callimachus.

“Sound the battle horns!” called the officer beside him.

The bronze horns of battle then smote with their shrill trumpeting the air of the Vosk.

I withdrew my sword from its sheath.

I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving back pirates.

One of my feet was on the Tina . The other was on the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the Tina , using loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart.

There was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together, protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships. The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn, splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height, some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been turned like tin.

A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching, grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman, below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its flight. Only the blood at the pirate’s throat marked its passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the screaming men.

I leaped onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number.

I nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the Tina , too on the pirate’s vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck board the Tina , literally with the pirates. He struck a defender’s pike away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the Tina . Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates.

I heard timbers creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the Tina . We had ten or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her stem castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling hooks. “Rogue!” cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands, grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not have been pleased.