“No, that’s for me,” Arnanak said. “You may come right behind.” An old thought passed through him, how foolish it really was that a leader must always be in the van. But he might not live to see his Tassui become a soberly calculating civilized race. “Anyhow, if they’re strong they won’t be worth the risk and loss of attacking, when our holds are already stuffed with booty.”
“What? But then they’ll go make war against our brothers ashore!”
“Say, rather, they’ll enter the cage we’re building. Frankly, I’d have steered wide of them, save that a glance across their decks should give a hint as to whether Sehala is serious about keeping Port Rua,” Arnanak lifted his telescope again.
They were preparing for battle on the southland craft. He saw only a few legionaries among the sailors. There might have more below, ready to spring a surprise, but he doubted that; they could not have foretold this encounter. To be sure, as Fire Time neared, merchant crews also got trained for combat. Nevertheless, here was not likely any troopship. It must be a carrier of messages, incidental supplies, maybe a personage or two on special mission.
Then should he close? They’d give a stem reply. Two lucky hits from those ballistas fore and aft could wreck his vessels. Or he himself might be killed, and the alliance he had forged soon rust away… Well. he took that hazard whenever he trod into action. And he might win a treasure or learn a thing of unreckonable value…
What was that form which came from a deckhouse? Two legs, no body-barrel whatsoever, wrapped in cloths though long yellow-brown strands fluttered from beneath a headband—
“We fight!” Arnanak bellowed.
While shouts rang and weapons rattled around him, he leaned over the platform edge and told Usayuk: “Hark, they bear a human among them. Can we capture it, who knows what it may tell us, what ransom we can get or bargains make? Bring us alongside and grapple fast. I’ll lead our storm. But all we want is that human. The same eyeblink as we come back with it, cast loose and make off. Signal Devourer to take their starboard side, as we their port.”
“Hu—man-n?” The mate showed unease. Like most Tassui, he had merely heard rumors about the strangers; but those whispered of wizardry.
“It may unleash a terror against us,” Arnanak admitted. “Vu-wa, we can be no worse than slain, can we? And forsooth the Gathering will never of its free choice give us an opening unto those creatures.” He raised his head and added in an iron tone: “Moreover, I am ally to the dauri.”
Usayuk, and those others who heard, traced signs against ill luck. Yet they were heartened. Though nobody could be sure either what powers the dauri commanded, they lived much closer by than humans.
The Torchbearer cast a light out of the murk ahead, onto the Beronnener ship, as if to set it ablaze.
Arrows whined from topmasts to decks. A ballista stone made a fountain within a javelin throw of Leaper. On both barbarian craft, sails were struck and oars thrust forth. They had worked themselves ahead of the southerner in such wise that its sails—the sole motive power it had—brought it straight in between them.
Arnanak saw the human and a helper rush around, passing out metal tubes with stocks akin to a crossbow’s. Soldiers and sailors took unskilled aim. He saw an archer of his crumple and fall from the shrouds, to smash on deck in a splash of purple. But how different was this from a dart-death? And there was no time for fear.
Inner oars withdrew again. Hulls grated together. Hurled at the ends of cables, grappling irons bit fast.
Swifter and more maneuverable, the northland ships did have less freeboard by a head-height. This alone had overawed many a would-be raider, in the bright days of the Gathering. But since then Arnanak had devised his knockdown platforms and caused them to be widely built.
That on which he stood thrust above the gunwale of his enemy. He pounced downward. His sword belled and sparked on hostile iron.
Beronneners swarmed against him. He laid around, struck aside a descending blade, caught ax-thunder on his shield, chopped into meat and bone. Pew yells lifted. Breath loudened and hoarsened; in the chill wind, pelts steamed white. More Tassui boarded, and more. They cleared a space.
Above heads and helmets, Arnanak saw the human. It stood beside a legionary on the foredeck. In its hands was a sorcerer’s weapon. But the maelstrom of infighting made firearms well-nigh useless. A shot was as likely to hit friend as foe, Arnanak deemed. Anyhow—move! He howled the war cry of Ulu and pushed ahead.
With him came his warriors. Their opponents had not awaited a breakthrough at a single place; that was not the way of boarders who sought to capture a ship. Arnanak’s gang hewed through their mass and sped across bare planks beyond.
Igini outdashed his father and pounded first up the gangway. The human raised its weapon and squeezed trigger. Igini’s head exploded. He fell off the board and lay in purple-soaked shapelessness. Arnanak cast his ax.
He could have thrown it to kill, but he meant to stun. The top of helve and blade caught the human in the midriff. It lurched and sat down. Its weapon clattered free. Arnanak reached the being and swept it into his grasp. The legionary had drawn sword and battled furiously. Sheer weight of arriving warriors drove him into the bows.
The southerners rallied and loped against this little band which had let itself be pinched off. Arnanak’s males held the gangway. He himself went to the port rail. Gripped in his left arm, the human struggled vainly. His right waved at Usayuk. The mate ordered grapnels released. Driven by oars on the farther side, Leaper edged forward until its foredeck was below Arnanak. He sprang. Usayuk’s rowers kept their vessel in place while the rest of the raiders followed.
They were not the whole group. Some, boxed amidships, must take whatever mercy the foe chose to give. Some lay dead, among them Igini, who had been young and glad. But a male could proudly lose a son or life in a cause like this—the capture of a human.
“Fall off!” Usayuk bawled. “Get away!”
Devourer came into view from around the stem of the transport. Its attack on the starboard side had had much to do with making Arnanak’s exploit possible. Both Tassu craft set sail anew. Wind skirled for them. The Beronneners would have no hope of overhauling.
The human staggered to its feet and yelled words. The legionary who had tried to defend it appeared at the rail. He carried a chest which he must have hurried off to fetch from a cabin. Already a broad gap of water churned between him and his uncanny companion. He whirled the casket by a strap and let fly. His cast was heroic. The box boomed against the deckhouse.
“Overboard with that!” Usayuk cried: for it might be deadly.
The human could not have followed his Tassu, but did see how sailors jumped to obey. “No!” it wailed in Sehalan. “Else I’ll die—”
“Belay!” Arnanak called. “We’ll keep yon chest.” And in Sehalan to the human, harshly because of Igini, “I do want you alive for a while, at least.”
FIFTEEN
They shipped Ensign Donald Conway to Mundomar in a large group of air corpsmen. The personnel carrier was old and overcrowded. You had to do everything by turns, by the numbers. To pigeonhole yourself in a bunk another fellow had been using, in the middle of a vast lattice of identical bunks, and lie there listening to your brothers in arms snore and smelling their farts somehow didn’t relate very well to crusades for rescuing gallant pioneers threatened by monstrous aliens and securing mankind’s future among the stars. Not that he had been naive, exactly—old Uncle Larreka was bluntspoken when he shared his memories—yet he had pictured himself as a kind of legionary. Was he, instead, a plug-in unit?