A cheer rose spontaneously from my throat.
"Fight!" I heard Policrates scream. "Fight!"
I saw a pirate being strangled with a chain. I saw a flailing chain, doubled, tear a pirate's head half from his body. Shovels slashed down at pirates. Pikes stabbed and cut. Spears thrust. I saw a pirate fall over the body of another pirate, who had been struck with an arrow. An outraged citizen thrust down, driving the vertically mounted point of a boat hook into the fellow's face. An instant later he had caught another pirate by the neck, with the horizontally mounted hook on the staff and pulled him backward. Another citizen thrust his sword into the fellow's belly. The archers had now left the roof tops to hurry to the melee, that they might, at point-blank range, pick targets. I saw some five pirates thrust back off the edge of the concourse into the water. An ax split the side of the helmet open of another pirate. Still more citizens were running forth, from buildings, from further down the wharves, with spears and swords.
"On!" I cried. "On for Victoria!"
"Fight! Stand! Fight!" screamed Policrates.
I saw a dozen pirates break and run for their ships.
I struggled on the blade. In a frenzy I tried to free myself. But I could not do so. I was helpless. I had been tied by Gorean men.
A man ran past me, hurrying to the ship.
"Stand, fight!" I heard Policrates screaming. I saw him strike a pirate in the back of the neck with his sword, cutting his head half from his body, who had turned to run. "Stand, fight!" he screamed.
A dozen more pirates, here and there, in their ragged lines, turned about and broke for their ships. Then a dozen more!
"Withdraw!" shouted Policrates. "Back to the ships!"
"Back to the ships!" called Ragnar Voskjard.
"Back to the ships!" called Kliomenes.
"Back to the ships!" called Callisthenes.
Men were now hurrying past me. Some were bloody, and wounded. Swords slashed down at the mooring ropes. I felt the flagship of Policrates shift in the water. Men were fighting on the wharf now. Men behind me, I heard clamber aboard. I did not know whether or not they could board a crew. Policrates himself ran past me, and Kliomenes, and Callisthenes. I heard them leaping to the bulwarks of the ship and clambering aboard. "Poles!" shouted Policrates. "Oars outboard!" I could see the pirate ship to my left, across the wharf, moored on the opposite side, its mooring ropes cut, backing away from the wharf. Then the ship on which I was bound, poles thrusting against the wharf, slid to my right and backward. A pirate running for the ship missed the bow rail and fell into the water. He began to thrash and scream in the water, attacked by eels. I looked down, into the water. Below me the water was swarming with eels. The blood from my back, I realized, running down the blade and dripping into the water, had attracted them.
The wharves, now, were crowded with men. Pirates fell into the water. Others, in the rearward ranks, who could turn, did so, and fled toward the ships. Some ran past me and apparently leaped to oars, trying to hold them and use them to clamber aboard. I heard a man scream, struck, behind me. "Do not encumber the oars!" cried Policrates. I heard a body slide into the water behind me. An outjutting oar struck against the wharf. I heard another body strike the water. Then the ship was out from the wharf. I saw pirates throwing down their weapons, and kneeling on the wharf. There was cheering from the men of Victoria.
"Well done, Lads!" I called. "Well done!"
"We shall return!" screamed Policrates to the wharves. "You have not heard the last of us! We're coming back, you sleen! We're coming back!"
Then the stern of the ship struck against another pirate galley, trying to extricate itself from the press of ships. "Get that fool out of the way!" screamed Policrates. Arrows, wrapped with oil-soaked, flaming rags, struck against the ship. The bow swung about, eccentrically. Below me, swirling in the water, I could see eels.
"Back oars!" screamed Policrates. "Back oars!" cried Kliomenes. "Extinguish the fires!" cried Callisthenes. There was another heavy, grating noise as the stern of the ship was struck again, by another pirate vessel. Blood flowed down the blade to which I was bound, yet I was almost uncognizant of this, so elated I was. On the wharves I could see kneeling pirates, being stripped and bound. They were, too, being roped together by the neck. I did not think that they would find the citizens of Victoria indulgent captors. They would be treated little better than slave girls.
"Well done, Lads!" I called to the men of Victoria. A spear blade from the bulwarks, thrust down, struck down at me, but glanced off the metal, flashing sparks near my right cheek. I could smell smoke. The flagship of Policrates seemed jammed among the ships, each trying to escape. "Well done, Lads!" I cried. "Well done!"
"Get those fools out of the way!" Policrates was screaming. The flagship of Policrates moved backward a dozen feet or so, and then again, striking against another ship, or the same, came again to a stop. "Well done!" I cried. The spear blade thrust down again, but again, came short of its mark. I heard a man curse. Then he left the rail.
"Well done," I cried. "Well done!" I was elated. I could scarcely feel my pain, or the burns of the ropes. I was only dimly conscious of the wetness of my back. Then something wet and heavy, slithering, leapt upward out of the water, and splashed back. My leg felt stinging. It had not been able to fasten its jaws on me.
I looked downward. Two or more heads, tapering, menacing, solid, were emerged from the water, looking up at me. Then, streaking from under the water, suddenly breaking its surface, another body, some four feet in length, about eight or ten pounds in weight, leapt upward. I felt the jaws snap and scratch against the shearing blade. Then it fell twisting back in the water. It was the blood which excited them. I strove again, then, to escape, pulling against the bonds, trying to abraid them against the back of the blade.
I was now, suddenly, alarmed. My struggles had done nothing more than to lower me a few inches on the blade. I now feared I might be within reach of the leaping eels. I tried to inch upward on the blade. Pressing my legs and arms against the blade I could move upward to my original position, but no further, because of the ropes on my ankles, catching on the bottom side of the blade fixture, and it was extremely difficult and painful to hold myself that high on the blade.
I was sweating, and terrified. Then the flagship of Policrates, responding to another impact, lurched to starboard, and, terrified, I slipped back down the blade. My feet, bound back, on each side of the blade, were little more than a foot from the water. Again, frenzied, in terror, I tried to struggle. But, to my dismay, I was again held perfectly. I could not even begin to free myself. I was absolutely helpless. I had been bound by Gorean men.
I felt another stinging bite at my leg, where another of the heavy, leaping eels tried to feed. Again I inched my way painfully, by my thighs and forearms, higher on the blade. If we could get to free water I did not think the eels would pursue us far from the wharves and shore.
Then suddenly I realized I might have but moments before the ship managed to free itself and back into the river. Suddenly I allowed myself to slide down the blade. "Are you hungry, little friends?" I inquired. "Can you smell sweat and fear? Does blood make you mad? Leap, little brothers. Render me service." I looked down at several of the heavy, tapering heads projecting from the water, at the eyes like filmed stones. "Taste blood," I encouraged them. I thrust back against the blade. I tried to abraid my ankles against the steel.
I knew that the fastening of those jaws, in a fair bite, could gouge ounces of flesh from a man's body. Too I knew that the eel seldom takes its food out of the water, that such strikes, in all probability, had not been selected for. Accordingly, the only inward compensation for the refraction differential would presumably have to be learned by trial and error. More than one of the beasts had already struck the blade and not my body. But, too, they might not understand that the blood source was my body; they might understand, rather, only the point at which blood was entering the water.