“You would make a good soldier, Pirvan,” Haimya said as she came up.
Pirvan let her squeeze his shoulders until the worst of the pains were gone. Then he touched the back of his hand to her cheek. It left a muddy streak.
“You would make a good thief, I should say.”
“Thank you. Shall we bind these gentlemen and be about our business?”
Chapter 17
Much of the time, Grimsoar One-Eye did not miss his lost eye. Without it he had lost some of his power to judge distances, but that was a loss a man could live with, except in a fight and sometimes even then.
Today would be a fight that everyone who survived it, human or minotaur, would retell to his grandchildren as long as he had breath in his body. A man who could not tell whether a minotaur with an axe was in striking range might have to survive in the stories other men told.
At least he would die among men who would see that his body received decent rites and his death was properly reported to the brothers. That would ensure the lawful division of what he had left behind.
Grimsoar shifted his gaze from the onrushing minotaur ships to study the decks of Golden Cup. Lady Eskaia lacked the wits to go entirely below, but remained on the aftercastle. She looked to be well guarded and alert, which was about as much as anyone could contrive now. Up there was a less likely victim of stray arrows or stones, and if the aftercastle fell, Golden Cup was doomed anyway Gazing forward, Grimsoar sought Tarothin. So did some of the men beside him, the largest, strongest, and most finished fighters aboard. The fore- and aftercastle had to be held, but the longer it took the minotaurs to fight their way onto the midships deck (the waist, as sailors called it) …
Grimsoar saw no wizard; neither did his comrades, and some of them cursed. Grimsoar clamped a hand on the shoulder of the loudest.
“Tarothin can’t do a blessed thing except heal in this battle. Otherwise, we’ve gone beyond the limits of honor, and the minotaurs will fight to the death. Ours or theirs, it won’t matter.”
The sailor was suddenly stricken mute. In the next moment a dozen voices cried out as one. A minotaur slid down to the ram of the leading ship, guiding himself with one hand while he held a shatang-the heavy, barbed minotaur throwing spear-in the other. Balancing as if on the level sand of the arena, he raised the shatang and flung it.
“Stand!” Grimsoar bellowed, echoed by Kurulus and the captain. “Flinch, and they’ll fight harder.”
Nobody flinched, and mercifully the shatang flew high. It cleared the bulwarks and sank a hand’s-breadth into the tough wood of the mainmast’s stump. Everyone stared at the quivering shaft until Grimsoar walked over to the mast, jerked the spear free, and snapped it over his knee. Then he held up the broken pieces, and made an unmistakable gesture with them. The minotaur spearman shook both fists at Grimsoar, then scrambled back onto the deck of his ship.
No further minotaurs made any such grand gestures; the ships were too close. Indeed, the nearer ship was now within easy bowshot. Golden Cup archers let fly from both fore and aft, but Grimsoar saw they’d been given the right orders. None of the arrows sank into minotaur flesh; they merely sprouted from bulwarks, decks, oars, and gear. The minotaurs had been warned, not hurt, let alone enraged.
Not that it ever takes much to get a minotaur into a rage, Grimsoar reminded himself. Even the most honorable ones act like they were born in a bad mood.
The first ship was slowing now, and some of its oars were disappearing through the oar ports. Grimsoar heard someone shout a taunt, but knew that this could hardly be good news for Golden Cup.
The next moment proved it. The rowers below were leaving their oars, arming themselves, and swarming on deck. More spears flew, and not warnings or defiant gestures now, but aimed to kill.
Only one shatang found a mark. With its barbed head and the impetus of a minotaur’s throw behind it, the spear not only pierced a sailor’s throat, it nearly took his head off. His blood was the first to spread across Golden Cup’s deck as two of the ship’s boys ran to pour sand on it.
Hope we don’t run out of sand, was Grimsoar’s vagrant thought.
Then the second ship swept past its comrade, oars flashing and rainbows blazing in the spray, driving straight at Golden Cup. Its crew seemed determined to show that no beings created by the gods could row like minotaurs.
This ship is supposed to be proof against ramming, Grimsoar reminded himself. Then somewhere in his mind something impudent added: But did anyone tell the minotaurs?
Then the show ended, as the second minotaur ship drove its ram into Golden Cup’s side. Grimsoar jerked his head back just as the deck quivered under him. He still needed a good grip to keep from sprawling, and he heard tortured metal screaming and overburdened wood cracking. He could not tell which ship was giving off those agonized sounds.
He could tell the minotaurs’ tactics at a glance, however. With the ram wedged in Golden Cup’s side, the minotaur whip might not have given the enemy a mortal wound, but it was a wide, firm bridge to let the minotaur crew reach the larger vessel’s side amidships.
Reach it, and perhaps swarm onto Golden Cup’s decks in numbers that-
Trumpets blared from both sides, drums drowned out the trumpets, and war cries fought to drown out both. The minotaurs’ bellowing gave them the advantage in this war of dreadful sounds, but they weren’t relying heavily on their stout lungs and deep chests.
The crew of the second ship was already swarming aboard its comrade. Meanwhile, the crew of the first was rushing forward. Some held lines ending in grappling hooks, some hooked poles, and still others light ladders (at least “light” by the measure of minotaurs).
All of them carried more than one weapon, but wore them on their belts or across chests and backs, to leave their hands free for climbing.
Grimsoar finished his previous thought: We may just have too many minotaurs coming aboard to do them much damage with a rearguard action.
Again the blare of trumpets, but this time only from Golden Cup, and before they died, Grimsoar heard the whine and hiss of arrows.
* * * * *
Pirvan and Haimya did their best to stay under cover, move quickly, and avoid leaving a trail as they fled the place of their battle with the sentries. The moment the men were found, the hunt would be up, perhaps less merciless because the men were not dead, perhaps not.
On this ground, it was impossible for the thief and warrior-maid to do all three tasks at once, until the rain began. By the time the rain was in full spate, they might as well have been marching under a waterfall. Their footprints vanished before they’d covered fifty paces, the rain itself was as opaque as the undergrowth and much easier to push through, and they hardly needed to move quickly. Nobody was likely to be following them.
“Nobody may need to follow us, either, if we fall down a cliff in this murk,” Haimya reminded Pirvan. She had to put her mouth close to his ear, spit rain out of her mouth, brush strands of hair from her face with her free hand, and then shout to be heard above the rain. When thunder rumbled and crashed across the land, no human voice could make itself heard.
“Are you suggesting we find shelter?” Pirvan replied, making himself understood after four tries. “Look for it, anyway. In this rain I don’t know if anything but a cave will do, and somebody may have already claimed it.”
“The black dragon?” Haimya asked.