The contest presented itself to me as a problem. The Krozair swifter had cut through the convoy in a straight line. Now she was beginning to turn. Gafard followed, more slowly, and pulled out free of the convoy flank. Orders rattled and the whistles blew and the oars came up, level and still. Like a faithful rark guarding a flock of chunkrah, the Green swifter hovered, ready to dart larboard or starboard to catch the Red swifter in the flank as she bore in again. The oars in the Krozair swifter leveled.
Both vessels drifted.
If this was a waiting game, then every advantage lay with Gafard. As though to confirm that a hail reached us and the news flashed like wildfire about the swifter.
"Swifters! Coming up fast!" And, then, "Green!"
The Krozair captain made out the fresh vessels at about the same time. Immediately he put up his helm.
"He’s running! May Grotal the Reducer grind his bones!"
By the time the Green swifters, four of them from the scattered squadron, hove up, the Red swifter was a brilliant dot on the horizon. I gazed after that speck of color, and I sighed. I wondered who her captain might be. He had struck a shrewd blow for Zair. He had struck like a leem and destroyed, and had vanished the moment the odds altered. He had acted as a proper ship captain and not as so often the Krozairs did as a crusader willing to die for no good purpose.
I would remember that golden chavonth figurehead. Maybe I might live to shake that Krozair captain’s hand.
Gafard was livid with rage.
He looked dangerous.
"The rast! Twenty good broad ships — burned! And I’ll wager he has no more than twenty casualties, if that."
We had thirty dead and wounded.
Later, when Gafard’s anger had cooled — and this was after he had spent a bur with the Lady of the Stars — I said to him, when it was safe, for I had no wish to puncture the boil of his anger again and drown in the suppuration: "An interesting vessel, that Krozair swifter."
"You must have seen them, as have I. They play about with their ship specifications, the shipwrights of Sanurkazz. I’d say she was a seven-seven hundred-and-forty-four. Double banked, shallow draft, broadish in the beam, but quick and deadly."
"I saw the oars, gernu. Seven-seven, you say?"
"Not tiered — raked. A diabolical design. But, given a fairer margin, I’d say Volgodont’s Fang could catch her."
Yes, I said to myself. Yes, I’d risk that. The speed of turning had been found in a greater beam for length ratio; maybe there was more than just the one controversy in Sanurkazz these days. Maybe the short-keel people had gone over to the long-keel argument and then given their ships a broader beam and so regained their original position.
She’d been low in the water, long and deadly, and I knew she was a highly tuned precision fighting instrument.
As she’d cut through the sea a deal of spray had flown over the prijikers, wetting my old comrade, Pur Kardazh.
Where I had stood the spray had flown clear.
Maybe the swifters of the inner sea were developing faster than I had given them credit for, for with a man’s life-span extending to two hundred years, change was bound to be slower on Kregen than on Earth.
"The Golden Chavonth?" said Gafard, pulling his black beard. "Aye. Aye, I’ll remember her." For the rest of that day we went on our way, slowly gathering up the convoy, for the breeze I had expected got up. I wondered how the captain of Golden Chavonth would have dealt with a hundred and fifty of the broad ships instead of the fifty he had met, and of which he had destroyed twenty. The swifters closed up, the sails were set, and we passed the rest of the night on course for Benarej Island. We were late for the rendezvous; but we met the other squadron, fifteen swifters of various sizes, and, after a day spent recovering, we all weighed or were slipped for the southern shore. By Zair, though! Hadn’t that Krozair swifter presented a grand sight with all her flags red and glorious under the Suns of Scorpio! And hadn’t her captain led Gafard, the King’s Striker, the Sea-Zhantil, a right merry dance!
Chapter Twelve
I, Gadak, a Green Grodnim of very dubious reliability, watched moodily as the army disembarked. There seemed to be no end to the lines of marching men, the strings of sectrixes, the rolling thunder of the varters on their wheeled carriages. There were hebramen, also, and the Grodnims considered these would give them a decided advantage in scouting against the Zairians. So I stood on the quarterdeck of Volgodont’s Fang, where she had been pulled up onto the shelving beach, and I brooded.
Duhrra stood with me and he breathed harshly through his opened mouth, his hook hidden within his green robe.
"You are sure he did not recognize you, Dak — Gadak?"
"No. Anyway, I had a fold of white cloth about my face. I fancy it is a precaution we could both do well to adopt all the time. The sand in the wind here gives ample excuse." I had not told Duhrra that it was a Krozair Brother I had recognized and he no doubt took it that I referred to one of the seamen, one of the prijiker party, or the varterists. I fancy he wanted to know nothing about Krozairs. They are regarded as men apart, dedicated, austere, giving their whole being to fighting the Green for the glory of Zair. Those Brothers who choose to take the world-scene, as had I, achieve this sense of awed mystery when they adopt the Krozair symbol no less than the Bolds, who are men dedicated for every single mur of their lives to the Krozair Brethren. That symbol had been displayed in Golden Chavonth: the hubless spoked wheel within the scarlet circle. That device had stirred me. I felt uneasy. I had been ejected and I must regain my place in order to leave the inner sea and I was doing precious little about it. That there was precious little I could do at the moment had no importance in the sense of nagging frustration.
My plans depended on a great stroke, a High Jikai.
I was kept running about on errands for Gafard.
He provided me with a hebra, a spirited little animal, for all it was no match for a zorca, and I grew to like it. Its name was Grodnofaril, and I thought it inexpedient to change that, so I called it "Boy" and left well alone.
We had landed on the main southern shore in a deeply indented arm of the sea some twenty dwaburs to the east of Shazmoz. The east. About twenty dwaburs across country to the east of us rose the Zairian fortress town of Pynzalo. It goes without saying that any town or city on the Red or Green shore must be strongly fortified if it lies within a day’s march of the sea. These frowning battlemented places must be strong. Most towns and cities are inland, well away from raid and foray. King Genod’s idea was simple enough. Reputed a genius at war, he demonstrated some of the necessary qualities of genius by issuing instructions to his subordinates that were easy to comprehend. Their execution would be another matter, of course.
After Shazmoz had been relieved the combined Zairian armies had fought on to the west, rolling up some of the Grodnim defensive positions, for they had been weak, every mind being set upon advance to the east. Now the advance had stalled and both armies lay in stalemate.
Our descent onto the rear like this would seriously disrupt communications, at the least. We had already caught a supply column — and there was nothing I could do about that. Even ships that coasted along the shore could be snapped up. Once the fleet of broad ships had discharged the army and supplies for a period they left us, to return to Magdag. They were expected again very shortly, bearing the main supply buildup. So, here we sat, astride the Red communications, and very ready to strike in any direction. More fleeting raids by Zairian swifters had bothered us, but since that destructive onslaught by Golden Chavonth nothing so damaging had been achieved against us. I fancied that Gafard might not wait for his full supplies. They had been faced, the king and the King’s Striker, with the alternatives of dispatching half the army with full supplies, or all the army with limited supplies. In my view, given the caliber of Gafard, the king had chosen correctly. One must always remember the slowness of armies when men march on their feet, and draft and pack animals carry their gear and supplies and there are no mechanical contrivances for transport.