The Eternal Champion

I rolled, trying desperately to regain my footing on the blood-smeared deck. The axe smashed down again, on to my breastplate, winding me. I struggled up into a crouching position, plunged forward beneath the axe and slashed at the Eldren's bared wrist.

A peculiar sobbing grunt escaped his lips. He groaned and died. The 'poison' of the blade had done its work yet again. I still did not understand how the metal itself could be poisoned, but there was no doubting its effectiveness. I straightened up, my bruised body throbbing as I stared down at the brave young Eldren who now lay at my feet. Then I looked about me.

I saw that we had the advantage. The last pocket of fiercely fighting Eldren was on the main deck, back to back around their banner-a scarlet field bearing the Silver Basilisk of Mernadin.

I stumbled towards the fray. The Eldren were fighting to the last man. They knew they would receive no mercy from their human enemies.

I stopped. The warriors had no need of help from me. I sheathed my sword and watched as the Eldren were engulfed by our forces and, although all badly wounded, continued to fight until slain.

I looked about me. A peculiar silence seemed to surround the two locked ships, though in the distance the sound of cannon could still be heard.

Then Katorn, who had led the attack on the last Eldren defenders, snatched down their basilisk banner and flung it into the flowing Eldren blood. Insanely he began to trample the flag until it was completely soaked and unrecognisable.

'Thus will all the Eldren perish!' he screamed in his mad triumph. 'All! All! All!'

He stumbled below to see what loot there was.

The silence returned. The drifting smoke began to dissipate and hang higher in the air above us, obscuring the sunlight.

Now that the flagship was taken, the day was won. Not one prisoner would be taken. In the distance the victorious human warriors were busy firing the Eldren vessels. There seemed to be no Eldren ships left uncaptured, none fleeing over the horizon. Many of our own ships had been destroyed or were sinking in flames. Both sides' craft were stretched across a vast expanse of water and the ocean itself was covered by a great carpet of wreckage and corpses so that it looked as if the remaining ships were trapped in it, as if in some Sargasso Sea.

I, for one, felt trapped by it. I wanted to leave this scene as soon as possible. The smell of the dead choked me. This was not the battle I had expected to fight. This was not the glory I had hoped to win.

Katorn re-emerged with a look of satisfaction on his dark face.

'You're empty-handed,' I said. 'Why so pleased.'

He wiped his lips. 'Duke Baynahn had his daughter with him.'

'Is she still alive?'

'Not now.'

I shuddered.

Katorn stretched up his head and looked around him. 'Good. We've finished them. I'll give orders to fire the remaining vessels.'

'Surely,' I said, 'that is a waste. We could use those ships to replace those we have lost.'

'Use these cursed craft-never.' He spoke with a twist of his mouth and strode to the rail of the Eldren flagship, shouting to his men to follow him back to their own vessel.

I came reluctantly, looking back to where the corpse of the betrayed Duke Baynahn still lay, the crossbow bolt projecting from his slender neck.

Then I clambered aboard our ship and I gave the orders to save what grapples we could and cut away the rest.

King Rigenos greeted me. He had taken no part in the actual fighting. 'You did well, Erekose. Why, you could have taken that ship single-handed.'

'I could have done,' I said. 'I could have taken the whole fleet single-handed…'

He laughed. 'You are very confident! The whole fleet!'

'Aye. There was one way.'

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'If you had let me fight Duke Baynahn-as he suggested-many lives and many ships would have been saved. Our lives. Our ships.'

'You surely did not trust him? The Eldren will always try some trick like that. Doubtless if you had agreed to his plan, you would have stepped aboard his ship and been cut down by a hundred arrows. Believe me, Erekose, you must not be deceived by them. Our ancestors were so deceived-and look how we suffer now!'

I shrugged. 'Maybe you are right.'

'Of course I am right.' King Rigenos turned his head and called to our crew. 'Fire the ship! Fire that cursed Eldren craft! Hurry up, you luggards!'

He was in a good humour was King Rigenos. A great good humour.

I watched as blazing arrows were accurately shot into bales of combustible materials which had been placed in strategic parts of the Eldren ship.

The slender vessel soon caught. The bodies of the slain began to burn and oily smoke struck upward to the sky. The ship drifted away, its silver cannon like the snouts of slaughtered beasts, its glistening sails dropping in flaming ribbons to the already flaming deck. It gave a long shudder suddenly as if expiring the last of its life.

'Put a couple of shots below the waterline,' Katorn shouted to his gunners. 'Let's make sure the thing sinks once and for all.'

Our brazen cannon snarled and the heavy shot smashed into the Eldren flagship, sending up gouts of water and crashing through the timbers.

The flagship yawed, but still seemed to be trying to stay upright Her drifting went slower and slower as she settled lower in the water until she had stopped altogether. And then all at once she sank swiftly and was gone.

I thought of the Eldren duke. I thought of his daughter.

And in a way I now envied them. They would know eternal peace, just as it seemed I should know nothing but eternal strife.

Our fleet began to reassemble.

We had lost thirty-eight men-o'-war and a hundred and ten smaller craft of different types.

But nothing remained of the Eldren fleet.

Nothing but the burning hulks which we now left, sinking, behind us as we sailed, in battle-thirsty glee, for Paphanaal.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN PAPHANAAL

For the rest of our sailing towards Paphanaal, I avoided both Katorn and King Rigenos. Perhaps they were right and the Eldren could not be trusted. But should we not set some kind of example?

On the second night of the voyage after the big battle with the Eldren, Count Roldero visited me.

'You did well there,' he said. 'Your tactics were superb. And I hear you accounted well for yourself in the hand-to-hand fighting.' He looked about him in mock fear and whispered, jerking his thumb at a vague spot above him, 'But I hear Rigenos decided that it was best he did not put the royal person in danger, lest we warriors lose heart.'

'Oh,' I said, 'Rigenos has a fair point. He came with us, don't forget. He could have stayed behind. We all expected him to. Did you hear of the order he gave while the truce was on with the enemy commander?'

Roldero sniffed. 'Had him shot by Katorn, right?'

'Yes.'

'Well…' Roldero grinned at me. 'You make allowances for Rigenos's cowardice and I'll make allowances for his treachery!' He burst into gusty laughter. 'That's fair, eh?'

I could not help smiling. But later, more seriously, I said: 'Would you have done the same, Roldero?'

'Oh, I expect so. War, after all…'

'But Baynahn was prepared to fight me. He must have known his chances were slim. He must have known, too, that Rigenos could not be trusted to keep his word…'

'If he did, then he would have acted as Rigenos acted. It was just that Rigenos was quicker. Merely tactics, you see-the trick is to gauge the exact moment to be treacherous.'

'Baynahn did not look like one who would have acted treacherously.'

'He is probably a very kind man and treated his family well. I told you, Erekose, it is not Baynahn's character I dispute. I just say that, as a warrior, he would have tried what Rigenos succeeded in doing-eliminating the enemy's chief. It is one of the basic principles of warfare!'