“Not my allies—Garach’s.” She turned and faced him and he saw that her anger over her discomfiture had made her forget caution.
“Rhiannon or no Rhiannon,” she cried, “I will say what has been in my mind to say all these years. I hate your crawling pupils of Caer Dhu! I loathe them utterly—and now you may slay me if you will!”
And she strode out onto the deck, letting the door slam shut behind her.
Carse sat still behind the table. He was trembling all over with nervous strain and presently he would pour wine to aid him. But just now he was amazed to find how happy it could make him to know that Ywain too hated Caer Dhu.
The wind had dropped by midnight and for hours the galley forged on under oars, moving at far less than her normal speed because they were short-handed in the rowers’ pit, having lost the Khonds that made up the full number.
And at dawn the lookout sighted four tiny specks on the horizon that were the hulls of longships, coming on from Khondor.
XVI. Voice of the Serpent
Carse stood on the afterdeck with Boghaz. It was mid-morning. The calm still held and now the longships were close enough to be seen from the deck.
Boghaz said, “At this rate they’ll overhaul us by nightfall.”
“Yes.” Carse was worried. Under-manned as she was the galley could not hope to outdistance the Khonds under oars alone. And the last thing Carse wanted was to be forced into the position of fighting Ironbeard’s men. He knew he couldn’t do it.
“They’ll break their hearts to catch us,” he said. “And these are only the van. The whole of the Sea Kings fleet will be coming on behind them.”
Boghaz looked at the following ships. “Do you think we’ll ever reach Sark?”
“Not unless we raise a fair wind,” Carse said grimly, “and even then not by much of a margin. Do you know any prayers?”
“I was instructed in my youth,” answered Boghaz piously.
“Then pray!”
But all that long hot day there was no more than a breath of air to ripple the galley’s sails. The men wearied at the sweeps. They had not much heart for the business at best, being trapped between two evils with a demon for captain, and they had only so much strength.
The longships doggedly, steadily, grew closer.
In the late afternoon, when the setting sun made a magnifying glass of the lower air the outlook reported other ships far back in the distance. Many ships—the armada of the Sea Kings.
Carse looked up into the empty sky, bitter of heart.
The breeze began to strengthen. As the sails filled the rowers roused themselves and pulled with renewed vigor.
Presently Carse ordered the sweeps in. The wind blew strongly. The galley picked up speed and the longships could no more than hold their own.
Carse knew the galley’s speed. She was a fast sailer and with her great spread of canvas might hope to keep well ahead of the pursuers if the wind held.
If the wind held…
The next few days were enough to drive a man mad. Carse drove the men in the pit without mercy and each time the sweeps had to be run out the beat grew slower as they reached the point of exhaustion.
By the narrowest margin Carse kept the galley ahead. Once, when it seemed they were surely caught, a sudden storm saved them by scattering the lighter ships, but they came on again. And now a man could see the horizon dotted with a host of sails, where the armada irresistibly advanced.
The immediate pursuers grew from four to five, and then to seven. Carse remembered the old adage that a stern chase is a long one but it seemed that this one could not go on much longer.
There came another time of flat hot calm. The rowers drooped and sweated at the oars driven only by their fear of the Khonds and try as they would there was no bite in the stroke.
Carse stood by the after rail, watching, his face lined and grim. The game was up. The lean longships were putting on a burst of speed, closing in for the kill.
Suddenly, sharply, there came a hail from the masthead.
“Sail ho!”
Carse whirled, following the line of the lookout’s pointing arm.
“Sark ships!”
He saw them ahead, racing up under a fast beat, three tall war-galleys of the patrol. Leaping to the edge of the rowers’ pit, he shouted to the men.
“Pull, you dogs! Lay into it! There’s help on the way!”
They found their last reserves of energy. The galley made a desperate lurching run. Ywain came to Carse’s side.
“We’re close to Sark now, Lord Rhiannon. If we can keep ahead a little longer…”
The Khonds rushed down on them, pushing furiously in a last attempt to ram and sink the galley before the Sarks could reach them. But they were too late.
The patrol ships swept by. They charged in among the Khonds and scattered them and the air was filled with shouts and the twangings of bow strings, and the terrible ripping sound of splintering oars as a whole bank was crushed into matchwood.
There began a running fight that lasted all afternoon. The desperate Khonds hung on and would not be driven off. The Sark ships closed in around the galley, a mobile wall of defense. Time and again the Khonds attacked, their light swift craft darting in hornet-like, and were driven off. The Sarks carried ballistas, and Carse saw two of the Khond ships holed and sunk by the hurtling stones.
A light breeze began to blow. The galley picked up speed. And now blazing arrows flew, searching out the bellying sails. Two of the escort ships fell back with their canvas ablaze but the Khonds suffered also. There were only three of them left in the fight and the galley was by now well ahead of them.
They came in sight of the Sark coast, a low dark line above the water. And then, to Carse’s great relief, other ships came out to meet them, drawn by the fighting, and the three remaining Khond longships put about and drew off.
It was all easy after that. Ywain was in her own place again. Fresh rowers were put aboard from other ships and one swift craft went ahead of them to carry warning of the attacks and news of Ywain’s coming.
But the smoke of the burning longships astern was a painful thing to Carse. He looked at the massed sails of the Sea Kings in the far distance and felt the huge and crushing weight of the battle that was to come. It seemed to him in that moment that there was no hope.
They came in late afternoon into the harbor of Sark. A broad estuary offered anchorage for countless ships and on both sides of the channel the city sprawled in careless strength.
It was a city whose massive arrogance suited the men who had built it. Carse saw great temples and the squat magnificence of the palace, crowning the highest hill. The buildings were almost ugly in their solid strength, their buttressed shoulders jutting against the sky, brilliant with harsh colors and strong designs.
Already this whole harbor area was in a feverish sweat of activity. Word of the Sea Kings’ coming had started a swift manning of ships and readying of defenses, the uproar and tumult of a city preparing for war.
Boghaz, beside him, muttered, “We’re mad to walk like this into the dragon’s throat. If you can’t carry it off as Rhiannon, if you make one slip…”
Carse said, “I can do it. I’ve had considerable practice by now in playing the Cursed One.”
But inwardly he was shaken. Confronted by the massive might of Sark it seemed a mad insolence to attempt to play the god here.
Crowds along the waterfront cheered Ywain wildly as she disembarked. And they stared in some amazement at the tall man with her, who looked like a Khond and wore a great sword.
Soldiers formed a guard around them and forced a way through the excited mob. The cheering followed them as they went up through the crowded city streets toward the brooding palace.