The Anvil of Ice (22 page)

He turned to Kermorvan, and plucked the sunwarmed blade from the sand. His path was set clear before him. "All right, you Sothran pirate! I'll come! But on one condition only! That when this fight's done, if I choose I'll count myself quit. And you'll set me ashore then within easy reach of a town, and food and gear to get there. Agreed?"

"So be it!" barked Kermorvan, with gusto. "We could clasp hands on it, but I've another idea. It's still too clear to launch, the Ekwesh would spot us leagues off. We must needs wait. That maddens me, so as well pass the time making you some semblance of a swordsman. Shall we cross blades on it?" Kermorvan's long sword hissed out, gray steel glittering before eyes that matched it.

Elof grinned, and the black blade gleamed in sullen magnificence. He copied the stance Kermorvan had used. "Fair trade, for the smithcraft I've taught you…"

So they swung and sparred through an hour or more of the afternoon, edge on edge chiming through the thickening haze. The loafing corsairs gathered round to watch and laugh as Elof was stung by the flat of the gray blade, or sent sprawling on his face with the surf lapping round him like an anxious dog; they had all suffered under Kermorvan's instruction. But soon enough as the mist came rolling in across the little bay, they ceased to laugh, and nodded thoughtfully, and laid small wagers against the coming plunder. For Elof s sheer strength told against the subtlety he lacked, and the same eye and hand that placed blows so accurately on the anvil he could turn against his opponent. At length, hilts locked, they swayed eye to eye, breath hissing through dry lips. "Better!" Kermorvan gasped. "One day—a great manslayer—had you only the will!"

"Sooner—beat metal—than men!" wheezed Elof. The tall man laughed, and was about to answer when there came a shout from the high dunes behind the beach. "Sail ho! South away! A black sail!"

"Hands to launch!" bellowed the captain, bounding to his feet. "Shift yer scuts, to the ropes!" Kermorvan dropped his guard and sheathed his sword in one fluid movement, and went pounding off to join the other corsairs, dragging Elof with him. A spring cable, rigged between the sternpost, a solid old tree stump and the bow capstan, pulled the vessel forward on its rollers, while those crewmen not straining at the capstan bars rushed back and forth taking rollers out from under the stern and thrusting them under the advancing bows. Elof, scrambling over the stern, was amazed nobody was crushed, but it was a practiced operation, and the long sleek hull slipped into the oily-calm waters of the bay with hardly a splash. The mist curled around her low gunwales, and wreathed itself around the legs of the roller crewmen being hauled aboard, as if it wanted to hold them back. Many of the men clutched amulets, or made superstitious signs; even Kermorvan rested his forehead against the mast a second, uttering low words. Elof, for his part, simply looked back at the shore, but it was already no more than a shadow in the mist, and even the marshy odor was lost in the myriad smells and stenches of the ship, from tar and damp sealskin sleeping bags to unnamed foulness in the bilges. The captain brought a heavy oilcloth bundle forward, and as he unwrapped it carefully the bow lanterns glinted on a great beast-head, carved and gilded, with staring eyes of red glass and long jaws filled with brass fangs. He reached up and fixed it into a socket atop the forestern, so it rode high over the bows as if on an arching swan-neck.

"Amicac!" cried the crew, and cheered wildly. Elof shuddered.

"Why do they bear the Sea Devourer so gladly as an emblem?" he whispered to Kermorvan.

"What better sign for a corsair?" said the swordsman darkly. "A terror, a scourge and a curse, that may very well be our ensign. We are outlaws or exiles, who might as easily be slain by our own folk as our enemies." He laughed bitterly. "Perhaps we have made our own compact with the Devourer. We send him food, or are ourselves sent down to feed him. Why should we not claim his protection?
Out with your sweeps there! Fix locks
!"

The oarsmen took their benches, and the long heavy sweeps were passed out over the gunwales and mounted on the heavy pivot pins that served as rowlocks. They were held poised a moment, as if about to row through mist rather than water, but as the captain gave the word and struck his halberd upon the deck they dipped and strained in perfect unison, and the lean craft lifted its bows and flew forward, the dark glassy water chuckling and gurgling delightedly around the new ram.

Someone began to sing softly, and after a moment the others took it up, a slow, rather sad chantey, in time with the stroke.

Riding the waters,

Fair is she,

Fair the body of Saithana Sea-Maiden!

Streaming her tresses,

Bright as sun,

White her breasts the gulfs-road cresting!

Body so slender,

Pale as foam,

Silken her flanks through seaswell gliding!

Kermorvan's clear voice rang out over the chorus.

Saithana, come to me, Leave me not drifting Sleeping so lonely Where tideway takes me And the cold claws tear!

"Aye, let 'em call on Saithana while they may," grumbled the skipper to Elof, "for d'you know, sir smith, that she's the promise of drowned men! Now we'll needs thrash about till we find the bleeders, and that's chancy business in night and murk."

"But that's when it must be," added Kermorvan calmly, "for we cannot match the Ekwesh in daylight and under sail. But they are poor navigators, and sail always by following the coasts, and in that is our hope. They must pass the delta, where there is always mist somewhere, and in that we may have them!" He stared out into the thickening fog, where Elof could see nothing. An instant later Kermorvan rapped out an order, and the chantey died away. He rested an ear against the gunwale, as if listening. "Passing the headland rocks, by that swell—eh, skipper?" The captain listened a moment, and nodded. Elof felt the gentle rise and fall beneath his feet grow slower and stronger as they moved out into open sea, though there was still only the faintest breath of a breeze. "Right then!" added Kermorvan. "Douse lanterns, muffle your row-locks, batten down anything loose and most of all your mouths, for there'll be no more shouted orders! We want to hear those reiving bastards before they hear us, remember? Stick to it, then, and this voyage'll see us all rich men!" One subdued cheer answered him, and then a silence thicker than the fog fell about the ship. He turned to Elof. "Do not think the worse of me for holding out the promise of riches. I need them myself."

"How so?"

His hard fist thumped the tiller of the steering oar. "To buy and equip ships of my own! To strike before the raiding, and not have to hover like vultures over the kill! We have engaged four Ekwesh ships so far, and taken three, and I, poor exile as I am, I have saved all my shares—little enough so far, but I was not then second-in-command. Tonight we may see!"

Hours passed, and the corsair beat about, back and forth, searching for some trace of its foe, Kermorvan and the captain plotting their position only by the changing sounds of tide and current. A rare puff of wind would thin the fog, but for the most part the sail hung empty and lifeless, bedewed with the damp, while the corsairs strained at the oars and grew ever more tired and disheartened. Many said the Ekwesh must already have gone by them. Elof took turns rowing, then on watch, standing in the high bows behind the hideous head, one hand tight on the forestay. He glanced down at the ram, cleaving the low swell beneath him, no longer sure he had done right to come, or whether he trusted the swordsman's words. This clammy chill fogged his feelings, forever blank, pallid, silent…

Or was it?

He leaned forward suddenly, holding his breath so it would not drown the faintness of the sounds he heard— creaks, splashes, rumbling of water under a hull, like an echo of the sounds from the ship beneath him, but far, far away in the paleness of the dawn. Could this somehow be a trick of the mist, mirroring and dispersing sound as it did light? But he listened again, held his breath longer till he almost choked, thought he heard the laughter of harsh voices, as if the echo came now out of dark dreams of his youth. He slipped back down onto the deck and passed word aft to the captain and Kermorvan. The oars were stilled, the crew rose and lined the gunwales, listening, and now the sounds grew clearer, drew even closer, till there was no mistaking them.

"But whither away?" puzzled the captain, "'Ere one minute, there the next—can't get 'old of them at all—"

"From ahead there!" said Elof.

"Off the port bow—"

"No, starboard and moving up—"

"But that drum's astern!"

"
Quiet
!" hissed Kermorvan suddenly, and rounded on the rowers in fury. "Back to your sweeps, damn you! And row! Row for your lives! Helm, due north and be ready for anything! Archers, to your posts!
They're all around us-"

The corsair boat surged forward, a momentary breath of wind arose around it and the mist rippled like a sail and grew briefly thin. Every man on board ducked down in that moment save Kermorvan, and he stood rooted to the spot. In the faint light, long dark shadows, half again their own length and higher in the water, went knifing through the swell on every side—not just one or two, but twenty at the least.

Then the breeze slackened, and they blessed the mist as it fell again. There was no alarm, no hail of challenge, no creak of catapult winders; the watch had not noticed them. Kermorvan grabbed Elof by the shoulder. "Into the bows, you and Maile, and listen out well! There was one running in toward the shore, we can take him right now if we're quick! Boarding party, arm! Helm—"

Elof scrambled back to his perch with Maile the bosun on his heels, and they hung there listening, relaying whispered commands back to the helm as dark outlines loomed out of the mist around them. A faint thudding rhythm drummed through the hull under them, and the rise and fall of the oars quickened in time with it, the bows leaped and plunged hissing through the dark smooth ocean. The corsair craft weaved on an insane race through the fleet, slipping under bows and bouncing over wash. "Aft, Maile," said Kermorvan's voice from behind them, "and to your post! We're through the thick of them now, and on his heels. Hear?"

Ahead of them now was a deeper, slower sweep of oars, the slow rumble of a drum and harsh voices chanting. Something or somebody was not chanting but wailing, on a high rising note of utter misery. Old memories rose bitter in Elof's throat. He turned to Kermorvan. "Well? Where shall I—" He stopped in astonishment.

In the figure that stood there he saw nothing of Kermorvan. A high helm of dully gleaming metal, richly worked, reared on his head, and below it a mask visor in the form of a face, regal and proud but with a dire rage and cruelty in its slanted eyes and flared nostrils. A shining steel collar circled the throat, and below that a casing of dark mail from head to toe, set with plates at shoulder, arm and knee, and bound about with a great belt of leather bearing axe and long dagger; a long fur cloak hung from his shoulders, mailed boots covered his feet and steel gauntlets ringed with heavy faceted studs covered his hands, in which a great two-handed sword stood bare. Only mouth and chin were left clear of the metal, and the set of the thin lips accorded well with the vicious mask above. Like the statue of some war good brought to life in that fell mist he seemed, or some deadly machine of destruction. Even his voice was tinged with metal. "They grow bold indeed, those eaters of mansflesh. They amble home, where once they would have fled." He paced forward, wrapping the cloak about him to muffle the ring of the mail. "Nevertheless they will be ready to fight quickly enough, and they have one deadly way to meet our attack. The very blades of their sweeps are set with steel edges, and kept sharp, so they can be swung along the gunwales of a foe alongside, with terrible effect. No boarding party can pass—unless a way through is cut at once, before their archers can muster. A murderous task, standing and hacking at those sweeps—for that you need a strong sword and a stern will. I know, for I took that post in our last attacks, and many perished because I could not lead the boarding party. Will you now take it?"

Elof looked at him, and after a second he nodded. "Where must I stand?" he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse. Kermorvan led him a little way aft, to where ten crewmen were gathering, bearing all manner of blades and axes, but wearing as armor only light steel caps and studded leather jerkins, many of Ekwesh type, and small round shields. He could see how many might die without a fully armed man to lead them aboard.

"We have armor for you, if you will—no? Then there's your post," the hard mouth whispered. "Up on the gunwales with you the moment we strike, and keep a hold on the for'ard shrouds here. Two sweeps at least we need cut away, a third if you can manage. Then follow us, or stay to fight off any who try to board us in turn. But hopefully we will keep them too busy for that little trick! So—we are ready. Hold tight now, all of you." The mask glared out into the mist, then aft to the tiller. "Are we within range of her, skipper? Very well, then. Rowers, to ramming speed."

The words were quiet, but there was a greater shout in them. The drumming on the deck grew louder, faster, and the rowers flung themselves forward on their oars, and back, gasping in great breaths as their backs strained, till the whole ship seemed to blow like one vast seabeast. It bounded forward, the serpent-head reared up at the prow in imitation of its terrible original, and the mist flew by them in shredded streamers. A mad exaltation seized Elof, and though he knew the risk, he sprang up to the gunwales, wrapping an arm round the deadeye, to see his bright ram-skeg go hissing across the water, like some vast arrow fired at the high inchoate wall of black and white that loomed up clearer and clearer ahead. Then the bow wave under it swelled suddenly and steepened, runneled between the two hulls—