Authors: John; Norman
“I do not know,” said the captain.
“There is a chill wind,” said the second officer, gathering his cloak about himself.
We, two at an oar, above decks, wore gloves, for the wood was cold.
“Lower the mast,” called the captain.
The single yard was lowered, and the storm sail furled. The mast and yard, with its furled sail, were then lashed down, parallel to the deck. On such ships, as you may know, there are various sails, whose use depends on the weather. The mast is lowered when the ship prepares for action. We were lateen-rigged, as is common, this allowing one to sail closer to the wind. In Torvaldsland, and to the north, it is common to use a single rudder, and a single sail, square-rigged.
The captain pointed toward the object in the distance, indistinct in the fog.
The two helmsmen brought us about.
Another gesture from the captain, this to the
keleustes
, increased the beat.
As the mast went down our fellows at the springals lit the bucketed fires in which the oil-soaked wrappings on javelin heads might be ignited.
On the long ship, as opposed to some round ships, one does not stand at the oar. And from the thwart, of course, one cannot, while at the oar, see much over the bulwarks. That is just as well, of course, for the bulwarks provide some protection from arrow fire, certainly from most long ships, which, like us, unlike many round ships, are low in the water. Even galleys with rowing frames have comparable shieldings. In any event, without standing, I could see very little, and one does not stand while at the oar, not on the long ship.
While I was at the oar, it would be well for you to understand, and I would have it understood, that I was not an oarsman, not by choice, not by calling, not by rating. One takes what fee one can when needful. I, once a spear of Cos, even a first spear, leader of nine men, with hundreds of others, after the trouble in Ar, scattered, separated from our commands and units, withdrew to Torcadino, and thence, bribing and spending, and then by recourse to brigandage and banditry, made our way by long marches to the sea, to the small coastal outposts and trading stations maintained by Tabor and Teletus, south of Brundisium, from which, with our last bit of silver, even to the surrender of accouterments and weapons, dispirited, hungry, and ruined, we obtained passage, mostly on fishing craft, little more than refugees, some to Tyros, most to Cos. I went first to Jad, city of my birth, city of great Lurius, our Ubar, where I had been enlisted and trained, but swords were plentiful there, and I was scorned, for my blade, with helmet and gear, was gone, having been bartered, in part, together with my last tarsk, for passage, for life, from the continent, and great Lurius, too, given the cessation of the draining of Ar’s wealth, the drying up of that flowing stream of gold, was muchly displeased with the recent events on the continent, and ill-disposed to receive those whom he had once sent to the ships with stirring music and brave banners. Impoverished, weaponless, defeated, despised, and disgraced, those such as I would not be welcomed. We were an embarrassment, visible tokens of a state’s shame. I sought fee then in Selnar, and Temos, but was no more fortunate. The defeat in the south, and the indignity of our retreat marked us, clinging to us as a stain. I became an itinerant laborer, concealing that I had once held rank amongst the spears of Cos. I lived as I could, earning what I might, in one town or another, a tarsk here, a tarsk there, and then it came to my attention, from a peddler come north, encountered in a tavern, that openings for oarsmen were being advertised in Telnus. The patrol fleet was being expanded, that the waters between Tyros and Cos might be better secured, better protected against unregulated shipping, this posing an unwelcome, yea, unacceptable, threat to the welfare and profits of our merchantry. And so it came about that I, who had been a spear of Cos, even a first spear, a leader of nine, who had served in the occupation of Ar, who had served even in the Central Cylinder itself, whose wallet had once been heavy with gold, who had walked proudly, who had been feared in the streets, whom none would dare accost, ventured to Telnus, hungry and destitute, seeking so modest a place as one on the thwarts of a patrol ship. Even so, many were the applicants for a single oar. Things were well in Cos for some, but less so for many. Where coin had been abundant, it was now scarce.
“We cannot use you,” said the examiner.
“Whom might you use better?” I inquired.
“He,” said the examiner, “and he,” indicating two fellows.
“I think not,” I said.
“Contest?” he asked.
“Yea,” I said.
I grappled with each, one after the other, and was twice thrown, and bloodied. I had lost. I lay then on the ground, beaten, in pain, in the bloody mud.
But I heard some men about, striking their left shoulders.
I looked about. I did not see my opponents, who had seemed good fellows, vigorous and brawny, needful of a place, too. They must have gone to the table, to sign the articles, or make their marks upon them.
“You did not do badly,” said a voice, by his insignia that of a harbor marshal.
I struggled to my feet.
“You are strong,” he said. “When have you last eaten?”
“Two days ago,” I said.
“Give him a place,” said the marshal.
We plied our levers, at a ten-beat, which strong men can maintain for as much as an Ahn, and continued this beat for something like twenty Ehn, and then the
keleustes
, warned to silence, put aside his hammers. The ship drifted forward a bit, noiselessly, through the fog. Then it rocked in place. One could hear the water lapping against the hull.
There was no command to bring the oars inboard.
The beat need not be rung, of course, but may be called softly, from amidships, if appropriate.
But there was only silence.
Then there was a rift in the fog, like the sudden, whispering drawing aside of a curtain, but briefly.
“Aiii!” cried a man.
We stood then, at the thwarts, and first beheld her.
Then the fog again closed in. I did not think we were more than seventy-five yards from her.
It seemed we were a chip, floating on the sea, off the coast of some ponderous, drifting immensity.
“What is it?” asked a man.
“A ship,” said a fellow. “A ship.”
“Oars!” called the captain, and we resumed our position.
“Back oar,” said the second officer, shuddering.
“No,” said the captain. “Stroke!”
“Withdraw,” urged the second officer.
“Stroke,” called the captain.
We did not know if he were curious, courageous, or mad. I think he was a good officer.
The ship moved a little forward, but there was murmuring behind me and to the side, consternation, and I do not think that every oar was drawn. Had we been a round ship I think the lash would have fallen amongst us.
“If you must,” said the second officer, “go closer, look, and then flee, but it is pointless, and none will believe your report.”
“Stroke,” called the captain.
It is rumored that there were gigantic dragons of the sea, prodigious monsters, lurking beyond the farther islands, aquatic prodigies guarding the end of the world, set there by Priest-Kings, as one might post guard sleen about the perimeter of a camp, but this thing, in the glimpse we had had, was no water-shedding, surfacing monster, toothed and scaled, nothing alive, as least we commonly thought of life, nothing curious, jealous, and predatory.
“Your command will be taken,” said the second officer.
“Stroke,” called the captain, softly, peering into the fog.
“Desist, Captain, I beg of you,” said the second officer.
The captain then was silent, listening.
The patrol ship was not large. She was a light galley, and she, though fitted with ram and shearing blades, was built more for speed and reconnaissance than fencing at sea, the ship the weapon itself. She was only some fifty foot Gorean from stem to stern, some ten feet in her beam. Such ships are less likely to engage a medium- or heavy-class galley than support such larger sisters in their altercations, perhaps hovering about, like a small sleen, awaiting an auspicious moment to take advantage of an otherwise distracted foe. We had only five oars to a side, and a rowing crew of twenty, two to each oar. Our common concern, or prey, were small boats, with a crew of four or five, tiny merchantmen, or smugglers, if you like, hoping to run the blockade to the farther islands. Larger galleys, rogues from the coastal ports, not signatory to the imposed treaties, or, more dangerously, pirates or merchantmen from Port Kar, our enemy, detected, would be reported to Telnus, in theory to be intercepted, if possible, on their return to their home ports. To be sure, interceptions were rare, and it was suspected that this had more to do with understandings and secret fees than faulty intelligence. Many high captains of both Tyros and Cos were wealthy men.
“There,” whispered the lookout, suddenly, pointing.
“Ah!” breathed the captain.
The fog had parted, again, and we could see the monstrous structure, now some fifty yards abeam.
Clearly it was a ship. It was wood. It was carvel-built, the mighty planks fitted, not the clinker-construction with overlapping planks. That construction is common with the serpents of the north. It ships more water, but with its elasticity, with its capacity to shift, to twist and bend, it is less likely to break up in a heavy sea. The ship had six masts, apparently fixed, which suggested it was a round ship, which has fixed masts, and often more than one, say, two or three, though never so many as six. The round ship, with its size and weight, though oared, usually by galley slaves, chained to their benches, relies more on its sails than a long ship. Interestingly, though the ship was carvel-built it was square rigged, with tiered sails, on tiered yards. The square sail is an all-purpose sail, whose single canvas may be adjusted to the wind. The mighty structure before us had a blunt, rearing prow. It had no ram, no shearing blades. It would be slow to come about, and a small galley might easily outdistance her, much as a racing kaiila might easily overtake a caravan of bosk-drawn wagons. It was not built for war, but for space and power, for height and storage, perhaps for invulnerability. We did not know what cargo it might carry. In its holds it might carry the stores of a small city. Its maneuverability would be so sluggish that the deft adjustments of shearing blades, responsive to subtleties of the ship’s movement, so common in the swift movements of Gorean naval warfare, would be impractical, if not impossible. Too, in such a mountain of wood there would be little use for a ram, as it would be of little use against a swifter, darting foe. To be sure, the ship itself would be formidable. It might plow through piers.
The fog then closed in again.
The great ship had been abeam.
The captain lifted his hand, and then lowered it.
We rocked, gently.
“Back oars,” suggested the second officer. “Back oars!”
“No,” said the captain.
I sensed he was alarmed. So, too, were we.
It was very quiet.
We were not sure, now, of the position of the great structure, or even if it were moving.
He called for no further stroke.
Then we heard the cry of a Vosk gull. These are large, broad-winged birds, which occasionally fish three and four hundred pasangs from the delta. Smaller gulls nest on the cliffs of both Tyros and Cos.
We did not see the bird.
It was then again quiet, save for the soft sound of water against the hull.
There was then another cry, but it was not the cry of the Vosk gull. It was a wild, shrill, ringing scream, unmistakable.
“That is a tarn!” cried a man.
“Impossible,” said the captain.
Even with the fog we could not be so far off our course, or so confused. The tarn, you see, is a land bird, a hook-beaked, vast-winged, gigantic, crested, dreaded, fearsome monster of the skies. Its talons can clasp a kaiila and carry it aloft, to drop it to its death, thence to land and feed on the meat. Its most common prey is the delicate, flocking, single-horned tabuk. A single wrench of that mighty beak could tear the arm from a man. The tarn, you see, never flies from the sight of land. It could not be the cry of a tarn.
Then, again, we heard that shrill scream, as though at dawn, as it might announce itself to the sun,
Tor-tu-Gor
, as it might inform the world of the privacy and sanctity of its nesting site, as it might warn even larls away from its surveyed domain.
The tarn, it is said, is the Ubar of the sky.
So astonishing then that men, so tiny beside its bulk, might saddle and use such monsters as mounts! Such men are called tarnsmen.
“Back oars! Back oars!” cried the second officer, standing wildly at the port rail.
“Back oars!” screamed the captain.
We seized the oars but it was useless. There was no time, no time to even lift the blades from the water.
Emerging from the fog, literally upon us, suddenly visible, was the vast bulk of the great ship.
There was a wrenching of wood and the cries of men, and the stem and stern of the long ship began to rise out of the water, and the planking amidships, shattering, pressed down, sank into the sea, and then the stem, I clinging to it, collapsed back into the water, and doubtless, on the other side, for I could not see, given the obscuring passing of the vast, intrusive bulk, the stern did as well, and Thassa burst up, flooding the thwarts, and then the deck. I stood in a foot or two of cold, swirling water. My station was forward, and I suddenly, unwillingly, realized that I was now clinging to what was only a part of the ship, a recognition I somehow frenziedly fought against acknowledging, not wanting to see it, or understand it, that she had been snapped in two. As the monstrous bow of the great structure continued on its way, placidly, like a force of nature, the remains of the long ship were swept aside. I had heard, above the cries and the breaking wood, from the other side of the passing hull, the sudden ringing of springal boards speeding javelins, doubtless ignited, into the enemy. We were fighting back. But I heard them only once. The decks were awash. Clinging to a remnant of the bulwarks, half in water, I saw the hull of the monster towering above me, fifty feet or more, like a several-storied building of wood, a moving
insula
, wet and glistening, moving. This was some five times the height of a large round ship. In all the world no such a thing had been seen.