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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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between my teeth. That, I admit, is one time when I grin.
The twisted and pulped body of a whip-deldar crunched underfoot as I leaped for the locks of the zygites’ great chain. The knife point probed, there was a click clearly audible above the uproar, and then the zygites, prepared by the astonishing appearance of their fellows from below, were roaring and raging with chains in their fists.
A few arrows fleeted down and a slave shrieked and toppled back with a shaft through him. The crew had reacted swiftly.
I had not expected otherwise.
Only the overwhelming manpower of the slaves could win the swifter for us.
It is difficult to conceive of the uproar and violence of those moments. In an exceedingly long and narrow space, a mere slot walled in by timbers and chains, naked hairy men howled and struggled to reach the light. Up we went and with us went Seg Segutorio, brandishing a whip with which he took the ankles from under a whip-deldar and so brought him screeching down into the merciless talons of the slaves.
On the upper deck with its central gangway and gratings to either side over the lower banks the slaves were raging like a sea breaking against cliffs. The task of reaching the locks of the thranites’ great chain would be difficult. Already soldiers of Magdag in their iron-linked hauberks were running back from the bows. Arrows were flickering through the air. I took off in a long run toward the oar-master and his tabernacle. The drum-deldar let out a single long scream and went scuttling aft. Up there the officer I had seen drew his long sword.
I wanted that sword.
Still — the locks must come first. Then Seg was with me. His whip flicked the oar-master into a gibbering panic. I bent to the first lock and an arrow feathered into the deck at my side. The officer ran toward us, leaned over, shouting. His face, browned by wind and sun, looked in the last stages of apoplectic fury.
I clicked the lock, stood up, let fly the knife.
The officer gurgled, slumped, toppled down.
I caught the long sword as it spun through the air, taking its bone grip — which I dislike — leanly into my fist. It would have been a fine catch at first slip.
“Forward!” shouted Seg. “The rasts are waiting for us!”
Indeed, the battle to take the broad ship was over. Now the swifters crew and soldiers were turning about to face the frenzied slaves. We had begun with the lowest bank so as to avoid detection. Now that all the slaves were free nothing stopped us from hurling ourselves into the fight.
“Grab a sword first, Seg!” I yelled.
“Had I my bow—” he yelled back.
I sprinted forward along the gangway, hurdling various bodies, until I could thrust through the back of the press. Hundreds of slaves were crowding forward, waving their chains, humming them about their heads in deadly arcs. But many were going down as the swifter archers shot with flat trajectories, rapidly and professionally.
The struggle for me to reach the front ranks was severe; but in a few moments I pushed aside the body of a slave who, swinging his chains, had been thrust through the belly, by a long sword. I stepped out, the long sword held in the fighting grip of the Krozairs of Zy.
Blades crossed. An arrow brushed through my hair. I kept on the move. The long sword was a fine weapon despite its bone grip and I felt it slog crushingly into the rib cage of the first Magdaggian, biting through the mesh. He fell away. There was another, whose face above the ventail I smashed in. More arrows were fleeting past — then I realized some were going the other way. An overlord before me abruptly threw his hands in the air, dropping his sword. An arrow stood out from his right eye.
Seg Segutorio had found himself a weapon he knew how to use and was in action.
Now the sheer mass of slaves told. Perhaps there were as many as three hundred men of Magdag aboard: overlords, overlords of the second class, soldiers, and crew. Of them all the captain of
The twisted and pulped body of a whip-deldar crunched underfoot as I leaped for the locks of the zygites’ great chain. The knife point probed, there was a click clearly audible above the uproar, and then the zygites, prepared by the astonishing appearance of their fellows from below, were roaring and raging with chains in their fists.
A few arrows fleeted down and a slave shrieked and toppled back with a shaft through him. The crew had reacted swiftly.
I had not expected otherwise.
Only the overwhelming manpower of the slaves could win the swifter for us.
It is difficult to conceive of the uproar and violence of those moments. In an exceedingly long and narrow space, a mere slot walled in by timbers and chains, naked hairy men howled and struggled to reach the light. Up we went and with us went Seg Segutorio, brandishing a whip with which he took the ankles from under a whip-deldar and so brought him screeching down into the merciless talons of the slaves.
On the upper deck with its central gangway and gratings to either side over the lower banks the slaves were raging like a sea breaking against cliffs. The task of reaching the locks of the thranites’ great chain would be difficult. Already soldiers of Magdag in their iron-linked hauberks were running back from the bows. Arrows were flickering through the air. I took off in a long run toward the oar-master and his tabernacle. The drum-deldar let out a single long scream and went scuttling aft. Up there the officer I had seen drew his long sword.
I wanted that sword.
Still — the locks must come first. Then Seg was with me. His whip flicked the oar-master into a gibbering panic. I bent to the first lock and an arrow feathered into the deck at my side. The officer ran toward us, leaned over, shouting. His face, browned by wind and sun, looked in the last stages of apoplectic fury.
I clicked the lock, stood up, let fly the knife.
The officer gurgled, slumped, toppled down.
I caught the long sword as it spun through the air, taking its bone grip — which I dislike — leanly into my fist. It would have been a fine catch at first slip.
“Forward!” shouted Seg. “The rasts are waiting for us!”
Indeed, the battle to take the broad ship was over. Now the swifters crew and soldiers were turning about to face the frenzied slaves. We had begun with the lowest bank so as to avoid detection. Now that all the slaves were free nothing stopped us from hurling ourselves into the fight.
“Grab a sword first, Seg!” I yelled.
“Had I my bow—” he yelled back.
I sprinted forward along the gangway, hurdling various bodies, until I could thrust through the back of the press. Hundreds of slaves were crowding forward, waving their chains, humming them about their heads in deadly arcs. But many were going down as the swifter archers shot with flat trajectories, rapidly and professionally.
The struggle for me to reach the front ranks was severe; but in a few moments I pushed aside the body of a slave who, swinging his chains, had been thrust through the belly, by a long sword. I stepped out, the long sword held in the fighting grip of the Krozairs of Zy.
Blades crossed. An arrow brushed through my hair. I kept on the move. The long sword was a fine weapon despite its bone grip and I felt it slog crushingly into the rib cage of the first Magdaggian, biting through the mesh. He fell away. There was another, whose face above the ventail I smashed in. More arrows were fleeting past — then I realized some were going the other way. An overlord before me abruptly threw his hands in the air, dropping his sword. An arrow stood out from his right eye.
Seg Segutorio had found himself a weapon he knew how to use and was in action.
Now the sheer mass of slaves told. Perhaps there were as many as three hundred men of Magdag aboard: overlords, overlords of the second class, soldiers, and crew. Of them all the captain of
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