_Portia_, to starboard, not more than forty yards away, and tumbling, reeling, like a torch, his clothing soaked with flaming pitch, fell into the water.
'Back oars!' called the oar master. 'Steady! Hold!'
Many of our benches were empty. Blood was on the thwarts.
A set of javelins, five of them, from a springal, struck from their guides by a forward-springing plank, raked the interior wall of the starboard rowing frame.
There was a grinding astern and a dozen men from one of the Voskjard's pressing ships, close in the crowded waters, leapt aboard.
'Repel boarders!' I heard cry. 'Keep the benches!' cried the oar master.
Men fled past us to strike the visitors from the stern. I kept my bench, my hands on the oar.
'Back oars!' called the oar master.
'The decks are cleared!' cried a man.
'The _Portia_ has been stricken!' cried an officer. I saw one of our archers, his chest transfixed with an arrow, tumble from the stern castle. A spume of water rose like a geyser from the water near us, marking the miss of a huge stone hurled from an enemy catapult.
I saw, peering through the thole port, the _Leda_'s bow lift suddenly at a sharp angle from the water, the ram and hull dripping water, glistening, and then, in a moment, she slipped back, three-quarters below the surface. Her stern was in the mud of the river bottom. The bow, then, in the current, with men clinging to it, swung toward the chain.
'Back oars!' called the oar master.
The ram of a Voskjard ship smote the jutting bow of the _Leda_. Men leaped from it into the water, mixing in the water with the striking oars of the Voskjard's ship. Archers on the Voskjard's ship, leaning over her gunnels, fired down on the struggling swimmers. Elsewhere I saw men fighting in the water.
'Two points to port!' called an officer.
We swung to port. Our ram, now, threatened the Voskjard's ship. The archers scattered behind the bulwarks. Consternation held sudden sway upon her decks. Oars, like startled limbs, not in unison, unevenly, rose from the water. We saw rudder activity, not synchronized between the port and starboard rudders. Oars, one and two, and more, at a time, began to slash down at the water. She, too, swung to port. Then she had slipped away behind the shattered bow of the _Leda_. We had not charged her. Off the starboard bow lay a galley of the Voskjard, rocking on the water, seemingly somnolent, but we knew, in an instant, if we exposed our flank to her, she would come alive, springing to the attack. 'Beware the sleen that seems to sleep,' is a Gorean proverb.
A bowl of flaming pitch, streaming smoke behind it looped toward us, flung by a ship near the chain. It struck in the water to the starboard side.
'Back oars, back oars,' said the oar master. 'Back oars, gently, Lads.'
In moments we had drawn alongside of the _Olivia_, which had been the flagship of the fleet from Ar's Station, commanded by Aemilianus. She and the _Portia_ had been the last of the original ten ships which had constituted that small fleet. The _Portia_, now, was gone. To the starboard side of the _Olivia_ was the _Tais_, slender, scarred, indefatigable, valiant, of Port Cos, which held the center of our line. On her starboard side were the _Talender_, of Fina and the _Hermione_, a prize taken in battle, manned by soldiers of Ar's Station.
'We cannot take another attack,' said a man.
We listened to the signal horns from the Voskjard's fleet.
'They are drawing back,' said a man.
'Perhaps they will go away,' said another.
'They are regrouping,' said a man.
'There will be another attack,' said a man.
'Of course,' said another.
We had begun the morning with eleven ships. Of Port Cos, we had had the _Leda_ and _Tais_; of Ar's Station, we had had the _Olivia_ and _Portia_, and four prize ships; of Fina, we had had the _Talender_; of Victoria, we had had the _Mira_ and _Tina_. Of these eleven ships, now only five remained, the _Tais_, _Olivia_, _Talender_, _Tina_ and _Hermione_, which had been taken as a prize. It was a slender line which we had to present to the might of the Voskjard, surely still some twenty-eight or twenty-nine ships, now being marshaled off our bows.
'The _Tais_ should make a run for it,' said a man near me, a native of Victoria, a survivor of the _Mira_.
'She remains in the line,' said a man.
'Who would have suspected it of the sleen of Cos,' said a soldier of Ar near me, one of several whom we had taken aboard, from the careening decks of the sinking _Alcestis_, which, yesterday, had been taken as a prize by the men of Ar. Without such men we could not have manned our oars.
'Interesting,' said one of his fellows.
'Perhaps there is courage, other than in Ar,' speculated another.
'The sleen of Cos have fought well,' said another.
'Yes,' said another.
'Where is Callisthenes?' inquired the fellow from the _Mira_.
'I do not know,' I said.
'We are out of stones and pitch,' said a man.
The sound of battle horns drifted across the water towards us.
I watched one of our archers, with a knife, removing an arrow from the wood of the stem castle. He worked carefully, in order not to damage it.
'They are running flags on their stem-castle lines now,' I said.
'It will be soon,' said a man.
'Their oars are outboard now,' said a man.
Again we heard the sounds of battle horns.
'To your stations, Lads!' called an officer.
We hastened to our places.
'Oars outboard!' called the oar master.
We slid the wood through the thole ports.
'They are coming now,' said the man behind me.
'Why is there silence?' called Callimachus from the stem castle. 'Can we give no response?'
Men looked at one another.
Then, from the scarred, half-shattered, smoke-blackened stern castle of the _Tina_, first from one trumpet, lifted by a fellow who was little more than a boy, and then from another, and from another, there resounded notes of defiance. The trumpeters on the stern castle of the _Olivia_, too, seized up their instruments, and then, too, from the _Tais_, and from the _Talender_ and _Hermione_, came the clear, unmistakable, brave sounds of men determined to stand together.
The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I was proud. I gripped the oar.
'Ready!' called the oar master. 'Stroke!'
And the five ships of our small line sallied forth to meet the stately advance of the Voskjard's fleet.
'The _Hermione_ is down,' said a man.
'The _Talender_ has been taken as a prize,' said another.
We rested on our oars.
'I had not thought we could survive that attack,' said a fellow.
On our starboard side was the _Olivia_, and on her starboard side was the valiant _Tais_.
'They are coming again,' said a man.
'It will be the end,' said another.
'There is shouting on the stern deck of the _Olivia_,' said a man, rising at the bench.
I, too, stood up.
'There is commotion there,' said another, standing now on his bench.
'What is it?' asked a fellow, his head down, leaning over his oar.
'There was then, too, a cry from our stern castle. 'Ships! Ships astern!' cried an officer from the stern
