It was a threat: but his enemy closed. Sword, cuirass, helmet. Cold steel with the sea-sting beaded upon it, grey upon grey. Eyes, sea-red, mad with fear and anger. Hearst swung left-handed, a cripple in combat. His enemy parried, almost took him with a quick thrust.
– So it's death then.
– This death as good as any.
– Hastsword, my hero.
– My brother in blood.
Hearst struck one desperate blow, sword wide-slicing for the hope of death with glory. Then he was open, whore-wide open, off balance and falling. Metal thrust for his belly. Falling, he twisted to one side, evading the thrust.
His enemy shouted, raising his sword for a killing blow. Then a rip-rent squall struck, hit so fast that all went down as the ship heeled. The wet-wood deck canted, sliding to the sea's yawn. Hearst clawed his steel hook-hand deep into the wood as he started to slip. The mast gave with a sick greenstick snap.
Slowly the ship lumbered up toward level. Hearst worked his hook-hand free from the deck. Getting to his feet, he stood with his sword Hast in his left hand, looking for his enemy. Gone. Overboard. Sea's spray drenched the deck as a wave struck. A moment later came rain with the sting of ice in it. A buffalo-shouldered brawner came lumbering through the sleet toward Morgan Hearst.
'Huhn!' said Hearst.
Swords clashed.
The brawner knocked his blade to the sky.
So there he was, Hearst disarmed and his enemy chopping for the kill. Then the ship heaved up as a wave went whale-under. The brawner staggered, sliding. Hearst closed, for to close the distance was the only chance he had.
Hearst's hook-hand, right hand, dextrous, sliced through the side of the brawner's neck. The big artery gave with a spurt of blood that shot three paces, and would have gone a dozen but for the wind feathering it to a red mist soon lost in the sleet. Hearst saw his sword Hast caught in a raggage of rope and canvas. He grabbed it. He braced as another wave struck the ship.
The wave surged over the deck, sliding the brawner to the scuppers and gone, overboard: vanishing into grey waves with one flash of colour where sealight glanced from a ceramic tile slung round the dead man's neck. With quick-blink despatch, the body sundered under for once and for all.
Gone.
'Ahyak Rovac!' screamed Hearst.
And turned: steel seeking steel, challenge seeking challenge. But no swordsman faced him. He glanced right, glanced left. The Collosnon were cleared from the deck: the pirates had victory. Ohio's voice rose against the wind, thundering orders. The deck was a shambles of blood, canvas, spars and rigging; the lee shore was closing; it would be a near thing. Morgan Gestrel Hastsword Hearst sheathed his blade and set his hand and his hook to the work.
The Skua almost came to grief on the coast, but managed to find haven in a narrow strait between the coast and an island which lay only a little way offshore. A Collosnon vessel that tried to follow it was wrecked: the pirate blades were ready, and the few survivors failed to survive their survival.
For ten days the Skua lay at anchor while storm weather swept the seas; when it ventured out again, there was no sign of the Collosnon fleet or of the other pirate ships.
Riding the winter weather along the northern coast of Argan, the Skua headed westward. They struck once at a fishing village, a place of low houses and narrow graves which sheltered in a bay called Edge by a mountain called Scarp; they gained a haul of heavy-armoured lobster, glissando fish, broad-wing depth-ray and red-veined whiplash-eel. They sailed away leaving the sky behind them smudged with smoke.
Hearst worked words in his head, marking the monotony of their progress:
Cold is the cold sea, Grey is the grey sky, Wet is the wet wave, Diy is the clear eye.
And what would Saba Yavendar have thought of those lines? Hearst remembered the poet so clearly: a squat little man, not much bigger than a dwarf, who used to drink so he was buoyed up by alcohol when he stood up to recite in his battlesword voice:
Down from the mountains the open veins Run blood-red to the sea-coast plains. Sing Talaman-ho! Tala is a he-ro!
There had been a sneer in the word 'hero'. And Talaman's face had darkened with anger as Saba Yavendar went on to detail Talaman's heroism: the celebrated rape of his sister's son. the slaughter in the city of Hunganeil which had surrendered without resistance, the week of feasting on 'small pig' at the mountain called Quinneroom, and the murder of the oracle of Ellamura.
Oh yes. if ever true heroes walked the earth then Saba Yavendar was one of them. But in truth Hearst had never met the poet; he recalled only the memories of the wizard Phyphor. He lacked the curiosity to explore those memories further: he lived only to seek his death in battle.
He almost found it when the Skua encountered another Collosnon warship. In a desperate light, the Collosnon ship was set ablaze and the Skua went aground on a shoal close to shore. The pirates had victory, but they had to wait until the incoming tide floated their ship off the rocks before they could go anywhere; meanwhile, the smoke from the burning enemy ship slowly drifted up into the sky.
Morgan Hearst sat on the canted deck of the Skua, 328 watching the smoke of the burning Collosnon ship and brooding on his fate.
His closest friend, Elkor Alish, had become his enemy. He had lost his right hand, becoming a cripple. And he had lost his faith in the warrior ethos of Rovac, and had nothing with which to replace that faith.
So he wished to die – but in battle the habits of a lifetime did not allow him to do anything less than his best. He had fought well: something which other people had noticed.
'You did well,' said Ohio, coming up to Hearst, who was cleaning the last blood from his sword Hast, if you say so.* said Hearst. it's the act which makes it so, not the saying. One day you must tell me where you learnt to fight.' it's a long story,' said Hearst, sheathing his sword.
'So is life,' said Ohio. 'There's time enough for all the stories. You could tell me now: we'll have time enough before the tide floats us off these rocks.' i doubt it,' said Hearst.
'Try,' said Ohio.
'Death is my story, and the carrion crow will tell it.'
'There's no crows in this country,' said Ohio. 'Just skua gulls. Why so sour, friend Hearst? You fought well, but from the look on your face a guess would have to say you'd lost the battle.' if you say so,' said Hearst.
'You're a strange one, you are,' said Ohio.
He scanned the sea, looking in case any other ships had come in sight. But there was only the burning hulk of the Collosnon warship. The sky was clear: the light wind aired the smoke toward the shore. The tide was slowly rising.
'How are you?' said Miphon, coming along the deck toward the two men. 'No injuries here.' said Ohio. 'Not unless you want to count this,' said Hearst. 'Oh, your hand,' said Ohio, seeing the ugly blood bruise under Hearst's left thumbnail. 'You'll lose that nail for sure.'
'No,' said Miphon. 'I'll fix that. Wait.'
Miphon picked his way along the canted deck of the ship to where a group of pirates were heating up a brew of red wine and spices over a fire built on a bed of sand. He scraped some hot coals into a small pannikin and returned to Hearst. Miphon blew softly on the coals; they glowed cherry-red; he heated the blunt end of a needle.
'No,' said Hearst.
'It won't hurt.'
'That's not the point.'
