The sweet fresh night air greeted us as we climbed up onto the quarterdeck. The false dawn lingered with fading radiance upon the deck and the bulwarks, the ship-fittings, the ropes and gilding. The men of the watch were sleepy; they’d been hard at work the previous day as had we. There could be no thought of mercy. Truth to tell, for all the grand talk of mercy here on this Earth, in some situations mercy would be cruel. We were going to take this swifter. I had no doubts. What would happen to any overlords, any ship-Deldars, any marines, when they were caught by the released slaves would make their swift, painless deaths now merciful to them.
There was time for me to observe this young tearaway Vax in action. I liked his style. The men on watch were dealt with on the quarterdeck. As the last sailor slumped, a shout ripped from the forepart of the swifter. The long narrow length of her lay dim in the tricky light. Shadows moved. Men were stirring. Catching the crew just before dawn might have been good planning, even in a ship. It was doubly clever in that the slaves themselves would be sluggish and slow to understand their own liberty. I had known this before. The slaves would not suddenly snatch up chains and wooden beams and go raving into action. It would take time for them to understand. But as the first shrill yells broke out and the sounds of fighting, I knew some, at least, understood.
Vax and I burst into the quarterdeck cabins.
An overlord completely naked with sleep still on his face tried to stop us and I knocked him down and kicked him as I went past.
“In here, Dak!”
Vax was pointing to the first cabin.
“You go — if you wish. I’m for the captain’s quarters.”
Vax cursed and followed me. We ran down the corridor leading from the double doors that gave ingress from the quarterdeck. These cabins lay under the poop. I went straight into the aft cabin, seeing the light hazy and unreal through the sweep of stern windows where the gallery overhung the curved stern. Up above, the high upflung stern post, curved and decorated — with a magodont, of course — would hover over the poop. I wondered where Rukker and Duhrra had got to and if they were up there. The cabin was empty, as I had expected it to be. The sleeping cabin’s door ripped open under my blow and I leaped in.
The captain tumbled out of his cot — this was a fashion to be followed more and more in the larger swifters — roaring. He snatched up his shortsword. He stood lithe and limber, instantly awake, a true captain. I jumped for him.
The shortsword blurred forward.
“Die, you rast!” bellowed the captain.
He should have saved his breath and concentrated on his swordsmanship. I slid the blow, not allowing the blade to touch me, and drove a fist into his mouth. I kicked him and as he went back I twisted his right hand with such force the wrist-bones broke. Then the Genodder was in my own grip. It felt fine.
The captain staggered back, blood from his mangled mouth dripping down his chin. His eyes were wild. Vax said, “Why do you not finish him?”
“He may be useful. Deal with him — but do not slay him.”
I barged out of the cabin and almost at once was fighting for my life. Marines ran down the corridor, yelling first for the captain, and when they saw me, yelling blue bloody murder. I accommodated them.
The Genodder was a fine example of a shortsword in the fashion of the inner sea, invented by King Genod and named after him. I swished it up and thrust, cut and jumped, and, in short, had a fine old time. Normally I do not enjoy fighting unless — well, you must be the judge of that. Suffice it to say that on this occasion my pent-up fury broke out. That red haze did not fall before my eyes, for I kept a cool head and my wits about me — at least, I think I did — but there are few memories until I was at the double doors again with a trail of dead men in my rear.
The clean tip of a longsword appeared at my side, from the back, and I whirled and the Genodder hovered inches from Vax’s throat.
“You onker,” I said, speaking reasonably. “That’s the way to get yourself killed.” I had not heard him over the noise from the swifter. “You move silently. That is good.”
“I-” he said. He looked more than a little taken aback. “I did not expect-”
“Expect everyone to attack you all the time. That way you may stay alive.” I looked at the longsword. He had selected a good specimen, although it was not a Ghittawrer blade. “Can you use that?”
“Aye.”
“Then let us see what we can find.”
“Right gladly. I need-”
I shut him up and we ran out. I knew what he needed.
That fight contained a number of interesting incidents. But then, each fight is different in details, even if they all may seem to be merely a blind scarlet confusion of hacking and thrusting. For instance, Duhrra, who appeared laying about him with a longsword, used it in his right hand, the steel fingers closed and clamped about the hilt. Rukker had spared the time to strap a dagger to his tail. With that bladed tail he could cut a man up in a twinkling. And Vax fought superbly. He did know how to use a longsword. As I barged my way through the knot of marines who came tumbling up from their deck above the rowers, I saw Vax elegantly dealing with his men in a way that made me think he might be a Krozair. He was very young, it was true; but given that the blade he used was a common longsword with a short hilt, he contrived quite a few Krozair tricks. I stuck with the Genodder, for I allow that a shortsword can, in the right circumstances, nip inside a longsword in unskillful hands. I fancied a shortswordsman would be at a disadvantage against this young ruffian Vax.
Duhrra was thoroughly enjoying himself. His great voice boomed out, “Zair! Zair!” and other men took up the call. Rukker fought silently, as did I and Vax. Fazhan and Nath appeared, bearing swords, and threw themselves into the fray. The upper decks covered with struggling men. There were naked men with weapons against men roused from sleep with weapons. We must do this thing quickly, even though there were perhaps seven hundred and fifty slaves against a couple of hundred sailors and marines. I had no desire to swamp the Grodnims by sheer numbers, for that would be mere brutalized force. I wanted the thing done quickly and in style.
Rukker had cleared his area and was about to lead a hunting party to roust out those still below. I bellowed in his ear, for the released slaves were creating one hell of a racket.
“Rukker! Try not to slay too many. We need oarsmen, too!”
He glared at me, aroused, the blood-lust strong on him. He took a great draft of air.
“Aye — aye, Dak the Cunning. You are right — and do not forget we have a score to settle, you and I.”
“Let us secure the swifter and chain down these damned Grodnims and then we may talk.”
Only after he had gone roaring back into the fray did I realize he had been hired by and had been fighting for the Grodnims. But if he came from the northeast corner of the inner sea, as he said, the chances were he did not worship Green Grodno in quite the same way as the Grodnims of the Eye of the World. Anyway, I was in no state to accommodate him no matter what his inclinations. The light had dimmed after the false dawn. But as the sounds of combat flared over the swifter so the light strengthened. Soon Zim rose in a crimson glory, at which all the Zairians yelled mightily. “Zim! Zair!
Zair!”
And, inevitably, when green Genodras rose, and we waited for the shouts of Grodno to echo around the ship, and none sounded, we roared our good humor.
Rukker stormed among the released slaves, cuffing them out of his way, giving them orders, bellowing. .
Duhrra was not sure what to do, so it fell to Fazhan to see about chaining down the new prisoners, those who had been spared.
I prevented a mob from tearing apart a couple of Grodnim sailors in their rage, and bellowed at them,
“Would you wish these two rasts to go up to Genodras, to sit on the right hand of Grodno? Of course not! Chain them down to the benches, make them pull at the Zair-forsaken oars!”
“Aye, aye!” screeched the ex-slaves. ‘To the thalamites with them!”
So we managed to save a few men to pull for us.
There would be the problem of what to do with the Grodnims who had been enslaved with us. The oar-slaves were mostly Zairian prisoners; there was an element among them of Grodnim criminals. There could be no half- measures, of course.
I climbed up the mast and took a look around.
