flared over his brow like the bill of a Celtic woman's bonnet. There was nothing feminine about his long sword or the strength with which he cut at the agent's torso with it.
Perennius interposed the grappling iron as if it were a
buckler. The claws were thumb-thick and forged from metal as good as that in the Goth's sword. Sparks flew from both objects. The shock to Perennius' left arm was severe, but the two feet of greater leverage almost tore the quivering sword from the Goth's hand.
The agent tried to thrust at his opponent. His bent blade and the weakness of the leg that should have carried him made the attack more of a stumble. The German skipped back anyway, disconcerted by his numb sword-hand. As the pirate did so, the deck lurched and he lost his footing. Screaming, he fell backward onto the oar-blades. Despite the desperate clutching of his hands, the Goth slipped off and went head-first into the sea.
Perennius went down also. The wind blew a pall of smoke from the other vessel. It reeked of leather and wet wool. Out of it came another German with his metal-shod shield raised and his spear poised to stab the kneeling agent.
There was nothing wrong with Perennius' right arm. He hurled his sword against the warrior's trousered shins. The weapon clanged and cut. The pirate gave a yelp and pitched headlong. His helmet fell off and he dropped his shield to scrabble at the deck coaming with his left hand.
Perennius hit him on the temple with the grappling iron. The German's legs relaxed, but there was still life in his arms until the agent struck twice more. The body slid sideways off the runway, as the other had done before it.
Blazes, there was open water between the ships!
A freak of the breeze sucked away the bitter smoke for the moment. The ships had lain parallel with their starboard bows interlocked. Now there was a broad V of water between the liburnian's bow and the cutwater of the pirate vessel. There was still a grappling line snubbed to the Eagle. Even as Perennius stared, the hooks of that iron tore free. They took with them a foot of the deck coaming. The Eagle lurched again. Without the drag of the smaller ship, the wind was already starting to swing her head to leeward.
The agent risked a glance over his shoulder. Behind him, Calvus was straightening. The tall man held the boat-pike near the butt as he twitched its head free of the pirate's hull planking.
The traveller had just pushed the two ships apart single-handedly.
The Eagle's defenders could not see what had happened. The roar of despair on their own vessel was enough to cause the pirates who had boarded already to glance around. There were less than a dozen of them. The Marines' tight ranks and full armor had made them dangerous opponents when there was nowhere for them to run.
Perennius grabbed a fallen spear to replace the sword which had splashed over the side. He was still on his knees. 'Get'em from behind with your pike!' he cried to Calvus, but when he looked around he saw that the tall man was stiff in his trance state.
The line of Germans broke from the flank nearest Perennius and his companion.
It was as sudden and progressive as cloth ripping under tension. A red-bearded pirate flung the spear with which he had been sparring with Sestius. It clanged on the centurion's shield boss. The German dropped his own shield and ran. He launched himself from the deck of the liburnian and into the waist of his own vessel despite the widening gap that separated them. Behind him came his companions.
The pirates broke so suddenly that the exhausted Marines had no time to pursue. Gaius alone followed them. The courier had a deep cut on his left shoulder and the light of battle in his eyes. Blood rippled into droplets from the point of his long sword as he brought it around in a final arc. A Herulian with a wolf-skin kirtle screamed as the Roman blade severed one heel even as he threw himself overboard. In the water, men drowned or splashed to hand-holds on the pirate ship's gunwale.
And there were no pirates alive on the Eagle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Perennius was dizzy, sick with blood loss and reaction. He tried to rise but found that even holding himself on knees and knuckles required all his concentration until the moment of vertigo had passed. God of Morning, he thought with his eyes closed. Let your servant behold you once again. But it was now late in the afternoon, and the second pirate vessel was luffing toward them with men at her rail.
Hell, he was never very good at resting anyway, the agent thought. He rose carefully. Calvus' hands were at his shoulder and wounded thigh. Their dry warmth offered more comfort than the burden they took from Perennius' own muscles.
The Eagle was not entirely clear of the first pirate vessel, for that matter. The survivors of that smoldering craft seemed as disinterested in continuing the fight as were those standing in the carnage of the liburnian's deck. Neither ship was under control. Because the Eagle's sail was set and her sides were higher than those of the pirate craft, she was drifting downwind faster than the Germans were. That was not going to be sufficient so long as the liburnian shared the sea with an undamaged shipful of pirates.
The captain, Leonidas, was obviously aware of that. He was shouting at the mate. That officer in turn was holding a pair of seamen and actually placing their hands on the shroud he wanted trimmed. Both sailors were blood-spattered and slack-faced. Perennius recognized one of them from the ballista crew. No wonder the mate was having difficulty raising him out of shock. A wonder that the man had survived at all, the way Gaius had rushed them into the melee.
Calvus was bandaging Perennius' thigh. The tall man was using a length of wool and a jeweled brooch that the agent had last seen fastening the cloak of a Goth he had killed. The wool provided absorption and a compress, all you could do while you waited to see whether the wound festered and killed you. ... 'Can you make the winds blow the way you want?' Perennius asked. He rotated the spear in his hand so that its iron ferule rapped the bloody deck.
The traveller straightened. 'No,' he said. He pointed at the bandage, partly visible beneath the torn edge of the agent's tunic. 'It will hurt as it heals, and there'll be the usual stiffness,' he said. 'But no infection.'
All over the deck, men were sorting themselves out. Leonidas had disappeared down the after hatch. Missing seamen were beginning to reappear on deck for their officers to put to work. Speaking harshly under the rein that kept him from rushing back to present needs himself, the agent demanded, 'How did you separate us from the pirates?' He waved at the shallow, wallowing craft which was now well astern of the Eagle. 'How?'
'You said we had to loose ourselves from them,' the tall man said simply. 'I could not have reached the line without being killed myself, but I could push the ships apart with my pike. Eventually the line would give or the hooks would pull out.' Calvus' tongue touched his lips in a gesture of hesitation which Perennius did not remember the traveller showing in the past. 'That meant that I could not help you fight, but . . . you need little help in that.'
Perennius closed his eyes, then opened them to snarl with a frustration directed against the world, 'Could you lift this fucking ship? Could you do that?'
'No, Aulus Perennius,' the traveller said.
The agent spun on his left heel. 'Let's see what we've got left to kill the next hundred with,' he said.
'Aulus!' shouted the courier when he noticed the agent,
Gods above, we massacred them! Gaius enthusiasm was as natural as it was premature. He had not yet learned the lesson that it does not matter in war how well you fight, but only whether or not you win. The Eagle had fought very well indeed; but Perennius' mind, unlike his protege's, was on the unscathed company of pirates rather than on those whose blood painted the liburnian's foredeck.
Gaius waved his sword with an abandon that showed he had forgotten it. Blood had dried on its point and edges and was streaked darkly across the flats of the blade as well. Perennius stepped to the younger man and grasped his sword wrist. 'Clean your equipment, soldier!' he ordered harshly. Gaius' present euphoria was as incapacitating as the blubbering despair which would follow it if the agent did not shock him back to reality at once. They all needed the courier's demonstrated charisma if they were to survive.
The wound on Gaius' shoulder was not as serious as the agent had feared. The segmented body armor had sleeves and a skirt of studded leather straps. A blow had severed two of the straps, but the cut beneath the young man's bloody tunic was short and shallow. There was no grating of bone ends when Perennius probed it firmly.
'Yes sir!' Gaius said. He braced to attention despite the twinge as the squat agent tested his shoulder.
Perennius grinned like a shark as he turned to Sestius and the Marines. Gods! but the kid was good. Men
