“If I am damned, you are the devil,” and Meredith came at him with a slashing stroke.
Gylain parried, but was forced back: once on the rebound, Meredith kept at him in fury. He struck from the left, then let his sword swing to the right; there he caught its momentum with a small loop and came at Gylain again. As he pushed forward, though, a stone caught his foot and he fell, unable to balance in the midst of his swing. Gylain sprang forward and knocked his sword aside, leaving Meredith pinned on his back and unable to recover himself. Gylain stood over him.
His face was a placid sea, as if there were nothing taking place. His mouth bent upward slightly in his usual half-smile, but it was not evil in the sense of being. Rather, it was pathetic: the smile of a man who is lost to himself and who knows it better than any other, the smile of an atheist who knows God well.
“Slay me, fiend; for I will not yield and you will not prevail.”
“No, Meredith, I will not make you a martyr, to prove your ideas with the sanction of my violence.” Gylain had no emotion. He bashed Meredith upon the head, putting him out. “It would please you far too much.” He turned to Montague, “Come, for where there is Meredith there is William Stuart; and I will prove God a fool!”
Chapter 88
“Fire,” the Admiral cried through the waterfall that came from the sky. “Fire, and do not relent!” The arrows mix with the rain as it poured upon the advancing fleet.
As the foremost ships were separated by the chain, the upper sections were thrown toward the rebels until they ran into the rebel line. Their crew prepared to board the rebel decks as they passed, to save themselves from the raging sea.
“To the railings!” the Admiral called out again, “To the railings and bar their passage – throw them off into the sea! Hold strong, men: this is but the first of a greater wave.”
The rebel ships had their sails turned inward and set against themselves, leaving them motionless. The crew was left to line the rails, repulsing the invaders with their arrows – for they were forest men first and sailors second.
The storm became a tempest, the swell waves, and the waves mountains. The decapitated decks of the enemy ships were lifted by the waves and raised to the height of the rebel ships for an instant. In desperation, the sinking mariners proffered their swords blade-first to the rebels. In turn, the rebels replied with a flock of arrows. A crashing boom sounded as the ships collided, and the rebels pulled their bows, waiting. Then, as the invaders came, they shot the arrows against their chests. Two, sometimes three men were taken down with every shot. The invaders kept on, but the swell subsided and their decks lowered to the sea. But, without a hull, they sunk. They disappeared into the sea, devoured.
“Well done, lads,” the Admiral out blew the storm, “Move the masts now, for they come again and we need not meet them.” He dashed to the wheel, and, as the sails were turned, the ship side-stepped to the left, avoiding another approaching ship. It passed by and sank to Atlantis.
Meanwhile, Barnes had control of the second Marin and prepared it for the battle. The command deck stretched across the central floor, with ends abutting both the inner and outer walls. Each wall was dressed by a ten by twenty foot window, secured by a system of steel bars that kept larger debris from reaching it, while smaller things, such as arrows, could not break the glass. A control desk was stationed before either one, while the lesser furniture was removed to the adjacent captain’s room while the war was on. In the center of the room – between the command decks – was a larger command area, bolted to the floor and equipped with a chart of the harbor, enclosed under a glass panel so that the actual chart could be exchanged.
Barnes sat at the outer desk and watched over the enemy fleet as it approached. His lieutenant took the inner command station, from which the rotational navigation of the Marin was conducted – in effect its wheel, though it was, itself, a wheel. Barnes, as the captain, surveyed the situation and ordered the operation of the Marin via a system of speaking tubes that traveled through the corridors to the various departments of the ship. They converged on the captain’s command desk and could be opened or closed individually, as the need arose.
“Have we reached full buoyancy, Maticks?” Barnes called into the speaking tube.
A hollow, tinny voice came back, “Yes, sir: three hundred feet.”
“Very good, and the ballast tanks?”
“Full but prepared for ejection – we can sink at your order.”
“Closed and complete,” and Barnes closed the tube to the engineering compartment. He opened another, “Hornhonker, we’ve reached full buoyancy: raise the spikes and prepare for ramming.”
“Yes, sir.” Pause. “Done, sir.”
“Closed and complete.”
The spikes were sharp metal spears that protruded from the sides: anyone who attempted to board would be run through by his own energy. As for the maritime battering rams, there were twenty aboard the Marin: a five foot ax head attached to a long lever, able to be raised and lowered powerfully. In peace they were used for mining minerals, in war for mining enemies.
As he spoke, the enemy fleet began to charge.
Barnes opened every speaking tube and said, in a slightly excited voice, “They come, gentlemen. Prepare for battle.”
Meanwhile, the Fardy brothers had also taken command of their Marin. The brown Fardy sat at the inner desk, the blond brother at the outer, and the black brother at the central, running between the two and giving liberally of his advice. He now stood behind his blond brother, who surveyed the situation and drew vigorously on a chart of the area.
“Barnes raises his to full buoyancy,” the black Fardy offered. “I am patient, of course, but war is not a patient man’s pen name. Perhaps we should reach for the clouds?”
“Barnes is a fine sailor, but we are the Fardy brothers; and who designed these Marins? He will ram them high and harass their rigging, we will ram them low and destroy their hulls. You will see,” he winked, “We will show them our barnacles.”
“Genius; pure, insightful genius,” and the black Fardy ran across the room to his other brother. “We fly low today.”
“Then I will have the pleasure of piloting our craft into the bosom of our enemy.”
“My brother, do you disdain our rebel beauties enough to fly into the arms of those Hibernian haberknacks? You know, we have as many pillows here as ever they did.”
“Patience bids me consider that you make me a mockery. Still, I am glad, for it extols your own virtues by contrast: that I assume worst and you best. I have never known a better assumer,” and he returned to his work with a dubious smile.
The black Fardy’s eyebrows raised themselves like towering thunderclouds that threatened to wash out his clam-shell eyes. “This is beyond the cause of goodness and I cannot but repent of it if it makes me seem your superior in virtue.” He brought his hands together as if he were clanging cymbals; yet his cymbals were his brother’s ears.
“I beg to agree,” whereupon the other stood and faced his brother.
They were interrupted by the call of their blond relative, “My brothers, the enemy charges! Your patience must be patient to be proved, for we must first survive!”
“Yes,” the two belligerents chorused, and they set to work at once.
Meanwhile, de Casanova and Lyndon paced the deck of
“What keeps them? Can the resistance have been fierce?”
“Would I know?” de Casanova growled, seeing in his sovereign a picture of the woman who scorned his love. “Perhaps it was better guarded than he thought. We can only wait.”
“So it is,” Lyndon sighed and returned to his seat. He was thoroughly soaked, even with the canopy.
De Casanova continued pacing, his eyes latched onto the coast where Gylain and Montague had landed. Then, seeing something, he stared into the impenetrable forest. At this time, Gylain and Meredith were engaged in combat, but de Casanova could not see this. Instead, he saw the sparks from Gylain’s sword as he lashed at his opponent.
“They have done it, Lyndon!” he cried, “The signal has been sent.”
The King of Hibernia took his feet. “Forward, Captain! Signal the charge!”
“The chain, my lord?”
“It is removed, begin the attack,” and Lyndon danced in glee and terror at the upcoming clash of arms and
