The Death of a Swordsman 8

8

When the sunset, the Svir advised them to sleep in shifts. It would be nearly impossible to spot the wagon in the darkness, so remaining awake looking would only make them tired in the morning. The wind was constant, and a rotation was arranged so three men could sleep at a time. The other watched the ship and sky as they bobbed at anchor. It was early in the spring, and the nights were long. Everyone should be well rested by morning.

Not much later, Pittin rousted all the others out of bed, not just Garin, who's turn it was to replace him. "I saw lights passing to the south of us, and thought it was just a merchant trying to make the morning break in the tides. They drew anchor and stopped due south of us."

“There aren't many reasons for that that don't impinge on our own reasons for being here,” Varad noted.

“I thought that very same thing. Let's go say hello."

"Where're the troops?" Garin asked.

"West of us. I can't guess distance at night over water."

"Damn. I want them to come along, but if we hoist a lantern, the ship to the south will spot it."

"I've a lantern and a mirror," Krose mentioned. "I'll signal their captain, and she'll understand."

"Good. Tell them to come quietly, with no lights."

Krose agreed. Then they went back on deck and put the plan into action, moving quietly. The troopship's running lights died, and she faded into the blackness. It was noted by a silent exchange of glances that Krose seemed quiet experienced with running through the darkness without lights, keeping his vessel silent. There weren't a terribly large number of legitimate reasons for that either, but as it played to the Swordmen's advantage, no one said anything. They quietly ceded another moral high ground.

"There is one thing," Varad hissed as they approached. “There might be a man on that vessel named Morryin. He's somewhat taller than me, wields a white longsword, and has very dark hair. He usually wears a black cloak. If you see him, don't engage him.”

“You want that honor for yourself?” Garin asked.

“No. Not really. Had I my way, I wouldn't speak to him again, much less cross steel. But if it needs be done, it had best be done by me.”

“Our purpose is to get that casket,” Pittin observed. “You can handle the distractions.”

“Thank you.”

Krose crowded sail onto the Angry Gremlin's masts under a sustained westward breeze. He pointed the prow between that and where they wanted to go, and set the sails strangely. It seemed simple, but they hung almost sideways in the rigging. His boat knifed southwards through the waves.

As they approached, the target craft grew. It was a three masted frigate that dwarfed the 'Gremlin. Hanging from a spar on the midmast was a complex block and tackle, and it had laid ropes over the far side. Her anchor chain ran down by the prow.

"That more or less settles matters," Varad noted.

"Indeed. We should wait for the others," Garin noted.

"We should get close, climb aboard, and kill everyone," Varad countered.

"What exactly is wrong with you?" Pittin asked.

"I don't see any reason to make things complicated!" Varad retorted.

"Excuse me," interrupted the captain. "But that ship's a lot faster than your troop ship. If she gets underway before your reinforcements get her, she'll probably make it to the headwaters of the bay right at the break in the tides. You won't. Then you'll never catch her on the open seas."

"Why are you encouraging him?" Garin snapped.

"I'm just saying," Krose replied.

Varad started smiling. "That does simplify matters."

"You're twisted."

"I like simple."

"Bah. Pittin?"

"I always knew how this was going to end," Pittin noted.

Garin grumbled. To the captain he ordered, "Get us as close as you can. Then make for the troop ship with all due haste. Hopefully they'll get here before anything interesting happens."

"Oh, this is already interesting," Krose replied. He sounded excited.

"You want this to happen?"

"You're Swordsmen of the Red. I've been hearing stories about you guys since I was a baby. I want to see what you can do."

Garin ignored that. "Get us as close as you can. Gentlemen, we're going swimming."

The three men began stripping, removing their cloaks and carefully putting them aside in the hold. Soon they were stripped down to pants and weapon belts, lurking by the prow as Krose nudged them forward. They felt incredibly exposed, but the captain assured them they were outside the circle of light and effectively invisible.

"Here," he hissed, turning the tiller so the 'Gremlin twisted and ran parallel the beam of the corsair.

"Hold her still, so we don't make any noise."

"Oh, I will!" his whisper sounded elated. "Three of you are boarding a corsair alone! I'll tell me kids about this as soon as I get any."

"We're not alone," Pittin said suddenly. It was another old aphorism of the Red Guard.

"We've got our swords," Garin finished.

With a final exchanged glance, the three Swordsmen lowered themselves slowly into the dark water, and paddled away. Low waves rolled over their heads with barely a splash. Then Krose was gone behind them. The bay was very dark and felt infinitely deep. No one knew what was down there.

Where the hull met the water was pitch black in its own shadow. The wood was slick with algae. The anchor chain was likewise treacherous, but formed the only route upwards. As the ship rolled it clinked, so the sound of their ascent would be disguised. Like naked worms they stole upwards, one by one, and caught handholds on the gunwales. Varad lead them around to the side they'd approached from. Activity seemed focused on the other side, so they could retain some element of surprise.

The three tilted their heads sideways to present a low profile, then poked them over the side. The winches had done their work, and the massive, ponderous coffin had been lowered tot he deck. Already the men were returning to the rigging. Others were lashing it down firmly. They would be underway very shortly.

Varad glanced at Pittin. The old man nodded. He glanced at Garin. The Senior Swordsman nodded as well. Varad held up three fingers, wiggled them, and then made a fist. Slowly he counted, and at three they hurled themselves over the gunwale to attack.

Half a dozen men were dead before the screaming started. In an instant blind panic took the crew, and made meat of them at the trio's swords. This was Varad's perfect element. The deck was wide and smooth, his enemies dispersed, and there were many things to move around and behind. Even the rise and fall meant only that he could take higher ground than his adversaries with only a moment's pause. He murdered people like he was chopping firewood.

Garin and Pittin had stayed close to the railing. From there they charged the steerage. It had a single stairway, as steep as a ladder, and a low railing that made other ways of ascent problematic. Tactically, taking the steerage against serious resistance would be a nightmare. But with the crew dispersed at their labors, only the pilot and his aid were up their. Fanatical and foolishly, the pilot remained at the wheel while this aid tried to repulse the two Swordsmen. He was hamstrung from below and dragged down. Then they were up the ladder and set upon the pilot. He became meat.

“Ve, break the wheel,” Garin ordered as he returned to the single access point. "Al, come here!"

Varad did, and soon they stood side by side atop the steep ascent. By then the crew had gained some idea of what was going on.

"More must be coming!" someone guessed in a yell, correctly. "If they break the steerage we're done for."

"All against three!" yelled another, and they tried to take the stairway by sheer numbers.

Behind them Pittin charged the wheel with his shoulder until wood splintered. Then by main strength he wrenched it free of its housing and tossed it overboard. His arm was bloody and stuck with splinters. but now the ship wasn't going anywhere in a controlled fashion. This seemed to confirm the guesses in the crew's mind. A great shout went up. There were at least three dozen still on the deck and in the rigging. They surged like a tide to the foot of the stairs.

“Done,” Pittin announced in his quiet, unexcited voice. The massed crew charged the ladder.

"Come take this stairway," Varad ordered. "I'm going up."

Ve'Pittin didn't ask questions, but instantly replaced the Swordmaster. The latter retreated, took a running start, and hurled himself into the ropes. He went upwards, chopping lines and shrouds apart as he did so, and met the crew. Some of them had been positioning themselves to drop onto the steerage and attack them from behind. They fought like monkeys, and detached limbs rained onto the horde.

Before anything else, Varad wanted to know if Morryin was aboard. The Al couldn't see him, but if he was lurking somewhere then this whole preliminary was a farce. Three on three dozen, with the three being masterful Swordsmen, Varad expected them to hold out easily. They need only survive until reinforcements come. Three against Morryin, him with three dozen bodies to throw at them to wear them down, was a much different battle, one that could well go either way. As broken as the wheel was, Varad knew little of ships, There might be some way to fix it. So he went after the ropes and sails. Then surely there would be no way for the corsair to escape, even if the Swordsmen had to flee.

It appeared the spars and beams required the lighter lines and cables to stay upright. As more of the latter got severed, the rigging began groaning ominously. Lines rushed through the winches dragged by gravity. On the other side Varad began mowing ropes. Once those near him were parted, a tear burst in the thick muslin sail, and the rip raced along the white expanse. Then the anchor point between spar and mast screamed as the boom torqued downwards. Metal pins were sheared off. Varad stabbed somebody and leaped away as the massive pole tumbled to the deck.

It plunged into the center of the horde trying to take the steering deck, crushing men indiscriminately. More of the rigging followed, cables parting like twine. The starboard running light was knocked free and it broke, sending a sheet of burning oil across the jumble of ropes. They went up in a wave. Heat leaped upwards from the fire, and flames licked the mainmast's sails. Varad landed near the very front of the main deck and started hacking towards the aft, spreading what confusion and chaos he could.

Still Morryin did not appear. The main deck was soaked with seawater from the recovery operation, and there was little chance the ship would burn and sink. That had to be avoided at all costs. But the crew would not surrender. A peculiar madness gripped the lot of them, and more poured up from the hatches to replace those that fell. On the deck the two Red Guards served as an anvil, an immovable object, and with the rigging above them destroyed, there was no way to bypass their line. The crew formed a wave and broke against them, and reformed to break again.

Varad cut a furrow through men back towards the aft and was attacking the stalled horde from the side when a vast wind whipped across the ship. In its wake flames died, even the glowing wicks of the intact lanterns, sheltered behind glass shells. A scream of devilish triumph when up from the living crew. He put the Song of Winter through someone's mouth, following the sound of the noise while his eyes adjusted to the dark, and then opened his head from bottom jaw through the top of his dome. As the body crashed to a pile, the ship quivered.

“Garin!” Varad bellowed.

“'Varad” he bellowed back, directly above at the head of the ladder. Varad screamed again to let them know he was coming, then bounded up the wall and over the railing. They didn't cut him apart as he appeared. Sheltering for a moment behind the two resolute swordsmen as they dropped the bodies of fallen on those still foolish enough to press the attack, Varad looked around. The wind gusted and stank.

All three masts had shattered, and now they lay across the decking in tangles of line and sail. Bodies of men swords hadn't killed were laced among the mess. Blood is black in pale starlight, and half the ship looked like it was missing. Yet the crew fought on with the same malicious triumph, and their cries sounded victorious. Another ill wind swept across the ship and with it came claws.

Two black legs reached down from the dark sky as the air above reverberated with a thunderous boom. It was like all the sails on a man-of-war catching the wind at once. The noise shook the ship and affected us on board. It was hard to balance for a moment, and then the huge boom came again. It was the claws that held their attention. Each was a dozen yards across, shaped like hideous hands. Each finger was tipped with a huge talon that sank effortlessly through the wood of the hull. While Pittin and Garin stood resolute against the berserk crew, Varad looked up. The sky was black, and no stars shone above. Yet far in front of the ship garish red plumes of fire crept out of empty night. The wind boomed again, and it smelled of sulfur.

“Dragon?” Pittin asked calmly, killing a maddened sailor on the ladder. He ran the man through the neck, then kicked him backwards so the fall decapitated him. The body crashed into the press at the ladder. As things got worse, he got calmer.

“Dragon,” Varad agreed. “You two should flee.”

“Not hardly,” Garin retorted with a laugh.

“Fine. Perhaps not flee, but leave anyway.” Al'Varad tried to explain. “You remember I mentioned Morryin? There is no explanation for a black dragon to arrive now but him. The Baron must know that his enemies have this beast, possibly more, and that it may have the casket.”

“And you?” Garin asked.

“I won't leave the coffin again.”

The ship leaped, and with the next tremendous flap of bat-like wings began to rise. There was little time before we were too high to leap to safety.

“Please,” the Swordmaster begged. It was so rare for them to use true formality among themselves that it was a shocking contrast to the normal demands leveled between them. His request was abnormally poignant.

Garin chopped someone in half. Suddenly he grunted and without a word, turned from the ladder and ran. He flicked his blade back into the sheath as he leaped over the railing and dove cleanly into the water below. It was turbulent with the ship being ripped from the surface of the ocean, and there was no splash. Not far away was the troop ship. They'd relit their running lights, and cries from hundreds of men announced their presence.

Varad stepped into Garin's place, hacking apart berserk crewmen with Pittin at his side, and for a moment wondered if the older man intended to stay. He did not. He only made sure the man he had been fighting died before he too turned to go.

“You're awfully determined for a quitter,” Pittin said in passing, then leaped after his supervisor.

Varad couldn't hold the steerage alone. Without help to repulse those who combed the sides, it was inevitable it would fall. He retreated, and in the instant the horde surged up the ladder, dashed and sprang from the railing. The deck danced underneath him with the dragon's movement. Varad landed badly but rolled.

The ship lurched again, and then the rudder swung hard and crashed into the hull. The crash shook everyone. Vast wing beats fought the Al's sense of balance, throwing him back across the deck, flailing wildly. Now the vessel was airborne, and the deck leaned madly in every direction as the carrying beast moved. No longer was it a fight, but jumbled melee with bodies, living and dead, slamming into each other blindly. Ever light had extinguished, and there was no starlight beneath the beast.

Everyone aboard was tossed back and forth, sometimes crashing into each other, and in the dark no one knew who was who. Varad knew that every hand on board was his enemy and killed as he could. The crew only knew that an enemy was still fighting them, and they killed as well. Many of them crashed into each other, and the night was full of death gurgles from far places. With tumbled bodies simulating life in their gyrations, many who died were stabbed again and again till being hurled overboard. Only when the lack of berserk cries penetrated Varad's killing frenzy did he realize he alone was alive. He sheathed the Song of Winter and held on.

The rhythmic crash of the dragon's wings made thinking difficult. He wasn't sure if the beast had some magic in it beyond an evil nature and vast power, but on that ship he was beset by a desire to murder. He crawled along, hurling corpses overboard to be sure, until he came to the casket. It was securely tied, and though the ropes strained with the shifting weight, they held. Sometimes the deck was nearly vertical as the ship rocked through the air.

The tangle of rigging was unstable, swinging over the sides, and sweeping the deck as it passed. To remain above was foolish. He crawled through a hatch and found a stump of a mast. Underneath it ran straight down to the keel, as thick around as a tree trunk. With a bit of line he tied himself on and protected his head. For a long time the ship tumbled through the air, swinging wildly, and soon his arms ached. Holding on was nearly impossible, and his brain numbed, he slipped into a daze. Yet eventually the flight leveled out. Then the steady rise and fall of the ship in response to the flapping wings was like the motion of the ocean. No longer did he have to strain to hold on. A daze turned into a doze, and then he slept.