The long oars clacked and moved in confusion; then habit stepped in, and
rhythmically, slowly, the blades dug into the sea. Lycon yelled a chant,
and the slaves kept time to it. Gradually the galley gained way.
On the deck swords flamed and clashed. But Elak was not fated to slay
Rasul. The overseer stumbled, dropped to one knee--and hands reached for
him out of the dark. Shouting, he was dragged down among the slaves.
Voices rose to a yelping crescendo of hate. Rasul screamed--and was
silent.
Lycon leaped up, free from his chains. He cursed the rowers; their
momentary inattention to their duty had caused confusion. An oar, caught
among others, splintered and broke. The butt bent like a bow, snapped
back, and smashed a slave's face to bloody ruin. From overside came
cries and commands.
* * * * *
The face of Drezzar rose above the rail, hideous, contorted, the scar
flaming red. He gripped his sword between his teeth. After him armed men
came pouring.
Lycon, a captured blade bare in his hand, ran toward them, yelling
objurgations at the slaves. The oars moved again, tore at the sea, sent
the galley through the waves once more. A slave had long since cut the
anchor-rope.
A dozen armed men, swords gleaming, were ringed about Lycon, who, his
back against the mast, was valiantly battling and cursing in lurid
oaths. A few steps away Drezzar came catlike, and murder was in his
eyes. He saw Elak stir, and ran in, blade ready.
Elak did not stoop to recover his sword. He sprang forward, under the
sweep of the steel, which Drezzar had not expected. The two men went
down together, rolling on the blood-slippery deck.
Drezzar tried to reverse the sword in his hand and stab Elak in the
back. But Elak's supple body writhed aside, and simultaneously his lean,
sinewy fingers closed on Drezzar's, above the hilt of the blade.
Drezzar tried to turn the blow, but could not. Elak continued his
enemy's thrust. And the sword went smoothly into Drezzar's belly,
without pausing till it grated against the backbone.
"My fangs, Drezzar," Elak said very softly, and with no expression on
his wolf-face--and then drove the sword further in till it pinned the
captain, like a beetle, to the deck. Drezzar's mouth opened; a roaring
exhalation of breath, fraught with ghastly agony, seemed torn out of the
man. His hands beat the deck; his body doubled up and arched like a bow.
He coughed blood, gnashed his teeth till they splintered and
cracked--and so died.
Elak sprang up. He saw a heavy iron key hanging at Drezzar's belt. This
he tore away and cast down among the slaves. A grateful clamor came in
response.
Lycon called frantically for aid. Elak responded. But now the outcome of
the battle was a foregone conclusion. One by one the freed slaves passed
the iron key to their neighbors and came springing up to add their
numbers to Elak's cause. And, presently, the last of the ship's masters
lay dead on deck, and the oarsmen--no longer in chains, no longer
slaves--sent the galley plunging through the dark sea to the north.
_5. Aynger of Amenalk_
For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men....
--Chesterton.
They came to a forbidding, bleak coast that loomed high above the
galley. The cold winds of Autumn filled the sails and let the weary
oarsmen rest. The sea turned smoothly gray, surging in long, foamless
swells under a blue-gray sky. The sun gave little heat. The crew turned
gratefully to the ship's stock--oil and wine and woven stuff, finding
warmth and comfort in it.
But Elak was chafed by inaction. He longed to reach Cyrena; endlessly he
paced the decks, fingering his rapier and pondering on the mystery of
the thing called Karkora. What was this Pallid One? Whence had it come?
These problems were insoluble, and remained so till, one night, Elak
dreamed.
He dreamed of Dalan. The Druid priest seemed to be standing in a forest
glade; before him a fire flickered redly. And Dalan said:
"Leave your ship at the red delta. Seek Aynger of Amenalk. Tell him you
seek the throne of Cyrena!"
There was no more. Elak awoke, listening to the creaking of the galley's
timbers and the whisper of waves against the side. It was nearly dawn.
He rose, went on deck, and searched the horizon under a shielding palm.
To the right, breaking the gray cliffs, was a gap. Beyond it--an island.
And on the island a castle loomed, part of the rock, it seemed, growing
from it.
The galley swept on. And now Elak saw that a river ran between the
broken cliffs. At its mouth was a delta, made of reddish sand.
So, in the cold, lowering dawn, Elak and Lycon left the galley. Willing
oarsmen rowed them to shore. The two climbed the northern cliff and
stood staring around. Inland the plateau stretched unbroken by tree or
bush, windswept and desolate. To the west lay the Ocean Sea, chill and
forbidding.
"Perhaps this Aynger of your dream dwells in that castle," Lycon said,
pointing and shivering. "One of the men told me this is Kiriath. To the
north, beyond the mountains, lies Cyrena."
Elak said somberly, "I know. And Sepher rules over Kiriath--Sepher, whom
Karkora has taken for his own. Well--come on."
They set out along the edge of the cliff. The wind blew coldly, and
brought to them a thin, high piping that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Sad, mournful, weird, it murmured half-heard in the air about the two.
And across the plateau a man came--a great gray man, roughly clad, with
unkempt hair and iron-gray beard. He played upon a set of pipes, but put
these away as he saw Elak and Lycon. He came closer and halted, with
folded arms, waiting.
The man's face might have been chipped from the rough rocks of this
land. It was harsh and strong and forbidding, and the cool gray eyes
were like the sea.
"What do you seek here?" he asked. His voice was deep and not at all
unpleasant.