"But does a fish swim with its fins bound to its sides? Or does Vistur
fear a free fish too greatly to face one?"
His taunt brought the result Ross wanted. The ties were cut from behind,
to flutter down as withered, useless strings. Ross flexed his arms.
Tight as those thongs had been they had not constricted circulation, and
he was ready to meet Vistur. The Terran did not doubt that the Rover
champion was a formidable fighter, but he had not had the advantage of
going through one of the Agent training courses. Every trick of unarmed
fighting known on his own world had been pounded into Ross long ago. His
hands and feet could be as deadly weapons as any crook-bladed sword--or
gun--provided he could get close enough to use them properly.
Vistur stripped off his weapon belt, put to one side his helmet, showing
that under it his hair was plaited into a braid coiled about the crown
of his head to provide what must be an extra padding for that strangely
narrowed helm. Then he peeled off his armor, peeled it literally indeed,
catching the lower edge of the scaled covering with his hands and
pulling it up and over his head and shoulders as one might skin off a
knitted garment. Now he stood facing Ross, wearing little more than the
Terran's swimming trunks.
Ross had dropped his belt and gill-pack. He moved into the circle the
crew had made. From above came a strong light, centering from a point on
the mainmast and giving him good sight of his opponent.
Vistur was being urged to make a quick end of the reckless challenger,
his supporters shouting directions and encouragement. But if the Rover
had confidence, he also possessed the more intelligent and valuable
trait of caution in the face of the unknown. He outweighed, apparently
outmatched Ross, but he did not rush in rashly as his backers wished him
to.
They circled, Ross studying every move of the Rover's muscles, every
slight fraction of change in the other's balance. There would be
something to telegraph an attack from the other. For he intended to
fight purely in defense.
The charge came at last as the crew grew impatient and yelled their
impatience to see the prisoner taught a lesson. But Ross did not believe
it was that which sent Vistur at him. The Hawaikan simply thought he
knew the best way to take the Terran.
Ross ducked so that a hammer blow merely grazed him. But the Terran's
stiffened hand swept sidewise in a judo chop. Vistur gave a whooping cry
and went to his knees and Ross swung again, sending the Rover flat to
the deck. It had been quick but not so vicious as it might have been.
The Terran had no desire to kill or even disable Vistur for more than a
few minutes. His victim would carry a couple of aching bruises and
perhaps a hearty respect for a new mode of fighting from this encounter.
He could have as easily been dead had either of those blows landed other
than where Ross chose to plant them.
"Ahhhh--"
The Terran swung around, setting his back to the foot of the mast. Had
he guessed wrong? With their chosen champion down, would the crew now
rush him? He had gambled on the element of fair play which existed in a
primitive Terran warrior society after a man-to-man challenge. But he
could be wrong. Ross waited, tense. Just let one of them pull a weapon,
and it could be his end.
Two of them were aiding Vistur to his feet. The Rover's breath whistled
in and out of him with that same whooping, and both of his hands rose
unsteadily to his chest. The majority of his fellows stared from him to
the slighter Terran as if unable to believe the evidence of their eyes.
Torgul gathered up from the deck the belt and gill-pack Ross had shed in
preparation for the fight. He turned the belt around over his forearm
until the empty knife sheath was uppermost. One of the crew came forward
and slammed back into its proper place the long diver's knife which had
been there when Ross was captured. Then the Rover offered belt and
gill-pack to Ross. The Terran relaxed. His gamble had paid off; by the
present signs he had won his freedom.
"And my swordsman?" As he buckled on the belt Ross nodded at Loketh
still lying bound where they had pushed him at the beginning of the
fight.
"He is sworn to you?" Torgul asked.
"He is."
"Loose the coast rat then," the Rover ordered. "Now--tell me, stranger,
what manner of man are you? Do you come from the Foanna, after all? You
have a magic which is not our magic, since the Stone of Phutka did not
reveal it on you. Are you from the Shades?"
His fingers moved in the same sign Loketh had once made before Karara.
Ross gave his chosen explanation.
"I am from the sea, Captain. As for the Foanna, they are no friend to
me, since they hold captive in their keep one who is my brother-kin."
Torgul stared him up and down. "You say you are from the sea. I have
been a Rover since I was able to stumble on my two feet across a deck,
after the manner and custom of my people, yet I have never seen your
like before. Perhaps your coming means ill to me and mine, but by the
Law of Battle, you have won your freedom on this ship. I swear to you,
however, stranger, that if ill comes from you, then the Law will not
hold, and you shall match your magic against the Strength of Phutka.
That you shall discover is another thing altogether."
"I will swear any oath you desire of me, Captain, that I have no ill
toward you and yours. There is only one wish I hold: to bring him whom I
seek out from the Foanna hold before they make him witches' meat."
"That will be a task worthy of any magic you may be able to summon,
stranger. We have tasted this night of the power of the sea gate. Though
we went in under the Will of Phutka, we were as weeds whirled about on
the waves. Who enters that gate must have more force than any we now
know."
"And you, too, then have a score to settle with the Foanna?"
"We have a score against the Foanna, or against their magic," Torgul
admitted. "Three ships--one island fairing--are gone as if they never
were! And those who went with them are of our fleet-clan. There is the
work of the Shadow stretching dark and heavy across the sea, new come
into these waters. But there remains nothing we can do this night. We
have been lucky to win to sea again. Now, stranger, what shall we do
with you? Or will you take to the sea again since you name it as home?"
"Not here," Ross countered swiftly. He must gain some idea of where they
might be in relation to the island, how far from its shore. Karara and
the dolphins--what had happened to them?
"You took no other prisoners?" Ross had to ask.
"There were more of you?" Torgul countered.
"Yes." No need to say how many, Ross decided.
"We saw no others. You ... all of you--" the Captain rounded on the
still-clustered crew, "get about your work! We must raise Kyn Add by
morning and report to the council."
He walked away and Ross, determined to learn all he could, followed him
into the stern cabin. Here again the Terran was faced with barbaric
splendor in carvings, hangings, a wealth of plate and furnishing not too
different from the display he had seen in the Wreckers' castle. As Ross
hesitated just within the doorway Torgul glanced back at him.
"You have your life and that of your man, stranger. Do not ask more of
me, unless you have that within your hands to enforce the asking."
"I want nothing, save to be returned to where you took me, Captain."
Torgul smiled grimly. "You are the sea, you yourself said that. The sea
is wide, but it is all one. Through it you must have your own paths.
Take any you choose. But I do not risk my ship again into what lies in
wait before the gates of the Foanna."
"Where do you go then, Captain?"
"To Kyn Add. You have your own choice, stranger--the sea or our
fairing."
There would be no way of changing the Rover's decision, Ross thought.
And even with the gill-pack he could not swim back to where he had been
taken. There were no guideposts in the sea. But a longer acquaintance
with Torgul might be helpful.
"Kyn Add then, Captain." He made the next move to prove equality and
establish himself with this Rover, seating himself at the table as one
who had the right to share the Captain's quarters.
10
Death at Kyn Add
The hour was close to dawn again and a need for sleep weighted Ross's
eyelids, was a craving as strong as hunger. Still restlessness had
brought him on deck, sent him to pacing, alert to this vessel and its
crew.
He had seen the ships of the Terran Bronze Age traders--small craft
compared to those of his own time, depending upon oarsmen when the wind
failed their sails, creeping along coasts rather than venturing too far
into dangerous seas, sometimes even tying up at the shore each night.
There had been other ships, leaner, hardier. Those had plunged into the
unknown, touching lands beyond the sea mists, sailed and oared by men
plagued by the need to learn what lay beyond the horizon.
And here was such a ship, taut, well kept, larger than the Viking
longboats Ross had watched on the tapes of the Project's collection, yet
most like those far-faring Terran craft. The prow curved up in a mighty
bowsprit where was the carved likeness of the sea dragon Ross had fought
in the Hawaika of his own time. The eyes of that monster flashed with a
regular blink of light which the Terran did not understand. Was it a
signal or merely a device to threaten a possible enemy?
There were sails, now furled as this ship bored on, answering to the
steady throb of what could only be an engine. And his puzzlement held. A
Viking longboat powered by motor? The mixture was incongruous.
The crew were uniform as to face. All of them wore the flexible pearly
armor, the skull-strip helmets. Though there were individual differences
in ornaments and the choice of weapons. The majority of the men did
carry curve-pointed swords, though those were broader and heavier than
those the Terran had seen ashore. But several had axes with
sickle-shaped heads, whose points curved so far back that they nearly
met to form a circle.
Spaced at regular intervals on deck were boxlike objects fronting what
resembled gun ports. And smaller ones of the same type were on the
raised deck at the stern and mounted in the prow, their muzzles, if the
square fronts might be deemed muzzles, flanking the blinking dragon
head. Catapults of some type? Ross wondered.
"Rosss--" His name was given the hiss Loketh used, but it was not the
Wrecker youth who joined him now at the stern of the ship. "Ho ... that
was strong magic, that fighting knowledge of yours!"
Vistur rubbed his chest reminiscently. "You have big magic, sea man. But
then you serve the Maid, do you not? Your swordsman has told us that
even the great fish understand and obey her."
"Some fish," qualified Ross.
"Such fish as that, perhaps?" Vistur pointed to the curling wake of
foam.
Startled, Ross stared in that direction. Torgul's command was the
centermost in a trio of ships, and those cruised in a line, leaving
three trails of troubled wave behind them. Coming up now to port in the
comparative calm between two wakes was a dark object. In the limited
light Ross could be sure of nothing save that it trailed the ships,
appeared to rest on or only lightly in the water, and that its speed was
less than that of the vessels it doggedly pursued.
"A fish--that?" Ross asked.
"Watch!" Vistur ordered.
But the Hawaikan's sight must have been keener than the Terran's. Had
there been a quick movement back there? Ross could not be sure.
"What happened?" He turned to Vistur for enlightenment.
"As a salkar it leaps now and then above the surface. But that is no
salkar. Unless, Ross, you who say you are from the sea have servants
unlike any finned one we have drawn in by net or line before this day."
The dolphins! Could Tino-rau or Taua or both be in steady pursuit of the
ships? But Karara ... Ross leaned against the rail, stared until his
eyes began to water from the strain of trying to make out the nature of
the black blot. No use, the distance was too great. He brought his fist
down against the wood, trying to control his impatience. More than half
of him wanted to burst into Torgul's quarters, demand that the Captain
bring the ship about to pick up or contact that trailer or trailers.
"Yours?" again Vistur asked.
Ross had tight rein on himself now. "I do not know. It could well be."
It could well be also that the smart thing would be to encourage the
Rovers to believe that he had a force of sea dwellers much larger than
the four Time castaways. The leader of an army--or a navy--had more
prestige in any truce discussion than a member of a lost scouting party.
But the thought that the dolphins could be trailing held both promise
and worry--promise of allies, and worry over what had happened to
Karara. Had she, too, disappeared after Ashe into the hold of the
Foanna?
The day did not continue to lighten. Though there was no cottony mist as
had enclosed them the night before, there was an odd muting of sea and
sky, limiting vision. Shortly Ross was unable to sight the follower or
followers. Even Vistur admitted he had lost visual contact. Had the blot
been hopelessly outdistanced, or was it still dogging the wakes of the
Rover ships?
Ross shared the morning meal with Captain Torgul, a round of leathery
substance with a salty, meaty flavor, and a thick mixture of what might
be native fruit reduced to a tart paste. Once before he had tasted alien
food when in the derelict spaceship it had meant eat or starve. And this
was a like circumstance, since their emergency ration supplies had been
lost in the net. But though he was apprehensive, no ill effects
followed. Torgul had been uncommunicative earlier; now he was looser of
tongue, volunteering that they were almost to their port--the fairing of
Kyn Add.
The Terran had no idea how far he might question the Hawaikan, yet the
fuller his information the better. He discovered that Torgul appeared
willing to accept Ross's statement that he was from a distant part of
the sea and that local customs differed from those he knew.
Living on and by the sea the Rovers were quick-witted, adaptive, with a
highly flexible if loose-knit organization of fleet-clans. Each of these
had control over certain islands which served them as "fairings," ports
for refitting and anchorage between voyages, usually ruggedly wooded
where the sea people could find the raw material for their ships.
Colonies of clans took to the sea, not in the slim, swift cruisers like
the ship Ross was now on, but in larger, deeper vessels providing living
quarters and warehouses afloat. They lived by trade and raiding,
spending only a portion of the year ashore to grow fast-sprouting crops
on their fairing islands and indulge in some manufacture of articles the
inhabitants of the larger and more heavily populated islands were not
able to duplicate.
Their main article of commerce was, however, a sea-dwelling creature
whose supple and well-tanned hide formed their defensive armor and
served manifold other uses. This could only be hunted by men trained and
fearless enough to brave more than one danger Torgul did not explain in
detail. And a cargo of such skins brought enough in trade to keep a
normal-sized fleet-clan for a year.
There was warfare among them. Rival clans tried to jump each other's
hunting territories, raid fairings. But until the immediate past, Ross
gathered, such encounters were relatively bloodless affairs, depending
more upon craft and skillful planning to reduce the enemy to a position
of disadvantage in which he was forced to acknowledge defeat, rather
than ruthless battle of no quarter.
The shore-side Wrecker lords were always considered fair game, and there
was no finesse in Rover raids upon them. Those were conducted with a
cold-blooded determination to strike hard at a long-time foe. However,
within the past year there had been several raids on fairings with the
same blood-bath result of a foray on a Wrecker port. And, since all the
fleet-clans denied the sneak-and-strike, kill-and-destroy tactics which
had finished those Rover holdings, the seafarers were divided in their
opinion as to whether the murderous raids were the work of Wreckers
suddenly acting out of character and taking to the sea to bring war back
to their enemies, or whether there was a rogue fleet moving against
their own kind for some purpose no Rover could yet guess.
"And you believe?" Ross asked as Torgul finished his résumé of the new
dangers besetting his people.
Torgul's hand, its long, slender fingers spidery to Terran eyes, rubbed
back and forth across his chin before he answered:
"It is very hard for one who has fought them long to believe that
suddenly those shore rats are entrusting themselves to the waves,
venturing out to stir us with their swords. One does not descend into
the depths to kick a salkar in the rump; not if one still has his wits
safely encased under his skull braid. As for a rogue fleet ... what
would turn brother against brother to the extent of slaying children and
women? Raiding for a wife, yes, that is common among our youth. And
there have been killings over such matters. But not the killing of a
woman--never of a child! We are a people who have never as many women as
there are men who wish to bring them into the home cabin. And no clan
has as many children as they hope the Shades will send them."
"Then who?"
When Torgul did not answer at once Ross glanced at the Captain, and what
the Terran thought he saw showing for an instant in the other's eyes was
a revelation of danger. So much so that he blurted out:
"You think that I--we--"
"You have named yourself of the sea, stranger, and you have magic which
is not ours. Tell me this in truth: Could you not have killed Vistur
easily with those two blows if you had wished it?"
Ross took the bold course. "Yes, but I did not. My people kill no more
wantonly than yours."
"The coast rats I know, and the Foanna, as well as any man may know
their kind and ways, and my people--But you I do not know, sea stranger.
And I say to you as I have said before, make me regret that I suffered
you to claim battle rights and I shall speedily correct that mistake!"
"Captain!"
That cry had come from the cabin door behind Ross. Torgul was on his
feet with the swift movements of a man called many times in the past for
an instant response to emergency.
The Terran was close on the Rover's heels as they reached the deck. A
cluster of crewmen gathered on the port side near the narrow bow. That
odd misty quality this day held provided a murk hard to pierce, but the
men were gesturing at a low-riding object rolling with the waves.
That was near enough for even Ross to be able to distinguish a small
boat akin to the one in which he, Karara, and Loketh had dared the sea
gate of the Foanna.
Torgul took up a great curved shell hanging by a thong on the mainmast.
Setting its narrow end to his lips, he blew. A weird booming note, like
the coughing of a sea monster, carried over the waves. But there was no
answer from the drifting boat, no sign it carried any passengers.
"Hou, hou, hou--" Torgul's signal was re-echoed by shell calls from the
other two cruisers.
"Heave to!" the Captain ordered. "Wakti, Zimmon, Yoana--out and bring
that in!"
Three of the crew leaped to the railing, poised there for a moment, and
then dived almost as one into the water. A rope end was thrown, caught
by one of them. And then they swam with powerful strokes toward the
drifting boat. Once the rope was made fast the small craft was drawn
toward Torgul's command, the crewmen swimming beside it. Ross longed to
know the reason for the tense expectancy of the men around him. It was
apparent the skiff had some ominous meaning for them.
Ross caught a glimpse of a body huddled within the craft. Under Torgul's
orders a sling was dropped, to rise, weighted with a passenger. The
Terran was shouldered back from the rail as the limp body was hurried
into the Captain's cabin. Several crewmen slid down to make an
examination of the boat itself.
Their heads came up, their eyes searched along the rail and centered on
Ross. The hostility was so open the Terran braced himself to meet those
cold stares as he would a rush from a challenger.
A slight sound behind sent Ross leaping to the right, wanting to get his
back against solid protection. Loketh came up, his limp making him
awkward so that he clutched at the rail for support. In his other hand
was one of the hooked swords bared and ready.
"Get the murderers!" Someone in the back line of the massing crew yipped
that.
Ross drew his diver's knife. Shaken at this sudden change in the crew's
attitude, he was warily on the defensive. Loketh was beside him now and
the Hawaikan nodded to the sea.
"Better go there," he cried. "Over before they try to gut you!"
"Kill!" The word shrilled into a roar from the Rovers. They started up
the deck toward Ross and Loketh. Then someone leaped between, and Vistur
fronted his own comrades.
"Stand away--" One of the others ran forward, thrusting at the tall
Rover with a stiffened out-held arm to fend him out of their path.
Vistur rolled a shoulder, sending the fellow shunting away. He went down
while two more, unable to halt, thudded on him. Vistur stamped on an
outstretched hand and sent a sword spinning.
"What goes here!" Torgul's demand was loud enough to be heard. It
stopped a few of the crew and two more went down as the Captain struck
out with his fists. Then he was facing Ross, and the chill in his eyes
was the threat the others had voiced.
"I told you, sea stranger, that if I found you were a danger to me or
mine, you would meet the Justice of Phutka!"
"You did," Ross returned. "And in what way am I now a danger, Captain?"
"Kyn Add has been taken by those who are not Wreckers, not Rovers, not
those who serve the Foanna--but strangers out of the sea!"
Ross could only stare back, confused. And then the full force of his
danger struck home. Who those raiding sea strangers could be, he had no
idea, but that he was now condemned out of his own mouth was true and he
realized that these men were not going to listen to any argument from
him in their present state of mind.
The growl of the crew was that of a hungry animal. Ross saw the wisdom
in Loketh's choice. Far better chance the open sea than the mob before
them.
But his time for choice had passed. Out of nowhere whirled a lacy
gray-white net, slapping him back against a bulkhead to glue him there.
Ross tried to twist loose, got his head around in time to see Loketh
scramble to the top of the rail, turn as if to launch himself at the men
speeding for the now helpless Terran. But the Hawaikan's crippled leg
failed him and he toppled back overside.
"No!" Again Torgul's shout halted the crew. "He shall take the Black
Curse with him when he goes to meet the Shadow--and only one can speak
that curse. Bring him!"
Helpless, reeling under their blows, dragged along, Ross was thrown into
the Captain's cabin, confronted by a figure braced up by coverings and
cushions in Torgul's own chair.
A woman, her face a drawn death's head of skin pulled tight upon bone,
yet a fiery inner strength holding her mind above the suffering of her
body, looked at the Terran with narrowed eyes. She nursed a bandaged arm
against her, and now and then her mouth quivered as if she could not
altogether control some emotion or physical pain.
"Yours is the cursing, Lady Jazia. Make it heavy to bear for him as his
kind has laid the burden of pain and remembering on all of us."
She brought her good hand up to her mouth, wiping its back across her
lips as if to temper their quiver. And all the time her eyes held upon
Ross.
"Why do you bring me this man?" Her voice was strained, high. "He is not
of those who brought the Shadow to Kyn Add."
"What--?" Torgul began and then schooled his voice to a more normal
tone. "Those were from the sea?" He was gentle in his questioning. "They
came out of the sea, using weapons against which we had no defense?"
She nodded. "Yes, they made very sure that only the dead remained. But I
had gone to the Shrine of Phutka, since it was my day of duty, and
Phutka's power threw its shade over me. So I did not die, but I
saw--yes, I saw!"
"Not those like me?" Ross dared to speak to her directly.