Kingdom Of Royth rb-9 Read online

  The other three ships were smaller, low-slung, with jutting bows apparently ending in rams. They also had two masts, but lanteen-rigged, and there were definitely oar ports in their low sides amidships.

  Merchantmen and war galleys-two distinct types. Two distinct sides perhaps? And with all five ships on fire, and wreckage and bodies littering the sea, that suggested a recent battle. Blade found himself scanning the horizon again. The survivors of such a battle, if any, might not be welcome company for a man naked and unarmed. It was time to see what he could scrounge in the way of survival gear from the flotsam spread out over more than a square mile of ocean.

  The boat was far too heavy in its waterlogged condition for Blade to right it by himself. But there were plenty of floating spars trailing rigging and still half-wrapped in sails. Kicking hard with his feet, he pushed two such together, added a third, then tied them together with as much rope as he could salvage without a knife to cut it. After half an hour’s work, he had a ramshackle raft, three feet wide and about fifteen feet long. It rode half-submerged, like a floating log. But it saved him from having to swim or tread water continuously. And in the course of assembling his raft, he found a small piece of timber that balanced well enough in his hand to make a serviceable club.

  The sun was noticeably lower in the sky now. One of the galleys finally dipped its bow under and sank with a great hissing as the fires were drowned and a great bubbling and gurgling as the last of the air escaped from the vanishing hull. Bits of charred wood popped to the surface in the disturbed water it left behind. One of the merchantmen was also visibly lower in the water. The sight of the sinking ship and the thought of oncoming night reminded Blade of the need to get himself a better weapon than the improvised club and, if possible, clothing as well. In the darkness, any survivors of the battle returning to the scene would probably be in a «strike first and ask questions afterwards» frame of mind. Blade didn’t blame them, but neither did he want to be a helpless victim. He slid off the raft and swam toward the nearest of the floating boxes and chests. He hoped it hadn’t belonged to the captain’s mistress and so was full of her cheap jewelry and by now thoroughly waterlogged cosmetics.

  The first box he opened was far from useless, though not quite as useful as one containing weapons. It held bolts of coarse, garishly colored cloth, like burlap bags dyed purple, bright blue, red-orange. Trade goods for some primitive tribes somewhere on the remote shores of the ocean? Blade could not help speculating about the people of this Dimension, little evidence though he had as yet to go on. He appropriated the blue cloth and with a good deal of effort-it was tougher than he had anticipated-improvised a loincloth and a rough hood for his head and shoulders, which were already beginning to sting from their exposure to the sun.

  He was no longer naked, but he was still practically weaponless, and there were other boxes and chests and crates to examine. Some had been opened already; most of these were as empty as a scraped-out bowl. Others had stout bolts or locks, and he could not swing his club hard enough to smash them open while he was in the water. He had to laboriously push them over to the raft, hoist them on to it and precariously balance both them and himself while he hammered away at the fastenings. He usually fell off two or three times while working on each box, and the box itself usually slipped off the raft into the sea at least once. It was well into twilight, with a raw red and orange glow sprawling across the western horizon, and his own temper blazing nearly as brightly as the sunset, before he finally found what he was looking for.

  The chest had not been completely filled with weapons, or it would probably have sunk with the weight of the metal inside. Apparently it had held the personal possessions of an officer of one of the ships-colored tunics, white breeches, a belt, a pair of black boots, linen underclothing, a green silk sash, a small enameled brass box for valuables, all jumbled together as though somebody had been hastily pawing through the chest before abandoning ship.

  But there was also a sword-a rapier, all point, light and supple, and not a ceremonial weapon. The steel of the blade was good and the hilt and guard plain heavy brass without fancy ornamentation. He flexed the blade experimentally and tried a few thrusts. It would serve quite well against any opponent who wasn’t wearing enough body armor to stop the point. And Blade had enough confidence in his own skill with weapons to believe he could find chinks in armor into which to drive the point.

  Now he had weapons and clothing of sorts, but no food or water. He was prepared to survive several weeks without food, or with only what he could catch from the ocean. But he had to find some water before another two days had gone by. He would not be dead by then, but he would be almost past the point of being able to save himself, and perhaps to the point of making some foolish mistake (like drinking salt water) that would finish him off quickly. Unfortunately, finding water was probably going to be difficult. He would not be likely to see it bobbing about in chests or boxes in the ocean. Possibly some of the water barrels in the holds of the ships were still intact.

  He turned back to the ships, which he had largely ignored during his hunt for survival gear. Another of the galleys had gone down, and one of the merchantmen was so low in the water that Blade knew she also had only a few more minutes afloat. The other merchantman was still blazing too brightly to make it safe to board her. But the remaining galley had burned herself out and was floating, a charred and smoldering hulk, but yet one which might be boarded and even explored safely.

  It was now almost dark, with only a faint pearly sheen in the western sky to mark the final fading of daylight. Blade recalled that in the tropical seas of Home Dimension, nightfall meant large, hungry fish roaming about, seeking what or whom they might devour. This felt like a tropical ocean; he hoped the parallel would not extend farther. It case it did, however, it was time he got moving.

  The burning merchantman was spreading a pool of golden light across the surface of the sea, and as Blade turned, his superb peripheral vision caught something moving on the outer fringes of that pool. He froze, turning only his head to get a better look. Then he slowly flattened himself on his raft.

  A boat was rowing out of the darkness toward the floating hulks and wreckage-a ship’s boat, crowded with men and rowing about five oars a side. They were rowing very badly, Blade noticed, with much splashing and catching of crabs. The oarsmen were either untrained or nervous or both. However, that wasn’t an important question. They were other human beings. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing which side they belonged to. At least neither side had any compelling reason to be violently hostile to him, the proverbial innocent bystander. And these people were certainly a better alternative than either exploring smoldering hulks in search of water or sitting on his raft until he died of thirst. He took a firm grip on the rapier, stood up and HALOOOOED at the top of his powerful lungs.

  The sound carried well over the water to the boat. Blade saw it suddenly swing around as the oars stopped. There was a dead silence that lasted until Blade wondered if his hail had stricken everyone in the boat mute or dead. Then a harsh shout came back over the water.

  «Who goes there?»

  Blade was no longer surprised at his ability to understand and speak the local language from his first moment in a new Dimension. Lord Leighton of course found it a fascinating psychological and physiological phenomenon and had once devoted several hours to an enthusiastic and, to Blade, totally unintelligible consideration of the various possible explanations for it. He shouted back.

  «Friend!»

  There were audible mutterings in reply to this, followed by another moment’s silence. Then someone shouted an order and the boat swung back on course towards Blade, the oars splashing away as busily and as sloppily as before. In five minutes the boat was close enough for Blade to make out its occupants clearly-and for them to make him out also. At that point the boat stopped again. Blade grinned as he realized that this must be the result of his own appearance. If these were the survivors of t
he battle, the sight of a huge man whose near nakedness revealed massive muscles and whose hand held a long and businesslike rapier would understandably be enough to make them hold back. He lowered the rapier to the raft and spread both hands out in a conciliatory gesture.

  «I said ‘Friend,’ damn you! What do I look like?»

  That started the mutterings off again. He even heard one or two laughs. Apparently they couldn’t make up their minds. Finally, one man, bare to the waist but with the air of a leader about him, stood up and shouted across.

  «What was your ship, fellow?»

  «None of these.» Blade gestured at the hulks. «I hail from the south. My ship sank two days ago.»

  «Howfor it sank? No storms this part of t’ocean of late. Or did ye meet pirates too?»

  «Pirates?»

  «By Druk’s sea-green beard, you’re from a distant land if ye’ve no beard o’ the pirates of Neral.» The man’s eyes narrowed. «Less’n ye be one yourself. Forbye-«and he began to rattle off a stream of words that Blade guessed must be some sort of slang. He went on until the blank incomprehension-partly natural, partly assumed-on Blade’s face brought him to a stop. Then he shrugged. «If ye be not knowing the Neralers’ cant, ye be none of them, tho’ who ye be else I know not. Throw me over that pigsticker ye be wavin’, and then swim over to us bare as a babe. I’ll be leavin’ no seaman here for the Neralers if they come back. But I’ll not be riskin’ my men either.»

  Blade complied. When he was safely in the boat, the man looked him over again carefully and said, «Ye look like no man I’ve ever seen, but Druk’s not a liker of sailors who abandon a man to the sea or the Neralers. Still, ye’ll be sittin’ quiet and makin’ no moves for a weapon, or ye’ll be spitted and fed to the fishes. If-«

  «Brora! Look!» somebody behind them shouted. Blade and the other man spun about to see two low-slung boats swing out from behind the abandoned galley and move towards them. Blade knew instinctively that these were the Neral pirates Brora had mentioned. He also realized that if they found him in a boatload of their enemies, they would kill him along with the rest before he could explain who he was. Even a chance to explain might not do him any good. It was time to fight.

  Brora was shouting to his men. There were clatters and scrapings of metal as swords and daggers were drawn. He raised his hands to heaven and bellowed, «Druk, save us now!» and muttered under his breath, «Why did we come back like a pack o’ fools?» Blade took advantage of the distraction to snatch up his rapier. Brora turned, started, glared at Blade.

  «Damn it, Brora, I told you I was a friend! The pirates will kill me just as readily as they will you! Don’t waste your time distrusting me!» Brora frowned, but then nodded and handed Blade a dagger. The pirates were almost up to them now. There was no room to run, only to fight.

  If the pirates had had arrows, the fight would have been hopeless. But they had only the same swords and knives as their opponents, so they had to close. As the two pirate boats moved in, oars thumping in a trained rhythm, Blade rose from the bottom of the boat to a half crouch and stared at them, trying to guess their tactics.

  One boat was going to cut off their retreat; it was swinging around behind them. The other was coming straight in at full speed. In a moment Blade knew it was going to plough into them, trying to capsize them. But Brora knew his business. He yelled to the oarsmen, and they snatched up the oars. Clumsy though they were, their frantic efforts pivoted the boat around.

  The boats met bow to bow with a crash and a shock that threw practically everybody in both off their feet with curses and a clatter of weapons. Practically everybody-except Blade. Before the pirate crew could regain their feet, he was over the side of their boat, flourishing both his weapons.

  The pirate leader had been ready to lead his men into the enemy’s boat, so he was the first to die. Blade’s longer weapon and immensely longer reach gave him a decisive advantage. The pirate leader died with the rapier jutting out the back of his neck while his own cutlass whistled through the air futile inches short of Blade. Another pirate lunged forward past the leader. Blade kicked him in the stomach and laid open his throat with a slash of the dagger while jerking his rapier free to confront a third opponent.

  This one bobbed and weaved, making three of Blade’s thrusts miss by inches. Then the pirate sprang in and under the rapier, bringing his cutlass down in a whistling slash that missed taking off Blade’s arm but crashed into the guard of the rapier so hard that it flew out of Blade’s hand and over the side. But the pirate was off balance for a moment, long enough for Blade to thrust the dagger into his stomach, then snatch the cutlass out of the air as the man’s hand unclasped. Almost with the same motion he slashed down to take off the head of a fourth pirate trying to get around the dying man.

  He had killed four men in something under thirty seconds, and now the men in the boat behind him were waking from their amazement and crowding forward. But a moment later they had their own battle to fight. Out of the corner of his eye Blade saw the second pirate boat sweeping in. With a crash it smashed into the merchant sailors’ boat, pushing it away from the first pirate boat. With yells and howls its crew hurled themselves on their opponents.

  Blade was too busy to watch any more of that. He was alone in the bow of the first boat now, alone against eight or ten armed and furious pirates. The cutlass was shorter and heavier than the rapier, but it had an edge as well as a point. He chopped down with it like a butcher chopping meat while the dagger flickered in and out. The pirates could only get at him one or two at a time without going over the side. One bolder or more imaginative type tried that. But as the man rolled himself over the side of the boat into the water, Blade parried a thrust with his dagger, slashed his current opponent across the belly with a cutlass stroke, and leaped across the falling body to bring the cutlass up, over, and down on the bold one’s back. He felt the blade chop through the spine. The man went limp and rolled into the water with a splash, vanishing like a lead statue.

  There were eleven bodies in the boat when Blade finished, and the bottom was awash two inches deep in blood. If there had been any survivors of the crew, they had thrown themselves over the side and thrashed frantically off into the darkness to get away from this monster that had hurled himself upon them. Gradually, as the fury of battle faded from his mind, Blade became aware of someone calling.

  «Hoy, friend! Be ye hurt? By Druk’s coral trident, that were fightin’ like none ever seen!» Blade turned about and saw Brora standing in his own boat some twenty yards away, surrounded by the survivors of his own men. Another thirty yards beyond, the second pirate boat was limping off, only two or three raggedly plied oars on each side in action, and blood visible on some of the oarsmen. Brora saw Blade looking, and grinned savagely. «Aye, they be goin’. We were hard at it for a bit, but we took six or seven o’ them to four of us. Then they saw what ye’d done o’er there and that were enough for ‘em. Hold where ye be, friend. We’ll come clean those sharks out o’ their boat and take it for our own.»

  After the dead pirates had been stripped of usable gear and clothing and dumped over the side, the merchant sailors redistributed themselves among the two boats. While this was going on, Brora drew Blade as much out of earshot as possible and looked hard at him, with a faint smile on his weatherbeaten face.

  «From the south, ye say?»

  Blade shrugged. «As much as any place. I’m a footloose type by nature.»

  «And a fighter. I’ve seen no sailor who could fight like that, tho’ we do reckon ourselves fair tough in any scrap.»

  «I wasn’t a sailor. Down south-«Blade hoped there was enough of a «south» in this Dimension to make his story plausible «-I was a professional soldier. A freelance. There are many such.»

  «So I hear,» said Brora, and that was apparently as much as he was interested in inquiring into Blade’s origins. «Well, I tell ye-whatever ye think ye be worth as a fighter, any shipmaster of Royth would give ye double it or more
were ye to sign on w’ him as a guard. Ye’ve seen what the pirates are like. ‘Tis a miracle sent by Druk to aid honest sailors that we found ye.» He thrust out his hand. «Brora Lanthal’s son swears friendship with ye from now ‘til death divides us. What say ye?»

  Blade clasped the hand and shook it vigorously. «I say yes, Brora.»

  «Well and good. When Brora speaks, no few o’ the Sailor’s Guild listen. And we sailors be half the honest men of Royth these days.» Before Blade could ask any further questions, Brora turned away and began issuing orders about shifting supplies and raising sail. Blade took the chance, a welcome one, to sit down and rest.

  CHAPTER 3

  Blade had plenty of time to rest and think in the five days before they were picked up. Unfortunately, little of the thinking led to any useful conclusions. During the whole five days all he could guess from the conversation and from what Brora told him was that the Ocean was surrounded by land. Most of the land was divided among four kingdoms. Of these kingdoms, the most powerful was the Kingdom of Royth, from which Brora and his men came. In the Ocean, however, also stood the island of Neral, somewhat to the north of their present position. It was the base for a powerful confederacy of pirates, almost a fifth kingdom in military power, which preyed on the shipping and even on the coasts of the Four Kingdoms. During the past five years, the pirates had been growing more numerous, more enterprising, and more ferocious.

  Brora had been first mate aboard the Blackfish, the larger of the two merchantmen Blade had seen burning. Because both ships were larger than usual, and both had well-armed and determined crews, they had succeeded in sinking one of the pirate galleys outright and setting the other three hopelessly on fire before themselves going up in flames. This, Brora emphasized, was a very unusual outcome for a battle against the pirates of Neral. They usually won, taking the ship and cargo, and either murdering, enslaving, recruiting, or (very rarely) holding for ransom everybody aboard. The survivors of both sides had made off in their boats; too concerned at first with sheer survival to bother each other. But Brora had decided that it might be wise to return to the area of the battle, to pick up any salvageable gear that might prove useful for survival. Apparently the remaining pirates had had the same idea. Thus the encounter.