It was a measureless time before the rain ceased, but at last the clouds broke and the winds abated. To starboard through the haze of rain land appeared, the land they so much wanted to leave behind,—a dim gray line, the stark cliffs and headlands of Sufak. Kta turned the helm over to Tkel and stood looking toward the east, wiping the rain from his face. The water streamed from his hair.
“How much have we lost?” Kurt asked.
Kta shrugged. “Considerable. Considerable. We must fight contrary winds, at least for the present. Spring is a constant struggle between southwind and north, and eventually south must win. It is a question of time and heaven’s good favor.”
“Heaven’s good favor would have prevented that storm,” said Kurt. Cold limbs and exhaustion made him more acid than he was lately wont to be with Kta, but Kta was well-armored this day: he merely shrugged off the human cynicism.
“How are we to know? Maybe we were going toward trouble and the wind blew us back to safety. Maybe the storm had nothing to do with us. A man should not be too conceited.”
Kurt gave him a peculiar look, and caught his balance as the sea’s ebbing violence lifted Tavi’s bow and lowered it again. It pleased him, even so, to find Kta straight-facedly laughing at him: so it had been in Elas, on evenings when they talked together, making light of their serious differences. It was good to know they could still do that.
“ Hya!” Val cried, “My lord Kta! Ship astern!”
There was, amid the gray haze, a tiny object that was not a part of the sea or the shore. Kta swore.
“They cannot help but overhaul us, my lord!”
“That much is sure,” said Kta, and then lifted his voice to the crew. “Men, if that is Edrifastern, we have a fight coming. Arm yourselves and check your gear; we may not have time later. Kurt, my friend,—” Kta turned and faced him, “When they close, as I fear they will, keep away from exposed areas. The Sufaki are quite accurate bowmen. If we are rammed, jump and try to find a bit of wood to cling to. Use sword or ax, whatever you wish, but I do not plan to be boarding or boarded if I can prevent it. Badly as we both want Shan t’Tefur, we dare not risk it.”
The intervening space closed slowly. Nearer view confirmed the ship as Edrif,a sixty-oared longship, and Tavi,though of newer and swifter design, had ten of her fifty benches vacant. At the moment only twenty oars were working.
“ Ei,” said Kta to the men in the rowers’ pits on either side of him—the other twenty also seated and ready, six of the deck crew taking vacant posts to bring Tavi’s oarage closer to normal strength. “ Ei,now, keep the pace, you rowers, as you are, and listen to me. Edrifis stalking us, and we will have to begin to move. Let none of us make a mistake or hesitate; we have no margin and no relief. Skill must save us, skill and discipline and experience; no Sufak ship can match us in that—Now, now, run out the rest of the oars. Hold, you other men, hold!”
The cadence halted briefly, Tavi’s twenty working oars poised creaking and dripping until the other twenty-six were run out and ready. Kta gave the count himself, a moderate pace. Edrifgained steadily, her sixty oars beating the sea. Figures were now discernible on her deck.
Kurt made a quick descent to seize a blade from a rack in the companionway, and on second thought exchanged it for a short-handled ax, such as was properly designed for freeing shattered rigging, not for combat. He did not estimate that his lessons with Kta had made him a fencer equal to a nemet who had handled the ypanall his life, and he did not trust that all Sufaki shunned the ypanin favor of the bow and the knife.
He delayed long enough to dress too, to slip on a pelbeneath the ctanand belt it, for the wind was bitter, and the prospect of entering a fight all but naked did not appeal to him.
When he had returned to the deck, even after so brief a time, Edrifhad closed the gap further, so that her green dragon figurehead was clear to be seen above the water that boiled about her metal-shod ram. A stripe-robed officer stood at her bow, shouting back orders, but the wind carried his voice away.
“Prepare to turn full about,” Kta shouted to his own crew. “Quick turn, starboard bank—stand by—Turn! Hard about,— hard!”
Tavichanged course with speed that made her timbers groan, oars and helm bringing her about three-quarters to the wind, and Kta was already shouting an order to Pan.
The dark blue sail with the lightning emblem of Elas billowed down from the yard and filled, deck crew hauling to sheet it home. Tavicame alive in the water, suddenly bearing down on Edrifwith the driving power of the wind and her forty-six oars.
Frenzied activity erupted on the other deck. Edrifbegan to turn, full broadside for a moment, continuing until she was nearly stern on. Her dark green sail spread, but she could not turn with graceful Tavi’s speed, and her crew hesitated, taken by surprise. Tavihad the wind in her own sail, stealing it from theirs.
“Portside oars!” Kta roared over the thunder of the rowing. “Stand by to ship oars portside!— Hya,Val!”
“Aye!” Val shouted back. “Understood, my lord!”
A shout of panic went up from Edrifas Taviclosed, and Kta shouted to the portside bank as they headed for collision. Tavi’s two banks lifted from the water, and with frantic haste the men portside shipped oars while the starboard rowers held their poised level.
With the final force of wind and gathered speed, Tavibrushed the side of Edrif,the Sufak vessel’s starboard oars splintering as shouts of pain and panic came from her pits. Sufaki rowers deserted their benches and scrambled for very life, their officers cursing at them in vain.
“Take in sail!” Kta shouted, and Tavi’s blue sail began to come in. Quickly she lost the force of the wind and glided under momentum.
“Helm!” Kta shouted. “Starboard oars—in water—and pull!”
Taviwas already beginning to turn about under her helm, and the one-sided bite of her oars took her hard about again, timbers groaning. There was a crack like a shot and a scream: one of the long sweeps had snapped under the strain and tumbled a man bleeding into the next bench—the next man leaned to let him fall, but kept the pace, and one of the deck crew ran to aid him, dragging him from the pit. Arrows hissed across the deck—Sufaki archers.
“Portside oars!” Kta shouted, as those men, well-drilled, had already run out their oars to be ready. “All hold! In water—and pull!”
Forty-five oars hit the water together, muscles rippled across glistening backs—stroke—and stroke—and stroke, and Edrifastern and helpless with half her oarage hanging in ruin and her deck littered with splinter-wounded men. The arrows fell short now, impotent. The breathing of Tavi’s men was in unison and loud, like the ship drawing wind, as if all the crew and the ship they sailed had become one living entity as she drove herself northward, widening the distance.