A fellow ran past. I did not know if he were a mutineer or not.
I did not strike at him.
“Throw down your arms!” cried Cabot to mutineers. “Throw down your arms!”
Some did, and were hastily bound by Pani, neck to neck, hands behind their backs.
A number of mutineers, however, desperately, fighting, were backing up the ramp toward the open deck. That deck, at least amidships and forward, I gathered, had been largely, most of the time, in the hands of the mutineers. The hatch windlass on the open deck, it seems, had been that used in rolling back the hatch. Many mutineers had come down the ramp from the open deck.
Some of the mutineers on the ramp, those a little behind the points of engagement, turned about, and fled up the ramp. Many of these were felled on the ramp by Pani bows, now with clear targets. Several arrows were lodged in the ramp itself.
Behind me I heard a man weeping, a tarnkeeper. He held the gigantic, limp head of one of the monsters to his breast.
We heard a grating noise. Several mutineers were on the open deck. They were trying to close the hatch.
“Ropes!” I heard, from above. “Food!”
“Do not close the hatch!” screamed mutineers still on the ramp.
It rumbled shut.
“Sleen, sleen!” cried abandoned mutineers.
Our men drew back. The Pani archers, in lines, set arrows to the strings of their bows.
“Throw down your weapons!” cried Cabot to the men on the ramp.
They cast them away, clattering, rolling and sliding, down the ramp.
“No!” cried Cabot.
The lines of Pani archers loosed their arrows.
I think there were none on the ramp, who were not transfixed with two or three arrows.
“Stop!” cried Cabot, to Pani ascending the ramp, cutting throats. “Stop!”
Seremides, at the foot of the ramp, lifted his sword in salute to Lord Okimoto.
He had come now to the first tarn hold.
His hands were folded within the wide sleeves of his garment. “Those who are disloyal must die,” he said.
Cabot ran to the ramp, climbed it two thirds of the way, and interposed himself between stricken mutineers and two of the Pani, who bore red knives. They stepped back, and two others rushed forward, their curved blades lifted, grasped in two hands. The eyes of Seremides, at the side of the ramp, blazed with delight. But the man Tajima who had followed Cabot on the ramp had placed himself between Cabot, who, crouched down, was on guard, and the two Pani. “Stop!” he cried. “Stop, in the name of Lord Nishida!” The two Pani stepped away, each to a side, their blades respectfully lowered. This cleared an opening to the bottom of the ramp, where stood the placid Lord Okimoto.
“Is the honorable Tajima, swordsman,” asked Lord Okimoto, politely, “authorized to speak for Lord Nishida?”
“I speak as he would speak,” said Tajima.
“Does the honorable Tajima, swordsman,” asked Lord Okimoto, “hold a blade, unhoused, in my presence?”
“No, my lord!” said Tajima. He bowed, and swiftly replaced the blade in his sash.
At that point the large hatch above began to move once more, slowly, rumbling, this time opening, revealing the sky.
We heard no sounds of fighting on the deck. I took it the deck was cleared.
Cabot remained on guard.
Several Pani, behind Lord Okimoto, put arrows to the strings of their bows.
“Is the honorable Tajima, swordsman,” asked Lord Okimoto, once more, politely, “authorized to speak for Lord Nishida?”
“I am authorized to speak for Lord Nishida,” said a voice from the deck, at the top of the ramp.
I looked up. The figure was in battle gear, and it removed from its head a large, winged helmet.
“Ah,” said Lord Okimoto, politely, “Lord Nishida.”
“What is going on?” inquired Lord Nishida.
“I am first, am I not?” inquired Lord Okimoto.
“Of course,” said Lord Nishida, bowing his head briefly, acknowledging the priority of his colleague. It was my understanding that each lord had something like two hundred and fifty Pani in his command, that those of Lord Nishida had been housed at a place called Tarn Camp, north of the Alexandra, some pasangs from its headwaters, and that those of Lord Okimoto had been housed differently, but in the vicinity, somewhere south of the Alexandra. The two complements had joined forces before the great ship began its journey downriver. I did not doubt, however, that they had been in close communication during the building of the great ship. Most, but not all, of those who were not Pani had been with Lord Nishida at Tarn Camp. Many had been recruited in Brundisium, and, over months, in larger and smaller numbers, in larger and smaller ships, had coasted north, thence at one rendezvous or another, to move overland, east to Tarn Camp. They were a motley lot, mostly mercenaries, several from the free companies, many once of the occupation forces in Ar. But amongst them as well were landless men, younger sons, men without Home Stones, bandits, pirates, adventurers, soldiers of fortune, thieves, fugitives, wanted men, cutthroats, fugitives from Ar, such as Seremides, and others. The Pani had apparently much gold to invest in recruitment, and had not been sparing or particular in its distribution. I sensed that it had been only after the great ship had been at sea for a time that the risks involved in assembling such men were better understood. The Pani, I suspected, perhaps because of their cultural background, in which certain values might be presupposed and never questioned, might have underestimated the dangers involved. Perhaps, too, given the exigencies of their task, whatever it might be, and its urgency and prospects, whatever they might be, they had been concerned to move as swiftly as would prove practical. Perhaps they felt they had had little time in which to be particular. Their final intention, in any case, I suspected, was to put together a formidable force as quickly as possible, a force of skilled and dangerous men, men free of certain indigenous and traditional loyalties, which, disciplined, and closely managed, might in unfamiliar, remote venues be well applied to the business of war.
“Disloyalty,” said Lord Okimoto, “is to be punished by death. It is our way. Those beneath you, on the slanted surface, were disloyal, and several behind me, now suitably subdued and tethered, were disloyal, as well.”
The mutineers who had, at Cabot’s word, discarded their weapons, and were now kneeling, bound and neck-roped, Pani about with drawn blades, looked at one another in apprehension, and surely to Cabot, as well.
“I see Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Nishida. “I would hear him speak.”
“His blade is unhoused,” said Lord Okimoto.
Cabot sheathed the gladius.
“Lords Okimoto and Nishida,” said Cabot, evenly. “Mutiny is done. Weapons were surrendered freely. Men have placed their lives and trust in your hands. Otherwise they would have died with weapons in hand. Men do not surrender to be slaughtered. That is not our way.”
“One wonders, Lord Nishida,” said Lord Okimoto, “if Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, is loyal.”
“He and others fought with us!” exclaimed Tajima.
Lord Okimoto looked at Tajima, with surprise.
“Forgive me, lord,” said Tajima, lowering his head. He had not been invited to speak.
“Where is Nodachi?” asked Lord Okimoto.
“He is on the deck, he meditates, he slew seven,” said Lord Nishida.
I did not know of whom they spoke, but I gathered his opinion might have been valued.
“Lords Okimoto and Nishida,” said Tarl Cabot. “Men did not wish to die. They fear the ice. They are hungry. They sought escape. They were desperate, crazed, not thinking.”