Hunt the Space-Witch! (9 page)

Gowyn was silent for a moment, his thick fingers digging into Dovirr's shoulders. Then he pointed toward the lee.

“From there, this afternoon, will come a ship of Thalassarch Harald. Fight you at my side, Dovirr.”

“Thank you, sire.” Dovirr bowed his head. To fight at the Thalassarch's side was a deep honor—a sign that the mantle had been confirmed. Gowyn had named his eventual successor.

The Thalassarch strode away. Dovirr remained looking outward. Somewhere far to the east was the island city of Vythain.
Work and slave, ye landbound lubbers!
Dovirr thought defiantly.
You'll pay tribute to Dovirr yet!

As Gowyn foretold, Harald's ship did indeed come from the leeward that afternoon, sailing into the wind. The cry resounded from aloft shortly after midday mess, and the
Garyun
prepared for war.

There were nine Thalassarchs, each boasting a roughly-hewn section of the globe. Gowyn called his domain the Western Sea; Harald was lord of the Black Ocean, a vague territory lying to the west of Gowyn's waters, and including the floating cities of Dimnon, Lanobul, and Ariod, among others. But there were no borders in the ocean, and each Thalassarch disputed hotly the extent of his neighbor's sphere of dominance.

Harald's ship approached. Aboard the
Garyun
, the uppermost bank of oarsmen docked their oars; with the wind blowing strongly, the vessel could maneuver with only three banks, thus freeing twenty men for bearing arms. All of the women of the
Garyun
, wives and daughters of the Sea-Lords, were safe in their quarters below-decks.

The
Garyun
ran up a war-flag. Gowyn strode to the deck, armed and ready, and Dovirr took his place at the Thalassarch's right hand. He saw several of the ship's officers staring at him enviously, but ignored them. He was Gowyn's man, and they would honor Gowyn's choice—or else!

The enemy ship called itself the
Brehtwol
. It, too, ran up its war-flag. Swords bristled aboard the
Garyun;
the grappling-iron crew readied itself.

Steadily, the two ships approached each other. Dovirr could see the men on the opposite deck now. There was short, grim-faced Harald, surrounded by his minions, waiting, waiting.

There was the thud of wood against wood, and grappling irons fell to. Moving automatically, Dovirr followed Gowyn over the side. The
Brehtwol
had been breached first!

“Swords! Swords!” roared Gowyn. “Follow on, men!”

The
Garyun
had seized the initial advantage. Its men swooped down on the dark-clad defenders, swords flashing brightly. Dovirr gripped the weapon he had won from Levrod long before and drove it through the heart of the first Black Oceaner he encountered.

The men of Harald's ship had deployed themselves for defense; Gowyn's sudden charge had left them no alternative. Dovirr and the Thalassarch moved forward.

“Ah, the pigs!” Gowyn exclaimed suddenly. He gestured to the windward, where four of Harald's men were hacking at the grapples. They were trying to cut loose, to end the contest and gain freedom while Gowyn was still aboard the enemy ship, where he could be brought down at ease.

“Cover for me,” Dovirr said.

Gowyn raised a fearful barrage of swordplay; his heavy weapon flashed in the air, driving the Black Oceaners back, as Dovirr made his way along the pitching deck to the grapples.

“Away from there, cowards!” he shouted.

The four who hacked at the grapples looked up, and Dovirr swept into their midst. His sword felled two of them before they could defend themselves; a third ranged himself along the bow, but as he began to strike, a bolt from a
Garyun
archer felled him, and he toppled headlong between the linked ships.

The fourth rose to the defense. His sword rang against Dovirr's. A quick thrust penetrated almost to Dovirr's flesh, but he sidestepped and brought the blade down crushingly. The man staggered away, nearly cut in two, and fell.

“To me,” Gowyn roared, and Dovirr, his work done, raced back to the Thalassarch's side.

Gowyn was hard pressed. Dovirr's sword moved rapidly through enemy ranks, and together they cut back the opposition—until, suddenly, the victorious duo found themselves facing a squat, burly, black-bearded man with close-trimmed hair and a dark patch over one eye.

Harald himself!

Impetuously Dovirr leaped forward, anxious to be the one to strike down a Thalassarch, but Gowyn growled, “Not you,” and pulled him back.

Dovirr started to protest. Then he realized Gowyn was right; the honor of smiting a Thalassarch belonged rightfully to Gowyn, not to him.

Swords rang. Harald was a formidable opponent, but he was tired and sick at heart at the utter failure of his assault on the
Garyun
. He put up a fearsome defense, but Gowyn finally beat down his sword and spitted him.

“Harald lies dead!” Gowyn bellowed, and instantly all action ceased. Fighters of both ships put down their swords, standing as in a tableau, frozen. The battle was over.

Dovirr found himself trembling unaccountably. A Thalassarch lay dead; Gowyn now was ruler of two seas. Hardly ever had this happened before. Harald's men were kneeling to Gowyn now.

Victory was celebrated aboard the
Garyun
that night. Opinion was unanimous that Harald's bold move, while it had brought him ignominious death, was nobly conceived. It was rare for one Thalassarch ever to attack another's ship.

Now, Gowyn found himself master of two seas. He allowed the crippled
Brehtwol
to depart, placing aboard it Kebolon, the
Garyun
's second officer, as its captain. Kebolon was charged with the task of spreading the word to Harald's other ships that they now vowed fealty to Gowyn.

In the hearts of the men of the
Garyun
there was rejoicing—but none leaped higher than that of Dovirr, landman turned Sea-Lord, whose blade had known blood for the first time at sea.

He stood alone on the deck, his body warmed by the fiery rum in his stomach. At night, the sea hammered the keel of the
Garyun
, splattering the sides, booming dully. Far in the distance, the flickering light of a laden merchantship bound from Dimnon to Hicanthro with a cargo of rubber broke the darkness. The coded light flashed red; should it become suddenly green, the lookout would call, and the
Garyun
's crewmen would heave to, as the Thalassarch came to the merchantman's rescue.

That was part of the contract. The cities paid tribute to the Sea-Lords—and the Sea-Lords guarded against the pirates.

Twice, now, the
Garyun
had been called upon to save a vessel in trouble. Once, it had been a tub out of Lanobul, heading north to Vostrok. Gowyn and his ship had saved it from flagless pirates operating out of a rooted island.

There were a few such—islands which had once been the highest mountaintops, before the
Dhuchay'y
came. Scattered bands of pirates lurked there, preying on merchant vessels.

The pirates had fled at Gowyn's approach; he had decided not to give chase.

The second time, it had been a ship bound for Vythain, out of Hicanthro. They were badly plagued by a school of playful whales, and the
Garyun
, vastly amused by the difficulties encountered by the nervous merchantmen, answered the distress call and drove the whales off.

Now, Dovirr watched the steady progress of the Dimnon vessel in the distance. The vast bulk of the sea separated them.

Thalassa
. Sea. It was an ancient word, a word that came from a language long drowned with the rest of Terra, but it conveyed the majesty and the awesomeness of the sea.
Thalassarch
—sea-king. The word rolled well on the tongue.
Dovirr Stargan, Thalassarch of the Nine Seas
.…

Already Gowyn had mastered two empires. Someday Gowyn would lie with the Seaborn, and Dovirr would rule. It was this he had dreamed of—this, all the long landlocked years in Vythain while he watched the far-off dots of ships against the blue curtain of the sky, and waited to grow to manhood.

He turned to go below-decks. Dovirr enjoyed brooding over the vastness of the sea, but on a celebration-night such as this his place was below, with the gay throng of roisterers.

Making his way over the rolling deck, he found the hatch and ducked through. The lights glowed brightly; rum flowed with free abandon. It was hardly every night that a Thalassarch fell.

Dovirr entered the big cabin. Gowyn was there, downing cup after cup of rum. The crew were roaring, laughing with a violence that threatened to shake the ship to shivers. The women, too, joined in the gaiety, joking and laughing as ribaldly as the men. They were strong and bold, these women of the sea—completely unlike the timid, gentle girls of the floating cities.

Dovirr stiffened as he realized why they were so mirthful. A knot of sea-men around Gowyn parted to show something wet and dark lying on the deck, wriggling, beating its great fins against the wood in agony and uttering hoarse barks.

Gowyn was laughing. “Ho, Dovirr! We've brought up another prize! Two catches in one day! First Harald, now this!”

Dovirr made his way to the Thalassarch's side. “What may that be?”

“I sometimes forget you were a landman but months ago,” Gowyn rumbled. “Know not the Seaborn when you see one beached? Marghuin the cook was trawling to supplement our stores—and netted this!”

Of course, Dovirr thought. With naked curiosity he studied the writhing creature lying in a pool of moisture on the deck.

It was about the size of a man, but its unclothed body terminated in flukes rather than legs—though where legs had once been was still apparent. It was a golden brown in color, covered with a thick, matted, scaly hide.

The face—the face was that of a man, Dovirr saw bleakly. A man in death-agonies. The eyes were shielded by transparent lids, the nose a mere dotted pair of nostrils—but the mouth was a man's mouth, with human pain expressed in the tortured appearance of the lips. Slitted gills flickered rapidly—where ears might have been.

The transparent lids peeled back momentarily, and Dovirr saw the eyes—the eyes of a man. Flukes thumped the deck.

“How long can it live out of water?” Dovirr asked.

“They're pretty sturdy. Five minutes, maybe ten.”

“And you're just going to let it die like that?”

Gowyn shrugged. “It amuses me. I have little love for the Seaborn—or they for me.”

“But—they were once
men,
” Dovirr said.

The Thalassarch looked curiously at him. “The creatures you were killing this afternoon still
were
men. Yet I noticed little hesitance in your sword-strokes.”

“That was different. I was giving them a man's death. This is something I wouldn't do to a beast.”

Gowyn scowled; Dovirr wondered if his harsh criticism had offended the Thalassarch. But to his surprise, Gowyn rose from his seat and planted his thick legs astride the deck.

“A sword!” he commanded, and a sword was brought to him.

Approaching the writhing Seaborn, Gowyn said: “Dovirr claims you are a man—and a man's death you shall get.”

He plunged the sword downward. Almost instantly, the agonies of the sea-creature ceased.

“Overboard with him,” Gowyn cried. “Let his brothers pick at his flesh.”

He returned to his seat, and Dovirr saw that the Thalassarch's face was pale.

“You've had your wish,” Gowyn said. He bent over a platter sitting before him on the wooden bench—a fish, hot from the kettle. Angrily, he bit into it.

Dovirr watched the Thalassarch fiercely attack his meal. Suddenly Gowyn paused, lowered the fish to the platter, grabbed desperately for the cup that stood nearby.

Choking and gasping, he drained it—and continued to gag. In the general merriment, no one seemed to be noticing. Dovirr pounded on Gowyn's back, but to no avail. The Thalassarch was unable to speak; he clawed at his throat, reddened, emitted little strangled gasps.

It was over in less than a minute. Stunned, cold with horror, Doyirr was yet able to appreciate the irony of it: mighty Gowyg, Thalassarch for two decades, now ruler of two kingdoms, choking to death on a fishbone.
A fishbone!

His numbed mind took in the information his eyes conveyed: the powerful form of Gowyn sprawled forward over the table, face blue, open eyes bulging. Then—just as the others around were realizing what had happened—Dovirr leaped to the tabletop.

“Silence!” he roared.

When there was quiet, he pointed to the fallen form of Gowyn. “Not one but
two
Thalassarchs have died today,” he said loudly. “Gowyn, whose sword smote all, has succumbed to the bone of a fish.”

His eyes scanned the shocked faces of the crew and the women. He saw three of the other mates staring at him.

“This morning,” Dovirr said, “as if foretelling his death, Gowyn named his successor. I call upon you now to offer allegiance to your new Thalassarch—Dovirr of Vythain!”

Chapter Three

In the days immediately following Gowyn's death, Dovirr established firm control over the crew of the
Garyun.
He had learned a valuable lesson during the battle with Harald's ship: act quickly, seize the initiative, and let the slower thinkers take second-best.

The excitement caused by the sudden snuffing-out of the Thalassarch's life was a fit frame for the young ex-landman's ascension. By the time anyone thought of questioning Dovirr's right to claim rule, he held the
Garyun
in tight thrall.

It was Lysigon, one of Gowyn's mates, who laid down the challenge that settled the problem of leadership aboard the
Garyun
. Dovirr had seen the quarrel coming long before, even while Gowyn yet lived; Lysigon, a handsome, broad-shouldered Sea-Lord and son of a Sea-Lord, was openly resentful of the newcomer. Obviously he had once been high in Gowyn's esteem, and hated Dovirr for having usurped his place.