Short Fiction, Poul Anderson [simple e reader .TXT] 📗

It was at the end of a timeless time, perhaps half a day, that he saw the Xanthian patrol. “Look,” he pointed. “There they come.”

Chryseis stared boldly over the sea. The hand beneath his was steady as her voice: “So I see. They’re⁠—beautiful, aren’t they?”

The cetaraea came leaping across the waves, big graceful beasts with the shapes of fish, their smooth black hides shining and the water white behind their threshing tails. Astride each was a great golden form bearing a lance. They quartered across the horizon and were lost to sight.

The crew mumbled in fear, shaken to their hardy souls by the terrible unhuman grace of the Xanthi. Imazu cursed them back to work. The ship went on.

Islands slipped by, empty of man-sign. They had glimpses of Xanthian works, spires and walls rearing above the jungle. These were not the white colonnaded buildings of Tauros or the timbered halls of Conahur⁠—of black stone they were, with pointed towers climbing crazily skyward. Once a great sea serpent reared its head, spouted water, and writhed away. All creatures save man could sense the presence of wizardry and refused to go near it.

Night fell, an abyss of night broken only by faint glimmers of sea-fire under the carpeting weed. Men stood uneasy watch in full armor, peering blindly into the somber immensity. It was hot, hot and silent.

Near midnight the lookout shouted from the masthead: “Xanthi to larboard!”

“Silence, you fool!” called Imazu. “Want them to hear us?”

The patrol was a faint swirl and streaking of phosphorescence, blacker shadows against the night. It was coming nearer.

“Have they spotted us?” wondered Corun.

“No,” breathed Chryseis. “But they’re close enough for their mounts⁠—”

There was a great snorting and splashing out in the murk. The cetaraea were refusing to go into the circle of Shorzon’s spell. Voices lifted, an unhuman croaking. The erinye, the only animal who did not seem to mind witchcraft, snarled in saw-edged tones, eyes a green blaze against the night.

Presently the squad turned and slipped away. “They know something is wrong, and they’ve gone for help,” said Corun. “We’ll have a fight on our hands before long.”

He stretched his big body, suddenly eager for action. This waiting was more than he could stand.

The ship drove on. Corun and Chryseis napped on the deck; it was too stiflingly hot below. The long night wore away.

In the misty gray of morning, they saw a dark mass advancing from the west. Corun’s sword rasped out of the sheath. It was a long, double-edged blade such as they used in Conahur, and it was thirsty.

“Get inside, Chryseis,” he said tightly.

“Get inside yourself,” she answered. There was a lilt in her voice like a little girl’s. He felt her quiver with joyous expectation.

The ghostly outlines of the ship wavered, thickened, faded again, flickered back toward solidity. Suddenly they had sight; the vessel lay real around them; they saw each other in helm and corselet, face looking into tautened face.

“They have a wizard along⁠—he broke Shorzon’s spell,” said the Conahurian.

“We looked for that,” answered Chryseis evenly. “But as long as Shorzon keeps fighting him, there will be a roiling of magic around us such that none of their beasts will approach.”

She stood beside him, slim and boyish in polished cuirass and plumed helmet, shortsword belted to her waist and a bow in one hand. Her nostrils quivered, her eyes shone, and she laughed aloud. “We’ll drive them off,” she said. “We’ll send them home like beaten iaganaths.”

Imazu blew the war-horn, wild brazen echoes screaming over the sea. His men drew in the oars, pulled on their armor, and stood along the rails, waiting.

“But did we come here to fight them?” asked Corun.

“No,” said Chryseis. “But we’ve known all along that we’d have to give them a taste of our might before they’d talk to us.”

The Xanthian lancers were milling about half a league away, as if in conference. Suddenly someone blew a harsh-toned horn and Corun saw half the troop slide from the saddle into the water. “So⁠—they’ll swim at us,” he muttered.

The attack came from all sides, converging on the ship in a rush of foam. As the Xanthi neared, Corun saw their remembered lineaments and felt the old clutch of panic. They weren’t human.

With the fluked tail, one of them had twice the length of a man. The webbed hind feet, on which they walked ashore, were held close to the body; the strangely human hands carried weapons. They swam half under water, the dorsal fins rising over. Their necks were long, with gills near the blunt-snouted heads; their grinning mouths showed gleaming fangs. The eyes were big, dark, alive with cold intelligence. They bore no armor, but scales the color of beaten gold covered back and sides and tail. They came in at furious speed, churning the sea behind them.

Chryseis’ voice rose to a wild shriek. “Perias! Perias⁠—kill!”

The erinye howled and unfolded his leather-webbed wings. Like a hurled spear he streaked into the air, rushed down on the nearest Xanthian like a thunderbolt⁠—claws, teeth, barbed tail, a blinding fury of blood and death, ripping flesh as if it were parchment.

The ship’s ballista chunked and balls of the ever-burning Achaeran fire were hurled out to fall blazing among the enemy. Chryseis’ bow hummed beside Corun, a Xanthian went under with an arrow in his throat⁠—the air was thick with shafts as the crew fired.

Still the Xanthi rushed on, ducking up and down, near impossible to hit. The first of them came up to the hull and sank their clawed fingers into the wood. The sailors thrust downward with pikes, howling in fear-maddened rage.

The man near Corun went down with a hurled javelin through him. At once a huge golden form was slithering over the rail, onto the deck. The sword in his hand flashed, another Umlotuan’s weapon was knocked spinning from his hand and the reptile hewed him down.

Corun sprang to do battle. The swords clashed together with a shock