The Eternal Champion

CHAPTER TEN FIRST SIGN OF THE ELDREN

The fleet was huge and contained great fighting ships of many kinds, some resembling what John Daker would have called nineteenth-century tea-clippers, some that looked like junks, some with the lateen rig of Mediterranean craft, some that were very like Elizabethan caravels. Sailing in their separate formations, according to their province or origin, they symbolised the differences and the unity of mankind. I was proud of them.

Excited, tense, alert and confident of victory, we sailed for Paphanaal, gateway to Mernadin and conquest.

Yet I still felt the need to know more of the Eldren. My cloudy memory of the life of an earlier Erekose could only confer an impression of confused battles against them and also, perhaps, somewhere a feeling of emotional pain. That was all. I had heard that they had no orbs to their eyes and that this was their chief distinguishing unhuman characteristic. They were said to be inhumanly beautiful, inhumanly merciless and with inhuman sexual appetites. They were slightly taller than the average man, had long heads with slanting cheek-bones and slightly slanting eyes. But this was not really enough for me. There were no pictures of Eldren anywhere on the Two Continents. Pictures were supposed to bring bad luck, particularly if the evil eyes of the Eldren were depicted.

As we sailed, there was a great deal of ship-to-ship communication, with commanders being rowed or hauled in slings to and from the flagship, depending on how good the weather was. We had worked out our basic strategy and had contingency plans in case it should not prove possible to exercise this strategy. The idea had been mine and seemed a new one to the others, but they soon grasped it and the details had now all been decided upon. Each day the warriors of every ship were drilled in what they were to do when the Eldren fleet was sighted, if it was sighted. If it was not' we should despatch part of the fleet straight to Paphanaal and begin the attack on the city. However, we expected the Eldren to send out their defence fleet to meet us before we reached Paphanaal and it was on this probability that we based our main plan.

Katorn and I avoided each other as much as possible. There were, in those first few days of sailing, none of the verbal duels of the sort we had had in Necranal and on the Droonaa River. I was polite to Katorn when we had need to communicate and he, in his surly way, was polite to me. King Rigenos seemed to be relieved and told me that he was glad we had settled our differences. We had not, of course, settled anything. We had merely waived those differences until such time as we could decide them once and for all. I knew eventually that I must fight Katorn or that he would try to murder me.

I took a liking to Count Roldero of Stalaco, though he was perhaps the most bloodthirsty of all when it came to discussing the Eldren. John Daker would have called him a reactionary-but he would have liked him. He was a staunch, stoical, honest man who spoke his mind and allowed others to speak theirs, expecting the same tolerance from them as he gave to them. When I had once suggested to him that he saw things too plainly in black and white he had smiled wearily and replied:

'Erekose, my friend, when you have seen what I have of the events that have taken place in my lifetime on this planet of ours, then you would see things quite as clearly in black and white as I do. You can only judge people by their actions, not by their protestations. People act for good or they act for ill and those who do great ill are bad and those who do great good-they are good.'

'But people may do great good accidentally, though with evil intentions-and conversely people may do great evil though having the best of intentions,' I said, amused by his assumption that he had lived longer and seen more than I had-though I think his assumption was meant in jest.

'Exactly!' Count Roldero replied. 'You have only repeated my point. I do not care, as I said, what people protest their intentions to be. I judge them by the results they achieve. Take the Eldren…'

I raised my hand, laughing. 'I know how wicked they are. Everyone has told me of their cunning, their treachery, their black powers.'

'Ah, you seem to think I hate Eldren individuals, I do not. For all I know they may be kind to their own children, love their wives and treat their animals well. I do not say that they are, as individuals, monsters. It is as a force that they must be considered-it is what they do that must be judged-it is on the threat of their own ambitions that we must base our attitude towards them.'

'And how do you consider that force?' I asked.

'It is not human, therefore its interests are not human. Therefore in terms of its own self-interest, it needs to destroy us. In this case, because the Eldren are not human, they threaten us merely by existing. And, by the same token, we threaten them. They understand this and would wipe us out. We understand this and would wipe them out before they have the chance to destroy us. You understand?'

The argument seemed convincing enough to the pragmatist that I considered myself to be. But one thought came to mind and I voiced it.

'Are you not forgetting one thing, Count Roldero? You have said it yourself-the Eldren are not human. You are assuming that they have human interests…'

'They are flesh and blood,' he said. 'They are beasts, as we are beasts. They have those impulses, just as we have them.'

'But many species of beast seem to live together in basic harmony,' I reminded him. 'The lion does not constantly war with the leopard-the horse does not war with the cow-even among themselves they rarely kill each other, no matter how important the issue to them.'

'But they would,' said Count Roldero, undaunted. 'They would if they could anticipate events. They would if they could work out the rate at which the rival animal is consuming food, breeding, expanding its territory.'

I gave up. I felt we were both on shaky ground now. We were seated in my cabin, looking out at a beautiful evening and a calm sea through the open porthole. I poured Count Roldero more wine from my dwindling store (I had taken to drinking a good deal of wine shortly before I went to bed, to ensure myself of a rest not broken by visions and memories).

Count Roldero quaffed the wine and stood up. 'It's getting late. I must return to my ship or my men will think I've drowned and be celebrating. I see you're running short of wine. I'll bring a skin or two on my next visit. Farewell, friend Erekose. Your heart's in the right place, I'm sure. But you're a sentimentalist, for all you say to the contrary.'

I grinned. 'Good night, Roldero.' I raised my half-full wine cup. 'Let's drink to peace when this business is over!'

Roldero snorted. 'Aye, peace-like the cows and the horses! Good night, my friend.' He left laughing.

Rather drunkenly, I removed my clothes and fell into my bunk, chuckling foolishly at Roldero's parting remark. 'Like the cows and the horses. He's right. Who wants to lead a life like that. Here's to War!' And I flung the wine cup through the open porthole and fell to snoring almost before my eyes had closed.

And I dreamed.

But this time I dreamed of the wine cup I had hurled through the porthole. I imagined I saw it bobbing on the waves, its gold and jewels glittering. I imagined I saw it caught by a current and borne far away from the fleet-out to a lonely place where ships never sailed and land was never in sight-tossed for ever on a bleak sea.

For the whole month of our sailing, the sea was calm, the wind good and the weather, on the whole, fine.

Our spirits rose higher. We took this to be a sign of good luck. All of us were cheerful. All, that is, save Katorn, who grumbled that this could well be the calm before the storm, that we must expect the worst of the Eldren when we eventually engaged.

'They are tricky,' he would say. 'Those filth are tricky. Even now they could know of our coming and have planned some manoeuvre we are not expecting. They might even be responsible for the weather…'

I could not help laughing openly at this and he stalked off up the deck in anger. 'You will see, Lord Erekose,' he called back. 'You will see!'

And the next day the opportunity came.

According to our charts, we were nearing the coasts of Mernadin. We posted more look-outs, arranged the Fleets of Humanity in battle order, checked our armament and cut our speed.

The morning passed slowly as we waited, the flagship in the forefront rocking on the waves, its sails reefed, its oars raised.

And then, around noon, the look-out in our topmast yelled through his megaphone:

'Ships for'ard! Five sails!'

King Rigenos, Katorn and I stood on the foredeck, staring ahead. I looked at King Rigenos and frowned. 'Five ships? Five ships only?'

King Rigenos shook his head. 'Perhaps they are not Eldren ships…'

'They'll be Eldren craft,' Katorn grunted. 'What else could they be in these waters? No human merchants would trade with the creatures!'

And then the cry of the look-out reached us again.

'Ten sails now! Twenty! It's the fleet-the Eldren fleet! They are sailing fast upon us!'

And now I thought I glimpsed a flash of white on the horizon. Had it been the crest of a wave? No. It was the sail of a ship, I was sure.

'Look,' I said. 'There.' And I pointed.

Rigenos screwed up his eyes and shielded them with his hand. 'I see nothing. It is your imagination. They could not be coming in so fast…'

Katorn, too, peered ahead. 'Yes! I see it too. A sail! They are that swift! By the Sea God's scales-slimy sorcery aids them! It is the only explanation.'

King Rigenos seemed sceptical. 'They are lighter craft than ours,' he reminded Katorn, 'and the wind is in their favour.'

Katorn, in turn, was not convinced. 'Maybe,' he growled. 'Perhaps you are right, sire…'

'Have they used sorcery before?' I asked him. I was willing to believe anything. I had to if I was to believe what had happened to me!

'Aye!' spat Katorn. 'Many times. All kinds! Ooph! I can smell sorcery on the very air!'

'When?' I asked him. 'What kind? I wish to know so that I can take counter measures.'

'They can make themselves invisible sometimes. That's how they took Paphanaal, so it's said. They can walk on water-sail through the air.'

'You have seen them do this?'

'Not myself. But I've heard many tales. Tales I can believe from men who do not lie.'

'And these men have experienced this sorcery?'

'Not themselves. But they have known men who did.'

'So their use of sorcery remains a rumour,' I said.

'Ach! Say what you like!' Katorn roared. 'Do not believe me-you who are the very essence of sorcery-who owes his existence to an incantation. Why do you think I supported the notion to bring you back, Erekose? Because I felt we needed sorcery that would be stronger than theirs! What else is that sword at your side than a sorcerous blade?'

I shrugged. 'Let us wait, then,' I said, 'and see their sorcery.'

King Rigenos called up at the look-out. 'How big's the fleet you see?'

'About half our size, my liege!' he shouted back, his words distorted by the megaphone. 'Certainly no larger. And I think it is their whole fleet. I see no more coming.'

'They do not seem to be coming any closer at this moment,' I murmured to King Rigenos. 'Ask him if they're moving.'

'Has the Eldren fleet hove to, master look-out?' called King Rigenos.

'Aye, my liege. It no longer speeds hither and they seem to be furling their sails.'

'They are waiting for us,' Katorn muttered. 'They want us to attack them. Well, we shall wait too.'

I nodded. 'That is the strategy we agreed.'

And we waited.

We waited as the sun set and night fell and far away on the horizon we caught the occasional glimpse of silver that could have been a wave or a ship. Hasty messages were sent by swimmers back and forth among the vessels of the fleet.

And we continued to wait, sleeping as best we could, wondering when, if at all, the Eldren would attack.

Katorn's footsteps could be heard pacing the deck as I lay awake in my cabin, trying to do the sensible thing and preserve my energy for the next day. Of all of us, Katorn was the most impatient to engage the enemy. I felt that if it had been up to him, we should even now be sailing on the Eldren, having thrown our carefully worked out battle-plans overboard.

But luckily it was up to me. Even King Rigenos did not have the authority, except under exceptional circumstances, to countermand any of my orders.

I rested, but I could not sleep. I had my first glimpse of an Eldren craft, but I still did not know what the ships really looked like-or what my impression of their crews would be.

I lay there, praying that our battle should soon begin. A fleet of only half our size! I smiled without humour. I smiled because I knew we should be victorious.

When would the Eldren attack?

It might even be tonight. Katorn had said that they loved the night.

I would not care if it was at night. I wanted to fight. A huge battle-lust was building within me. I wanted to fight!