The Eternal Champion

CHAPTER TWELVE THE BROKEN TRUCE

Two more ships fell to our ram and we sustained hardly any damage at all. The lolinda moved through the battle like a dignified juggernaut, as if assured of her own invulnerability.

It was King Rigenos who saw it first. He screwed up his eyes and pointed through the smoke, his open mouth red in the blackness of his soot-covered face.

'There! See it, Erekose? There!'

I saw a magnificent Eldren ship ahead of us, but I did not know why Rigenos singled it out.

'It is the Eldren flagship, Erekose,' Rigenos said. 'The Eldren flagship. It could be that their leader himself is aboard. If that cursed servant of Azmobaana does ride his own flagship and if we can destroy him, then our cause will be truly won. Pray that the Eldren Prince rides her, Erekose! Pray for it!'

Katorn snarled from behind us: 'I would like to be the one to bring him down.' He had a heavy crossbow in his mailed hands, and he stroked its butt as another man might stroke a favourite kitten.

'Oh, let Prince Arjavh be there. Let him be there,' hissed Rigenos thirstily.

I paid them little heed, but shouted the order for grappling irons to be readied.

Luck, it seemed, was still with us. Our huge vessel reared up on a surging wave at exactly the right moment and we rode it down upon the Eldren flagship, our timbers scraping its sides and turning it so that it lay in a perfect position for our grapples to seize it. The iron claws snaked out on thick ropes, clamped in the rigging, stabbed into the deck, snatched at the rails.

Now the Eldren craft was bound to us. We held it close, like a lover holds his mistress.

And that same smile of triumph began to cross my face. I had the sweet taste of victory on my lips. It was the sweetest taste of all. I, Erekose, signed for a slave to run forward and wipe my face with a damp cloth. I drew myself up proudly on my deck. Just behind me was King Rigenos, on my right. On my left was Katorn. I felt a comradeship with them suddenly. I looked proudly down on the Eldren deck. The warriors looked exhausted. But they stood ready, with arrows strung on bows, with swords clenched in white fists and shields raised. They watched us silently, making no attempt to cut the ropes, waiting for us to make the first move.

When two flagships locked in this way, there was always a pause before fighting broke out. This was to enable the enemy commanders to speak and, if both desired it, decide a truce and the terms of that truce.

Now King Rigenos bellowed across the rail of his high deck, calling out to the Eldren who looked up at him, their strange eyes smarting with the smoke as much as ours did.

'This is King Rigenos and his champion, the immortal Erekose, your ancient enemy come again to defeat you. We would speak with your commander for a moment, in the usual truce.'

From beneath a canvas awning on his poop-deck, a tall man now emerged. Through the shifting smoke I saw, dimly at first, a pointed golden face with milky blue-flecked eyes staring sadly from the sockets of the slanting brow. An eldritch voice, like music, sang across the sea:

'I am Duke Baynahn, Commander of the Eldren Fleet. We will make no complicated peace terms with you, but if you let us sail away now we will not continue to fight.'

Rigenos smiled and Katorn snorted. 'How gracious!' Katorn grunted. 'He knows he is doomed.'

Rigenos chuckled at this. Then he called back to Duke Baynahn.

'I find your proposal somewhat naive, Duke Baynahn.'

Baynahn shrugged wearily. 'Then let us finish this,' he sighed. He raised his gloved hand to order his men to loose their arrows.

'Hold a moment!' Rigenos shouted. 'There is another way, if you would spare your men.'

Slowly Baynahn lowered his hand. 'What is that?' His voice was wary.

'If your master, Arjavh of Mernadin, is aboard his own flag-snip-as he should be-let him come out and do battle with Lord Erekose', humanity's champion.' King Rigenos spread out his palms. 'If Arjavh should win-why, you will go in peace. If Erekose should win, then you will become our prisoners.'

Duke Baynahn folded his arms across his chest. 'I have to tell you that our Prince Arjavh could not get to Paphanaal in time to sail with our fleet. He is in the West-In Loos Ptokai.'

King Rigenos turned to Katorn.

'Kill that one, Katorn,' he said quietly.

Duke Baynahn continued: 'However, I am prepared to fight your champion if…'

'No!' I cried to Katorn. 'Stop! King Rigenos, that is dishonourable-you speak during a truce.'

'There is no question of honour, Erekose', when exterminating vermin. That you will soon learn. Kill him, Katorn!'

Duke Baynahn was frowning, plainly puzzled at our muted argument, striving to catch the word.

'I will fight your Erekose,' he said. 'Is it agreed?'

And Katorn brought up the crossbow and the bolt whirred and I heard a soft gasp as it penetrated the Eldren speaker's throat.

His hand went up towards the quivering bolt. His strange eyes filmed. He fell.

I was enraged at the treachery shown by one who so often spoke of treachery in his enemies. But now there was no time to remonstrate for already the Eldren arrows were whistling towards us and I had to ensure our defences and prepare to lead the boarding party against the betrayed crew of the enemy ship.

I grasped a trailing rope, unsheathed my glowing sword and let the words come from my lips, though I was still full of anger against Katorn and the king.

'For Humanity!' I shouted. 'Death to the Hounds of Evil!'

I swung down through the heated air that slashed against my face in that swift passage and I dropped, with howling human warriors behind me, among the Eldren ranks.

Then we were fighting.

My followers took care to stay away from me as the sword opened pale wounds in the Eldren foes, destroying all whom it even lightly cut. Many Eldren died beneath the Sword Kanajana but there was no battle-joy in me as I fought, for I was still furious with my own people's actions and there was no skill needed for such slaying-the Eldren were shocked at the death of their commander and they were plainly half-dead with weariness, though they fought bravely.

Indeed, the slender shark ships seemed to hold more men than I had estimated. The long-skulled Eldren, well aware that my sword touch was lethal, flung themselves at me with desperate and ferocious courage.

Many of them wielded long-hafted axes, swinging at me out of reach of my sword. The sword was no sharper than any ordinary blade and, although I hacked at the shafts, I succeeded only in splintering them slightly. I had constantly to duck, stab beneath the whirling axe blades.

A young, golden-haired Eldren leapt at me, swung his axe and it smashed against my shoulder plate, knocking me off balance.

I rolled, trying desperately to regain my footing on the blood-smeared deck. The axe smashed down again, on to my breastplate, winding me. I struggled up into a crouching position, plunged forward beneath the axe and slashed at the Eldren's bared wrist.

A peculiar sobbing grunt escaped his lips. He groaned and died. The 'poison' of the blade had done its work yet again. I still did not understand how the metal itself could be poisoned, but there was no doubting its effectiveness. I straightened up, my bruised body throbbing as I stared down at the brave young Eldren who now lay at my feet. Then I looked about me.

I saw that we had the advantage. The last pocket of fiercely fighting Eldren was on the main deck, back to back around their banner-a scarlet field bearing the Silver Basilisk of Mernadin.

I stumbled towards the fray. The Eldren were fighting to the last man. They knew they would receive no mercy from their human enemies.

I stopped. The warriors had no need of help from me. I sheathed my sword and watched as the Eldren were engulfed by our forces and, although all badly wounded, continued to fight until slain.

I looked about me. A peculiar silence seemed to surround the two locked ships, though in the distance the sound of cannon could still be heard.

Then Katorn, who had led the attack on the last Eldren defenders, snatched down their basilisk banner and flung it into the flowing Eldren blood. Insanely he began to trample the flag until it was completely soaked and unrecognisable.

'Thus will all the Eldren perish!' he screamed in his mad triumph. 'All! All! All!'

He stumbled below to see what loot there was.

The silence returned. The drifting smoke began to dissipate and hang higher in the air above us, obscuring the sunlight.

Now that the flagship was taken, the day was won. Not one prisoner would be taken. In the distance the victorious human warriors were busy firing the Eldren vessels. There seemed to be no Eldren ships left uncaptured, none fleeing over the horizon. Many of our own ships had been destroyed or were sinking in flames. Both sides' craft were stretched across a vast expanse of water and the ocean itself was covered by a great carpet of wreckage and corpses so that it looked as if the remaining ships were trapped in it, as if in some Sargasso Sea.

I, for one, felt trapped by it. I wanted to leave this scene as soon as possible. The smell of the dead choked me. This was not the battle I had expected to fight. This was not the glory I had hoped to win.

Katorn re-emerged with a look of satisfaction on his dark face.

'You're empty-handed,' I said. 'Why so pleased.'

He wiped his lips. 'Duke Baynahn had his daughter with him.'

'Is she still alive?'

'Not now.'

I shuddered.

Katorn stretched up his head and looked around him. 'Good. We've finished them. I'll give orders to fire the remaining vessels.'

'Surely,' I said, 'that is a waste. We could use those ships to replace those we have lost.'

'Use these cursed craft-never.' He spoke with a twist of his mouth and strode to the rail of the Eldren flagship, shouting to his men to follow him back to their own vessel.

I came reluctantly, looking back to where the corpse of the betrayed Duke Baynahn still lay, the crossbow bolt projecting from his slender neck.

Then I clambered aboard our ship and I gave the orders to save what grapples we could and cut away the rest.

King Rigenos greeted me. He had taken no part in the actual fighting. 'You did well, Erekose. Why, you could have taken that ship single-handed.'

'I could have done,' I said. 'I could have taken the whole fleet single-handed…'

He laughed. 'You are very confident! The whole fleet!'

'Aye. There was one way.'

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'If you had let me fight Duke Baynahn-as he suggested-many lives and many ships would have been saved. Our lives. Our ships.'

'You surely did not trust him? The Eldren will always try some trick like that. Doubtless if you had agreed to his plan, you would have stepped aboard his ship and been cut down by a hundred arrows. Believe me, Erekose, you must not be deceived by them. Our ancestors were so deceived-and look how we suffer now!'

I shrugged. 'Maybe you are right.'

'Of course I am right.' King Rigenos turned his head and called to our crew. 'Fire the ship! Fire that cursed Eldren craft! Hurry up, you luggards!'

He was in a good humour was King Rigenos. A great good humour.

I watched as blazing arrows were accurately shot into bales of combustible materials which had been placed in strategic parts of the Eldren ship.

The slender vessel soon caught. The bodies of the slain began to burn and oily smoke struck upward to the sky. The ship drifted away, its silver cannon like the snouts of slaughtered beasts, its glistening sails dropping in flaming ribbons to the already flaming deck. It gave a long shudder suddenly as if expiring the last of its life.

'Put a couple of shots below the waterline,' Katorn shouted to his gunners. 'Let's make sure the thing sinks once and for all.'

Our brazen cannon snarled and the heavy shot smashed into the Eldren flagship, sending up gouts of water and crashing through the timbers.

The flagship yawed, but still seemed to be trying to stay upright Her drifting went slower and slower as she settled lower in the water until she had stopped altogether. And then all at once she sank swiftly and was gone.

I thought of the Eldren duke. I thought of his daughter.

And in a way I now envied them. They would know eternal peace, just as it seemed I should know nothing but eternal strife.

Our fleet began to reassemble.

We had lost thirty-eight men-o'-war and a hundred and ten smaller craft of different types.

But nothing remained of the Eldren fleet.

Nothing but the burning hulks which we now left, sinking, behind us as we sailed, in battle-thirsty glee, for Paphanaal.