“Sixth of Eighthmonth, 3261. Collection of tribute without difficulty at Vythain, as usual. Upon departure, we were accosted by a good-looking Vythainan boy. He humiliated Levrod in hand-to-hand combat, and killed him at my orders. I took the Vythainan aboard ship. I like him.…”
Smiling, Dovirr looked up from the dead Thalassarch’s log. Ahead, on the horizon, he could see the growing dot that was Vythain. Even now, perhaps, old Lackthan was calling out the news that the Sea-Lords approached; even now, terror would be sweeping through the city as the poor landworms awaited the Garyun’s approach. How they dreaded it! How they feared that the Sea-Lords would, for sport, sack the city while they were in harbor!
They drew into Vythain Harbor early next day. Dovirr ordered the dinghy put over the side, and, picking six men to accompany him, set out for shore.
He stood, one foot on the seat, in the prow of the little craft, peering intently at the city of his birth. He could see tiny figures moving on the pier—police officers clearing away the passersby, no doubt.
The sea was calm; tiny wavelets licked at the dinghy’s sides as it slid through the water to the pier. They drew up slowly. Dovirr grinned at the sight of the familiar carven steps, the pile of buildings set back from the shore and rising to the bright stone of Lackthan’s spy-tower.
He was the first one over the side and onto the pier when the dinghy docked. His six men arrayed themselves at his sides, and they waited regally for the tribute.
A few tense moments passed. Then, with faltering step, the eight old men began their procession down the rough-hewn steps of Vythain, groaning under the weight of coffers as they came.
Dovirr folded his arms and waited.
In the lead was Councilman Morgrun, looking even more old and shrunken than before. His eyes, deep-set in a baggy network of wrinkles, were filmed over with rheum; he was staggering under the heavy coffer, barely able to manage it. “Ho there, Morgrun,” Dovirr cried suddenly. “Scuttle forward and greet your new Thalassarch!”
He laughed. Morgrun lifted his head.
The Councilman emitted a tiny gasp and nearly dropped the coffer. “Dovirr!”
“Your memory has not failed you yet, I see, old one. Yes, Dovirr!”
The eight Councilmen drew near, lowered their coffers to the concrete, and huddled together in a puzzled clump. Finally Morgrun said, “This is some joke of Gowyn’s. He seeks to humble us by sending this runaway boy.”
Dovirr spat. “I should have you hurled to the sea for that, Morgrun. Gowyn lies dead off the edge of Harald’s sea; Harald lies beside him. I rule both Thalassarchies!”
The Councilman stared at him, sneering at first, then, seeing the unquestionable authority in his eyes, sinking to their knees, jaws working without producing speech. Dovirr smiled broadly, relishing the moment. “Into the dinghy with the money,” he ordered. “No—wait. Open the nearest coffer.”
A coffer was opened. Dovirr snatched an ingot, looked at it, sardonically sniffed it. “Morgrun, is the gold pure?”
“Of course, Dov—sire.”
“Good.” Dovirr stepped forward and lifted Morgrun’s bowed head gently with the tip of his boot. “Tell me, Councilman—how goes it in Vythain? I have been somewhat out of touch, this past year. What of old Lackthan, the spyman?”
“Dead, sire.”
“Dead, at last? Too bad; I would have enjoyed watching him discover who had succeeded Gowyn. Has the dredging gone well this year?”
“Poorly. You have taken nearly all our gold in the tribute, sire.”
“A pity. You’ll have to squeeze some unfortunate neighbor-city of yours to make up the loss, won’t you?”
A chill wind swept over the pier suddenly. Dovirr gathered his cloak about him. It was time to return to the ship, he thought; the fun here had been about wrung dry.
Morgrun glanced up. “Sire?”
“What is it, Morgrun?”
“Sire, have you heard aught out of Vostrok?”
Dovirr frowned. Vostrok was a northern city, one of the largest on the sea’s surface. Vythain depended on it for its wood; Vostrok had Terra’s finest forest, and from its trees had come most of the planet’s ships.
“We were expecting wood from Vostrok,” Morgrun continued. “It has not come. We pay our tribute, sire, and—”
“We do our job,” Dovirr said coldly. “But there have been no distress signals coming from Vostroki vessels. Have you called them?”
“We have.” Alien sub-radio channels still were in operation between the floating cities. “Sire, there is no answer. There is no answer!”
Dovirr glanced at Kubril, his first officer. “This is strange. Perhaps Vostrok is planning rebellion, Kubril. It might bear investigation.”
To Morgrun, he said: “We will go to Vostrok, old one. Don’t fear for your wood.”
Vostrok was the northernmost city of those Dovirr had inherited from Gowyn; it floated in high, choppy seas almost a week’s journey from Vythain.
The course called for the Garyun to make another tribute call, but Dovirr decided to make for Vostrok at once, and ordered the Ithamil, one of his second-line ships which he encountered en route, to make the tribute pickup instead. The Garyun proceeded steadily northward, through increasingly rough waters. Crowds of the Seaborn attended the ship; moodily, Dovirr watched the flukes of the once-men churning in the dark waters.
On the fourth day an off-duty deckhand harpooned a Seaborn. Dovirr angrily ordered the man microflayed, then relented and merely put him on half-rations for a week. There was, it seemed, an instinctive hatred alive between the men of the Garyun and the Seaborn.
Dovirr felt none of it himself; he had been unable to share in the merriment over the predicament of the tortured creature on the deck, feeling only sympathy. He realized that, for all his dominion, he was actually still a landman at heart. By sheer strength, he had bulled his way to the eminence of a Sea-Lord’s standing, but yet the men of the Garyun sometimes seemed as alien to him in way and thought as the flashing creatures of the deep.
The sea grew steadily rougher, and cold squalls began to blow; heavy clouds lay like sagging balloons over the water, dark and gray-shot. Dovirr bided his time, as the Garyun sailed northward. Vostrok had broken off contact with Vythain, eh?
Strange, he thought. That could mean many things.
At the end of the week, the Garyun entered Vostrok harbor. The city was much like all the others, only larger. According to Gowyn’s notes, Vostrok had been the central base of the Dhuchay’y during the occupation of Terra centuries ago.
Dovirr ordered the anchor dropped half a league off-shore. Calling his officers about him, he stared uneasily toward the waiting city.
“Well?” Kubril asked. “Do we go ashore?”
Dovirr frowned. He wore his finest cuirass and a bold red-plumed helmet; his men likewise were armored. “I like not the looks of this city. I see no men on the pier. Hand me the glass, Liggyal.”
The seaman handed the glass to Dovirr, who focussed it on the distant shore. Tensely, he studied the area about the pier.
“No one is there.”
“Perhaps they don’t recognize us,” Kubril suggested. “The tribute isn’t due for another month.”
“Still, when the Garyun casts anchor in their harbor they should flock to! Come—let us land three boatloads of warriors on their pier, and seek the source of these people’s reticence.”
Dovirr strode away from the gathering and gave orders for three boats to be unshipped. Thirty of his best men, sparkling in their burnished armor, manned them; the sturdy boats groaned under the weight, and the sea-water licked high near the gunwales, but the boats held fast.
Oars bit water. Standing in the prow of the leading boat, Dovirr peered landward, feeling premonitions of danger.
The pier was still empty of men when the three boats pulled up. Dovirr sprinted to shore, followed by a brace of his men. Cautiously, they advanced as the other boats unloaded. The Vostrok pier was
a long, broad expanse of concrete, an apron extending out from the city proper into the sea.
“Should we enter the city?” Kubril asked. “This may be a trap.”
“Wait.” Dovirr pointed. “Someone comes.”
A figure was approaching them, a graybeard. “Know you him?” Dovirr asked.
“One of the city fathers, no doubt. They all look alike at tribute time.”
The old man drew near. Strain was evident on his face; his thin lips trembled uncontrollably, and harsh lines creased his forehead.
“The tribute is not yet due,” he said in a small voice. “We did not expect you for another month. We—”
“On your knees,” Dovirr said. “We are not here for tribute. The city of Vythain reports you have been remiss in your shipments of wood, and that you refuse contact. Can you explain this?”
The oldster tugged at Dovirr’s cloak. “There are reasons.… Please, go away. Leave!”
Surprised, Dovirr drew back from the man’s grasp. But then, a curious stale odor drifted to his nostrils, the odor of dried, rotting fish spread out on a wharf in the sun. He glanced up toward the city. The oldster turned too, and uttered a groan of despair.
“They come, they come!”
Dovirr stiffened. The old man broke away and dashed out of sight. Advancing across the bare pier toward the little group of Sea-Lords were eight things. For an instant, horror grasped Dovirr as his eyes took in the image. Eight feet tall, with bony scaled skulls and gleaming talons, they advanced, each sweeping a thick, lengthy tail behind. Dovirr remained transfixed.
He recalled what Gowyn had told him once—about green-fleshed, evil-smelling hell-creatures, their bright eyes yellow beacons of hatred, their jaws burgeoning with knife-like teeth, their naked hides rugose, scaly. Eight of them; moving in solemn phalanx.
A sudden surge of mingled fear and joy shivered through him. Cupping his hands, Dovirr faced his men, who stood numbed with astonishment.
“Forward!” he shouted. “The Dhuchay’y have come back!”
Indeed it was so.
The gruesome creatures slinking from the depths of Vostrok could only be Dhuchay’y, come to reclaim the world they had transformed into a globe of water and then abandoned.
They walked erect; including tail, they measured twice a man’s length. Their hind feet were thick and fleshy, terminating in webbed claws; the hands, curiously man-like, were poised for combat, holding wedge-shaped knives. They advanced at an accelerating pace. Dovirr led his men forward to meet them with desperate haste.
As he drew near, he saw the delicate fringe of gills near the blunt snout; the creatures were equipped for action on land or sea. A chilling thought gripped Dovirr; what if a swarm of the Dhuchay’y were to force him and his men into the water, then follow after and slay them as they swam?
He closed with them, Kubril at his side. His voice rose to a piercing shriek. “Kill them! Kill!”
Leather-webbed feet flashed around him as he drove into the midst of the alien horde. His sword flickered overhead, chopped downward, and sliced through a Dhuchay’y arm. The member fell; the knife it had held clinked against the concrete. The alien uttered a whistling scream of pain; golden blood spurted.
In fear-maddened rage, Dovirr’s men charged the aliens. Dovirr smiled at the sight of the javelin of giant Zhoncoru humming into a scaly bosom; his own sword bit deep into a meaty flank. Once again, the teachings of Gowyn had stood him in good stead; taken by surprise, the aliens were dropping back. Already one bloody form lay sprawled on the pier, pierced by thirty Sea-Lord thrusts while another mighty bulk was toppling. At Dovirr’s side, Kubril thrust his spear into the falling creature and aided it in its descent.
Holding the spear like a lance, Kubril thrust it into another alien that menaced Dovirr. A torrent of blood issued from the torn belly.
“Thanks,” Dovirr murmured, and sliced into an alien eye with a tiptoe thrust. The pier was covered now with mingled golden and red blood; it was slippery, treacherous, and Dovirr within his armor was bathed in sweat.
The aliens were yielding, though. Three now lay dead; a fourth was staggering from its wounds, while of the remaining four, not one had escaped damage. Dovirr himself weaved in and out of the struggling group, and had so far evaded harm; Kubril had been struck by raking talons but seemed little the worse for it, while the javelin-man Zhoncoru bore a ragged cut down his tanned cheek.
Glancing quickly to one side, Dovirr saw three of his men dead in a welter of blood. There was little time for sorrow. His sword slashed through an alien gill, eliciting a shriek of pain that brought momentary near-pity to Dovirr’s eyes. Then the wounded alien sliced the plume from Dovirr’s helmet; laughing, the Sea-Lord thrust through the creature’s throat.
Dovirr drew back, gasping for breath; the stink of the dying monsters was overpowering. Rivers of sweat poured into his eyes. Writhing aliens lay everywhere.
“No,” Dovirr said out loud with sudden hoarseness. He caught Kubril’s arms; the first officer had been striking a vicious blow at a dying Dhuchay’y.
He pointed toward the distant city. Coming toward them, talons thundering over the stone, were reinforcements—
Hundreds of them!
“To the ship!” Dovirr called. It was the only possible step; twenty-five Terrans could never hold off against an uncountable multitude of the alien invaders. He led the retreat; the surviving swordsmen dragged dead and dying into the boats, and they struck out for the waiting Garyun.
Dovirr saw the ship heave anchor and begin moving rapidly toward them. Obviously Dwayorn, the seaman left in command; had seen the melee on shore and was coming in to pick the fleeing Sea-Lords up.
But there was some doubt that the move would succeed. Dovirr goaded his oarsmen on, and the mother ship made full speed toward them—but with cold horror he saw the swarm of Dhuchay’y reaching the end of the pier, marching over the hacked bodies of their fallen comrades, and plunging into the water! They were swimming toward the retreating boats!
Around them in the water, the flukes of the Seaborn were becoming visible; they would eat well tonight, Dovirr thought grimly.
“Pull!” he urged. “They’re gaining!”
But it was useless. The Dhuchay’y, amphibians, were converging on the fleeing boats in a milky rush of foam. Dovirr glanced back and saw the blunt heads ominously breaking the waves in their swift advance.
Suddenly a taloned claw appeared at the edge of the boat. Dovirr instantly hacked downward with his sword; the severed claw dropped into the boat, the arm withdrew. But at once four more appeared. The Dhuchay’y had caught up—and the mother ship was still a good distance away.
He knew what had to be done. Stripping off his breastplate, he hurled the costly polished cuirass at the naked skull of a leering alien grasping the gunwale. “Out of your armor! They’re going to capsize us!”
There was no way to prevent it; the only hope now was—impossibly—to outswim the creatures. The boat rocked dizzyingly as Dovirr and his men stripped down to their kilts. They hurled the useless armor at the bobbing aliens, beat at them with oars, slashed with swords—to no avail.
Already, Dovirr saw, Kubril’s boat was overturned and his men splashing in a wild tangle of aliens. A moment later, their turn came.
The boat went over; its eight occupants leaped free. As Dovirr sprang he caught sight of the Garyun looming above, its decks lined with arbalestiers ready to fire if only they could be sure of hitting none but aliens. Already they had loosed a few hesitant bolts, and the shrieks of dying Dhuchay’y resounded.
The water was icy. Dovirr opened his eyes, peered ahead as if looking through badly-blown green glass, and saw aliens swimming all about. Choking, he broke the surface, sucked in a lungful of air, and submerged again, swimming toward the ship. The Garyun, he hoped, was going to lower lines to pick up the survivors.
He swam on. Suddenly claws ripped his back; he wriggled away, gripping his dirk. A Dhuchay’y swam between h
im and the ship.
He twisted the dirk upward into the creature’s bowels, but tenacious arms gripped him and drew him under. Gasping, he sliced downward and across with his knife; the squirming alien refused to let go, keeping him beneath the surface. He thought his lungs were going to burst.
He groped for the creature’s throat. His hands closed on something smooth—an amulet of some sort, it seemed. Blindly, he ripped it away and thrust the dirk upward.
The alien abruptly relented. Dovirr’s head bobbed above the surface; still somehow clutching the amulet, he stabbed down into the bloodying water furiously.
Suddenly he was alone in the water. He looked up; the ship was next to him, and a line dangled invitingly a few feet away. He saw a few of his men, bloody and torn, climbing other such lines—one with an alien still clinging to his body.
Choking, gasping, Dovirr pulled himself up past the banks of oars, felt hands clutch at him and ease him onto the deck. He swayed weakly. Blood poured from a dozen wounds, fiery with salty sea-water.
Disdaining support, he strode to the bow and looked down. A blood-slick covered the sea, and the preying creatures of the deep were beginning to gather. The battle was over. Wounded aliens drifted in the water; he saw none of his own men except those few already aboard.
Numbly, his voice a harsh croak, he shouted: “Full speed out to sea! Let’s get out of here!”
Wind caught the sails. The Garyun fled the scene of slaughter, putting leagues between itself and alien-infested Vostrok.
Chapter Five
There came a time for licking of wounds, of drawing back into the open sea and drifting broodingly. For the next few days Dovirr kept to himself, alone in his cabin, going over and over the rout in his mind.
The Dhuchay’y had returned. They had silently slipped down from the sky and retaken Vostrok; countless aliens now again abounded in the one-time alien capital.
Thirty Terrans had gone ashore at Vostrok. Six had returned alive, and those six badly wounded, every man. Three boats sunk; twenty-four lives lost, thirty suits of armor. Dovirr scowled. Armor could be forged, new boats built—but men were irreplaceable. And, now that the Dhuchay’y again gripped Terra in their clammy grasp, he would need every man he had.