“Hya!” Val cried. “My lord Kta! Ship astern!”
There was, amid the gray haze, a tiny object that was not a part of the sea or the shore. Kta swore.
“They cannot help but overhaul us, my lord!”
“That much is sure,” said Kta, and then lifted his voice to the crew. “Men, if that is Edrif astern, we have a fight coming. Arm yourselves and check your gear; we may not have time later. Kurt, my friend”-Kta turned and faced him-“when they close, as I fear they will, keep away from exposed areas. The Sufaki are quite accurate bowmen. If we are rammed, jump and try to find a bit of wood to cling to. Use sword or ax, whatever you wish, but I do not plan to be boarding or boarded if I can prevent it. Badly as we both want Shan t’Tefur, we dare not risk it.”
The intervening space closed slowly. Nearer view confirmed the ship as Edrif, a sixty-oared longship, and Tavi, though of newer and swifter design, had ten of her fifty benches vacant. At the moment only twenty oars were working.
“Ei,” said Kta to the men in the rowers’ pits on either side of him, the other twenty also seated and ready, six of the deck crew taking vacant posts to bring Tavi’s oarage closer to normal strength. “Ei, now, keep the pace, you rowers, as you are, and listen to me. Edrif is stalking us, and we will have to begin to move. Let none of us make a mistake or hesitate; we have no margin and no relief. Skill must save us, skill and discipline and experience; no Sufak ship can match us in that. Now, now, run out the rest of the oars. Hold, you other men, hold!”
The cadence halted briefly, Tavi’s twenty working oars poised creaking and dripping until the other twenty-six were run out and ready. Kta gave the count himself, a moderate pace. Edrif gained steadily, her sixty oars beating the sea. Figures were now discernible on her deck.
Kurt made a quick descent to seize a blade from a rack in the companionway, and on second thought exchanged it for a short-handled ax, such as was properly designed for freeing shattered rigging, not for combat. He did not estimate that his lessons with Kta had made him a fencer equal to a nemet who had handled the ypan all his life, and he did not trust that all Sufaki shunned the ypan in favor of the bow and the knife.
He delayed long enough to dress too, to slip on a pel beneath the ctan and belt it, for the wind was bitter, and the prospect of entering a fight all but naked did not appeal to him.
When he had returned to the deck, even after so brief ~a time, Edrif had closed the gap further, so that her green dragon figurehead was clear to be seen above the water that boiled about her metal-shod ram. A stripe-robed officer stood at her bows, shouting back orders, but the wind carried his voice away.
“Prepare to turn full about,” Kta shouted to his own crew. “Quick turn, starboard bank… stand by… turn! Hard about, hard!”
Tavi changed course with speed that made her timbers groan, oars and helm bringing her about three-quarters to the wind, and Kta was already shouting an order to Pan.
The dark blue sail with the lightning emblem of Elas billowed down from the yard and filled, deck crew hauling to sheet it home. Tavi came alive in the water, suddenly bearing down on Edrif with the driving power of the wind and her forty-six oars.
Frenzied activity erupted on the other deck. Edrif began to turn, full broadside for a moment, continuing until she was nearly stern on. Her dark green sail spread, but she could not turn with graceful Tavi’s speed, and her crew hesitated, taken by surprise. Tavi had the wind in her own sail, stealing it from theirs.
“Portside oars!” Kta roared over the thunder of the rowing. “Stand by to ship oars portside! Hya, Val!”
“Aye!” Val shouted back. “Understood, my lord!”
A shout of panic went up from Edrif as Tavi closed, and Kta shouted to the portside bank as they headed for collision. Tavi’s two banks lifted from the water, and with frantic haste the men portside shipped oars while the starboard rowers held their poised level.