During-the next two hours, it seemed as if she were right in her reading of the situation, that the hovering ship feared to press the Murian vessel openly. The raider stayed just within the curtain of the mist, in sight, keeping pace with them, but did no more.
Han, however, shared Cho’s mistrust of that slinking menace. Now and again he looked up from the wheel, glancing almost apprehensively at their unsought companion. And so it continued until high noon loosed a watery sunlight through the clouds.
Cho ordered food served to the men on deck. And they, too, ate where they stood, ever on guard.
“It may be that they wait for night and the dark to favor them.” Cho brushed crumbs from his fingers.
“Let us also yearn for that, Sunborn,” replied Han.:“Engaging at night is a chancy thing. Escape may be ours-”
Cho flung back his cloak. “Not so! She is coming up!”
The raider was moving in with a darting speed. Ray, drew the sword Cho had given him and looked curiously: at the burnished blade. This was no weapon to fit his hand: He held it awkwardly and ran his finger downy one of the keen edges. His mouth was dry, and he found himself swallowing too often. At last he slammed that weapon back in its sheath. His bare hands and knowledge of infighting might serve him far better now. But in spite of his training in his own time and place, this was the first real war he had ever faced. Around him the crew made preparations with quiet efficiency, adjusting their weapons. He envied them their knowledge and the skill that gave them both occupation during this wait and a defense when the test came.
“Remember, the shield is for protection,” Cho cautioned.
Ray nodded grimly.
Then, as sudden as a squall in the tropics, came the
attack. From the bow of the raider shot a green ray, bright even in the sun, striking the side of the Wind Ruler. Ray caught the scent of burning.
“Too low!” cried the Lady Ayna.
Inch by inch that green light crept up to where the Murians waited. Cho’s fingers dug into Ray’s arm. “Your shield-behind it!”
Ray swung the shield across his body, crouching a little behind that barrier which suddenly seemed very light and useless. The beam slanted across the deck where they stood.
One of the men stationed by a death-breather screamed horribly. Convulsively he flung out his right arm. On the bare skin, writhing as might some loathsome reptile, was a patch of vivid green. The-sailor screamed again, flinging himself back from the machine he served, falling to the deck close to Ray. Instinctively the American started forward, hand half out, but Cho’s grip jerked him back and away.
“No! We can do nothing. He is’ already dead, and it will attack any other living flesh.”
The man shrieked once more and then lay still, the others edging away from his crumpled body.
“See-it seeks now other victims, having fed once,” Cho hissed.
That splotch of green, no longer seeming part of a beam of light, but something far more tangible, with an evil life of its own, wriggled from the arm of the dead man, fell upon the planking, lengthened into a snake, and began to inch along. Han leaned over the
wheel. In his hand was a pear-shaped crystal. As he held it out, a spark of fire shot from it to strike directly-: upon the serpent light. There was a shrill hum that. hurt the ears and the green thing was gone, leaving at blackened smear on the deck, from which arose a tiny] curl of smoke.
“That—that was alive!” breathed Ray.
“Not as we know life,” Cho returned. “That is one of the favorite weapons. They will try again—
Once more the parent beam came from the raider, this time aimed much higher. It struck upon Han’s shield, to cling there, as if it struggled to find a way through from behind that metal barrier. Baffled, it withdrew, only to strike at the rest, one by one.
When it reached Ray, it was a weight pressing him back, so that he retreated a step or. two in surprise, before standing up to what was really no great force of pressure. The rim of the shield was in close contact with his body, and behind it he braced against something that writhed, turned up and down, and tried to find some crack in the metal through which to reach him. Then it was gone, and the beam swept along the metal screen protecting the waist and came to the foredeck. But nowhere did it find a second victim.
As yet the Wind Ruler made no counterattack, which led Ray to wonder. Nor did it deviate from the course or slacken the speed Cho had ordered. The raider had fallen a little behind now, as if the need for launching that beam had slowed it. But with the failure of its first blow, it plowed ahead to launch a second, which came in a rain like patter.
Ray looked down. Inches from his feet two small slivers of metal stood point down, still quivering. Ha cried out; another such sliver hung from his shoulder Cho leaped to take the wheel.
“Loose the death-breathers!” he ordered.
One of the sailors near Ray steadied the tube on the box, while his companion inserted therein a ball of an unhealthy yellow color. One of the men bore down on a small lever. The yellow ball rose almost lazily into the air, swung up and out to the raider, and crashed upon her bow deck. There was a puff of saffron smoke. The raider swung quickly, but the smoke crept back along her deck, a cloud thicker than the fog that had veiled her earlier. It hid all but a small portion just above the waterline. Cho passed the wheel to one of the sailors. “That-that was against all orders, except for dire necessity. How is it with you, Han?” The officer leaned limply against Ray, who had moved in to his support. His face had a sickly greenish tinge beneath sea tan. The metal sliver must have carried some deadly poison. “Another must take duty, Sunborn-I-” His full weight slumped against Ray, and the American shed his shield to ease him to the-deck. Cho took him into his arms, supporting his head. “Grieve not for me-I go to the Sun. Light a candle from the Flame-for-” His head rolled against Cho’s chest, and the Murian touched his sweat-beaded forehead gently. Then he looked to the raider, dipping and rising in the waves as if there was now no sure hand on its wheel. “You have paid, followers of the Shadow-but the payment will be asked again, and yet again! This do I swear by the Flame! Han’s true and lasting blood-price shall be collected in the Five Walled City itself! It may not be this year-but it will come!” Ray helped him wrap the dead. officer in his cloak. When they arose, the sailors were gingerly picking the metal darts from the deck, gathering them with careful attention not to touch their discolored points. But for the sailor who had died of the green fire and for Han, the fight might never have taken place. “Sunborn! Look to the raider!” They had drawn away from the other ship, leaving it wallowing in the waves apparently without direction. But now it was answering to some competent hand
again, creeping forward, though not with its former` speed, to follow them still. “How can this be?” cried the Lady Ayna. “The’ death-breather-it should have killed all on board!” “They must possess defenses of which we know naught,” Cho replied. “But it appears they are crippled. Give us until late tomorrow and we are free. But if they bring by signal another of their kind-” “Yes,” the Lady Ayna echoed him, “there remains that. See, they creep it is true, but they do not leave us.” The Wind Ruler had drawn a length ahead of the; dark raider. Still now that ship fell in behind, keeping; the same course. A crippled hound, plainly, yet one that had not given up the hunt. And there was something uncanny in that determination. Night came early under a cloud-filled sky. And still-the silent Atlantean vessel pursued them, nosing along sullenly with perhaps not the will nor the power to: draw level with the Wind Ruler again. The Murians hoisted a white running light, but there was no answer from across the water. However, their own illumina-tion spread across the waves, making sure an enemy. boarding party could not come upon them unaware. Ray rubbed his smarting eyes, strained from too much watching astern. Like those about him, he had not discarded the tall shield, and its weight cut more and more heavily into his arm muscles. Sometime late tomorrow, Cho had said, they would be at the entrance to the Inner Sea and could expect aid, if they must have it, from the forts at the inlet. That black shadow by the wheel was Han and the sailor, sewn into their battle cloaks, ready for daybreak burial. And still the dark and silent enemy: plowed in their wake. The Lady Ayna had gone below, but Cho had taken the wheel and Ray elected to wait as long as the Murian kept duty. He had never been so tired before–or so it seemed. Nor, he had to reluctantly admit to himself, so afraid. Hand-to-hand combat, even steel to= steel, a man could brace himself to face. But the crawling green fire that had something akin to life and a rain of poisoned metal thorns had no equal in his past training. His fingers curled as if about a rifle-a weapon eons away. That, grenades-mentally he made a list of what he wanted now in place of the useless sword weighting his hip.