Free Warrior of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

the swifter seemed alone to be alive as I reached the entrance ramp onto the lower beak. The scene was fantastic. The whole upperworks of the swifter were crowded with the naked bodies of slaves, all howling and screeching like — no, not like, they were — demented souls.
    I knew what emotions they were experiencing.
    The long extended beak of the swifter hung over the water-slopping deck of the merchantman. She had had two masts, their stumps now jagged tangles among the raffle of wreckage, so she was a fair-sized craft. Her forecastle — it was that, proper, and not a fo’c’sle — had been badly battered by the swifter’s varters. These were mounted somewhat higher in the bows of the galley than I considered proper, and had been rigged to hurl stones, as was fit in the circumstances. The merchantman’s sterncastle, an imposing edifice of two decks, was cluttered by the raffle fallen from the mainmast. Bodies lay everywhere.
    The swifter captain glared up at me. He was a big man, his mail bulging, his long sword a weapon of exceptional size. Around him among the circle of slain slaves lay sprawled other men in mail and half-mail, mercenary marines carried by the merchantman.
    “Hail!” he called up.
    He waved his sword in a gesture that plainly said: “Come down here where I can chop you.”
    He knew that against all those enraged slaves he had no chance of survival.
    He was of Magdag — yet he was a brave man. Even then, when I was young and bore a hatred for the green burning in my breast, I recognized a man’s courage.
    I leaped down to him.
    With only a breechclout to cover my nakedness I fought at a disadvantage against his mail. But also, against his knowledge that he was doomed and his desperate determination to make a fight of it and die well, I could put my skill and my own determination, the red against the green.
    Our blades crossed once, and I felt the strength in his arm.
    The broad ship lurched beneath our feet as water gushed in.
    “You will die, slave, and join your fellows here!”
    I did not answer. Again the blades crossed and I swung on the disengage, but be was quick even on that cumbered deck and avoided my blow. He bore down on me, anxious to kill me and take as many as he could with him to the ice floes of Sicce.
    A slave shouted from the deck, high and exultant.
    “Jikai! Chop him, Pur Dray, my Lord of Strombor, Krozair!”
    The swifter captain’s blade faltered. He drew back. On his face grew such a look of fury and despair as sickened me to see.
    “You—” he choked. “You are the Lord of Strombor — Krozair!”
    Without bothering to reply — for I felt the broad ship’s sluggish wallowing movements and knew she would go down any instant — I leaped forward. And now our blades clanged and rang with that ferocious screech of steel blade on steel blade. He was good and he was strong but I was in a hurry now and in a quick passage of murderous blows he fell.
    Someone shouted: “The ship’s going!”
    And amid the tumultuous shouts of the freed slaves as they saw the hated Magdag overlord dead at their feet I leaped nimbly up onto the swifter’s beak. A florid but sea-bitten man rushed forward, his slashed blue finery proclaiming him the captain of the merchantman.
    Seg was there and with the help of slaves who seemed to carry some authority among their fellows a space was cleared. The merchant skipper grasped my left hand, babbling his thanks. His ship had gone, but his life was safe. Overside now the broad ship wallowed deeper, and thrashing around her and waiting for their grisly harvest the chanks with their twin stiff upright fins, the sharks of the inner sea, patrolled hungrily.
    “May Ta’temsk shine upon you, my Lord of Strombor!” He let my hand go as I began to strip away the bloodied brown rag from my loins. “We fought as well as we could, but the rashoon dismasted us. My crew fought like demons, as you can see — even my passengers fought — ah, how they