Free Krozair of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers Page A

begin the task of freeing the slaves.
    A monstrous man in green and gold fronted me, swirling his longsword.
    This kind of work demanded a longsword; but I made shift with the Genodder, dropped him, and with no time to snatch up his sword engaged the next man with a clang. Swords flamed all about me. Men screamed and dropped. The rank raw tang of blood smoked on the morning air.
    “Grodno! Grodno!” rang the shrieked battle cries.
    “Zair! Zair!” the answering screams ripped out.
    Mailed men boiled across the quarterdeck. For the next few murs the mere strength and solidity of packed men would tell. I cursed the damned shortsword, for its premier advantage in the thrust availed little against mailed men, although I gave a couple of fellows sore ribs before I got the point into their faces. I swung the Genodder in a short blurred arc and bashed through a mailed shoulder. A longsword hissed past my ear. It was a case of duck and twist and to the devil with the so-called dignity and art of fighting. I chunked a Fristle’s eye out and slashed back at a Rapa, who spun away, screeching as Rapas do screech. The very fury and frenzy of the fight pushed us back and forth across the deck. But we had men, many men, and soon more swarmed up from below as their chains were struck off.

Chapter Five
    Vax
    The sheer pressure at our backs drove us on. The hideous sounds of mortal combat shocked into the sky. Blood ran greasily across the deck and men coughed or screamed or said nothing as they died. In the press the shortsword proved of value, but I caught a distorted glimpse of Duhrra swinging his longsword and clearing men from his path as a gardener hews weeds. Vax drove on with him. I cursed and beat away a spear-point, thrust short and sharp, and brought the blade back to catch a longsword sweeping down at my head and felt the jar smash along my muscles.
    I made a grab with my left hand at the longsword and after one fumble, during which I kicked a fellow in the guts, the longsword was mine. It was a common one with a small hilt; but it would serve. I swapped with a feeling of release.
    In the next mur I had leaped after Duhrra and Vax. Together we cut a triple furrow through the Green ranks. Duhrra fought as he always did with a sword, using tremendous sweeps, enormous bashes, and mighty slashings to hew down his opponents. I felt vast relief that he had found and donned a mail shirt, for he left himself dangerously exposed. Vax fought with the trim economy of the trained swordsman. I saw the way he handled his blade and again I wondered if, at his age, he could be a Krozair.
    We reached the double doors leading from the quarterdeck into the passage under the poop.
Vengeance Mortil
was a longer vessel than
Green Magodont,
rowing thirty oars to a bank against the latter’s twenty-one. The poop over our heads was now the scene of fighting. We could hear shrieks and the thumps of feet on the deck. Most of the cabins were empty and we tore straight on toward the captain’s cabin.
    He was not there, and I recalled the large man I had felled at the instant of boarding. If he had been the captain, then his crew fought well without him. Satisfied that the cabins here were all empty, we turned to dart out and finish the fight. I stopped stock still.
    Duhrra and Vax halted in the doorway.
    “Come on, Dak!”
    A glass case stood against the bulkhead. A shaft of mingled light struck through the aft windows and illuminated the contents of the case. Crimson blazed. A long blade of steel shafted back gleaming light.
    “Trophies,” said Duhrra. “Some poor devil of a Zairian—”
    I swung the sword at the glass and smashed the case open.
    I took the longsword into my fists. It balanced beautifully.
    A Krozair longsword. The genuine article. I saw the etched markings, the Kregish letters in flowing script:
KRZI. So
this was a longsword of the Krozairs of Zimuzz. The red cloth was a flag. I ripped it down and swathed it about me. I drew it