Avenger of Antares Read Online Free Page B

powerful late!”
    Rogahan glanced at me. I kept my face immobile. Truth to tell, it had come as a great relief to allow all my own natural facial expressions free rein once more. If they are evil and arrogant and overweening, then I blame no one but myself; certainly they came more sweetly to me than that blank look of idiocy I assumed in Hamal.
    Rogahan peered aft along his chute. The Vallians have developed a serviceable sight for their gros-varters; Rogahan, I judged, would shoot by eye and experience and feel alone, as would I.
    He put his hand on the release lever, a mammoth lenken trigger. I watched him. From what he said, my Sosie would under-range his Vela. He loosed. We all watched the rock, for the gros-varter looses either rocks or darts depending on the exigencies of the occasion.
    Then everyone let out a howl of glee.
    The rock had struck fair into the forepart of the pursuing ship. For the moment we could only observe it had struck, we could not see what damage had been caused. The crew were hard at the windlass rebending the varter. I cocked an eye at Deldar Rogahan. He read my unspoken question instantly.
    “Aye, Majister. Just.”
    I felt the rising and dipping of the stern, judging the moment to loose, traversing the varter a fraction to bring it dead on line. Then I touched the trigger and the bow clanged and the rock flew. Well, maybe I was lucky. I do not know. In any event my rock flew true. It would hit the shank, I knew that surely enough, for I possess this knack of hitting what I shoot at. But in its manner of striking lay the luck. The rock flew higher than Rogahan’s and for a split instant I thought I had missed. Then the rock struck full against the shank’s foremast, a quarter of the way down, struck and smashed a splintering of brown chips away, perfectly visible.
    The men let out another cheer.
    “A fine shot, Prince!” yelled Rogahan.
    We all watched in great expectancy as the crews went at winding the varters. The foremast of the shank was in trouble; two of the panels, one black and the other amber, began to shred away. I saw the top section of the pole mast trembling. If that mast had been made in the usual way, out of foremast, foretop mast, and foretopgallant mast, the thing would have been down already.
    In the instant the leem lovers began to fold up their sail from the top to ease the strain, the yell arose on our deck.
    “Incoming!”
    We could all see the three rocks soaring up, black against the sunlight, tumbling over and over in their trajectories and, in that same instant, I saw they would strike without doubt.
    Wersting Rogahan saw that, too. He was a fine varterist.
    “By Vox!” he yelled. Then, enraged, “Wind, you onkers! Wind!”
    The crew finished winding and we all bent to the task of loading the next rock. With a roar and a smash and a heave the deck shook beneath us and the air was filled with the whirring splinters of ripping death. Two men went down, screaming, six-foot-long splinters impaling them. Other men slipped on the spilled blood. I saw a sailor looking stupidly at his wrist. Where his hand was no one would ever know. In the midst of this the catapult forward of us let fly with an almighty clang. There might not be the choking smoke or the smashing concussions of the iron guns, but in other respects this was very much like the fighting I had endured as a young man in the sea actions of my own world.
    Three more times Rogahan and I let fly. We thought we hit five times out of the six shots, and neither would give the other the credit for the odd one.
    Again
Ovvend Barynth
was hit.
    And, through it all, despite the loss of pressure from the reduced sail area on its foremast, the shank crept closer.
    Captain Ehren stormed onto the poop, rapier in hand.
    “Prince!” he cried. “We must turn and rend him! Give us the order, I pray you! Majister! We must board!”
    If that happened I, for one, would not like to bet on the outcome. I hold in great esteem