Short Fiction - Poul Anderson (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

that jarred the man backward. Corun spread his feet and smote out. His blade whirled down to strike the shoulder, gash the chest, and drive the hissing monster back.

With a rising cold fury, Corun followed it up. That for the long inquisition⁠—that for being a horror out of the sea bottom⁠—that for threatening Chryseis! The Xanthian writhed with a belly ripped open. Still he wouldn’t die⁠—he flopped and struck from the deck. Corun evaded the sweeping tail and cut off the creature’s head.

They were pouring onto the ship through gaps in the line. Chryseis stood on the foredeck in a line of defending men, her bow singing death. Battle snarled about the mast, men against monsters, sword and halberd and ax belling in cloven bone.

A giant’s blow bowled Corun off his feet, the tail of a Xanthian. He rolled over and thrust upward as the Sea Demon sprang on him. The sword went through the heart. Hissing and snapping, his foe toppled on him. He heaved the struggling body away and sprang back to his stance.

“To me!” bellowed Imazu. “To me, men!”

He stood wielding a huge battle ax by the mast, striking at the beasts that raged around him, lopping heads and arms and tails like a woodman. The scattered humans rallied and began to fight their way toward him, step by bloody step.

Perias the erinye was everywhere, a flying fury, ripping and biting and smashing with wing-blows. Corun loomed huge over the men who fought beside him, the sword shrieking and thundering in his hands. Imazu stood stolidly against the mast, smashing at all comers. A rush of Xanthi broke past him and surged against the foredeck. The defenders beat them off, Chryseis thrusting as savagely with her sword as any man, and they reeled back against the masthead warriors to be cut down.

A Xanthian sprang at Corun, wielding a long-shafted ax that shivered the sword in his hand. The Conahurian struck back, his blade darting past the monster’s guard to stab through the throat. The Xanthian staggered. Corun wrenched the blade loose and brought it down again to sing in the reptile skull.

Before he could pull it loose, another was on him. Corun ducked under the spear he carried and closed his hands around the slippery sides. The clawed feet raked his legs. He lifted the thing and hurled it into another with bone-shattering force. One of them threshed wildly, neck broken⁠—the other bounded at Corun. The man yanked his sword free and it whistled against the golden head.

Back and forth the struggle swayed, crashing of metal and howling of warriors. And the Xanthi were driven to the rails⁠—they could not stand against the rallying human line in the narrow confines of the ship.

“Kill them!” roared Imazu. “Kill the misbegotten snakes!”

Suddenly the Xanthi were slipping overboard, swimming for their mounts beyond the zone of magic. Perias followed, harrying them, pulling them half out of the water to rip their throats out.

The ship was wet, streaming with human red and reptile yellow blood. Dead and wounded littered the decks. Corun saw the Xanthi cavalry retreating out of sight.

“We’ve won,” he gasped. “We’ve won⁠—”

“No⁠—wait⁠—” Chryseis inclined her head sharply, seeming to listen, then darted past him to open a hatch. Light streamed down into the hold. It was filling⁠—the bilge was rising. “I thought so,” she said grimly. “They’re below us, chopping into the hull.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Corun, and unbuckled his cuirass. “All who can swim, after me!”

“No⁠—no, they’ll kill you⁠—”

“Come on!” rapped Imazu, letting his own breastplate clang to the deck.

Corun sprang overboard. He was wearing nothing but a kilt now, and had a spear in one hand and a dirk in his teeth. Fear was gone, washed out by the red tides of battle. There was only a bleak, terrible triumph in him. Men had beaten the Sea Demons!

Underwater, it was green and dim. He swam down, down, brushing the hull, pulling himself along the length of the keel. There were half a dozen shapes clustered near the waist, working with axes.

He pushed against the keel and darted at them, holding the spear like a lance. The keen point stabbed into the belly of one monster. The others turned, their eyes terrible in the gloom. Corun took the dirk in his hand, got a grip on the next nearest, and stabbed.

Claws ripped his flanks and back. His lungs were bursting, there was a roaring in his head and darkness before his eyes. He stabbed blindly, furiously.

Suddenly the struggling form let go. Corun broke the surface and gasped in a lungful of air. A Sea Demon leaped up beside him. At once the erinye was on him. The Xanthian screamed as he was torn apart.

Corun dove back under water. The other seamen were down there, fighting for their lives. They outnumbered the Xanthi, but the monsters were in their native element. Blood streaked the water, blinding them all. It was a strange, horrible battle for survival.

In the end, Corun and Imazu and the others⁠—except for four⁠—were hauled back aboard. “We drove them off,” said the pirate wearily.

“Oh, my dear⁠—my dearest dear⁠—” Chryseis, who had laughed in battle, was sobbing on his breast.

Shorzon was on deck, looking over the scene. “We did well,” he said. “We stood them off, killed about thirty, and only lost fifteen men.”

“At that rate,” said Corun, “it won’t take them long to clear our decks.”

“I don’t think they will try again,” said Shorzon.

He went over to a captured Xanthian. The Sea Demon had had a foot chopped off in the battle and been pinned to the deck by a pike, but he still lived and rasped defiance at them. If allowed to live, he would grow new members⁠—the monsters were tougher than they had a right to be.

“Hark, you,” said Shorzon in the Xanthian tongue, which he had learned with astonishing ease. “We come on a mission of peace, with an offer that your king will be pleased to hear. You have seen