Empire Of Blood

On the eastern shore of the Silver Sea lay the Five Sea Kingdoms. They were small and weak. All five of them together had fewer people and less wealth than the Empire of Saram. They were also a long way off, so that the Empire could not do very much to them or they do very much to it.

A hundred years ago, however, matters had been somewhat different. Then the present Imperial dynasty had usurped the throne of Saram from its predecessors. A swarm of exiles fled across the Silver Sea to the Five Kingdoms, led by the heir to the fallen dynasty. The new emperor, Kul-Nam's grandfather, followed them with a fleet and an army. It was then that the great barracks had been constructed, when the fleet of Saram was five times its present size.

In spite of all the Emperor's expenditure of men and money and ships, he got nowhere. The Five Kingdoms joined forces for the first and last time in their history and fought like men possessed. Defending their homelands and home waters, they could not be beaten.

Eventually the Emperor recognized that fact. He was also a man from far inland, near the Steppe borders, and not comfortable far out at sea. So he proclaimed that he'd won a great victory, executed anybody who disagreed with him, and sailed for home. He left the Five Kingdoms to rebuild and the exiles to settle down in their new homes.

From that day to this the Empire of Saram and the Five Kingdoms had glowered at each other across the Silver Sea. Kul-Nam's father had had even less interest in the sea than his father. By the time Kul-Nam himself came to the throne, the Steppemen were moving in force against the borders of Saram. He couldn't have afforded a war against the Five Kingdoms even if he'd wanted one.

There were also the pirates of the Strait of Nongai. They swarmed out from bases on the islands, roaming the Silver and Emerald Seas and attacking ships and coasts as they pleased. The pirates were the main reason Saram still had a navy at all.

Mostly the pirates attacked the coasts, islands, and ships of the Five Kingdoms. The Empire's ships and coasts were too well defended by Kul-Nam's tough professional soldiers. The pirates respected their fighting ability and left them alone as much as possible.

Things were changing, though. As the Steppemen grew more dangerous, more and more soldiers marched away inland to guard the borders of Saram against their raids. The coasts and ships of Saram became more and more vulnerable, a tempting prize for the pirates. They in turn were becoming bolder and bolder, raiding in squadrons and even in fleets, when they'd only sent single ships until a few years before.

So Saram was rebuilding its navy. Able-bodied slaves were pouring into the barracks, old galleys were being repaired, new ones built, supplies and weapons gathered. A fleet was being assembled, the first in generations. When it was completed it would be sailing out looking for battles. Most of the older slaves seemed to expect no trouble finding them.

Blade considered that interesting and encouraging. If there was anything that offered golden opportunities to a slave, it was a pitched battle. If he were quick-witted and lucky, he could make himself valuable enough to win his freedom. If he were even quicker witted and a good deal luckier, he might find a chance to escape.

After a week, the new arrivals were taken out and assigned to galleys.

The galleys of Saram were all single-decked vessels, swinging thirty to fifty oars on each side, with two or three slave rowers on each oar. They also had two square-rigged masts and relied more on the wind than on their oars except in battle.

At bow and stern were mounted one large gun and several small ones. From the bow also jutted a massive iron and timber ram. Except for the bow and stern decks and cabins, the galleys were completely open, like gigantic rowboats. The slaves were chained to benches, exposed day and night to the sun, the wind, and the spray. Down the center line of the ship and on either side ran narrow gangways. Along them moved the slavemasters with their trumpets and whips. With a hundred soldiers and sailors and two or three hundred slaves aboard, a galley was packed solidly from bow to stern and from side to side.

The slavemasters and officers were not brutal or sadistic. They did not pointlessly neglect or mistreat the rowers any more than a Home Dimension sailor would have neglected a piece of machinery. But they were vigilant, well trained, and thoroughly ruthless in dealing with rebels. The first sign of weakness or insubordination meant a flogging. Too many slips meant being thrown overboard. The sea around Garis swarmed with enormous sharks, and a man overboard seldom lasted more than a minute.

Blade kept his temper and kept at his work, so that he was never flogged and seldom lashed at all. The food was coarse, but there was more than enough of it to maintain his strength.

Blade's galley was named Kukon, which was the untranslatable name for a common sea bird. Although Blade's brain automatically translated whatever he heard in this Dimension into English, he was never able to find an English equivalent for the galley's name. It was one of the few times the alteration of his brain as he passed into a new Dimension had not been complete. For a little while it bothered him; then he had too much else to think about.

Day after day he labored at his oar. Day after day Kukon slipped out of the harbor of Garis for maneuvers in the open sea. Sometimes she went out alone. Most of the time she went out with four or five other galleys. Once the whole fleet went out together, fifty galleys strong, and held a mock battle that suddenly became much too realistic. Two of the galleys rammed each other. One promptly sank, the chained slaves drowning at the oars and most of the sailors and soldiers being eaten by the sharks. The other limped back to harbor, thirty dead men on her decks and the slaves on the lower benches up to their waists in water.

Blade rowed back that evening in a grim frame of mind. He'd been forcibly reminded of his precarious existence as one of Kul-Nam's galley slaves. He might survive for months at Kukon's oars. He might also die in the next accident or the first battle if his luck ran out. He had to regain his freedom as soon as possible. When would that be?

As Kukon was being hauled into her berth by the gang of dock slaves, Blade noticed a cluster of men standing on the pier. They were under guard, but they carried seabags and wore sailor's clothes and no chains. One of their guards hailed Kukon's captain.

«Ahoy, Kukon! Here's your new lads. Six sailors, a carpenter, a cook's mate. Free all.»

The captain nodded and waved back. Kukon bumped alongside the pier and her gangplank slammed down on the stones. The guards barked out commands and the eight men scuttled forward, up the gangplank and onto the galley's deck.

The bo'sum met them as they came, counting them off. «Sailor-sailor-sailor-carpenter-sailor-sailor-cook's mate-«

Blade stared at the cook's mate. The man was big, as wide as Blade and nearly as tall. He moved slowly, though, as if he'd recently been hurt or sick. Over one shoulder he carried a long-handled axe. The other arm rode in a sling, the elbow stiff and wrapped in heavy bandages that had once been white.

Blade stared again, then accepted what he saw as fact. Unmistakably, the new cook's mate was Dzhai, the man he'd fought in Duke Boros' camp in the forest, the man he'd crippled, the man who owed his life to Blade's mercy.