Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock [36]
"He'll have to fight us before he shall have you," Elric promised her.
"You have not seen his men. Cutthroats all. Desperate and wolfish! They'll show you no mercy. You would be best advised to hand me over to Saxif D'Aan at once and save yourselves. You'll gain nothing from trying to protect me. But I'd ask you a favor."
"What's that?"
"Find me a small knife to carry, that I may kill myself as soon as I know you two are safe."
Elric laughed, dragging her to her feet. "I'll have no such melodramatics from you, lass! We stand together. Perhaps we can bargain with Saxif D'Aan."
"What have you to barter?"
"Very little. But he is not aware of that."
"He can read your thoughts, seemingly. He has great powers!"
"I am Elric of Melniboné. I am said to possess a certain facility in the sorcerous arts, myself."
"But you are not as single-minded as Saxif D'Aan," she said simply. "Only one thing obsesses him—the need to make me his consort."
"Many girls would be flattered by the attention—glad to be an empress with a Melnibonéan emperor for a husband." Elric was sardonic.
She ignored his tone. "That is why I fear him so," she said in a murmur. "If I lost my determination for a moment, I could love him. I should be destroyed! It is what she must have known!"
V
* * *
The gleaming galleon, sails and sides all gilded so that it seemed the sun itself pursued them, moved rapidly upon them while the girl and Count Smiorgan watched aghast and Elric desperately attempted to recall his elemental allies, without success.
Through the pale blue light the golden ship sailed relentlessly in their wake. Its proportions were monstrous, its sense of power vast, its gigantic prow sending up huge, foamy waves on both sides as it sped silently toward them.
With the look of a man preparing himself to meet death, Count Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple Towns unslung his battle-ax and loosened his sword in its scabbard, setting his little metal cap upon his bald pate. The girl made no sound, no movement at all, but she wept.
Elric shook his head and his long, milk-white hair formed a halo around his face for a moment. His moody crimson eyes began to focus on the world around him. He recognized the ship; it was of a pattern with the golden battle-barges of Melniboné—doubtless the ship in which Earl Saxif D'Aan had fled his homeland, searching for the Crimson Gate. Now Elric was convinced that this must be that same Saxif D'Aan and he knew less fear than did his companions, but considerably greater curiosity. Indeed, it was almost with nostalgia that he noted the ball of fire, like a natural comet, glowing with green light, come hissing and spluttering toward them, flung by the ship's forward catapult. He half expected to see a great dragon wheeling in the sky overhead, for it was with dragons and gilded battle-craft like these that Melniboné had once conquered the world.
The fireball fell into the sea a few inches from their bow and was evidently placed there deliberately, as a warning.
"Don't stop!" cried Vassliss. "Let the flames slay us! It will be better!"
Smiorgan was looking upward. "We have no choice. Look! He has banished the wind, it seems."
They were becalmed. Elric smiled a grim smile. He knew now what the folk of the Young Kingdoms must have felt when his ancestors had used these identical tactics against them.
"Elric?" Smiorgan turned to the albino. "Are these your people? That ship's Melnibonéan without question!"
"So are the methods," Elric told him. "I am of the blood royal of Melniboné. I could be emperor, even now, if I chose to claim my throne. There is some small chance that Earl Saxif D'Aan, though an ancestor, will recognize me and, therefore, recognize my authority. We are a conservative people, the folk of the Dragon Isle."
The girl spoke through dry lips, hopelessly: "He recognizes only the authority of the Lords of Chaos, who give him aid."
"All Melnibonéans recognize that authority," Elric told her with a certain humor.
From the forward hatch, the sound of the stallion's stamping and snorting