Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [40]
When Elric did not reply, Jagreen Lern gestured impatiently to his men.
"Tie him to the mast so that he may get a good view of the battle. I'll put a protective charm around his body, for I do not want him to be killed by a stray arrow and cheat me of my full vengeance."
Elric was borne up and roped to the mast, but he was scarcely aware of it, for his head lolled on his right shoulder, only semiconscious.
The massive fleet plunged onwards, certain of victory.
By mid-afternoon, Elric was aroused from his stupor by the shout of the helmsman.
"Sail to the south-east. Lormyrian fleet approaches!"
With impotent anger, Elric saw the fifty two-masted ships, their bright sails contrasting with the sombre scarlet of Jagreen Lern's vessels, come into line with the others.
Lormyr, though a smaller power than Argimiliar, had a larger navy. Elric judged that King Montan's treachery had cost the South more than a quarter of its strength.
Now he knew there was absolutely no hope for the South and that Jagreen Lern's certainty of victory was well-founded.
Night fell and the huge fleet lay at anchor. A guard came to feed Elric a mushy porridge containing another dose of the drug. As he revived, his anger increased, and Jagreen Lern paused by the mast on two occasions, taunting him savagely.
"Soon after dawn we shall meet the Southern fleet," Jagreen Lern smiled, "and by noon what is left of it will float as bloody driftwood behind us as we press on to establish our reign over those nations who so foolishly relied on their sea-power as defence."
Elric remembered how he had warned the kings of the Southlands that this was likely to happen if they stood alone against the Theocrat. But he wished that he had been wrong. With the defeat of the South, the conquest of the East seemed bound to follow and, when Jagreen Lern ruled the world, Chaos would dominate and the earth revert to the stuff from which it had been formed millions of years before.
All through that moonless night, he brooded. He pulled his thoughts together, summoning all his strength for a plan that was, as yet, only a shadow in the back of his mind.
Twelve
The rattle of anchors woke him.
Blinking in the light of the watery sun, he saw the Southern fleet on the horizon, riding gracefully in hollow pomp towards the ships of Jagreen Lern. Either, he thought, the Southern kings were very brave, or else they did not understand the strength of their enemies.
Beneath him, on Jagreen Lern's foredeck, a great catapult rested, and slaves had already filled its cup with a large ball of flaming pitch. Normally, Elric knew, such catapults were an encumbrance, since when they reached that size they were difficult to rewind and gave lighter war-engines the advantage. Yet obviously Jagreen Lern's engineers were not fools. Elric noted extra mechanisms on the big catapult and realised they were equipped to rewind rapidly.
The wind had dropped and five hundred pairs of muscles strove to row Jagreen Lern's galley along. On the deck, in disciplined order, his warriors took their posts beside the great boarding platforms that would drop down on the opponent's ships and grapple them at the same time as they formed a bridge between the vessels.
Elric was forced to admit that Jagreen Lern had used foresight. He had not relied wholly on supernatural aid. His ships were the best equipped he had ever seen. The Southern fleet, he decided, was doomed. To fight Jagreen Lern was insanity.
But the Theocrat had made one mistake. He had, in his gnawing desire for vengeance, ensured that Elric's vitality was restored for a few hours and this vitality extended to his mind as well as his body.
Stormbringer had vanished. With the sword he was, among men, all but invincible. Without it, he was helpless. These were facts. Therefore, he must somehow regain the blade. But how?
It had returned to the plane of Chaos with its brothers, presumably drawn back there by the overwhelming power of the rest.
He must contact it.
He dare not summon the entire horde of blades with the spell, that would