The three nimble galleys formed into line: their boatswains' whips
cracked as the slaves bent to their oars, and presently one of our
own ships was gored and sunk, the men on her being killed in the
water without hope of rescue.

And then commenced a tight-locked melee that would have warmed
the heart of the greatest warrior alive. The ships and the galleys
were forced together and lay savagely grinding one another upon the
swells, as though they had been sentient animals. The men on board
them shot their arrows, slashed with axes, thrust and hacked with
swords, and hurled the throwing fire. But in every way the fight
converged upon the "Bear." It was on her that the enemy spent the
fiercest of their spite; it was to the "Bear," that the other crews
of Tatho's navy rallied as their own vessels caught fire, or were
sunk or taken.

Battle is an old acquaintance with us of the Priestly Clan,
and for those of us who have had to carve out territories for the
new colonies, it comes with enough frequency to cloy even the most
chivalrous appetite. So I can speak here as a man of experience.
Up till that time, for half a life-span, I had heard men shout
"Deucalion" as a battlecry, and in my day had seen some lusty
encounters. But this sea-fight surprised even me in its savage
fierceness. The bleak, unstable element which surrounded us; the
swaying decks on which we fought; the throwing fire, which burnt
flesh and wood alike with its horrid flame; the great gluttonous
man-eating birds that hovered in the sky overhead; the man-eating
fish that swarmed up from the seas around, gnawing and quarrelling
over those that fell into the waters, all went to make up a
circumstance fit to daunt the bravest men-at-arms ever gathered for