Slowly the great-shouldered man whose name was Brak looked up. On the walkway stood the Gord overseer fingering his coiled lash. Brak's eyes burned in the lead-colored light that covered the Dark Sea from cliff to coastal cliff. Resting on his oar, Brak spat.

The overseer's arm went back, snapped forward. The long lash coiled around the barbarian's chest.

When it tore loose it left a serpentine of blood around his torso. Brak came to his feet in the swaying pit, growling angrily, yanking at his chains.

The prisoner beside Brak was gibbering, begging him to be calm. But the pain of the whip had inflamed the barbarian. For a moment he was without reason. He pulled wildly on the chains and made growling sounds, like one of the beasts of the wild lands of the north from whence he had come.

A huge wave broke across the bow of the Gord flagship. Spray cascaded over Brak. The cloud of hate passed from his mind.

Another wave struck amidships. The galley rolled. Brak tumbled onto his bench with his leg-chain tangled. The overseer laughed. He drew the end of his whip through his free hand to wipe away the blood, walked on.

But the overseer's assertion of power was of small consequence. The war-fleet was rapidly being overhauled by the storm. The pitching of the flagship became more erratic. Smaller ships fell behind.

"Stroke!" cried the rowing-master from the quarterdeck. "Stroke! Stroke!"

Brak fell into the rhythm, hauling on the oar with the six other men on the bench. He felt a dismal gloom, created not so much by fear of the impending storm as by his helplessness against the threat posed by his captors' fright. When the whirlwind from the black clouds struck, they would soon enough forget their cruelty to the hundreds of prisoners who, like Brak, were helping to row the Gord soldiers homeward. But in their forgetting, in their panic, the ships might be destroyed. Brak had no illusions about the Gords wishing to save their slave rowers.

The big barbarian felt naked without the broadsword that had slapped against his hip only two days ago. That day, his pony's hooves had carried him down from a plateau to the little port city of the Mirkan people, at the head of the Dark Sea.

Bound on a long journey to seek his fortune in the warm climes of Khurdisan far southward, Brak's arrival in the city of the Mirkans was wholly accidental, the result of a chance turning in the road. Arriving, he had gone to sleep on a pallet in a flea-bitten caravanseri. He intended to rise next dawn and continue his journey.

During the night there had been drumming. Men with torches shrieked alarms in the streets. The Gords, short, squat men who wore leather armor trimmed with fur, had appeared out of the night to attack the Mirkans. At the same time, the Gord fleet engaged the pitifully few fighting ships of the Mirkans off the harbor mole.

The day's fighting had been a holocaust. On his huge body Brak still bore cuts and small scars. He remembered lopping off several heads in the caravanseri yard while the sky reddened with flames of the sacked town. But the Gords had the double advantage of surprise and numbers: Like most of the able-bodied Mirkans, Brak had been caught.

He was herded down to the Gord galleys and impressed as a slave-rower. Only the sudden appearance of the stormclouds in the wake of the triumphantly homeward-bound Gords had lessened the success of the attack in which Brak had been trapped by accident.

"Stroke!" cried the rowing-master. "Stroke!"

Brak bent his huge back into the effort. Silently he raged against the poor fool calling for greater effort. It was obvious that the ships, even with a combination of sail and oars, could not outrun the storm. The black clouds were closer now. They covered the northern horizon from sea to heaven.

The soldiers on the flagship gripped their spears and leather-clad shields and watched, helpless, while the Gord admiral, a porcine, bearded stump of a man, exhorted the rowing-master to quicken the beat still further.

Slightly ahead and to port of the flagship, Brak noticed a jutting headland. As he pulled mindlessly on his oar, he saw several of the Mirkan captives give sick smiles, whisper among themselves. Gradually, as the war-fleet drew abreast of the headland, Brak could make out a large, up-thrusting island. It separated a huge bay into two channels. Through blowing mist the buildings of a great city were barely visible on the coast behind these bays. Inside a tall watchtower on the headland, torches flickered like weird little fireflies.

"Well," said the Mirkan who earlier had urged Brak to curb his temper, "there's one kingdom these sons of hell won't live to destroy. Quite a joke, isn't it?" The man's scrawny ribs thrust against his emaciated chest in a spasm of weak laughter. "To save Rodar's people we shall all have to be drowned, together, friend and enemy alike."

"Who is Rodar?" Brak asked. "The ruler of that place partly hidden in the mist?"

"Aye. The city-state is under the dominion of Rodar, Prince of the Two Bays. It's been foretold that the Gords want to be masters of the whole of the Dark Sea. They began with us, the Mirkans, at the northern end. Certainly Rodar's kingdom would have been next. Though small, it's the most powerful on the entire sea. Rodar himself has always known the Gords for what they are--beasts, whose only purpose is conquest. While the Mirkans have always dwelled far enough away from the Gords--so we thought--to remain free of the contest, all who live along the Dark Sea long ago realized that, one day, the Gords would strike at Rodar. His kingdom has prided itself on decency and justice, while the Gords--"

Before the glass-eyed Mirkan could finish, a cheer from the soldiers burst raggedly through the noise of wind and sea. Brak and the other prisoners glanced up.

On the quarterdeck, the Gord admiral no longer wore an expression of fright. He was smiling, bowing forward a young woman who had emerged from the cabin in the stern's castle.

"That's the strangest sight of any yet," Brak said, his thick yellow brows pulling together. "A young girl on a warship."

The Mirkan alongside shuddered. "Not an ordinary girl, outlander. Her name--" But the Gord soldiers were already chanting it:

"Ilona! Ilona! Ilona!"

They beat their spear-heads against their leathern shields. Brak recalled hearing frightened Mirkan men whisper the name in the burning streets. The young girl negotiated the tilting deck with ease. She moved to the rail. A peacock-hued cloak belled out from her shoulders. Beneath this a pearl-colored gown was pressed tight against her body by the wind. Her hair was yellow, like Brak's. Her face was comely, oval, red-lipped, the brows delicate. Her eyes were large and luminous as sapphires.

The girl lifted her pale white hands in a kind of benediction. The gesture seemed to quiet the soldiers, and lend the admiral confidence. But the Mirkan slaves in the pits quickly averted their heads.

"Many people said a woman called Ilona was with the Gords when they attacked," Brak whispered. "Who is she?"

"Their witch. Their sorceress. Don't look at her."

Despite the warning, Brak continued to study Ilona. To all outward appearances she was as fresh and attractive as a country bride. Yet the tiny smile on her mouth, the glow in her eyes as she stood with upraised hands, hinted otherwise.

An eerie crawling traced up Brak's naked spine. The witch Ilona pointed to the heavens, above the rattling, cracking sail. Already tendrils of the ebony stormcloud were whipping above the ship's frayed pennons. Ilona's lips moved, mumbling something. An incantation against the elements?

Brak continued to stare, fascinated. Ilona swayed. Her body went rigid. The Gord admiral watched the sky--

Abruptly, the tendrils of cloud that were sweeping down upon the seventy helter-skelter ships of the war-fleet began to curl back upon themselves, parting, ripping away to vapor, as though the storm had been stopped by a magical power.

The Gord soldiers began to beat their shields again. They cheered their good fortune.

Suddenly, from another of the galleys foundering along nearby, a sea-trumpet bleated. Then again. Its notes were like the wail of a frightened soul.

Ilona dropped her arms to her sides. She took a step backward. The admiral clutched the rail. One of the Mirkans two benches forward let out a cheer. The admiral seized a soldier's spear and, cursing, flung it out, hard. The Mirkan took the spear in his belly. He pitched over backward with blood spilling from his middle and washing down his death-thrashing legs.

"In the name of the unseeable," Brak said, "what madness is on them?"

"Madness?" The voice of the prisoner beside him quaked. "Not madness, barbarian. Fear of revenge!"

Whipping his head around, Brak saw what the admiral, Ilona and the soldiers had sighted first.

A low, fast warship with a prow carved in the shape of a gryphon's head had come darting out of the total blackness of the stormcloud covering sea and sky in the north. From the ship's prow swayed a great cross-barred lantern radiating bluish light. Above the lantern, somehow managing to stand upright on the swaying figurehead, was a man, little more than a blur of gray robe and white beard.

Already the strange new ship, being much lighter, had passed several of the Gord galleys. It bore down upon the flagship.

"Kalkanoth!" sobbed the man beside Brak. "That is his sacred lantern, and there he stands! At least if we must die, then he will make certain many a Gord dies with us."

Once more Brak was puzzled. "Who is it?" he shouted above the storm. "Some Mirkan general?"

"Our warlock! Kalkanoth, our sorcerer! He's old and wise enough in the magical arts to humble Ilona and this pack of butchers. Had Kalkanoth been in our city when the Gords struck, we would have had some chance to win. But he has been many months in the inland wilderness, alone, on a pilgrimage."

Now the Mirkan seemed almost hysterical with joy as he went on, "Clearly one of our people lived long enough to locate him, and guide him back. He has come, through the storm, on his own ship, to take revenge--"

Brak was not impressed. What was the arrival of the warlock but more futility? One tiny craft, one ancient wizard against seventy vessels, a young witch and a mammoth storm to boot? Brak shook his head as the flagship began to pitch violently again.

Hardly a rower moved now, nor a Gord overseer either. All were watching the strange new ship with its great lantern spreading bluish light ahead of it.

Powerful or not, Kalkanoth could do no more than destroy himself along with the Gords. That was hardly reassuring to Brak. The nightmare of the storm and the hopeless odds against the revenge-crazed warlock of the Mirkans could only result in a holocaust of death. A holocaust which would sweep Brak the barbarian--in chains--along with it.

Somehow, Kalkanoth remained standing on the figurehead as his craft drew within two lengths of the Gord flagship. The smaller vessel cut a path through foundering enemy ships. Here and there bowmen or spear-bearers threw their weapons at the speeding little gryphon-vessel, but the casts fell short.

Again Brak cursed. That he should be caught in this orgy of self-destruction, of hate-induced madness--it sickened him. What a pitiful spectacle it was! Kalkanoth was no more than a blur in the blowing storm-mist. His tattered gray robe flapped, his beard flew as he made meaningless, intricate patterns in the air with his old white hands.

Ilona stepped forward to grasp hold of the quarterdeck rail with her left hand. Her right hand was raised again, fashioned into a claw. She motioned with it, as though trying to draw something out of the blackening sky. Suddenly, down from the apex of the heavens where the ebony clouds were closing in, a clap of thunder boomed.

The roar made Brak's head ache. His ears throbbed. Gord soldiers screamed. In the instant of their terrified crying, the whole sea lit up with the blaze of a bright scarlet streak of lightning.

Like a sword it smote down out of the darkness. The lightning bolt struck the sea, burst into a ball of fire and steam.

Two benches ahead, a Mirkan was on his feet, foaming at the mouth, beating his fists against his oar.

"Kalkanoth will avenge us! Kalkanoth brings the dark powers!"

The Gord admiral hastily consulted with Ilona. He seized a bronze trumpet, shouted through it: "Have no fear! Ilona knows the secret ways of our enemy. His tricks are illusion. The storm makes it easy for him to conjure up spirit-demons. The celestial ether is disturbed, full of strange impulses. Ilona will banish his phantoms--"

Hysterical screaming from a nearby Gord vessel drowned him out. Brak gaped.

A wash of scarlet light suddenly came bubbling up out of the sea. And in the crown of light that covered the churning waves between the flagship and Kalkanoth's vessel, two great baleful eyes in a gigantic scaled head appeared--

Then a dripping, slimy body high as a galley's rail and twice as long. The apparition rose from the Dark Sea with ten lashing forks in its tail and immense webbed fore and hind-claws. Towering far above the flagship, it seemed to claw its way along the water without touching the surface.

Another crackling streak of red lightning split the sky. Another. Another. With each burst a new, incredible thing took shape out of the sea--

Here reared a wing-shaped monster with one staring eye in its round head; there, a creature materialized that was no more than a writhing mass of sucking tentacles twice as long as the highest Gord mast. Like evil flowers the creatures bloomed from the sea's surface on every hand. Brak bit his lip until he tasted blood.

On the flagship quarterdeck, Ilona's claw-shaped hands convulsed, opening. The tips of her fingers spit little hissing lines of white radiance. But her face was a mask of rage and despair.

In the oar-pits, the Mirkan prisoners began to tear savagely at their chains. Gord soldiers ran for the rail, moaning in terror. Vainly the admiral cried through his trumpet:

"Be calm! They are mind-phantoms! Ilona knows--she will dispel them!"

Ilona tore the trumpet from his hands, cupped it to her mouth. Her voice was a thin wail as she vainly tried to restore order to the scene:

"I cannot fight alone! I cannot dispel them unless the power of your minds will aid me. Believe they're phantoms! They are, they are! You must believe it! Your thoughts must cry out that Kalkanoth's demons are false, that they will vanish before your eyes if--"

Ilona's words cut off abruptly as a contingent of Gord seamen from the quarterdeck rushed past her, knocking her against the rail. One after another, the seamen leaped overboard. They preferred watery death to the approach of the lizard-like head, all red-shiny, that was craning down upon the flagship from above.

Brak's mind could not calmly absorb so much horror, so many unthinkable ten-armed, five-headed, tentacled things. One moment they seemed insubstantial as fog. He could see through them. Then they would solidify again.

Waves broke higher over the flagship, higher still. The air around Brak was turning to scarlet mist. Ship after ship, foundering without rowers, was going down. Afar off now, Kalkanoth's blue lantern still burned.

In the oar-pits more screaming broke out when the baleful eyes of the lizard-thing dipped down between the masts. Oarsmen threw themselves into hideous convulsions to escape the all-too-real phantoms with which Kalkanoth was gaining his revenge. The oar to which Brak was chained snapped in half. One end lashed around, impaled the Mirkan who had been fettered next to him. The splintered shaft pierced the man's chest, emerged from his back.

The big barbarian was on his feet in a tangle of bodies and blood. He pulled frantically at his own chains when he realized that his wrist-links were broken away from the shattered oar. Beneath his feet the deck planks were cracking apart as the flagship rolled dangerously.

Brak scrambled over the tangle of foam-lipped prisoners. He charged for the rail. A hand gripped his naked shoulder. Brak whirled.

A Gord overseer, mindless with fear and the urge to strike back, lifted his short-sword to cleave Brak's skull.

The barbarian crouched, snapped his right hand forward. The broken end of his wrist chain struck the overseer between the eyes, shattered flesh and bone. The man dropped, his eyesockets erupting with gore.

Instinctively Brak reached out, caught the man's short-sword. As his fingers closed on the haft, there was sanity in him again. For with a weapon, small as it was, he felt less helpless.

As he started for the rail, a misty red claw, six times as wide as a man, coiled over the rail's edge from below. The claw was real and yet not real. Brak turned. He preferred to try another route of escape, rather than plunge through part of the body of the monster whose great head waved above the snapping masts.

The big barbarian scrambled over rioting, mindless men who tore at one another, friend and foe alike. At last he gained the quarterdeck. There he saw an open bit of rail again. Beyond lay the sea, where a hundred horror-creatures writhed among wrecked ships.

He plunged ahead, yellow braid streaming out behind him. A squat, round-eyed thing that had been a man stumbled into his path. The admiral.

Brak dodged aside. The admiral mewed and moaned, dimly recognized a tangible enemy. He drew back his spear to drive it through Brak's belly.

The barbarian jumped aside. But not fast enough. The spear-head ripped his thigh, drawing blood.

Brak thrust out with his right arm. The short-sword gutted the admiral through the bowels. As the dead man fell away, Brak froze.

Clinging to the lashing wheel was the witch Ilona.

Tears of hate, of defeat streamed on her cheeks. For one awful instant her luminous eyes focused on Brak, on Brak alone out of all those who were the enemy.

Her garments were soaked. She looked old and bent despite her youth. But for that long moment, she looked upon the face of Brak the barbarian, who had slain a Gord admiral, and she made his face a part of her memory of the defeat she had suffered.

Her lips jerked. Her hand lifted, palsied, as though she meant to curse him. Brak stared, shuddering. The instant was long as eternity--

Before Ilona could cry out, a wave thundered over the quarterdeck. The force of the wave knocked Brak through the air, splintering wood, carrying Ilona away, whirling the world in confusion.

He struck the sea with cruel force. He twisted over and over, fought his way to the surface. His thigh throbbed. His chest burned. He felt pitifully weak. The admiral's spear had gouged too deeply.

All around, men and wreckage drifted. The men were as shattered as the remains of the ships.

All around, the great vessels of the Gord fleet sank. The monsters of Kalkanoth faded away to mist. Of the warlock's gryphon-vessel there was no sign.

But the damage was done. The Gord fleet was destroyed. As Brak swam, he heard the rush and roar of the flagship going down behind him.

Even the sky was growing lighter. Brak saw the coastline a great distance off.

But the waves were high. His arms ached as he pulled himself through the water.

He knew he would not make the shore.

Then he knew nothing at all.