The sea was now growing high, and the darkness, in the north was now half the sky, looming like a beast with wild fur rooting and sniffing for its prey.

Gorean galleys, in particular the ram-ships, are built for speed and war. They are narrow, shallow-drafted, carvel-built craft.They are not made to lift and fall, to crash among fifty-foot waves, caught in the fists of the sea's violence. In such a sea literally, in spite of their beams and chains, they can break in two, snapping like the spines of tabuk in the jaws of frenzied larls.

Since the principal weapons of the ram-ship are the ram and shearing blades, she is most dangerous taken head on. Accordingly, in such a combat situation, involving only two ships at sea, both ships commonly described the broad starboard circles, prowling about one another like wary sleen, exchanging missiles, watchful for the opportunity to engage with ram and blades. I had little doub that the Dorna, a somewhat lighter ship, with better lines and shorter keel, would be more responsive to her helm than the other ship and that, sooner or later, as the circles grew smaller, she would be able to wheel and take her foe in the stern quarter or amidships.

The Dorna carried twenty groups of three to a side, and so used one hundred and tweny oarsmen.

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