Slowly, smoothly, the Slanderscree began to slide away from the dock, while the shouts from on shore grew louder and louder. Eyes on the sailors above, September walked over and gave Ethan a sly pat on the back.
“By-the-by, young feller-me-lad, did you ever manage to get that business of the Landgrave's offspring straightened out?”
“It was never out of line,” Ethan riposted. “I thought I did, but she wasn't exactly in the forefront of the crowd, waving tearfully as we departed. Perhaps not.”
“I didn't see her either. Though I notice you've warmed up to du Kane's daughter.” The lady in question had vanished belowdecks the moment she'd come on board in order to get out of the wind. Raft or boat or castle, that was next to impossible on this world.
“Glassfeathers,” Ethan countered, leaning over the rail to watch the ice slide past. “She's human, too. She just had to have someone to talk to, finally. I don't wonder that she doesn't chat much with her father. Certainly you and Williams aren't exactly the most charming conversationalists around.”
“Sorry, young feller, but when I see her it's without that fur and survival suit, figuratively speaking. That kind of crimps my inclination to easy banter.” He patted Ethan again in fatherly fashion and sauntered off forward, whistling.
The Slanderscree was moving out of the lee of the mountains. She picked up speed rapidly as the quickly maturing crew put on more and more sail. Even the moonraker was out by the time they reached the main gate — completely repaired once again. By then they were moving at a respectable 30 kph. But they'd be lucky to hold that, moving to the westward. Moving east, with the wind, however, the Slanderscree's speed was limited only by the strength of her sails and masts and her ability to keep from becoming airborne.
The last cheers they heard carne from the guards at the gate and the operators of the great chain as they shot between the towers. Once free of the harbor's confining walls, Ta-hoding, praying all the while, swung her in a wide curve designed to bring her back to the southwest and on course.
Ethan held his breath as the raft came around. No one could predict how the radical new mast-and-sail configuration would respond on a craft and world far different from long dead Donald McKay's wildest imaginings.
The sails cracked like Williams' crude gunpowder, the masts creaked, but the raft carne about neatly. Everything held together as they slammed across the wind. They'd follow a zig-zag course, plodding for thousands of kilometers. Even so, the Slanderscree would make good time whenever she turned southward, building up to a nice 60 kph or so before she'd have to turn west into the wind.
He turned and scanned the deck in search of September but failed to locate him. The big man had probably gone below to get out of the wind himself for a while. Ethan saw no reason why he shouldn't do likewise.
He'd reached the hatch when the sounds of yelling and hooting reached him. It was several seconds before he thought to look skyward.
There, perched outside of the wicker observation cage at the top of the main-mast, was Skua September, gripping the top of the windswept pole with his legs, waving his arms and braying like a hairy jackass.
Ethan remained rooted to the deck until the big man finally tired and climbed down. He held his breath all the way, expecting at any minute to see the big man slip or lose his grip and be torn away by the clawing hurricane like the last leaf of autumn.
But he reached the deck easily enough. He walked over to Ethan, tiny particles of ice coating his snow goggles. A gloved hand brushed absently at them. He was panting heavily.
“Quite a view, lad, quite a view! A blood-racing experience, what? How about giving it a go?”
“As you should know by now, I'm not the reckless explorer type, Skua.”
“All right, lad, all right,” the other sighed. “You're the feckless metropolitan type. Shame. It's an exalting experience.”
“I don't doubt it, but I'm quite cold enough right here without having to add fatal exposure and bodily danger to it. I prefer the deck. I'll prefer my cabin even more.” He turned and opened the sliding hatch door.
To find a familiar and totally unexpected figure blocking his way.
“Good morrow, Sir Ethan,” said Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata coquettishly. “It is less cold belowdecks.”
“Elfa,” he said haltingly, “I don't find this a bit funny. How did you talk your father into letting you on board ship?”
She walked out of the hatch, stood on deck. “I didn't ask him. I hid on board 'til I thought it was too late for you to turn. It is too late for you to turn, isn't it?”
“You didn't ask him? How the hell did you sneak on?”
“I hid in an empty crate and the sailors brought me on with the other stores. Only it wasn't empty.” She smiled prettily. “It was full of me.”
Hunnar had joined them as soon as he'd recognized Elfa. If anything, he was more stunned than Ethan.
“Elfa!”
“Really, the powers of observation of this expedition's leaders amaze me. You are the second person, Sir Hunnar, to identify me right away.”
“What,” continued Ethan doggedly, ignoring the sarcasm, “is the Landgrave going to say when he finds out you're missing?”
She looked thoughtful. “I expect he'll be furious. He'll rave and curse and threaten and break things and turn Wannome upside down. Eventually he'll find my note—”
“Note?”
“—and know I've gone with you. Then he'll really get mad.”
Ethan turned to September. “What are we going to do with her, Skua?”
“Well, we could turn back,” he considered, admiring the fur-clad Elfa openly. “With the wind behind us it wouldn't take that long. But I hate like hell to give up the time and distance we've already made just to return this hot adolescent to her daddy, what? And there'd be all sorts of awkward recriminations and explanations and such ... more time gone. No, tell the steward there'll be another for supper and let's keep on our merry way, hey? We can always find a place for her ... eh, Hunnar?”
“What?” replied the startled knight. He looked at the big man unsurely.
They were a thousand kilometers out of Wannome. Even as they breathed, another few meters of ice slid beneath the duralloy runners and vanished astern. Now they were gliding over strange ice that none of Hunnar's men or Ta-hoding's sailors had ever traversed before.
They'd passed few islands during the last hundred kilometers, none of them inhabited. The sense of desolation touched everyone.
“An empty land,” Hunnar commented quietly, subdued.
“Yes,” agreed Ta-boding. “'Tis plain to see there'll be no trading here. Yet, some of the land we passed looked hospitable.”
“The volcano might have something to do with it,” said September. “I shouldn't wonder that at this distance these islands might receive periodic rains of hot ash and pumice.”
“Even so,” mused Ethan idly, “the possibility of establishing a few trading centers with an eye towards expanding intersurface commerce might—” He paused at a cry from the mainmast that froze both tran as thoroughly as a hundred below.
“Gutorrbyn! Nor'east!” Hunnar, Ta-hoding, and dozens of sailors and soldiers rushed for the rail.
“What's happening?” yelled Colette from a hatchway. Hunnar beat Ethan to the answer.
“Get thee below, lady du Kane!” It was uttered as an order, not a suggestion. Colette bristled.
“Now, wait a minute—” she began hotly.
September's tone was menacing and devoid of humor. “Do just as he says, Miss du Kane.”
She hesitated, looked at him uncertainly. Still muttering, she disappeared belowdecks.
“I see 'em,” the big man mumbled, shielding his eyes with a hand.
“So do I,” concurred Ethan,
Far off to the northeast, a small cloud of tiny brown specks had come into view. The cloud of gnats grew to flysize, changed into a mass of dark T-shapes.
“Can we outrun them?” asked Se
ptember. Hunnar's reply was terse.
“No, my friend. Perhaps with the wind behind us ... but they would still have the angle. 'Tis certain they've seen us. We may have to fight, though there is always the chance they will not be interested in us.”
There was a querulous bellow from across deck. Ethan recognized the voice of General Balavere.
“Dragons, sir!” Hunnar called back.
“How close?” barked the general, buckling an his sword.
“Five, maybe six kijat, and closing on us.”
Balavere cursed, strode to the forehatch, and absently yelled into it. Almost immediately, soldiers came gushing out of the hole as though it was a disturbed anthill. Meanwhile, the general hurried to join them astern.
“We'll never keep them out with this rigging,” observed Hunnar, staring worriedly aloft. “We'll put the archers in the center in a group, and spearmen along the rails.”
Ethan watched the flock grow larger. “How smart are these things?”
“Less so than a k'nith,” Hunnar replied. “They hunt by vision, sound, and smell, not their brains.”
“Here's a thought,” began September. “We might try this...”
No one moved on board the Slanderscree. Everyone tried to dig himself into the rail or one of the makeshift barrel-and-crate barricades. Not even the bravest of the ship's pilots could be persuaded to stand at the wheel while the dragons attacked and neither Hunnar nor Balavere would force anyone. So steering was being handled from below decks with a crude tug-and-pull system of ropes,
The flock came on, gaining steadily on the big ship.
“Must be close to a hundred of 'em,” whispered September conversationally. “Ugly looking devils, aren't they, young feller?”
There was the twang of a bow and Balavere's voice reached them from up near the bow.
“Hold your fire, there! Make these arrows count, idiot!”
The gutorrbyn did not attack. The leader veered off at the last moment and began to circle the raft. The Slanderscreecontinued to plow wind, abet decks devoid of motion, while a halo of squealing, squawking monstrosities danced round her masts.
Broad and bat-like, the leathery wings were attached to furry, streamlined bodies which ended in long, forked tails. There were claws halfway up each wing and great taloned feet coiled like springs under soft bellies. Each head was a nightmare cross between crocodile and wolf, with a long, wrinkled snout scoffed with double rows of razor-sharp triangular teeth. Huge tarsier-like eyes glared down with blank, mindless malevolence.
“Watch the leaders,” warned Balavere. “If they come it'll be in a curve.”
There was no point in holding your breath. Might freeze if you didn't keep it moving. The ship moved on, quiet, with the nestle of a hundred pairs of wings drumming against the wind and the creak of spars and sail.
A hatch opened. Colette du Kane walked halfway out.
“When is something going to hap—?” She happened to look skyward, saw the mass of circling demons. One hysterical scream.
“Trinska!” cursed Hunnar. “They might have lost interest!” Colette screamed again.
September suddenly shouted, “'Ware zenith!” in Terranglo, hurriedly translated it into Trannish as a single line of gutorrbyn folded their wings, dipped to their right, and dove for the isolated frozen figure on deck.
“Loose, loose” screamed Hunnar at the archers. Bows began to sputter.
Nearly as big as a man and twice as powerful, one of the monsters crumpled to the deck not a meter from Ethan. He thought he heard the neck snap when the creature hit the planking. It had three arrows imbedded in its chest.
Colette had apparently recovered her senses. Ethan heard the hatch cover slam shut. He didn't see it because teeth dashed suddenly in front of his face and there was a clack like a bear trap. He slashed half-blindly with his sword, felt it bite something soft. There was a hoarse giant-rat scream and a sticky substance covered his bare wrist. A foul, fetid odor assailed his nostrils. Then it was gone and his sword was free.
It was hard to tell the screams of tran from dragon. He swam through an alien nightmare of blood and teeth. He saw one dragon skimming low over the ice, the limp corpse of a sailor firmly caught in its talons. Once the toothed maw dipped low, slashed almost indifferently at the lolling head.
Dead gutorrbyn bodies matted the clean wood. Small bunches of spearmen kept the attackers away while protected archers took a terrible toll among them.
A wounded dragon flashed by, screaming, and smashed into the ice below. It was feathered with arrows. Ethan spun, cut at a spinning, snapping horror that dove at his back. He ducked, and another pair of claws missed his head by centimeters, their owner shrieking in frustration. It backed air, started to pull up for a turn over the deck.
Something slammed it violently sideways and it crashed into a mast. Ethan now could see that a fair proportion of the mounting pile of dragon-corpses on deck were studded with short, thick darts. He spared a glance upward.
Wicker cages were bound at the top of each towering mast to protect lookouts from the wind. Now they served a pair of crossbowmen in each. They'd kept still until the fight was joined. Now they were beginning to make their presence felt, picking off the gutorrbyn below and those crawling in the rigging. In the confusion, none of the dragons looked to find where the stubby, deadly bolts were coming from. They dropped in pairs and threes, now.
Ethan thrust his sword forward again, but by now there was little to strike at. Screeching defiance, the remnant of the fatally mauled flock abruptly lifted with the wind and shot away to the westward.
Panting heavily, he walked over to where Hunnar was trying to bind up the arm of a badly gashed spearman.
“Well, we beat them off, Sir. How are our casualties?”
“There might be more, but we seem to have lost only one man and have few enough wounded. Again the wizard's magic has served well.”
“That, and perhaps another,” said Ta-hoding. Their captain had spent the battle huddled alongside Hunnar, jabbing occasionally with his sword while expending most of his energy in imprecating his ancestors for getting him into this trouble. As a result, only his ego was scratched.
Now he was standing at the rail, staring at the northern horizon. “'Tis long 'til night, yet darkness comes. Have you noticed, sirs?” Ethan hadn't. Frankly, he couldn't see much difference in the light even now.
But Hunnar apparently saw, as had Ta-hoding. “You are right, captain.”
September came over. “What's all this about, now? Another attack? Good thing those beasties aren't very bright. They could have picked us off neatly with a little thought.”
“I don't know, Skua,” Ethan confessed. “Ta-hoding and Hunnar seem concerned about something in the light.”
“Not the light, noble sirs,” said Ta-hoding. “Look there, to the west a little more.” The two humans did so. “There, the Rifs!”
Now Ethan saw. A, great dark cloud was just barely beginning to crawl over the stark horizon. Its front sparkled and flashed like the visible pulse of some huge animal. And the sky did seem to dim slightly.
“It comes early,” intoned Hunnar. “I wondered at seeing gutorrbyn come out of the north. Usually they move with the wind or into it. Clearly our flock was driven south.”
“Meaning we didn't beat them off, there?” asked September.
“No, Sir Skua. I suspect they fought as long as they did only out of strong hunger. They've probably been running before that for some time. Now they are forced to try and cross to the west before the Rifs reaches them.”
Above, sails snapped and buffeted the masts, flailed uncertainly against spars in the unfamiliar cross-winds.
“We'll have to turn further south and run before it as much as we can,” said Hunnar. “If we can stay well enough west it might even be a help ... if everything holds together.”
“Good sir,” began Ta-hoding nervously, “I would recommend instead—”
“And we
'll reef in as much sail as you deem wise, good captain...
Ta-hoding relaxed slightly.
“...less ten percent additional which I will order on, for I suspect you always value your hide above the swiftest completion of our journey.”
“You do me a terrible disrespect, noble sir, for in truth I would gladly sacrifice my poor self to insure that the honored and glorious friends of—”
“Enough, enough!” said Hunnar disgustedly, but without malice. “See to your sails and not platitudes, captain, and quickly!”
Ethan looked back at the cloud. It had doubled in size and was rapidly dominating the entire horizon, swallowing light and blue sky at a furious rate. He started forward.
“Going below, young feller-me-lad?”
“No!” Ethan was shocked at the vehemence of his response. But the big man's words had been just a mite patronizing. Maybe he wasn't ready for dancing atop the mainmast, but by Rothschild, he could damn well stay topside and take a little storm!
Hellespont du Kane surveyed the deck, left the hatchway, and strolled over. Ethan didn't much feel like talking to the financier, but courtesy was part of his character. Besides, he might have a chance to make use of his famous acquaintance one day — if he ever thawed out.
Du Kane nudged one of the dragon-corpses that hadn't yet been reached by the clean-up crew. Probably estimating its potential price per kilo on the interstellar marketplace, thought Ethan drily.
“Is it over, then, Mr. Fortune?”
“That much of it is,” Ethan replied, trying hard not to be brusque. “However, it appears that we are in for a mild blow. I suggest you go below and tie down anything you don't want banged about.”
“Only my daughter, and she can take care of herself.” Was that line for real, or was du Kane playing straight? The perpetual poker face gave no clue. “The Rifs, then.”
“You know about them?” said Ethan, a little surprised.
“Oh yes, I shall remain on deck to absorb the experience. If you've no objection?”
“I? Object?” He'd enjoy seeing this stuffed shirt scramble for safety when the first strong gust struck. “Be glad of your company.”
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