Presently only dead and hurt cluttered the square. Loklann moved briskly among the latter. Those who weren’t too badly wounded were hustled into the temple. Might as well collect all possible slaves and cull them later.
From afar he heard a dull boom. “Cannon,” said Robra, joining him. “At the army barracks.”
“Well, let the artillery have its fun, till our boys get in among ’em,” said Loklann sardonically.
“Sure, sure.” Robra looked nervous. “I wish they’d let us hear from them, though. Just standing around here isn’t good.”
“It won’t be long,” predicted Loklann.
Nor was it. A runner with a broken arm staggered to him. “Stormcloud,” he gasped. “The big building you sent us against … full of swordsmen. … They repulsed us at the door—”
“Huh! I thought it was only the king’s house,” said Loklann. He laughed. “Well, maybe the king was giving a party. Come on, then, I’ll go see for myself. Robra, take over here.” His finger swept out thirty men to accompany him. They jogged down streets empty and silent except for their bootfalls and weapon-jingle. The housefolk must be huddled terrified behind those blank walls. So much the easier to corral them later, when the fighting was done and the looting began.
A roar broke loose. Loklann led a dash around a last corner. Opposite him he saw the palace, an old building, red-tiled roof and mellow walls and many glass windows. The Stormcloud men were fighting at the main door. Their dead and wounded from the last attack lay thick.
Loklann took in the situation at a glance. “It wouldn’t occur to those lardheads to send a detachment through some side entrance, would it?” he groaned. “Jonak, take fifteen of our boys and batter in a lesser door and hit the rear of that line. The rest of you help me keep it busy meanwhile.”
He raised his red-spattered ax. “A Canyon!” he yelled. “A Canyon!” His followers bellowed behind him and they ran to battle.
The last charge had reeled away bloody and breathless. Half a dozen Meycans stood in the wide doorway. They were nobles: grim men with goatees and waxed mustaches, in formal black, red cloaks wrapped as shields on their left arms and long slim swords in their right hands. Behind them stood others, ready to take the place of the fallen.
“A Canyon!” shouted Loklann as he rushed.
“Quel Dío wela!” cried a tall grizzled Don. A gold chain of office hung around his neck. His blade snaked forth.
Loklann flung up his ax and parried. The Don was fast, riposting with a lunge that ended on the raider’s breast. But hardened six-ply leather turned the point. Loklann’s men crowded on either side, reckless of thrusts, and hewed. He struck the enemy sword; it spun from the owner’s grasp. “Ah, no, Don Miwel!” cried a young person beside the calde. The older man snarled, threw out his hands, and somehow clamped them on Loklann’s ax. He yanked it away with a troll’s strength. Loklann stared into eyes that said death. Don Miwel raised the ax. Loklann drew his pistol and fired point blank.
As Don Miwel toppled, Loklann caught him, pulled off the gold chain, and threw it around his own neck. Straightening, he met a savage thrust. It glanced off his helmet. He got his ax back, planted his feet firmly, and smote.
The defending line buckled.
Clamor lifted behind Loklann. He turned and saw weapons gleam beyond his own men’s shoulders. With a curse he realized—there had been more people in the palace than these holding the main door. The rest had sallied out the rear and were now on his back!
A point pierced his thigh. He felt no more than a sting, but rage flapped black before his eyes. “Be reborn as the swine you are!” he roared. Half unaware, he thundered loose, cleared a space for himself, lurched aside and oversaw the battle.
The newcomers were mostly palace guards, judging from their gaily striped uniforms, pikes, and machetes. But they had allies, a dozen men such as Loklann had never seen or heard of. Those had the brown skin and black hair of Injuns, but their faces were more like a white man’s; intricate blue designs covered their bodies, which were clad only in wraparounds and flower wreaths. They wielded knives and clubs with wicked skill.
Loklann tore his trouser leg open to look at his wound. It wasn’t much. More serious was the beating his men were taking. He saw Mork sunna Brenn rush, sword uplifted, at one of the dark strangers, a big man who had added a rich-looking blouse to his skirt. Mork had killed four men at home for certain, in lawful fights, and nobody knew how many abroad. The dark man waited, a knife between his teeth, hands hanging loose. As the blade came down, the dark man simply wasn’t there. Grinning around his knife, he chopped at the sword wrist with the edge of a hand. Loklann distinctly heard bones crack. Mork yelled. The foreigner hit him in the Adam’s apple. Mork went to his knees, spat blood, caved in, and was still. Another Sky Man charged, ax aloft. The stranger again evaded the weapon, caught the moving body on his hip, and helped it along. The Sky Man hit the pavement with his head and moved no more.
Now Loklann saw that the newcomers were a ring around others who did not fight. Women. By Oktai and man-eating Ulagu, these bastards were leading out all the women in the palace! And the fighting against them had broken up; surly raiders stood back nursing their wounds.
Loklann ran forward. “A Canyon! A Canyon!” he shouted.
“Ruori Rangi Lohannaso,” said the big stranger politely. He rapped a string of orders. His party began to move away.
“Hit them, you scum!” bawled Loklann. His men rallied and straggled after. Rearguard pikes prodded them back. Loklann led a rush to the front of the hollow square.
The big man saw him coming. Gray eyes focused on the calde’s chain and became full winter. “So you killed Don Miwel,” said Ruori in Spañol. Loklann understood him, having learned the tongue from prisoners and concubines during many raids further north. “You lousy son of a skua.”
Loklann’s pistol rose. Ruori’s hand blurred. Suddenly the knife stood in the Sky Man’s right biceps. He dropped his gun. “I’ll want that back!” shouted Ruori. Then, to his followers: “Come, to the ship.”
Loklann stared at blood rivering down his arm. He heard a clatter as the refugees broke through the weary Canyon line. Jonak’s party appeared in the main door—which was now empty, its surviving defenders having left with Ruori.
A man approached Loklann, who still regarded his arm. “Shall we go after ’em, Skipper?” he said, almost timidly. “Jonak can lead us after ’em.”
“No,” said Loklann.
“But they must be escorting a hundred women. A lot of young women too.”
Loklann shook himself, like a dog coming out of a deep cold stream. “No. I want to find the medic and get this wound stitched. Then we’ll have a lot else to do. We can settle with those outlanders later, if the chance comes. Man, we’ve a city to sack!”
There were dead men scattered on the wharves, some burned. They looked oddly small beneath the warehouses, like rag dolls tossed away by a weeping child. Cannon fumes lingered to bite nostrils.
Atel Hamid Seraio, the mate, who had been left aboard the Dolphin with the enlisted crew, led a band to meet Ruori. His salute was in the Island manner, so casual that even at this moment several of the Meycans looked shocked. “We were about to come for you, Captain,” he said.
Ruori looked toward that forest which was the Dolphin’s rig. “What happened here?” he asked.
“A band of those devils landed near the battery. They took the emplacements while we were still wondering what it was all about. Part of them went off toward that racket in the north quarter, I believe where the army lives. But the rest of the gang attacked us. Well, with our gunwale ten feet above the dock, and us trained to repel pirates, they didn’t have much luck. I gave them a dose of flame.”
Ruori winced from the blackened corpses. Doubtless they had deserved it, but he didn’t like the idea of pumping flaming blubber oil across live men.
“Too bad they didn’t try from the seaward side,” added Atel with a sigh. “We�
��ve got such a lovely harpoon catapult. I used one like it years ago off Hinja, when a Sinese buccaneer came too close. His junk sounded like a whale.”
“Men aren’t whales!” snapped Ruori.
“All right, Captain, all right, all right.” Atel backed away from his violence, a little frightened. “No ill-speaking meant.”
Ruori recollected himself and folded his hands. “I spoke in needless anger,” he said formally. “I laugh at myself.”
“It’s nothing, Captain. As I was saying, we beat them off and they finally withdrew. I imagine they’ll bring back reinforcements. What shall we do?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” said Ruori in a bleak tone. He turned to the Meycans, who stood with stricken, uncomprehending faces. “Your pardon is prayed, Dons and Doñitas,” he said in Spañol. “He was only relating to me what had happened.”
“Don’t apologize!” Tresa Carabán spoke, stepping out ahead of the men. Some of them looked a bit offended, but they were too tired and stunned to reprove her forwardness, and to Ruori it was only natural that a woman act as freely as a man. “You saved our lives, Captain. More than our lives.”
He wondered what was worse than death, then nodded. Slavery, of course—ropes and whips and a lifetime’s unfree toil in a strange land. His eyes dwelt upon her, the long hair disheveled past smooth shoulders, gown ripped, weariness and a streak of tears across her face. He wondered if she knew her father was dead. She held herself straight and regarded him with an odd defiance.
“We are uncertain what to do,” he said awkwardly. “We are only fifty men. Can we help your city?”
A young nobleman, swaying on his feet, replied: “No. The city is done. You can take these ladies to safety, that is all.”
Tresa protested: “You are not surrendering already, S’ñor Dónoju!”
“No, Doñita,” the young man breathed. “But I hope I can be shriven before returning to fight, for I am a dead man.”
“Come aboard,” said Ruori curtly.
He led the way up the gangplank. Liliu, one of the ship’s five wahines, ran to meet him. She threw arms about his neck and cried, “I feared you were slain!”
“Not yet.” Ruori disengaged her as gently as possible. He noticed Tresa standing stiff, glaring at them both. Puzzlement came—did these curious Meycans expect a crew to embark on a voyage of months without taking a few girls along? Then he decided that the wahines’ clothing, being much like his men’s, was against local mores. To Nan with their silly prejudices. But it hurt that Tresa drew away from him.
The other Meycans stared about them. Not all had toured the ship when she first arrived. They looked in bewilderment at lines and spans, down fathoms of deck to the harpoon catapult, capstans, bowsprit, and back at the sailors. The Maurai grinned encouragingly. Thus far most of them looked on this as a lark. Men who skindove after sharks, for fun, or who sailed outrigger canoes alone across a thousand ocean miles to pay a visit, were not put out by a fight.
But they had not talked with grave Don Miwel and merry Don Wan and gentle Bispo Ermosillo, and then seen those people dead on a dance floor, thought Ruori in bitterness.
The Meycan women huddled together, ladies and servants, to weep among each other. The palace guards formed a solid rank around them. The nobles, and Tresa, followed Ruori up on the poop deck.
“Now,” he said, “let us talk. Who are these bandits?”
“The Sky People,” whispered Tresa.
“I can see that.” Ruori cocked an eye on the aircraft patrolling overhead. They had the sinister beauty of as many barracuda. Here and there columns of smoke reached toward them. “But who are they? Where from?”
“They are Nor-Merikans,” she answered in a dry little voice, as if afraid to give it color. “From the wild highlands around the Corado River, the Grand Canyon it has cut for itself—mountaineers. There is a story that they were driven from the eastern plains by Mong invaders, a long time ago; but as they grew strong in the hills and deserts, they defeated some Mong tribes and became friendly with others. For a hundred years they have harried our northern borders. This is the first time they have ventured so far south. We never expected them—I suppose their spies learned most of our soldiers are along the Río Gran, chasing a rebel force. They sailed southwesterly, above our land—” She shivered.
The young Dónoju spat. “They are heathen dogs! They know nothing but to rob and burn and kill!” He sagged. “What have we done that they are loosed on us?”
Ruori rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They can’t be quite such savages,” he murmured. “Those blimps are better than anything my own Federation has tried to make. The fabric … some tricky synthetic? It must be, or it wouldn’t contain hydrogen any length of time. Surely they don’t use helium! But for hydrogen production on that scale, you need industry. A good empirical chemistry, at least. They might even electrolyze it … good Lesu!”
He realized he had been talking to himself in his home language. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I was wondering what we might do. This ship carries no flying vessels.”
Again he looked upward. Atel handed him his binoculars. He focused on the nearest blimp. The huge gas bag and the gondola beneath—itself as big as many a Maurai ship—formed an aerodynamically clean unit. The gondola seemed to be light, woven cane about a wooden frame, but strong. Three-fourths of the way up from its keel a sort of gallery ran clear around, on which the crew might walk and work. At intervals along the rail stood muscle-powered machines. Some must be for hauling, but others suggested catapults. Evidently the blimps of various chiefs fought each other occasionally, in the northern kingdoms. That might be worth knowing. The Federation’s political psychologists were skilled at the divide-and-rule game. But for now…
The motive power was extraordinarily interesting. Near the gondola bows two lateral spars reached out for some fifty feet, one above the other. They supported two pivoted frames on either side, to which square sails were bent. A similar pair of spars pierced the after hull: eight sails in all. A couple of small retractable windwheels, vaned and pivoted, jutted beneath the gondola, evidently serving the purpose of a false keel. Sails and rudders were trimmed by lines running through block and tackle to windlasses on the gallery. By altering their set, it should be possible to steer at least several points to windward. And, yes, the air moves in different directions at different levels. A blimp could descend by pumping out cells in its gas bag, compressing the hydrogen into storage tanks; it could rise by reinflating or by dropping ballast (though the latter trick would be reserved for home stretches, when leakage had depleted the gas supply). Between sails, rudders, and its ability to find a reasonably favoring wind, such a blimp could go roving across several thousand miles, with a payload of several tons. Oh, a lovely craft!
Ruori lowered his glasses. “Hasn’t the Perio built any air vessels, to fight back?” he asked.
“No,” mumbled one of the Meycans. “All we ever had was balloons. We don’t know how to make a fabric which will hold the lifting-gas long enough, or how to control the flight….” His voice trailed off.
“And being a nonscientific culture, you never thought of doing systematic research to learn those tricks,” said Ruori.
Tresa, who had been staring at her city, whirled about upon him. “It’s easy for you!” she screamed. “You haven’t stood off Mong in the north and Raucanians in the south for century after century. You haven’t had to spend twenty years and ten thousand lives making canals and aqueducts, so a few less people would starve. You aren’t burdened with a peon majority who can only work, who cannot look after themselves because they have never been taught how because their existence is too much of a burden for our land to afford it. It’s easy for you to float about with your shirtless doxies and poke fun at us! What would you have done, S’ñor Almighty Captain?”
“Be still,” reproved young Dónoju. “He saved our lives.”
“So far!” she said, through teeth and tears. One smal
l dancing shoe stamped the deck.
For a bemused moment, irrelevantly, Ruori wondered what a doxie was. It sounded uncomplimentary. Could she mean the wahines? But was there a more honorable way for a woman to earn a good dowry than by hazarding her life, side by side with the men of her people, on a mission of discovery and civilization? What did Tresa expect to tell her grandchildren about on rainy nights?
Then he wondered further why she should disturb him. He had noticed it before, in some of the Meycans, an almost terrifying intensity between man and wife, as if a spouse were somehow more than a respected friend and partner. But what other relationship was possible? A psychological specialist might know; Ruori was lost.
He shook an angry head, to clear it, and said aloud: “This is no time for inurbanity.” He had to use a Spañol word with not quite the same connotation. “We must decide. Are you certain we have no hope of repelling the pirates?”
“Not unless S’ Antón himself passes a miracle,” said Doñoju in a dead voice.
Then, snapping erect: “There is only a single thing you can do for us, S’ñor. If you will leave now, with the women—there are high-born ladies among them, who must not be sold into captivity and disgrace. Bear them south to Port Wanawato, where the calde will look after their welfare.”
“I do not like to run off,” said Ruori, looking at the men fallen on the wharf.
“S’ñor, these are ladies! In el Dío’s name, have mercy on them!”
Ruori studied the taut, bearded faces. He did owe them a great deal of hospitality, and he could see no other way he might ever repay it. “If you wish,” he said slowly. “What of yourselves?”
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