The young noble bowed as if to a king. “Our thanks and prayers will go with you, my lord Captain. We men, of course, will now return to battle.” He stood up and barked in a parade-ground voice: “Atten-tion! Form ranks!”
A few swift kisses passed on the main deck, and then the men of Meyco had crossed the gangplank and tramped into their city.
Ruori beat a fist on the taffrail. “If we had some way,” he mumbled. “If I could do something.” Almost hopefully: “Do you think the bandits might attack us?”
“Only if you remain here,” said Tresa. Her eyes were chips of green ice. “Would to Marí you had not pledged yourself to sail!”
“If they come after us at sea—”
“I do not think they will. You carry a hundred women and a few trade goods. The Sky People will have their pick of ten thousand women, as many men, and our city’s treasures. Why should they take the trouble to pursue you?”
“Aye … aye. …”
“Go,” she said. “You dare not linger.”
Her coldness was like a blow. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Do you think the Maurai are cowards?”
She hesitated. Then, in reluctant honesty: “No.”
“Well, why do you scoff at me?”
“Oh, go away!” She knelt by the rail, bowed head in arms, and surrendered to herself.
Ruori left her and gave his orders. Men scrambled into the rigging. Furled canvas broke loose and cracked in a young wind. Beyond the jetty, the ocean glittered blue, with small whitecaps; gulls skimmed across heaven. Ruori saw only the glimpses he had had before, as he led the retreat from the palace.
A weaponless man, his head split open. A girl, hardly twelve years old, who screamed as two raiders carried her into an alley. An aged man fleeing in terror, zigzagging, while four archers took potshots at him and howled laughter when he fell transfixed and dragged himself along on his hands. A woman sitting dumb in the street, her dress torn, next to a baby whose brains had been dashed out. A little statue in a niche, a holy image, a faded bunch of violets at its feet, beheaded by a casual war-hammer. A house that burned, and shrieks from within.
Suddenly the aircraft overhead were not beautiful.
To reach up and pull them out of the sky!
Ruori stopped dead. The crew surged around him. He heard a short-haul chantey, deep voices vigorous from always having been free and well fed, but it echoed in a far corner of his brain.
“Casting off,” sang the mate.
“Not yet! Not yet! Wait!”
Ruori ran toward the poop, up the ladder and past the steersman to Doñita Tresa. She had risen again, to stand with bent head past which the hair swept to hide her countenance.
“Tresa,” panted Ruori. “Tresa, I’ve an idea. I think—there may be a chance—perhaps we can fight back after all.”
She raised her eyes. Her fingers closed on his arm till he felt the nails draw blood.
Words tumbled from him. “It will depend … on luring them … to us. At least a couple of their vessels … must follow us … to sea. I think then —I’m not sure of the details, but it may be … we can fight … even drive them off—”
Still she stared at him. He felt a hesitation. “Of course,” he said, “we may lose the fight. And we do have the women aboard.”
“If you lose,” she asked, so low he could scarcely hear it, “will we die or be captured?”
“I think we will die.”
“That is well.” She nodded. “Yes. Fight, then.”
“There is one thing I am unsure of. How to make them pursue us.” He paused. “If someone were to let himself … be captured by them—and told them we were carrying off a great treasure—would they believe that?”
“They might well.” Life had come back to her tones, even eagerness. “Let us say, the calde’s hoard. None ever existed, but the robbers would believe my father’s cellars were stuffed with gold.”
“Then someone must go to them.” Ruori turned his back to her, twisted his fingers together and slogged toward a conclusion he did not want to reach. “But it could not be just anyone. They would club a man in among the other slaves, would they not? I mean, would they listen to him at all?”
“Probably not. Very few of them know Spañol. By the time a man who babbled of treasure was understood, they might be halfway home.” Tresa scowled. “What shall we do?”
Ruori saw the answer, but could not get it past his throat.
“I am sorry,” he mumbled. “My idea was not so good after all. Let us be gone.”
The girl forced her way between him and the rail to stand in front of him, touching as if they danced again. Her voice was altogether steady. “You know a way.”
“I do not.”
“I have come to know you well, in one night. You are a poor liar. Tell me.”
He looked away. Somehow, he got out: “A woman—not any woman, but a very beautiful one—would she not soon be taken to their chief?”
Tresa stood aside. The color drained from her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I think so.”
“But then again,” said Ruori wretchedly, “she might be killed. They do much wanton killing, those men. I cannot let anyone who was given into my protection risk death.”
“You heathen fool,” she said through tight lips. “Do you think the chance of being killed matters to me?”
“What else could happen?” he asked, surprised. And then: “Oh, yes, of course, the woman would be a slave if we lost the battle afterward. Though I should imagine, if she is beautiful, she would not be badly treated.”
“And is that all you—” Tresa stopped. He had never known it was possible for a smile to show pure hurt. “Of course. I should have realized. Your people have your own ways of thinking.”
“What do you mean?” he fumbled.
A moment more she stood with clenched fists. Then, half to herself: “They killed my father; yes, I saw him dead in the doorway. They would leave my city a ruin peopled by corpses.”
Her head lifted. “I will go,” she said.
“You?” He grabbed her shoulders. “No, surely not you! One of the others—”
“Should I send anybody else? I am the calde’s daughter.”
She pulled herself free of him and hurried across the deck, down the ladder toward the gangway. Her gaze was turned from the ship. A few words drifted back. “Afterward, if there is an afterward, there is always the convent.”
He did not understand. He stood on the poop, staring after her and abominating himself until she was lost to sight. Then he said, “Cast off,” and the ship stood out to sea.
The Meycans fought doggedly, street by street and house by house, but in a couple of hours their surviving soldiers had been driven into the northeast corner of S’ Antón. They themselves hardly knew that, but a Sky chief had a view from above; a rover was now tethered to the cathedral, with a rope ladder for men to go up and down, and the companion vessel, skeleton crewed, brought their news to it.
“Good enough,” said Loklann. “We’ll keep them boxed in with a quarter of our force. I don’t think they’ll sally. Meanwhile the rest of us can get things organized. Let’s not give these creatures too much time to hide themselves and their silver. In the afternoon, when we’re rested, we can land parachuters behind the city troops, drive them out into our lines and destroy them.”
He ordered the Buffalo grounded, that he might load the most precious loot at once. The men, by and large, were too rough—good lads, but apt to damage a robe or a cup or a jeweled cross in their haste; and sometimes those Meycan things were too beautiful even to give away, let alone sell.
The flagship descended as far as possible. It still hung at a thousand feet, for hand pumps and aluminum-alloy tanks did not allow much hydrogen compression. In colder, denser air it would have been suspended even higher. But ropes snaked from it to a quickly assembled ground crew. At home there were ratcheted capstans outside every lodge, enabling as few as fo
ur women to bring down a rover. One hated the emergency procedure of bleeding gas, for the Keepers could barely meet demand, in spite of a new sunpower unit added to their hydroelectric station, and charged accordingly. (Or so the Keepers said, but perhaps they were merely taking advantage of being inviolable, beyond any kings, to jack up prices. Some chiefs, including Loklann, had begun to experiment with hydrogen production for themselves, but it was a slow thing to puzzle out an art that even the Keepers only half understood.)
Here, strong men replaced machinery. The Buffalo was soon pegged down in the cathedral plaza, which it almost filled. Loklann inspected each rope himself. His wounded leg ached, but not too badly to walk on. More annoying was his right arm, which hurt worse from stitches than from the original cut. The medic had warned him to go easy with it. That meant fighting left-handed, for the story should never be told that Loklann sunna Holber stayed out of combat. However, he would only be half himself.
He touched the knife which had spiked him. At least he’d gotten a fine steel blade for his pains. And … hadn’t the owner said they would meet again, to settle who kept it? There were omens in such words. It could be a pleasure to reincarnate that Ruori.
“Skipper. Skipper, sir.”
Loklann glanced about. Yuw Red-Ax and Aalan sunna Rickar, men of his lodge, had hailed him. They grasped the arms of a young woman in black velvet and silver. The beweaponed crowd, moiling about, was focusing on her; raw whoops lifted over the babble.
“What is it?” said Loklann brusquely. He had much to do.
“This wench, sir. A looker, isn’t she? We found her down near the waterfront.”
“Well, shove her into the temple with the rest till—oh.” Loklann rocked back on his heels, narrowing his eyes to meet a steady green glare. She was certainly a looker.
“She kept hollering the same words over and over: ‘Shef, rey, ombro gran.’ I finally wondered if it didn’t mean ‘chief,’” said Yuw, “and then when she yelled ‘khan’ I was pretty sure she wanted to see you. So we didn’t use her ourselves,” he finished virtuously.
“Aba tu Spanol?” said the girl.
Loklann grinned. “Yes,” he replied in the same language, his words heavily accented but sufficient. “Well enough to know you are calling me ‘thou.’” Her pleasantly formed mouth drew into a thin line. “Which means you think I am your inferior—or your god, or your beloved.”
She flushed, threw back her head (sunlight ran along crow’s-wing hair) and answered: “You might tell these oafs to release me.”
Loklann said the order in Angliz. Yuw and Aalan let go. The marks of their fingers were bruised into her arms. Loklann stroked his beard. “Did you want to see me?” he asked.
“If you are the leader, yes,” she said. “I am the calde’s daughter, Doñita Tresa Carabán.” Briefly, her voice wavered. “That is my father’s chain of office you are wearing. I came back on behalf of his people, to ask for terms.”
“What?” Loklann blinked. Someone in the warrior crowd laughed.
It must not be in her to beg mercy, he thought; her tone remained brittle. “Considering your sure losses if you fight to a finish, and the chance of provoking a counterattack on your homeland, will you not accept a money ransom and a safe-conduct, releasing your captives and ceasing your destruction?”
“By Oktai,” murmured Loklann. “Only a woman could imagine we—” He stopped. “Did you say you came back?”
She nodded. “On the people’s behalf. I know I have no legal authority to make terms, but in practice—”
“Forget that!” he rapped. “Where did you come back from?”
She faltered. “That has nothing to do with—”
There were too many eyes around. Loklann bawled orders to start systematic plundering. He turned to the girl. “Come aboard the airship,” he said. “I want to discuss this further.”
Her eyes closed, for just a moment, and her lips moved. Then she looked at him—he thought of a cougar he had once trapped—and she said in a flat voice: “Yes. I do have more arguments.”
“Any woman does,” he laughed, “but you better than most.”
“Not that!” she flared. “I meant—no. Marí, pray for me.” As he pushed a way through his men, she followed him.
They went past furled sails, to a ladder let down from the gallery. A hatch stood open to the lower hull, showing storage space and leather fetters for slaves. A few guards were posted on the gallery deck. They leaned on their weapons, sweating from beneath helmets, swapping jokes; when Loklann led the girl by, they yelled good-humored envy.
He opened a door. “Have you ever seen one of our vessels?” he asked. The upper gondola contained a long room, bare except for bunk frames on which sleeping bags were laid. Beyond, a series of partitions defined cabinets, a sort of galley, and at last, in the very bow, a room for maps, tables, navigation instruments, speaking tubes. Its walls slanted so far outward that the glazed windows would give a spacious view when the ship was aloft. On a shelf, beneath racked weapons, sat a small idol, tusked and four-armed. A pallet was rolled on the floor.
“The bridge,” said Loklann. “Also the captain’s cabin.” He gestured at one of four wicker chairs, lashed into place. “Be seated, Doñita. Would you like something to drink?”
She sat down but did not reply. Her fists were clenched on her lap. Loklann poured himself a slug of whiskey and tossed off half at a gulp. “Ahhh! Later we will get some of your own wine for you. It is a shame you have no art of distilling here.”
Desperate eyes lifted to him, where he stood over her. “S’ñor,” she said, “I beg of you, in Carito’s name—well, in your mother’s, then—spare my people.”
“My mother would laugh herself ill to hear that,” he said. Leaning forward: “See here, let us not spill words. You were escaping, but you came back. Where were you escaping to?”
“I—does that matter?”
Good, he thought, she was starting to crack. He hammered: “It does. I know you were at the palace this dawn. I know you fled with the dark foreigners. I know their ship departed an hour ago. You must have been on it, but left again. True?”
“Yes.” She began to tremble.
He sipped molten fire and asked reasonably: “Now, tell me, Doñita, what you have to bargain with. You cannot have expected we would give up the best part of our booty and a great many valuable slaves for a mere safe-conduct. All the Sky kingdoms would disown us. Come now, you must have more to offer, if you hope to buy us off.”
“No … not really—”
His hand exploded against her cheek. Her head jerked from the blow. She huddled back, touching the red mark, as he growled: “I have no time for games. Tell me! Tell me this instant what thought drove you back here from safety, or down in the hold you go. You’d fetch a good price when the traders next visit Canyon. Many homes are waiting for you: a woods runner’s cabin in Orgon, a Mong khan’s yurt in Tekkas, a brothel as far east as Chai Ka-Go. Tell me now, truly, what you know, and you will be spared that much.”
She looked downward and said raggedly: “The foreign ship is loaded with the calde’s gold. My father had long wanted to remove his personal treasure to a safer place than this, but dared not risk a wagon train across country. There are still many outlaws between here and Fortlez d’ S’ Ernán; that much loot would tempt the military escort itself to turn bandit. Captain Lohannaso agreed to carry the gold by sea to Port Wanawato, which is near Fortlez. He could be trusted because his government is anxious for trade with us; he came here officially. The treasure had already been loaded. Of course, when your raid came, the ship also took those women who had been at the palace. But can you not spare them? You’ll find more loot in the foreign ship than your whole fleet can lift.”
“By Oktai!” whispered Loklann.
He turned from her, paced, finally stopped and stared out the window. He could almost hear the gears turn in his head. It made sense. The palace had been disappointing. Oh, yes, a lot of damask
and silverware and whatnot, but nothing like the cathedral. Either the calde was less rich than powerful, or he concealed his hoard. Loklann had planned to torture a few servants and find out which. Now he realized there was a third possibility.
Better interrogate some prisoners anyway, to make sure—no, no time. Given a favoring wind, that ship could outrun any rover without working up a sweat. It might already be too late to overhaul. But if not—h’m. Assault would be no cinch. That lean, pitching hull was a small target for paratroops, and with rigging in the way … Wait. Bold men could always find a road. How about grappling to the upper works? If the strain tore the rigging loose, so much the better: a weighted rope would then give a clear slideway to the deck. If the hooks held, though, a storming party could nevertheless go along the lines, into the topmasts. Doubtless the sailors were agile too, but had they ever reefed a rover sail in a Merikan thunderstorm, a mile above the earth?
He could improvise as the battle developed. At the very least, it would be fun to try. And at most, he might be reborn a world conqueror, for such an exploit in this life.
He laughed aloud, joyously. “We’ll do it!”
Tresa rose. “You will spare the city?” she whispered hoarsely.
“I never promised any such thing,” said Loklann. “Of course, the ship’s cargo will crowd out most of the stuff and people we might take otherwise. Unless, hm, unless we decide to sail the ship to Calforni, loaded, and meet it there with more rovers. Yes, why not?”
“You oathbreaker,” she said, with a hellful of scorn.
“I only promised not to sell you,” said Loklann. His gaze went up and down her. “And I won’t.”
He took a stride forward and gathered her to him. She fought, cursing; once she managed to draw Ruori’s knife from his belt, but his cuirass stopped the blade.
Finally he rose. She wept at his feet, her breast marked red by her father’s chain. He said more quietly, “No, I will not sell you, Tresa. I will keep you.”
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