Two nights later, Nunde watched as the Eroean, under sail, rode the night tide upriver. A candlemark later, the Elvenship tied up to the stone pier.
I have triumphed! Yes! And Aravan is mine!
46
Strife
ELVENSHIP MID AUTUMN, 6E9
It took the rest of that day and all of the next to plumb the key part of the river, for not only did the main channel need to be found and its depth charted, but the measure across its width as well. Too, when the rowers came to the stone quay, they had to sound up to and all along the length of its brim and somewhat beyond to see if the Eroean could safely tie up without becoming grounded.
A map was made of the findings, and, running on staysails alone, on the inflowing night tide the Elvenship fared upriver to the pier, where the crew moored her. They left the staysails up but luffing, in the event they needed to move away from the dock quickly. Yet the Eroean was much like a floating fortress, with its ballistas and the warband’s crossbows and lethal quarrels and their mêlée battle gear, as well as the sailors’ own bows and arrows and falchions and boarding axes.
Mindful of Lady Aylis’s reading, they set a sharp watch and made ready for combat, should ought come to wage war ’gainst them.
The next morning, Brekk and a squad of Dwarves marched down the gangplank, Lissa on Vex running ahead. Valké soared high above in his natural element, for the falcon was wild, and for the raptor to fly below the jungle canopy and among branches and leaves went against Valké’s nature.
Aylis and the sailors and Dokan and the remainder of the warband watched them go, including Pipper and Binkton, Binkton complaining mightily: “What kind of a rat-eating decision was that? Brekk leaving us behind when we are scouts, too?”
“Right you are, Bink,” said Pipper. “We should be out front with Liss. I mean, what good is a scout that doesn’t find out what’s ahead?”
Dokan rumbled deep in his throat and said, “Given Lady Aylis’s readings, this is just a quick probe to see if enemies lie to the fore. And a Pysk on a fox is swifter than Waerans afoot.”
“Yes, but—” Binkton started to respond, yet Pipper said, “He’s right, Bink. Much as I don’t like staying behind, Dokan is right.”
High above the thick jungle Valké soared. Only now and then did the raptor catch a glimpse of the warband below, for the interlace of leaves and limbs of the tall, vine-laden trees with little or no gaps was simply too dense to see through no matter the keenness of sight. And of the fox and its rider, he saw nothing at all.
Valké soared toward the towers he could see in the near distance, and as he approached the falcon sensed danger, but what it might be, the raptor could not say, only that peril lurked . . . somewhere.
Down within the green and humid and close jungle, Lissa and Vex coursed, the fox swift and ranging in a sweeping zigzag run. Past huge banyan trees they ran, where widespread aerial branches descended to plunge into the soil and become additional rooted support. Forest giants, too, soared upward, their flanged trunks like buttresses. Liana vines twisted out from the damp loam and about the trunks, and drooped like dangling ropes high above. Massive roots snaked across the soil among the undergrowth down within the canopy-shadowed dimness, the shade pierced now and again by errant shafts of sunlight. Tiny rills trickled toward the river, only to vanish among the ever-thirsty foliage. Gnats and midges swirled in swarms, seeking warm-blooded creatures, and an occasional bird winged among the branches high above. Amid ferns and broad-leafed plants did fox and rider weave, and past slender trees, saplings struggling to find light and growth of their own. The land rose as Lissa and Vex approached the hills, and back and forth and up the slant they fared. Of a sudden the vixen froze, her nose in the air, quietly taking in a scent.
“What is it, Vex?”
[Bad,] the fox indicated with her ears.
“What is it?”
[Many bad.]
“Foul Folk?”
A quick bob of Vex’s head confirmed that Spawn were somewhere nigh.
“Where Foul Folk?”
Vex raised her nose into the faint breeze flowing toward the river. Then she stealthily ranged left then right. Finally she indicated, [Ahead.]
Somewhere to the fore lay Foul Folk in wait, or so the vixen did say.
Lissa turned the fox, and back down the hint of a trail she sped. Swiftly she came to the Dwarves, slowly making their own way up the trace through the undergrowth. When the Fox Rider appeared, Brekk signaled a halt.
“Spawn,” said Lissa.
“Where?” asked Brekk, taking a firmer grip on his war hammer.
“Ahead.”
“How many?”
“That I cannot say, though Vex indicates many.”
Brekk growled. “This, then, is the peril Lady Aylis foresaw in her sword-laden spread?”
“Perhaps.”
Brekk nodded. “Then, Scout, as planned, we will return to the Eroean, while you get closer and gauge their numbers, but stray not too near, for Ükken archers can be deadly.”
Without another word, Lissa turned Vex and slipped off to the side of the trail, while Brekk and the squad started back for the ship.
“I counted nearly two hundred Spaunen, four Trolls among them. The rest are Rucha and Loka, nearly fifty of the latter. And there is a Human with them as well, or so I surmised he was, yet I couldn’t see him closely.”
Aravan nodded, and Lissa sat down atop the table.
“What we do about Troll, Kapitan?” asked Nikolai.
Brekk nodded and added, “They are the most formidable of a Grg band. Alone, they could devastate us.”
“We can deal with the Ükhs and Hrôks, and the Human, but the Trolls be another matter,” said Dokan.
“I have a plan for the Trolls,” said Aravan, “but the one who might be a Human, what if he is a Mage instead?”
All eyes turned to Aylis.
“Magekind is just as vulnerable to slings and arrows and blades as are others,” said the Seeress. “It is simply a matter of getting close enough to take him unaware.”
“The King,” blurted Pipper.
Binkton groaned.
“What I mean, Bink,” said Pipper, “is the King of Swords. Could this Human or Wizard be the King of Swords?”
Again all eyes turned to Aylis. “Perhaps.”
“He might also be the Knight of Swords,” said Lissa.
“Wull, then,” said Long Tom, who hadn’t been to Aylis’s reading but who had heard all about it, “j’st who be th’ King if this’n be th’ Knoight?”
Aylis turned up her hands. “There’s no way of knowing which is which, or if even the cards spoke of this person who mingles with the Spawn, whether or no he is Human or Mage.”
“I think it matters not at all,” said Aravan, “if he is the Knight or the King. What matters most is that we come up with a means to deal with this threat, and for this I have a plan.”
“Wull, Captain,” said Long Tom, “that’d be more’n Oi got, for Oi can’t think o’ nothing but sailin’ off ’n’ wiaitin’ f’r another day, ’r sneakin’ ’round ’em.”
“Uncle Arley!” blurted Pipper.
“Oh, Pip, you nobberjowl,” said Binkton. “What in the world popped into that head of yours?”
“Stealth and guile,” said Pipper. “That’s what Uncle Arley’d recommend. Show them one thing, but give them something else altogether.”
Aravan laughed and said, “Exactly so, Pipper. Exactly so.”
Aravan then turned to Long Tom. “Other than me, who among the crew are fleetest of foot? Four of us will do.”
“James be swift,” said Long Tom, scratching his jaw, looking across at the bosun. “ ’N’ then there be Dinny and Noddy, ’n’ me with m’ longleggedy stroide.”
Aravan shook his head. “Dinny is too young, Tom, and I would have thee aboard the ship, and I can’t risk both bosuns.”
“Wull, then, Oi’d say James be swifter’n Noddy.”
Ar
avan looked at First Bosun James. “Are you up to a risky, mayhap fatal venture?”
James nodded. “I am, Captain.”
“All right. Then James and I are two. Who else?”
The planning went on throughout the rest of the day, but at last all was decided.
In the darkness, Aravan, Long Tom, and four crewmen rowed a dinghy away from the ship. They payed out a hawser attached to the port-bow anchor winch of the Eroean, the other end tied to the shaft eyelet of that anchor in the rowboat with the crew. They fared some two hundred feet upstream and perhaps fifty toward midriver, where Aravan called a halt. All six aboard lifted the heavy weight and dropped it over-side, its blunt but heavy tines turning as the mass fell to the bottom. When they returned to the Elvenship, Long Tom and the crewmen cranked the winch to make certain the anchor had dug deep into the river bottom.
When the hawser grew taut and the mooring lines tying the ship to the pier groaned under the strain and the men could wind no more, “She be well anchored, Cap’n, she be, she is,” said Long Tom.
“Then, we are ready.”
In the light of dawn, Lissa on Vex led the way down the footway ramp, followed by Aravan, with James and Finn after, and Dinny coming last. In spite of his youth and in face of arguments to the contrary, Dinny convinced Aravan he should be allowed to act as bait with the others, for he was truly swift. Each bore a bow and two oil-soaked fire-arrows.
Aboard the Eroean, the warband made the ballistas ready, and Long Tom and other sailors with boarding axes stood by the mooring lines as well as the staysails, should they be needed.
Pipper counted his sling bullets, and Binkton his arrows, while Aylis, her heart pounding in fear for Aravan, stood by, a bow in hand as well.
Sailors with nought to do fingered the hilts of their falchions as if making certain the weapons were there, or checked their bows and arrows again and again. . . .
. . . And all waited, as into the jungle along the path went Aravan and three others, with a Fox Rider ranging far ahead of the quartet.
In the concealing foliage crept Vex and Lissa, until she had the Spaunen in sight. The Ruch acting as lookout was completely unaware of the tiny scout.
Lissa fingered a lethal shaft. It would be so easy, but no, he must see Aravan and the others, for we must draw all to the ship, especially the Trolls.
Lissa turned Vex, and back toward Aravan and the others she stealthily went.
“Now ’tis no more than thirty of your paces, Captain,” whispered Lissa, and she pointed in the direction of the Ruchen sentry.
“And the Trolls?” murmured Aravan.
“Another twenty paces beyond.”
“What of the Human?”
“Him I did not see. Would you like me to—?”
“No, Lissa. ’Tis enough. Now, hie thee back to the ship.”
Off into the foliage slipped Lissa and Vex, while Aravan silently used his bow and a single shaft to indicate to the three others the direction and angle to loose the arrows. They each set two shafts to the string, all but Aravan, who held the striker. When they were ready, Aravan lit the oiled batting wrapped about the arrowheads that James had, and then Aravan and the others lit their own fire-arrows from those two.
Then all drew the shafts to the full and aimed and yelled and loosed, the flaming arrows to arc through the air past vines and greenery and into the waiting trap.
Trolls roared in startlement at the fire flashing down among them. Hlôks yelled, and Rûcks squealed, sounding much like swine.
Still shouting battle cries, Aravan and James and Finn and Dinny turned tail and fled. The Rûcken sentry cried out, and moments later, and upon the orders of their leader, the dreadful mob howled in pursuit of the fleeing four, for their ambuscade no longer held any surprise.
Shouting, Eroean! Eroean! down the trace the four sprinted, the ship some half mile away.
“Save thy breath for flight!” called Aravan, as soon as he heard the shouts of the rout in pursuit. “They will soon be on our heels.”
“Not mine,” called Dinny, and he slowly pulled away from the others, all of them running flat-out but Aravan, who deliberately brought up the rear.
Yowling, shrieking, Rûcks and Hlôks and Ogrus thundered after, their quarry just then coming into view.
Several Rûcks paused and nocked black-shafted arrows to their twisted bows and let fly, the missiles to fall short and left and right and long.
As the arrows sissed down among the runners, Aravan called, “If ye have anything left, now is the time to use it.”
James managed to add to his speed, but Dinny ahead began to flag, while Finn maintained his own swift pace.
The Eroean came into sight, and those aboard burst into cheers, and then into shouts of encouragement . . . and then into cries of anxiety, as the Spawn in pursuit also came into view.
The great Trolls with their mighty strides began overhauling the four. More black shafts whistled down among the runners.
And then James fell, pierced through and through.
Aravan paused at his side and knelt down.
The Trolls thundered toward him.
Aylis screamed and loosed a shaft, and it flew a long flight, only to shatter against the stonelike hide of an Ogru, even as the creature hurtled toward Aravan.
Dinny ran up the gangplank, Finn right after.
Captain! Captain! shrieked sailors and warband alike, even as the massive Troll reached for Aravan.
But then, in a silver flash of light, Valké exploded forward in a hammer of wings, and Long Tom shouted to the crewmen with the boarding axes, “Now!”
Chnk! Whnk! The axes sheared through mooring lines, and in the river current and tethered by the anchor upstream, the Eroean slowly began to swing away from the pier, the gangplank to slam down onto the stone.
Howling in frustration at being denied the prey that had suddenly turned into a bird, the Trolls thundered forward, racing for the ship.
“Hold, hold,” called Brekk to the Châkka at the ballistas.
Even as Brekk gave that command, Valké swooped to the deck, but from a bright flare ’twas Aravan who landed afoot.
In that same moment, the Eroean stopped swinging outward, and she lay off some fifty feet from the dock, where she fared at the end of the anchored hawser in the flow of the Dukong.
Aravan called for Desault and, as the chirurgeon came running, Aravan turned to see where the Rûpt had gotten to, just as the two charging Ogrus in the lead reached the pier and could not stop, and, shrieking in fear, they slid across the stone and into the water.
Down like rocks they plummeted, their massive bones too heavy for them to be able to swim. And in water forty-seven feet deep, they clawed at the vertical rock face of the pier, but found no purchase. They fought one another, trying to climb each other’s back and, still struggling, they drowned.
Even as those first two fell into the river, the remaining pair of Trolls managed to stop ere doing so.
City of Jade: A Novel of Mithgar Page 36