Icerigger

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  September pointed at the listening Sagyanak. "One other little item. What does she get for providing you with trans­portation and protection, um?"

  "Oh, in return for her help, Her Majesty will retain the lovely big raft you've built."

  "'That all?"

  "Well, I _did_ sort of promise her a few crates of modern arms and maybe a small cannon or two once we've been paid off."

  "Leaving aside the fact," September continued, "that that's a violation of every rule for contact with Class Four-B worlds, just what do you imagine this she-scorpion will do with 'em?"

  "Why, I expect that Her Majesty," he said, glancing over at her, "will sail pronto back to our frigid foster icebox and re­duce the place to rubble. After which, without killing off too many of the populace, she'll resume her former status as pro­tector of commerce in the territory. As for 'laws,"' he con­tinued contemptuously, "through sabotage of an interstellar liner and kidnapping of you all, I've already made myself a candidate for mindwipe. I'm not in the least concerned with what the locals intend to do with any new toys I might choose to give them."

  "I should have broken your neck when I had the oppor­tunity," observed September calmly.

  "Yes, you should have. But you've :hissed your chance. Agree, and you can at least get out of here with your hide. Refuse and we'll take the boat from you anyway. Fight and you'll be overrun. Try to run away and we'll cut that broken skate free and fire the sails. You are good and well stuck, friends."

  "Even if we do agree, what if the tran don't go along with us?" asked. Ethan. Walther shrugged.

  "That's your problem. I think you'd better convince them. Oh yes; one other thing. I'd like you to leave the brat ... what's her name? ... Colette ... with me, as a guarantee you won't try and follow us into Brass Monkey on the rafts

  we leave you. It wouldn't do for you to sail in a couple of days after me and let the peaceforcers in on our little secret, would it?"

  Something very like a cackle came from the throne. This request, demon-origin or not, she could understand.

  " Maybe you'd like me to cut off my right arm, as a further gesture of insurance?" asked September sarcastically.

  "Naw, keep it. I'm feeling generous today." He. grinned, a small mind in a sudden position of power and enjoying every minute of it.

  "We will return to our ship and inform you of our deci­sion," said Hunnar, unable to listen to any more of this without going for certain throats.

  "You've got half an hour by the sun," replied Walther eas­ily. " You can spend the time counting houris -for all I care. If you agree to the terms, take in the banner at your stern. If not, well," he shrugged, "I've done my best for you."

  "I don't wonder that she calls you the Mad One," guessed Ethan.

  Walther started and lost a little of his composure.

  "Watch your mouth, bright-eyes. This is no sales conven­tion."

  "And you're certainly no door prize," he said as they left the throne room.

  Ethan tried to affect a nonchalant attitude as they slid back over the ice. But he didn't really relax until they had passed through the encirclement. Now there were plenty of women and cubs in the group, who looked every bit as ragged and vicious as the menfolk. Obviously Sagyanak was leaving noth­ing to chance. This was to be a supreme effort on her part.

  And why not, with such a prize? With modern weapons she could rule as much of the planet as she chose without far-off humanx authorities ever finding out about them.

  "Of course we can't agree to this," he said to no one in particular.

  "Of course not," September said. "But it did kill sortie tune. Maybe enough. In any case we must try to get away now. The thought of even a single decent pistol in the hands of that horror makes my stomach crawl."

  "You'd know about that, wouldn't you?" said Ethan suddenly, giving hire an cold look. September chose not to reply. He turned instead to talk to Hunnar.

  "We'll have to hold them off and pick the best opening, then break for it."

  Balavere arid Ta-hoding were waiting with anxious expres­sions when they reboarded the raft. It felt good to be back on the high deck, even if it was destined to become a baroque coffin within the hour. The barbarian hostages scrambled with poor grace to get over the side. Hunnar watched them speed; for the safety of the encampment with obvious disdain.

  Something unseen hit Ethan, planted a freeing kiss on one cheek and vanished down a forward hatch. Ethan caught only a glimpse of flying fur and a hint of a pink face.

  "What was that?" he mumbled, rather stupidly.

  "Why, that was Colette du Kane, young feller." September grinned. "Wonder why it is that impending destruction always gives women the hots?"

  "Deity, Skua! Sometimes your crudity exceeds all stand­ards!"

  "Please, no compliments before battle," he replied.

  They explained to the others the results of their one-sided "parley." Ta-hoding was rapidly being reduced to a quivering wreck. Balavere just listened quietly, nodding now and again at something Hunnar said, questioning September, until they'd both finished.

  "Twould be unthinkable to give them the ship under any circumstances," said the General finally. "I would rather raze it to the ice than let the Evil One near it."

  Ethan sniffed the air and gagged. The miasma from the rot­ting colossus seemed powerful enough to stand off an attack by itself. In fact, after a look over the rail he noticed that the section of the encirclement directly to the east of them had actually grown thinner. It might really be of some aid. When they made their break, they would have a weakened section to try fore. But Hunnar and Ta-hoding wanted to run the other way. Ethan sighed and looked at the thinned line of enemy troops with regret. The tran were probably right. And the no­mad rafts were drawn up to the cast, forming a second barrier there.

  Extra weapons were passed to all, along with the solemn word that there would be no quarter, no let-up in this next at­tack. Once again preparations were made for steering from below deck. Not because of impending storm, but in case the helmsman topside should be cut down when the raft tried to break the enclosing circle.

  The wounded took swords or spears. So did Elfa and Co­lette and even Hellespont du Kane, who at least could wield one like a cane. The crossbowmen scrambled aloft, settling themselves in their baskets and stacking bolts nearby. Arch­ers and pikemen moved to positions at the railing.

  Waiting.

  Ethan surveyed the poised Sofoldians, a pitifully reduced group, then the hundreds of tensed nomads. There were no reserves this time to take up an empty place; on the rail if a man fell. He was beginning to lament all the sales, commis­sions, deals, promises, and women he'd failed to make. It must have taken more than a half hour.

  It could have been his imagination. Or maybe Sagyanak and Walther had decided to give there a little extra time in the hopes that the increasing tension would weaken the re­solve of those on the _Slanderscree._ Another precious few min­utes for the furious repair crew.

  They finally broke, howling and screaming, chivaning to­ward the raft from all sides. No disciplined assault this, but a shrieking, angry, uncontrolled mob.

  Arrows began to thunk into the deck, the masts, the railing. A man vent down a few meters to his left. Meanwhile their crossbowmen and archers were returning the fire from supe­rior height. Dozens of barbarians dropped, hundreds carne on. Again the uninvited grappling hooks and ladders sprouted. One hook narrowly missed pinning Ethan to the rail.

  A helmeted head appeared. over the side. September swung at it-he had the great axe in his hands again. Ethan hacked and flailed at the knotted rope attached to the hook.

  One voice drifted down through all the noise and confu­sion. Ethan hardly recognized it. It was the voice of the mainmast lookout, posted aloft with. the crossbowmen. Ire was using a megaphone-another, simpler invention by Williams. His message was brief.

  "THEY COME!"

  Ta-hoding, who'd been shaking every tine an arrow whizzed wit
hin half a dozen meters of him, heard it also. Suddenly he was moving his fat bulk about the deck at an insane pace, bodily pulling sailors from their positions and all but booting them into the rigging. Ethan prayed that the captain wouldn't run into a mast and knock himself fiat.

  Dropping swords and pikes and spears, they scrambled into the shrouds. Sails began to drop, grew convex with wind. The wheel creaked, a ghostly turning as the below-deck system struggled to move the half-frozen fifth runner. The soldiers fought all the harder to compensate for the manpower loss.

  Gradually, a strange lull seemed to settle over the combat­ants on both sides.

  "Hear it, young feller?" murmured September.

  "Yes ... yes, I do," he whispered back, unaware that he'd done so.

  The sound was faint, distant. A carefully controlled tsu­nami. Continuous rumble welling out of the lee itself.

  Their attackers heard it too. Questioning looks assaulted the eastern horizon. As the susuration grew louder it began to assume a definite rhythm, rolling and booming like heavy surf.

  A nomad hesitated in raid-cut with his sword, another thrust his spear with less authority, yet a third drew his bow and let the bowstring sag limp.

  The _Slanderscree_ began to back free of the dead mountain. Ethan was sure he could hear a slight metallic groan from forward and belowdecks. He ignored it. Maybe it would go away. Whatever it was, the roped-together runner did not buckle.

  Fires erupted in the encirclement on all sides of the raft as stockpiled wood was ignited. Rafts of dried wood soaked in oil were made ready to be pushed against the ponderous, slowly-moving great raft. Here and there torchbearers began to move toward the slip.

  But at the same time, other nomads were beginning to slip back down their boarding ropes, stumble off, the ladders. They fought against -those pressing forward.

  The torchbearers got halfway to the turning raft, now drip­ping warriors from its sides.

  "There, I see them!" Ethan yelled. September turned too, and then Hunnar, and then the few of the enemy who still fought.

  Far off in the distance eastward,, a tiny clump of steel-gray bumps hove into view, like a, herd of great whales. Except that the slightest of these was greater than the greatest whale that had ever swum Terra's seas.

  Adamantine sunlight encountered thin paired strips of white and flashed. The sound of thunder floated ominously over the glass-earth.

  Ta-hoding ignored the occasional arrows which still flew over the deck and scrambled for the wheel. Another sailor joined him. Now there were four sets of powerful arms pull­ing at the fifth runner, two above and two below deck. Ethan watched the captain's suety face swell as he strained to get the ship clear of the corpse.

  They would only need seconds to pick up wind and start southward. There was no question of running into the wind now. Against it they could outrun the Horde, but not the herd. They might get out of their path. They _had to_ get out of their path.

  Utter confusions extended invisible claws, gripped the bar­barian ranks as the word was passed. Spears and axes and torches were dropped as the remaining nomads spread their flan and chivaned for their lives. A few of the barbarian rafts were struggling with reduced crews to pull out their ice-an­chors and get under sail as well. It was impossible to tell at that distance, but Ethan supposed many of those anchors were being cut free.

  The majority of the nomads seemed determined to gain the distance to the rafts, the only homes they'd ever known. A few, less concerned, scattered in all directions, though it was hard going against the wind, or north, or south. A. few milled about aimlessly. Others were trampled under chiv by their hysterical fellows.

  Hunnar was growling low in his throat, glancing from the sails to the straining captain, then astern.

  "Get her nose around, Ta! Get her nose around!"

  Now the herd was close enough for Ethan to discern indi­viduals. Close enough to see the long, gargantuan tusks curved partway back into the cavernous mouths. Even battling wind­noise, their thunder dominated as they inhaled cubic liters of air, forced it out of the fleshy jets near their rear.

  The tran of the _Slanderscree_ fought like demons to put on every centimeter of sail. There was a crackling and snapping. The still shattered bowsprit turned with agonizing patience to the south. Nearly free nova of the attentions of the Horde, she began to move.

  She passed the half-putrid corpse with nail-biting slowness - the corpse whose rotting stink had drawn the furious, bel­lowing herd from feeding grounds far over the horizon to gather and mourn over one of their dead.

  Just as Eer-Meesach had said it would.

  Ethan found himself pounding the rail with a fist.

  "Move, ship, move! Please move!" Rippling wave-thunder drowned out all sounds now, hammered relentlessly against his eardrums. Prayers went unheard.

  A few, a very few, of the barbarian rafts had put on sail. The rest were trying.

  The herd moved* *in slow motion upon the rafts. With them. Among them.

  Through them.

  There were no more rafts.

  The _Slansderscree_ was pulling away as her sails ate wind. The bad runner held for a minute, then a second, and another, until it was forgotten in other concerns. Ethan stood frozen to the rail as the herd approached at an incredible pace. They were moving at least 100 kph-into the wind!

  What remained of the once omnipotent Horde of the Scourge vanished beneath several million kilos of gray flesh, became a red-brown smear on the shining ice.

  The herd drew closer. For a second time Ethan gazed down the throat of Leviathan.

  It paused, froze in space.

  Began to recede.

  "They're stopping at the body," murmured Hunnar finally, long after they were safely away southward. He had to clear his throat once before the words came out. "Thank all the Gods!"

  "It didn't look like many of _there_ managed to escape," said Ethan.

  "No," agreed Hunnar, curiously unemotional. "Not many."

  "Cubs, too," continued Ethan, his voice dropping to a barely audible mutter.

  September showed no such concern. He was rubbing both hands together and chatting with sailors and soldiers, as happy as if a freshly baked cake had exited the oven without falling. Hunnar was leaning over the stern, straining to pick out shapes among the rapidly receding forms.

  "I didn't see Sagyanak's raft in those final seconds. Could the devil-bitch have escaped again?"

  "Sorry to kill all the bad dreams you half-hoped to have, friend Hunnar," said September. He grabbed at his hood as a sudden gust of wind threatened to tear it off. "I did."

  "What do they do with the dead young one, the stavanzers? Now that they've found it?" asked Ethan.

  "If the wizard's information is accurate, and it has been thus far," the knight replied, "then the thunder-eaters will re­main with the dead for several days. I have never seen such a thing myself. Supposedly they prod the body with their tusks, nudge it every so often in the apparent hope that they may stir it to life once again ... Eventually, some inner desire satisfied, they will move off, never to return to that spot again. Or perhaps they merely grow hungry. None know for certain. Among my people, at least, the observation of the thunder­ eater's habits from close range tis not over-popular. And thunder-eaters do not die often."

  "I don't wonder at your caution." Ethan noticed that Ta hoding was only a short breath from total collapse, now that the _Slanderscree_ was out of danger. A sweaty heap of fur and flesh, the captain had sunk to the deck next to the big wheel. He stared into nothingness. All his efforts seemed directed to following each breath with another.

  "Noble animals," Ethan mumbled.

  "What?" September came over. "'Those supra-nourished grotesque herbivores? Get a hold on your self, lad!"

  Ethan sighed. "Skua, sometimes I think you have no poetry in your soul."

  "Now as to that, young feller-me-lad, firstly you'd have to establish the existence of the latter. And you're one to talk!
" He sniffed with exaggerated force. The resultant supercilious pose was so comical that Ethan couldn't keep from laughing. "You kindly explain to me, lad, the poetry in volume buying or discount pricing."

  Ethan started to do just that, but had to pause in the middle of the first sentence.

  Why did someone have to keep reminding him of where he wasn't?

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was little new to look at as the raft continued to devour the kilometers. The journey rapidly became a dull cycle of rising, pacing the too-familiar deck, talking, eating, and re­turning to sleep. The humans, in one respect, were fortunate. They had the added extra task of fighting to stay that one step ahead of frostbite.

  They'd entered a new region, filled with innumerable small islands. Many rose nearly perpendicular from the ice-dark, black stone, the stumps and cores of long-eroded volcanos. They served to break the monotony of flat horizon, but just barely, since the next was much like its predecessor.

  A few of the islands were inhabited. Tiny villages clung precariously to the cliffs.

  Occasionally a small raft or party of wandering hunters would parallel the _Slanderscree_ for a few dozen meters. The dialect here differed frown that of Sofold. Ta-hoding, a good merchant, was able to converse with them. like a neighbor. After the first few encounters, even Ethan and the other hu­mans could make themselves understood, though they lacked the captain's fluency.

  The Trannish language had a universal planetary base, then. Local variations did not preclude adequate communication between widely scattered groups. Another plus as far as trade and commerce were concerned.

  No matter how skilled or strong, the locals rapidly dropped behind, unable to match the big raft's speed.

  Things grew so dull that Ethan found himself wishing for another storm-but not a Rifs. That bored he wasn't.

  He got it.

  After the third consecutive day of freezing wind and even a little razor-sharp sleet, he was damning himself for a romantic idiot and praying for a return to the clear sameness of days before. Anything for a reprise of calm weather!