He shrank. He was a dog — no, an ant — attacking a whale. Only this was bigger than the biggest whale that ever was. It expanded in all directions, all dimensions, like a tridee projection.
From the side of the biblical behemoth projected a tiny splinter of wood. It leaked crimson. One of the lightnings had struck home, then.
He couldn't find any sign of the other and assumed it had missed. He was wrong. Later, a searching raft found part of the mast. That was all they ever found of raft and crew.
Somewhere, distantly, there was a shout, a whistle. Then a blackness grew ahead of him. Something dark as space at the Rim, gaping like a cave. A monstrous ebony cavern, two colossal stalactites of white hanging from the roof. Tons of vegetable matter vanished into that yawning abyss every day.
It was turning toward them, to the north. The wrong way. And they would miss.
Another, more distant, whistle sounded. The eager wind bit at it, tore it away. The latch rested tightly in both hands, sail forgotten now. Hunnar and September had cast free. But if he waited just a little longer, put a little more weight on the outside of the skate...
He stood. Bracing against the wind and the side of the skate, he leaned out over the ice, to his left. The huge lance began to shift, slowly, agonizingly, centimeters at a time, to port. Ethan leaned hard into the side, straining for just another millimeter of drift. Protesting wood shifted from its original course.
The black chasm grew until it blotted out ice, pika-pedan, sky. A dark hole swallowing the universe. It was opening and closing with a mechanical, slow-motion intensity, a ponderous cyclopean bellows. Above the wind came a dull roaring, like a dying stardrive. Eating air and excreting thunder, the stavanzer was moving.
Crosslatch ... pull ... whistle ... get round ... left ... left ... no, port-left ... left-port?...!
The blood in his lower lip was beginning to freeze. Suddenly something or someone — he wasn't sure it was he — jerked convulsively at the latch. The tiny skate-boat heeled far over on its side, almost touching the ice. He had to scramble to keep from falling out. Almost calmly he saw that he'd delayed too long. He would not clear the creature.
He would not clear the mouth.
It would be open when he reached it, he knew instinctively. A prayer would have been appropriate but what he mumbled instead was, “Move over, Jonah. Here I cone.”
Then, startlingly, he missed, was past. He glimpsed an eye bigger than the whole skate-boat shooting past at blinding speed, black pupil like an onyx mirror reflecting his numbed stare. He was speeding past endless acres of roiling, heaving gray flesh.
The stavanzer's mouth was enormous. The throat itself was not. Moving at nearly two hundred kph, the half-ton lance struck the back of that gaping maw. Several seconds passed while the impact traveled down miles of neurons. A shudder passed through the gargantuan bulk. The thunder-eater heaved the upper half of its body off the ice, an Everest of dimly felt agony. It dropped with a force that snapped Ethan's speeding skate-boat off the ice like a coin on a taut blanket.
He sailed past an alien gray landscape, a vast confusion of ice and cold sky. Night came hard.
Chapter Eight
He remembered vanilla wafers. Then he opened his eyes and saw a familiar fair-framed face with a unique nose. September was staring at him anxiously. Other memories hooded in and he sighed. Likely there wasn't a vanilla wafer within half a dozen parsecs of where he lay.
Where he lay was in his bed in his room in Wannome Castle. He tried to sit up and was made aware of a fascinating phenomenon. Every square centimeter of his body was putting in an impolite claim for attention.
“I,” he announced slowly, falling back onto the fur blanket someone had bunched beneath his head, “hurt. All over.”
“Not surprising, young feller-me-lad,” said September, the concern vanishing from his face. “But other than that, how are you feeling?”
Ethan chuckled. It was mentally satisfying, but it also compelled certain sections of self to protest violently. He followed the ensuing silence with a question of characteristic wit, scintillating brilliance.
“What happened?”
“Why didn't you let go your latch when Hunnar gave the signal?” the big man asked instead of answering.
Ethan thought, remembered. “We would have missed. It was turning the wrong way and we would have missed. Shot right past...” He tried to rise again. September put a hand on his chest and gently forced him back.
“That particular beastie is no longer a problem. Lord, what a sight! I've seen a lot of big and biggests, lad, but that hunk of ugly meat tops them all. Couldn't believe how fast something that big can move.”
“Hunnar told me, before.”
“I thought we'd seen the last of you for sure when you didn't let loose with the rest of us,” September continued. “Gone forever down that unholy gullet. Oh, by the way, you turned it fair and proper. Took off southward with a roar you wouldn't believe. Near to shake a man's skin off, what? Though how it could even move with that log down its pipe I don't know. Tough? Oh my, yes!”
“I don't mean what happened to it. What about me?”
“Oh, you? Well, I didn't see much myself, being a-scooting fast in the opposite direction. But there was a well-positioned lookout in the front-running raft. Said when the thing rose off the ice ... unheard of thing to do ... and whacked down, it tossed you into the air like a ballooning spider.
“You came down on the other side of the beast in the high pedan. That and the padding in the boat probably saved you. After contact, though, it was every chip and splinter for itself. If you'd landed on bare ice I expect we'd still be scraping up pieces of you. As it developed, you should have seen how much wood they pulled out of your skin. Good thing those survival parkas are tough. How you got out without busting anything, let alone everything, I'll wonder over 'til my last days. You took a powerful sock in the head.”
“I feel tolerable now,” he lied. “How long have I been out?”
September grinned. “Off and on, about a week.”
“A week!”
“'Twas a near thing, I don't mind telling you, lad,” he said solemnly. Then, more cheerfully, “Sure didn't hurt our standing with these folk, though. I expect they consider you the greatest thing to come along since warm.” He scratched at his pants. “But it's just as well you're up ... if not exactly about. It seems it's time.”
If they'd just take the anvil off his head he'd feel almost decent.
“Time? What time?”
September slapped his head with a blow that would have taken an ordinary man's head off.
“Idiot! Forgot you couldn't understand anything while you were mumbling. Mumbled some weird things, too, you did. The Horde's coming, of course. Captain from someplace called Yermi-yin pulled into the harbor yesterday on his way to somewhere unpronounceable. Stayed just long enough to give the Landgrave the word before skimming out again. Poor fella was as white as the ice — a-headed due south and didn't seem inclined to change course even when we told him he might run into a mad stavanzer. Alien or no, anyone could see he was plenty scared.”
Ethan determinedly heaved himself up on his elbows and found that without warning the room had gone triplicate ... just like everything at the home office.
“Then I've got ... to get ready. We're going, to fight too...”
Again September eased him down into the mattress.
“You just lie there ... alone, I'm afraid ... and take it easy, young feller. They're at least a week's fast sail away. So there's no need to run around screeching and squawking like a plucked poonu. Hunnar and Balavere are organizing the militia. The populace is storing grain, pika-pina, vol, and suchlike like crazy, for a siege. Everyone is doing what they're supposed to. You're supposed to rest.”
“Can they really stand a siege, Skua?”
September looked thoughtful. “Hunnar seems to think so. Says the enemy's sure to crack mentally before the Sofoldians run out of
anything vital. The general agrees with him, though he's not as vocal about it. Crafty old bird... They're ever stockpiling firewood ... although with those natural fur coats they've got, they can do without it. Yes, when you start stockpiling luxuries I'd say that indicates a certain modicum of confidence... No, I don't think there'll be much of a siege. Just one double-helluva fight.”
“Hunnar seemed sure he could beat them.”
“According to that captain,” September mused, “they cover the ice from one end of the horizon to the other. I've been talking tactics with the general staff. I think I've made a few points. Frankly, any change in normal procedure ought to confuse that bunch. If this Sagyanak's as stubborn as some of Sofold's best, then we shouldn't expect much new from the Horde... But it's a new situation for the Sofoldians. They're willing to try new ideas. Just takes a little subtle convincing, a bit of reasonable explanation. Also, Balavere threatened to crack a few heads... If I were in the spot they're in, I'd be willing to experiment too. Wouldn't you, me lad?”
“We are in their place,” replied Ethan quietly. September grunted.
The battle armor was clumsy and too large, but Hunnar had insisted Ethan wear it. The leather leggings jolted and pulled at each step and the bronze breastplate was an unrelenting drag at his chest.
He'd absolutely refused one of the flaring, ornate helmets, though. Even a child's size wouldn't have fit well. His head would ring around inside like a clapper in a bell. While it wasn't designed for fighting, the parka at least wasn't a burden.
The wind whistled around him. He walked back over to where Hunnar and September stood together at the edge of the High Tower. September was pointing into the distance.
They might have had a better and clearer view from the wizard's telescope. But then they would see only one thing at a time. Besides, the learned miasma of the wizard's chambers palled after a while, along with the very real one from aromatic chemicals and half-vivisected animals.
According to their long-since-departed informant, the Horde would appear out of the northeast. But for now there was only the invisible thread that divided cold-ice land from ice-cold sky.
“No sign of them, Hunnar?”
The knight paused in conversation with the big man and looked down at Ethan. “Your eyesight 'tis good as my own, Sir Ethan. Yet I do detect naught of the assembled swine.”
“Could they be circling to take you from the rear?” asked September. He scratched at a persistent itch with the edge of a big double-bladed sword.
Hunnar dropped a deprecating hand.
“No. They might try such a maneuver later, to annoy us if for naught else. But Sagyanak is unlike many barbarians. Nothing will be done without purpose ... or so we are told. Still, any nomad is unpredictable.”
“Like you,” suggested Ethan.
“Perhaps, like me,” the knight replied, not upset by the comparison. “As I said, all it would accomplish would be to anger us — hardly a sound motive. No, they'll parade up to the gates and make a fine show of themselves. They've no reason to think we'd be so foolish as to offer resistance.” He grinned wolfishly.
“What a surprise the Death is going to get! Perhaps the Scourge will rave and rant enough to burst a skull-side blood vessel. That would spare us the necessity of a formal execution.”
“Ah, there,” said September. “Isn't that a sail? Or have I been dipping too deep into the reedle again?”
No, certainly that was a spot of blue far, far out on the ice. It grew, was joined by others of different size and shape and color. Every imaginable shade was represented in the concatenation of sails. Soon the far ice was a rainbow of barbaric coloring: magenta, umber, jet, crimson — there was a lot of crimson and other reds — azure, carnelian, sand...
Some of the sails were dyed in swatches of random color. Others boasted intricately designed motifs and mosaics. Some were woven, others painted — all of a bloodcurdling nature.
A few sported railings decorated with dull white trannish skulls.
They didn't cover the ice as the captain had warned. But they filled a disconcerting portion of it.
“Must be nearly a thousand rafts out there,” murmured September. But the big man's nonchalance fooled no one. Even he was a little awed.
“More than we expected,” Hunnar admitted. “Yet it only makes me gladder, for there will be more of the vermin to dispose of.”
Beating into the wind, the nomad fleet moved closer. One by one they took up position along four-deep lines. One by one the sails came down and ice anchors went out.
“Settling in for a relaxing stay,” September said.
Even at this distance, Ethan thought he could detect some rafts that were crowded with livestock, others with crates and supplies. It was a mobile city.
Soon all the sails were furled but one, which belonged to a small, rakishly set little raft, lay alongside a huge ship with a double-storied, garishly painted central cabin. The small raft broke off and skimmed slowly for the harbor gate.
Ethan could make out toy figures straining at the mechanism that raised the obstructing nets and the Great Chain barrier.
“Parley raft,” said Hunnar with satisfaction. “The Landgrave and members of the Council should be preparing to receive it. Let's go.”
They followed him down the winding stairs into the castle proper.
“This will be something to tell one's grand-cubs,” he said back over a shoulder.
They were not part of the official greeting committee. Also, it had been decided that it would be better if the Horde did not have a look at the humans until it could upset them the most. Let them think then, as some of the Sofoldians still did, that the aliens were gods or daemons, not just skinny tran with severe haircuts.
The musicians' balcony was deserted and gave them an excellent view of the Great Hall. Down below, the Landgrave waited on his throne. This time he was dressed not in comfortable silks but in bronze and leather armor, steel helmet and breastplate. He was an impressive sight, but Ethan had to concede that Balavere or Hunnar or even Brownoak would have carried the royal armor with a good deal more effect.
Elfa, he noticed, was resplendent in armor of her own. No decolletage this time.
Grouped around the throne were the members of the Council, town representatives, and the more senior knights and their squires. Sunlight gave the assembled helmets and pikes and axes the aspect of the inside of a jewel. Migrating circlets of light were cast onto the bare stone walls and vaulted ceiling as they turned and shifted. They were an impressive group.
Curious, Ethan gave the huge, curving white column that formed the back of the Landgrave's throne another look. Rather puny, after all.
His eyes dropped and roved over the crowd as they waited. The du Kanes, of course, weren't present. Nor did they intend to participate in any actual combat. Hellespont begged off on his age, and Colette because it wasn't ladylike. He wished she could have a good look at Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata. But September had managed to convince them to don armor, at least.
Walther was safely locked away in his gilded cubicle, where he couldn't do anything foolish to himself or anyone else. And Williams was off with Eer-Meesach somewhere, seeing to some kind of mysterious alchemy of their own. Having seen the crossbow in action, Ethan awaited their next revelation with anticipation and not a little leeriness.
There was a commotion at the entrance to the Hall. All eyes turned in that direction. At the same time, it occurred to Ethan what had been bothering him about the assembly. He turned to Hunnar.
“Shouldn't the prefect of Wannome be present for this”
The knight spoke without turning. “The prefect has expressed his manifest displeasure at the entire proceeding. He has confined himself to his manor until an unspecified time. I, for one, don't miss him.”
Something was nagging still. It was shoved aside by a rhythmic booming of drums from outside the Hall. A herald's voice rang out.
“Here approach those representing Sag
yanak the Death, Scourge of Vragan...”
“...All-powerful Destroyer of Ra-Yilogas,” finished a powerful voice. It rolled and rumbled off the walls. “And Ruler of the World!”
A group of three tran came into view, striding down the central carpet. The leader of the triumvirate was the biggest native Ethan had yet seen, a towering figure resplendent in flame-colored cloak and coat. Under his left arm, snug into the dan, he held a helmet in the shape of the gutorrbyn, the flying dragon. His armor was nearly as red as the cloak itself, a burnished bronze crossed by polished vol-leather strappings and gold-silver buckles. A long, broad sword was fastened securely to his left leg. As he swung his arms Ethan could see that designs in gold dust had been glued to his tough wing membranes.
His stride was long and hurried, as though he came on distasteful business best concluded quickly. Impatient to get on with the looting, no doubt, and upset at the delay.
His two companions trailed slightly behind, one to either side. They were nearly as brilliantly clad, one in blues, the other in yellow and black. Neither had the physical presence of their superior, however.
Ethan leaned over and whispered to Hunnar.
“Is that Sagyanak?”
Hunnar gave him an odd look. “Of course not, Sir Ethan. What a strange question!”
“Why...?” he began, but September shushed him. The lead nomad was speaking.
“I am Olox, right hand and first servant of the Destroyer. It has been far too long since we last visited our gracious friends in Wannome. Far too long. And when we finally rectify this unfortunate oversight, are we greeted properly?” He expressed outrage and bafflement; his companions wore woeful expressions.
“No!” He looked up at the Landgrave. “We are not. What do we find instead? Armed men on the walls! Many armed men. Nets and chain bar our free entrance, passage to an open harbor.
“The Destroyer chooses to graciously assume, though, that this is done in error, perhaps through our own fault at not identifying ourselves sufficiently. Or perhaps,” and here his tone changed to one of brutal coldness, “our friends in Wannome are subject to a peculiar forgetfulness. The Scourge has helpful ways aplenty to jog a loose memory here, a slipped remembrance there.”
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