Unable to decide whether Williams was making a good strategic point or merely an excuse, Ethan said, “You’re probably right, Milliken. We’d better keep a beamer in reserve. Maybe you and Eer-Meesach can think of something to help.”
The schoolteacher appeared relieved. “We’ll try our best, of course.”
Ethan went over the side, bumping against the hull of the raft, the soft chunk, chunk of a sailor’s chiv sounding above him. His friend Williams, he knew, was no coward. He was perfectly right in insisting they keep a beamer aboard the ship. And he wasn’t much good with a sword.
Then he was down on the ice, where he promptly fell flat on his fundament, much to the amusement of the nearby Moulokinese. Elfa dropped down the ladder ahead of him. She held a crossbow. Sword and bolt quiver were slung at opposite hips. She smiled at his fall but did not laugh.
In the midst of a situation where he might soon find his throat slit, Ethan found himself staring deep into those topaz Tran eyes and thinking unthinkable thoughts. Here and now, he scolded himself, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest outpost of humanx civilization, parsecs from the closest civilized world.
What better place to think uncivilized thoughts?
“Thank you, Elfa,” he said as she gave him a hand up, for once not caring what Sir Hunnar made of his words.
Looking down the canyon from the crest of the wall, he could watch as Poyo rafts and soldiers formed a solid line across the ice. Arrows began to fly from the ranks of Poyolavomaar archers kneeling on the ice, from their counterparts aloft in the rigging of many rafts. All sails had been furled and ice anchors held the attackers’ rafts steady against the down canyon wind.
Military sophistication wasn’t necessary to identify a completely untenable position. Those Poyo arrows which did have enough force to reach the top of the wall had been slowed by the wind to where they could do little more than nick flesh. On the other hand, having the wind behind them drove crossbow bolts and Moulokinese arrows out and down with sufficient power to penetrate a hide shield.
The officers aboard the Poyo rafts quickly realized the hopelessness of their present position. Drawing in anchors, they let their rafts drift downcanyon and out of range.
Soon shouts of “Down, down!” sounded along the wall.
“That must mean catapults,” Elfa explained from nearby. Ethan was acutely conscious of her proximity. While the Tran did not sweat, they exuded a powerful musk which was individually distinctive. None was more so than Elfa’s.
“ ’Tis to be hoped they are as accurate with stones as they were with oil sacks.” She grinned a battle grin, showing delicate, pointed fangs.
That ferocious, toothy smile was enough to erase the absurd scenarios he’d been dwelling on for the past half hour. At the same time he discovered that the tension which had gripped him during the same period had less to do with combat than he’d thought. Now he relaxed a little.
Some distant heavy thumps sounded muffled by the wind. Ethan chanced a glance over the wall. Several man-sized boulders lay on the ice below. The massive stone rampart was barely chipped. War cries and obscenity-flavored laughter were the defenders’ response.
An audible whoosh, and a slightly smaller boulder sailed over the wall to land on the ice behind. After a few minutes. Ethan recognized the futility of his new assault. With perfect accuracy and no misses it would take the Poyos a dozen years to breach the wall which was far too massive to succumb to bombardment from such modest-sized stones. Nor could the Poyo fleet carry an endless supply of such ammunition, and bone and primitive metal tools would not suffice to cut new material from the dense basalt cliffs.
In the crowded canyon, they could not bring enough catapults to bear to drive the defenders off the wall. They had ample time to spot each arriving stone and get out of its way on the rare occasion when one would actually land atop the parapet.
When the Moulokinese arrived from the city with their own artillery and began using catapults to hurl wind-blown boulders back at the attacking rafts, the despair of the Poyo soldiers could almost be felt. They retreated again, still further down the canyon, and sat there. Meanwhile the Moulokinese soldiers and the sailors off the Slanderscree held an informal competition to see who could concoct the most degrading insult to hurl in their attackers’ direction.
Despite the situation, the Poyo rafts gave no sign of departing. It was to be a siege, then.
“I don’t think they’ll try that again for a while, young feller-me-lad.” September’s leathery skin was flushed, giving him the look of a man generating an internal sunset. No doubt he’d enjoyed the brief battle. Privately, Ethan suspected the giant was disappointed at the absence of any hand-to-hand fighting. His enormous battle-axe dangled from one burl-sized fist.
“Their arrows got here slowed down enough to pluck out of the air,” he commented, sitting down with his back against the wall. “Can’t hurt this wall with their rocks, and they don’t know enough ballistics to put every stone on top.”
“What do you think they’ll try next?”
“If I were them, lad, and foolish enough to continue this, I’d make a try at breaking in the gate. Since they can’t sail a ram into this wind, that means bringin’ up a hand-carried log or something or usin’ oil to try and burn it through.”
“The Moulokinese cables will still stop any raft from sailing through, Skua.”
“Right, feller-me-lad. That means they’d have to get enough infantry through to take over the wall and lower the cables themselves. I don’t see they’ve got a chance. We can have archers and arbalesters pick ’em off outside the gate, and can mass fifty soldiers behind the gate for every one who fights his way in. Be suicidal to try. That doesn’t mean they won’t. Humans have been known to try similar stunts.”
“They can keep us bottled up here in Moulokin indefinitely, though.”
“That’s so.” He fingered the gold ring in his right ear. “Don’t bother me much. I like Moulokin. But it will keep us from gettin’ our important discoveries to the padre in Brass Monkey. More important is what it’ll do by blockading all commerce. Traders and ship buyers will go elsewhere rather than fight their way into Moulokin. Rakossa’s officers probably know that, even if he can’t think of anything but gettin’ his hands on Teeliam. I don’t think our friends the Moulokinese will crack, but too many wars are decided by factors economic instead of military.
“Now me,” and he fingered the haft of the huge axe, “I’m hoping the Poyos get frustrated and try another frontal attack. It’s more likely they’ll get frustrated and speak off, ship by ship, for their homes and hearths.
“Meanwhile, we might as well lean back and enjoy the hospitality of our hosts, ’till the Poyos decide which way their frustration’s goin’ to drive them.” He put both massive hands behind his head and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he indicated to Ethan that he hadn’t fallen asleep by popping one eye open.
“Barbarians against us, barbarians with us, and we three supposedly civilized folk helpless to influence ’em one way or the other. Think about it, lad.”
Then he did fall asleep, oblivious to the cold and the noise of a thousand alien soldiers chattering around him,
“With all due respect, my lord, we cannot attack.” The Poyo officer looked uncomfortable under the glare of his mercurial ruler, wished he were back on his own raft instead of here in the royal stateroom.
“Oduine is right, my lord,” said another of the assembled captains. “To have a normal wind before us would be disadvantage enough. But the wind in our faces here would give pause to a god! At their whim, they could sally out and do us much damage. Their weapons outrange us badly. And these peculiar small arrows,” he held up a Sofoldian crossbow bolt, “are fired with a force greater than our best archers can muster.”
“Their catapults have the wind behind them too, sire,” a third officer added. “I was with the group that entered the city many days ago to search for this accursed great raft. The wall before us is fu
lly half a suntt deep and solid as these cliffs around us. It cannot be breached by any siege weapon I know of.”
Tonx Ghin Rakossa, Landgrave of Poyolavomaar, slouched in his chair at the far end of the triangular table and quietly regarded his commanders. He let the silence grow until many were shifting nervously in their seats.
“Do you have any more good news to give us, my soldiers?” They looked at one another, at the walls, their chairs, anywhere but at the dangerously soft-voiced Landgrave. Most of them despised their hereditary ruler, only a few shared his perverse dreams. There had been mutterings of disloyalty ever since the erratic Rakossa had ascended the throne following the suspicious death of his older brother, but the Poyos were a tradition-minded people. There was no outright rebellion then. There was none now.
None, however, could deny the wealth (however questionable the methods) which Rakossa had brought to their city-state. Many felt guilty at accepting wealth obtained by devices so callous, yet there were none who brought themselves to refuse it when their share was offered them.
Having spoken with quiet control, Rakossa now leaned forward and screamed at them. “Do you think we are blind, like the doublebody Gilirun who travels the ice by feel? Do you believe that as we face the refuge of that unmentionable woman and those off-world interlopers and that knot of fat merchants we cannot feel the wind blowing hard in our face?” He sat back, dropped his voice to an insinuating purr.
“ ’Twas not we who failed to jam with cable the steering runner of the coveted ice ship.”
One of the other officers held up another crossbow bolt. The tip and shaft were stained brown. “My lord, this came out of my back this morning.” A murmur of support sounded from the other captains.
“We ourselves were also wounded, T’hosjer,” said Rakossa. He had always to be careful. As ignorant and stupid as these warriors were, they were all he had to make reality of his dreams. Though devoid of vision, they could still be dangerous.
“Our soldiers would have jammed that raft’s steering, my lord,” said T’hosjer emphatically, “would have sent it crashing into the cliffs. Would have jammed it so it would have taken forty men a ten-day to untangle it … save for these!” and he snapped the bolt angrily in two,
“ ’Tis truth sire, save for that—and for this!” A sub-officer guarding the door into the cabin shouldered his way into the assemblage. Facing the Landgrave, he stood on one of the chairs and slammed his right leg onto the table. Triple chiv stuck in the hard wood.
A black line only a few millimeters wide ran from just below the furry knee around to the back, which was bulkier than any human calf. “The offworlders did this.”
Several of the other captains leaned forward, examined the remarkably symmetrical wound. Fur and skin had been burnt away.
“They have strange weapons which shoot pieces of sun,” the subofficer was saying. “They are long and thin and will go through the thickest shield.
“I had a woman in my command hight Zou-eadaa. A good fighter, afraid of nothing. She chivaned almost near enough to throw her cable at the raft’s huge runner. I myself saw what happened next, for I was closest to her.
“One of the offworlders pointed a tiny piece of metal at her. There was a flash of fire, blue instead of red, that was for a moment brighter than the sun.” An awed murmur rose from several officers. “It went through Zou-eadaa’s shield, her war coat beneath, her chest, to come out her back and strike the ice, which melted under it to a deep puddle.
“After the fight today, I went out on the ocean to retrieve her sword and armor and cut a muzzle lock for her family.” He held up his right paw, extended the index claw. “Were this finger long enough, I could have passed it completely through her body, through the hole the light weapon made. I did not watch myself enough this morning, and received this.” He brushed his palm sharply, bitterly, across the black line on his leg.
“ ’Tis no clean way to fight, against a weapon that makes one’s own leg smell like cooking meat.” He pulled his leg free of the table, stepped down off the chair. “Can we fight those who magic with the sun?”
Angry agreement came from several of the most disgruntled captains. Rakossa let them jabber on for a decent period, then said quietly, “Idiots.”
Conversation ceased, though there remained barely masked stares of rebellion. Rakossa stood up. “Did you know that, that you are all fools and idiots? Your mothers gave water!” He held up a paw. “Before you babble cubbish objections, we will tell you something else. We have already won this battle.”
Strange expressions greeted this ridiculous pronouncement. All knew, even his supporters, that the Landgrave was not the sanest Tran in Poyolavomaar. They wondered if he now might not have entered the region of the humored dead, a development many would have welcomed.
That was not the case. “We have won, because these detested creatures returned here to where we awaited them. We did not know if they would do so. We could not circle this enormous land to find where they might leave it and return decently to the ice. We had thought they might fly off through the sky, as Calonnin Ro-Vijar has told us the offworlders can. But he also assured us that they most likely would not.”
That last prompted a query from the officer who’d first spoken. “Where is the brave Landgrave of Arsudun?”
“Yes,” shouted another “where has he taken himself now that we must fight with blood instead of words?”
“At least you have the brains to note the absence of our valued friend and ally. Now, strain your tiny minds but a little further. Where can he have gone to? Think a moment!” He savored the sudden consternation visible on their faces. “Think of what we just told you, of the offworlders flying through the air.”
Someone finally said, in a stunned voice, “He has gone for offworlder help of our own.”
“A sensible man among you.” Rakossa marked the one who’d spoken for future promotion, provided he continued to behave with proper humility and deference toward the royal person.
“Ro-Vijar has allies among the offworlders, even as that accursed woman does. When it became clear to us that the iceraft and its cargo were elsewhere than in the city of the merchants we dispatched Ro-Vijar at his own suggestion back to his own country. He assures us he can procure offworld help. When he returns, it will be with weapons of battle so terrible that the puny hand knives of the offworlders on that raft will appear as a wooden sword beside one of steel!”
Sitting down, he let the officers mull over that bit of news. “Meanwhile,” he interjected, “the merchants and their offworlders cannot come out. If they dare attack us on the open ice, we will retreat past their wind advantage and cut them up on the sea despite their strange weapons. If they vanish again, they will be found when the Landgrave of Arsudun returns with his aid. They cannot escape us!” He slammed a paw down hard on the table.
“Then will we possess not only the great iceship, but all the riches of this bloated merchant city, which we will strip and then burn to the ground.”
The cabin rang with cheers. Rakossa sat back, smiled inwardly. Once more he had them. Maintaining the loyalty of such peasant was a disagreeable game, but one which great men like himself necessarily had to master.
Yes, he would have the raft with its beautiful, tall runners made from metal of the offworlders. He would have the mysterious short-arrow bows of its crew as well as their blood. His soldiers, who had grown too thoughtful for responsible citizens, would now have the chance to forget idle speculations and drown themselves in the flesh and wealth of Moulokin. His name and the name of Poyolavomaar would spread a little farther over this portion of the world.
There was something still more important he would gain. More vital than the conquest and rape of the city, than gaining the greatest iceship on all of Tran-ky-ky, than the power and prestige the coming destruction would bring to him. His eyes narrowed and double lids nearly closed, giving the Landgrave of Poyolavomaar a glazed, sleepy look. He would have the conc
ubine Teehiam.
Let his officers and men gain the riches of the city. His desire was for a possession much smaller. He could not live knowing a possession had defied him.
The excited buzz of conversation around him faded to a dull hum as he envisioned for the thousandth time what he would do to her when his paws again touched her skin.
It would be her last escape.
One of Mirmib’s underlings was showing Ethan and Skua the outskirts of Moulokin. They were on the far southwestern side of the city now, where dense stands of coniferous forest ran inland up the shallow subsidiary canyon. Looking behind them they could see small rafts skittering back and forth within the bowl-shaped harbor. Smoke drifted from stone chimneys. Gentle breezes muffled distant shipyard and city sounds. The blockading Poyolavomaar fleet and the possibility of violent death seemed very far away.
“These trees,” the official pointed out proudly, “are among the oldest and largest in the canyon. We do not cut them indiscriminately, but reserve them for special endeavors, such as the mainmast of an especially large raft. They serve also to break the rare severe winds that come off the plateau above the city.”
The official dropped his arms, slowing his speed on the ice-path to a crawl to accommodate the two humans who plodded uphill alongside him. But they never did get to visit the saw mills and lumberyard which lay further upcanyon.
A shout sounded behind them. An anxious-looking young Tran was chivaning uphill after them. He came to an abrupt halt, tongue lolling, panting like a winded runner. Throughout his subsequent monologue his arms gesticulated wildly, usually in the direction of the harbor.
“More—more skypeople have come.” Ethan and September exchanged glances, said nothing. “They say …” He looked at both humans warily as he paused for a breath, “they say that you are renegades among your own people, evil ones come to work evil among us. That the Tran of Poyolavomaar are but doing all Tran a service by trying to take you into custody, and that we of Moulokin should surrender you immediately.”
The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers Page 62
