‘Wind veering west two degrees!’
‘Chaka launch thirty-one!’
‘Hit! Full kill!’
‘Closing distance twelve hundred yards!’
‘Chaka launch thirty-two! Thirty-three!’
‘How many more?’ exclaimed Raka.
‘Second fleet gone! Corvettes stand by!’
Tanaka, commander of the armed forces, hurried to the warlord’s side.
‘Do we commit the corvettes, my lord?’
‘No! That’s what they want!’
‘Chaka launch thirty-four! Thirty-five! Thirty-six!’
‘Closing distance one thousand yards!’
‘We must launch, my lord! We can’t block them without the corvettes.’
‘Damn all Chakas!’ exploded Raka. ‘How many more are they holding back?’
‘Chaka launch thirty-seven!’
‘We must release the corvettes!’
‘We’re letting them dictate our strategy,’ said Raka. ‘It’s what they want.’
‘Chaka cruiser broken through! Chaka cruiser broken through!’
The cry sent a chill across the whole command deck. This was what they all dreaded: the first craft to evade the defending line of the Baraka battle fleet, and come speeding on its way towards Ombaraka itself.
‘Track for point of collision!’ barked Tanaka. ‘Sound the danger alert!’ And turning back to the warlord, his voice tense with urgency. ‘My lord – the corvettes!’
‘Go, then,’ said Raka with a heavy heart. ‘Send out the corvettes.’
On the launch decks the teams heard the horns as they sounded a new, shriller note: the danger alert. The war-cry faltered as the realisation spread from gallery to gallery: the Chaka fleet had broken through. But there was no time to wonder how or why, because right after the horns came the launch signals, and at last the corvettes were going into action.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
Although the children were in the lead corvette, they found they were not to be the first on to the plain. Behind them, one after another, the slim but deadly craft were dropping down and racing away, in rapid-fire sequence, heading arrow-straight for the approaching line of Chaka cruisers. As they were unleashed, the single breakaway Chaka cruiser was already upon them, moving at overpowering speed. It hit the first corvette, sending the lighter craft flying, and roared on to smash like a flying hammer into the lowest deck of Ombaraka. A mighty cheer rose up from Omchaka, as the spinning fragments of the crashed cruiser rose high up the walls of Ombaraka, and the people ducked for cover.
The crews on the launch decks never flinched. Corvette after corvette went snaking out, to meet and halt the advancing Chaka cruisers.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
The children waited in the one corvette that had been by-passed, watching the battle, Bowman and Kestrel intent and silent, Mumpo swinging his hooked pole and yelling with excitement.
‘Smash! Smash! Hubba hubba! Here they come! Bang-crash-bash! Ya-ha!’
Then a new series of commands could be heard ringing out, and all over Ombaraka the sailmen could be seen furling their sails. Slowly the great rolling city came to a shuddering halt. Raka had chosen his ground for the last stand. Here they would fight to the finish.
For a few long minutes, Omchaka kept rolling towards them. Had they decided to fight the last phase of the battle at close quarters? Then Omchaka too could be seen to be furling its sails, and so the two juggernauts came to rest barely five hundred yards apart, to watch their battle fleets’ last climactic clash.
On the command deck, Raka was in a frenzy of anguish.
‘Do they have any more? I must know if they have any more!’
‘No, my lord.’
‘They’ve fired their last shots? I can’t believe it.’
‘Hit and kill! Hit and kill!’
‘Wind veering south-west three degrees!’
‘Three corvettes in reserve, my lord! Do we launch?’
‘Do they have any left?’
‘All Chaka gantries empty, my lord.’
‘Then go! Go!’
He threw back his arms, and his eyes sparkled once more.
‘They’ve thrown their last punch too soon! Now we’ll see who can break through!’
The war-cries on both sides were at their height now, as the enemy tribes, close enough to see each other, competed to drown each other’s voices.
‘Cha-cha-chaka! Cha-cha-chaka!’
‘Raka ka! ka! ka! Raka ka! ka! ka!’
The two battle fleets tangled and clashed, each collision throwing up a great roar from the onlookers. There had been no more breakthroughs on either side, and the Chaka launches had ended, when the Baraka reserve corvettes received the order to go.
The children’s craft was third and last in line. Kemba’s intention was that their destruction would form the grand finale of the battle. The children stayed calm as their sails were at last unfurled, and they felt the mast strain in the wind. The pulleys overhead squealed, as they were winched to the ground. The sightsman set his course, and strapped down the mainsail boom. Kemba gave one last amiable wave.
‘Best idea I’ve ever had,’ he called down to them. ‘Give us a good show.’
‘Go!’ came the command. The holding clamps snapped open, and with a wild buck that tumbled all three children into the well, the corvette kicked into action, rocketing out into the open space. The blades on either side began to spin, and the mast-top horn let out its banshee wail.
The crowds ranged all along the decks of Ombaraka greeted the reserve corvettes with a howl of triumph. The last craft in the battle were sure to break through. Then, catching sight of the children in the last corvette, their howl became one of hatred.
‘Chaka scum! Chaka spies! Die! Die! Die!’
Then suddenly the chant faded on their lips. Huge doors had swung open on the side of Omchaka, to reveal concealed gantries, cradling an entire new battle fleet.
On the command deck, Raka saw this with cold despair. There was nothing he could do. He had committed his last craft, they were under way and could not be recalled. Ombaraka lay at the mercy of the enemy.
‘How many?’ he said dully. But he could see for himself, as the gantries rolled out. Eight battle cruisers. At five hundred yards, they would never reach maximum speed, but they would still inflict terrible damage. Safe from attack themselves, the Chaka commanders could take their time releasing them, and he had no choice but to sit here and suffer the blows. Ombaraka would be crippled. It was a disaster.
All his people knew it. A stunned silence fell over the decks and galleries, as they watched their own corvettes collide with the last of the Chaka cruisers still in the battle. No cheers for a kill now. Only the wild war-cry of Omchaka carried to them on the wind.
‘Cha-cha-chaka! Cha-cha-chaka!’
But then something odd started to happen. The third corvette, the one carrying the Chaka spies, was making a wide curving turn. Astonished, they followed its flight. Two of the children seemed to be working the set of its sails, one on the mainsail and one on the jib. The third had climbed to the top of the mainmast, where he was waving a pole. The wide turn took the corvette away from the battle, in a full circle, and back again.
In the corvette, racing at giddy speed, Bowman and Kestrel worked the sails with intense concentration, feeling the responses of the craft. On their first turn they took care to keep all four wheels on the ground, but on the second, they took the turn tighter, letting the craft tip a little. It performed beautifully. Communicating without words, they shared what they were learning.
Cross now! And over! Hold the turn! There she goes!
As they completed that second long turn, they knew they had control of the craft. They looked at each other, exchanging a flash of excitement at the speed of their movement, and at their power.
‘You all right, Mumpo?’ Kestrel called up to the mast top.
‘Happy, happy, happy!’ Mumpo carolled back, swinging
the hooked pole round his head. ‘Let’s go fishing!’
The first of the hidden Chaka cruisers hit the ground. As it churned its way into action, set on a course that avoided the tangle of smashed craft, Bowman and Kestrel swung round and gave chase. Their course was designed not to collide with the Chaka cruiser, but to sweep round and run alongside it.
Round, Kess, round! Now let her run!
The people on Ombaraka watched this manoeuvre in bewilderment. The people on Omchaka were equally bemused, and their triumphant cry fell silent. What was going on? Was the corvette joining the Chaka cruiser in its attack? As the much lighter corvette swung alongside the lumbering cruiser, it certainly looked that way.
Nearer! Nearer! And nearer –
Kestrel at the prow, calling the turns, Bowman on the main boom, running the craft as close as he dared to the Chaka cruiser, without getting mangled by its huge spinning blade. Mumpo hung from the top of the mast by his knees, reaching out with his pole, yelling, ‘Closer! Closer!’ Steadily they closed in, until they were so near that they could feel the air-rush of the cruiser’s blades.
‘Fishy fishy fishy!’ cried Mumpo.
‘Now!’ cried Kestrel.
Bowman jerked the mainsail to tip the craft on to two wheels as it raced along. Mumpo hung out from the mast and hooked the end of his pole into the top rigging of the battle cruiser.
‘Pull away! Pull away!’ cried Kestrel.
Bowman wrenched the mainsail boom, the corvette righted itself and veered sharply away from the battle cruiser, and Mumpo hung on tight. The Chaka craft lurched on to one side, Mumpo unhooked his pole, the corvette shot away, turning now on its other two wheels, and the battle cruiser came thundering down, to thrash itself to pieces with its own blades.
A wild stamping roar went up from all Ombaraka. The corvette righted itself again, crashing back on to four wheels, sweeping Mumpo vertical once more. He raised his arms like a champion.
‘Hubba hubba Mumpo!’ called Kestrel.
And round they raced, back into the attack. The light of battle was in their eyes, and the more they struck, the bolder they became. As the great cruisers were launched, they leaped on them, running them to ground like a hound harrying deer. Twice they missed, but so light were they on the turns that they were back round again for another strike before the heavy cruisers could build up the speed to outrun them. And with every kill, up went the echoing stamping roar from the decks of Ombaraka.
On the command deck, Raka watched in awe, his hands pulling convulsively at his beaded belt.
‘These are no Chaka spies,’ he said softly.
The disaster was turning into triumph before his eyes.
After the fourth of the brand new battle cruisers had been destroyed, the Chaka high command launched no more. The doors to the secret launch decks closed again, and Omchaka set its sails for a retreat.
Raka of Baraka saw this, and ordered the victory call. The high horns began it, and the people of Ombaraka took it up, every man, woman and child. To the chanting of a thousand voices, Bowman and Kestrel steered the corvette back towards its mother craft, its attack blades still turning. As they came into the lee of the great structure, the sails slackened, and the craft coasted to a standstill. Mumpo came slithering down the mainmast, and the three children embraced each other, still trembling with the tension of the battle.
‘Mumpo, you’re a hero! Bo, you’re a hero!’
‘All heroes,’ said Mumpo, happier than he’d ever been in his entire life. ‘We’re the three heroes!’
As they were hoisted back on board, they were cheered and cheered, all the way over the launch deck and up the walkway and through the pillared halls to the command deck, where Raka was waiting for them.
‘After what I have seen today,’ he declared, ‘I know that you are not Chakas. And if you’re not Chakas, you are Barakas! You are our brothers!’
‘And our sister,’ said Counsellor Kemba, smiling his most amiable smile.
Raka embraced each one of them, shaking with emotion.
‘I and all my people are at your service!’
As a special sign of his gratitude, Raka of Baraka ordered that all three children should have their hair braided by the Master Braider. After some earnest discussions among his counsellors, it was agreed that the young heroes could have gold threads braided into their hair. This was the highest honour short of the blades worn by the warlord himself, and many eyebrows were raised at its granting. But as Counsellor Kemba pointed out, the children would not be staying long on Ombaraka, and once beyond the care of the Master Braider the gold threads would soon tarnish.
Mumpo was very excited at the prospect of golden hair; Kestrel and Bowman less so. But they sensed it would be discourteous to refuse. Once the elaborate process had begun, however, they found themselves enjoying it more than they had expected. First, their hair was washed three times, which at last removed from it the mud of the Underlake. Then skilled combers set to work drawing out the strands of hair into hundreds of slender tresses. The combing was both gentle and strong, which was an odd sensation, and made their scalps tingle. Then the under-braiders took over, working to the instructions of the Master Braider himself.
Each tress was plaited both with itself and with three lengths of gold thread, to form a fine criss-cross braid, ending in a little lumpy golden knot. Unlike Salimba’s earlier work on Mumpo’s hair, the plaits were worked carefully to hang perfectly straight, and this took a very long time. If the Master Braider saw the beginnings of a kink in a plait, he ordered it undone to the roots, and started again.
When this patient work was almost done, Counsellor Kemba joined them.
‘My dear young friends,’ he said, ‘Raka of Baraka sends me to invite you to a dinner in your honour this evening. He also wishes to be informed if there is any way in which he can show his gratitude in a more lasting fashion.’
‘We would just like to be helped on our way,’ said Kestrel.
‘And what way is that?’
‘We have to find the road known as the Great Way.’
‘The Great Way?’ Kemba’s pleasant voice suddenly sounded grave. ‘What do you want with the Great Way?’
Kestrel met Bowman’s eyes, and saw there the same suspicion.
‘It’s just the path we have to follow,’ she said. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘I know where it was,’ replied Kemba. ‘The Great Way hasn’t been used for many, many years. That region is full of dangers. There are wolves there. And worse.’
‘Wolves don’t frighten us,’ said Mumpo. ‘We’re the three heroes.’
‘So we have seen,’ said Kemba with a thin smile. ‘But nevertheless, I think it would be best if we were to take you south, to Aramanth, which you say is your home.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Kestrel firmly. ‘We have to go north.’
Counsellor Kemba bowed in what seemed like assent, and left them to their braiding.
The final results were spectacular. The three children gazed at themselves in the glass and were silent with awe. Their hair now haloed their faces in a shimmer of light, which danced this way and that with every move of their heads. The Master Braider beamed at them with pride.
‘I knew the gold would set off your pale skins,’ he said. ‘We Barakas need stronger colours, to tell you the truth. Gold would be lost on me.’
He fingered his own red, orange, and acid-green plaits.
At the grand dinner, the children’s entrance was greeted by a standing ovation. All down the long lines of tables gasps of admiration could be heard, at the gleam of their golden braids in the candle-light. Raka of Baraka beckoned them to sit on his either side. Thinking that he was pleasing them, he announced,
‘We’re sailing south! Kemba has told me that your one wish is to return to Aramanth. So I have given the order to sail south.’
‘But that’s not right,’ cried Kestrel. ‘We want to go north.’
The smile left Raka’s f
ace. He looked across the table to Kemba for an explanation. Counsellor Kemba spread his smooth hands.
‘I consider it our duty, my lord, to look after our young heroes in every way we can. The road north is impassable. The bridge over the gorge is in ruins. No travellers dare go that way any more.’
‘Well, we dare,’ said Kestrel fiercely.
‘There is another matter.’ Kemba sighed, as if it hurt him to speak of it. ‘My lord, as you know, although we have been at war with Omchaka for a long time, we have been spared a greater danger. I speak of – ’ he hesitated, then murmured low, ‘the Zars.’
‘The Zars?’ said Raka, in his booming tones. And the word was repeated all down the lines of tables, like an echo. ‘The Zars – the Zars.’
‘Were the children inadvertently to wake – ’
‘Quite, quite,’ said Raka hastily. ‘Better to head south.’
The twins heard this with dismay.
Leave it for now, said Bowman silently. So Kestrel said nothing more, and Counsellor Kemba, watching them closely, was satisfied.
At the end of the grand dinner, Bowman asked Raka for a special favour. He asked to speak to the warlord alone.
‘Certainly,’ said Raka, who had eaten and drunk well, and was filled with sensations of goodwill. ‘Why not?’
But Kemba was suspicious.
‘I think, my lord – ’ he began.
‘Now, now, Kemba,’ said Raka. ‘You worry too much.’
He took Bowman off into his private quarters, and Kemba had to content himself with standing close to the door in the next room, and listening to every word.
What he heard was not at all what he expected. For a long time, the boy and the warlord sat together in total silence. It even seemed possible that Raka had gone to sleep. But then the counsellor heard the boy’s voice, speaking softly.
‘I can feel you remembering,’ he said.
‘Yes .. .’ This was Raka.
‘You’re a baby. Your father takes you everywhere. He holds you high, and he smiles. You’re only little, but you feel his pride and love.’
‘Yes, yes .. .’
The Wind Singer Page 15
