by Byron Preiss
* * *
The word spread quickly from patches of brush under which Step and Jurgan hid, to a butternut tree where the Wayman leaned patiently. Through his good eye he spied the three ships over the valley. In the center was the smallest, manned by a single rider, and it headed straight toward the hills. The other two veered off, one ship to the north, one ship to the south, most likely to drive them back from three directions.
All about him, there was panic. The Elders had succeeded in keeping the men from dashing back toward the shore, and ordered most of them to take cover in the ravines and copses around them.
A burly man dashed past the Wayman, who put out a foot almost casually and tripped him. The man rolled over, shouting, and the Wayman pulled him to his feet.
“If you run out into the open, the Simbalese will find you,” he warned, and he pushed the man into the shadow of the tree.
The man nodded nervously, and did his best to imitate the gnarled trunk. The Wayman turned his one good eye back to the sky. The small windship was almost directly overhead.
* * *
Tenniel and his small band had not reached the main encampment when the windships appeared. Uninformed of Jondalrun’s plan to wait, they hid quickly on the far side of the hills, with little more than fog for cover. They cowered as the windship passed overhead. It seemed to be coming lower. There was no question but that its occupant could see them. Tenniel gripped his ax, listening to the moans of fear from those about him. He was responsible for these men. They were too old, too young, or too injured to face an attack of a windship. Something had to be done. He stared up at the windship looming out of the gray fog above them. Why had not Jondalrun ordered an attack by now?
He lifted the ax. “Someone has to begin it,” he whispered out loud. Then, with all his strength, he cast the ax at the windship above him.
The men about him watched as the weapon hurtled through the mist and the ship’s foresail and vanished from view. For a long moment there was no sound. The dark shape drifted silently onward. Then, suddenly, from the deck, there was a burst of orange flame.
Several men shouted in panic, convinced that the Simbalese were casting fire from the windship. Then the mist cleared, and they saw flame climbing rapidly up the sails. Tenniel shouted in relief. The ship was burning! He had struck the first blow, and it had been effective. At last, he would be a hero!
* * *
“Thalen!” Kiorte cried uselessly, as he saw the forward balloon sail of Thalen’s ship billow and collapse. A drift of fog hid the scene for a moment, and when it cleared he could see flames climbing quickly up the sail and across the ropes to other sails. An arrow, a spear, an ax—something—had ripped open a sail, and the sagging material had come in contact with the Sindril brazier. The windship, its buoyancy fading as the ribbed sections deflated, began to drop toward the ground.
There was the sound of the troops below him, charging across the valley. As long as the ship was in the air, Thalen could still be rescued by windship. Even a crash would not keep him from his brother. Nor a thousand Fandorans. Nor a dragon. Not while Thalen was still alive.
* * *
Hawkwind looked grimly at the distant orange trail fading in the mist. Thalen could be injured, or worse. They had to rescue the ship.
He had hoped to defeat the farmers without battle, but the Fandorans were apparently set on war. They had made the first assault, and had done so without warning.
Hawkwind reared his horse and faced the men and women in the clearing behind him. “Give the order,” he shouted to Vora. “Summon the captains! We shall rescue Corporal Thalen!”
Troubled by the knowledge of what bloodshed would bring, the dark-eyed miner rode quickly toward the hills beyond the valley.
* * *
From the hills the Fandoran army stared at the threat moving toward them through the valley. It would be only minutes before the Simbalese army reached the hills.
“How shall we protect ourselves?” Lagow said angrily. “They are sending soldiers on horseback! This is your fault, Jondalrun. Tenniel should never have been left alone with those men!”
Jondalrun turned to the wheelwright and said, “Silence! You must help!”
“Help? This is madness. We should retreat through the cover of the fog while there is still a chance.”
Jondalrun shook his head. “No! They must be shown that we are not frightened by their windships or their army.”
“At the cost of our lives?”
“No!” said Jondalrun. He clutched Dayon’s arm. “Pass the word to the men. Tell them to stay hidden in the woods as we had planned.” He faced Lagow again. “To kill us, the Simbalese must find us. We have lost the chance to surprise them, but we are still blessed with cover.”
The words had reason, but they had come too late.
From the top of the hill they heard a call to arms, and then suddenly a panicked section of the Fandoran army charged forward.
“There’s no stopping them!” said Pennel. “They are frightened and hungry. They have journeyed far.”
Jondalrun nodded angrily. “We have little alternative. They rally for justice and the security of our land. Give the order: we advance!”
“No order is necessary!” Tamark replied. “We must hurry after them to give them what orders we can!”
* * *
Followed by the boy and the girl, Amsel ducked through an archway of the small park. The children were becoming a problem! Although they still thought him to be a child, their suspicion was growing. The boy, whose name was Willow, had repeatedly asked Amsel where he lived. Only by keeping in motion had Amsel continued to evade the question. The girl, on the other hand, had proved to be a good source of information. From her he had learned not only the location of the palace but also more about Hawkwind and the woman known as Ceria.
At the edge of the park Amsel noticed a low stone ledge. Four feet below it was a marble pathway that headed back toward the river. If the young girl was correct, it would connect with a path to a broad walk lined with enormous trees. If he followed these trees to the east, he would be back near the center of the forest.
“Tell us where you live!” said Willow, leaping in front of Amsel. “I want to know now!” He aimed the spear in Amsel’s path.
Woni pushed it away. “Where are you going?” she asked Amsel sweetly. “Why won’t you tell us who you are?”
Amsel hopped quickly from the stone ledge to a marble pathway four feet below it.
“Wait!” the boy cried.
Amsel looked back at them sternly. “My friends are in danger!” he warned. “I must be going!”
“Don’t go that way!” Willow shouted. “That’s the way the dragon went!”
Dragon? thought Amsel. The child must be younger than he looks, to still believe in dragons.
“Why won’t you tell us your name?” asked Willow again.
“I don’t have the time,” Amsel said. “I must be leaving.” He turned and hurried down the path.
Willow watched Amsel depart. “Do you know what I think?” he said to Woni.
“What?”
“I think that’s the person the guards wanted to find.”
“The guards in the plaza? They’re looking for a Fandoran, Willow!”
The boy nodded cautiously. “I know. I think that’s him.”
The girl looked keenly at Amsel as he turned a corner on the ledge. “I don’t think so,” she said softly. “He’s just a boy.”
Willow shook his head and replied, “When did you ever see a boy with wrinkles? I think we ought to tell my grandfather about him.”
* * *
The Simbalese advanced quickly. The fog was quite thick in places now; a white ground mist was everywhere. The flaming windship was a dull orange glow in the fog; then it burst through the low-hanging clouds. Hawkwind, riding at the vanguard of his charging troops, could see that Thalen had thrown the anchor rope over the side. The hooks dragged along the ground, ripping
up rocks and grass, and then caught in a small bush. Thalen swung quickly out onto the rope and began letting himself down, hand over hand. The craft itself was burning now—in a moment, the rope would catch fire. The Fandorans hurried forward, shouting and whooping. They meant to take the Windrider prisoner—or worse, Hawkwind thought. “We cannot let him fall into their hands!” he shouted, spurring his horse forward. But he knew he could not reach the windship in time.
* * *
The other windships were moving back toward Thalen’s craft, but they were going slowly, having to tack against the wind at their higher altitude. But Kiorte was going with the wind, and his was a lighter craft. Though he had a farther distance to go, he nevertheless reached Thalen’s ship before any of the Simbalese.
He fitted a bolt in his crossbow and sighted down at the Fandorans below. Through swirling patches of fog he could see Thalen climbing down the length of the anchor rope, while the burning windship settled. It was a mass of flame now, a yellow-and-red pyre. The rope was burning as well, but Thalen reached the ground safely.
The nearest Fandoran was less than a hundred yards away. Already Kiorte could see arrows beginning to fly toward his brother.
“They shall not have you, Thalen,” he murmured, and released the trigger.
Tenniel was foremost in the charge toward the fallen windship. He was shouting, a wordless cry of exuberance. His action had precipitated the fighting, and now, at last, things were going as they should. Now battle was joined, and the glorious dreams he had had in what seemed like another life might still be real. He ran forward, leaping from rock to grassy hillock, dodging trees, leading his men into battle, as it should be. Now there was no more question about who was right and who was wrong.
The burning windship he glimpsed as he passed it. No longer an awesome thing of sorcery, an unconquerable behemoth of the air, it crumbled to smoldering embers. Ahead was its pilot. The misty ground was too dotted with trees and copses for an arrow shot to bring him down; he dodged from tree to rock to gully, not presenting a clear target. But it did not matter—he would not reach the safety of the Simbalese army. He, Tenniel, would overtake him and finish the job he had started.
He drew his knife and held it like a sword as he gained on the fleeing Sim. And then pain burst like flame in his right shoulder. His knife fell from a suddenly nerveless grasp, and he fell too, rolling over onto his shoulder. The pain was unbearable from the start, and falling onto it made it infinitely worse. It hurt more than anything else had ever hurt him, even the time when his leg had been caught between the spokes of his father’s cartwheel and broken like a twig. Tenniel screamed. The rolling and the fall and the pain seemed to go on forever. Eventually the world steadied beneath him. He felt with his left hand; an arrow protruded from his shoulder. He had barely realized this when a fresh burst of pain in his side tore another scream from him. At first he thought he had been shot again; then he realized he had been kicked by a boot. Men were running past him, all about him, not noticing him in the ground mist, anxious to reach the enemy. Another stepped on his lower back, and another tripped and stumbled across his wounded arm. Tenniel screamed again, and began to pull himself forward with his good arm. Through the mist, a few feet away, a large rock loomed. Toward this he dragged himself, his wounded arm trailing uselessly. It seemed to take an eternity before he reached the mossy shelter of the overhanging rock. There he crouched, feeling cold water drip upon him. Red drums of pain beat in his ears, through them he could faintly hear the clangor of weapons and the shouts and cries of war. The two armies had met. The battle had finally begun, he thought bitterly, and already he was out of it.
“It’s not fair,” he whimpered as the last of the men ran past him into the fog. Then he was alone, save for the sounds of the battle—and the pain.
* * *
From his vantage point, Kiorte could see that fog covered the entire western end of the valley, and an eddying tendril of it was threatening to obscure the coming clash. He was finding it hard to keep Thalen and the Fandorans in sight. He had been firing arrows steadily at the latter, but had hit only a few men. Still, that had been enough to cause local pockets of confusion that had slowed the charge as a whole. But not enough—Thalen would still be overtaken before he reached safety. Kiorte turned his windship into the wind, tacking against it, following his brother’s course. He was perhaps twenty feet from the ground, just above the gray layer of fog, when a long rift opened, and below him was Thalen, running. Not fifty feet behind him came a young Fandoran soldier, with mattock upraised. Kiorte tossed a rope overboard. “Thalen!” he shouted. Thalen looked up as the windship passed over him, the rope dangling from it. He put on a burst of speed and leaped. The mist closed in at that moment, but Kiorte could tell by the way the rope stiffened that his brother was climbing it. A moment later, Thalen burst through the mist, climbing steadily, hand over hand. Kiorte reached over the side and grabbed him by the arms. The craft tilted dangerously as he pulled his brother aboard.
“Close, by all counts!” Thalen gasped. He collapsed against the low cabin, breathing heavily, his arms and side muscles trembling.
“Close,” Kiorte agreed. “But you are safe now.”
“Those vermin,” Thalen whispered. “They destroyed my ship—part of my life. I built her myself.”
“I know,” Kiorte said softly. The love of a Windrider for his craft was something impossible to explain to a groundfellow—but no words were necessary between the two of them. “I shall return behind the lines,” Kiorte said after a moment. “Our Brothers will take over now.” He watched the other two windships coming in behind him.
“Little good they can do in this fog,” Thalen said. “Also, there is the dragon to be considered, Kiorte. If it appears—”
“Again this talk of a dragon! I have heard hysterical fragments in Overwood of it.”
“It is true,” Thalen said. “I saw it! A monster with a wingspan twice the width of our sails!”
“Might there not be some more rational explanation? Perhaps the Fandorans are not so primitive as we thought . . . perhaps they have flying craft as well—”
“Kiorte, this creature was alive—make no mistake. I saw its muscles flexing its wings, and I saw the awful fire of its eyes. It was a dragon!”
Kiorte looked at his brother. Tired and upset as Thalen was, Kiorte knew that he was not lying.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Raise the flags—tell the other ships to resume their waiting position among the trees. We can do no good out here now.”
“What of us?”
“We are going down behind the lines,” Kiorte said grimly. “I must have words with Hawkwind.”
* * *
Amsel hurried along the narrow marble walkway by the river. The children suspect something, he thought. The Princess must have sent Waymen to find me by now.
He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun and looked down the luminescent walkway. Large orange berries from the bushes overhead had stained the marble. Amsel scooped up a ripe-looking sample.
Hookberries, he thought, but unlike any color I have seen!
He tasted one of them; it was succulent and filled with seeds. “These can hold me for a while,” he murmured, “at least until I can reach the palace.”
He recalled his mission and somehow kept moving, eating as he walked. Soon he was at the end of the marble path. It stopped at a winding flight of stone steps that climbed a hill. Up them he went, but slowly, for the steps were steep, and he was exhausted. The stairs were lined with thick, heavily scented bushes, and the perfumed air made his head spin. He stopped for a moment to rest. As he sat on the steps, he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps from the top of the stairs. The winding route of the staircase and the thick bushes prevented him from seeing who was coming, but the rattle and clank of trappings and armor told him plainly.
“Oh, no!” he moaned. “Waymen!” He looked back and realized there was no place to hide. The stairs ran in clear
view to the marble path, and the marble path ran next to the river. He was not returning to the river.
“I don’t know what the fuss is with this spy!” echoed a voice from the top of the stairs. “The farmers will be no match for the army! This fool can do little to upset things in Overwood.”
“The Princess is obsessed with finding him,” said another. “Something tells me he’s worth more than the reward she’s offered.”
“No matter,” said the first, “it’s better than following Hawkwind into the valley. I’ve no taste for battle, even with the Fandorans!”
Amsel listened closely. If these men were correct, then the battle might not have started yet. There could still be time.
“Come this way!” said the first voice. “We’d better check the river.”
They came into view—two large soldiers with scabbarded swords by their sides, wearing helmets and hauberks that gleamed dully in the cloudy daylight. They saw Amsel the same time he saw them, and they both stopped, surprised into immobility for a moment.
Amsel did the only thing he could think of to disconcert them. He ran straight in their direction. There’s a reward on me, he thought. They wouldn’t hurt me. I hope!
He dodged around the first soldier, but by then the other one had drawn his word, which was almost as long as Amsel. A second later the rasp of metal sounded behind him as well.
“Come peacefully,” the guard in front of him said, “or you will look even shorter without your head.”
Amsel nodded. “You can put that away,” he said. “I’m a reasonable man.”
The first guard grunted. “That’s better,” he said, but he did not sheathe his sword. Amsel felt a sharp jab in his back. “Move!” said the guard behind him. “The Princess wants to see you.”
