“How can you act legally and not morally?” Ethan wanted to know.
September laughed, looking with pity at his young friend. “Feller-me-lad, you don’t know much about government, do you? Or law.”
“Government—that reminds me.” Ethan hastened to change the subject. He’d tunneled too deeply into another’s soul and had entered hollows he now wished he’d stayed out of. “How are we going to make our discoveries known to proper Commonwealth authorities without letting anyone cover them up?”
“So you’re finally as suspicious of Trell as I am, feller-me-lad?”
“Almost.”
“Good enough. Never trust an official who smiles that much.”
“He knows everything that happens in Brass Monkey. We need someone who can command a closed beam for off-world transmission.”
“Isn’t—anyone,” September grunted. He seemed hard at work on the problem, having already forgotten the moody discourse of moments ago. “Wait now.” He rose, towered over Ethan. “Ought to be one office that can send closed messages.”
“Don’t keep me guessing, Skua. Trell’s Commissioner, and he can—”
“Think a second, feller-me-lad. Brass Monkey’s large enough to rate a padre.”
Being only ah occasional church-goer, and less religious than most, Ethan hadn’t thought of the local representative of the United Church. No one, least of all a comparatively minor functionary like Trell, would dare tamper with a sealed Church communication.
“Now that that little gully’s crossed, let’s go back and see if we can’t help put our ship back together, eh, young feller-me-lad?”
They left the shore and headed toward the icerigger. The fifth and final duralloy runner, the steering skate, was being hoisted into place at her stern. Ethan snatched a surreptitious glance at his companion. The patina of indestructible confidence had returned to his expression, only slightly tarnished.
Skua September had turned out to be as vulnerable as any human. His huge frame simply gave him greater depths in which to hide his passions.
With typical lack of formality, the Moulokinese prepared no noisy demonstration to greet the return of the Slanderscree. The townsfolk went about their everyday business and the shipwrights who’d helped replace wheels with runners returned to their yards. Officially, the sole ceremony consisted of minister Mirmib and two aides meeting them at dockside.
“Landgrave Lady K’ferr Shri-Vehm bids you welcome again to Moulokin, my friends. Our breath is your warmth.
“There will be a feast tonight to celebrate your unexpected but nonetheless welcome return, at which time you may further enlarge on this wondrous history you have made for us.”
“Wondrous isn’t the word,” Ethan addressed the minister. “Significant would be better. Among other things, it shows that your new confederation isn’t as far-fetched as we first thought, because all Tran once lived within a far stronger union.”
“A union repeatedly scattered by weather stranger than I can believe, or so go the rumors our shipwrights have told me,” Mirmib replied.
As it developed, the feast of the night extended in various incarnations for several days, during which time the crew enjoyed the hospitality of Moulokin. Their tales engendered considerable, lively speculation and discussion among the townspeople. Some of the stories lined up neatly with local religions, which grew at once stronger for the confirmation and weaker for the reality of it.
When it was adjudged time for the Slanderscree to embark on its circuitous return to Arsudun, the Moulokinese finally abandoned their casual reserve. They took leave of their work to crowd around the harbor and voice enthusiastic, spontaneous wishes for the safe journey and good wind of their new friends and allies. With the last shouts of the watch patrolling the outer gate adding to the wind pouring down the canyon, the icerigger raced out onto the frozen sea.
Instead of paralleling the cliffs, Ta-hoding set a course northward. They would cross the endless pressure ridge of ice at a different point, to avoid possible confrontation with any lingering Poyolavomaar forces that might be guarding their first passageway through that broken, jumbled barrier.
Ethan stood on the helmdeck, watching the canyon that concealed Moulokin recede behind them. Ta-hoding animatedly waddled around the great wheel, happy as a pup. His steersmen also looked pleased at nothing in particular.
When asked to explain his beatific expression, the captain replied, “Why should we not be happy, friend Ethan? We sail with smooth, clean ice beneath us instead of unpredictable rock and dirt. I know now that if I order the mastmen to port a spar one jahn, the Slanderscree will react precisely so,” and he outlined air with a sweeping motion of one long arm.
“No longer need we guess at the results of our maneuvers. No more must I…”
“Below the deck!” came a shout from the mainmast lookout. “Sail five kijat to port!”
“Must be a merchantman, headed for the city.” Ta-hoding strained to look in the indicated direction. The horizon remained uninterrupted.
“Below the deck!” A note of urgency in the lookout’s yell sent idle sailors chivaning to the rail. “Four sails more traveling with the first… no, five! More still!”
“Do you suppose, friend Ethan…” A worried Ta-hoding let the sentence trail off. His jovial manner had faded.
Dan spread wide, Hunnar came shooting onto the helmdeck via one of the ice ramps leading up from the main deck. He dropped his arms and dan, lost speed, and braked in a shower of ice, then skated impatiently to join the captain and Ethan.
“Turn about, Captain.” His tone was grim. “They could be an unusually large group of merchants traveling together for protection, but we’d best not take chances.”
As if to confirm their worst suspicions, the lookout sounded again. “Eight, nine… I count at least fifteen sails, possibly more!”
“Must be the Poyolavomaar fleet. So they haven’t given up. They’ve waited all this time, hoping we’d return. Damn!”
“The girl Teeliam was right.” Hunnar’s gaze was fixed on the portside horizon. “Who should better know a madman’s desires than one who was subject to them? Turn about, Captain.”
But Ta-hoding had already begun unleashing a river of commands to all within earshot. When he concluded, he returned to stare in the same direction as Hunnar and Ethan.
“’Tis difficult to say what may happen.” The plump captain looked concerned. “We cannot swing to starboard, for it would take us into the cliffs. To make headway against the canyon winds, we need the westwind behind us. Yet they are already positioned to make use of it themselves. We have no choice but to swing toward them, catch the westwind on our starboard side, and swing back to Moulokin.” He stared up at Hunnar. “We may run into their point rafts before we can swing ’round to the west again.”
“Take care of your ship, captain friend. I will take care of other considerations.” Hunnar raised his arm and slid back toward the main deck, already organizing in his mind ways to repel potential boarders.
Off-watch crew came pouring onto the deck. Some of the sailors were buckling on swords and armor while double eyelids blinked away sleep.
Ethan continued to stare, looking forward as the prow of the icerigger began to come around and point directly at the onrushing Poyo rafts. By then the opposition had drawn close enough for the lookouts aloft to distinguish markings and pennants. The faint hope that the vessels might constitute part of some huge merchant fleet vanished.
A stocky, wizened Tran had mounted the helmdeck, stood alongside Ethan. Balavere Longax, Sofold’s most respected senior warrior, gestured to their left with a clawed finger. The claw was pitted and dull, a fragment of worn feldspar set on the tip of a gray branch.
“Infantry,” he grunted. “Slower than rafts but more maneuverable. They seek to cut us off before we can gather the westwind behind us.” He fingered the sword slung at his waist, a weapon far younger than himself. Turning, he shouted toward the main deck. �
��Ware bowmen! Keep to your shields, men and women of Sofold!”
Arbalesters, carrying the crossbows devised by Milliken Williams to aid in the defense of Sofold against the assault of Sagyanak the Death and the Horde over a year ago, took up positions high in the Slanderscree’s rigging.
Balavere studied the rush of infantry, now curving slightly toward the raft, “We must pass through them, but they will not stop us.” He glanced back at Ethan, grinned unexpectedly. “Their archers will concentrate their fire here, my friend, to try and pick off our wheelmen. Best you get yourself below.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay right here.” His own confidence shocked him. Little more than a year on this harsh world had transformed him considerably. Contact with the Commonwealth would surely change the Tran. Contact with the Tran had already changed at least one human. He patted the sword slung at his side. It felt familiar, comfortable there. But it was the hand beamer he raised and checked.
“Charge is way down,” he told Balavere, squinting to read a tiny gauge through mask and ice goggles. “I expect Skua’s and Milliken’s are low also. But the first bowman who comes too close is going to get a strong dose of modern technology.”
“I had forgotten about your knives that fight with the long light,” the general said. “Good. Remain then and help protect our mobility.” He walked over to talk with Ta-hoding.
“I worry not overmuch about their arrows,” Ethan heard the general tell the captain. “They could do worse, if this Rakossa has good advice. Himself I think incapable of much tactical subtlety. Their rafts sail with discipline, so keep the wind and try not to cut us off overfast. They may try to jam the steer runner with cables.”
“Think you I’ve not been in battle before?” Anxious and concerned as he was, Ta-hoding wasn’t about to let Balavere or anyone else tell him how to handle his ship. “Keep any cables out from our stem and I will deliver all safely to the harbor.” He muttered a Trannish curse. “Had we but a few hours longer, we could have outrun them. Only a—”
He was interrupted once more by a cry from the mainmast. “Ten ships, eighteen kijat to port!”
By then the icerigger had swung around to where westwind was beginning to fill her sails. She picked up speed, but the sailors of the main Poyo body were visible on the decks of their rafts. A new threat.
“They have cut us off, then,” Balavere observed.
“Not yet.” Ta-hoding bellowed new orders. Painful creaks sounded above them, and Ethan anxiously looked upward. The adjustable spars had been twisted around so far that they were holding the sails almost parallel to the raft’s keel line.
“Think you they’ll take the strain?” Balavere was also gazing up into the webwork of singing rigging. The foremast groaned, appeared to bend slightly from the vertical.
“Did I not, I would never have given the order,” replied Ta-hoding. “If we did not try it, we would truly turn straight into these ten new rafts.
Continuing to accelerate, the Slanderscree curved tightly around back toward the canyon. When it became apparent to the infantry on the ice and the ten flanking rafts that their quarry was going to slide past instead of into them, the bowmen unleashed a rain of arrows in the icerigger’s direction.
One stuck tautly into the hessavar hide shield Ethan had been given. He stared at it for a second, then ducked back behind the railing as another shaft whizzed close by overhead.
A small group of Poyo infantry had managed to gain slightly on their companions. Now they were chivaning parallel to the icerigger. A few had even managed to slip beneath her hull, where they could not be seen. As Balavere had guessed, thick pika-pina cables were slung on the backs of several of the attackers.
Hunnar, looking tired but not worried, appeared on the helmdeck. “We will have to put men over the side.” An arrow landed at his feet, stuck quivering in the deck. Both Tran ignored it. “Our crossbowmen cannot pick them off quickly enough before they get beneath us.”
“Any we send over who fall behind would be lost instantly,” countered Balavere. He gestured at the swarming Poyo infantry, who were gathering in steadily greater numbers around the icerigger. “We cannot afford to lose many of our complement.”
“We cannot afford to have them jam our steering!” Young warrior confronted old.
A commotion forward temporarily brought the argument to a halt. Despite the danger, Ethan rose so he could see over the bow. A brown-gray arrowhead was streaming toward them from the vicinity of the nearing canyon.
“Looks like a sortie from the city.” Hunnar was standing close by him, gazing with satisfaction at the widening silver river pouring from the canyon mouth. “Our new brothers and sisters have come to help.”
With the Poyolavomaar fleet close behind and infantry preparing to ensnarl the Slanderscree’s steering mechanism in green cable, the arrival of forces from Moulokin saved Balavere and Hunnar further argument. The Moulokinese exploded into the unprepared Poyo troops. With the canyon wind canceling out the westwind, the Moulokinese soldiers now had the advantage of speed and maneuverability. They had timed their charge perfectly.
“Half the Poyolavomaar infantry succumbed to that initial surge, whereupon the Moulokinese arrowhead formation split, the soldiers curving around to left and right to race back toward their canyon. Some of them, in making the turn, came under fire from the nearest Poyo rafts and were cut down. Most were soon flanking the Slanderscree to port and starboard, exchanging victory yells with the sailors on board.
The canyon had become a familiar, gaping slash in the cliff wall. The icerigger slowed as she fought the powerful winds racing off the continent and down through the canyon, but so did the speed of her pursuers.
The Poyolavomaar infantry who remained made it a difficult last few moments, however. Shielded from the strong headwinds by the Slanderscree’s bulk, they were able to overtake her. However, between the escorting Moulokinese and the accurate fire of arbalesters positioned on the huge raft’s stern, no cable-carrying enemy soldier was able to close nearer than a dozen meters to the vulnerable steering skate.
They were within the towering walls of the canyon then, making slow progress inland with the Poyo fleet close behind. Once, one of the smaller pursuing rafts came almost within bow range. It mounted a pair of small catapults, one on each side of its single mast. Both were soon throwing skins filled with flaming oil at the wooden icerigger.
The Poyo catapulters had not compensated for the tremendously powerful headwind, however. Not only did the dangerous, fiery sacks fail to reach the retreating raft, but the wind held them up and carried them back to fall behind the catapult-mounting craft. Infantry tacking behind it scattered frantically as the flaming skins burst on the ice, sending burning oil in all directions.
The second Poyo ship hit sections of ice temporarily melted by the hot oil and slid awkwardly sideways as its runners lost purchase. Two more rafts piled up behind it, doing their best to avoid smashing into their out-of-control companion.
All this contributed immensely to the enjoyment of Moulokinese and sailors, who added hoots of derision and some especially choice Trannish insults to the confusion taking place in their wake.
Balavere permitted himself a crusty smile. “If all their attacks prove as ineffectual, we will have no trouble with these.”
“’Tis clear—I mean, it’s clear now why the Moulokinese didn’t report the Poyo fleet’s presence,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “Any neutral merchant raft was likely captured or frightened off, and those two rafts Minister Mirmib said were still out scouting will probably never return home.”
Balavere’s smile disappeared at Ethan’s words. He studied the scene behind them. Their pursuers were untangling and beginning to tack laboriously upcanyon after them. “They still owe much, friend Ethan. I fear that once we are safe behind the Moulokinese walls, they will give up for good this time.”
Ethan happened to see two figures conversing by the entrance to the main cabin: Tee
liam and Elfa. “I don’t think so, Balavere. So long as this Rakossa has control, I don’t think they’ll ever give up. We may be here for a long, long time.”
XVII
THE SLANDERSCREE AND ITS Moulokinese escort slid in through the massive gate in the outer wall. Word of their return and the Poyo attack had resulted in full mobilization of the city. The wall was packed with armed Tran. Others waited in casual but still disciplined formation on the ice between the two walls, while rafts shuttled supplies out from the city itself. Ta-hoding brought the icerigger to a halt, reefed in most of her sail. “Why are we stopping here?” Ethan asked.
“Sir Hunnar has conveyed to me a wish to disembark, friend Ethan.”
Moving to the railing, Ethan saw that the knight and a majority of the icerigger’s crew was swarming iceward. To help defend the wall, naturally. Ethan ran to join them. September was already on the ice, moving awkwardly without his skates. Williams looked up as Ethan neared a boarding ladder.
“Aren’t you coming too, Milliken?”
“No, Ethan.” The teacher didn’t look at him. “You know I’m not much good in a fight.”
“I’ve seen you in combat, Milliken. You handle yourself as well as anyone.”
The teacher smiled gratefully. “Better one of us retain a partly charged beamer. Sure, I can fight with it. But when the charge is gone, I’d be an encumbrance. Swordplay’s not for me, Ethan.”
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.
The Icerigger Trilogy Page 61
