And the goblins, too, he found strangely likable. Rude and disorganized to the core, they still possessed the exuberance of healthy, fast-growing children-even if they should have decided to grow up long ago. Still, he couldn’t bear the thought of putting them into battle, any more than he could have accepted sending his own ten- or twelve-year-old sons into a mortal fight.
So instead, the defense of Circle at Center had fallen to the elves and the giants. So far they had done an effective job, but Natac admitted private concern at the reports of this great raft. How would it be used? And if it came toward the city, how could they hope to stop it?
“The caravels will sortie at the first sign of this raft,” he said, indicating the map spread out before them. “We can’t let them get on the flank or rear of the causeway. We have to assume it’s got a wooden structure, and if it’s wood it can be burned.”
As the others nodded in agreement at his sage pronouncement, Natac felt a stab of guilt. He could only hope that he was right.
“W hat in the Seven Circles is that?” growled Rawknuckle Barefist. He held a great axe against his chest, caressing the smooth handle, taking comfort in the keen steel blade that Karkald had given him twenty years before. The giant squinted across the lake, staring at movement he perceived through the mists of the Lighten Hour. Around him, the forty others of his company, hulking and bearded warriors to a man, stirred from their rest, a few picking up their weapons to join their chieftain.
Theirs was a lonely outpost, a wide spot on the middle of the causeway amid the generally placid waters of the lake. The small island boasted flat ground, a few trees, and benches and shelters for travelers’ rests. The smooth causeway departed from the islet in two directions, in the direction of metal toward the lakeshore, and in the opposite bearing toward the city, and the Center of Everything. In that direction the company of Deltan Columbine’s archers was rousing itself, cooking fires ignited and lookouts joining the giants in staring across the lake.
Now, just past Lighten, mist shrouded the water in gauzy curtains, visibility closed in enough that the giant chieftain knew he couldn’t be looking at the far shore. And yet something solid stretched across his view, more suggested than substantial in the vaporous air-but far, far closer than any land should be.
“Looks like the lakeshore is moving,” suggested his comrade Broadnose, with a noisy snuffle. He went back to the haunch of mutton that served as his breakfast.
“Well, I know what it looks like,” snapped Rawknuckle. “I want to know what it is!”
A great wall seemed to emerge from the mist, pushing through the water so slowly that it raised barely a ripple on the smooth surface. Far to the right the barrier seemed to curve away, and it was there that he caught a hint of a wake-long, rolling ripples coursing across the still water, confirming that the vast shape was in fact moving closer.
“It’s gotta be that raft we was warned about. Give a rise on the horn,” Rawknuckle decided. Young Crookknee, the bugler, hefted the instrument and placed his lips against the mouthpiece. Once, twice, and again he boomed long, lowing notes. The sound resonated across the water, many seconds later echoing back from the heights of Circle at Center.
“ ’Eh, chief. They’re coming the same old way, as well,” muttered Broadnose, lifting his bearded chin to point down the causeway in the direction of the enemy camp.
“No centaurs in front, this time,” said Rawknuckle regretfully. “I guess we’ll have to save the pikes for later.” He was disappointed. The last time this position had been attacked, the Crusaders had come at them with a rushing mob of centaurs. The giants had blocked the causeway with a bristling array of long-hafted spears, and dozens of centaurs had spilled blood and guts when they collided with the immobile line. The attack had been brutally shattered, without a giant suffering a serious wound, so in practicality Rawknuckle knew that the enemy tactic was unlikely to be repeated. Instead, it would be cast upon the growing pile of ideas that had been discarded by one side as the other found an effective countermeasure.
This time, the front rank of the attackers was a line of giants. Each bore a large wooden shield, and a club, hammer, or axe. By advancing in shoulder-to-shoulder formation with shields held high, they left little target for the elven archers who were forming to back up the giants.
“Where do you want us?” asked Deltan Columbine. The famed archer and poet stood ready with two hundred of his deadly bowmen. In past engagements they had formed on the city side of the little islet, shooting over Rawknuckle’s company to shower the attackers forced to concentrate on the causeway.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Rawknuckle declared, indicating the massive raft. “Why don’t you give us some room to fall back-say a few hundred yards? We could use your covering fire if that big thing floats in on our flank. And it’s just possible we’ll have to get out of here in a hurry.”
“You got it, Chief,” Deltan agreed. He crossed to his men and started them filing onto the causeway toward the city, while the giant turned around and watched nervously as the raft, and the rank of Crusaders on the causeway, moved steadily closer.
N atac and Karkald stood atop one of the towers flanking the end of the causeway. From here they could get only a vague sense of the true vastness of the raft.
“They must have taken the breakwater out of the harbor,” the warrior observed. “Just pushed the damned thing right into the lake!”
“Are we ready for a two-pronged attack?” Karkald asked, looking along the miles of exposed shoreline on the city’s fringe.
Natac frowned. There were elven companies placed throughout the city, and a small, mobile force of Gallupper’s centaurs and the few dozen elven riders who had mastered the art of horsemanship. But these forces were spread thin, and the only sizable reserves he had were the huge regiments of goblins and gnomes. These were deployed to either side of the base of the causeway, with the goblins on the Mercury Terrace and the gnomes on the other side of the road. If the raft could not be stopped, those untested troops would have to bear the brunt of the first attack.
“The caravels are ready,” the general observed, gestured to the ships that sat, sails limp, in the protected anchorage beside the terrace. “Best send them out, now.”
The signaler, a young elfwoman who had trained herself to anticipate her commander’s orders, quickly pulled out a blue banner scored with lines of white to represent billowing sails. With a crisp command of magic she sent the standard fluttering aloft, where it attached itself to the top of the flagstaff and streamed outward.
The reaction in the harbor below was instantaneous. Immediately the druids in the stern of each caravel started their casting, and wind puffed into the limp sails. Slowly, but with steadily increasing speed, the little ships scuttled past the breakwater and turned onto the lake. They made a brave display as they deployed into line abreast, steel batteries gleaming from the prows of no less than half of the dozen ships.
“But I still don’t like the size of that thing,” Natac confided, as the racing ships, even spreading into a wide fan, did not make as wide a formation as the flat prow of the great raft.
“And trouble on the road, too,” remarked Karkald.
The enemy phalanx of giants attacking down the causeway had almost advanced to Rawknuckle’s islet, and that massive raft-apparently propelled by hundreds of polers in the stern-had nearly reached as far into the lake. The metal and wooden walls protecting the floating platform were clearly visible, while the fore and both flanking faces bristled with weapons.
“They’re going to get around behind Rawknuckle,” Natac said. He shouted to one of his signalmen. “Run up the green flag-I want the giants to withdraw!”