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 fully half a suntt deep and solid as these cliffs around us. It cannot be breached by any siege weapon I know of.”