Trolwen’s newly-formed field artillery corps were going frantic, unloading their clumsy weapons from the trains and assembling them while squads and patrols skirmished overhead. Wace cursed — here was something he could do! — and hurried to the nearest confusion. “Hoy, there! Back away! What are you trying to do? Here, you, you, you, get up in the car and unlash the main frame… that piece there, you clothead!” After a while, he almost lost consciousness of the fighting that developed around him.
The Mannenach garrison and its sea-borne reinforcements had begun with cautious probing, a few squadrons at a time swooping to flurry briefly with some of the Lannachska flying troops and then pull away again toward the town. Drak’ho forces here were outnumbered by a fair margin; Trolwen had reasoned correctly that no admiral would dare leave the main Fleet without a strong defense while Lannach was still formidable. In addition, the sailors were puzzled, a little afraid, at the unprecedented attacking formations.
Fully half the Lannachska were ranked on the ground, covered by rooflike shields which would not even permit them to fly! Never in history had such a thing been known!
During an hour, the two hordes came more closely to grips. Much superior in the air, the Drak’honai punched time after time through Trolwen’s fliers. But integrated by the Whistler corps, the aerial troops closed again, fluidly. And there was little profit in attacking the Lannachska infantry — those awkward wicker shields trapped edged missiles, sent stones rebounding, an assault from above was almost ignored.
Arrows were falling thickly when Wace had his last fieldpiece assembled. He nodded at a Whistler, who whirled up immediately to bear the word to Trolwen. From the commander’s position, where he rode a thermal updraft, came a burst of messengers — banners broke out on the ground, war whoops tore through the wind, it was the word to advance!
Ringed by Angrek’s guards, Wace remained all too well aware that he was at the forefront of an army. Sandra went beside him, her lips untense. On either hand stretched spear-jagged lines of walking dragons. It seemed like a long time before they had mounted the ridge.
One by one, Drak’honai officers realized… and yelled their bafflement.
These stolid ground troops, unassailable from above, unopposed below, were simply pouring over the hill to Mannenach’s walls, trundling their siege tools. When they arrived there, they got to work.
It became a gale of wings and weapons. The Drak’honai plunged, hacked and stabbed at Trolwen’s infantry — and were in their turn attacked from above, as his fliers whom they had briefly dispersed resumed formation. Meanwhile, crunch, crunch, crunch, rams ate at Mannenach; detachments on foot went around the town and down toward the harbor.
“Over there! Hit ’em again!” Wace heard all at once that he was yelling.
Something broke through the chaos overhead. An arrow-filled body crashed to earth. A live one followed it, a Drak’ho warrior with the air pistol-cracking under his wings. He came low and fast; one of Angrek’s lads thrust a sword at him, missed, and had his brains spattered by the sailor’s tomahawk.
Without time to know what had happened, Wace saw the creature before him. He struck, wildly, with his own stone ax. A wing-buffet knocked him to the ground. He bounced up, spitting blood, as the Drak’ho came about and dove again. His hands were empty — Suddenly the Drak’ho screamed and clawed at an arrow in his throat, fluttered down and died.
Sandra nocked a fresh shaft. “I told you I would have some small use today,” she said.
“I—” Wace reeled where he stood, looking at her.
“Go on,” she said. “Help them break through. I will guard.”
Her face was even paler than before, but there was a green in her eyes which burned.
He spun about and went back to directing his sappers. It was plain now that battering rams had been a mistake; they wouldn’t get through mortared walls till Matthewsmas. He took everyone off the engines and put them to helping those who dug. With enough wooden shovels — or bare hands — they’d be sure to strike a tunnel soon.
From somewhere near, there lifted a clatter great enough to drown out the struggle around him. Wace jumped up on a ram’s framework and looked over the heads of his engineers.
A body of Drak’honai had resorted to the ground themselves. They were not drilled in such tactics; but then, the Lannachska had had only the sketchiest training. By sheer sustained fury the Drak’honai were pushing their opponents back. From Trolwen’s airy viewpoint, thought Wace, there must be an ugly dent in the line.
Where the devil were the machine guns?
Yes, here came one, bouncing along on a little cart. Two Lannachska began pumping the flywheel, a third aimed and operated the feed. Darts hosed across the Drak’honai. They broke up, took to the sky again. Wace hugged Sandra and danced her across the field.
Then hell boiled over on the roofs above him. His immediate corps had finally gotten to an underground passage and made it a way of entry. Driving the enemy before them, up to the top floors and out, they seized this one tower in a rush.
“Angrek!” panted Wace. “Get me up there!” Someone lowered a rope. He swarmed up it, with Sandra close behind. Standing on the ridgepole, he looked past stony parapets and turning millwheels, down to the bay. Trolwen’s forces had taken the pier without much trouble. But they were getting no farther: a steady hail of fire-streams, oil bombs, and catapult missiles from the anchored rafts staved them off. Their own similar armament was outranged.
Sandra squinted against the wind, shifted north to lash her eyes to weeping, and pointed “Eric — do you recognize that flag, on the largest of the vessels there?”
“Hm-m-m… let me see… yes, I do. Isn’t that our old chum Delp’s personal banner?”
“So, it is. I am not sorry he has escaped punishment for the riot we made. But I would rather have someone else to fight, it would be safer.”
“Maybe,” said Wace. “But there’s work to do. We have our toe hold in the city. Now we’ll have to beat down doors and push out the enemy — room by room — and you’re staying here!”
“I am not!”
Wace jerked his thumb at Angrek. “Detail a squad to take the lady back to the trains,” he snapped.
“No!” yelled Sandra.
“You’re too late,” grinned Wace. “I arranged for this before we ever left Salmenbrok.”
She swore at him — then suddenly, softly, she leaned over and murmured beneath the wind and the war-shrieks: “Come back hale, my friend.”
He led his troopers into the tower.
Afterward he had no clear memory of the fight. It was a hard and bloody operation, ax and knife, tooth and fist, wing and tail, in narrow tunnels and cavelike rooms. He took blows, and gave them; once, for several minutes, he lay unconscious, and once he led a triumphant breakthrough into a wide assembly hall. He was not fanged, winged, or caudate himself, but he was heavier than any Diomedean, his blows seldom had to be repeated.
The Lannachska took Mannenach because they had — not training enough to make them good ground fighters — but enough to give them the concept of battle with immobilized wings. It was as revolting to Diomedean instincts as the idea of fighting with teeth alone, hands bound, would be to a human; unprepared for it, the Drak’honai bolted and ran ratlike down the tunnels in search of open sky.
Hours afterward, staggering with exhaustion, Wace climbed to a flat roof at the other end of town. Tolk sat there waiting for him.
“I think… we have… it all now,” gasped the human.
“And yet not enough,” said Tolk haggardly. “Look at the bay.”