There was no time to really test these things. Somehow, by God and by guess, with every element against him, Eric Wace was expected to produce.
And Van Rijn? What did Van Rijn contribute? The basic idea, airily tossed off, apparently on the assumption that Wace was Aladdin’s jinni. Oh, it was quite a flash of imaginative insight, no one could deny that. But imagination is cheap.
Anyone can say: “What we need is a new weapon, and we can make it from such-and-such unprecedented materials.” But it will remain an idle fantasy until somebody shows up who can figure out how to make the needed weapon.
So, having enslaved his engineer, Van Rijn strolled around, jollying some of the Flock and bullying some of the others — and when he had them all working their idiotic heads off, he rolled up in a blanket and went to sleep!
XVII
Wace stood on the deck of the Rijstaffel and watched his enemy come over the world’s rim.
Slowly, he reached into the pouch at his side. His hand closed on a chunk of stale bread and a slab of sausage. It was the last Terrestrial food remaining: for Earth-days, now, he had gone on a still thinner ration than before, so that he could enter this battle with something in his stomach.
He found that he didn’t want it after all.
Surprisingly little cold breathed up from underfoot. The warm air over the Sea of Achan wafted the ice-chill away. He was less astonished that there had been no appreciable melting in the week he estimated they had been creeping southward; he knew the thermal properties of water.
Behind him, primitive square sails, lashed to yard-arms of green wood on overstrained one-piece masts, bellied in the north wind. These ice ships were tubby, but considerably less so than a Drak’ho raft; and with some unbelievable talent for tyranny, Van Rijn had gotten reluctant Lannachska to work under frigid sea water, cutting the bottoms into a vaguely streamlined shape. Now, given the power of a Diomedean breeze, Lannach’s war fleet waddled through Achan waves at a good five knots.
Though the hardest moment, Wace reflected, had not been while they worked their hearts out to finish the craft. It had come afterward, when they were almost ready to leave and the winds turned contrary. For a period measured in Earth-days, thousands of Lannachska huddled soul-sick under freezing rains, ranging after fish and bird rookeries to feed cubs that cried with hunger. Councilors and clan leaders had argued that this was a war on the Fates: there could be no choice but to give up and seek out Swampy Kilnu. Somehow, blustering, shining, pleading, promising — in a few cases, bribing, with what he had won at dice — Van Rijn had held them on Dawrnach.
Well — it was over with.
The merchant came out of the little stone cabin, walked over the gravelstrewn deck past crouching war-engines and heaped missiles, till he reached the bows where Wace stood.
“Best you eat,” he said. “Soon gives no chance.”
“I’m not hungry,” said Wace.
“So, no?” Van Rijn grabbed the sandwich out of his fingers. “Then, by damn, I am!” He began cramming it between his teeth.
Once again he wore a double set of armor, but he had chosen one weapon only for this occasion, an outsize stone ax with a meter-long handle. Wace carried a smaller tomahawk and a shield. Around the human’s, it bristled with armed Lannachska.
“They’re making ready to receive us, all right,” said Wace. His eyes sought out the gaunt enemy war-canoes, beating upwind.
“You expected a carpet with acres and acres, like they say in America? I bet you they spotted us from the air hours ago. Now they send messengers hurry-like back to their army in Lannach.” Van Rijn held up the last fragment of meat, kissed it reverently, and ate it.
Wace’s eyes traveled backward. This was the flagship — chosen as such when it turned out to be the fastest — and had the forward position in a long wedge. Several score grayish-white, ragged-sailed, helter-skelter little vessels wallowed after. They were outnumbered and outgunned by the Drak’ho rafts, of course; they just had to hope the odds weren’t too great. The much lower freeboard did not matter to a winged race, but it would be important that their crews were not very skilled sailors -
But at least the Lannachska were fighters. Winged tigers by now, thought Wace. The southward voyage had rested them, and trawling had provided the means to feed them, and the will to battle had kindled again. Also, though they had a smaller navy, they probably had more warriors, even counting Delp’s absent army.
And they could afford to be reckless. Their females and young were still on Dawrnach — with Sandra, grown so white and quiet — and they had no treasures along to worry about. For cargo they bore just their weapons and their hate.
From the clouds of air-borne, Tolk the Herald came down. He braked on extended wings, slithered to a landing, and curved back his neck swan-fashion to regard the humans.
“Does it all go well down here?” he asked.
“As well as may be,” said Van Rijn. “Are we still bearing on the pest-rotten Fleet?”
“Yes. It’s not many buaska away now. Barely over your sea-level horizon, in fact; you’ll raise it soon. They’re using sail and oars alike, trying to get out of our path, but they’ll not achieve it if we keep this wind and those canoes don’t delay us.”
“No sign of the army in Lannach?”
“None yet. I daresay what’s-his-name… the new admiral that we heard about from those prisoners… has messengers scouring the mountains. But that’s a big land up there. It will take time to locate him.” Tolk snorted professional scorn. “Now I would have had constant liaison, a steady two-way flow of Whistlers.”
“Still,” said Van Rijn, “we must expect them soon, and then gives hell’s safety valve popping off.”
“Are you certain we can—”
“I am certain of nothings. Now get back to Trolwen and oversee.”
Tolk nodded and hit the air again.
Dark purplish water curled in white feathers, beneath a high heaven where clouds ran like playful mountains, tinted rosy by the sun. Not many kilometers off, a small island rose sheer; through a telescope, Wace could count the patches of yellow blossom nodding under tall bluish conifers. A pair of young Whistlers dipped and soared over his head, dancing like the gay clan banners being unfurled in the sky. It was hard to understand that the slim carved boats racing so near bore fire and sharpened stones.
“Well,” said Van Rijn, “here begins our fun. Good St. Dismas, stand by me now.”
“St. George would be a little more appropriate, wouldn’t he?” asked Wace.
“You may think so. Me, I am too old and fat and cowardly to call on Michael or George or Olaf or any like those soldierly fellows. I feel more at home, me, with saints not so bloody energetic, Dismas or my own good namesake who is so kind to travelers.”
“And is also the patron of highway men,” remarked Wace. He wished his tongue wouldn’t get so thick and dry on him. He felt remote, somehow… not really afraid… but his knees were rubbery.
“Ha!” boomed Van Rijn. “Good shootings, boy!”
The forward ballista on the Rijstaffel, with a whine and a thump, had smacked a half-ton stone into the nearest canoe. The boat cracked like a twig; its crew whirled up, a squad from Trolwen’s aerial command pounced, there was a moment’s murderous confusion and then the Drak’honai had stopped existing.