“I’m… sorry, sir.” After a moment: “But will the admiral, then, assign the bulk of our fighting forces to… to some reliable officer, with orders to hunt out the Lannach’honai ?”
“You don’t know just where they are?”
“They could be almost anywhere in the uplands, sir. That is, we have prisoners who can be made to guide us and give some information; Intelligence says their headquarters is a place called, Psalmenbrox. But of course they can melt into the lands.” Delp shuddered. To him, whose world had been lonely islands and flat sea horizon, there was horror in the tilted mountains. “It has infinite cover to hide them. This will be no easy campaign.”
“How do you propose to wage it all?” asked T’heonax querulously. He did not like to be reminded, on top of a victory celebration and a good dinner, that there was still much death ahead of him.
“By forcing them to meet us in an all-out encounter, sir. I want to take our main fighting strength, and some native guides compelled to help us, and go from town to town up there, systematically razing whatever we find, burning the woods and slaughtering the game. Give them no chance for the large battues on which they must depend to feed their females and cubs. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, they will have to gather every male and meet us. That’s when I’ll break them.”
“I see.” T’heonax nodded. Then, with a grin: “And if they break you?”
“They won’t.”
“It is written: The Lodestar shines for no single nation.’ ”
“The admiral knows there’s always some risk in war. But I’m convinced there’s less danger in my plan than in hanging about down here, waiting for the Eart’honai to perfect some new devilment.”
T’heonax’s forefinger stabbed at Delp. “Ah-hah! Have you forgotten’ their food will soon be all gone? We can count them out.”
“I wonder—”
“Be quiet!” shrilled T’heonax.
After a little time, he went on: “Don’t forget, this enormous expeditionary force of yours would leave the Fleet ill defended. And without the Fleet, the rafts, we ourselves are finished.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid of attack, sir—” began Delp in an eager voice.
“Afraid!” T’heonax puffed himself out. “Captain, it is treason to hint that the admiral is a… is not fully competent.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I shall not press the matter,” said T’heonax smoothly. “However, you may either make full abasement, craving my pardon, or leave my presence.”
Delp stood up. His lips peeled back from the fangs, all the race memory of animal forebears who had been hunters bade him tear out the other’s throat. T’heonax crouched, ready to scream for help.
Very slowly, Delp mastered himself. He half turned to go. He paused, fists jammed into balls and the membrane of his wings swollen with blood.
“Well?” smiled T’heonax.
Like an ill-designed machine, Delp went down on his belly. “I abase myself,” he mumbled. “I eat your offal. I declare that my fathers were the slaves of your fathers. Like a netted fish, I gasp for pardon.”
T’heonax enjoyed himself. The fact that Delp had been so cleverly trapped between his pride and his wish to serve the Fleet, made it all the sweeter.
“Very good, captain,” said the admiral when the ceremony was done. “Be thankful I didn’t make you do this publicly. Now let me hear your argument. I believe you were saying something about the protection of our rafts.”
“Yes… yes, sir. I was saying… the rafts need not fear the enemy.”
“Indeed? True, they lie well out at sea, but not too far to reach in a few hours. What’s to prevent the Flock army from assembling, unknown to you, in the mountains, then attacking the rafts before you can come to our help?”
“I would only hope they do so, sir.” Delp recovered a little enthusiasm. “But I’m afraid their leadership isn’t that stupid. Since when… I mean… at no time in naval history, sir, has a flying force, unsupported from the water, been able to overcome a fleet. At best, and at heavy cost, it can capture one or two rafts… temporarily, as in the raid when they stole the Eart’honai. Then the other vessels move in and drive it off. You see, sir, flyers can’t use the engines of war, catapults and flamethrowers and so on, which alone can reduce a naval organization. Whereas the raft crews can stand under shelters and fire upward, picking the fliers off at leisure.”
“Of course.” T’heonax nodded. “All this is so obvious as to be a gross waste of my time. But your idea is, I take it, that a small cadre of guards would suffice to hold off a Lannach’ho attack of any size.”
“And, if we’re lucky, keep the enemy busy out at sea till I could arrive with our main forces. But as I said, sir, they must have brains enough not to try it.”
“You assume a great deal, captain,” murmured T’heonax. “You assume, not merely that I will let you go into the mountains at all, but that I will put you in command.”
Delp bent his head and drooped his wings. “Apology, sir.”
“I think… yes, I think it would be best if you just stayed here at Mannenach with your immediate flotilla.”
“As the admiral wishes. Will he consider my plan, though?”
“Aeak’ha eat you!” snarled T’heonax. “I’ve no love for you, Delp, as well you know; but your scheme is good, and you’re the best one to carry it through. I shall appoint you in charge.”
Delp stood as if struck with a maul.
“Get out,” said T’heonax. “We will have an official conference later.”
“I thank my lord admiral—”
“Go, I said!”
When Delp had gone, T’heonax turned to his favorite. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. The fellow will win his campaign, and become still more popular, and somewhere along the line he will get ideas about seizing the Admiralty.”
“I only wondered how my lord planned to prevent that,” said the courtier.
“Simple enough.” T’heonax grinned. “I know his type. As long as the war goes on, there’s no danger of rebellion from him. So, let him break the Lan-nach’honai as he wishes. He’ll pursue their remnants, to make sure of finishing the job. And in that pursuit — a stray arrow from somewhere — most regrettable — these things are easy to arrange. Yes.”
XV
This atmosphere carried the dust particles which are the nuclei of water condensation to a higher, hence colder altitude. Thus Diomedes had more clouds and precipitation of all kinds than Earth. On a clear night you saw fewer stars; on a foggy night you did not see at all.
Mist rolled up through stony dales, until the young High Summer became a dripping chill twilight. The hordes lairing about Salmenbrok mumbled in their hunger and hopelessness: now the sun itself had withdrawn from them.
No campfires glowed, the wood of this region had all been burned. And the hinterland had been scoured clean of game, unripe wild grains, the very worms and insects, eaten by these many warriors. Now, in an eerie dank dark, only the wind and the rushing glacial waters lived… and Mount Oborch, sullenly prophesying deep in the earth.
Trolwen and Tolk went from the despair of their chieftains, over narrow trails where fog smoked and the high thin houses stood unreal, to the mill where the Eart’ska worked.
Here alone, it seemed, there was existence — fires still burned, stored water came down flumes to turn the wind-abandoned wheels, movement went under flickering tapers as lathes chattered and hammers thumped. Somehow, in some impossible fashion, Nicholas van Rijn had roared down the embittered protests of Angrek’s gang, and their factory was at work.
Working for what? thought Trolwen, in a mind as gray as the mist.
Van Rijn himself met them at the door. He folded massive arms on hairy breast and said: “How do you, my friends? Here it goes well, we have soon a many artillery pieces ready.”