Van Rijn hawked. “Trouble with aristocrats,” he muttered. “Bred for looks and courage, not brains. Now I would go back, if not needed here to show I have confidence in my own plans.”

“Do you?” asked Wace skeptically.

“Let be with foolishness,” snorted Van Rijn. “Of course not.” He trudged back to the staff car which had been prepared for him: at least it had walls, a roof, and a bunk. The wind shrieked down ringing stony canyons, he leaned against it with all his weight. Overhead swooped and soared the squadrons of Lannach.

Wace and Sandra each had a private car, but she asked him to ride down with her. “Forgive me if I make dramatics, Eric, but we may be killed and it is lonely to die without a human hand to hold.” She laughed, a little breathlessly. “Or at least we can talk.”

“I’m afraid—” He cleared a tightened throat. “I’m afraid, my lady, I can’t converse as readily as… Freeman Van Rijn.”

“Oh,” she grinned, “that was what I meant. I said we can talk, not him only.”

Nevertheless, when the trains got into motion, she grew as quiet as he.

Lacking their watches they could scarcely even guess how long the trip took. High summer had almost come to Lannach; once in twelve and a half hours, the sun scraped the horizon north of west, but there was no more real night. Wace watched the kilometers click away beneath him; he ate, slept, spoke desultorily with Sandra or with young Angrek who served as her aide, and the great land flattened into rolling valleys and forests of low fringe-leaved trees, and the sea came near.

Now and again a hotbox or a contrary wind delayed the caravan. There was restlessness in the ranks: they were used to streaking in a day from the mountains to the coast, not to wheeling above this inchworm or a railway. Drak’honai scouts spied them from afar, inevitably , and a detachment of rafts lumbered into Sagna Bay with powerful reinforcements. Raids probed the flanks of the attackers. And still the trains must crawl.

In point of fact, there were eight Diomedean revolutions between the departure from Salmenbrok and the Battle of Mannenach.

The harbor town lay on the Sagna shore, well in from the open sea and sheltered by surrounding wooded hills. It was a gaunt grim-looking complex of stone towers, tightly knitted together with the usual tunnels and enclosed bridges, talking in the harsh tones of half a dozen big windmills. It overlooked a small pier, which the Drak’honai had been enlarging. Beyond, dark on the choppy brown waters, rocked two score enemy craft.

As his train halted, Wace jumped from Sandra’s car. There was nothing to shoot at yet: Mannenach revealed only a few peaked roofs thrusting above the grassy ridge before him. Even against the wind, he could hear the thunder of wings as the Drak’honai lifted from the town, twisting upward in a single black mass like some tornado made flesh. But heaven was thick with Lannachska above him, and the enemy made no immediate attack.

His heart thumped, runaway, and his mouth was too dry for him to speak. Almost hazily, he saw Sandra beside him. A Diomedean bodyguard under Angrek closed around in a thornbush of spears.

The girl smiled. “This is a kind of relief,” she said. “No more sitting and worrying, only to do what we can, not?”

“Not indeed!” puffed Van Rijn, stumping toward them. Like the other humans, he had arranged for an ill-fitting cuirass and helmet of laminated hard leather above the baggy malodorous native clothes. But he wore two sets of armor, one on top of the other, carried a shield on his left arm, had deputed two young warriors to hold another shield over him like a canopy, and bore a tomahawk and a beltful of stone daggers. “Not if I can get out of it, by damn! You go ahead and fight. I will be right behind you — as far behind as the good saints let.”

Wace found his tongue and said maliciously: “I’ve often thought there might be fewer wars among civilized races, if they reverted to this primitive custom that the generals are present at the battles.”

“Bah! Ridiculous! Just as many wars, only using generals who have guts more than brains. I think cowards make the best strategists, stands to reason, by damn. Now I stay in my car.” Van Rijn stalked off, muttering.

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.