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.
Van Rijn grabbed the astonished ballista captain by the hands and danced him over the deck, bawling out,
Another canoe swung about, close-hauled. Wace saw its flamethrower crew bent over their engine and hurled himself flat under the low wall surrounding the ice deck.
The burning stream hit that wall, splashed back, and spread itself on the sea. It could not kindle frozen water, nor melt enough of it to notice. Sheltered amidships, a hundred Lannacha archers sent an arrow-sleet up, to arc under heaven and come down on the canoe.
Wace peered over the wall. The flamethrower pumpman seemed dead, the hoseman was preoccupied with a transfixed wing… no steersman either, the canoe’s boom slatted about in a meaningless arc while its crew huddled — “Dead ahead!” he roared. “Ram them!”
The Lannacha ship trampled the dugout underfoot.
Drak’ho canoes circled like wolves around a buffalo herd, using their speed and maneuverability. Several darted between ice vessels, to assail from the rear; others went past the ends of the wedge formation. It was not quite a one-sided battle — arrows, catapult bolts, flung stones, all hurt Lannachska; oil jugs arced across the water, exploding on ice decks; now and then a fire stream ignited a sail.
But winged creatures with a few buckets could douse burning canvas. During all that phase of the engagement, only one Lannacha craft was wholly dismasted, and its crew simply abandoned it, parceling themselves out among other vessels. Nothing else could catch fire, except live flesh, which has always been the cheapest article in war.
Several canoes, converging on a single ship, tried to board. They were nonetheless outnumbered, and paid heavily for the attempt. Meanwhile Trolwen, with absolute air mastery, swooped and shot and hammered.
Drak’ho canoes scarcely hindered the attack. The dugouts were rammed, broken, set afire, brushed aside by their unsinkable enemy.
By virtue of being first, of having more or less punched through the line, the Rijstaffel met little opposition. What there was, was beaten off by catapult, ballista, fire pot, and arrows: long-range gunnery. The sea itself burned and smoked behind; ahead lay the great rafts.
When those sails and banners came into view, Wace’s dragon crewmen began to sing the victory song of the Flock.
“A little premature, aren’t they?” he cried above the racket.
“Ah,” said Van Rijn quietly, “let them make fun now. So many will soon be down, blind among the fishes, nie?”
“I suppose—” Hastily, as if afraid of what he had done merely to save his own life, Wace said; “I like that melody, don’t you? It’s rather like some old American folk songs. John Harty, say.”
“Folk songs is all right if you should want to play you are Folk in great big capitals,” snorted Van Rijn. “I stick with Mozart, by damn.”
He stared down into the water, and a curious wistfulness tinged his voice. “I always hoped maybe I would understand Bach some day, before I die, old Johann Sebastian who talked with God in mathematics. I have not the brains, though, in this dumb old head. So maybe I ask only one more chance to listen at Eine Klelne Nachtmusik.”
There was an uproar in the Fleet. Slowly and ponderously, churning the sea with spider-leg oars, the rafts were giving up their attempt at evasion. They were pulling into war formation.
Van Rijn waved angrily at a Whistler. “Quick! You get upstairs fast, and tell that crockhead Trolwen not to bother air-covering us against the canoes. Have him attack the rafts. Keep them busy, by hell! Don’t let messengers flappity-flip between enemy captains so they can organize!”
As the young Lannacha streaked away, the merchant tugged his goatee — almost lost by now in a dirt-stiffened beard — and snarled: “Great hairy honeypots! How long do I have to do all the thinkings? Good St. Nicholas, you bring me an officer staff with brains between the ears, instead of clabbered oatmeal, and I build you a cathedral on Mars! You hear me?”
“Trolwen is in the midst of a fight up there,” protested Wace. “You can’t expect him to think of everything.”
“Maybe not,” conceded Van Rijn grudgingly. “Maybe I am the only one in all the galaxy who makes no mistakes.”
Horribly near, the massed rafts became a storm when Trolwen took his advice. Bat-winged devils sought each other’s lives through one red chaos. Wace thought his own ships’ advance must be nearly unnoticed in that whirling, shrieking destruction.