The Frost Child (18 page)

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"Did ... did my dad know that this was coming?"

"I don't know. The Harsh seem to have always been a threat, but never as bad as this. You know, there are people who say he made the whole thing worse. He opened the gate to Hadima."

"The Resisters closed it, then I opened it again--is that what they're saying?" Owen said bitterly.

"Yes, Owen, it is what they are saying."

"But if I hadn't, the world would have been destroyed last time!" Owen burst out.

"People forget," Martha said. "You can't just do a good thing and leave it at that. You have to keep meeting each bad thing as it comes along."

Owen stared moodily out over the river. The wind blew his hair back, and Martha saw as if for the first time how like his father he was: the strong line of his jaw, the steady unblinking gaze. And yet he was different from his father. Not as impulsive, nor as secretive.

"Did my dad ever say anything about the Harsh? I mean, I get the feeling that he was in a hurry on his way back from Hadima to here. There must have been a reason why he was rushing."

"No, not that I can think of," Martha said, "but I was frozen with the Harsh breath. I may have forgotten. There was something he said a few times that was strange. It just didn't seem like him, if you know what I mean."

"What was it?"

"He said that it's the child in us that is the most dangerous."

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"The child? Why would a child be dangerous?"

"I don't know."

There was a great crash from the direction of the harbor, and the air above the town filled with white mist.

"It has begun," Martha said.

"I have to go!" Owen said. "There's no time to waste!"

"No!" Martha said. "Do you still not realize that the Navigator is the great hope of the Resisters? They look up to you. If they saw you fleeing in the
Wayfarer
during the battle, it would crush them."

"I wouldn't be fleeing," Owen protested.

"I know that," Martha said, "but they might not."

"I don't want to be looked up to that way," Owen said unhappily.

"Responsibility ends up on people's shoulders whether they want it or not," Martha said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

Down at the harbor, the barrage from the Harsh had come without warning. The soldiers were busy digging foxholes when the gun ports of the ships fell open and the ice cannons were run out. At the same time, Cati could see the gun barrels in the ice castles elevate as if they were being aimed.

"Get down," Samual shouted. Cati and Wesley threw themselves full length on the ground as the ice cannons roared. The Porcupine spun wildly, shooting the ice lances from the air, but there were too many this time.

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The lances smashed into the snowy earth around them. Once again there was a volley, and Cati pressed her face to the ground as the lances whistled overhead.

"Bring our cannons to bear," Samual ordered, his voice calm. Cati risked a look upward. Soldiers worked around the magno cannons, heedless of the deadly hail that fell on them. Another volley--this time Cati thought they were targeting the Porcupine. One by one jets of steam roared from the Porcupine, and each time a lance dissolved. But then the Porcupine coughed and stopped.

"It's sucked snow into the intake," a soldier shouted. "Clear it!" But there was no time. An ice lance flew higher than the rest, soaring over the harbor, then dropped, gathering speed as it did. Helpless to do anything, Cati and Wesley watched it head straight for the strange weapon.

"We're rullocked without that Porcupine," Wesley murmured. The men tending it threw themselves aside. It was then that Cati saw Pieta, standing parallel to the Porcupine, the magno whip swinging lazily in her hand. She drew her arm back and lashed upward with all her force. The whip struck the side of the lance, and shards of ice crackled in the air as the whip drove the lance sideways, by inches only, but enough. There was a heavy thud, and the lance stood quivering in the ground beside the Porcupine.

"Fire all guns," Samual shouted. Blue flame shot forth. The rigging of the lead ship blazed up momentarily but the fire was soon quenched. A turret of one of the ice

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houses tumbled to the ground. The Porcupine spluttered back into life, just in time to meet a new shower of ice.

The sleds that had been in the rear were brought up, and the tarpaulins thrown back. Cati wasn't close enough to see clearly, but each carried a few dozen gray objects, stacked one above the other, and tilted toward a chute at the back. As she watched, a soldier stepped forward with a magno torch. He pulled a lever and one of the objects shot toward the chute. As it left the end of the chute, he struck it hard with the magno torch and it burst into blue flame. The device scuttled off across the snow looking like a fiery mouse with a long piece of heavy electrical cord hanging from the back like a tail.

"The mouse! The mouse!" The cheer went up from the soldiers as it hit the frozen surface of the sea and built up speed, careening toward the Harsh ships. It changed direction every few seconds, like a mouse desperately trying to escape a cat. The Harsh cannons began to fire, but the mouse was moving too fast and erratically for them to hit it. It had to strike a ship eventually, and when it did a sheet of blue flame roared up the side of the stricken vessel.

Another was released, and then another. Soon the ice was covered with them, and three ships were ablaze. Through the smoke the Resisters could see the ghostly shapes of the Harsh crew escaping across the ice. The Resisters reserved a special cheer for the moment when a Harsh ice lance, seeking a mouse, was fired right through one side of a Harsh ship and out the other side.

"Time to go," Cati said. The two friends slipped off

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when everyone's attention was on the Harsh fleet. They ran back toward the center of the town, made for the bridge, swung over the parapet, and climbed down onto the frozen river. They rounded the corner and halted.

"I don't like the look of this," Cati said.

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Chapter 19

The Hadima entrance had been totally transformed. Before, it had been a simple hole in the wall, high above the ground, looking more like a drain than anything else. Now there were steps leading to the river, and it was fortified at ground level. But more disturbing than that was the fact that, lined along the river bank were what seemed like hundreds of armed men wearing a uniform that Cati recognized.

"Specials!" Cati hissed, ducking behind a low wall. "How did they get here?"

"Specials?" Wesley crouched beside her.

"They're the police in the City of Time--Hadima. Everybody hates them. But how did they get here, and what are they doing?"

"By the look of it," Wesley said, "they're about to attack the Resisters from behind. Our lot won't know what hit them. They'll be cut to ribbons!"

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As he spoke, the first wave of Specials began to climb the riverbank. In Hadima they carried whistles and blew them as they went, to put fear into the inhabitants. But now they moved in silence. Cati looked up at the entrance and her blood ran cold. Two men stood there. One was the chief corsair and leader of the Specials, Headley, a smile on his cruel face. The other was Johnston. Somehow he had got to Hadima and recruited the Specials. The Harsh needed an army of men to complete their siege on the Workhouse, and here they were!

"What do we do?" Cati said, desperation in her voice.

"Run!" Wesley said. "Run like the wind!" They leapt to their feet, not caring who saw them, and scrambled back over the bridge. Downstream the Specials were swarming into the street. Cati and Wesley put their heads down and ran. Behind them they heard booted feet.

Cati pulled ahead of Wesley, but the Raggie boy had more stamina and he caught her at the edge of town. They could no longer hear footsteps behind them, but that didn't mean the Specials would be far behind.

"Faster!" Wesley cried. They could see the battle up ahead, smoke rising from the burning ships and ice particles flung high into the air. They reached the rear positions of the Resisters.

"The enemy ...," Cati gasped, "behind ..." But she was out of breath and the Resisters were too caught up in their own battle to react to her. She seized one of the magno cannons and tried to turn it, but it was heavier than she could handle.

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"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" It was Moor-head, Samual's lieutenant. "What is this," she bawled, "more sabotage?"

Cati felt like kicking the woman, but Wesley grabbed her arm.

"Pieta ... we need Pieta."

The Raggie and the Resister ran headlong into the middle of the battle. A sortie of Resisters had got onto the ice but had been beaten back by ice lances. The flaming mice still scuttled on the frozen surface, but they were less effective against the ships further out.

Pieta and her children stood at the front line, using their whips to protect groups of Resisters from the ice lances. Wesley and Cati dashed up to her.

"Pieta," Cati called. "Come!"

"What is it?" Pieta said. "Quick!"

"Specials," Cati said, "attacking from the rear."

"Men from Hadima," Wesley put in. "We're not joking. The Resisters are finished if them Specials get in among them."

Pieta didn't hesitate. "Aldra, Beck, follow me."

Mother and children sprinted toward the town. As she went Pieta called to men and women.
She knows her fighters
, Cati thought, as each person followed her without hesitation.

It was almost too late. The Specials were in among the wounded who had been carried to safety. Those who tended them were trying to fight, but the Specials clubbed them viciously to the ground. Many of the

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Specials carried heavy crossbows, tipped with a variety of ugly-looking bolts and explosive devices.

But they were not prepared for the onslaught of Pieta and her small band. With angry cries they were beaten back while still more swarmed up from the town. Pieta kept the area in front of her clear with great sweeps of her whip, while Aldra and Beck used their whips to concentrate on the crossbow bolts and other missiles. The Specials threatened to sweep around them, but other Resisters were now turning to the threat to their rear.

Soon, desperate battles were going on, the Resisters struggling hand to hand with the Specials. There were no more mice, and ice lances were raining down, far more than the Porcupine could cope with.

"Fall back," Samual shouted, downing a Special with the hilt of his sword. "Fall back to the Workhouse!"

The Resisters manning the magno cannons had to abandon them.

"The Porcupine," Rutgar yelled, "to the Porcupine!" He and his men formed a phalanx around the device and started to haul it back toward the Workhouse.

Cati had stayed behind the soldiers, helping with the wounded, while Wesley fired her magno gun, until the barrel was too hot to touch. She looked up through the heat and smoke of battle. Someone was staring at her, eyes narrow with hatred. Not twenty yards away stood Headley, the chief corsair.

Headley pushed toward her, knocking Resisters out of his way as if they weren't there. Cati ran backward but

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tripped over a shattered magno gun and went sprawling onto her back. Headley looked neither right nor left. A fragment of an exploding crossbow bolt left a gash in his forehead, but heedless of the blood, he pressed on. Only Pieta saw what was happening. Calling her children, Pieta sprang in front of the corsair, the long whips driving him back. With a snarl Headley seized a crossbow from his back and leveled it at the fallen Cati. Just as he did so an ice lance landed beside Pieta, and she staggered sideways. In one swift movement Headley aimed, cocked, and fired the bow. A deadly exploding bolt flew toward Cati, aimed at her heart. In desperation Pieta threw out the hand that held the whip, attempting to block it. She was off balance, and the blue flame of her whip did not fly true. The bolt glanced off it and exploded close to Pieta. Cati was saved, but Pieta was down, the snow beneath her stained red.

The retreat to the Workhouse was a nightmare, the Resisters under constant attack. Aldra and Beck carried their mother but in the end had to hand her over to others, and fought with a fury that none could resist. But they were only two. Samual fought bravely, many times going to the rescue of stragglers.

"Stay together," he urged, "fight for each other, don't run!" But Rutgar pointed to the figure of Owen standing on the Workhouse roof under the black banner of the Resisters.

"The Navigator! The Workhouse and the Navigator!"

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The Resisters looked up, saw Owen, and fought with fresh heart.

It took them more than an hour to cover the ground between the town and the Workhouse, every inch fought over. Even close to the defenses, the harassment did not stop, and it looked as if they might fall within sight of home. Then a shout rang out. Dr. Diamond charged from the gate, leading a motley assortment of kitchen staff with knives and gardeners wielding hoes and spades. From the battlements Owen, Martha, and the Raggie children rained magno bolts on the attackers, and when they ran out, threw the very stones of the battlements onto them. Given fresh energy by the sight of the workers coming to their rescue, the Resisters turned on their attackers and drove them back. The small figure of Rosie darted among them, pricking the attackers in the legs with a hairpin. In the end, despite Headley's curses and threats, the Specials broke and ran.

The Resisters had fought their way home, but at a terrible cost.