The Hammer of the Sun (56 page)

The cry from the masthead cut like an arrow through his words, all yearning and all joy drained from the young voice, yielding place to urgency and alarm. "
A sail! Sail to landward! Two - six - no, many sails! Black sails! A host of them! Running cross-wind towards us- a bloody host
!"

"As I expected," said Kermorvan calmly, amid all the frantic flurry on the deck around him. "After the barriers, the picket forces; after the mist, the guard-ships. The lady Tauounehtar sets her sieges entirely in accordance with the old texts! She has not forgotten to provide against relief; the strange theft of a ship may have made her more alert. In which case she may also have some swift-moving reserves ready to reinforce the guards; for that too is laid down in the best authorities."

Elof grinned, though he felt a sudden taut emptiness behind his belt. "And what do they recommend to the relievers?"

"Swiftness, and little else. Save to avoid battle, where possible, for delay can only bring down greater forces upon you. But it is too late for that now, I guess. You there, Oste! My armour! And rouse that slugabed Roc while you're about it!"

Roc was on deck and clad in his mail before the guard-ships came clearly into sight, though he grumbled about being roused. "And all for a mere thirty reiver ships! I thought this fleet could pick its teeth with such numbers! There's not one of them the size of our dromunds or the
Korentyn
, is there?"

Kermorvan frowned. "No; but they are all fair-sized ships, and heavily manned, by the look of them. They can afford to be, not carrying supplies. They'll fight the bloodiest delaying action they can, to win their kinsmen time either to bar us from landing, or fall on us while we are in the midst of it. I have ordered the dromunds forward; our best hope is to ram as many as possible, and clear a passage through."

Elof watched the black specks swell gradually against the forbidding walls of ice, finding it strange to think that only a year past he had sailed these waters beneath such a sail himself. They were moving out now into lines of battle, in staggered rows and spaced well apart to make them hard to ram, a shield of ships across the hidden land beyond. In just the same way Kermorvan's heaviest ships, the great man-carriers, were gliding up between the sleek warships in the van of the fleet, every inch of sail hoisted, every oar straining, to form a swift-moving spearhead shape. Spear would strike against shield - he shuddered at the thought; the collision would be bloody, costly, and he had had enough of such cost. The rams he himself had shaped hissed through the water as if it were still their quenching-trough, soaking in hides and offal to harden the steel; would they grow any harder in the blood of men? He peered at the ships ahead, stark and clear in the pale
light, striving to find some detail that would stop him
thinking of them as faceless menaces. His hatred of the Ekwesh, conceived in his first harsh captivity, had never left him; but as he peered at the ships ahead, stark and clear in the pale light, he could not forget that they were still crewed by men. It would be their blood too.

Suddenly he stiffened, shaded his eyes and strained to see. "What is it?" demanded Kermorvan, who even among the pressures of command missed nothing. "D'you see something, man?"

Elof rounded on him. "My lord, will you have the braziers made ready at once? And give the order for my wings -"

It was no answer, but Kermorvan passed on the curt orders before he questioned Elof again, and that only with a sardonic eyebrow. Elof swallowed. "I can see - but I do not know if you can…"

The tall man stared a moment, his lips moving, and then gave vent to a very unkingly whistle. "Is that what you told me of? Louhi's swift reserves?"

"It may well be! And if it is - then, as we agreed, it falls to me to meet it…"

"Alone?" cried Ils. "That was never the plan! Use the new weapon!"

Roc echoed her, but Elof shook his head. "You know better than that, whatever you say! Once seen, it can be countered. We keep it for the last! Now help me arm!"

The braziers had been lit for the fog, and in the excitement not yet extinguished; they were ready before Elof was. The steel lids clanged back, sending up a shower of little sparks. Kermorvan and his officers jumped and looked blackly, for no mariner likes the least spark in the little world of timber and tar and tow around him; a ship is a world too easily ended. But the dark wings folded about them, and that embrace no spark escaped. The least cinder that touched the deck was already dull and dead. One of the officers touched a spent brazier and gave a cry of surprise. "The very metal is cold!"

Elof smiled. "A man is no light weight to lift! Even with all that fire 1 cannot stay aloft long; I must await the last moment!"

"It will not be long delayed!" said Kermorvan grimly, and with a gesture sent his archers swarming up the shrouds to the masthead. "And we are almost within shot of the guard-ships now.
See
!" For the others it came too fast; but he had never quite taken his eyes off the enemy. A giant's hand seemed to slap the hull, then something passed between sail and deck, making all in its path duck, and hissed over into the sea. The
Korentyn's
bow catapults sang, but on the dromund next to them an invisible scythe slashed along the crowded deck, and cries arose Kermorvan, tight-lipped, was about to order the rowers to a last burst of speed, when Elof caught his arm.

"Wait!" he said. "If I fail -"

"If I wait I risk more lives!" grated the king. "Be swift, my friend, or do not venture it at all!" There was a cry over their heads; a figure folded and dropped from the masthead, bounced off the the mainyard and dropped all asprawl to the deck. Elof swallowed, hoping it was not the singer, and flung his arms high above his head. With a rush and sweep his wings unfolded across the sterncastle, his maimed legs buckled and he fell forward on their great beat. Over the deck he swooped, and up, half wild with relief and exhilaration, like a man who has lain months abed able to walk again, to run free and unfettered.

He climbed high to gain speed, and saw beneath him the massed masts of the fleet of Morvanhal, swaying like a floating forest out of the dispersing mists. It seemed to cover the sea, more than three hundred ships strong, bearing well-nigh ten thousand men. Yet against the fifty thousand or more that Kerys might field after centuries of war, or the unknown throngs of the Ekwesh and the unhuman servants of the Ice, that number would be all too few. It might dwarf that dark phalanx ahead, a mere thirty ships, yet against the threat that approached it seemed nothing. Seeking an updraft, he swooped over the Ekwesh ships, and caught his breath as the white emblems on bow and flank became clear to him. They were all the same, following the patterns that iron custom had laid down - an upraised head, arrogant and crested, tongue erect to scream with laughter or contempt, its long beak gaping to grasp at the sun-disc behind it. That changed everything. There was little time to waste, but he must risk it; he plunged straight towards the leading ship. He glimpsed an Ekwesh catapult dart shoot wide and targetless, skimming the harmless waves; they had seen him, all right. Now let them hear!

The leader was a dark hull longer than the rest, and it was careful to keep squarely in the path of the
Prince Korentyn's
looming bow; they valued bravery, this folk, if little else. Above the leader's maindeck he pulled up sharply and came riding down the southwind, wings thrashing like a great black crow as the ploughman passes. A hissing fountain of bolts and arrows rose up at him, but he hardly minded; he was hard to hit, and each was one less at the fleet. Swiftly he cupped hands to mouth and cried out, in what he knew of the Ekwesh speech.

"Clan of the Raven! Warriors of the Kokuen! Why bow you to shamans, why grovel to the Ice and she who rules it? Why do you counter the will of him you most revere?"

No arrow was loosed. But among the uplifted faces, well-nigh as dark as their leathern armour, there was a flurry of movement; out onto the shaman's platform sprang a burly warrior, his white hair streaming in the downdraft. His cloak of marten furs billowed out amid a jangle of ornaments as he flung up an arm. Instinctively Elof flinched, but only words were hurled.

"Again you, steel-shaman! Twice a handcount of years, and to the serpent's tongue you stole you add the Raven's wing! But are you truly his voice, then let him shield you now! Or look to yourself, shaman! For behold - Her hunter comes!"

It might have been thunder that came shivering down the airs, but Elof knew that it was not. Gorthawer leaned into his hand, he flexed his shoulders and saw the black sail beaten aback against the mast by the gust that hurled him upward. Like a startled horse the black ship reared and plunged, then it shrank away beneath him. With a chill in his heart he rose to meet the winged spear that came plunging down through the clouds.

Immediately he had seen that speeding speck he had guessed the moment he and Kermorvan had long debated was here. He had hoped it would be later, over land, with the bright sun at his back, the force of an army beneath him, and, hopefully, his latest and most powerful weapon; now he was armed only with what he bore, and not for the first time he mourned the loss of helm and hammer. But-late or soon, come it would, he had known that; as well, perhaps that he face it now.

To reach the Ekwesh he had sacrificed height and speed; it was nearly the end of him. Those vast yellow eyes must have seen him even as he rose, so much greater than any seabird, and known him for an enemy and a challenge; that swoop was aimed not at the fleet but at himself. Barely in time he raised his left hand, open in defiance; then the sky vanished around him, and suddenly he was back in his furnace, blinded and choking amid roaring flame. It was only agonised reflex that clenched his fists and dropped him just as suddenly into clear air once again, or as clear as it could be with a cloud of stinking oily vapour about him. He knew then what had happened, and twisting about he saw the brute circling, coming about to make another pass. But for a moment he had the height, and as the broad back swept below him he swooped in his turn, and flung out his fist. Ahead of him, the mistcloud exploded about the muzzle of the great dragon as the heat the gauntlet had drained from it lanced back. Caught in the fireball, the long head was flung back and the vast body, as long as any dromund, curled and ducked away, wings folded, dropping towards the dark waters beneath.

Elof cursed, and circled for height once more; he had hoped to kindle the beast's fire within its own throat, as he had served another once before. But this was an older, vaster creature, and undoubtedly wilier; it had shielded eye and muzzle and let the flame wash harmlessly over its scales, then sought to tempt him down by shamming defeat. Its wings unfolded suddenly, and the fall became a wide, sweeping glide well clear of the sea, away towards the advancing fleet. Elof cursed again and ducked after it, as it knew he would have to. It was man-cunning, this creature, if not more; he had fallen into the snare of thinking it a beast, and now it was leading the fight. Abruptly that serpentine body bent back on itself and came lancing back at him as fast as it had fled a heartbeat since. The jaws opened, and in near panic he thrust out his gauntlet to turn the flame -

There was no flame. The gigantic jaws, long as a small boat and lined with teeth longer than his hands, twisted and snapped at him with a vicious speed he could not avoid. Barely in time he swung his left arm clear and in the same movement hewed hard with Gorthawer. Dark blood leapt into the air, the jaws clashed shut and twisted away. A bellow of pain and rage shivered the air around Elof, and the light was blotted out. In horror he saw vast leathery wing, dwarfing his own puny span, come sweeping down upon him like a toppling wall; in desperation he struck again, a slashing blow taking all his strength from head to foot, a blow so hard that it spun him around in the air. A glancing impact stunned him, nearly tearing the blade from his hand, a spray of hot blood scorched his skin, a waft of foulness choked him and another cry rang through his skull, no bellow but a tearing shriek of pain and fury whose sheer force struck him as hard as any blow and numbed his mind anew. "They'll hear that leagues hence!" was his only clear thought as he tumbled down the airs. "Louhi'll know her pet's been stung -"

Then, once more at the margins of disaster, he half unconsciously spread his arms, and felt the wings bite the air above him and halt his fall. As the dragon had, he glided, letting the wind-rush clear the pain in his head, and sought frantically about him for his antagonist; he had been helpless for minutes now, why had the brute not finished him? Then, looking up, he saw the dragon plunge overhead, and realised what he had done. That giant wing was not, like his own, modelled after a bird's; it was a membrane of leathery skin stretched over bone, without feathers to part around an obstacle. His desperate slash had cut a way right through the membrane near the root, out to the trailing edge, so that only a loose shred had slapped at him; and with every wingbeat that tear was spreading. He could guess at the pain of it, and the horror of losing control out over the dark ocean; perhaps now the thing would turn back for the land…

He had reckoned without the power of its wrath. The malign yellow eye fixed on him, and madness glazed it. Unable to fly freely, its mind clouded by anguish and fear, the great dragon opened its jaws and vomited a stream of flame upon its tormentor. Elof had just time to thrust up the gauntlet; but he might as well have sought to dam a river with it. The fire-blast streamed about him and could not be extinguished, for that which the gauntlet cooled was lit anew. It was shielding his face and body a little, no more, and it was not enough. Desperate once more, Elof flung his wings wide, his head back, and clenched his fist tight. At once the flame rushed in upon him. But it caught him full on his chest, as he had intended, and fell upon the gems of his corselet. These, too, could not stop such a rush of fire; but they did not need to. They drank deep of it before it touched Elof's flesh, and gave his wings such a surge of strength as they had never before received save from the furnace that saw their birth. The force of their stroke hurled Elof free of the flame; but it did more. It lashed the fire-stream back upon the dragon, and from below, beneath the edges of its shield-strong scales.