Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

Ethan continued to stare, looking forward as the prow of the icerigger began to come around and point directly at the onrushing Poyo rafts. By then the opposition had drawn close enough for the lookouts aloft to distinguish markings and pennants. The faint hope that the vessels might constitute part of some huge merchant fleet vanished.

A stocky, wizened Tran had mounted the helmdeck, stood alongside Ethan. Balavere Longax, Sofold’s most respected senior warrior, gestured to their left with a clawed finger. The claw was pitted and dull, a fragment of worn feldspar set on the tip of a gray branch.

“Infantry,” he grunted. “Slower than rafts but more maneuverable. They seek to cut us off before we can gather the westwind behind us.” He fingered the sword slung at his waist, a weapon far younger than himself. Turning, he shouted toward the main deck. “Ware bowmen! Keep to your shields, men and women of Sofold!”

Arbalesters, carrying the crossbows devised by Milliken Williams to aid in the defense of Sofold against the assault of Sagyanak the Death and the Horde over a year ago, took up positions high in the Slanderscree ’s rigging.

Balavere studied the rush of infantry, now curving slightly toward the raft, “We must pass through them, but they will not stop us.” He glanced back at Ethan, grinned unexpectedly. “Their archers will concentrate their fire here, my friend, to try and pick off our wheelmen. Best you get yourself below.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay right here.” His own confidence shocked him. Little more than a year on this harsh world had transformed him considerably. Contact with the Commonwealth would surely change the Tran. Contact with the Tran had already changed at least one human. He patted the sword slung at his side. It felt familiar, comfortable there. But it was the hand beamer he raised and checked.

“Charge is way down,” he told Balavere, squinting to read a tiny gauge through mask and ice goggles. “I expect Skua’s and Milliken’s are low also. But the first bowman who comes too close is going to get a strong dose of modern technology.”

“I had forgotten about your knives that fight with the long light,” the general said. “Good. Remain then and help protect our mobility.” He walked over to talk with Ta-hoding.

“I worry not overmuch about their arrows,” Ethan heard the general tell the captain. “They could do worse, if this Rakossa has good advice. Himself I think incapable of much tactical subtlety. Their rafts sail with discipline, so keep the wind and try not to cut us off overfast. They may try to jam the steer runner with cables.”

“Think you I’ve not been in battle before?” Anxious and concerned as he was, Ta-hoding wasn’t about to let Balavere or anyone else tell him how to handle his ship. “Keep any cables out from our stem and I will deliver all safely to the harbor.” He muttered a Trannish curse. “Had we but a few hours longer, we could have outrun them. Only a—”

He was interrupted once more by a cry from the mainmast. “Ten ships, eighteen kijat to port!”

By then the icerigger had swung around to where westwind was beginning to fill her sails. She picked up speed, but the sailors of the main Poyo body were visible on the decks of their rafts. A new threat.

“They have cut us off, then,” Balavere observed.

“Not yet.” Ta-hoding bellowed new orders. Painful creaks sounded above them, and Ethan anxiously looked upward. The adjustable spars had been twisted around so far that they were holding the sails almost parallel to the raft’s keel line.

“Think you they’ll take the strain?” Balavere was also gazing up into the webwork of singing rigging. The foremast groaned, appeared to bend slightly from the vertical.

“Did I not, I would never have given the order,” replied Ta-hoding. “If we did not try it, we would truly turn straight into these ten new rafts.

Continuing to accelerate, the Slanderscree curved tightly around back toward the canyon. When it became apparent to the infantry on the ice and the ten flanking rafts that their quarry was going to slide past instead of into them, the bowmen unleashed a rain of arrows in the icerigger’s direction.

One stuck tautly into the hessavar hide shield Ethan had been given. He stared at it for a second, then ducked back behind the railing as another shaft whizzed close by overhead.

A small group of Poyo infantry had managed to gain slightly on their companions. Now they were chivaning parallel to the icerigger. A few had even managed to slip beneath her hull, where they could not be seen. As Balavere had guessed, thick pika-pina cables were slung on the backs of several of the attackers.

Hunnar, looking tired but not worried, appeared on the helmdeck. “We will have to put men over the side.” An arrow landed at his feet, stuck quivering in the deck. Both Tran ignored it. “Our crossbowmen cannot pick them off quickly enough before they get beneath us.”

“Any we send over who fall behind would be lost instantly,” countered Balavere. He gestured at the swarming Poyo infantry, who were gathering in steadily greater numbers around the icerigger. “We cannot afford to lose many of our complement.”

“We cannot afford to have them jam our steering!” Young warrior confronted old.

A commotion forward temporarily brought the argument to a halt. Despite the danger, Ethan rose so he could see over the bow. A brown-gray arrowhead was streaming toward them from the vicinity of the nearing canyon.

“Looks like a sortie from the city.” Hunnar was standing close by him, gazing with satisfaction at the widening silver river pouring from the canyon mouth. “Our new brothers and sisters have come to help.”

With the Poyolavomaar fleet close behind and infantry preparing to ensnarl the Slanderscree ’s steering mechanism in green cable, the arrival of forces from Moulokin saved Balavere and Hunnar further argument. The Moulokinese exploded into the unprepared Poyo troops. With the canyon wind canceling out the westwind, the Moulokinese soldiers now had the advantage of speed and maneuverability. They had timed their charge perfectly.

“Half the Poyolavomaar infantry succumbed to that initial surge, whereupon the Moulokinese arrowhead formation split, the soldiers curving around to left and right to race back toward their canyon. Some of them, in making the turn, came under fire from the nearest Poyo rafts and were cut down. Most were soon flanking the Slanderscree to port and starboard, exchanging victory yells with the sailors on board.

The canyon had become a familiar, gaping slash in the cliff wall. The icerigger slowed as she fought the powerful winds racing off the continent and down through the canyon, but so did the speed of her pursuers.

The Poyolavomaar infantry who remained made it a difficult last few moments, however. Shielded from the strong headwinds by the Slanderscree ’s bulk, they were able to overtake her. However, between the escorting Moulokinese and the accurate fire of arbalesters positioned on the huge raft’s stern, no cable-carrying enemy soldier was able to close nearer than a dozen meters to the vulnerable steering skate.

They were within the towering walls of the canyon then, making slow progress inland with the Poyo fleet close behind. Once, one of the smaller pursuing rafts came almost within bow range. It mounted a pair of small catapults, one on each side of its single mast. Both were soon throwing skins filled with flaming oil at the wooden icerigger.

The Poyo catapulters had not compensated for the tremendously powerful headwind, however. Not only did the dangerous, fiery sacks fail to reach the retreating raft, but the wind held them up and carried them back to fall behind the catapult-mounting craft. Infantry tacking behind it scattered frantically as the flaming skins burst on the ice, sending burning oil in all directions.