Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

He lay there as they moved slowly toward the Landgrave’s pier and the cheering nocturnal crowd. While the hysterical populace screamed and sang, he stared up at the strange stars and tried to guess which one was home.

When they finally tied up to the dock and were greeted by the Landgrave himself, not even September could explain why Ethan was crying.

“They’re not going to be throwing even dogfood with that thing for a long time,” September commented. The big man had had his cuts and bruises attended to and now, several days after their desperate sally, looked good as new.

There had been no sign of activity on the part of the nomads after their great moydra had been destroyed. It looked as though, contrary to Hunnar’s expectations, they were settling in for a siege.

It had been nearly a week now, though, and Ethan was as bored as any Sofoldian sentry after days of sitting on the wall and staring out over the ice.

He’d taken to learning sele, a local kind of chess. Elfa was serving as instructress, on strict warning from him that sele was the only thing she would try and teach him.

Surprisingly, Colette kept interrupting their sessions with requests for a walk, or correction on a point of translation—she was getting good at the language—or some other trivial excuse. Once she’d even made a couple of attempts to learn the rudiments of the game herself. Standing behind him and leaning close over his shoulder, she gave the board her undivided attention.

However, she’d refused to have a dress made of the local materials; her shipboard outfit was by now ragged and thin, and whenever she leaned over him Ethan was subjected to several distractions of a nonverbal nature. Although he’d been the distracted one, it was Elfa who had quit in disgust and stalked off in a royal huff.

Frankly, it would have been pleasant to say that he was completely unaware of what was going on. But he’d worked too many fine cities and operated among plenty of sophisticated folk. He didn’t like the way things were developing, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. And darned if he wasn’t a little flattered.

Today, however, September had had to come for him in the local library, a fascinating place despite the maddening lack of pictures in the books. But he’d gone quick and quiet when he saw the look on the other’s face. They headed for a section of the castle Ethan rarely visited.

“What’s up, Skua? And why the sour expression?”

“Hunnar once said that he couldn’t picture our nemesis sitting on their backsides for very long without coming down with a severe case of the fidgets. Well, he was right. They haven’t been sitting. In fact, it appears they’ve been working ’round the clock.”

“Small area. On what?” They turned a corner and started up a ramp. “Another catapult?”

“Uh-uh. Hunnar says it would take months for them to rebuild something like that. After having seen it, I can believe him. No, it looks like this Sagyanak has come up with another surprise, and it’s a damn good thing we found out about it when we did. Though I don’t see what we can do about it in any case.”

Ethan was badly upset by the big man’s pessimism. Throughout the battle he’d never been so dour—an island of confidence in oceanic chaos. He sounded more discouraged than Ethan had ever heard him.

“How do we know about this ‘surprise’?” he asked finally.

“Wizard’s telescope,” came the curt reply. As they turned another corner Ethan saw that they were indeed heading for the old magician-scholar’s apartment.

It hadn’t changed from the one time he’d visited it, and it still stank. It wouldn’t have been very diplomatic to point it out, but the expressions on his face should have been sufficiently eloquent.

Hunnar was waiting for them, wearing a face that matched September’s own. So was Williams.

Ethan had seen very little of the schoolmaster since the fighting had begun. They’d passed in hallways and occasionally joined for a meal. But as their familiarity with the language and people of Wannome grew, the need for the humans to stay together at all times had diminished. Ethan assumed that the teacher had been up in the foundry, helping the tran craftsmen in the vital business of turning out a steady stream of crossbows and bolts. He was a little surprised to see him here.

“It appears they are nearly finished, friend Skua,” said Hunnar in a worried tone. He looked resigned. “Have a look, Sir Ethan.”

Ethan seated himself behind the crude, baroquely decorated telescope and applied his right eye to the eyepiece.

“The little knob at the right side is the focus, lad,” offered September helpfully.

“Thanks.” Ethan twisted the knob slightly and the image snapped suddenly into sharp relief. It was still fuzzy, but that was due to the crudely ground lenses and not his own eyesight. Considering what the Wannomian lens-makers had to use for sand, the telescope was a remarkable achievement.

Far back amidst the solidly anchored barbarian fleet, a great open space had been cleared. Considerable activity was occurring around a single huge, low raft. Many big logs, like those used in the stavanzer-fighting lightnings, had been tied together with heavy crossbeams. The resultant raft was one huge, crude, open deck mounted on gigantic stone skates.

“We found out about this only this morning,” September told him.

Eer-Meesach spoke from the background. “Tis fortunate indeed that I detected the vermin, else we should have no warning at all.”

“What’s it for?” asked Ethan, without removing his eye from the scope.

“I think it’s pretty obvious, young feller,” replied September. “Look off to the left, at that big pile of rocks they’ve assembled. You might have to move the scope a bit.”

Ethan did. Yes, to the left a swarm of nomads was unloading great stones from heavily laden rafts, arranging them neatly on the ice. Sometimes two rafts were linked together to transport an especially huge rock.

“I see them,” he said.

“They’re building a helluva big raft, there,” the big man continued. “Bigger than anything Hunnar or anyone here has seen. Its size and the construction that makes such size possible render it practically unmaneuverable, but that won’t matter.” His mouth tightened, the protruding chin cut air.

“They’ll load it to the breaking point with rocks and boulders, tons worth, put a couple of monstrous sails on the thing, haul it upwind and let it go. With the wind behind it and a good start, it’ll build up a pretty speed, what? It’s an obscenely big ram, is what it is.”

“Can it breach the wall?” Ethan asked quietly.

“I fear such is the case, friend Ethan,” answered Hunnar. “There is enough stone assembled now, and still they bring more. I think twould penetrate the wall like vol butter.”

Ethan took his face from the telescope.

“Can’t you be ready to block the hole with nets and chain once the ram’s gone through?”

“There is no other chain like the Great Chain that guards the harbor gate,” replied Hunnar ruefully. “They will come close behind this monster. We will try the nets, of course, but it will be very difficult. We will not know the size of the hole, nor will it be easy to bridge such a gap and secure the nets before the Horde is upon us. And still we must be ready to defend all sections of the wall, lest they swarm over us at some too-weakened point. Once they break into the harbor, we are done. They will attack the town and we will be forced to abandon the perimeter to them.” The knight looked terribly depressed. Ethan didn’t feel too good right then, either.

Williams spoke to the ensuing silence. “I think we’d better tell them now.”