Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“Fine. Thanks,” replied the big man.

They had another hour to wait before the ram was sighted. The nomad soldiers were drawn up in their familiar crescent parallel to the harbor wall. As it had been days ago, the line was solid and unbroken. There was no indication of where the ram would come from. The concentration was, as always, heavier on the south side. No one expected the ram to come from the north or the east, into the wind. There would be no feint to this attack.

Despite the toll they’d taken among their tormentors on that first terrible day, the Sofoldian defenders were still badly outnumbered. But there were heartening signs in the barbarian line. It was still unbroken, but it no longer seemed to stretch to infinity as it had that first time.

As usual, it was Hunnar who made the first sighting.

“There! Over their heads by that dark spot on the ice.”

Ethan leaned over the wall, squinting. Almost immediately the enemy began to move away, split. A huge gap opened in the lines.

The ram was a tiny dot at first, but it grew rapidly larger. Soon it seemed as big as a stavanzer, though it was not nearly so. Still, it was plenty big, bigger than the biggest raft Ethan had yet seen. It sparkled oddly in the sun-glare.

“What’s that reflection from? Not the stone, surely.”

“It is and it isn’t, friend Ethan,” replied Hunnar evenly. “They’ve taken meltwater and poured it over the stones. Letting it freeze has turned the load into a solid, unbroken mass.”

There was silence among the Wannomian watchers, human and tran alike. The ram moved closer and closer with the deliberateness of an eclipse. No sound came from the distance, no pounding engines, no flaming rockets. The juggernaut moved mute.

Without turning, September spoke to the flasher operators. “Signal ‘standby’ to the wizards.”

The ram grew larger, seemed to leap into sharp focus. It passed through the waiting gap in the nomad ranks. Rocking with sheer speed, it came hurtling on at close to 200 kph. With a roar, the barbarian crescent started forward in its wake.

“Brace All!” sounded the cry from several places along the castle battlements.

The ram struck.

The concussion climbed the walls and threw men within the castle to the ground. Ethan could hear masonry falling in the inner rooms, an occasional tinkle of breaking glass. A section of wall two towers west from the main gate erupted in a shower of stone shards. The sound of damned stone crawled inside the head and battered ears from both sides.

A rain of rock and wood splinters descended and everyone covered as best they could. Large chunks were thrown all the way across the harbor into the far wall, taking pieces out of the interior side.

The ram slid two-thirds of the way across the harbor toward that interior wall on its five remaining runners, trailing two broken masts and a sea of shredded pika-pina sailcloth. Boulders and raped wood formed ugly blemishes on the clean ice.

A clear gap showed in the wall, broad enough for tran to chivan through twenty abreast. A close-packed mob of screaming, ax-waving barbarians, thousands strong, had followed close behind the ram. They reached the walls and the breach.

Dozens of grappling hooks and scaling ladders assailed the walls, ropes were snugged tight. Howling bloodthirsty cries, others swarmed into the gap, ready to overwhelm any attempt to close it.

Those at the walls climbed up, and over. They found only empty spear-slots, deserted battle-towers. Deafening cheers rose from the entire perimeter. The interiors of the great gate towers were gained. The Great Chain was melted into place, but the antipersonnel netting was cut loose and a fresh stream of angry warriors poured in via the main gate.

Ethan saw a gaudily armored officer gain the open gap, hesitate, and look about him uncertainly, clearly puzzled at the absence of the defenders. Ethan’s hand tensed on the castle parapet. But the cautious officer was swept away and into the harbor by the tight-packed river of attacking nomads.

Some of the barbarians began to run along the tops of the walls toward the castle and the city. They ran because the ice-paths had been melted and hacked into uselessness. They reached a point where the wall entered the castle itself—and were halted by a solid barrier of stone and a hail of arrows from above. A few began to batter ineffectually against the walled-up entrances.

Some tried to climb the raw stone itself. They were easily picked off by the archers above. Most turned and, spreading their wings, dropped in a semi-glide to the uncontested ice below.

The harbor was rapidly filling with screaming, thrashing warriors all milling about and looking for someone to fight. Confusion and uncertainty was beginning to take hold. The mass vacillated, shifted. Then, as one, they rushed on toward the undefended city with a horrible cry.

The entire remaining strength of the Sofoldian army met them at the shoreline.

Camouflaged barriers of rock and lines of sharpened stakes appeared, tied together by cables of barbed pika-pina rope. The tough, nearly unbreakable cord had been laboriously studded with sharpened bits of glass, wood, and metal. September and not Williams had been the one who had shown the locals how to make a fair imitation of concertina wire. A hail of crossbow bolts and arrows and spears felled hundreds of the surprised enemy in that first startling counterattack.

But it was only a last-ditch defense, screamed the nomad officers to their men! One more effort and the soft city-folk must surely collapse! The great wave swept forward again—to lose more hundreds to a barely covered deep ditch filled with sharpened stakes, tipped with vol dung and other poisons. The concealed moat was quickly filled with moaning, twisting bodies.

Yes again, urged the garishly garbed captains, the resplendent field officers! A last charge to sweep away the fatally weakened defenders! Yet a third time the nomad mass trundled forward, slammed into the Sofoldian line. Hand-to-hand combat sprang up at isolated points along the shore, the barbarian Horde gaining a centimeter at a time, the length of every spear and sword bitterly contested.

From high on the castle battlements, September calmly said, “Ready now” to his communicators. An acknowledging series of flashes came from a tiny house now perilously close to the front line.

Meanwhile more of the enemy poured into the harbor, slowed as they ran into their fellows. There must have been ten thousand pressing inexorably against the thin Sofoldian defenses, with more arriving each second, every tran a pillar of hatred and fury.

“Now,” said September quietly. The message was flashed to the waiting receivers. The flasher operators had guts. They didn’t drop and kiss stone until they were certain the command had been received.

There was a pause.

For one terrifying moment, nothing happened. Ethan raised his head slightly and peered through an arrow slot.

The ice convulsed.

Concussion lifted him from the ground and slammed him back into unyielding rock. He felt wet stickiness on his cheek, but he’d only scraped himself. A microsecond later he tried to metamorphose into a tiny ball. Down came a bitter squall of ruptured ice, mixed with pieces of barbarian armor and pieces of barbarian.

Far out on the southwest icefield, Borda-tane-Anst, knight of Sofold, felt the ice-earth shake under him, saw the huge column of flame and smoke erupt in the harbor of his home. His mind rejoiced because the magic of the alien magician had worked. But deep inside he was frightened near to death.

The earth did not open beneath them. Pulling at the pure white cloak that he’d been lying under all morning, he rose and waved his sword to right and left. Then he and six hundred picked Sofoldian troops spread their dan and started grimly for the rear of the nomad encampment. All carried torches in addition to swords and spears.