Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

He’d reached the hatch when the sounds of yelling and hooting reached him. It was several seconds before he thought to look skyward.

There, perched outside of the wicker observation cage at the top of the mainmast, was Skua September, gripping the top of the windswept pole with his legs, waving his arms and braying like a hairy jackass.

Ethan remained rooted to the deck until the big man finally tired and climbed down. He held his breath all the way, expecting at any minute to see the big man slip or lose his grip and be torn away by the clawing hurricane like the last leaf of autumn.

But he reached the deck easily enough. He walked over to Ethan, tiny particles of ice coating his snow goggles. A gloved hand brushed absently at them. He was panting heavily.

“Quite a view, lad, quite a view! A blood-racing experience, what? How about giving it a go?”

“As you should know by now, I’m not the reckless explorer type, Skua.”

“All right, lad, all right,” the other sighed. “You’re the feckless metropolitan type. Shame. It’s an exalting experience.”

“I don’t doubt it, but I’m quite cold enough right here without having to add fatal exposure and bodily danger to it. I prefer the deck. I’ll prefer my cabin even more.” He turned and opened the sliding hatch door.

To find a familiar and totally unexpected figure blocking his way.

“Good morrow, Sir Ethan,” said Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata coquettishly. “It is less cold belowdecks.”

“Elfa,” he said haltingly, “I don’t find this a bit funny. How did you talk your father into letting you on board ship?”

She walked out of the hatch, stood on deck. “I didn’t ask him. I hid on board til I thought it was too late for you to turn. It is too late for you to turn, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t ask him? How the hell did you sneak on?”

“I hid in an empty crate and the sailors brought me on with the other stores. Only it wasn’t empty.” She smiled prettily. “It was full of me.”

Hunnar had joined them as soon as he’d recognized Elfa. If anything, he was more stunned than Ethan.

“Elfa!”

“Really, the powers of observation of this expedition’s leaders amaze me. You are the second person, Sir Hunnar, to identify me right away.”

“What,” continued Ethan doggedly, ignoring the sarcasm, “is the Landgrave going to say when he finds out you’re missing?”

She looked thoughtful. “I expect he’ll be furious. He’ll rave and curse and threaten and break things and turn Wannome upside down. Eventually he’ll find my note—”

“Note?”

“—and know I’ve gone with you. Then he’ll really get mad.”

Ethan turned to September. “What are we going to do with her, Skua?”

“Well, we could turn back,” he considered, admiring the fur-clad Elfa openly. “With the wind behind us it wouldn’t take that long. But I hate like hell to give up the time and distance we’ve already made just to return this hot adolescent to her daddy, what? And there’d be all sorts of awkward recriminations and explanations and such… more time gone. No, tell the steward there’ll be another for supper and let’s keep on our merry way, hey? We can always find a place for her… eh, Hunnar?”

“What?” replied the startled knight He looked at the big man unsurely.

They were a thousand kilometers out of Wannome. Even as they breathed, another few meters of ice slid beneath the duralloy runners and vanished astern. Now they were gliding over strange ice that none of Hunnar’s men or Ta-hoding’s sailors had ever traversed before.

They’d passed few islands during the last hundred kilometers, none of them inhabited. The sense of desolation touched everyone.

“An empty land,” Hunnar commented quietly, subdued.

“Yes,” agreed Ta-hoding. “Tis plain to see there’ll be no trading here. Yet, some of the land we passed looked hospitable.”

“The volcano might have something to do with it,” said September. “I shouldn’t wonder that at this distance these islands might receive periodic rains of hot ash and pumice.”

“Even so,” mused Ethan idly, “the possibility of establishing a few trading centers with an eye towards expanding inter-surface commerce might—” He paused at a cry from the mainmast that froze both tran as thoroughly as a hundred below.

“Gutorrbyn! Nor’east!” Hunnar, Ta-hoding, and dozens of sailors and soldiers rushed for the rail.

“What’s happening?” yelled Colette from a hatchway. Hunnar beat Ethan to the answer.

“Get thee below, lady du Kane!” It was uttered as an order, not a suggestion. Colette bristled.

“Now, wait a minute—” she began hotly.

September’s tone was menacing and devoid of humor. “Do just as he says, Miss du Kane.”

She hesitated, looked at him uncertainly. Still muttering, she disappeared belowdecks.

“I see ’em,” the big man mumbled, shielding his eyes with a hand.

“So do I,” concurred Ethan.

Far off to the northeast, a small cloud of tiny brown specks had come into view. The cloud of gnats grew to fly-size, changed into a mass of dark T-shapes.

“Can we outrun them?” asked September. Hunnar’s reply was terse.

“No, my friend. Perhaps with the wind behind us… but they would still have the angle. Tis certain they’ve seen us. We may have to fight, though there is always the chance they will not be interested in us.”

There was a querulous bellow from across deck. Ethan recognized the voice of General Balavere.

“Dragons, sir!” Hunnar called back.

“How close?” barked the general, buckling on his sword.

“Five, maybe six kijat, and closing on us.”

Balavere cursed, strode to the forehatch, and absently yelled into it. Almost immediately, soldiers came gushing out of the hole as though it was a disturbed anthill. Meanwhile, the general hurried to join them astern.

“We’ll never keep them out with this rigging,” observed Hunnar, staring worriedly aloft. “We’ll put the archers in the center in a group, and spearmen along the rails.”

Ethan watched the flock grow larger. “How smart are these things?”

“Less so than a k’nith,” Hunnar replied. “They hunt by vision, sound, and smell, not their brains.”

“Here’s a thought,” began September. “We might try this… ”

No one moved on board the Slanderscree. Everyone tried to dig himself into the rail or one of the makeshift barrel-and-crate barricades. Not even the bravest of the ship’s pilots could be persuaded to stand at the wheel while the dragons attacked and neither Hunnar nor Balavere would force anyone. So steering was being handled from belowdecks with a crude tug-and-pull system of ropes.

The flock came on, gaining steadily on the big ship.

“Must be close to a hundred of ’em,” whispered September conversationally. “Ugly looking devils, aren’t they, young feller?”

There was the twang of a bow and Balavere’s voice reached them from up near the bow.

“Hold your fire, there! Make those arrows count, idiot!”

The gutorrbyn did not attack. The leader veered off at the last moment and began to circle the raft. The Slanderscree continued to plow wind, her decks devoid of motion, while a halo of squealing, squawking monstrosities danced round her masts.

Broad and bat-like, the leathery wings were attached to furry, streamlined bodies which ended in long, forked tails. There were claws halfway up each wing and great taloned feet coiled like springs under soft bellies. Each head was a nightmare cross between crocodile and wolf, with a long, wrinkled snout stuffed with double rows of razor-sharp triangular teeth. Huge tarsier-like eyes glared down with blank, mindless malevolence.