Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“Twould be unthinkable to give them the ship under any circumstances,” said the General finally. “I would rather raze it to the ice than let the Evil One near it.”

Ethan sniffed the air and gagged. The miasma from the rotting colossus seemed powerful enough to stand off an attack by itself. In fact, after a look over the rail he noticed that the section of the encirclement directly to the east of them had actually grown thinner. It might really be of some aid. When they made their break, they would have a weakened section to try for. But Hunnar and Ta-hoding wanted to run the other way. Ethan sighed and looked at the thinned line of enemy troops with regret. The tran were probably right And the nomad rafts were drawn up to the east, forming a second barrier there.

Extra weapons were passed to all, along with the solemn word that there would be no quarter, no let-up in this next attack. Once again preparations were made for steering from below deck. Not because of impending storm, but in case the helmsman topside should be cut down when the raft tried to break the enclosing circle.

The wounded took swords or spears. So did Elfa and Colette and even Hellespont du Kane, who at least could wield one like a cane. The crossbowmen scrambled aloft, settling themselves in their baskets and stacking bolts nearby. Archers and pikemen moved to positions at the railing.

Waiting.

Ethan surveyed the poised Sofoldians, a pitifully reduced group, then the hundreds of tensed nomads. There were no reserves this time to take up an empty place on the rail if a man fell. He was beginning to lament all the sales, commissions, deals, promises, and women he’d failed to make. It must have taken more than a half hour.

It could have been his imagination. Or maybe Sagyanak and Walther had decided to give them a little extra time in the hopes that the increasing tension would weaken the resolve of those on the Slanderscree. Another precious few minutes for the furious repair crew.

They finally broke, howling and screaming, chivaning toward the raft from all sides. No disciplined assault this, but a shrieking, angry, uncontrolled mob.

Arrows began to thunk into the deck, the masts, the railing. A man went down a few meters to his left. Meanwhile their crossbowmen and archers were returning the fire from superior height. Dozens of barbarians dropped, hundreds came on. Again the uninvited grappling hooks and ladders sprouted. One hook narrowly missed pinning Ethan to the rail.

A helmeted head appeared over the side. September swung at it—he had the great axe in his hands again. Ethan hacked and flailed at the knotted rope attached to the hook.

One voice drifted down through all the noise and confusion. Ethan hardly recognized it. It was the voice of the mainmast lookout, posted aloft with the crossbowmen. He was using a megaphone—another, simpler invention by Williams. His message was brief.

“THEY COME!”

Ta-hoding, who’d been shaking every time an arrow whizzed within half a dozen meters of him, heard it also. Suddenly he was moving his fat bulk about the deck at an insane pace, bodily pulling sailors from their positions and all but booting them into the rigging. Ethan prayed that the captain wouldn’t run into a mast and knock himself flat.

Dropping swords and pikes and spears, they scrambled into the shrouds. Sails began to drop, grew convex with wind. The wheel creaked, a ghostly turning as the below-deck system struggled to move the half-frozen fifth runner. The soldiers fought all the harder to compensate for the manpower loss.

Gradually, a strange lull seemed to settle over the combatants on both sides.

“Hear it, young feller?” murmured September.

“Yes… yes, I do,” he whispered back, unaware that he’d done so.

The sound was faint, distant. A carefully controlled tsunami. Continuous rumble welling out of the ice itself.

Their attackers heard it too. Questioning looks assaulted the eastern horizon. As the susuration grew louder it began to assume a definite rhythm, rolling and booming like heavy surf. A nomad hesitated in mid-cut with his sword, another thrust his spear with less authority, yet a third drew his bow and let the bowstring sag limp.

The Slanderscree began to back free of the dead mountain. Ethan was sure he could hear a slight metallic groan from forward and belowdecks. He ignored it. Maybe it would go away. Whatever it was, the roped-together runner did not buckle.

Fires erupted in the encirclement on all sides of the raft as stockpiled wood was ignited. Rafts of dried wood soaked in oil were made ready to be pushed against the ponderous, slowly-moving great raft. Here and there torchbearers began to move toward the ship.

But at the same time, other nomads were beginning to slip back down their boarding ropes, stumble off the ladders. They fought against those pressing forward.

The torchbearers got halfway to the turning raft, now dripping warriors from its sides.

“There, I see them!” Ethan yelled. September turned too, and then Hunnar, and then the few of the enemy who still fought.

Far off in the distance eastward, a tiny clump of steel-gray bumps hove into view, like a herd of great whales. Except that the slightest of these was greater than the greatest whale that had ever swum Terra’s seas.

Adamantine sunlight encountered thin paired strips of white and flashed. The sound of thunder floated ominously over the glass-earth.

Ta-hoding ignored the occasional arrows which still flew over the deck and scrambled for the wheel. Another sailor joined him. Now there were four sets of powerful arms pulling at the fifth runner, two above and two below deck. Ethan watched the captain’s suety face swell as he strained to get the ship clear of the corpse.

They would only need seconds to pick up wind and start southward. There was no question of running into the wind now. Against it they could outrun the Horde, but not the herd. They might get out of their path. They had to get out of their path.

Utter confusion extended invisible claws, gripped the barbarian ranks as the word was passed. Spears and axes and torches were dropped as the remaining nomads spread their dan and chivaned for their lives. A few of the barbarian rafts were struggling with reduced crews to pull out their ice-anchors and get under sail as well. It was impossible to tell at that distance, but Ethan supposed many of those anchors were being cut free.

The majority of the nomads seemed determined to gain the distance to the rafts, the only homes they’d ever known. A few, less concerned, scattered in all directions, though it was hard going against the wind, or north, or south. A few milled about aimlessly. Others were trampled under chiv by their hysterical fellows.

Hunnar was growling low in his throat, glancing from the sails to the straining captain, then astern.

“Get her nose around, Ta! Get her nose around!”

Now the herd was close enough for Ethan to discern individuals. Close enough to see the long, gargantuan tusks curved partway back into the cavernous mouths. Even battling wind-noise, their thunder dominated as they inhaled cubic liters of air, forced it out of the fleshy jets near their rear.

The tran of the Slanderscree fought like demons to put on every centimeter of sail. There was a crackling and snapping. The still shattered bowsprit turned with agonizing patience to the south. Nearly free now of the attentions of the Horde, she began to move.

She passed the half-putrid corpse with nail-biting slowness—the corpse whose rotting stink had drawn the furious, bellowing herd from feeding grounds far over the horizon to gather and mourn over one of their dead.

Just as Eer-Meesach had said it would.

Ethan found himself pounding the rail with a fist.