The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (53 page)

“Fighting too close-in to pick out friend from enemy,” September declared above the awful sounds of murder, “but if we can keep the rest of them from getting aboard … You and Williams take the starboard side, feller-me-lad. I’ll take the port.”

“I don’t like this.” Nevertheless, Williams unlimbered his own small beamer. They had acquired the three hand weapons through unofficial channels in Brass Monkey, not because it was illegal for humans to carry modern weaponry on Tran-ky-ky, but because September had insisted they’d be better off keeping their capabilities hidden until they knew who was on whose side.

Three shafts of bright blue light jumped down from the cabin roof, struck the ship’s railings and moved along them. The high-intensity coherent light beams swept incipient boarders from the
Slanderscree
’s sides, piercing one after another. They hardly had time to scream. They did not have time to get into the fighting.

Seeing this small victory produced a renewed surge of confidence in the crew, despair among their opponents. The sailors redoubled their efforts.

September shifted his beam from the charred top of the railing and played it intermittently on the ice. One burst revealed three ice craft mounted on bone runners waiting nearby.

Changing the intensity setting on his beamer he played it across the deck and sails of one icecraft. Flames lit the night, illuminating the other two craft and their now panicky crews. Those boarders still alive had to fight their way back to the railing. Some made their way back down the boarding ladders they had brought, others jumped and trusted to powerful leg muscles to absorb the shock of landing on the unyielding ice.

Ethan stopped firing, moved across the roof to grab September’s shoulder. “Stop it, Skua, they’re leaving.”

September sighted carefully, fired again. “Just a few more bursts, lad.” A distant scream penetrated the darkness. “I can get a couple more of ’em.”

“Skua, stop it.” Using both arms, Ethan managed to bring September’s gun arm down. The giant gazed back at him. For a brief instant another person stared out of those deep-set eyes and Ethan took a couple of uncertain, frightened steps backward. Then the unearthly glare disappeared and September was himself again.

“Sorry, young feller-me-lad. Been in so many similar confrontations I tend to forget myself, sometimes.” Ethan wondered if the giant meant it literally. “If we let them get away, they may try and kill us another day. However,” he shrugged amiably, “I defer to your gentler sensibilities.”

“Thank you.” Both men looked back to see a disgusted Williams clipping on his own weapon and hurrying below.

Ethan and September used the exterior walks to make their way down to the deck. They found the Tran wizard Eer-Meesach in intense discussion with Hunnar.

“I don’t recognize their trade insignia at all,” the elderly Tran was saying.

Hunnar grunted, nudged a corpse with his foot. “That is not surprising, so far from home. Emblems and insignia would naturally be different and carry different meanings.” He walked away, muttering to himself.

Hunnar joined the two humans as they moved to the railing. September used his beamer on low power wide beam to reveal an irregular path of crumpled hairy forms lying on the ice. Lightly stirred by the wind, they formed a grotesque trail leading toward the distant cliffs.

“The tip of this island would be a good place for raiders and pirates to lair,” Hunnar declared. “Here they could ambush commerce traveling from the west side of Arsudun and lands lying thereto en route to Arsudun city. I would not have thought they would be so bold as to attack anything the size of the
Slanderscree,
though.”

“Neither would I, Hunnar.” September scratched at the back of his head, trying to run his fingers through his hair, then remembered the new survival suit he wore now. “Maybe it was too much of a temptation for ’em. They would’ve done all right, too, if we’d only had swords to fight with.”

A mate approached Hunnar, chatted with him a moment, then moved on, holding a bandaged arm.

“Our losses are not severe,” Hunnar informed them. “We may encounter more such assaults, friends. I would hope such sacrifices are not in vain.”

“I hope so, too, friend Hunnar.” Ethan was glad it was night. He didn’t have to watch the sailors using meltwater to swab the blood from the decks.

Cleaning the decks produced three bodies who’d been offspring of Sofold. In accordance with custom, the deceased were carried into the body of the ship. They would remain in the unheated under deck until the
Slanderscree
returned home, preserved by the sub-freezing temperatures. Following departure ceremonies attended by their families, the corpses would be defrosted and reduced to a fine meal which would be spread across the cultivated fields of inner Sofold. Thus would the dead enrich the soil of their homeland which had supplied food to nourish them when alive. This was a necessary as well as spiritual tradition. The island states of Tran-ky-ky were not rich in natural fertilizers.

Tradition likewise deemed the bodies of the fallen enemy unhealthy. Being likely to spiritually poison the fields, these chilled torsos were unceremoniously dumped over the side. While the ship’s shaman repaired fleshy wounds, her carpenter set about fixing the railings where the sky-outlanders’ light knives had burnt through.

Repair operations under way, a far larger and more alert guard was mounted and the rest of the crew returned to their hammocks or supper, whatever they were doing when interrupted.

When everyone else had resumed downing cold food, an empty seat was noted in the chamber. The seat was the one located between Hunnar and Ethan.

“Who has last seen the Landgrave’s daughter?” Hunnar’s gaze met the curious stares of knights, squires and mates. Individual denials combined to create an air of anxiety in the room. It seemed that no one could remember seeing Elfa since they had first come to eat.

One sailor ventured that he’d seen her on deck fighting with the rest of the crew. Being occupied fully with preserving his own life, he hadn’t been able to watch her for long.

Hunnar rose. “Search the ship. Begin with the three cabins, then the interdeck storage bins, then the rigging.”

For a second time the meal was abandoned as the inhabitants of the chamber spread out across the vessel. Every centimeter of wood was examined, every yard and sail locker combed. What the last areas searched lacked in likelihood, they made up for in the unanimity of response they produced.

Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata was no longer on the ship.

It was suggested she’d fallen or been knocked over the side. Scrambling over lines and ladders, the crew flooded the ice around and beneath the icerigger. September, Ethan and Hunnar quickly joined the search. Oil lamps carried by chivaning sailors suggested a conclave of fireflies, darting and weaving irregular search patterns over the ice. Several followed the line of inert forms stretching unevenly toward the nearby cliffs.

Once more all reports were negative. Elfa was neither alive aboard ship nor dead on the ice.

“They would not—” Hunnar paused, collected himself. “They would not have taken her corpse.” His teeth showed and he was not smiling. “She would be of no use to anyone in any … capacity … if dead. We must assume she had been taken by those who escaped.”

Senior warrior among all the assembled Tran, Balavere Longax half-grinned in the direction of the dark island. “Sympathy to them, then.”

“Suaxus, Budjir, choose twenty crew, volunteers all, for an attempt.” Hunnar glanced at the quiescent icerigger. “We can spare that many and still leave the ship safely protected, should this abduction be a diversion to weaken our defenses.”

“You realize,” September growled, raising his voice to make himself heard above the wind, “that if they hole up in any kind of fortified camp, we’re going to have a helluva time worming her out.”

“Would you think of not trying?” Hunnar spoke calmly, but Ethan could see the knight was holding himself together with great effort.

“Of course not.” Ethan couldn’t tell if the big man was being sarcastic or not, and he couldn’t see his expression beneath the survival suit mask. He tapped the tiny weapon attached to his waist. “If you’re going to have any kind of chance, you’ll need our firepower.” Hunnar turned his attention to Ethan.

“This is not your fight, my friend.”

“Hunnar, in the eighteen months I’ve known you, that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

Hunnar’s expression said thanks, his gratitude no less eloquent for being nonverbal.

“We must get the other things we brought with us from Brass Monkey,” Ethan continued. “It won’t take us a minute to get ready.”

“It will take time to assemble the party,” Balavere said.

The two humans reboarded the ship. On returning to the ice, they sat down and began to do strange things with their feet. Hunnar’s curiosity took his mind off Elfa for a moment.

“Williams will stay on board,” Ethan told him, puffing with the effort of what he was doing. “We should leave at least one beamer on the ship in case they try another attack.”

“I do not think they will,” said Hunnar, staring at Ethan’s feet. “But it is a wise man who leaves one trap by the door of his house when he goes hunting.” Unable to resist any longer, he gestured at September.

“What is it you do to your feet?”

Ethan stood, rocked awkwardly, but kept himself upright. “They’re called ice skates, Hunnar.” He bent, adjusted a strap. “They’re artificial chiv, that fit over our own chivless feet. These are kind of special. We found out some of the workers in Brass Monkey had them made in the station metal-forming shop. They have gyroscopic compensators built into the soles.”

“I do not understand this gyoscopek. But what do they compensate for?”

“For our clumsiness.” He stumbled, seemed about to fall, when his feet suddenly shifted fluidly to help him regain his balance.

Hunnar wondered if they would compensate enough. Perhaps they needed more gysocopeks.

The assembled crewmembers wore uniformly grim expressions.

“I think this expedition will run smoother,” September said, “if Ethan and I concentrate on just stayin’ upright.”

“I understand.” Hunnar called up to someone leaning over the railing. Several lengths of pika-pina cable were tossed over the side.

One end of both cables were braided together. Hunnar handed the thick joined end to Ethan. Two sailors picked up the other two ends, opened their arms. Wind filled their dan, and Ethan found himself starting to move forward. September was alongside, likewise making use of the tow.

And suddenly they were racing toward the cliffs at nearly sixty kilometers an hour.

Ethan gritted his teeth behind the mask. If he lost his balance or his grip at this speed, a rough place on the ice ocean might rip even the tough material of the survival suit, admitting air cold enough to freeze skin on contact. Somehow he managed, though his bent knees ached and his hands throbbed.

Suaxus yelled at him from nearby. “Ready, friend Ethan! We are going to turn.”

He tried to strengthen his grip, but his hands were numb from the strain and he couldn’t tell if his grip was growing any stronger. On command, every Tran in the group dropped his or her left arm, leaned to the right, and swerved sharply in that direction.

Ethan worried about the strain on the cable as he snapped around like a rock on a string. But the cable held, and so did his wrists. They were running toward the cliffs in a wide arc. A glance between his feet showed they were following the ice paths cut by the retreating survivors of the assault on the ship.

It was nearing midnight, and the incredible cold of the Trannish night began to penetrate the immensely efficient thermotropic material of his suit. Once he slid open the face mask of his suit just a fraction, and a thin blast of air hit him like a ten-kilo boulder. He closed it immediately, shivering not from the cold. How quickly out here his blood could freeze solid in his veins.

There were shouts from the head of the group. Suaxus, noting Ethan’s curious stare through his face mask, pointed upward. They were nearly below the cliffs now. Twenty-five meters above, the irregular silhouette of trees growing at the edge thrust black spines into the moonlit sky.

A small fortress rode the edge of a spire of rock. It was separated from the main island by a five-meter-wide gap spanned by a wooden drawbridge.

The group swung off into shadow. “We’ll try to go up an unguarded side,” Hunnar was saying. “There should be only one walkway cut into the rock, and it is bound to be watched.”

Such a walkway would be cut into the sheltered lee of the rock spire, on its eastern side. The little knot of armed Tran and humans decelerated on its dark, windswept, western flank.

Ethan let go of the cable, tilted his head back and struggled with feet intent on flying out from under him. The wall of the small fortress above was built of massive stone blocks. There were no turrets or peaked roofs for the wind to tear at.

“It does not seem possible,” one of the squires finally declared. “It is too straight.”

“No it’s not.” The squire stared at September.

“Do we fly up like the guttorbyn, sky-outlander?”

September walked—skated rather—to the base of the rock pillar. The stone tapered toward the top. “It’s only about twenty meters. We could climb it.”

“You mean, leave the ice?” Hunnar’s eyes widened.

It occured to Ethan that the Tran, who moved so easily and gracefully across the ice ocean but found even walking burdensome, might find the concept of climbing an unprepared surface terrifying. While their sharp chiv would give good purchase on the wooden spars and masts of a ship, they would only slide on smooth rock. And their comparative inflexibility would keep them from probing for a foothold the way the ape-foot of a man could.

“All right. Then Ethan and I will go.”

“Just a minute, Skua.”

“I’m open to suggestions, feller-me-lad.”

Ethan had to admit, finally, he couldn’t think of anything better.

“We’ll have surprise on our side, lad. Remember that.”