“And get your head out of the way. If she snaps-”
“Aye, Dray. I know.”
And, with his superb Khamorro reflexes, he would be moving and avoiding the deadly whiptail of broken line faster than the eye could follow.
The argenter proved a stubborn beast. Most Kregan vollers are soundless in flight; had engines been involved they would have been screaming in protest. But we moved. We moved!
Slowly, painfully, we hauled the argenter crabbing through the waves, seeing the white water bursting clean over her. Not a man was washed off. Her blunt bows rose and fell and churned the white froth in a welter of foam. Slowly she came around and we crawled for the point. The hawser sang. This unknown voller might not be fast; but she could pull!
Gradually we saw the vital stretch of sea opening up as we hauled the ship away from the rocks. It was a maelstrom down there. The men clustered, looking up at us, and we prayed with them that all the gods of Kregen would smile on this enterprise.
As we passed clear of the spit of land dividing the cruel rock reef from the muddy bay, a small group of totrixmen galloped along the spiny ridge below. The six legs of their mounts spraddled out and their leathers glistened in the flung spray. They carried lances, and their helmets gleamed in the early light. They rode inland and were lost to view.
“Company,” I shouted at Turko. “We’ll have a reception committee.”
“Friends?”
And then, of course, I realized that this part of Vallia was firmly in the hands of a vicious foeman, that Kataki Strom, Rosil Yasi, the Strom of Morcray, who was a tool of Phu-si-Yantong’s and who would joy to see me dead. I may add that those sentiments were reciprocated in part.
“More likely to be enemies, Turko.”
He did not reply; but I saw the muscles along his arms bunch and roll. Andrinos, with his keen foxy face concerned, said, “Then this ship full of armed men could be enemies going to join their friends?”
I shook my head. “It is a possibility, and a risk we must take.” I did not say that I considered Quienyin would have acted differently had this been a shipfull of enemies. Andrinos and Saenci shared the respect and caution accorded Wizards of Loh. Feeling my reply to be somewhat abrupt, and, into the bargain, hardly reassuring, I added, “I am convinced they are not friendly toward the enemies of Vallia. On the contrary, if I am right they have sailed here to fight for us.”
“We pray Pandrite and Horata the Bounteous you are right, pantor,”[6]said Saenci. We were almost clear of the point. Beyond the crags the water ceased its frantic turmoil and smoothed into placidity. Once there the argenter could drift gently toward that muddy shore and ground without a fuss. After that, in due course of the seasons, she could molder to ruination. At that point the hawser snapped.
Turko moved. One instant he was checking the tension and calling to me, the next he was flat on the deck, yelling a warning.
The end of the line snapped over our heads and came down like a sjambok, thwack, across the cabin roof.
With a frantic snatch at the control levers, I halted the mad onward leap of the voller. She swung about and soared back over the argenter. The men down there stared up. The seas took the ship into their grip and remorselessly pushed her down onto the rocky crags.
“There’s only one thing for it, now!” I yelled at Turko. The voller swerved and descended. We felt the force of the breeze. With finicky movements I brought her low over the sea, to leeward of the argenter. As we passed that high, ornate poop the name leaped up, gilded and carved, Mancha of Tlinganden. Tlinganden was one of the Free Cities left after the collapse of the old Empire of Loh, situated on the east coast opposite the country of Yumapan in Pandahem. This ship had successfully fought her way through the renders infesting the Hobolings. Now she was going to come to grief with all her people, if we could not save her.
Gently I eased the voller in until we nudged the surging bulk of the argenter. It was touchy business. I had to maintain the same rhythm as the sea, lifting and lowering the flier, and at the same time maintain a steady pressure against the bulky hull.
“By Morro the Muscle!” exclaimed Turko, joining me forward and craning out over the coaming.
“You’re going to push her free!”
“It’s the only way left. Just hope we don’t stove her in.”
The voller rose and fell and rolled and the argenter was like a sodden souse refusing to move along.
“Or she doesn’t drag us down.”
Water sluiced inboard, drenching us.
The pressure kept up. The black crags ringed with creamy foam seemed to be racing up toward us as we went careering down, forced by wind and sea. But the silver boxes of the voller exerted their power as I forced the levers over. Slowly, we saw the angles widen, slowly we saw the bows creep past the last disturbed confusion of water, slowly the argenter, Mancha of Tlinganden, rolled and sagged and pitched clear of the last fangy outcrop.
“We’ve done it!’” shouted Andrinos. His hands were clasped together. Saenci clung to his arm. “Never have I seen such flying!”
Spray burst over us. The argenter rolled uglily. Men clung to her, like bees on a honeypot. And we weren’t done with her yet. She had to be turned, now, turned poop on to the run of the sea, so that she would ground less forcefully.
And then disaster struck. One moment I was beginning to think that we had successfully done it, the next a brute of a sea surged in, crisscrossing the current, the towering sterncastle punched at us, the poop swung shrewdly, and the voller was caught and flung and toppled end over end into the sea.
Chapter sixteen
The water felt like a brick wall.
Spread-eagled, cartwheeling, I crashed into that brick wall and burst through it with all the breath knocked out of me. Water buried me.
To struggle back to the surface and to gulp air… To struggle, never to give in, to go on fighting and clawing even as they shovel the grave sods over your face. That is the way of Dray Prescot, and often and often I wonder just how far it has got him. As the sea smashed into me and water clogged my nostrils I gave a few erratic strokes with my legs, turning and twisting upright, forcing myself to rise. Up. Up I went and my head broke the silver sky and the Suns of Scorpio blazed in my face. Light blinded me. Shimmer of wavetops, spray cutting across, all a liquid movement of colors and radiance. I spat. I shook my head. I forced my eyes to remain open. I felt, I admit, like a side of beef must feel after it has been corned and stuffed into a tin.
The situation was quite other than I had expected, for the voller floated. Amazingly, the flier sat on the water, upright, rising and falling with the motion of the sea. Just beyond her the argenter Mancha of Tlinganden rolled and wavered in my vision, surging on like a runaway temple to Kranlil the Reaper, shedding bits and pieces, falling apart, scattering timber as she lurched and shuddered to her doom. A few strokes took me to the voller. I handed myself up and felt the sluggishness. The canvas had been ripped and most of her starboard side stove in. She would sink in a few murs. There was no sign of my companions.
Standing on the splintered deck of the voller, I looked about. The advantage of vision afforded by that little extra height proved sufficient. Two heads showed in the sea, among white splashes, and then a third. Saenci’s reddish foxy hair drifted on the water and I dived in first for her. She was swimming well; but going the wrong way.
Spitting, I gasped out, “Steady, Saenci. It’s all right now. Just relax and let me-”