He flashed over the ruins of Irdna low enough to see figures squatting around a campfire in the now weed-green town square. They jumped up, pointed, and scattered, running frantically for cover. He wished the flier had an outside speaker system, so that he could explain himself before climbing out and exposing himself to the arrows and musket balls of people who might be too frightened to ask questions before they fired. Then he stopped himself. Time spent wishing for what you didn't have and weren't going to get was usually a gift to an enemy who acted at once with what he had.
Three days' travel along the river by boat was less than half an hour at the speed of the flier, even at low altitude. Blade saw the mountains that marched across the southern end of the lake jutting up on the horizon, their snowcaps sadly shrunken under the summer sun. Then the gap in the trees far ahead showed where the river flowed into the lake, and a minute later Blade raced out over the lake and saw Tengran on its island dead ahead. As he sailed over the town he saw the smoke of the alarm fires starting to puff up. It struck him that it was going to be a delicate process landing the huge flier on the island without flattening half a dozen buildings and possibly the people in them. That would damn well get him shot the minute he stepped out the door!
He came around in a wide circle, losing speed as he did so, searching the island for a space long enough and wide enough to accommodate the huge flier. The town itself was largely inside or near the walls, but for reasons good or bad odd buildings sprouted like mushrooms almost everywhere he looked, and where there weren't buildings there were trees and ditches.
He had to circle the island three times before he found what he hoped would be a large enough space. He lined the flier up, sighting on a low unpainted wooden building visible through the lower nose port, dropped slowly until the indicator spurs dug in and their lights flashed green on the master control board, then cut all power. The flier dropped with a solid jar and then a series of lighter ones as the whole huge structure wobbled and wiggled itself to a secure rest, with the hull belling and clanging as the stresses and strains shot through the metal. Blade braced his feet under the panel and stayed in his seat until the dance was through, then unbuckled himself and dropped through the floor hatch to the emergency hatch in the very nose of the flier.
Flattening himself against the floor in case somebody outside was ready to fire into the nose the minute the hatch opened, he pressed the switch and the hatch clanged open. Blade cautiously raised his head and looked out.
There was nobody in sight except three or four pigs rooting around the plank building, so Blade swung himself over the edge of the hatch and dropped to the ground. He landed with a squashy thump and went waist-deep in something soft and damp, and as he did so a gangling youth ran around the edge of the building. Blade raised his hands, then looked down-and sight and smell together made him realize that he was standing up to his middle in a manure pile.
«Damn!» was the first thing he said, in a roar that made the boy jump and drop his crossbow, then:
«Hello. I am Blade, a friend of the Treduki. Your town elders have heard of me. Could you send word to them, please?» Then with a mighty lurch he pulled one leg free enough of the mess to take a stride forward, and staggered out into the open, heading for the lake. The boy picked up his crossbow and clutched it tightly. Blade didn't care. He was damned if he was going to try to explain himself to the elders of Tengran while he was half-covered with manure.
Chapter 19
Four days later, Blade lifted the flier from a concealed site in the woods around the lake and headed north. Behind him in the control room sat Stramod and Nilando; behind them in the cargo compartment rode a hundred twenty fighting men and women. Most of them were Treduki, to be sure, but there were some of Stramod's action-squad people from the Union among them.
He could have taken five times as many fighters if he had been willing to take everybody who wanted to go and strike the blow to the heart of the Ice Master's power. But there had been no time to give even the most basic training to more than the hundred twenty who rode with him. Besides, there were other jobs for fighters now.
While he had been a captive and a guest simultaneously in the Ice Master's stronghold, nearly five hundred other Treduki and Graduki had been trained in all the techniques of fighting the Dragons and their Masters that he had discussed with Nilando and Stramod during the weeks at the Union base. Now that the location of the Dragon base was known, these were on their way to surprise it and destroy it and its inhabitants. Blade expected that many of these fighting men would not come back, but they had now lost their fear of the Dragons, and that alone would make it likely they would deal a heavy blow at the Dragon base. Such a blow to the Ice Dragons would much reduce the Ice Master's capacity for evil, regardless of what happened in his stronghold. The Ice Dragons and their Masters would be lying dead in scores, and Blade had his doubts whether the Menel would ever again trust the Ice Master enough to help him create and train more.
But that was assuming total failure of the assault on the stronghold, and at the very least the hundred twenty should wipe out most of the Ice Master's guards and smash everything smashable in the stronghold. Blade's raiders were picked for their condition; they had body armor (leather cuirasses and helmets) which the Ice Master's guards seemed to lack; they had half a dozen crossbows; they had twenty of the little bombs that Blade had used on the fliers. The crossbows could outrange anything the guards carried (and that was perhaps why they had been absent from the Ice Master's stronghold; too dangerous to the Menel, able to strike from beyond the range of those long arms with their terrible pincers). And while Stramod suspected that the Pi-field would probably prevent the bombs from going off, a way might be found to turn off the Pi-field, and in any case the bombs didn't weigh very much.
If they took the stronghold, what about the Menel? The Menel, who were destroying this world as a home for humans-but to make it a home for their own race. They were intelligent beings; not to be wiped out as the guards would be. Blade wished he had an answer beyond that. As far as the fighting was concerned, he had given his orders: the green monsters (so he told the Treduki) or the Ice Master's new creations (he told the Graduki) were to be avoided if possible, fought only if necessary, and never killed.
But after the fighting, then what? He would have to try to improvise some sort of communication system, at least one that might convey to the Menel that their ally the Ice Master was dead and they would have to deal with a new group of humans now. Perhaps if the Menel realized that there were many intelligent human beings, instead of merely the Ice Master…? But speculation beforehand was pointless.
He turned back to watch the land roll away below, reversing the sequence it had followed on the way south-forest, mountain, tundra, then the endless glacier. He was glad the hold had no windows; the Treduki at least might be badly shaken by learning how far into the forbidden glacier lands they were going.
He came into the stronghold flying high, wide, and open, gambling that the more he looked like a regular run coming in from the Dragon lair, the less the Menel would be likely to pay attention to him and perhaps shoot him down. The gamble paid off. He settled the flier down on the ice within a few convenient yards of the main door, ordered the rest of the raiders to stay put for the time being, and climbed down on to the ice through the same emergency hatch that had landed him in a manure heap the first time he used it. He smiled at the memory, then quickly erased the smile from his face as the door opened and four guards stepped out.