Jarka Ruus - Терри Брукс

Birds, he thought at once. Big ones. Rocs or Shrikes.

But they didn't fly like birds. There was no wing movement, and their shapes were all wrong.

They were airships.

«Captain!» he shouted over to Gar Hatch and pointed.

For a long second, the big man just stared at the shapes, then he turned back with a dark look on his face. «Cinnaminson, get below and stay there. Take the other young lady with you. Penderrin, come into the pilot box. I'll need you.»

Without bothering to wait for a reply, Gar began shouting at the Rover crewmen, both of whom jumped in response. Within moments, they were hoisting every scrap of sail they could manage, a clear indication that whatever was coming, Gar Hatch intended to run from it.

Cinnaminson was already descending through the hatchway, but Khyber was having none of it. «I'm staying," she declared firmly. «I can help.»

«Go below," Ahren Elessedil ordered her at once. «The Captain commands on this ship. If I need you, I'll call. Stay ready. Pen, let's find out what is happening.»

Be careful, Khyber mouthed silently to the boy as she disappeared from view.

Together, Pen and the Druid hurried over to the pilot box and climbed inside. Gar Hatch was setting the control levers, readying them for when the sails were all in place. He scowled at Pen and the Druid as if they might be responsible.

«Put on your safety lines," he ordered. «Check both ends of yours, young Penderrin. We've no time for mistakes here.»

Pen held his tongue, doing as he was told, buckling himself into his harness and testing the links. Ahren Elessedil did the same.

«Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it, making these runs," Gar Hatch growled. He nodded toward the approaching dots. «Those are flits. Single–passenger airships, bothersome little gnats. Quick and highly maneuverable. Gnome raiders use them, and that's who those boys likely are. They want to bring us down for whatever we've got aboard. They'll do it, too, if they get close enough. I wouldn't worry normally, but that storm took something out of the Skatelow. She's faster than they are when she's working right, but she's down in her power about three–quarters and I haven't the time to do the work necessary to bring her back up again until we reach the Lazareen.»

«We can't outrun them?» Ahren asked.

Gar Hatch shook his head. «I don't think so. If we get far enough ahead of them, they might lose interest. If they know the ship, they might fall off. If not …»

He shrugged. «Still, there's other ways.»

He yelled at the crewmen to make certain they were ready, then shoved the thruster levers all the way forward. The Skatelow shuddered with the sudden input of power from the radian draws and shot ahead, lifting skyward at the same time. Hatch worked the controls with swiftness and precision, and Pen could see that he had been down that road before. Even so, the flits were getting closer, growing larger and beginning to take on shape. Pen saw the Gnomes who were crouched in their tiny frames, faces wizened and burnt by wind and sun. Gloved hands worked the levers that changed the direction of the single–mast sail, a billowing square that could be partially reefed or let out to change direction and thrust. At present, all sails were wind–filled, catching the light, powering the flits ahead at full speed.

Pen could already see that the Skatelow had no chance of outrunning them. The angle of attack and her injuries from the storm didn't allow for it. The flits would be on them in moments.

«Penderrin, lad," Gar Hatch said almost calmly. «Do you think you know enough by now to take the helm and keep her running full out?»

The boy nodded at once. «I think so.»

«She's yours, then," the Rover said, stepping aside. «You look like you might have fought a battle or two in your time," he said to Ahren. «How are you with rail slings?»

They went out of the pilot box, safety harnesses trailing after them, and worked their way across the deck to either side of the mainmast. A Rover crewman joined each of them, and in teams they began to set up the rail slings, pulling the catapults out of storage bins and setting the pivot ends into slots cut into the deck. Pen had never seen a rail sling before, but he understood their function right away. Built like heavy crossbows, they sat on swivels that could be pointed in any direction over the railings. A hand winch cranked back a sling in which sat a missile the size of a fist. When the sling was released, the missile hurtled out into the void, hopefully striking something in the process.

Hitting a moving target with one of those weapons while flying in an airship was virtually impossible, unless the target was huge, in which case no damage was likely to occur. But used against a swarm of targets, like the flits, a rail sling might have some success. Miss one flit and you still had a chance at half a dozen more. The rail slings were barely in place and loaded when the first of the flits reached them. The flits by themselves were useless as weapons, too small and fragile to ram a larger vessel or to shear off a mast. The Gnomes' intent was to sever the radian draws or rigging or to shred the ambient–light sheaths. They did this by using poles with razor–sharp blades bound about the business end.

In seconds, the flits were everywhere, coming at the Skatelow from every direction. Pen kept the airship steady and straight, knowing that this offered Gar Hatch and Ahren Elessedil their best chance at bringing down their attackers. The rail slings were firing by then, and a few of the tiny ships went down, sails holed or masts shattered, plummeting earthward like stricken birds. One either miscalculated or failed for some other reason and crashed into the Skatelow's hull, shattering on impact. Another became tangled in the bigger ship's rigging and crashed to the deck, where its pilot was seized by one of the Rovers and thrown overboard.

But the flits were inflicting damage on the Skatelow, as well. Several of her rigging lines had already been severed, and one radian draw was frayed almost to the breaking point. The mainsail had a dozen rents in the canvas, and the flit that had become tangled in the rigging had brought down several spars. The Skatelow was still flying, but Pen felt the unevenness of her effort.

When the frayed draw finally snapped, he switched off power to the crystal it fed and transferred what remained to the others. But the airship was shaking and bucking and no longer responded smoothly.

«Hold her steady!» Gar Hatch bellowed angrily.

Another flit whipped past Pen, the pole and blade sweeping down at his head, and he barely managed to duck away from it. Sensing the ship was in trouble and its crew unable to do any more to help her or themselves, the raiders were growing bolder. One good strike on one more essential component, and the vessel would not be able to stay in the air. She would fail quickly, and then she would be theirs.

They were deep into Northland country by that time, flying close to the Malg, and mist had closed about them in a heavy curtain that reduced their vision to almost nothing. The flit attacks seemed to materialize from nowhere as they winged out of the haze and then disappeared back into it again. How the Gnome pilots could find their way under such conditions was beyond Pen. He was struggling to see anything.

«Take her up!» Hatch shouted at him.

He did so, lifting her nose into the soup just as a Gnome raider came right across the bow. The flit simply disintegrated, but pieces of it ricocheted everywhere, severing lines forward and starboard and cutting loose the flying jib. The Skatelow slewed sideways in response, and Pen could no longer make her do anything. Gar Hatch abandoned his rail sling and clawed his way back across the deck to regain the controls.

In the midst of that chaos, with the Skatelow beginning to fall and the flits attacking like hornets, Ahren Elessedil stepped away from his rail sling, stood at the center of the airship's deck, and raised his arms skyward, his robes billowing like dark sails. For a moment he stood without moving, a statue at rest, eyes closed, head lifted. His face was calm and relaxed, as if he had found peace within himself and left the madness behind.

Then his hands began to weave like snakes and his voice to chant, the sound low and guttural and unrecognizable as his.

Gar Hatch had hauled himself into the pilot box and taken over the controls from Pen with an angry grunt. His hands were flying over the levers and wheels, but when he looked up long enough to catch sight of Ahren Elessedil, he froze. «What in the name of sea salt and common sense is the man doing?» he demanded.

The boy shook his head. He knew. «Saving us," he answered.

Behind them, Khyber had come out on deck, grasping the hatchway frame to hold herself steady, and was shouting at her uncle in disbelief.

Gnome raiders, bladed poles lowered to skewer him, were darting at the Druid from all directions. But try as they might, they could not get close enough to do so. Mist obscured their vision and gusts of wind knocked them aside, the mix roiling faster and faster, taking on the shape of a massive funnel. Heads began to turn in response. Aboard the Skatelow, the Rovers were shouting. Astride the flits, there wasn't the time or energy to spare for it. The mist and wind had become a deadly whirlpool surrounding the airships and then closing on them.

Ahren Elessedil's arms were stretched above his head, as if he sought to grasp something that was just out of reach. The funnel cloud of mist and wind continued to tighten. It caught the outermost flits and engulfed them. One minute they were there, fighting to stay aloft, and the next they were gone. The rest tried to flee, banking their tiny ships in all directions, seeking a means of escape. Some came right at the Skatelow and Ahren Elessedil, but they could not get close enough to strike at either. One by one, they were plucked from the sky by the funnel. One by one, they disappeared until all were gone.

The Druid lowered his arms, the mist dissipated, the winds died, and the whirlwind vanished, as well. Not a flit remained in the sky. Everything was the way it had been before the attack, the air hazy and gray but calm. The Skatelow sailed on, wounded but able to continue. In the distance, a sliver of sunlight broke through the clouds.

Ahren Elessedil walked back over to the pilot box and beckoned to Pen. «Let's help clear the decks and put away the rail slings," he said. He glanced at Gar Hatch. «Odd weather we're having, isn't it? No one would ever believe such strange things could happen. A man would be crazy even to suggest it.»

Pen smiled inwardly. The Druid knew something about giving warnings, as well. Which was a good thing, he supposed, since now everyone aboard knew what he was.

NINETEEN

Late in the morning of the following day, they arrived at Anatcherae, the inland port on the Lazareen that serviced all traffic passing north along the corridor formed by the Charnal Mountains to the east and the Knife Edge Mountains to the west. They reached their destination more quickly than anticipated because tailwinds filled and sunshine fed the sails and because Gar Hatch had been able to complete repairs to the damaged radian draw before nightfall of the previous day. It was a smooth flight the entire way after their escape from the flits, with no further trouble arising to impede their passage.

Anatcherae was an old city built by a mix of Trolls and Bordermen following the Second War of the Races, when Southlanders were mostly keeping to themselves below Callahorn but trade was flourishing everywhere else. A sprawling, ramshackle outpost in its early days, it grew quickly, the principal port servicing trappers and traders coming out of the Anar, Callahorn, and everywhere the Troll nations made their homes. It had become a major city, though still with the look and feel of a frontier town, its buildings spread out along the southwest shore of the lake, timber and shingle structures that were torn down and replaced as the need arose and without much thought to permanency. Even though the greater part of the populace lived in the city, most did not intend to make Anatcherae their final stop along life's road and so did not build for the long term.