A sharp bronze beak lanced through the water toward them. Fost barely made out the low black hull of a galley, its gunwales almost swamped by its own bow wave as twenty pairs of oars rose and fell with the same easy unison as an eagle's wings.
The courier cried a warning. Onsulomulo capered on the rail and shouted crazy laughter. But the black ship was not trying to ram them. It swept by, as clean and quick as a shark, rocking the much heavier caravel with the power of its passing. Streaming out from the mainmast in the stiff breeze cracked a familiar ensign: a red field emblazoned with a tentacled black triangle, from which glared a single red eye.
'Cowards!' Erimenes shouted at the fleeing ship. 'Go about! How can you flee from a handful of overgrown sparrows?'
Onsulomulo cackled laughter, a surprisingly ancient sound from one who looked to be Fost's age.
'Never in my hearing has anyone ever called the sailors of the Tolviroth Maritime Guaranty cowards, smoke- man,' he said. 'They've completed their commission of guiding some fat merchant fleet to safety. No one's paying them to stick around and fight the flyers.'
A rock cast from the City landed on the waterfront and bounced like a bowling ball along the pier. It struck an anchored merchant ship, scattering spars and sailors like eightpins. Fost gulped, acutely aware that he was heading into a witch's cauldron of battle from which the redoubtable warriors of the TMG were fleeing. He felt Jennas's eyes on him. 'What now, Longstrider?' she asked calmly.
'We get the captain to put us ashore,' he said with no great enthusiasm. 'Then we try to find a way into the City.'
'Then we try to stay alive long enough to find a way into the City,' corrected Erimenes. 'You must beware of imprecision in speech, friend Fost. I've told you before…'
An unearthly moan froze Fost's blood in his veins. It came again and he realized it issued from his war bear Grutz's capacious chest, who sat man-fashion on his rump on the deck not far away. The bear stared into the air beyond the Miscreate's aft rail and hunched his head down between his shoulders. 'Look!' Jennas's brawny arm shot out.
Fost squinted. He made out a disturbance in midair. Ghosts of color danced within as though the sun's light were being broken into component colors. As he watched in uncomprehending fear, the disturbance grew and a tail dipped toward the surface of the bay.
'Ust preserve us,' breathed Jennas. 'A sylph!' The spinning tail of the air elemental touched water and a waterspout loomed above the vessel, a thousand feet tall.
Though he expected it, Rann's lips drew back in a grimace as the waterspout blossomed in Kara-Est's harbor. 'She does have the power!' he exclaimed in wonder.
No one had summoned an air elemental of that size in centuries, perhaps not since the War of Powers. The Sky City's magicians traditionally dealt with fire sprites. Though Air and Fire were by no means inimical principles, it was testimony to the growth of Synalon's power that she could summon an unfamiliar breed of elemental outside the confines of a laboratory. And one so huge!
As if gravity had been reversed, an Estil war galleon leaped abruptly into the air. The water tornado sucked up another vessel, and another. From several miles away, Rann heard the screams of the doomed seamen, even above the roaring of the elemental.
The menace of the water battery was broken. That still left most of the rooftop-mounted ballista intact. Synalon claimed she could deal with those, too. What she had in mind was even more ambitious than summoning a sylph tall enough to peer over the parapets of the Sky City itself. Though Rann still doubted, he had little choice but to turn Terror's head around and start the bird climbing toward the City to execute the next stage in the conquest of Kara-Est.
Drinking air that intoxicated like wine, Synalon knew the exaltation of pure power. She had summoned a giant sprite and bound it to her will, as docile as a pup. Her creature sported in the harbor, scattering Estil ships like so many broken toys. But there were still the defenders on the pitched roofs of Kara-Est to eliminate. The sylph might be able to deal with them but not without endangering Synalon's bird riders – and perhaps the City itself. The sorceress-queen had another conjuration in mind that would better eliminate the Estil artillery – and at the same time demonstrate her own power in a unmistakable way.
She staggered slightly and clutched arms around her body. Pain grew in her like a metastasizing cancer. She clamped her teeth to hold back a howl of agony. The black sun had turned to red, and there was no pleasure in the fire that ate at her belly and limbs. Battle raged, her body the battleground and her mind and soul the prize. But still her Will shone brighter than the fire. Gripped by distress that transcended mere physical pain, Synalon shouted a word of Command.
A ball of fire enveloped her. Her guards fell back, throwing up their hands to shield their faces against the dreadful searing heat. Something had gone wrong. Their queen was being reduced to ashes before their eyes.
Then the flame vanished, rushing away across the doomed seaport as the giant salamander Synalon had conjured within her own body was set to do her bidding. It etched a line of death through the air, leaving ludintip and eagles alike flaming in its wake. It cast itself into the waterspout.
Windows exploded in the two cities as the salamander's scream of agony burst like a bomb above the harbor. Water was the foe of Fire; Synalon had brought forth the sprite only to hurl it to horrid death. But not immediate death. Tottering, going to her knees on the lip of the pier, Synalon forced the salamander to remain in being, denying it the surcease of death that was its only desire.
Steam hid waterspout and harbor. Naked now, her glorious black mane charred to a smouldering, crackling stubble, Synalon clung to the stone of the pier. Though her body was drained of strength, though her skin stung as to the touch of a hot iron, she continued to work her Will upon spirits of Air and Fire, while her servitors watched in horror from the skywall.
Misty tendrils began to billow from the swirling cloud. Though the wind had been blowing out toward the harbor, they crept into the streets of Kara-Est, swallowing the city like a vast white amoeba. The surviving artillerists shouted in dismay and disbelief as the cloud engulfed them, hiding the sky from their view.
With an eagle's cry of challenge and delight, Rann launched Terror once more from the rim of the City. Behind him flew a hundred of the elite Sky Guard. Huge protuberances grew from the docks, became the sausages of giant balloons, silks gleaming in the sun. Though salamander-heated air filled the gasbags almost to the bursting point, they could not successfully lift the freight of men and arms that swung below. Five balloons towed by a score of straining eagles carried five hundred men toward the Hills of Cholon and the Ducal Palace in the wake of Rann's attack.
The Palace garrison saw them coming and sent a frantic signal for reinforcements to watchers in a spire atop the Hall of Deputies, who were only just visible above the unnatural fog. Then the bird riders struck. An arrow storm swept engineers from their emplacements. Detachments veered to land at preassigned parts of the Palace, while Rann and a dozen men attacked the tower.
Duke Morn awaited them. Somehow he seemed to fill his suit of plate and chain as robustly as he had before the death of his beloved wife and his heir. He held his head high. When the Sky Guard came for him, he killed six with a greatsword that flickered featherlight from side to side. The seventh he faced was Rann, and the duke did not prevail.
Still convinced the day was his, General Hausan despatched most of his defenders to aid the duke. Neither Tonsho nor Marshal Suema shared his optimism.
'Yes, yes,' the general cackled like a hen sitting on an egg. 'This will be the finest hour for the city. The very finest. We triumph on all fronts! The bird lovers are being repelled on all fronts. Oh, yes, a fine day. Fine.' Sky Marshal Suema drew Tonsho aside.
'The plan, Excellency,' Suema whispered in the Chief Deputy's ear. 'Shall we execute it?'
Tonsho nodded jerkily. Her teeth chattered too violently for her to speak.
Claws scrabbled on the stone as Grutz heaved his bulk out of the water. Fost let go of the animal's stubby tail to hoist himself onto the dock. He scrambled into the saddle and turned back. Chubchuk appeared, with Jennas still aboard his broad back. A cloud covered the harbor like a fleecy white roof. Sounds echoed eerily beneath: screams, shouts, the crack of splitting timbers, the roaring of the sylph. From above came the hideous keening that had sounded since the fireball from the City had plunged into the depths of the waterspout.
'A fire elemental, I do believe,' said Erimenes from his jug. 'Quite amazing. Synalon's position as foremost enchanter of the age is assured now beyond all doubt.' 'How nice for her,' said Fost. 'Let's get the hell out of
