form bobbing, burning slicks of oil-soaked wreckage. Black smoke blotted the air, swirling crazily as it was caught in the gusts of the druid-spawned wind.
A few of the missiles struck with even greater effect. Christopher shouted a hurrah as a white sail caught a fireball and quickly erupted into flames. At the same time, rivers of fire trickled down the mast, and immediately the planks of the main deck began to burn. Another caravel wheeled out of line, flames streaking the port gunwale, engulfing the helmsman and half the crew within an inferno. And at the far end of the elven line, fire crackled in the prow of a wildly steering caravel. White flames suddenly shot skyward, and Crusaders cheered at the knowledge that one of the hated batteries was now turned upon its owner. More explosions rocked the hapless vessel, blasting away the mast, tearing at the planks of the hull. Within a few heartbeats, the ship was gone, the grave marked by a smear of crackling flame and hissing steam boiling upward from the surface.
“Give it back to the heathens!” Christopher shouted, delighting in the results of the lethal ambush. Already his elves and goblins were hastening to pull the great baskets backward, to ready the next load of flaming doom.
“Hurry, bold Crusaders!” shouted the knight, voice shrill. His hand went to the Stone of Command and he clenched it. “Make haste, and smite the enemy again!”
With a frenzy the last of the baskets was loaded, crewmen diving to get out of the paths of the coiled weapons.
“We’re ready, lord!” shouted his elven gunners’ chief.
The knight looked down, watching with satisfaction as the caravels reeled through the smoking chaos on the water. The catapults were fully revealed now, the wall that had once concealed them having dropped to lie flat on the deck. And even the undamaged caravels were still in easy range, veering and swerving on the water now marred with a hundred crackling, oily blazes. Christopher knew the time had come for the killing strike.
“Let fly!” he cried, and one hundred supple weapons snapped forward. Bundles of oily rags soared through the air, trailing smoke and fire, plunging toward the wooden hulls of the slender elven ships.
“F ire!” cried a crewman, flinging himself to the rail as the Swallow swerved past a flaming swath of floating debris. Tamarwind got a quick glimpse of broken staves, greasy rags, and oil burning into a column of thick, black smoke. Thankfully the caravel slipped past without damage-though they clearly remained in grave danger, as another series of smoking fireballs burst upward from the stunning array of catapults.
“Another volley!” Tam shouted. “Get out of range!”
But he saw that it was too late for at least half the fleet. He watched in horror as caravel after caravel caught fire, sometimes losing masts and sails, with all too often decks and hulls succumbing immediately after.
“They got the Robin-and the Goshawk is burning too!”
Tamarwind tried to follow the reports of his lookouts, tried to think, to decide what to do. The surviving caravels were curling around to port and starboard, frantically maneuvering to avoid the rain of smoldering missiles. Another volley smudged the sky, and still another elven ship was suddenly immersed in fire.
“Come about-fall back!” Tam shouted in anguish, knowing that to run away was to yield the lake to the invaders.
But what else could he do?
Only four of the caravels were sailing away from the raft, these ships-including the Swallow-having suffered only minimal damage. Of the other eight, two were already gone-destroyed by the explosive combustion of their battery ammunition. Tamarwind watched, horrified, as a third-the beleaguered Goshawk-abruptly vanished in a thunderous explosion of white fire and roiling smoke.
Five more of the valiant ships struggled to make headway, often with only a jib or stern sail. Broken masts were cut away and tattered sails tried to corral the slippery wind. The crews seemed to be bringing the fires under control, and now at least the surviving ships were safely out of range of the lethal catapults. Two of the caravels, apparently the Robin and the Cardinal, were still burning savagely, and it was clear that they would never make it back to port.
“Pull up!” Tamarwind shouted to Juliay and his helmsman. “Let’s get over there and see if we can take off survivors.” The other captains apparently had the same thought, for the caravels were slowing, gathering together like frightened sheep.
But the next piece of bad news suddenly became apparent, as the last of the Crusaders’ galleys came into view, moving out from behind the great raft, oars driving it steadily toward the elven ships. In that lofty, metal- jacketed prow Tamarwind saw utter disaster. The caravels were bunched together, half of them dismasted or lofting only tattered ashes of sails. The Swallow was the only elven vessel with a battery, and it was badly out of position, too far away to shoot without endangering allied ships.
A streak of white moved across the lake, coming terribly fast from the shores near Circle at Center. Sails bulged, and the ship raced like a soaring bird, skimming over the surface of the water.
“It’s the Osprey!” The shout came from his lookout, and Tamarwind watched with a sense of sick horror. What was Roland Boatwright trying to do? His ship skipped across the lake with stupendous speed, surely traveling faster than any craft could sail. The druid was visible as a distant figure standing in the helm. There were no other sailors in sight, and Tam understood intuitively that Roland had sent his crew off the ship.
The course was set, the speed fantastic, as the little sailboat-with its sharp metal prow-angled toward the hull of the massive galley. The wind in the distance was a moaning howl, and whitecaps lashed the lake around the Osprey, swelling the sails with powerful pressure. The captain of the galley obviously recognized the danger, as the big ship started a slow turn, wheeling in an attempt to meet the audacious attack head-on. But the galley was too slow, barely starting to swerve as the Osprey, like some deadly missile, raced into the inevitable collision.
The impact against the hull of the galley was a thunderous crunch, accompanied by a flash of fire and an explosive concussion. Timbers flew, and the Osprey vanished in the instant of destruction. A moment later the galley, fatally holed, was settling into the water, sinking quickly by the bow.
B y the time Karkald climbed to the top of the tower the sun was receding. He found Natac staring expressionlessly across the lake, where smoke still smudged the water. The dwarf’s first reaction was that the raft was horribly close, already through the patch of lake where so many elven ships had died. The surviving caravels were limping back to port, several of the damaged ships being towed by their full-masted comrades.
“I’ve given Gallupper a few instructions,” Karkald said. “I don’t want to use him unless we have to, but this new invention might work.”
“I’ll leave that to you, then,” Natac said. The dwarf was surprised-he had expected the army commander to make some inquiry, probe a bit to find out about the new device. Instead, the human warrior stared into the growing darkness.
“How many died out there?” Natac asked after a moment’s silence. “Roland, for certain… and brave captains, and young sailors… sons and daughters. And still they come. Are we doomed, like Mexico?”
Karkald cleared his throat. He knew the tale of the conquest-Natac frequently used it as a lesson for all of his lieutenants. But he couldn’t think of an encouraging reply.
“Or like my Yellow Hummingbird… is there no point to any of this?” the warrior continued. Karkald didn’t understand the question, but he wasn’t going to ask for an explanation.
As darkness thickened, the two veterans looked at each other. “The war still comes, closer every minute,” Natac noted.
“And we’re drawing close to the Delver Hour,” Karkald said grimly.
“Are you ready?” the human asked.
“Almost,” Karkald replied. “I’m going to go up the street and talk to Darann for a moment-make sure she’s safe, let her know what’s happening. I’ll be back here before those bastards touch ground.”
T he great raft moved with stately, implacable force. Zystyl felt the progress with his feet, and with every other sense, just as he could feel the full darkness of Nayve’s night. The lightless air was a cool embrace, wonderfully soothing against his skin. He rode near the center of the flat surface, under a metal roof that protected him from the rays of the sun, and from the flaming missiles that the city’s defenders hurled with such vexing persistence. Awnings had covered the Delvers during the day, but now these had been taken down as, with the Hour of Darken past, the Unmirrored were ready to go into battle.
Zystyl tried to get a sense for the location of the enemy ships, the causeway, and the city, but in the chaos of battle noise it was too confusing to try and determine ranges by sounds. And any echo he cast would have been
