Bladesman of Antares

extinguish the fire in my rear.

I hurled myself onto the deck and rolled over and over in a vile stink of burning cloth and singed flesh. When I leaped up a fresh group of skymen faced me, ready to overbear me. I knew exactly what I must do. I was alone, stranded on the decks of an enemy sky ship stuffed with foemen, and I had a job to do. There was some satisfaction in it as I bellowed out, high and hard and as loud as I could, “Hai! Jikai!” I hurdled the group opposite me, put in a couple of thwacks as I cleared their prostrate bodies, gripped with my left hand onto the rail and went for the next bunch. They thought they had me penned between them and the control area, where Hikdar Hardin gaped like a loon above the skymen at the levers. These men were protected by a wrought-iron screened cage and I wrenched the door open so that the hinges squealed. Hardin clapped his mouth shut, whipped out his sword, and came for me. I did not kill him; a Bladesman pass and his sword went whirling up, end over end, sparkling. I thumped him alongside the temple with the hilt, just below the rim of his helmet, and showed my thraxter-point to the two skymen at the levers.

One babbled, “Do not kill me, Notor! I know nothing-”

The other went for his dagger.

Him, I clouted and stretched senseless. The other one cowered back, screaming. Faces showed beyond the perforations in the wrought-iron screen. The door groaned. So I had to hit this screaming wretch, knocking him out. I bundled his unconscious body atop that of his comrade’s and wedged the Hikdar’s body across both, using the captain as a wedge. The wrought-iron door in the screen would not open easily now.

I leaped to the levers. These, with Delia’s tuition fresh in my mind, I could understand. Hard over with the speed-forward lever. This, I knew, would bring the two silver boxes linked to the controls beneath my feet closer together. The boxes would most probably be in a well-armored compartment in the center of the ship. The other lever, that controlling attitude, I thrust to starboard. Now the two silver boxes would be rotating around each other in their concentric rings of wooden and bronze mountings. Hirrume Warrior responded instantly. The sky ship picked up speed and swung on to her new course. All this time the frenzied yelling outside the bridge-like control area mounted in fury. I laughed. I, Dray Prescot, laughed. Let them fume! To the Ice Floes of Sicce with all of them — and with that yetch Lem to keep them company!

Through the forward screens, more pierced to afford a good view, I could see Pride of Hanitcha, the Queen’s sky ship, turning with contemptuous solid ease there in the thin air, swinging back to find out why we had not burned the second galleon. On our respective courses, which I found I could feel with the same instinctive feel I had for a frigate ghosting in under reduced canvas between shoals, I saw Pride of Hanitcha would cross directly above Ovvend Barynth. When sky ship crossed galleon more hideous spouts of fiery destruction would tumble down. .

The speed lever was notched over as far as it would go. I hammered it with the flat of my hand. Outside that wrought-iron screen the crewmen of the sky ship howled and danced. Now they had brought up a timber and were using it as a battering ram. The sky ship hurtled on through thin air. I held her course. The wrought-iron door bulged, screeching, and one of the skymen’s arms was trapped, acting as a wedge. The Hikdar draped across, closing off movement. The door jerked again as the timber struck. The note boomed like a gong of battle.

Now the devils were clambering on the wrought-iron roof trying to stick stuxes and thraxters down at me. I flailed the thraxter up at them, clanging against steel like an anvil chorus. Now the roof of the hexagonal bridge-like structure swarmed with men trying to get at me. Now I was in a cage of my own devising — a cage not filled with blazing combustibles but a cage affording me protection!

They’d break through soon. I knew that. Again I hammered at the speed lever. Ahead of me the towered side of the Queen’s sky ship, pierced and looped and wicked with varters and catapults swung closer. Men were running about her decks. The Queen had not known what King Doghamrei was up to in his plans to get rid of me, and his insane plotting was going to cost Queen Thyllis dear. The bows of Pride of Hanitcha began to swing. She was trying to dip beneath my ram. If I missed I would not get another chance, by Vox!

The cacophony of yelling outside the iron cage, where the skymen struggled to break in, mounted in intensity. They had realized what was happening. There was precious little deck for them to mass on, for the control cage had been specifically designed to stand as a fortress, a strong point, and its wrought-iron mesh, cunningly angled, afforded a fine view out but would prevent the easy entry of enemy bolts and arrows.

No time to laugh now, no time for anything but to keep the sky ship on course and hold off these Hamalian rasts. .

The door groaned and squealed and gapped a fraction, enough for an intrepid soul to hurl a stux. I caught it and returned it, a neat little cast through the iron crack, and the skyman screeched and fell away. Another took his place with a crossbow. The levers were hard over. I could force them no farther. If the skymen slew me and forced their way into the control cage they might yet be in time to divert the swift destructive rush of the sky ship.

Dodging the first bolt as it whistled past my head was the quick and instinctive reaction of a Krozair. Leaving the levers, I jumped for the door, whipped the thraxter in and out, and tumbled the crossbowman back, spouting blood from a wrecked face.

“Kill him! Kill him!” shouted a Hikdar, foaming, his face scarlet, urging his men on. He was a dwa-Hikdar and subordinate to his captain, Hardin, who was a zan-Hikdar, and who now lay wedged against the door having desperately little chance of ever making that next and vital step to ob-Jiktar. The skymen made a fresh rush, bashing their timber against the door, as the dwa-Hikdar urged them on with that typical battle cry of Hamal: “Hanitch! Hanitch! Kill! Strike the nulsh down!”

The iron door gonged. I thrust at the first unfortunate on the timber and he dodged back, colliding with his fellows. There was an instant’s confusion, then they had dropped the timber among their own feet and legs, and the timber fought for Vallia!

“Hai! Jikai!” I roared at them to infuriate them, to goad them, and all the time the monstrous sky ship bore down on her equally monstrous consort across the swirling sky.

Like a Bladesman I whickered the thraxter at them as, yelling, they rushed again. A quick glance forward showed me the Queen’s sky ship Pride of Hanitcha, painted, gilded, the flags fluttering, rushing in with so close and sudden a telescopic effect that in a trice all I could see was her central portion, its middle tower with a wrought-iron cage similar to the one in which I battled on. Then all that vanished in a single chaotic glimpse of the control cage. Pride of Hanitcha had made a last desperate attempt to slide under me. She failed.

The crash hurled me across the cage and I grabbed the levers to steady myself. Men were reeling and shrieking about the decks, toppling, to plunge twisted over the side. With a deliberate savagery I thrust both levers hard down, sending Hirrume Warrior with Pride of Hanitcha impaled on her ram and her beak planted in her vitals plunging for the sea.

Absolute bedlam foamed outside.

They’d given up trying to break in. Men were screaming and yelling, calling on the gods and godlings and saints, bellowing all manner of oaths. Distinctly, over the racket, I heard a panic-stricken voice shrilling: “Help me now, Lem the Silver Leem! To you the sacrifice, to you the power, to me the deliverance! Lem! Lem!”

Any idiot who called on Lem for help deserved all he got.

Also, I heard a strong voice calling on Opaz, and this, I admit, gave me a pang. The sea rushed up. I caught a distorted glimpse of it, all twisted and on end, past the deck of the Queen’s sky ship. I’d gaffed that one, brutally! Judging distances is a necessary accomplishment of a first lieutenant of a seventy-four if he wishes to remain in that position. When the sea boiled beneath, for we were now almost standing on our starboard bow with men falling off in spouts of white foam into the water, I eased the controls. Those silver boxes would have to earn their keep now! Half of their secrets I knew. Somehow, whatever was really in the paol-box reacted with the mix of minerals in the vaol-box and lifted Hirrume Warrior. The sea flattened out beneath us. The ram spur of the sky ship must have sunk deeply into the vitals of Pride of Hanitcha and disrupted the careful balancing in the wood and bronze circles where her two silver boxes operated. She was not lifting. Together, flat, like a pair of old boots, the two sky ships splashed into the sea, gouting water and debris in a flower of destruction. Even while the ship floundered and the water cascaded up past the splintered bulwarks, I dragged the three unconscious men away from the door. I dragged it open on its buckled hinges, straining with effort. I roared out, crabbing along half on the deck, half on the bulwarks. What I looked like I do not care to imagine — what I remember is the decidedly cool feel about my backside. Men were leaping into the water, clinging to bits of wreckage. The sky ship might not sink for some time; there would be ample wreckage to support her