remain frighteningly real.
I did not mention Phu-si-Yantong’s name to Deb-so-Parang.
I wondered just how skilled a swordomancer Phu-si-Yantong might be. So, as we sailed on through the bright air toward Jholaix and a battle for empire, I had much to think of beside the strategy and tactics of the coming engagement. As we neared the northern coast of Jholaix, which juts proudly forth from the main island of Pandahem, I thrust concern for Delia, dark thoughts of wizards and swordomancers, from my mind. Now every nerve, every sinew must be bent to the struggle, every thought for the victory we must win.
A swift-winged patrol of flutduins scouted us; quick, agile forms among the clouds. They must have seen our banners. Every ship carried her proud freight of colors. The yellow saltire on the red ground floated from every ship. Many of the vessels flew Old Superb, those vessels from the Valkan yards crewed by Valkans. Many of the other provinces of Vallia were represented, a brilliant plumage of color fluttering in the wind of our passage.
Against the very circumstance of that flutduin patrol I had caused to be flown in the bows of the lead ships the brilliant orange of Djanduin. The Emperor might twist his lips and make funny remarks about my being some sort of king of Djanduin, but he cocked his old eagle face up at those fliers, and I guessed what he was thinking.
Very soon Kytun Kholin Dom and Tom Tomor flew up to the armada. I greeted them with relief. Tom alighted with a sigh of gratitude; flying monstrous great birds of the air comes strangely to those unaccustomed to that mode of travel.
We talked there on the quarterdeck of that selfsame flier my men had taken in Hyrklana. It was now the Emperor’s flagship. He had named it
“We still resist, Majister,” said Tom, standing very straight before his Emperor. “Your arrival is barely in time.”
“Aye,” put in Kytun, very martial in his trappings, his harness and weapons about him. “Aye, Emperor. We fight for you because the King wishes. But you must take your share now.”
I interposed as smoothly as I could. My Djangs are not a mealy-mouthed bunch when it comes to talking to foreign royalty.
The plans were laid. In truth there was little else we could do but what we did. We put our trust in the Invisible Twins made manifest in the everlasting glory of Opaz, and we flew down to battle. The Hamalians had seen the imposing armada flying through the air toward them. I confess that as I took a small two-place flier from
If Kov Hangol, the Hamalese Pallan of the northern armies, thought we would enter action in long lines under tow, where he could swirl around us and cut us to pieces, he was the idiot Rees had named him. All our sails had been furled. Now, as the Hamalese sky force rose to challenge us, the orders were given.
The towropes were cast off. The agile sailors from both below and aloft cast loose the canvas and muscular heaves sheeted it home. The yards braced around. The canvas filled and the sails bulged proudly.
Very few nations of Kregen know anything of balloons and, I fear, many writers on this our Earth know nothing of balloons, either. One so often hears of balloons and airships being equipped with sails and acting like ships on the sea. This is not possible, of course, for no tacking is possible, and balloons and sails will all be swept away downwind. The two silver boxes which held us in the air, although they gave us no directional movement, did serve, as I have said, to grip the fabric of that force which upheld us. In my mid-nineteenth century understanding of the universe I thought of this in terms of the boxes latching onto the ether, so that when in line they acted as the keel of the vessel, dipped into the ether, affording us the necessary grip to tack windward. There was a little leeway made, of course, but these sailing vessels reacted better in the air than their counterparts in the sea below. With the sails sheeted home and the yards braced hard across the decks, the wind pushed us so that we skated along well up into the wind, like an orange pip squeezed against a window.
By turning the silver boxes, that window could be turned to take full advantage of the wind. I felt I could bring the heads of these vessels further into the eye of the wind than ever I had done with the sauciest schooner, certainly four points off.
No, if we had sailed balloons or airships with sails, as so many foolish people pretend to have done, we’d have tumbled away downwind in the stupid tangle that should reward all such idiotic stories. But, and now the real business would begin, we had nothing like the agility and maneuverability of the vollers. I had impressed the skippers with the absolutely vital necessity of maintaining formation. We must sail as a great armada. We must keep our line, distance, and formation. The ships we had knocked together were large. They carried a lot of men. Their weaponry was enormous. We must sail in lines and shoot down the enemy fliers with catapults and varters. Our small force of Vallian Air Service vollers would do all the dodging and maneuvering that was necessary. We provided the weight and punch. When my men saw the Hamalese skyships rising they understood the battle that lay ahead. These ships were like the ones which had sunk the Vallian galleon before I had smashed them. They were strong, powerful, well-armed, and armored. We would be at a serious disadvantage. One thing was in our favor: we could shoot the massive Vallian gros-varters. The Hamalians did not possess that superb weapon. Turko the Shield grunted when he saw that array rising through the level air toward us.
“You remember to keep to this shield, Dray.”
“I shall try to remember.”
I do not wish to dwell overlong on the battle. It came to be known as the Battle of Jholaix. Down there the vineyards smiled up, row after row of luscious grapes waiting to be made into the wine which was justly famous all over this continental grouping of Paz. Making wine was a far better occupation for a man than killing other men in the air above the vines. By far.
The outcome of this battle would be decided in the air.
The land forces we had set down, in conjunction with those already there, ought to be able to stand off the army of Hamal. Only the gigantic skyships and the agile vollers of Hamal had given them their easy victories. I was as well aware as anyone of the professional expertise of the Hamalese swod, but now he faced fighting men backed by the terrible Lohvian longbow and cavalry mounted on nikvoves. It seemed to me, as we sailed through the thin air, that if the air services could only pull out every stop and really go for the Hamalese skyships we would win. It would not be easy. I looked along the line of ships, noticing with critical appreciation their line and dressing, and I must say I thought of the times I had done this, back on Earth, gone sailing down to action in the rigid lines prescribed by the Sailing Instructions. How different this was from a swifter fight on the inner sea! Or, come to that, a battle with the swordships up along the Hoboling Islands!
The Hamalese skyships held no strict formation. Confident in their power and no doubt somewhat incredulous of what must appear to them to be a succession of sailing boxes, they bore on. Our nimble vollers were going ahead. The flutduins were winging forward. Many a man there carried an earthenware pot filled with combustibles which would spell the end for a proud Hamalese voller. I looked aloft.
Up there the protecting formations of vollers and flutduins prepared to prevent the Hamalians from flinging down their own pots of fire. Grimly, I knew that many a fine flying wooden box from Vallia would burn this day.
No, I will not dwell on the battle.
The skyships attacked in a fine display of panache and daring, and we shot them out of the sky. Ships burned.
Our gros-varters wrought frightful execution. I saw a fine Jiktar smeared into a red and greasy lump on the deck before me. At once the Hikdar leaped forward to take his place. What was left of the body was heaved over the side. The battle went on. The gros-varters more than avenged that Jiktar. I saw a hurtling rock smash clean through the iron grille surrounding the controls of one skyship. It dropped and the next smashed into it. A flyer astride his flutduin, his four arms most useful, swooped in like a dart and dropped a pot of fire. Both ships burned.
We bumped the lead skyship and a roaring torrent of Valkan swordsmen flooded over the bulwarks. Somehow
