the fair cities of our continental grouping of Paz. These shanks, these Leem Lovers, were superb seamen. Yet I knew, as an old sailor, that after their immense voyage across the open sea they would need a secure base, a good anchorage, a place to careen and refurbish their ships, a place to get their breath back after the voyage. Fossana would be such a place. They must not be allowed to make a base so close to Valka. .
'We must stop them here,' I said, still looking across the sea, willing the voller to fly faster and bring us to the battle quickly. 'They must not be allowed a chance to fester here.' A voice spoke at my back, a voice that made me go cold from the very first syllables.
'We will fight them, Father, and we will win!'
Slowly I turned around.
Young Drak — my son — Drak — stood there in brave panoply, all scarlet and gold, staring up at me with a set and defiant expression across his face. He knew what he had done. He had no fear of the terrible shanks, but he was most uneasy about my reaction.
With him — Delia!
She smiled at me.
My heart leaped. She wore a scarlet breechclout, a breast and back, and a helmet very much like the one she had insisted I wear. She carried her rapier and main-gauche scabbarded to her slender waist, and I knew how well she could use them, the Jiktar and the Hikdar.
'Delia,' I said. 'You should not have allowed him.'
'He is like you, Dray. A wild leem. And is this not to be his portion in life?'
'Aye.'
Oby stood there also, accoutered, smiling away at me, relishing his part in the coming battle. As a young rip he had a most dubious effect on Drak. Young Oby had mended much of his wild ways when he had been my assistant in the arena; now his passion was all for vollers and the mysteries of aerial navigation, but it was clear he intended to get into the coming fight.
'And Naghan the Gnat?'
'I am here!' shouted Naghan and, in truth, there he was, loaded down with choice specimens from his own armory, smiling away like a loon. I shook my head.
'Mad, the lot of you. .' I looked past Naghan. 'And you, Tilly, you are here also.'
'Yes, my Prince,' said Tilly, her glorious golden fur glowing in the light of the Suns of Scorpio, for Tilly was a most delicious little Fristle fifi.
A mewling and harshly screeching roar told me that Melow the Supple had also come with us. I stared at Melow and the ferocious manhound stretched her neck up, then put out a fearsomely clawed hand to keep her son Kardo from beginning one of the interminable fights he was always into with Drak. Well, I welcomed Melow and Kardo, for the jiklos are terrible and ferocious, mighty in their strength. Although really human beings, they have been changed so that they run on all fours and possess the fighting ferocity of the leem.
'Melow, your son Kardo will be with Drak?'
'Yes, Dray Prescot. For that is where he wills he should be.'
'And you will be with the Princess Majestrix.'
Melow lolled her red tongue between those horrific jagged teeth, and I felt a little more easy. Mind you, once I had this circus home I would let them know just what my true thoughts were on this foolhardy rushing into danger. Didn’t they understand the sheerly awful power of the shanks? Didn’t they realize they could all be killed?
A lookout shouted from forward and I swung around to look ahead. A cloud hung in the sky athwart our passage, a cloud that must have grown with incredible swiftness, for only murs before the sky had been clear.
A dun shadow swept across the glittering sea below and in an instant we plunged into the cloud. Dank tendrils of vapor brushed us, clinging and unpleasant. Vision was reduced so that I could see only those faces near me; beyond the quarterdeck the ship vanished.
Shouts and yells arose. That cloud — how could it have formed so quickly?
The voller jerked. I knew that feeling. The flier lurched and skidded sideways. Her nose went down. We were falling.
'Those Opaz-forsaken cramphs of Hamal!' yelled Vangar, incensed that once again his duty as chief of fliers was to preside over a crash.
'Silence!' I bellowed.
In the ensuing hush we heard the wind bluster and roar as we fell. Slowly the haze cleared and we dropped free of the cloud. I looked up. The rest of our fleet was winging swiftly on, arrow-straight for Fossana. Now it would all be up to Tom Tomor, and it would be to him the responsibility would fall. I looked down. An island below showed creamy surf breaking on a beach. Massive trees crowded close, and there were at least three village clearings visible. Men were running below. Men like myself, apims, and also weird forms with grotesque fish heads, scaled and armored, running with vicious tridents flashing in the suns, weapons stained with the blood of my people.
The voller hit the sand. Ahead the wooden palisade of a village offered shelter. Everyone leaped from the stranded voller, running fleetly for the village. Heads appeared over the stockade. A flight of arrows rose and I cursed. Then I realized the arrows curved away, falling into a body of fishheads who were trying to cut us off.
'Run!' I bellowed.
Straight for the village gate we raced. The valves were dragged open. We tumbled through the opened portal and the villagers slammed the heavy lenken logs back with a thunk. Iron bars dropped. The headman came running up, distraught, wringing his hands. Simple fisher folk these, used to landing fine fat fish in their nets, and now they faced man-sized fishheads raging at them, armed with tridents, swords and bows, their plunder from the sea revenging itself horribly on them.
He knew me.
'Majister! Majister! Monsters — they-'
'Man the walls! Keep your heads down!' I shook his shoulder. 'It will be all right, Koter, all right.'
'Yes, Majister, yes — but the fishheads-'
We could hold this place until my fliers returned. We must hold this place! Nothing else would do. Nothing.
The Leem Lovers were in force, roaring in to attack, hurling spears and tridents, shooting arrows. My men replied with the cool precise shooting Seg Segutorio had drilled into them. These men were Valkan Archers, but they used the great Lohvian longbow and they could outshoot the compound reflex bows of the shanks. Spare supplies of shafts had been brought from the flier, for Jiktar Orlon Llodar in command of the regiment was an officer in whom I reposed confidence. He did not have his full regiment with him, for half had been embarked on another flier, packed in like fish in a barrel. With three pastangs of sixty men each we must hold off an unknown number of fishheads.
I leaped up onto the parapet around the stockade. The village possessed a stockade because these islands were often the scene of raids from Pandahem, or from a dissident nation of Segesthes beyond Zenicce, or, in the old days, from the slavers and aragorn. Along the beach the voller lay stranded, and shanks were already clambering and running there. I cursed. From the trees other shanks were running. The devils must have beached their ships and marched overland. There had not been a sign of a shank ship as we crash-landed.
A circuit of the stockade brought me back to the parapet over the main gate. This faced along the beach, as I have said, and not out to sea or inland. Defensive considerations dictated that choice. A small protected harbor held a few fishing boats, little better than dories. The circuit of the walls had shown me we could hold. A stream trickled down from the forest so we would have water, if the Leem Lovers did not divert or dam the stream.
'Now, Jiktar,' I said brusquely to Orion Llodar. 'Now is the chance to show that the Second Regiment of Valkan Archers can do better than the First.'
Before Llodar could answer, young Drak, who had followed me around most carefully, sniffed. 'I would like very much to see that,' he said. I glared at him. As you know, Drak is the Hyr-Jiktar — colonel in chief — of the First Regiment of Valkan Archers. Lela was Hyr-Jiktar of the Second. Orion Llodar smacked his buff-sleeved arm across his breastplate. He wore a bob there. 'We shall, my Prince, and with due respect to Prince Drak, outshoot the finest the First could offer this day.'
'I believe you. These yetches of fishheads will try to fool us. They will feint an attack on one flank and then
