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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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slender girls out there I seemed to see the clumped and solid ranks and files of the Phalanx and heard the awful clangor of battle. Playacting, make believe, a light-hearted evening’s entertainment — why should I make such heavy weather of it and refuse to take the joy? Why this continual questioning of my motives, when I had made up my mind, grimly, and intended to unite Vallia once again and then hand all over to Drak? Why? Why torture myself with regrets? Life is life, and it whirls along and we all get dragged with it willy-nilly no matter how desperately we cling to the deceptively substantial acts of everyday.
I half-expected to see that damned Gdoinye come sticking his arrogant scarlet-feathered head out over the proscenium arch and summon me off to jump about for the Star Lords. By Krun! But that would stir the old blood up.
Delia sensed my mood, half-desperate, half-defiant, and she pressed my hand, and so I turned my fingers over and gripped hers.
“We sail in the morning.”
“I think I shall be glad to shake the dust of Vondium out of my head.” I felt her fingers in mine, warm and trembling slightly. “I wish Drak were here.”
“He will come home with Queen Lush,” she said, and I caught the amused puzzlement in her voice. “I have invited Silda to visit us. Her work — well, she will have news of Lela.”
“When that young lady deigns to return home to give a Lahal to her father, I shall have a few words to say—”
“Now, then, you grizzly old graint!”
Then the mock-soldiers on the stage, their crimson draperies swirling and their bodies gleaming splendidly, performed their final triumphant charge, and vanished into the wings, and the rest of
The Scarron Necklace
began.
* * * *
So, here we were, a little army flying off with the wind across Vallia toward Bryvondrin to meet these upstart foemen who would not leave us alone.
The wind held fair and we bowled along. Standing on the quarterdeck I looked around on the empty spaces of the sky. How odd, how weird, thus to see an armada of sailing ships billowing grandly through the air! Their sails did not gleam, for they were patched brown and pale blue, dappled with camouflage. But the sight of massive ships upheld in the air, bowling along with all sails spread... incredible.
A sniff at the air and a closer look at the cloud formations ahead gave me unwelcome news. The captain came over at my call and he agreed that we were in for a change in the weather.
“In for a blow, majister — and the breeze will back, I think.”
“Aye, captain. I am not as sanguine as I was that we will reach Kanarsmot before the gale strikes.”
“We can but pile on all canvas and trust in Opaz, majister.”
“Aye.”
The plan had been to land near Kanarsmot, a town on the Great River situated where, on the southeastern bank of the river, the boundaries of Mai Makanar to the north and Mai Yenizar to the south marched. By this stratagem we would array our forces in rear of the invaders, cut their supply lines, free the town, and then be in a position to hit them in flank and rear and dispose of them with little hope of escape.
But the wind gusted and freshened. And, as we feared, it backed.
Well, weather is sent by the Hyr-Pallan Whetti-Orbium, the meteorological manifestation of
Opaz,
and we must do what we could. We battened down. There were no seas to come leaping and crashing in over the bulwarks; but as the breeze blew with ever greater strength and backed around the compass, our yards were hauled farther and farther around. Soon we were facing a stiff easterly. The rushing roar of the wind stuffed our mouths and nostrils and half-blinded us. On the ships staggered, lurching as their invisible keels gripped into the lines of force. At last, when we were within only three dwaburs of the town, it was apparent that we could make no further headway.
The twin suns were sinking, flooding the land below with their mingled streaming lights. The jade
I half-expected to see that damned Gdoinye come sticking his arrogant scarlet-feathered head out over the proscenium arch and summon me off to jump about for the Star Lords. By Krun! But that would stir the old blood up.
Delia sensed my mood, half-desperate, half-defiant, and she pressed my hand, and so I turned my fingers over and gripped hers.
“We sail in the morning.”
“I think I shall be glad to shake the dust of Vondium out of my head.” I felt her fingers in mine, warm and trembling slightly. “I wish Drak were here.”
“He will come home with Queen Lush,” she said, and I caught the amused puzzlement in her voice. “I have invited Silda to visit us. Her work — well, she will have news of Lela.”
“When that young lady deigns to return home to give a Lahal to her father, I shall have a few words to say—”
“Now, then, you grizzly old graint!”
Then the mock-soldiers on the stage, their crimson draperies swirling and their bodies gleaming splendidly, performed their final triumphant charge, and vanished into the wings, and the rest of
The Scarron Necklace
began.
* * * *
So, here we were, a little army flying off with the wind across Vallia toward Bryvondrin to meet these upstart foemen who would not leave us alone.
The wind held fair and we bowled along. Standing on the quarterdeck I looked around on the empty spaces of the sky. How odd, how weird, thus to see an armada of sailing ships billowing grandly through the air! Their sails did not gleam, for they were patched brown and pale blue, dappled with camouflage. But the sight of massive ships upheld in the air, bowling along with all sails spread... incredible.
A sniff at the air and a closer look at the cloud formations ahead gave me unwelcome news. The captain came over at my call and he agreed that we were in for a change in the weather.
“In for a blow, majister — and the breeze will back, I think.”
“Aye, captain. I am not as sanguine as I was that we will reach Kanarsmot before the gale strikes.”
“We can but pile on all canvas and trust in Opaz, majister.”
“Aye.”
The plan had been to land near Kanarsmot, a town on the Great River situated where, on the southeastern bank of the river, the boundaries of Mai Makanar to the north and Mai Yenizar to the south marched. By this stratagem we would array our forces in rear of the invaders, cut their supply lines, free the town, and then be in a position to hit them in flank and rear and dispose of them with little hope of escape.
But the wind gusted and freshened. And, as we feared, it backed.
Well, weather is sent by the Hyr-Pallan Whetti-Orbium, the meteorological manifestation of
Opaz,
and we must do what we could. We battened down. There were no seas to come leaping and crashing in over the bulwarks; but as the breeze blew with ever greater strength and backed around the compass, our yards were hauled farther and farther around. Soon we were facing a stiff easterly. The rushing roar of the wind stuffed our mouths and nostrils and half-blinded us. On the ships staggered, lurching as their invisible keels gripped into the lines of force. At last, when we were within only three dwaburs of the town, it was apparent that we could make no further headway.
The twin suns were sinking, flooding the land below with their mingled streaming lights. The jade
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