“I see. Well, keep on. In the south, at solstice time, is when you rut.”

“Yes. The desire comes on us — but you know what I mean.”

“Of course,” said Van Rijn blandly.

“And there are festivals, and trading with the other tribes… frolic or fight—” The Lannacha sighed. “Enough. Soon after solstice, we return, arriving here sometime before equinox, when the large animals on which we chiefly depend have awoken from their winter sleep and put on a little flesh. There you have the pattern of our lives, Eart’ho.”

“It sounds like fun, if I was not too old and fat.” Van Rijn blew his nose lugubriously. “Do not get old, Trolwen. It is so lonesome. You are lucky, dying on migration when you grow feeble, you do not live wheezy and helpless with nothing but your dear memories, like me.”

“I’m not likely to get old as matters stand now,” said Trolwen.

“When your young are born, all at once in the fall ja,” mused Van Rijn, “I can see how then is time for nothing much but obstetrics. And if you have not food and shelter and such helps all ready, most of the young die—”

“They are replaceable.” said Trolwen, with a degree of casualness that showed he was, after all, not just a man winged and tailed. His tone sharpened. “But the females who bear them are more vital to our strength. A recent mother must be properly rested and fed, you understand, or she will never reach the south — and consider what a part of our total numbers are going to become mothers. It’s a question of the Flock’s survival as a nation! And those filthy Drakska, breeding all the year round like… like fish… No!”

“No indeed,” said Van Rijn. “Best we think of somethings very fast, or I grow very hungry, too.”

“I spent lives to rescue you,” said Trolwen, “because we all hoped you would think of something yourself.”

“Well,” said Van Rijn, “the problem is to get word to my own people at Thursday Landing. Then they come here quick, by damn, and I will tell them to clean up on the Fleet.”

Trolwen smiled. Even allowing for the unhuman shape of his mouth, it was a smile without warmth or humor. “No, no,” he said. “Not that easily. I dare not, cannot spare the folk, or the time and effort, in some crazy attempt to cross The Ocean… not while Drak-’ho has us by the throat. Also — forgive me — how do I know that you will be interested in helping us, once you are able to go home again?”

He looked away from his companion, toward the porticoed cave that was the Males’ Temple. Steam rolled from its mouth, there was the hiss of a geyser within.

“I myself might have decided otherwise,” he added abruptly, in a very low voice. “But I have only limited powers — any plan of mine — the Council — do you see? The Council is suspicious of three wingless monsters. It thinks… we know so little about you… our only sure hold on you is your own desperation… the Council will allow no help to be brought for you until the war is over.”

Van Rijn lifted his shoulders and spread his hands. “Confidential, Trolwen, boy, in their place I would do the same.”

X

Now darkness waned. Soon there would be light nights, when the sun hovered just under the sea and the sky was like white blossoms. Already both moons could be seen in full phase after sunset. As Rodonis stepped from her cabin, swift Sk’huanax climbed the horizon and swung up among the many stars toward slow and patient Lykaris. Between them, She Who Waits and He Who Pursues cast a shuddering double bridge over broad waters.

Rodonis was born to the old nobility, and had been taught to smile at Moons worship. Good enough for the common sailors, who would otherwise go back to their primitive bloody sacrifices to Aeak’ha-in-the-Deeps, but really, an educated person knew there was only the Lodestar… Nevertheless, Rodonis went down on the deck, hooded herself with her wings, and whispered her trouble to bright mother Lykaris.

“A song do I pledge you, a song all for yourself, to be made by the Fleet’s finest bards and sung in your honor when next you hold wedding with He Who Pursues you. You will not wed Him again for more than a year, the astrologues tell me; there will be time enough to fashion a song for you which shall live while the Fleet remains afloat, O Lykaris: if but you will spare me my Delp.”

She did not address Sk’huanax the Warrior, any more than a male Drak’ho would have dreamed of petitioning the Mother. But she said to Lykaris in her mind, that there could be no harm in calling to his attention the fact the Delp was a brave person who had never omitted the proper offerings.

The moons brightened. A bank of cloud in the west bulked like frosty mountains. Far off stood the ragged loom of an island, and she could hear pack ice cough in the north. It was a big strange seascape, this was not the dear green Southwater whence starvation had driven theFleet and she wondered if Achan’s gods would ever let the Drak’honai call it home.

The lap-lap of waves, creaking timbers, cables that sang as the dew tauntened them, wind-mumble in shrouds, a slatting sail, the remote plaintiveness of a flute and the nearer homely noises from this raft’s own forecastle, snores and cub-whimpers and some couple’s satisfied grunt… were a strong steady comfort in this cold emptiness named Achan Sea. She thought of her own young, two small furry shapes in a richly tapestried bed, and it gave her the remaining strength needed. She spread her wings and mounted the air.

From above, the Fleet at night was all clumps of shadow, with the rare twinkle of firepots where some crew worked late. Most were long abed, worn out from a day of dragging nets, manning sweeps and capstans, cleaning and salting and pickling the catch, furling and unfurling the heavy sails of the rafts, harvesting driss and fruitweed, felling trees and shaping timber with stone tools. A common crew member, male or female, had little in life except hard brutal labor. Their recreations were almost as coarse and violent: the dances, the athletic contests, the endless lovemaking, the bawdy songs roared out from full lungs over a barrel of sea-grain beer.

For a moment, as such thoughts crossed her mind, Rodonis felt pride in her crewfolk. To the average noble, a commoner was a domestic animal, ill-mannered, unlettered, not quite decent, to be kept in line by whip and hook for his own good. But flying over the great sleeping beast of a Fleet, Rodonis sensed its sheer vigor, coiled like a snake beneath her — these were the lords of the sea, and Drak’ho’s haughty banners were raised on the backs of Drak’ho’s lusty deckhands.

Perhaps it was simply that her own husband’s ancestors had risen from the forecastle not many generations back. She had seen him help his crew often enough, working side by side with them in storm or fish run; she had learned it was no disgrace to swing a quernstone or set up a massive loom for herself.

If labor was pleasing to the Lodestar, as the holy books said, then why should Drak’ho nobles consider it distasteful? There was something bloodless about the old families, something not quite healthy. They died out, to be replaced from below, century after century. It was well-known that deckhands had the most offspring, skilled handicrafters and full-time warriors rather less, hereditary officers fewest of all. Why, Admiral Syranax had in a long life begotten only one son and two daughters. She, Rodonis, had two cubs already, after a mere four years of marriage.

Did this not suggest that the high Lodestar favored the honest person working with honest hands?

But no… those Lannach’honai all had young every other year, like machinery, even though many of the tykes died on migration. And the Lannach’honai did not work: not really: they hunted, herded, fished with their effeminate hooks, they were vigorous enough but they never stuck to a job through hours and days like a Drak’ho sailor… and, of course, their habits were just disgusting. Animal! A couple of ten-days a year, down in the twilight of equatorial solstice, indiscriminate lust, and that was all. For the rest of your life, the father of your cub was only another male to you — not that you knew who he was anyway, you hussy! — and at home there was no modesty between the sexes, there wasn’t even much distinction in everyday habits, because there was no more desire. Ugh!