“They’re not getting integrated!” he said, beating his fist on the wall. “Before God, they’re not!”

A Whistler landed, coughing blood; there was a monstrous bruise on his side. “Over there… Tolk the Herald says… empty spot… drive wedge in Fleet—” The thin body arced and then slid inertly to the deck. Wace stooped, taking the unhuman youth in his arms. He heard blood gurgle in lungs pierced by the broken ends of ribs.

“Mother, mother,” gasped the Whistler. “He hit me with an ax. Make it stop hurting, mother.”

Presently he died.

Van Rijn cursed his awkward vessel into a course change — not more than a few degrees, it wasn’t capable of more, but as the nearer rafts began to loom above the ice deck, it could be seen that there was a wide gap in their line. Trolwen’s assault had so far prevented its being closed. Redstained water, littered with dropped spears and bows, pointed like a hand toward the admiral’s floating castle.

“In there!” bawled Van Rijn. “Clobber them! Eat them for breakfast!”

A catapult bolt came whirring over the wall, ripped through his sleeve and showered ice chips where it struck. Then three streams of liquid fire converged on the Rijstaffel.

Flame fingers groped their way across the deck, one Lannacha lay screaming and charring where they had touched him, and found the sails. It was no use to pour water this time: oil-drenched, mast and rigging and canvas became one great torch.

Van Rijn left the helmsman he had been swearing at and bounded across the deck, slipped where some of it had melted, skated on his broad bottom till he fetched up against a wall, and crawled back to his feet calling down damnation on the cosmos. Up to the starboard shrouds he limped, and his stone ax began gnawing the cordage. “Here!” he yelled. “Fast! Help me, you jelly-bones! Quick, have you got fur on the brain, quick before we drift past!”

Wace, directing the ballista crew, which was stoning a nearby raft, understood only vaguely. Others were more ready than he. They swarmed to Van Rijn and hewed. He himself sought the racked oil bombs and broke one at the foot of the burning mast.

Its socket melted, held up only by the shrouds, the enormous torch fell to port when the starboard lines were slashed. It struck the raft there; flames ran from it, beating back frantic Drak’ho crewmen who would push it loose; rigging caught; timbers began to char. As the Rijstaffel drifted away, that enemy vessel turned into a single bellowing pyre.

Now the ice ship was nearly uncontrollable, driven by momentum and chance currents deeper into the confused Fleet. But through the gap which Van Rijn had so ardently widened, the rest of the Lannacha craft pushed. War-flames raged between floating monsters — but wood will burn and ice will not.

Through a growing smoke-haze, among darts and arrows that rattled down from above, on a deck strewn with dead and hurt but still filled by the revengeful hale, Wace trod to the nearest bomb crew. They were preparing to ignite another raft as soon as the ship’s drift brought them into range.

“No,” he said.

“What?” The captain turned a sooty face to him, crest adroop with weariness. “But sir, they’ll be pumping fire at us!”

“We can stand that,” said Wace. “We’re pretty well sheltered by our walls. I don’t want to burn that raft. I want to capture it!”

The Diomedean whistled. Then his wings spread and his eyes flared and he asked: “May I be the first on board it?”

Van Rijn passed by, hefting his ax. He could not have heard what was said, but he rumbled: “Ja. I was just about to order this. We can use us a transportation that maneuvers.”

The word went over the ship. Its slippery deck darkened with armed shapes that waited. Closer and closer, the wrought ice-floe bore down on the higher and more massive raft. Fire, stones, and quarrels reached out for the Lannachska. They endured it, grimly. Wace sent a Whistler up to Trolwen to ask for help; a flying detachment silenced the Drak’ho artillery with arrows.

Trolwen still had overwhelming numerical superiority. He could choke the sky with his warriors, pinning the Drak’honai to their decks to await sea-borne assault. So far, thought Wace, Diomedes’ miserly gods had been smiling on him. It couldn’t last much longer.

He followed the first Lannacha wave, which had flown to clear a bridgehead on the raft. He sprang from the ice-floe when it bumped to a halt, grasped a massive timber, and scrambled up the side. When he reached the top and unlimbered his tomahawk and shield, he found himself in a line of warriors. Smoke from the burnings elsewhere stung his eyes; only indistinctly did he see the defending Drak’honai, pulled into ranks ahead of him and up on the higher decks.

Had the yelling and tumbling about overhead suddenly redoubled?

A stumpy finger tapped him. He turned around to meet Van Rijn’s porcine gaze.

“Whoof and whoo! What for a climb that was! Better I should have stayed, nie? Well, boy, we are on our own now. Tolk just sent me word, the whole Drak’ho Expeditionary Force is in sight and lolloping here ward fast.”

XVIII

Briefly, Wace felt sick. Had it all come to this, a chipped flint in his skull after Delp’s army had beaten off the Lannachska?

Then he remembered standing on the cold black beach of Dawrnach, shortly before they sailed, and wondering aloud if he would ever again speak with Sandra. “I’ll have the easy part if we lose,” he had said. “It’ll be over quickly enough for me. But you—”

She gave him a look that brimmed with pride, and answered: “What makes you think you can lose?”

He hefted his weapon. The lean winged bodies about him hissed, bristled, and glided ahead.

These were mostly troopers from the Mannenach attempt; every ice ship bore a fair number who had been taught the elements of ground fighting. And on the whole trip south to find the Fleet, Van Rijn and the Lannacha captains had exhorted them: “Do not join our aerial forces. Stay on the decks when we board a raft. This whole plan hinges on how many rafts we can seize or destroy. Trolwen and his air squadrons will merely be up there to support you.”

The idea took root reluctantly in any Diomedean brain. Wace was not at all certain it wouldn’t die within the next hour, leaving him and Van Rijn marooned on hostile timbers while their comrades soared up to a pointless sky battle. But he had no choice, save to trust them now.

He broke into a run. The screech that his followers let out tore at his eardrums.

Wings threshed before him. Instinctively, the untrained Drak’ho lines were breaking up. Through geological eras, the only sane thing for a Diomedean to do had been to get above an attacker. Wace stormed on where they had stood.

Lifting from all the raft, enemy sailors stooped on these curious unflying adversaries. A Lannacha forgot himself, flapped up, and was struck by three meteor bodies. He was hurled like a broken puppet into the sea. The Drak’honai rushed downward.

And they met spears which snapped up like a picket fence. No few of Lannach’s one-time ground troopers had rescued their basketwork shields from the last retreat and were now again transformed into artificial turtles. The rest fended off the aerial assault — and the archers made ready.

Wace heard the sinister whistle rise behind him, and saw fifty Drak’honai fall.

Then a dragon roared in his face, striking with a knife-toothed rake. Wace caught the blow on his shield. It shuddered in his left arm, numbing the muscles. He lashed out a heavy-shod foot, caught the hard belly and heard the wind leave the Drak’ho. His tomahawk rose and fell with a dull chopping sound. The Diomedean fluttered away, pawing at a broken wing.

Wace hurried on. The Drak’honai, stunned by the boarding party’s tactics, were now milling around overhead out of bowshot. Females snarled in the forecastle doors, spreading wings to defend their screaming cubs. They were ignored: the object was to capture the raft’s artillery.