Blade turned away from the cliffs and began to walk back toward the camp by the river. It was a good three miles against a brisk headwind. By the time he was getting close to the river he'd considered almost every way of attacking an enemy camped in the middle of the flats. He finally concluded that it couldn't be done unless the Elstani could grow wings.
Thinking of wings made him look up. Birds were soaring over the river and sweeping across the flatlands toward the cliffs, climbing as they went without a flicker of wing. They must be soaring on some fairly powerful updrafts.
Soaring on updrafts. Suddenly Blade was in a hurry. He scrambled across a patch of rocks as fast as he could go without breaking an ankle. When he reached smoother ground he broke into a run and came pounding up to the tent like an Olympic sprinter.
Haima watched Blade testing the direction of the wind with a wet thumb. Then he examined their tent, still without saying a word. Finally she lost patience. «Blade, have you got the itch or something?»
«No. I-Haima, how common are these reeds?» He pointed at the tent. Its poles were made of lengths of reed glued together.
«In some places they grow like grass. There's a marsh a day upriver.» She pointed.
«Good. And the wind-does it always blow? And toward the cliffs?»
«Blade, why do you think this place is called the Kettle of the Winds? Yes. What's biting you?»
Instead of answering, Blade took both her hands and danced her around in a circle until she started laughing in spite of herself. Finally she collapsed, still laughing.
«It's good news, isn't it?»
«Yes. There's no way of attacking a camp on the flatlands here unless the Elstani can fly. But with the help of the wind I think they can.»
Haima stared at him. Blade knelt down, wishing the Elstani had paper. The gravel by the river was very fine, though. With the point of his sword he was able to sketch his idea well enough to make Haima understand.
Chapter 18
«All right, people. Grab a wingtip and lift-gently, gently! This thing isn't made of iron!»
«If it isn't strong, Blade, Elstan is in trouble,» said Kima, the young woman to Blade's left.
«Blade is in even more trouble,» said her brother on Blade's right. «It's a long way down. Ah-how far do we need to go?» He looked down the steadily steepening slope and out into the empty air of the Kettle of the Winds.
«Scared, Borokku?» said Kima.
«Yes,» the man replied bluntly. «I haven't done anything to deserve the Stone Death.»
«It's better than you'll get if the Elstani win,» his sister replied sharply.
«Stop arguing, both of you,» said Blade, torn between irritation and amusement. «All I need is for you to hold on while I make the final inspection. Otherwise it's likely to take off on its own.»
«Yes, Blade,» they said. Then there was no more talking as Blade made his final inspection of the hang glider. He'd used the wing before, testing it on gentler hillsides, but he was very careful now to check for defects. If anything went wrong up here, there was a quarter-mile of empty air between him and the stony ground.
Blade's hang glider was the simplest kind-a triangular Rogallo wing of waxed cloth, with three spars and a pilot's frame made of glued reed. The materials were strong enough but made the glider much heavier than it would have been in Home Dimension. Blade compensated by making the glider considerably larger, to get a satisfactory glide angle with his two hundred and ten pounds aboard. The wing was twenty-three feet from tip to tip, and Blade expected it to carry him off the cliff, clear across the flatlands, and across the river to the far bank. If it did this it should be able to do the same with a one hundred fifty-pound Elstani and enough Living Fire to scare the wits out of any rolgha ever foaled!
Blade hoped everything would go well. If it didn't, he would be splattered like a ripe peach on the rocks far below. Elstan's best hope of victory would also be dashed, and much work by many Elstani over the past few days would go to waste.
Haima and Daimarz worked late, helping him pick materials and suggesting design changes. Weavers worked all night waxing what seemed like acres of cloth. Woodcutters did the same, gluing reeds into the twenty-foot poles needed for the glider. There were ten times as many volunteers for the ground crew as Blade could use. Some of them had already tried short flights on easy slopes with the three new gliders.
The other Guilds had still not agreed to join forces with Blade, but at least the weavers and woodcutters had a great deal of faith in him. Their craftsmen could produce more or less anything their materials would let them, if you showed them how, and they did everything Blade asked. These two things made a formidable combination. Blade hoped it would be too formidable for Queen Tressana.
He took several deep breaths, then nodded to the people on the wingtips. They let go and stepped back as Blade began to run. He ran as if he were trying to break a track record, boots thudding on the rock. Already he could feel the air flowing under the wing and the beginning of lift. Then suddenly his boots came down on empty air as the glider rose.
It took off so quickly that the first hundred yards were more dangerous than Blade had expected. The rocky slope was only a few feet below him. A slight miscalculation would bring him back down, probably where the angle of the slope was too great to let him make a safe landing. He'd certainly lose the glider and might go over the edge himself.
He took the risk of dropping the nose slightly, to increase the glide angle and the airspeed. The rock unreeled below him a little faster; then it was gone and there was only empty space below. The voices behind him quickly faded away, and he was alone in the silent sky.
Blade wasn't an expert hang glider, but he'd made more than thirty flights with a Rogallo wing, once staying up more than half an hour. He knew how to fly a glider, how to make one, and how to teach others at least the basics. That was all the Elstani would need for their war with the Jaghdi. If they wanted to continue hang gliding as a sport afterward, they could teach themselves.
He also knew how much pleasure it is to fly without the noise and fumes of a motor, to be one with the sky, a partner of the winds. Exhilaration took control of Blade so thoroughly that he was half a mile from the cliff before he realized it. Then he forced himself to pay attention to his work. Today he was a test pilot.
It was hard to judge heights on a first flight in new territory, but he estimated that he'd dropped no more than three hundred feet in the half mile. That was a good start. He was trying for a ten-to-one glide ratio-ten feet of forward motion for every foot of descent. That was about twice what you'd normally get with a Rogallo wing. However, nothing less would get him safely across the distance that had to be covered.
He was well out of any updraft at the face of the cliff. That sort of thing was always unpredictable anyway. There was no sign of thermals from the sun heating the rocks below either, but he might be a little high for those. They'd have to get the glide angle they wanted without thermals in any case. They'd be flying into battle at dawn, with the rocks below still mostly in shadow.
For a minute the glider seemed to be flying nearly level. Blade decided he could spare the height to try a turn. Slowly he leaned to the left, and the glider tipped that way. When the nose had swung through a sixty-degree arc, Blade straightened up. Good. The glider was stable in a turn. Even though they'd be attacking a target so large that flying in a straight line would be enough to get hits, they still might need the ability to turn to avoid mid-air collisions or to land safely.