By the time he made a small slit, he was sweating heavily, his arms were growing numb, and his senses were fading. He lengthened the incision a trifle, then inserted his blade, and with a mighty effort – relatively mighty, anyway – bent the edge of the cut outward. He put his nose to the hole and breathed in. Fresh air greeted him. He managed to smile, he was so relieved. There could have been an inner wall to the hull and, if there had been, he soon would have been dead.
His strength regained, he worked until he had made a hole big enough to put his head through. Above him was much noise, men and women screaming and yelling, khratikl screeching and chittering. To his right he could see a large opening in the hull. The witch could have got through that, but there was nothing bridging the gap. However, Feersh would not have left the plank there so she could be followed.
He turned to batter at the wall through which he had spoken to Vana. Suddenly it shot up into its slot, startling him and leaving him with a knocking heart.
Behind him the Yawtl said, ‘I thought you might be dead by now.’
Hoozisst, holding the glowing sphere, was standing just beyond where the other wall had been. He was grinning as if he had played a big joke on somebody. Sweat plastered his long reddish hairs to his body.
‘I cut through the wall barring my way,’ he said, ‘and I got to the witch’s quarters. She was gone from there, but I saw the edge of a board on the rim of the window of the tharakorm opposite. I looked round, and I found the control which operates the traps. It’s a strange little animal which seems to be glued to the wall. It-’
‘Never mind that,’ Deyv said. ‘Follow me!’
He ran down the corridor towards the uproar, holding the torch in his left hand. He found Sloosh standing near the bottom of the steps, gesturing at the small remnant of survivors with his torch. Bodies lay around him, khratikl battered with his club and burned with his brand. Vana and the two animals were not in sight.
Seeing the two newcomers, the khratikl fled back up the steps.
Deyv, panting said, ‘Where’s –?’
‘Down the corridor,’ Sloosh buzzed. ‘She thinks the slaves and Feersh’s children are waiting above to get us when we come back up. They aren’t capable of much action on their own. They depend upon the witch too much for orders. Which is a weakness we must take advantage of. I presume the witch escaped, otherwise you’d have told me differently.’
Deyv nodded. Above them, ringing the opening, were the pointed faces and bright-yellow eyes of the khratikl. The steps were smeared with blood from the wounded who had fled up them. The Archkerri had lost some of his leaves and others were torn. His skin was pink but looked thick. No veins were visible.
Deyv said, ‘Feersh should be up there by now, organizing the humans and khratikl. We must’ve killed half of their beasts, though, and I doubt that the slaves will fight well.’
‘That’s right,’ Hoozisst said, great contempt in his voice. ’Slaves don’t make good warriors. Not unless they’re fighting against their masters.’
A high harsh voice reached them. They looked up to glimpse a narrow bony face with a grey topknot of hair. The Emerald, an egg-sized stone, dangled from a cord around her neck. The face shot away, and the khratikl by it also disappeared. A moment later, the trap door slid out to cover almost the entire opening. A thick dark fluid began flowing down the steps. It had an acrid odour.
The Yawtl said, ‘She’s going to smoke us out!’
20
They raced down the corridor in the direction taken by Vana and the animals. Just as they reached the steps leading up to the fore cabin, ten khratikl raced round the corner ahead of them. Evidently, these had flown down to and through the windows in the bottom and sides of the hull, hoping to surprise the invaders. The bodies of six khratikl lay at the foot of the steps, their wounds showing that the dog and the cat had disposed of most of them. This trap door was also almost closed, leaving a narrow space, and the same kind of fluid was being poured down the steps.
Deyv looked behind him. Shadowy figures were moving towards them. The khratikl were going to try to kill as many of their enemy as possible before the smoke drove them back out the way they had come.
Deyv shouted a warning to the others, and he charged the beasts at the corner. They flung themselves at him, but his sword cut them, or his torch, thrust into their faces, burned them. Screaming, leathery wings flapping, they ran off. He did not pursue them; he did not want to waste his time. The Yawtl had driven off the five behind them, but the things leaped around within the edge of the light from the sphere. When Hoozisst charged them, they retreated. When he back-stepped to the stairs, they followed him.
‘Vana must have got out this way,’ Deyv said.
Had she broken through to the deck? Or was she dead? And Jum and Aejip, too?
Now the khratikl he had chased away were back, looking around the corner.
Sloosh said, ‘I hope they don’t set the fluid on fire while I’m on the steps.’
He clumped up the stairs, turned round, lowered his upper torso until it extended straight out, and then began pushing upward with his rear. His legs slowly straightened; the trap door began to rise. From above came frightened yells. Deyv hastened to aid him, while the Yawtl remained below to keep the khratikl away.
Reaching through the widening gap with his sword, Deyv slashed or stabbed at the humans. They merely defended themselves, leaping back to avoid being wounded on their legs and making sure that they did not come too close. They thrust spears at him from three sides. One man willing to take a chance could probably have run him through.
But the trap door started to open. Had the slaves been standing on it to keep it closed with their weight, they would have fallen off. Suddenly, the Archkerri raised his upper body, his massive arms reaching to each side and pushing up. The door fell over with a bang, and Sloosh reached down and picked up his club from the step where he had put it.
The Yawtl turned from the khratikl and ran up the steps, dropping the sphere as he did so. He reached for his tomahawk in his belt with his left hand, and he threw it so that its edge sank in under the chin of a spear wielder. Deyv had a momentary thought that this fellow was indeed talented. Right hand or left, it made no difference to him. He was adept with both.
The three remaining male slaves fled screaming from the cabin, jumping over the bodies of two dead men near the doorway. They knocked over two females who had been standing behind them, holding torches. If they had had sense enough, the slaves would have set the fluid blazing while the invaders were standing on the steps. But then they were slaves and unaccustomed to doing things without orders from their masters.
The two women, abandoning their torches, got up and dashed out of the cabin. Deyv picked up a brand and threw it down the stairwell. The stuff caught fire quickly, effectually barring the khratikl from pursuing them. But they would go out of the hull openings and fly up to the deck.
The Yawtl shrieked, ‘The sphere! The sphere! You fool, you’ll burn it up!’
‘It’s stone,’ Deyv said. ‘Forget your greed, Yawtl. Dead men don’t have possessions.’
Hoozisst gave him a nasty look. He picked up a tall ceramic vase filled with the fluid and heaved it down the steps. Deyv threw another after it. They broke on the steps, and suddenly the cabin was filled with smoke, flames leaping up through the opening, heating their skins.
The Yawtl heaved a vase through the open door onto the deck, where it shattered about seven feet away. He cast a torch upon the spreading pool, and it flamed. Deyv ran out then, hoping that if any slaves were waiting beside the doorway to spear him, they would be shaken by the fire. There were none; they were not even in sight.
Sloosh followed him, bearing a vase in one arm. The Yawtl, coughing, came after him, also carrying a vase. In one hand he held the other torch.
By the light of the fire, Deyv saw Vana. She was hacking away with a sword at the central cables. Where had she obtained it, from one of the slaves
she had killed when she escaped from the cabin? But why was she severing the mooring cables? He ran towards her, shouting. She stopped; then, seeing it was he, she resumed her cutting. A moment later both were busy defending themselves against a swarm of the winged beasts. Most of these, Deyv presumed, were those who had attacked him below decks.
Jum and Aejip joined them, leaping out from somewhere and taking the khratikl from behind. The cat was like a spring, bouncing up and down, and to and fro, raking the khratikl, biting down on their necks or breaking their backs with blows of her paws. Several times, in their efforts to avoid her, the beasts flew within range of the swords, and they were cut in half or run through.
The four or five khratikl left unscathed flew away and settled down for a moment on the railing, far from the immediate danger. Or so they thought. Jum and Aejip followed them, and they leaped screaming off the tharakorm. Deyv tried to whistle his pets back to him, but he was out of breath. They came trotting back anyway.
Vana, panting, said, ‘I sent Jum and Aejip ahead of me, and while they were keeping the slaves busy, I got out. I thought I’d cut the mooring lines to scare them and that they’d leave the cabin to stop me. They didn’t.’
‘The slaves had their orders, and they followed them, regardless of changes in the situation.’ Deyv paused to draw in some much-needed air. At that moment, flames burst through the central cabin, and with much yelling and shrieking, people poured out of it. The blaze showed Sloosh standing by a window through which he’d thrown the vase and after which he’d cast a torch. In the van was the tall skinny figure of Feersh. She must have been standing in the doorway, ready to be the first to leave the tharakorm when the fluid poured down the steps was set afire. There she went, knocked down by the slaves and khratikl in their panic.
Now the aft cabin suddenly glowed, and flames were leaping out the windows. Revealed in their light was the Yawtl, standing by the window through which he had heaved his vase of fluid. Men and women, among whom must be the witch’s children, tumbled out of the doorway. The last to fall through was a man, burning.
Vana turned and brought the edge of her blade down against the cables. They parted with a loud snap, the ends whipping away by her face with such force that they would have ripped it apart if they had struck it.
‘There’s no need to cut those now!’ Deyv shouted.
She said, ‘Yes, there is. I saw some khratikl fly off towards the slave compound. They’ll be bringing back more. Remember what the Yawtl said! There are at least a hundred khratikl there, maybe more. They may be flying towards us now. They can see this fire; they’ll be alarmed!’
‘Yes, but we’ll be adrift!’ Deyv cried.
‘I don’t like it, but how else can we avoid them?’
The wind had increased while they were below decks. Now the smoke from the fires in the cabins had covered the top deck. Deyv could see nothing through it. Yes he could. Several figures had plunged through the roiling black clouds. One of them was the Yawtl’s.
Deyv cursed and ran to the railing to start hacking at the cables on the sides. Vana had got there before him. He followed the railing around the bow, only to find that she had severed these. He went to a point where the hulls of the two tharakorm joined, and he leaped onto the deck of the next one. Furiously, he started cutting.
He thought, We only have to drift out of reach of the khratikl Then we can punch holes in the gas cells and sink down slowly.
Some time later, the Archkerri and Hoozisst joined him. In a short time, Vana was with them. Sloosh stopped cutting the cables and said, ‘One of you find the vases of fluid on this creature and empty them along the railing where this one joins the other. They haven’t seen us yet. Perhaps the fluid can be set on fire to keep them from crossing the railing and reaching us.’
‘I should’ve thought of that,’ Deyv said. He scabbarded his sword and ran to a cabin. The light from the fires was just enough for him to see torches in racks on a wall. A box on a shelf held several flints and irons.
He took one of each and groped his way down the steps of the opening. He did not want to start the torch burning where its light would attract the attention of the enemy. At the bottom of the stairs he knocked sparks onto the oil-soaked tip of the torch until it finally caught. He went up and down the corridors, searching each room for the fluid. Though he knew that there was no one aboard to spring the trap of the sliding walls, he still felt uneasy.
The fourth chamber he looked into held jars of the fluid on wooden racks. He put one in each arm while holding the torch in one of his hands, and returned to the bottom of the steps. Here he dropped the brand and went up to the cabin. On the deck he saw the Yawtl, who had found vases in the bow cabin. They broke the wax sealing the fluid, and they ran, crouching down, along the railing. When they met in the middle, they had poured the fluid from the bow to the stern. Deyv ran to get the torch. The Yawtl did the same; he had also been astute enough to conceal his below the cabin, where its flame would not be seen.
As Deyv came out of the doorway, he heard a disconcerted cry from the next ship. The khratikl had seen the flames; they also must have seen his figure by the light. He dashed up near the railing and threw the torch against the bottom of the railing. Flames raced along it in both directions, going faster downwind. The Yawtl’s torch set the trail ablaze near the bow, and the two streaks of fire met. Smoke billowed and was caught by the wind and hurried towards the stern.
The two men went to the aft cabin, where Deyv thought he could get vases more quickly than by going below deck. They spread more oil a few inches away from the original trail. Then they set this afire and went back to get more vases. These they threw a distance, breaking them. The fluid spread out and caught on fire. Now the slaves and children of Feersh would have to jump down into the burning oil if they wanted to get at them.
Deyv’s grin of triumph faded. He said, ‘I forgot! The plank! She might have others hidden in other rooms. If she does, they can cross over these.’
‘Not likely,’ Hoozisst said.
Deyv understood what he meant. How could the enemy get below to a plank, if there was one, through the fires? Nevertheless, he was not going to leave anything to chance. Taking a torch, he went down and found the room in which the plank was located. He had to give Feersh credit for courage. Though blind, she had gone on the plank, crawling, no doubt, and had then found her way up to the deck and back onto the first tharakorm. She would be thoroughly familiar with her home.
Deyv returned to the top deck. He was startled to see the flames and the smoke going straight up. Nor was any wind blowing against his face.
‘We won’t drift now,’ he shouted at Vana, who had just leaped over the railing. ‘That’s rotten luck! The khratikl from the compound will soon be upon us!’
She was sweating, and there was blood and soot on her. But she was grinning.
‘No, the wind hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s grown stronger. I think there’s going to be a storm. We’re cut loose now, that’s why you don’t feel the wind. Sloosh said we’re going at the same speed as the wind.’
Deyv looked towards the horizon where a thin band of light shone between it and the lower edge of The Beast. He picked out a silhouetted landmark, an especially tall tree. It was true, it was slowly moving past them. Rather, they were passing it.
Hearing cries above him, he looked up. The khratikl had flown from the other deck and were now sitting on the yardarms or clinging to the masts of the creature occupied by their enemy. Evidently, they were hesitant about attacking, and with good reason. They numbered only twelve. So, they would be waiting for their fellows from the compound. These would have no trouble finding the creature, since the fires would be a beacon.
Presently, he saw tiny black dots against the band of horizon light. They were coming at an angle, hoping to intercept their quarry. Time passed, and then it was evident that the khratikl would have to chase the tharakorm from directly behind. They’d be going faster than
the wind, since it was behind them. Could they catch up?
Though all four were very tired, they fetched more vases and added fuel to the fire. At least they would not have to worry about a flank attack from the humans. Then they used the last of the oil to set fires at the bases of the masts. The smoke rose up to drive the khratikl away. However, they merely flew over to the third tharakorm and settled on its masts.
The four found kegs of water and stores of dried meat and fruit, fresh vegetables, loaves of bread and jars of butter. They ate eagerly and then rested by the stern. The wind had turned the tharakorm around, and this place was the nearest to the pursuing fliers. Deyv and Vana prepared their blow-guns. The Yawtl brought a big double-headed metal war axe for the Archkerri. He had found it in a cabin.
‘It must have been made for a giant of the ancients,’ he said. ‘No slave or any of us for that matter can handle it.’ He dropped a bundle of spears. ‘We can throw these when we run out of darts.’
By then they could see by the firelight the first of the fliers. These were evidently straining to catch up, their wings beating hard, their labour so great they had no breath for their cries. Though gaining, they were doing so very slowly.
They might peter out before they get here,’ Deyv said. ’And if they do catch us, they’re going to be very tired.’
The Yawtl handed Sloosh a spear. ‘Here, try your luck. They’re too far away for us weaklings to hit them, but you might do it.’
The Archkerri hefted the weapon and said, ‘I’ll wait until they get a little closer.’
His first cast missed the body of the leader, but it went through a wing. Shrieking, the khratikl dropped into the blackness below. The others did not slow down.