For five days and nights, the magniship crept through the mountains.
Over jagged peak and snow-draped hump they floated swiftly. At its
rails stood keen-eyed men who strained their sight peering across the
barren plains beyond, and fingered shining weapons. Occasionally, they
ran wet tongues around dry lips, for the mark of death lay strong upon
them.
There was no jollity at meals, except where Flane ate. Morosely, the
men stared at one another, and bent to their plates. A pall hung over
the ship, bathing those who rode it.
Flane was different. He still laughed and jested, and spent the moonlit
nights walking the deck with Aevlyn.
"What use to brood?" he asked her. "Our fate is written somewhere,
perhaps in that great cave where dwells the All-High that the Princess
Gleya told me of. He sits there and watches all our deeds enacted
before him."
"I would like to go and peer over His shoulder to see our immediate
future," the girl sighed, clinging to Flane.
"Seeing it would not change it," said Flane. "Not knowing, but doing
and fighting every inch of the pathway through life--that's what
counts!"
He looked at the blade with the seven stars in it, holding it up so
that moonlight made it glimmer.
"This is what counts--holding a sword in your hand and using it to
fight for what is right and just. It's like a key to your own future.
When you hold it, you can't fail!"
Aevlyn pressed against him, whispering, "I wish I were of your race,
Flane. You never admit defeat, even if you have already failed!"
Flane grunted, "Failed? Just because we didn't have time to raise that
army at Moornal? We take a different path, that's all. It may lead to
the same goal. Who knows?"
* * * * *
On the morning of the sixth day, a lookout yelped. Flane leaped to the
rail, clung to it with strong, supple hands. His eyes glinted with
excitement.
The host of the Darksiders lay like a swollen shadow along the
ground. It seethed and moved in restless waves, flowing forward. Big
vans and wagons were piled high with spears and arrows, pulled by
draft-_megathons_ whose manes flowed in the wind. On war-_megathons_
and on foot the Darksiders surged like an irresistible wave across the
plains. On high waved their _kaatra_-tail banners. Here and there a
pennon whipped like a striking lash in the breeze. And their engines of
war, their catapults and mangonels, trundled along at the same swift
pace.
"They will overflow the Klarnvan cities," whispered Flane to himself.
"There is nothing on all Klarn that can stop that horde--except my
violet-gun. And even that--" he shook his head dubiously, staring at
the vast throng below.
On board the magniship there was great activity. Men ran back and
forth, reaching for weapons, shouting hoarsely.
Now the horde had seen them. A roar went up from the assembled throats,
the howl of a wolf on sighting its prey. Lifted lances shook, sunlight
glistening from their sanded tips. Here and there a bow was raised, and
an arrow fitted to its string. The tailed banners danced in the hands
of the standard-bearers.
"Let me speak to them," Flane said to Harth who nervously fingered a
dagger in his belt. "I may dissuade them from their venture. If only
I had the key to the Machine! Then, indeed, would I have a weapon to
bargain with!"
He wound his legs in a plaited rope and was dangled over the side,
below the flat keel of the ship. He swayed in the wind, the violet-gun
at ease in his hands.
A Darksider with a wolfskin wrapped around him bellowed upwards, racing
underneath him, trying to stab him with his spear. Flane grinned and
shouted, "Peace, Darksider. I come to offer terms."
A group of mounted outlanders rode toward him. They sat their saddles
easily, bending as their steeds curvetted.
"The people of Moornal desire to dwell in peace with the Darksiders,"
shouted Flane. "We look for the key to the Machine. If we find it, the
Machine's power will be given to all."
A Darksider roared laughter, turning to his companions, gesturing a
hairy arm at Flane.
"The hanging one offers peace. We will make peace, after we have wetted
our blades in his flesh, and the flesh of all his kind!"
They laughed hoarsely and took turns heaving war-lances at Flane where
he hung in the ropes. One of the spears came so close to him he could
have reached out and caught it. Flane sighed and lifted the violet-gun.
He did not want to slay these men. But he had to. They needed a lesson.
He sighted along the barrel and pressed the button. From the mouth
of the gun the lavender flame came with a swoosh and dropped around
the outlanders. It lay among them like the overflow of a rainbow,
scintillating and glowing. Then it dissipated.
Where the mounted Darksiders had stood and hurled their spears there
was only a blotch of darkened ground. Even the long grasses were gone.
"Oww!" howled the thousands who watched with fear stamped upon their
faces. "Oww! Here is the magic of the Klarnva come to eat us up!"
Some of them wheeled their mounts to run, but a great fellow whose fair
blonde hair spilled to his shoulders, lifted a gnarled club in his hand
and rallied them.
"What?" he roared. "Do we flee before one man? Feather me an arrow in
his hide so that he will drop that flaming thing he holds. Then _we_
may use it."
Arrows carried farther than did spears. Flane scampered back up the
ropes as shafts started to slither in among the cordage. He put a hand
on the rail and swung over. Panting, he stood and stared at the horde
that raced for them.
"Arrows and spears will never take the ship," he said, "but those
war-engines might."
He called to Harth, "Pass the ship over their machines. I must destroy
them."
Flane went to the rail and leaned on it, watching the ground slide
under him. Now they were over the assembled tribes, skimming low. The
war-engines were just beyond them. Flane lifted his gun, held it in
readiness.
He fired once.
A massive catapult went violet, and disappeared.
He fired again, and again.
Mangonels flared, fading.
* * * * *
But now the Darksiders were using their rocks against the magniship.
Great jagged stones came crashing and bouncing on the deck. Men
screamed, caught under them. Flesh was mashed, and ran red blood. One
rock pierced the sides of the ship and clattered inside it, rolling and
tumbling. Men moaned in the depths of the vessel, where the stone had
gone.
Flane thinned his lips and fired faster, and faster.
One by one he encompassed the engines with the violet fire, and one by
one they flared and disappeared.
Now there were none left, and Flane turned from the rail with a sigh of
satisfaction.
He stood stock-still, staring.
The deck of the magniship listed at a peculiar angle. It was difficult
to walk on it, for one side was lifted toward the sky, and the other
pointed down toward earth. He had been so engrossed in his destruction
of the war-engines, that he had not noticed.
The horde roared its triumph.
"She sinks! She sinks! She is coming toward us! Now we shall have the
gun!"
Flane went across the deck with flying feet. He caught at a stanchion,
swung in through an open door, shouting, "Lift it! Lift her nose."
Aevlyn was pale, watching him beside Harth who stared unseeingly at the
man in the doorway.
Aevlyn whispered, "It's no use, Flane! Those rocks they hurled swept
away the red magnetic balls on the port side of the ship. We're done
for. We can't stay up much longer."
"We can stay up long enough to get to the mountains," Flane rasped,
pointing to where the green-and-brown hills rose toward the clouds.
"There we can make a stand. The Darksiders can come at us only a few at
a time. We can hold out until help comes from Moornal. It is our only
hope."
Harth slapped the table with the palm of his hand, violently, so that a
quill and an inkbottle bounced a little.
"Sheer madness!" he bellowed, rising swiftly to his feet. "Now I have
listened to you, Flane of Klarn, and I have given you your way. But
from now on, it shall be Harth of Moornal who says what we shall do."
Flane's fingers opened and closed. His green eyes flared hotly, and he
opened his mouth to snarl fierce words. Then Aevlyn was before him, the
perfume of her auburn hair delicate in his nostrils, looking up at him.
Her brown eyes begged with his.