"You!"
"Of course. I've been working on the second boat from the beginning. I
know it as well as anyone, every seam and rivet and wiring diagram. I
was aboard when Chiang took her on a practice run only a few days ago.
I'll fly it for you!"
"You can't--we have to fight our way into the castle itself, the very
heart of Volakech's power--you'd be killed!"
"It's the best chance. If you think we can get in at all, I stand as
good a chance of living through it as anyone else."
"She's right," said Janazik. "And while we waste time here arguing, the
citadel is getting ready. Come on!"
Automatically, Anse broke into movement, trotting along beside Janazik,
and the army formed its ranks and followed them.
He had time for a few hurried words with Ellen, whispered as they went
up the hill: "Stay close by me. There'll be a small group of us getting
in, picked fighters, and we'll make a ring about you."
"Of course," she nodded. Her gray eyes shone, and she was breathing
quickly. "I begin to see why you were a rover all those years, Anse.
It's mad and desperate and terrible--but before Cosmos, we're alive!"
"Most recruits are frightened green before their first battle," he
said. "You have a warrior's heart, Ellen--" He broke off, hearing the
banality of his own words.
"Listen, my dearest," he said then, quickly. "We may not come alive
through all this. But remember what I did say, down by the river that
day. I love you."
She was silent. He went on, fumbling for words: "You wouldn't answer me
then--"
"I thought it was just your usual talk to women."
"It may have been--then," he admitted. "But it hasn't been since, and
it isn't now." His sword-calloused hand found hers. "Don't forget,
Ellen. I love you. I will always love you."
"Anse--" She turned toward him, and he saw her eyes alight. "Anse--"
A bugle shrilled through the rain, high and harsh ahead of them. Dimly,
they made out the monstrous bulk of the castle, looming through the
misty gray light, its towers lost in the vague sky. Janazik's sword
flashed from its sheath.
"The battle begins," said a voice out of the blurring rain.
Anse drew Ellen over against a wall and kissed her. Her lips were cool
and firm under his, wet with rain; he would never forget that kiss
while life was in him.
They looked at each other for a moment of wonder, and then broke apart
and followed Janazik.
V
The loyalists charged in a living wave that roared as it surfed against
the castle walls and spattered a foam of blood and steel. From three
sides they came, weaving in and out of the hailing arrows, lifting
shields above them, leaving their dead behind them.
The blaster cannon mounted on the walls spouted flame and thunder.
Warriors were mowed down before that whirling white fury, armor melted
when the lightning-like discharges played over it, but still the
assault went on with all the grim bitter courage of the Khazaki race.
Old siege engines were appearing, dragged out of storehouses and hiding
places where they had been kept against such a day of need. Now the
great catapults and ballistae were mounted; stones and fireballs and
iron-headed bolts were raking the walls. A testudo moved awkwardly
forth up the steep hill toward the gates. It was blasted to flaming
molten ruin, but another got underneath the walls and the crash of a
battering ram came from under its roof.
Shadowlike in the blinding rain, the warriors flitted up toward the
walls. No spot of cover was too small for one of those ghostly shapes;
they seemed to carry their own invisibility with them. Under the
walls--scaling ladders appearing as if out of nowhere--up the walls and
into the castle!
The ladders were hurled down. The warriors who gained the walls were
blasted by cannon, cut down by superior numbers, lost in a swirl of
battle and death. Boiling water rained down over the walls on those
below, spears and arrows and the roaring blaster bolts. But still they
came. Still the howling, screeching demons of Krakenau came, and died,
and came again.
Anse cursed, softly, luridly, pain croaking in his voice: "We can't be
with them. They're being slaughtered and we can't be with them."
"We're needed worse here," said Janazik curtly. "If only Pragakech can
maintain the assault for an hour--"
He and Anse loped in the forefront. Behind them came Gonzales, Ellen,
and a dozen picked young Khazaki. They wove through a maze of alleys
and streets and deserted market squares, working around behind the
castle. The roar of battle came to them out of the gray mist of rain;
otherwise there was only the padding and splashing of their own feet,
the breath rasping harsh in their lungs, the faint clank and jingle
of their harness. All Krakenau not at the storming of the citadel had
withdrawn into the mysterious shells of the houses, lay watching and
waiting and whetting knives in the dark.
The paths dipped steeply downward, until, when they came around behind
the citadel and stood peering out of a tunnel-like alley, there was a
sheer cliff-face before them. On this side the castle was impregnable.
The only approach was a knife-edged trail winding up the cliff, barely
wide enough for one man at a time. At its top, flush with the precipice
edge, the wall was built. Against this wall, commanding the trail,
there had in the old days been an archer post, but lately a cannon had
been mounted there.
Yet that very security, thought Anse, might be a weakness. Except for
that gun, the approach wouldn't be watched, especially with the fight
going on elsewhere. So--
"Give me your weapon, Alonzo," said Janazik.
"Here." Gonzales handed him the blaster pistol. "But it only has two
charges left in it."
"That may be enough." Janazik slipped it under his cloak. Then he wound
a gold brassard about his arm and started up the trail. A couple of his
Khazaki came behind them, then Anse, Ellen, and Alonzo, and finally the
rest of the warriors.
* * * * *
The trail was steep and slippery, water swirling down it, loose rocks
moving uneasily beneath the feet--and it was a dizzying drop off the
sheer edge to the ground below. They wound upward slowly, panting,
cursing, wondering how much of a chance their desperate scheme really
had.
Ellen slipped a little. Anse reached back and caught her hand. He
smiled lop-sidedly. "Now I don't want to let go," he said.
"I wonder--" Ellen looked away, then back to him, and her eyes were
wide and puzzled. "I wonder if I want you to, Anse."
His heart seemed to jump up into his throat, but he let her go and said
wryly: "I'm afraid I have to right now. But wait till later."