The Man Who Counts

XIV

There was dancing on the decks, and jubilant chants rang across Sagna Bay to the enfolding hills. Up and down and around, in and out, the feet and the wings interwove till timbers trembled. High in the rigging, a piper skirled their melody; down below, a great overseer’ s drum which set the pace of the oars now thuttered their stamping rhythm. In a ring of wing-folded bodies, sweat-gleaming fur and eyes aglisten, a sailor whirled his female while a hundred deep voices roared the song:

“…A-sailing, a sailing, a-sailing to the Sea of Beer, fair lady, spread your sun-bright wings and sail with me!”

Delp walked out on the poop and looked down at his folk.

“There’ll be many a new soul in the Fleet, sixty ten-days hence,” he laughed.

Rodonis held his hand, tightly. “I wish—” she began.

“Yes?”

“Sometimes… oh, it’s nothing—” The dancing pair fluttered upward, and another couple sprang out to beat the deck in their place; planks groaned under one more huge ale barrel, rolled forth to celebrate victory. “Sometimes I wish we could be like them.”

“And live in the forecastle?” said Delp dryly.

“Well, no… of course not—”

“There’s a price on the apartment, and the servants, and the bright clothes and leisure,” said Delp. His eyes grew pale. “I’m about to pay some more of it.”

His tail stroked briefly over her back, then he beat wings and lifted into the air. A dozen armed males followed him. So did the eyes of Rodonis.

Under Mannenach’s battered walls the Drak’ho rafts lay crowded, the disorder of war not yet cleaned up in the haste to enjoy a hard-bought victory. Only the full-time warriors remained alert, though no one else would need much warning if there should be an attack. It was the boast of the forecastle that a Fleet sailor, drunk and with a female on his knee, could outfight any three foreigners sober.

Delp, flapping across calm waters under a high cloudless day-sky, found himself weighing the morale value of such a pride against the sharp practical fact that a Lannach’ho fought like ten devils. The Drak’honai had won this time.

A cluster of swift canoes floated aloof, the admiral’s standard drooping from one garlanded masthead. T’heonax had come at Delp’s urgent request, instead of making him go out to the main Fleet — which might mean that T’heonax was prepared to bury the old hatred. (Rodonis would tell her husband nothing of what had passed between them, and he did not urge her; but it was perfectly obvious she had forced the pardon from the heir in some way.) Far more likely, though, the new admiral had come to keep an eye on this untrusted captain, who had so upset things by turning the holding operation on which he had been contemptuously ordered, into a major victory. It was not unknown for a field commander with such prestige to hoist the rebel flag and try for the Admiralty.

Delp, who had no respect for T’heonax but positive reverence for the office, bitterly resented that imputation.

He landed on the outrigger as prescribed and waited until the Horn of Welcome was blown on board. It took longer than necessary. Swallowing anger, Delp flapped to the canoe and prostrated himself.

“Rise,” said T’heonax in an indifferent tone. “Congratulations on your success. Now, you wished to confer with me?” He patted down a yawn. “Please do.”

Delp looked around at the faces of officers, warriors, and crewfolk. “In private, with the admiral’s most trusted advisors, if it please him,” he said.

“Oh? Do you consider what you have to say is that important?” T’heonax nudged a young aristocrat beside him and winked.

Delp spread his wings, remembered where he was, and nodded. His neck was so stiff it hurt. “Yes, sir, I do,” he got out.

“Very well.” T’heonax walked leisurely toward his cabin.

It was large enough for four, but only the two of them entered, with the young court favorite, who lay down and closed his eyes in boredom. “Does not the admiral wish advice?” asked Delp.

T’heonax smiled. “So you don’t intend to give me advice yourself, captain?”

Delp counted mentally to twenty, unclenched his teeth, and said:

“As the admiral wishes. I’ve been thinking about our basic strategy, and the battle here has rather alarmed me—”

“I didn’t know you were frightened.”

“Admiral, I… never mind! Look here sir, the enemy came within two fishhooks of beating us. They had the town. We’ve captured weapons from them equal or superior to our own, including a few gadgets I’ve never seen or heard of… and in incredible quantities, considering how little time they had to manufacture the stuff. Then too, they had these abominable new tactics, ground fighting — not as an incidental, like when we board an enemy raft, but as the main part of their effort!

“The only reason they lost was insufficient co-ordination between ground and air, and insufficient flexibility. They should have been ready to toss away their shields and take to the air in fully equipped squadrons at an instant’s notice.

“And I don’t think they’ll neglect to remedy that fault, if we give them the chance.”

T’heonax buffed his nails on a sleek-furred arm and regarded them critically. “I don’t like defeatists,” he said.

“Admiral, I’ m just trying not to underestimate them. It’s pretty clear they got all these new ideas from the Eart’honai. What else do the Eart’honai know?”

“Hm-m-m. Yes.” T’heonax raised his head. A moment’s uneasiness flickered in his gaze. “True. What do you propose?”

“They’re off balance now,” said Delp with rising eagerness. “I’m sure the disappointment has demoralized them. And of course, they’ve lost all that heavy equipment. If we hit them hard, we can end the war. What we must do is inflict a decisive defeat on their entire army. Then they’ll have to give up, yield this country to us or die like insects when their birthing time comes.”

“Yes.” T’heonax smiled in a pleased way. “Like insects. Like dirty, filthy insects. We won’t let them emigrate, captain.”

“They deserve their chance,” protested Delp.

“That’s a question of high policy, captain, for me to decide.”

“I’m… sorry, sir.” After a moment: “But will the admiral, then, assign the bulk of our fighting forces to… to some reliable officer, with orders to hunt out the Lannach’honai ?”

“You don’t know just where they are?”

“They could be almost anywhere in the uplands, sir. That is, we have prisoners who can be made to guide us and give some information; Intelligence says their headquarters is a place called, Psalmenbrox. But of course they can melt into the lands.” Delp shuddered. To him, whose world had been lonely islands and flat sea horizon, there was horror in the tilted mountains. “It has infinite cover to hide them. This will be no easy campaign.”

“How do you propose to wage it all?” asked T’heonax querulously. He did not like to be reminded, on top of a victory celebration and a good dinner, that there was still much death ahead of him.

“By forcing them to meet us in an all-out encounter, sir. I want to take our main fighting strength, and some native guides compelled to help us, and go from town to town up there, systematically razing whatever we find, burning the woods and slaughtering the game. Give them no chance for the large battues on which they must depend to feed their females and cubs. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, they will have to gather every male and meet us. That’s when I’ll break them.”

“I see.” T’heonax nodded. Then, with a grin: “And if they break you?”

“They won’t.”

“It is written: The Lodestar shines for no single nation.’ ”

“The admiral knows there’s always some risk in war. But I’m convinced there’s less danger in my plan than in hanging about down here, waiting for the Eart’honai to perfect some new devilment.”

T’heonax’s forefinger stabbed at Delp. “Ah-hah! Have you forgotten’ their food will soon be all gone? We can count them out.”

“I wonder—”

“Be quiet!” shrilled T’heonax.

After a little time, he went on: “Don’t forget, this enormous expeditionary force of yours would leave the Fleet ill defended. And without the Fleet, the rafts, we ourselves are finished.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid of attack, sir—” began Delp in an eager voice.

“Afraid!” T’heonax puffed himself out. “Captain, it is treason to hint that the admiral is a… is not fully competent.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I shall not press the matter,” said T’heonax smoothly. “However, you may either make full abasement, craving my pardon, or leave my presence.”

Delp stood up. His lips peeled back from the fangs, all the race memory of animal forebears who had been hunters bade him tear out the other’s throat. T’heonax crouched, ready to scream for help.

Very slowly, Delp mastered himself. He half turned to go. He paused, fists jammed into balls and the membrane of his wings swollen with blood.

“Well?” smiled T’heonax.

Like an ill-designed machine, Delp went down on his belly. “I abase myself,” he mumbled. “I eat your offal. I declare that my fathers were the slaves of your fathers. Like a netted fish, I gasp for pardon.”

T’heonax enjoyed himself. The fact that Delp had been so cleverly trapped between his pride and his wish to serve the Fleet, made it all the sweeter.

“Very good, captain,” said the admiral when the ceremony was done. “Be thankful I didn’t make you do this publicly. Now let me hear your argument. I believe you were saying something about the protection of our rafts.”

“Yes… yes, sir. I was saying… the rafts need not fear the enemy.”

“Indeed? True, they lie well out at sea, but not too far to reach in a few hours. What’s to prevent the Flock army from assembling, unknown to you, in the mountains, then attacking the rafts before you can come to our help?”

“I would only hope they do so, sir.” Delp recovered a little enthusiasm. “But I’m afraid their leadership isn’t that stupid. Since when… I mean… at no time in naval history, sir, has a flying force, unsupported from the water, been able to overcome a fleet. At best, and at heavy cost, it can capture one or two rafts… temporarily, as in the raid when they stole the Eart’honai. Then the other vessels move in and drive it off. You see, sir, flyers can’t use the engines of war, catapults and flamethrowers and so on, which alone can reduce a naval organization. Whereas the raft crews can stand under shelters and fire upward, picking the fliers off at leisure.”

“Of course.” T’heonax nodded. “All this is so obvious as to be a gross waste of my time. But your idea is, I take it, that a small cadre of guards would suffice to hold off a Lannach’ho attack of any size.”

“And, if we’re lucky, keep the enemy busy out at sea till I could arrive with our main forces. But as I said, sir, they must have brains enough not to try it.”

“You assume a great deal, captain,” murmured T’heonax. “You assume, not merely that I will let you go into the mountains at all, but that I will put you in command.”

Delp bent his head and drooped his wings. “Apology, sir.”

“I think… yes, I think it would be best if you just stayed here at Mannenach with your immediate flotilla.”

“As the admiral wishes. Will he consider my plan, though?”

“Aeak’ha eat you!” snarled T’heonax. “I’ve no love for you, Delp, as well you know; but your scheme is good, and you’re the best one to carry it through. I shall appoint you in charge.”

Delp stood as if struck with a maul.

“Get out,” said T’heonax. “We will have an official conference later.”

“I thank my lord admiral—”

“Go, I said!”

When Delp had gone, T’heonax turned to his favorite. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. The fellow will win his campaign, and become still more popular, and somewhere along the line he will get ideas about seizing the Admiralty.”

“I only wondered how my lord planned to prevent that,” said the courtier.

“Simple enough.” T’heonax grinned. “I know his type. As long as the war goes on, there’s no danger of rebellion from him. So, let him break the Lan-nach’honai as he wishes. He’ll pursue their remnants, to make sure of finishing the job. And in that pursuit — a stray arrow from somewhere — most regrettable — these things are easy to arrange. Yes.”