The Man Who Counts

VIII

When Commander Krakna fell in battle against the invaders, the Flock’s General Council picked one Trolwen to succeed him. They were the elders, and their choice comparatively youthful, but the Lannachska thought it only natural to be led by young males. A commander needed the physical stamina of two, to see them through a hard and dangerous migration every year; he seldom lived to grow feeble. Any rash impulses of his age were curbed by the General Council itself, the clan leaders who had grown too old to fly at the head of their squadron-septs and not yet so old and weak as to be left behind on some winter journey.

Trolwen’s mother belonged to the Trekkhan group, a distinguished bloodline with rich properties on Lannach; she herself had added to that wealth by shrewd trading. She guessed that his father was Tornak of the Wendru — not that she cared especially, but Trolwen looked noticeably like that fierce warrior. However, it was his own record as a clan-elected officer, in storm and battle and negotiation and everyday routine, which caused the Council to pick him as leader of all the clans. In the ten-days since, he had been the chief of a losing cause; but possibly his folk were pressed back into the uplands more slowly than would have happened without him.

Now he led a major part of the Flock’s fighting strength out against the Fleet itself.

Vernal equinox was barely past, but already the days lengthened with giant strides; each morning the sun rose farther north, and a milder air melted the snows until Lannach’s dales were a watery brawling. It took only one hundred thirty days from equinox to Last Sunrise — thereafter, during the endless light of High Summer, there would be nothing but rain or mist to cover an attack.

And if the Drakska were not whipped by autumn, reflected Trolwen grimly, there would be no point in trying further; the Flock would be done.

His wings thrust steadily at the sky, the easy strength-hoarding beat of a wanderer born. Under him there was a broken white mystery of cloud, with the sea far beneath it peering through in a glimmer like polished glass; overhead lay a clear violet-blue roof, the night and the stars. Both moons were up, hasty Flichtan driving from horizon to horizon in a day and a half, Nua so much slower that her phases moved more rapidly than herself. He drew the cold, flowing darkness into his lungs, felt the thrust in muscles and the ripple in fur, but without the sensuous enjoyment of an ordinary flight.

He was thinking too hard about killing.

A commander should not show indecision, but he was young and gray Tolk the Herald would understand. “How shall we know that these beings are on the same raft as when you left?” he asked. He spoke in the measured, breath-conserving rhythm of a route flight. The wind muttered beneath his words.

“We cannot be sure, of course, Flockchief,” replied Tolk. “But the fat one considered that possibility, too. He said he would manage, somehow, to be out on deck in plain view every day just at sunrise.”

“Perhaps, though,” worried Trolwen, “the Draka authorities will have locked him away, suspecting his help in your escape.”

“What he did was probably not noticed in all the turmoil,” said Tolk.

“And perhaps he cannot help us after all.” Trolwen shivered. The Council had spoken strongly against this raid: too risky, too many certain casualties. The turbulent clans had roared their own disapproval. He had had difficulty persuading them all.

And if it turned out he was throwing away lives on something as grotesque as this, for no good purpose — Trolwen was as patriotic as any young male whose folk have been cruelly attacked; but he was not unconcerned about his own future. It had happened in the past that commanders who failed badly were read forever out of the Flock, like any common thief or murderer.

He flew onward.

A chill thin light had been stealing into the sky for a time. Now the higher clouds began to flush red, and a gleam went over the half-hidden sea. It was crucial to reach the Fleet at just about this moment, enough light to see what to do and not enough to give the enemy ample warning.

A Whistler, with the slim frame and outsize wings of adolescence, emerged from a fog-bank. The shrill notes of his lips carried far and keenly. Tolk, who as Chief Herald headed the education of these messenger-scouts, cocked his head and nodded. “We guessed it very well,” he said calmly. “The rafts are only five buaska ahead.”

“So I hear.” Tension shook Trolwen’s voice. “Now—”

He broke off. More of the youths were beating upwind into view, faster than an adult could fly. Their whistles wove into an exuberant battle music. Trolwen read the code like his own speech, clamped jaws together, and waved a hand at his standard bearer. Then he dove.

As he burst through the clouds, he saw the Fleet spread enormous, still far below him but covering the waters, from those islands called The Pups to the rich eastern driss banks. Decks and decks and decks cradled on a purplish-gray calm, masts raked upward like teeth, the dawn-light smote the admiral’s floating castle and burned off his banner. There was an explosion skyward from rafts and canoes, as the Drak’honai heard the yells of their own sentries and went to arms.

Trolwen folded his wings and stooped. Behind him, in a wedge of clan-squadrons, roared three thousand Lannacha males. Even as he fell, he glared in search — where was that double-cursed Eart’a monster — there! The distance-devouring vision of a flying animal picked out three ugly shapes on a raft’s quarterdeck, waving and jumping about.

Trolwen spread his wings to brake. “Here!” he cried. The standard bearer glided to a stop, hovered, and unfurled the red flag of Command. The squadrons changed from wedge to battle formation, peeled off, and dove for the raft.

The Drakska were forming their own ranks with terrifying speed and discipline. “All smoke-snuffing gods!” groaned Trolwen. “If we could just have used a single squadron — a raid, not a full-scale battle—”

“A single squadron could hardly have brought the Eart’ska back alive, Flockchief,” said Tolk. “Not from the very core of the enemy. We have to make it seem… not worth their while… to keep up the engagement, when we retreat.”

“They know ghostly well what we’ve come for,” said Trolwen. “Look how they swarm to that raft!”

The Flock troop had now punched through a shaken line of Draka patrols and reached water surface. One detachment attacked the target vessel, landed in a ring around the humans and then struck out to seize the entire craft. The rest stayed air-borne to repel the enemy’s counter-assault.

It was simple, clumsy ground fighting on deck. Both sides were similarly equipped: weapon technology seems to diffuse faster than any other kind. Wooden swords set with chips of flint, fire-hardened spears, clubs, daggers, tomahawks, struck small wicker shields and leather harness. Tails smacked out, talons ripped, wings buffeted and cut with horny spurs, teeth closed in throats, fists battered on flesh. Hard-pressed, a male would fly upward — there was little attempt to keep ranks, it was a free-for-all. Trolwen had no special interest in that phase of the battle; having landed superior numbers, he knew he could take the raft, if only his aerial squadrons could keep the remaining Drakska off.

He thought — conventionally, in the wake of a thousand bards — how much like a dance a battle in the air was: intricate, beautiful, and terrible. To coordinate the efforts of a thousand or more warriors a-wing reached the highest levels of art.

The backbone of such a force was the archers. Each gripped a bow as long as himself in his foot talons, drew the cord with both hands and let fly, plucked a fresh arrow from the belly quiver with his teeth and had it ready to nook before the string snapped taut. Such a corps, trained almost from birth, could lay down a curtain which none might cross alive. But after the whistling death was spent, as it soon was, they must stream back to the bearers for more arrows. That was the most vulnerable aspect of their work, and the rest of the army existed to guard it.

Some cast bolas, some the heavy sharp-edged boomerang, some the weighted net in which a wing-tangled foe could plunge to his death. Blowguns were a recent innovation, observed among foreign tribes in the tropical meeting places. Here the Drakska were ahead: their guns had a bolt-operated repeater mechanism and fire-hardened wooden bayonets. Also, the separate military units in the Fleet were more tightly organized.

On the other hand, they still relied on an awkward set of horn calls to integrate their entire army. Infinitely more flexible, the Whistler corps darted from leader to leader, weaving the Flock into one great wild organism.

Up and down the battle ramped, while the sun rose and the clouds broke apart and the sea grew red-stained. Trolwen clipped his orders: Hunlu to reinforce the upper right flank, Torcha to feint at the admiral’s raft while Srygen charged on the opposite wing -

But the Fleet was here, thought Trolwen bleakly, with all its arsenals: more missiles than his fliers, who were outnumbered anyway, could ever have carried. If this fight wasn’t broken off soon -

The raft with the Eart’ska had now been seized. Draka canoes were approaching to win it back. One of them opened up with fire weapons: the dreaded, irresistible burning oil of the Fleet, pumped from a ceramic nozzle; catapults throwing vases of the stuff which exploded in gouts of flame on impact. Those were the weapons which had annihilated the boats owned by the Flock, and taken its coastal towns. Trolwen cursed with a reflex anguish when he saw.

But the Eart’ska were off the raft, six strong porters carrying each one in a specially woven net. By changing bearers often, those burdens could be taken to the Flock’s mountain stronghold. The food boxes, hastily dragged up from the hold, were less difficult — one porter to each. A Whistler warbled success.

“Let’s go!” Orders rattled from Trolwen, his messengers swooped to the appropriate squadrons.” Hunlu and Srygen, close ranks about the bearers; Dwarn fly above with half his command, the other half guard the left wing. Rearguards—”

The morning was perceptibly further along before he had disengaged. His nightmare had been that the larger Fleet forces would pursue. A running battle all the way home could have snapped the spine of his army. But as soon as he was plainly in retreat, the enemy broke contact and retired to decks.

“As you predicted, Tolk,” panted Trolwen.

“Well, Flockchief,” said the Herald with his usual calm, “they themselves wouldn’t be anxious for such a melee. It would over-extend them, leave their rafts virtually defenseless — for all they know, your whole idea was to lure them into such a move. So they have merely decided that the Eart’ska aren’t worth the trouble and risk: an opinion which the Eart’ska themselves must have been busily cultivating in them.”

“Let’s hope it’s not a correct belief. But however the gods decree, Tolk… you still foresaw this outcome. Maybe you should be Commander.”

“Oh, no. Not I. It was the fat Eart’ska who predicted this — in detail.”

Trolwen laughed. “Perhaps, then, he should command.”

“Perhaps,” said Tolk, very thoughtfully, “he will.”