Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (75 page)

And, as miracles sometimes do, especially when backed by courage and forethought, it happened.

The two slender Unclean war craft were well past the drifting boat, still pointing at the enemy fleet, when they seemed to go mad. Hiero suddenly saw one of them yaw wildly and head at full speed for its consort's unprotected flank. At the same time, the crackle of the lightning guns ceased abruptly, and the group in the boat could hear a screaming outcry come over the now silent waters. Black dots, which spilled and sprang from the metal hulls like demented fleas, showed where the crews of the stricken ships fled in sheer madness from their hitherto unconquered craft. And then came the final act. With no one—or perhaps a fright-driven lunatic-—-at the helm, the ship nearest the shore drove at full speed into the side of her racing neighbor, the sharp prow cutting like a gigantic plow, two-thirds of the way back from the peak.

There was first a small puff of smoke as the locked hulls drifted to a halt, then a blaze of white light which made the five cover their eyes. The roar of a tremendous explosion followed the light, and all ducked once more under the shelter of the gunwale. A whistling noise in the overcast air made them try to flatten themselves on the bottom even further. As they crouched in terror, splashes of water all around them sent a spray over their flinching bodies.

Fighting his panic, Hiero looked up and was in time to see the wave coming. He sprang to the central thwart and, in one motion, shipped the oars and turned the boat bows on to the wail of water sweeping down upon them. They rose high on the crest and rushed deep into the valley beyond, but the Metz had acted in the bare nick of time, and hardly a drop of water was taken in. The second and third waves were far smaller, and he had no trouble meeting them. Only then did he once more rest on his oars and wave the cat people up so that all could see the results of their work.

Where the Unclean ships had met in their final and horrific tangle, now a vast and greasy circle lay on the water, widening as the south wind sent the gentle waves to spread it yet farther out. Bits of wood and rubbish floated here and there, none of them large. Of life, there was no sign whatever. The grim vessels, which for so long had haunted the south shore of the Inland Sea, were totally gone. With them went their adept commanders of the Dark Brotherhood, their crews of ghastly mutants, and the human scum which served on them..

In the bow of Hiero's fishing boat, M'reen sat smiling, her leather bag on her lap, her furry ears cocked, and a broad and sharp-toothed smile on her expressive face. The Wind of Death had triumphed over the enemies of her race in a total victory, one on a scale of which she and her folk had never conceived. There would be songs around the hearth fires of her clan for countless generations over this! A keening purr of triumph rose from four lipless mouths, a wild rhythm of exaltation, as the freest of the free rejoiced at the death of their sometime masters.

Hiero smiled as he watched the swelling throat muscles and the blazing eyes. He would have liked to join in, had his vocal chords been capable of so doing. He had already remembered to give thanks to his Deity in his own way, silently, but no less heartfelt. He had no illusions about their luck. They had been lucky indeed! The timing, the weapon, and the wind had all been just exactly right. One could not count on such things forever, or even more than once. And there was still a lot to be done. This was only the first skirmish of what promised to be a terrible war, one extending far into the future and over many thousands of leagues.

Reluctantly, he called the catfolk back from their paean of joy and brutally brought them to the present.

Friends,
he sent,
the war is over. We have much to do, and first we must meet my other comrades. This is what I have come so many weary paces out of the South to do.
He pointed with one bronzed hand at the Metz fleet, which was milling in some disorder, shaken by the totally unexpected end to the battle.
Sit quietly now, and I will row us out there. And pray to your wind gods my
o
wn folk don't turn their thunder weapons on us before I can tell them who we are!

Actually, it was not that hard, The Metz warships were steaming slowly east once more, and an alert lookout spotted the little craft rowing toward them almost at once. The lead vessel slowed as Hiero and his party approached, the smoke from its twin stacks dying down as it did so. From a wheelhouse set forward, a group of figures emerged to gaze down at them. Noticing that several of the round muzzles set in the slanting hull were also pointing downward in their direction, Hiero shipped his oars and stood up, arms over his head. Then he lowered them and slowly began to cross himself with his right hand, moving it over his broad chest so that all could see his action clearly.

There was a moment of silence as he stood there and the fishing boat drifted closer. Then, over the narrowing gap, came a bull's bellow of a voice. "Look at that sword! Look at that dirty face! Look at that dung-eating grin! I told everyone they couldn't hang the worst priest and the most useless bum in the Metz Republic! He's alive!"

Hiero laughed with relief. "What are you doing on that hulk, you big moron? I didn't know they let you near water. You never bathed in your life and you're not smart enough to learn to swim!"

The big man smiled down at him with a weary benevolence. Per Edard Maluin was a head taller than Hiero and twice his weight. He had the thews of a bull morse and the chubby face of an innocent child, vastly enlarged. He was a veteran of the Frontier Guards, a murderous killer at need, and one of Hiero's best friends, having roomed with him in the Abbey Academy when they were only in their teens.

"Who are your friends, Shorty? And are you lucky! Did you see what we just dealt with? This ship, which I command, please note, and the others?"

Hiero took one oar and sculled over to the hull of the big vessel. Then he looked up, his face incredulous, at the small group above.

"You
dealt with? You'd be so much garbage at the bottom of the sea, my friend, if it weren't for me and these four chums of mine. What do you think made the Unclean go crazy, then ram each other? The distant sight of your ugly face?"

Per Edard's eyes narrowed. Behind his broad forehead lurked a very good mind, and he was suddenly thinking hard. "So that was you, was it? I might have known. You always were the king of the dirty tricks league. And thank God for it! Now listen, come aboard quickly. We have a war to finish and we have to clean out that rats' nest. We have new mind shields and they're being held tight, so I can't talk to your pals. Come up on the bridge with me, and we'll get back to work."

In an instant, the five had leaped aboard, abandoning the little boat, and passed through a narrow entry port on the side of the sloping hull. Moments later, they stood, while Per Edard rapped out orders, peering through narrow slits at the smoke-covered town they had just left. And moments after that, the roar of the big cannon below and the trembling of the ship in response made them all wince in reaction. Between commands to the helmsmen, the gunners below, his signalmen, and many others, Per Edard threw questions and snatches of talk over his huge shoulders. He wore the leather breeches and shirt of the Frontier Guards, but on his head was a leather band with a short visor in front. Above the visor was an insigne the Metz had never seen before, picked out in silver. Looking closely, Hiero saw that it was a square-sailed ship, shown head-on, as if coming at the viewer, and that behind it again, as a background, was a slanted anchor with a twist of rope around it.

"Oh, that? We all wear them. Demero found it in some old book as usual. Lot of nonsense, I suppose, but the men like it. The admiral is Colonel Berain from over on the Beesee coast. His is
gold,
if you please. Lower ranks wear it in copper. I'll try to get you one in lead. We're a
navy
now, Hiero." He rambled on while all of them watched the shells burst in the distant town. No answering fire of any kind was coming out.

"We had a hell of a time getting enough metal for the guns. It's a bronze alloy from some old city, I guess. No, the hull's not metal, just wood. But it's got thin plates of some ceramic fitted over it. Damned good protection against most things, though not those bloody electrics. I must admit, I think you saved our necks there, my boy.

"The ships? Steer small, you copper-plated numbskulls! Think this is a canoe? How can they aim below with you barging around that way? Oh, yes, the ships. Well, Demero started moving seamen from the Beesee area over to a lake northwest of Namcush. A fair-sized lake, and the Dam People helped dredge a big outlet. They're working with us now, you know. Lot been happening since you went off" gypsying down south." He aimed an affectionate cuff at Hiero's head, which would have stunned him if it had landed, then went back to bellowing at the men who manned the twin steering wheels. In a moment he was talking to Hiero again.

"None of this stuff is new. God alone knows where the knowledge got dredged up from, but it was pretty complete. Ail we had to do was ask a question and the answers came quickly. The Abbey files, I suppose. They gave us everything. How to build the damned things, how to build the engines. They call them 'high-compression steam engines,' and we blew up a couple before we got the hang of it. No one got killed, though. The old ships, the ones we copied, were built the same way, but with iron sheathing. We had no way of getting all that iron, at least not fast. But we got the formula for this ceramic, like a pottery dish but twenty times as hard, and it works fine. Now that I think of it, I'm kind of glad we didn't have the iron. That lousy electric thing on those Unclean ships would have fried us all, maybe.

"Anyway, we got five of them built, the Dam People opened their sluices, and down the river to Namcush we came, early one morning, let's see, about three weeks ago. We towed two regiments in barges along behind and we had that town in one half hour. Not one ship got away. Not too many of the Unclean were there, but a lot of crooked traders, frontier scum, and some just plain pirates. We threw everyone into a prison and interrogated the hell out of all of them. We hanged the pirates and locked up all the ships of the others. No way the Unclean were going to get warned. Then we began to move down the coast to this place. We couldn't tow all those sailing ships, so we had to move fairly slowly for the others to keep up. And here we are. What's that, son?"

A teen-aged boy had appeared from aft and stood at the salute.

"Signal from the admiral, sir. Move slowly in toward the town and conform to his movements. He is going to pass the troops through our line and start them landing while we give any cover needed."

"Right. Cease fire and wait for commands below there." He straightened from the voice tube and for the first time stared hard at the Children of the Wind. "Your friends are going to have front-row seats, old buddy. One big tough, two young toughs, and a real cutie. Now, where did you find them? Never saw or heard of anything remotely like them, and I know more than most about Leemutes—sorry, aliens."

His admiration as his twinkling black eyes roved over M'reen's supple shape was so obvious that it transcended the barrier of species. The young priestess bridled.

"Down, boy," Hiero said. "The young lady you are leering at was solely in charge and responsible for ruining those two loads of Unclean, who otherwise would have happily blown your little toy boat here completely out of existence. Shall I turn her loose on you instead?"

Per Edard's eyes widened at this astounding comment, but he knew Hiero too well to doubt a word of it. Instead, he bowed and addressed the four catfolk formally.

"I am honored to meet such brave warriors, the friends of my old companion. Please accept the thanks of all of us for your destruction of our mutual foes. You will receive more formal thanks later from our chiefs and wise ones. In the meantime, you are our honored guests and allies. Anything that we can do for you will be done at once. You have only to ask."

Hiero translated and waited to see who would answer. It was B'uorgh, which made sense. The big war chief was the senior, despite M'reen's rank in the Pride structure.

We thank you in turn. We have corns far to help our friend Hiero and his people. We wish to be led to battle against those you call the Unclean. Our name for them is worse. May we soon talk to you with our minds in true friendship. Meanwhile, is there any way we can breathe clean air? These stinks from that town and this floating thing are choking us. We ask only if this is possible. If not, we can endure. We will eat and drink when you do, go where you go, fight when you fight, and, if necessary, die when you die.

As he translated the answer, Hiero could see that Edard was impressed in spite of himself.

"Please tell them, Hiero, that I'll get them on one of the outer picket ships as soon as I can. The air should be clean out on the sound, and those are sailing craft, so they won't have the engine-room coal dust and oil to contend with. We have plenty of lignite coal, but even I think it stinks. Eight now I have to cover this landing. Here come the Guards going ashore."

While Hiero spoke again to his friends, they all watched as the Metz Frontier Guards sailed through the armored steamships and cautiously approached the rotting wharves in front of them. There was no talking now; all stood silent, waiting to see if there were any counterattack coming. Hiero tried to reach out: with his mind and learned something new. The mind shield that the Abbeys were using to guard their war fleet blanketed his own powers as well. He could neither send nor receive on any mental band beyond the limits of the ship! He mentioned this to Per Maluin in a low voice.

"Yeah, that's right. Abbot Demero told me about you, Hiero. I sort of gathered you had become the grand champion of the world at this sort of thing in the last year or so. Well, we have a lot of people trying to do the same trick now ourselves. And, man, are they going to be glad to have you back! But that's by the by. When we got these shields for the fleet, the top people, which means the Council, of course, decided that we might just have one or two nasties in our own. ranks. As a result, this thing clamps down on everyone, so no one has a chance to pass any little leaks which might get us killed in an emergency. Get it?"