The Hammer of the Sun (14 page)

Elof and Roc tore free their bonds and scrambled around as one, to see what had happened behind them. The sheer force of it dazed them. The vast slab had split upon impact, and two huge ice-islands slowly bobbed and spun in the bay, with a million lesser shards and fragments of ice around them. But beyond the mouth of the bay a great fan of sea lay black and bare, scoured almost clear of ice by the passing of the wave.

"The Ekwesh…" croaked Roc, as the turmoil subsided.

Elof spat out a mouthful of seawater and coughed violently before he could speak. "Under the slab. Dashed to nothing, as we would have been, but for the vane. Little their masters cared, if only they could strike at us!" He looked around suddenly. "But the other two? Were they…"

"'Fraid not!" said Roc unhappily, and pointed. Beyond the dark gap in the drift-ice dark masts lifted like leafless trees against the greying sky. "And they're not running, neither."

"They'd time to see it coming," said Elof grimly. "Lowered sails and rode it out with sweeps… and now they'll row for us, fast…" He looked despairingly up at the sails, but they hung soaked and limp in the sluggish air, gaff and boom swaying idly. "Not so much as a breath…" He stumbled wearily up, rubbing where the ropes had bruised him, and clambered unsteadily to the stern-post. The vane still hung in its socket, but it too was swaying idly, and swung to the touch of his finger, one side to the other without the least resistance. Calm settled like smoked glass upon the windless sea.

Roc's voice came to him distant, distorted, as if through deep waters. "Can't it do something? See the speed of the bastards! They'll be upon us in minutes now!"

Elof shook his head. "Nothing… nothing… no wind to work upon. The virtue I set on it was to summon, to direct… But it can't summon what's not there anymore!" In dazed despair he hung on the vane, feeling the swirl of the pattern, the sense of drifting down into green depths and the vast black shadow-shape below, nearer, even nearer, the two faint gleams, dim points of light…

He stiffened suddenly, gasping, clutching the vane In shaking hands as if he feared to release it. "Is it a wind?" cried Roc, and then "No, man, What're you about?" Elof heard him, but it was too late; he had wrenched the vane from its socket, held it a moment to his brow, then brandished it high over his head.

"Since the wind fails you," he breathed, "show us what else your craft may command!" And with a great effort he hurled the precious thing from him, straight into the path of the oncoming ships. Far out over the waters it spun; Roc flinched, as if he half expected that calm surface to shatter like some vast dark mirror. But the black waters swallowed it with scarcely a ripple, and he cursed. Elof hardly noticed; his work was fixed still in his mind's eye, falling, sinking, drifting down into the green cold depths, down to a rising shadow…

The ripples faded, the mirror lay calm once more, open
to the cutting
onslaught
of
the
black bows
. For the pace of two slow breaths it seemed that nothing would happen; then, around the spot where the vane had vanished, a little spurt of bubbles pattered up. Elof swallowed, painfully, for his throat and mouth were suddenly very dry. Another breath, and Roc leaned forward suddenly, eyes narrowing in alarm. In the same spot, but with scarcely a ripple, something else broke the surface, something small, rounded and glistening that gleamed dark as the sea around it, and yet was no bubble. Slowly, steadily, it arose and grew to a tapering pointed shape, and Elof was momentarily filled with disappointment; that sleek black head, as large, perhaps, as a horse's, must surely belong to one of the very large seals they had seen, curious at all the disturbance above. Then the head lifted, clouds of steam jetting from narrow nostrils; the eyes blinked open, and with a shudder of fascinated horror Elof saw they were like no ordinary seal's, set small on each side of the head. These were immense, with a green and catlike glint in them, and they were set as forward as his own. This way and that they turned as the huge head swung, water streaming from a crest of coarse fur that ran like the main of a horse down the narrow column of neck beneath. Still it rose out of that eerie calm like some vision of nightmare emerging from a mirror, higher and higher on a neck of impossible length; it seemed it would never stop, as if the legends were true that made it an endless serpent engirdling the earth. Yet it was no serpent; beneath the water a wide whale-like body was becoming visible, and around it in shadowy outline four limbs like the flippers of a seal, and a long and tapering tail. When the rolling curve of the back at last broke surface, that head stood taller than the
Sea/ire's
mast; higher even than the mastheads of the Ekwesh warships it rose, swan-like and graceful, immensely majestic, infinitely terrible. Their rowing slowed, the long sweeps clashing in disorder as the rowers turned to stare at what they saw mirrored in the calm water; then the sweeps dug hard into the water, their fierce onrush faltered. They glided to a halt and hung there, rocking gently.

"What
is
it?" gasped Roc. "Not…"

Elof clamped a hand over his mouth. "Not a sound!" he hissed into his ear. "Don't attract his attention! Aye, the Sea Devourer it must be - Amicac himself!"

He sensed Roc stiffen, and felt little better himself, overshadowed by that long head, those enigmatic eyes. It was a sight to make the heart shrink, to bring home to him how different was the order
of
the ocean, a monster harbouring monsters. A good seventy strides in length were those great war craft, but the creature before them was at least as long and many times outweighed them. It floated now between them and the cutter, motionless save for the briefest flick of limbs beneath the surface, and the watchful swing of the great head. Elof held his breath. He could not guess what it would do next, which way it would turn, but his foes, who had seen this creature summoned, could not know that. Yet they were not craven, the Ekwesh; their codes demanded they avenge defeats and deaths. After that first breathless pause a sudden defiant howl rang out; upon the leading ship a wolf-clad shaman sprang forward to prance and posture at this new apparition, while behind him came the bark of harsh commands, the creak of catapult winches, the rumble of feet upon the decks as the archers ran up to form battle ranks. The drums rolled, the oars swept down in a single surging thrust that sent the black ships lancing forward; the icy air seemed to crack like a whip, and volleys of arrows came sailing up from their decks like leaves in a sudden gust. Against ships or men that hail of shafts might have told terribly, but the Devourer was greater than the greatest whale, and that massive back bore thick hide or even bony armour; what few arrows struck served only to sting and annoy him. His head tossed back, he gave a single barking snarl, and the long neck snaked down so swiftly that the arrows seemed slow in their flight. Against the length of him his head seemed small, but it was three times longer than any great cat's, four times that of a wolf; along the decks it raked with jaws agape, and strewed the helpless archers like chaff. One, too slow or too bold to leap for his life, was seized and borne bodily into the air. Robes streamed and fluttered about those jaws; it was a chieftain or shaman who threshed in their grip. Catapult bolts sang up from the decks; they were harder to aim, but by skill or chance one struck high on that narrow throat and sank deep into its iron muscles.

The reeking jaws parted, their prey dropped to crash unheeded upon the deck, and a whistling cry of pain split the air. Then it was as if the whole sea around the Devourer boiled up, lashed into foam by limbs and tail as the vast beast gathered itself up and hurled itself forward, to strike like a true serpent at its tormentors. The vast flippers slammed down upon the decking before it, their blunt claws tearing at the planking, and then amid a tumult of howls and screams, like a seal mounting an ice-flow, the Devourer hauled its great bulk bodily out of the sea and onto the deck. The mast was brushed aside like a twig, the timbers creaked and shivered, and beneath that vast weight the whole great ship was flattened down into the water, Elof saw the terrified oarsmen springing from their benches, but the sea was already flooding across the high gunwales, and they were swept away in foaming turmoil, or plucked from handholds by the water that fountained up through the shattered deck as the hull timbers gave. The broken ship lurched, twisted and canted over, and together with its destroyer
it
sank from sight; the sea swirled in where it had been, setting the drift-ice bobbing and spinning, and only a few scraps of wreckage spun above its grave.

For long moments nothing more happened, and Elof guessed that the Destroyer had dived deep, as might a whale, seeking refuge in the depths from tormenting humans. The last warship, it seemed, had as urgent an aim, its oars beat the water with frenzied strength, and the sleek craft came scything on across its fellow's tomb. Elof and Roc watched helplessly as the Ekwesh bore down on their cutter; bent the man-eaters might be on escape, but they would not miss the chance to sink their prey first. Then a shadow passed once more over Elof's mind; staring down into the black ocean he saw what must happen, and could barely restrain himself from crying a warning to his enemy, so near and certain was their doom. Up from below surged that vast body, and the Ekwesh warship seemed to explode as if a volcano had erupted under its keel. They saw the hull shoot up under the impact and crash down upon its side in a wall of spray, and then all was hidden from them in roaring havoc. This way and that flew sweeps and timbers and the helpless shapes of men amid a seething cauldron of sea, stirred up by limbs and flippers that lashed and pounded the black hull to fragments. Into the black ocean plummeted its crew like ants spilled from a nest, and like ants the shrieking swimmers died beneath the crashing impact of those broad limbs, or were plucked up by the jaws that plunged and darted this way and that; though perhaps the few who were left to kick and struggle a few seconds longer were the worse off, for the cold took them more slowly, and the waters swallowed them living and aware.

"We've got to get out of here!" screamed Roc above the uproar, as the cutter lurched and heeled on the boiling sea. "That brute'll have us next -"

"There's still no wind!" shouted Elof, fighting helplessly with the tiller and empty sails. "We're drifting -just drifting! There's not a thing more I can do -" Abruptly the cutter lurched and lifted beneath him, and a hummock of black water swept by, almost gunwale-high, a crestless wave that was the first outrush from that explosive emergence. It caught up the little craft like a hand and swept it forward, heeling and wallowing wildly; Elof had to wrestle with the tiller to keep it from capsizing. Other waves overtook them from that maelstrom of carnage astern, sweeping the floes before them and adding to their speed.

"We're heading towards the Ice again!" Roc growled.

"Can't be helped!" Elof answered, though he felt a sudden cold breath upon his neck. At least they were not headed back into that terrible bay, but around the arm of it, where the cliffs were less sheer and looming. "Just so long as we get out of sight -" The drift-ice clustered more thickly here, but the waves they rode cleared it from their path, and spent their energy in doing so. The cutter's speed dropped to a quiet glide, and they relaxed a little. Suddenly the boom creaked and swung, the sail fluttered and crackled with falling ice. That breath played about Elof s head again; it was real, a movement in the still air. It even seemed to stir his hair a little, soaked and salt stiffened as it was. He read the same pang of hope on Roc's face, and together they looked up at the streamers. They too were stirring slightly - even fluttering a little…

"A westerly!" groaned Roc. "Oh no - not here…"

"Afraid so," sighed Elof, sagging wearily over the tiller rack. "We'll have to tack out of here, it'll take hours and the sun's falling fast -"

Roc's cry alerted him; he whirled, and forgot the wind, so appalled was he at the sight of that fierce silhouette, held high against the darkening clouds, surveying with regal calm the waste of waters around. Beneath it no trace of turmoil remained and on all that wide surface no trace of the last of their pursuers. From that lofty vantage there was nothing here that could hide them, and a strange urge gripped him; he staggered to his feet in the stern, met that calm gaze with his own, striving to read what lay behind it, life or death, and felt the cool touch of awe and great wonder in his mind.

"That…" breathed Roc, equally unnerved. "What manner of… beast is it? No seasnake, that's for sure!"

"I cannot say," Elof whispered, without turning. "Some… cousin to the seals, I think; a giant among their kind…"

"Where's he come from? It was you, wasn't it? What'd you
do?"

"That vane… in my lightness of heart I set its image upon that vane, not knowing what virtues of command it would bear. So, when I turned the wind to my will, I summoned… him, also. All this while he must have been close to us, far below; a happy chance we did not use the vane more, or idly! Each time I -sensed something, though I did not understand it till the last; then I called upon him in desperation, not knowing what he would do. And still I do not!"

"He made no move to attack anyone till those maniacs quilled him," Roc pointed out. "That's something. He just sat there like he's doing now, as if he was waiting…"

Then Elof gave a deep sigh, as of sudden understanding; he lowered his gaze, and made as deep and courtly an obeisance as he knew how. And even as he looked up once more the long neck drove forward among the drift-ice, and as it swept forward it sank, slowly and smoothly, that proud head held level. The ice-floes scattered before it like panicked sheep, and it trailed a wake of whiteness over the shadowed seas like a royal mantle. At last only the head rose over the waters, and with startling suddenness it ducked down and was gone.