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“I—” Wace reeled where he stood, looking at her.
“Go on,” she said. “Help them break through. I will guard.”
Her face was even paler than before, but there was a green in her eyes which burned.
He spun about and went back to directing his sappers. It was plain now that battering rams had been a mistake; they wouldn’t get through mortared walls till Matthewsmas. He took everyone off the engines and put them to helping those who dug. With enough wooden shovels — or bare hands — they’d be sure to strike a tu
From somewhere near, there lifted a clatter great enough to drown out the struggle around him. Wace jumped up on a ram’s framework and looked over the heads of his engineers.
A body of Drak’honai had resorted to the ground themselves. They were not drilled in such tactics; but then, the La
Where the devil were the machine guns?
Yes, here came one, bouncing along on a little cart. Two La
Then hell boiled over on the roofs above him. His immediate corps had finally gotten to an underground passage and made it a way of entry. Driving the enemy before them, up to the top floors and out, they seized this one tower in a rush.
“Angrek!” panted Wace. “Get me up there!” Someone lowered a rope. He swarmed up it, with Sandra close behind. Standing on the ridgepole, he looked past stony parapets and turning millwheels, down to the bay. Trolwen’s forces had taken the pier without much trouble. But they were getting no farther: a steady hail of fire-streams, oil bombs, and catapult missiles from the anchored rafts staved them off. Their own similar armament was outranged.
Sandra squinted against the wind, shifted north to lash her eyes to weeping, and pointed “Eric — do you recognize that flag, on the largest of the vessels there?”
“Hm-m-m… let me see… yes, I do. Isn’t that our old chum Delp’s personal ba
“So, it is. I am not sorry he has escaped punishment for the riot we made. But I would rather have someone else to fight, it would be safer.”
“Maybe,” said Wace. “But there’s work to do. We have our toe hold in the city. Now we’ll have to beat down doors and push out the enemy — room by room — and you’re staying here!”
“I am not!”
Wace jerked his thumb at Angrek. “Detail a squad to take the lady back to the trains,” he snapped.
“No!” yelled Sandra.
“You’re too late,” gri
She swore at him — then suddenly, softly, she leaned over and murmured beneath the wind and the war-shrieks: “Come back hale, my friend.”
He led his troopers into the tower.
Afterward he had no clear memory of the fight. It was a hard and bloody operation, ax and knife, tooth and fist, wing and tail, in narrow tu
The La
Hours afterward, staggering with exhaustion, Wace climbed to a flat roof at the other end of town. Tolk sat there waiting for him.
“I think… we have… it all now,” gasped the human.
“And yet not enough,” said Tolk haggardly. “Look at the bay.”
Wace grabbed the parapet to steady himself.
There was no more pier, no more sheds at the waterfront- — it all stood in one black smoke. But the rafts and canoes of Drak’ho had edged into the shallows, forming a bridge to shore; and over this the sailors were dragging dismounted catapults and flamethrowers.
“They have too good a commander,” said Tolk. “He has gotten the idea too fast, that our new methods have their own weaknesses.”
“What is… Delp… going to do?” whispered Wace.
“Stay and see,” suggested the Herald. “There is no way for us to help.”
The Drak’honai were still superior in the air. Looking up toward a sky low and gloomy, rain clouds driving across angry gunmetal waters. Wace saw them moving to envelope the La
“You see,” said Tolk, “it is true that their fliers ca
Trolwen was too good a tactician himself to be cut up in such a fashion. Fighting every centimeter, his fliers retreated. After a while there was nothing in the sky but gray wrack.
Down on the ground, covered by arcing bombardment from the rafts, the sailors were setting up their mobile artillery. They had more of it than the La
“Our machine guns they do not possess, of course,” said Tolk. “But then, we do not have enough to make the difference.”
Wace whirled on Angrek, who had joined him. “Don’t stand here!” he cried. “Let’s get down — rally our folk — seize those — It can be done, I tell you!”
“Theoretically, yes.” Tolk nodded his lean head. “I can see where a person on the ground, taking advantage of every bit of cover, might squirm his way up to those catapults and flamethrowers, and tomahawk the operators. But in practice — well, we do not have such skill.”
“Then what would you do?” groaned Wace.
“Let us first consider what will assuredly happen,” said Tolk. “We have lost our trains; if not captured, they will be fired presently. Thus our supplies are gone. Our forces have been split, the fliers driven off, we groundlings left here. Trolwen ca
“Therefore, to continue the fight, we must throw away all our big shields and other new-gangled items, and revert to conventional air tactics. But this infantry is not well equipped for normal combat: we have few archers, for instance. Delp need only shelter on the rafts, behind his fire weapons, and for all our greater numbers we’ll be unable to touch him. Meanwhile he will have us pi
“To hell with that!” shouted Wace. “We have the town, don’t we? We can hold it against them till they rot!”
“What can we eat while they are rotting?” said Tolk. “You are a good craftsman, Eart’a, but no student of war. The cold fact is, that Delp managed to split our forces, and therefore he has already won. I propose to cut our losses by retreating now, while we still can.”
And then suddenly his ma