saddle animals, although not as powerful or fierce as the superb voves themselves, were sorely needed by our cavalry. And in the nature of things, they would have already been paid for.
Perhaps that petty financial reckoning made up my mind.
“We must save the flier,” I said. “Captain Dorndorf, it is up to you and your helmsman. Maneuver to mask her.”
“Quidang—” There was no time for the tiresome majister.
Opazfaril
took the breeze and surged ahead, the silver boxes buried deep in the hull exerted their influence upon the lines of ethero-magnetical force, as the wise men say, and we swung up and past the staggering voller and hurled ourselves full on the three pursuers.
Now your real voller is propelled along as well as lifted by the two silver boxes. These three could pirouette about us like hounds about a stag. Our only motive power came from our canvas spread to the breeze. Well... not quite only.
There was one other power, an awful force of nature, that together with the ship designers of Vallia, I had calculated to use in battles of flying sailing ships against vollers. That power had been used to grim effect on the long flight of steps up to Esser Rarioch, the strom’s palace and castle on Valka...
Captain Dorndorf proved a fine shipmaster.
Opazfaril
got in among the three vollers. Then the canvas came in, with just enough spread to give us a trifle of forward momentum, and we settled down to act as a solid fortress and shoot it out. These airboats from Persinia were not too well equipped with varters. Our varter crews bent to their work lustily, twirling the windlasses, drawing back the heavy bows, sliding in the lethal darts or the ugly chunks of rock, letting fly. The Vallian gros-varter is a king among ballistae, and we had four of them among the smaller projectile weapons.
The archers shot. Down in the fighting galleries along the keel the bowmen loosed, up in the fighting tops and the walkways between the masts, the archers showered their steel-tipped death. Return shots came in. Our bulwarks were thick and high, our mantlets arranged just so, and for this kind of work
Opazfaril
was just as well suited as the vollers. If those lean hunting hounds sought to drag down this stag, they found she had needle-sharp horns everywhere and not just adorning her forehead.
The lookouts on special duty posted in a relay chain kept calling the positional information up, along the relay, to Travok, grandson of the Vad of Valhotra, positioned near Captain Dorndorf on the quarterdeck. Travok’s twin, Tom, was up in a fighting top, screeching his lungs out.
“I leave the moment to you, captain.”
“When the trumpet blows, majister — do you grasp hold!”
“Aye!”
Arrows sprouted from our masts. Our hulls overside must have looked like pincushions. But our varters were striking home in ruthless fashion. Chunks of the vollers splintered stern, bulwarks, hull, beams. One or two lumps of rock whistled across our deck and a young cadet, Bolan the Tumbs, brought one across to me. I weighed it on my palm.
Captain Dorndorf nodded. “Small.”
Korero said, “Enough to knock your head off.”
Turko said, “That’s why—” and stopped.
An arrow stood in his shield.
He broke it off and we looked at it. Not a Lohvian shaft, but long and deadly and tipped with steel. The feathers were undyed, being browny-white from the Oraneflut, a useful bird of graceful body and broad wings.
“I’ve been shot at a few times with those,” observed Korero.
The fight brawled across the sky as
Opazfaril
sailed slowly and steadily on and the vollers swirled like leaves in a hurricane about us. The flier they had been pursuing snuggled in along our flank, grapnels flew and men went across to shoot on that side. A number of crossbow bolts snicked in among the arrows. I began to think the time when the boarding attempts would be made must be near. I told Dorndorf. He nodded, and drew a short, stout, thick and extremely
Perhaps that petty financial reckoning made up my mind.
“We must save the flier,” I said. “Captain Dorndorf, it is up to you and your helmsman. Maneuver to mask her.”
“Quidang—” There was no time for the tiresome majister.
Opazfaril
took the breeze and surged ahead, the silver boxes buried deep in the hull exerted their influence upon the lines of ethero-magnetical force, as the wise men say, and we swung up and past the staggering voller and hurled ourselves full on the three pursuers.
Now your real voller is propelled along as well as lifted by the two silver boxes. These three could pirouette about us like hounds about a stag. Our only motive power came from our canvas spread to the breeze. Well... not quite only.
There was one other power, an awful force of nature, that together with the ship designers of Vallia, I had calculated to use in battles of flying sailing ships against vollers. That power had been used to grim effect on the long flight of steps up to Esser Rarioch, the strom’s palace and castle on Valka...
Captain Dorndorf proved a fine shipmaster.
Opazfaril
got in among the three vollers. Then the canvas came in, with just enough spread to give us a trifle of forward momentum, and we settled down to act as a solid fortress and shoot it out. These airboats from Persinia were not too well equipped with varters. Our varter crews bent to their work lustily, twirling the windlasses, drawing back the heavy bows, sliding in the lethal darts or the ugly chunks of rock, letting fly. The Vallian gros-varter is a king among ballistae, and we had four of them among the smaller projectile weapons.
The archers shot. Down in the fighting galleries along the keel the bowmen loosed, up in the fighting tops and the walkways between the masts, the archers showered their steel-tipped death. Return shots came in. Our bulwarks were thick and high, our mantlets arranged just so, and for this kind of work
Opazfaril
was just as well suited as the vollers. If those lean hunting hounds sought to drag down this stag, they found she had needle-sharp horns everywhere and not just adorning her forehead.
The lookouts on special duty posted in a relay chain kept calling the positional information up, along the relay, to Travok, grandson of the Vad of Valhotra, positioned near Captain Dorndorf on the quarterdeck. Travok’s twin, Tom, was up in a fighting top, screeching his lungs out.
“I leave the moment to you, captain.”
“When the trumpet blows, majister — do you grasp hold!”
“Aye!”
Arrows sprouted from our masts. Our hulls overside must have looked like pincushions. But our varters were striking home in ruthless fashion. Chunks of the vollers splintered stern, bulwarks, hull, beams. One or two lumps of rock whistled across our deck and a young cadet, Bolan the Tumbs, brought one across to me. I weighed it on my palm.
Captain Dorndorf nodded. “Small.”
Korero said, “Enough to knock your head off.”
Turko said, “That’s why—” and stopped.
An arrow stood in his shield.
He broke it off and we looked at it. Not a Lohvian shaft, but long and deadly and tipped with steel. The feathers were undyed, being browny-white from the Oraneflut, a useful bird of graceful body and broad wings.
“I’ve been shot at a few times with those,” observed Korero.
The fight brawled across the sky as
Opazfaril
sailed slowly and steadily on and the vollers swirled like leaves in a hurricane about us. The flier they had been pursuing snuggled in along our flank, grapnels flew and men went across to shoot on that side. A number of crossbow bolts snicked in among the arrows. I began to think the time when the boarding attempts would be made must be near. I told Dorndorf. He nodded, and drew a short, stout, thick and extremely
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