The foe sheered, frantic. A few bolts leaped from its catapults; one struck home, but a single punctured gas cell made small difference. “Put about!” cried Ruori. No sense in presenting his beam to a broadside. Both craft began to drift downwind, sails flapping. “Hard a-lee!” The Buffalo became a drogue, holding its victim to a crawl. And here came the kite prepared on the way back. This time it included fish hooks. It caught and held fairly on the Canyonite bag. “Cast off!” yelled Ruori. Fire whirled up the kite string. In minutes it had enveloped the enemy. A few parachutes were blown out to sea.
“Two to go,” said Ruori, without any of his men’s shouted triumph.
The invaders were no fools. Their other blimps turned back over the city, not wishing to expose themselves to more flame from the water. One descended, threw out hawsers, and was rapidly hauled to the plaza. Through his binoculars, Ruori saw armed men swarm aboard it. The other, doubtless with a mere patrol crew, maneuvered toward the approaching Buffalo.
“I think that fellow wants to engage us,” warned Hiti. “Meanwhile Number Two down there will take on a couple of hundred soldiers, then lay alongside us and board.”
“I know,” said Ruori. “Let’s oblige them.”
He steered as if to close with the sparsely manned patroller. It did not avoid him, as he had feared it might; but then, there was a compulsive bravery in the Sky culture. Instead, it maneuvered to grapple as quickly as possible. That would give its companion a chance to load warriors and rise— It came very near.
Now to throw a scare in them, Ruori decided. “Fire arrows,” he said. Out on deck, hardwood pistons were shoved into little cylinders, igniting tinder at the bottom; thus oil-soaked shafts were kindled. As the enemy came in range, red comets began to streak from the Buffalo archers.
Had his scheme not worked, Ruori would have turned off. He
didn’t want to sacrifice more men in hand-to-hand fighting; instead, he would have tried seriously to burif the other airship from afar, though his strategy needed it. But the morale effect of the previous disaster was very much present. As blazing arrows thunked into their gondola, a battle tactic so two-edged that no northern crew was even equipped for it, the Canyonites panicked and went over the side. Perhaps, as they parachuted down, a few noticed that no shafts had been aimed at their gas bag.
“Grab fast!” sang Ruori. “Douse any fires!”
Grapnels thumped home. The blimps rocked to a relative halt. Men leaped to the other gallery; bucketsful of water splashed.
“Stand by,” said Ruori. “Half our boys on the prize. Break out the lifelines and make them fast.”
He put down the tube. A door squeaked behind him. He turned, as Tresa re-entered the bridge. She was still pale, but she had somehow combed her hair, and her head was high.
“Another!” she said with a note near joy. “Only one of them left!”
“But it will be full of their men.” Ruori scowled. “I wish now I had not accepted your refusal to go aboard the Dolphin. I wasn’t thinking clearly. This is too hazardous.”
“Do you think I care for that?” she said. “I am a Carabán.”
“But I care,” he said.
The haughtiness dropped from her; she touched his hand, fleetingly, and color rose in her cheeks. “Forgive me. You have done so much for us. There is no way we can ever thank you.”
“Yes, there is,” said Ruori.
“Name it.”
“Do not stop your heart just because it has been wounded.”
She looked at him with a kind of sunrise in her eyes.
His boatswain appeared at the outer door. “All set, captain. We’re holding steady at a thousand feet, with a man standing by every valve these two crates have got.”
“Each has been assigned a particular escape line?”
“Aye,” The boatswain departed.
“You’ll need one too. Come.” Ruori took Tresa by the hand and led her onto the gallery. They saw sky around them, a breeze touched their faces and the deck underfoot moved like a live thing. He indicated one of many light cords from the Dolphin’s store, bowlined to the rail. “We aren’t going to risk parachuting with untrained men,” he said. “But you’ve no experience in skinning down one of these. I’ll make you a harness which will hold you safely. Ease yourself down hand over hand. When you reach the ground, cut loose.” His knife slashed some pieces of rope and he knotted them together with a seaman’s skill. When he fitted the harness on her, she grew tense under his fingers.