By now Wolff could see why the nests were going against the wind. The hundreds of Nichiddors on it had gripped the plants in their talons and were flapping their wings in unison. The foul chariot of the skies was drawn by as strange birds as ever existed.
When the nest had come within a quarter-mile, the wings stopped beating. Now the other nests drew up slowly. Two settled downwards; from these the Nichiddor would attack the bottom of the island. Two others veered around behind the island and then came on the other side. Dugarnn waited calmly until the Nichiddor had set their attack pattern.
Wolff asked him why he did not order the gliders to attack.
“If they were released before the main body of Nichiddor came at us,” Dugarnn said, “every Nichiddor would rise to bar the way. The gliders could not possibly get through them. But with only a small number of Nichiddor attacking the gliders, we have a chance of getting through to the nests. At least, that has been my experience so far.”
“Wouldn’t it be wisest, from the Nichiddors’ viewpoint, to eliminate the gliders first?” Wolff asked.
Dugarnn shrugged and said, “You’d think so. But they never do what seems to me the most strategic thing. It’s my theory that, being deprived of hands, the Nichiddor have suffered a lessening of intelligence. It’s true they can manipulate objects to some extent with their feet and their trunks, but they’re far less manual than we.
“Then again, I could be wrong. Perhaps the Nichiddor derive a certain pleasure from giving the gliders a fighting chance. Or perhaps they are as arrogant as sea-eagles, which will attack a shark that outweighs them by a thousand pounds, a vicious creature that an eagle cannot possibly kill or, if it could, would not be able to carry off to some surface island.”
The wind carried to the abuta the gabble of hundreds of voices and the trumpeting of hundreds of proboscises. Suddenly, there was a silence. Dugarnn froze, but his eyes were busy. Slowly, he raised his hand. A warrior standing near him held a bladder in his hand. By him was a bowl-shaped stone with some hot coals. He held his gaze upon his chief.
The silence was broken with the united scream of Nichiddor through their snaky noses. There was a clap as of thunder as they launched themselves from the nests and brought their wings together in the first beat. Dugarnn dropped his hand. The warrior dipped the short fuse of the bladder into the fire and then released it. It soared upwards to fifty feet and exploded.
The gliders dropped from their lifts, each towards the nest appointed to it. Wolff looked at the dark hordes advancing and lost some of his confidence in his beamer. Yet, the Ilmawir had beaten off attacks by the Nichiddor before-although with great loss. But never before had eight nests ringed the abuta.
A great-winged white bird passed overhead. Its cry came down to him, and he wondered if this could be an eye of Urizen. Was his father watching through the eyes and brains of these birds? If so, he was going to see a spectacle that would delight his bloody heart.
The Nichiddor, so thick they were a brown and black cloud, surrounded the island. Just out of bowrange, they stopped advancing and began to fly around the island. Around and around they flew, in an ever-diminishing circle. The Ilmawir archers, all males, waited for their chief to signal to fire. The women were armed with slings and stones, and they also waited.
Dugarnn, knowing that it would weaken them to spread out his people along the top of the walls, had concentrated them at the prow. There was nothing to prevent the Nichiddor from landing at the far end. However, they did not settle down there. They hated to walk on their weak legs.
Wolff looked out at the gliders. Some had dropped below his line of vision to attack the two nests below the underside. The others were coming down swiftly in a steep glide. A number of Nichiddor rose from the nest to meet them.