He awoke, but the rain was long past. Shouts came from somewhere and then an explosion that rattled the pilothouse. Sam leaped out of bed, wrapped a kilt around his waist, seized an ax and ran into the pilothouse. He suddenly remembered his pistol, but he decided he would go back for it when he found out what was going on. The River was still smothered in fog, but hundreds of dark figures were spilling out of it, and the tops of tall masts were sticking out above it Torches were flaring all over the plains and in the hills. Drums were beating.
There was another explosion. A brightness in the night with bodies flying in all directions.
He looked through the starboard port. The gates of the log wall around King John’s palace were open, and men were streaming out. Among them was the stocky figure of John.
By then more men had appeared out of the mists over the River. Bright starlight showed them lining up and moving out, rank after rank. The first of the invaders were by now in the great factories and advancing swiftly across the plain toward the foothills. Some explosions occurred inside factories as bombs were thrown to dislodge the defenders. And then a red tail flared out, disappeared, and something black shot toward him. Sam threw himself to the floor. A roar came beneath him, the floor heaved, and the glass ports blew in. A whiff of acrid smoke came to him and was gone.
He should get up and run, but he couldn’t. He was deafened and frozen. Another rocket would be coming his way, and that one might be closer.
A giant hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him up. Another hand slid under his legs and he was being carried out. The arms and the chest of the giant were very hairy and as hard-muscled and as warm as a gorilla’s. A voice as deep as if it were at the end of a railroad tunnel rumbled. “Take it eathy, Bothth.”
“Put me down, Joe,” Sam said. “I’m all right, except for my shame. And that’s all right, too, I ought to feel ashamed.”
His shock was fading, and a sense of relative calm flowed in to fill the vacuum. The appearance of the massive titanthrop had steadied him. Good old Joe—he might be a dumb subhuman and sick at the moment, but he was still worth a battalion.
Joe had put on his suit of leather armor. In one hand was the haft of an enormous double-headed ax of steel.
“Who are they?” he rumbled. “They from Thoul Thity?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Do you feel up to fighting? How’s the head?”
“It hurtth. Yeah, I can fight okay. Vere do ve go from here?”
Sam led him downhill toward the men collecting around John. He heard his name called and turned to see the tall lanky figure of de Bergerac, Livy by his side. She carried a small round shield of leather-covered oak and a steeltipped spear. Cyrano held a long, dully shining blade. Sam’s eyes widened. It was a rapier.
Cyrano said, “Morbleu!” He switched to Esperanto. “Your smith gave this to me just after supper—he said there was no sense in waiting.”
Cyrano whipped the rapier, cutting the air with a sharp sound. “I’ve come alive again. Steel—sharp steel!”
A nearby explosion made them all dive for the ground. Sam waited until he was sure that another rocket was not coming and then looked at his pilothouse. It had received a direct hit; its front was blown open; a fire was racing through it and would soon be in the texas. His diary was gone, but he could retrieve his grail later. It was indestructible.
In the next few minutes the wooden missiles, tails flaming, arched out, wobbling, from wooden bazookas held on the shoulders of the Parolandoj rocketeers. The missiles landed near and sometimes among the enemy and exploded with gouts of fire and much black smoke, quickly carried away by the wind.
Three runners reported. The attack had been launched from three places, all from The River. The main body was concentrated here, apparently to seize the Parolandoj leaders, the larger factories and the amphibian. The other two armies were about a mile away on each side. The invaders were composed of men from New Brittany and Kleomanujo and the Ulmaks from across The River. The Ulmaks were savages who had lived in Siberia circa 30,000 B.C. and whose descendants had migrated across the Bering Straits to become Amerinds.