At that instant, Melville also became aware of Fielder and the men from the cutters hitting the enemy in the flank. Initially they took them silently from the rear. Fielder demonstrated extraordinary ability at lopping off heads from behind, slaying many of them before the enemy even knew he was there. When the enemy finally began to turn to face this new threat, he combined excellent sword work with supernatural pistol skill. He’s a consummate bastard thought Melville briefly, but he’s also one hellacious pistol shot.
Fielder seemed to be truly peeved. No, he was flat pissed off, and was now screaming incoherently at the top of his lungs. He’d always been a bully, a cad and a bounder. At heart he knew he was a coward. Now, against his nature he’d been drawn into suicidal battle. His latent rage and fighting instincts took over his usual cynical self-serving nature. He was seriously irked and feeling abused about it all. He was a bellowing, flailing, flashing paragon of berserker death and destruction, urging his men into desperate battle, and his impact turned the tide completely. He might be a “wicked contumelious discontented forward mutinous dog,” Melville thought with an appreciative grin, but lord that man could fight like a trapped ferret when caught in “death ground.”
Hans, Valandil, and a party of elite topmen fought their way through flocks of Goblan in the upper rigging. Hans’ monkey clung to his back, chittering and screaming exultantly.
Never in his long life had Hans seen anything remotely like what Valandil was doing in the upper rigging of this Ship. First the ranger stood on the end of the yardarm and fired both barrels of his rifle with deadly accuracy, picking off what appeared to be the Goblan captains of the foretop and maintop. Then he ran forward, leapt onto the enemy yardarm and fired all four barrels of his two pistols, picking off the four nearest Goblan, all before the rifle he dropped had time to fall halfway to the deck below. Then he dropped his pistols and drew his sword in a blur of motion. Then the real show began.
It defied description. The Sylvan flew, spun, sailed, and flipped in an astounding display of low-gee acrobatics. All the while his sword was a flickering, flashing red scythe that left Goblan falling from the rigging like overripe fruit shaken from a tree.
The Goblan in the enemy’s upper rigging fled Valandil like cockroaches caught in the sudden light of a torch. Those who were too slow, or too brave, died like moths caught in a torch’s flame. But he was just one warrior and the others were less successful at fighting the Goblan.
The battle in the upper rigging was slow and painful. If not for Valandil it would have been a failure. Even after being savaged by the Kestrel’s grapeshot, there were so many, many ticks. Some sailors were shot by Goblan. Others were overwhelmed by a swarming mass of the nimble ticks. Dead, wounded, or simply tipped off balance, the fate of combatants on both sides was usually the same as they fell, spinning, cursing and fighting, to their deaths on the deck below.
Hans’ monkey was like a gibbering guardian angle, flying along beside and above him. All eight arms expertly fended off Goblan attacks and constantly assisted Hans in maintaining his balance and his grip. On several occasions Hans found himself stabilized by his hair, as his monkey held onto his thin, wispy gray locks with two hands, while clinging to a line with four others, and fending off the enemy with its remaining two hands and its flashing white teeth.
Hans had one additional weapon in his arsenal, a stream of tobacco juice. Spat out in this light gravity, it had excellent range and effectiveness as it splashed with superb accuracy into hapless Goblan faces.
Finally, after much heart-wrenching battle up in the dizzying heights where a slip meant certain death, they reached the enemy’s mizzenmast. Then the remaining sailors of Westerness, led by Valandil and Hans, spun, slithered, slid, and spat down the rigging, to land with a “thump!” en masse, to visit sudden death and destruction on the small fortress of the enemy’s upper quarterdeck.
Lieutenant Broadax flipped through the hatch and led her marines into the upper hold. Mr. Tibbits, the old carpenter, still knelt, weeping, holding the shards of the Keel.
“Chips,” said Broadax, as gently as her harsh, rumbling voice was capable of speaking, “we must go.”
“Aye,” said Tibbits, looking up at the short, red, viscera-coated apparition that stood before him. He sent one last message of love and gratitude to a faithful servant of his race, asking her to hold on for just a few more minutes. Then he picked up a small shard of the shattered Keel, reverently laid a piece of canvas over the Ship’s gaping wound and left. As they were leaving, through their bare feet, through the Elbereth Moss on the deck, they felt the reply to Tibbits’ message of love.
In the upper fo’c’sle of the Kestrel Lady Elphinstone knelt to help evacuate a wounded marine. As she touched the deck, she too felt the Ship’s response to Chips’ final message. The ancient Sylvan healer paused in wonder, that this young race should be worthy of such a message from the spawn of the Elder King. And she kept this thing, and pondered it in her heart.
As the bows of those two great Ships rubbed together, the white Elbereth moss of those two sentient vessels was in contact, and the Guldur Ship also felt Kestrel’s final message. A fierce, slow, strong pulse of deep affection and loyalty surged across. The Guldur Ship was a young Ship, a new Ship, freshly and roughly constructed. Her spirit and soul was still unformed, and what she felt coming across from the Kestrel rocked her to the depths of her being.
Broadax raced up the ladder from Kestrel’s upper gundeck, leaping onto the maindeck with a wounded marine draped over each broad shoulder. The marines moaned, groaned and grunted with every step. “Be quiet, ye wimps!” said Broadax, ever the soul of sympathy and compassion, mourning her eradicated, disintegrated cigar. “Would ye rather I left ye?”
She and the few remaining marines, most dragging an injured comrade, moved quickly onto the upper fo’c’sle just in time to join Lady Elphinstone and evacuate the last wounded warriors.
On Kestrel’s lower gundeck the Guldur finally break through the hatch to the hold. A mass of them leap down through the hatch to the lower hold. They and their Goblan riders are wide-eyed with terror at the prospect of meeting the ghastly Dwarrowdelf that has been defending every hatchway with such ferocity. Instead, there is nothing. No one. They look around in wonder, expecting an ambush.
More and more curs and ticks leap down to join their comrades. The Guldur first mate drops down to join them, barking orders. The curs dive through the hatch, through the plain of Flatland, to the upper hold, still expecting resistance. One pops back through and tells the first mate that the enemy have disappeared. Out of curiosity the Guldur officer reaches down and removes the piece of tarp that covers the Keel. He yelps in fear when he sees what is under the tarp.
Kestrel sends one last message, up through the Guldur’s paws where they touch the deck: <
* * *
Broadax is the last to leave the Kestrel. As she leaps across to join the boarding party, the noble old Ship begins to sink. From above and below the plain of Flatland, the view is exactly the same as the Ship seemingly melts into the sea, leaving two-space and entering interstellar space.
The two Ships are tied together at the railing, above and below. The Kestrel sinks and the Guldur Ship stands fast. The railing is torn and shattered, with splinters flying. Soon only the Kestrel’s masts can be seen. Finally they too disappear, somewhere into the hard vacuum of deep space.
On the enemy’s upper deck the boarders maintained the momentum of their attack. After the one volley of the precious flashbang grenades and Lieutenant Fielder’s unexpected flank attack, the enemy was falling back on all fronts. As Melville approached the ladder to the enemy’s upper quarterdeck a huge, brown cur, with large black spots, reared up in front of him. It was the biggest Guldur he’d ever seen and on its back was the biggest tick he’d ever seen.
The huge creature in front of him had to be the enemy’s captain. It looked at Melville’s monkey and said, with a bizarre, lap-tongued doggie grin, “I srree rrou have a tick! Hrrold strrill, rrI’ll get it!”
Melville responded in surprise, “Tick?!”
The monkey echoed, with outrage, “Kick!!?”
Von Rito, Kobbsven and Josiah were all occupied. For once, Petreckski was busy elsewhere. No loaded pistol was available. The middies were madly reloading.