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to the floor, straining his eyes and ears, trying to detect them. Surely, if
they were breathing as hard as he, he couldn't fail to hear them.
On the other hand, he realized with a sudden sickishness, they could hear
him just as well.
"Come on! Come on!" he said soundlessly, through clenched teeth. "Do
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something! Make a move so I can pin you, you sons of izzots!"
Perhaps they were doing the same, waiting for him to betray himself. The
best thing was to hug the floor where he was and hope they'd stumble over him.
He kept reaching out in front of him, feeling for the warm mesh of a face.
His other hand held his dagger.
It was during one of his tentative explorations that he felt the basket
where Grizquetr had left it. At once, seized with what he thought was an
inspiration, he pulled out the flare. Why wait for them to close in on him and
butcher him like a hog? He'd send up the flare now, and in the first shock of
its glare he'd attack them.
The only trouble was, he'd have to put down his dagger in order to take his
flint and steel and tinderbox from his pocket. He hated not to have it ready for
thrusting.
Solving this problem by putting the dagger between his teeth, he took out
his firebox, paused, and swiftly put them back. Now, how was he supposed to get
the tinder going when it was drizzling? That was one thing Amra, with all her
cleverness, hadn't thought of.
"Fool!" he whispered to himself. "I'm the fool!" And in the next moment, he
was removing his coat and putting the flint and steel and box under its
protecting cover. He couldn't see what he was doing, but if he held the tinder
close enough a spark should fall on it. Then he'd have a flame hot enough to
touch off the fuse of the flare.
Again, he froze. His enemies were waiting for him to reveal himself through
noise. What better giveaway than flint scraping against steel? And what about
the sound of the rocket flare's spiked support being driven into the wooden
floor?
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He suppressed a groan. No matter what he did he was leaving himself wide
open.
It was then that the shrillness of a whistle below startled him. He rose,
wondering frenziedly what he should do next. So convinced was he that Ezkr and
Grazoot were poised just outside the nest, he could not believe that Amra had
not misjudged the time it had taken them to climb to him or that she had not
been held up for some reason and now was frantically trying to warn him.
But, he realized, he couldn't just stand there like a scared sheep. Whether
Amra was right or not, whether they were within dagger's thrust or not, he had
to take action.
"Do your damndest!" he growled at whatever might be in the dark, and be
struck steel against flint. The materials were under his coat, blocking his
view, but he lay down again so he could see between his arms and under the coat
held over them. The tinder caught at once and blazed up, then began a small but
steady glow in the harder wood of the box. Without waiting to look around, Green
rammed the flare's spike into the deck of the nest. Swiftly he brought the punk
up, still holding the coat over it for protection from the drizzle and also from
any watching eyes. He held it against the fuse, saw the cord catch flame and
sizzle like a frying worm. Then he had ducked around the other side of the mast
that supported the nest, for he knew how unpredictable these primitive rockets
were. Like as not it would go off in his face. Hardly had he rounded the big
pillar of the mast when he heard a soft whooshing sound. He looked up just in
time to see the rocket explode in a white glare. The moment it dispelled the
darkness he jerked his head to the right and the left in an effort to see if
Ezkr and Grazoot were on him, as he'd known they must be.
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But they weren't. They were still half a ship's length away from him,
caught by the light in the rigging, like flies in a spider's web. What he had
thought was a finger poking him in the back must have been the bolt that held
the support for the muskets which were to be fired from the nest during combat.
So relieved was he, he would have broken into loud laughter, but at that
moment a great cry broke from the decks below. The mate and the helmsmen were
shouting in alarm.
Green looked down, saw them pointing, and his gaze followed the direction
of their extended fingers.
A hundred yards ahead, rushing at them on a collision course, was a
towering clump of trees!
16
THEN THE FLARE had died and had left nothing but its afterimage on the eye--and
panic on the brain.
Green did not know what to make of it. In the first instant he had thought
that it was the 'roller alone that was speeding toward an uncharted forest-grown
hill. Immediately after, he'd seen that his senses were deceiving him and that
the mass was also moving. It had looked like a hill, or several hills, sliding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]