Sky Pirates of Callisto by Lin Carter

Author:Lin Carter
Format: epub
Published: 2014-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 9 ULTHAR'S LAIR

It was a weird, fantastic scene: the dark, windswept sky, the ice plateau under the many-colored glory of the huge moons of Jupiter, the flying ship wallowing sluggishly against the wind, sheathed in glittering ice, hurtling toward the sharp and jagged pinnacles of the ice mountains dead ahead.

One peak swept up before the swaying ornithopter. The light of the many moons flashed and sparkled from its crest of splintered pinnacles, rose, argent, deep yellow, gray-blue. It swung out of the darkness, loomed up before the prow, and the hurtling Jalathadar sped directly for it.

The ice mountain grew swollen and enormous. It blocked half the sky dead ahead. Any second the ship would ram straight into the glittering barrier, the figurehead would splinter, the prow crack, the hull shatter, precious levitating gas hissing like a thousand angry serpents as it leaked from burst hull-seams.

But Valkar had calculated to the last notch. Leaning crazily from the swaying cupola, dark red hair streaming behind him in the shrieking wind, he hoarsely bawled the order at the last possible instant of time.

Burly shoulders slammed into the great wheels. Guy stays creaked, timbers groaned, taut lines, rigid within their frozen envelope, thrummed like deep-throated harps in the roar of the gale. The great vans lifted, took another pitch, while desperate men thrust the vast rudder over with every atom of strength they could drain from knotted sinews. Backs straining, faces black with effort, they hurled their bodies against the control rods, battling to turn the rudder against the bellowing gale.

Lurching drunkenly, the Jalathadar staggered, swung about, swerved in the nick of time to swing safely past the ice peak. So narrow was her escape that the starboard wingtip scraped ice from the utmost pinnacle as she swung about.

And in that fraction of a second, old Lukor, in charge of the catapult crew in my absence, cut the thong. Like a gigantic bow wielded by a titan, the timbers of the catapult thundered home, launching the massive arrow of steel into the seething gale. The keen tip crunched deep in solid ice; hooked barbs held fast against the lurch of the mighty ship.

The Jalathadar wobbled, jolted to a dead stop, and swung back against the sheer wall of ice.

The impact was staggering. Men, stationed along the rails, went rolling into the scuppers like ten pins. Taut rigging, stretched beyond endurance, snapped. One mast splintered, broke clean, and the whistling winds ripped it away, crow's nest and all. The lone watchman stationed therein was whipped away, a quick glimpse of flailing limbs, a broken, despairing cry-and he was gone.

The ship came crunching up against the mountain peak. The deck rail crumpled under the impact. One forward-hull belvedere was shorn away. But, luckily, the damage was slight-slighter than anyone could have guessed. Gallant men hurled lassos about pinnacles. Steel grapnels crunched and squealed on slick ice. Soon many lines held the flying galleon fast against the peak of the mountain.

And Valkar began to breathe again.

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