On the morning of the sixth day, a lookout yelped. Flane leaped to the rail, clung to it with strong, supple hands. His eyes glinted with excitement.
The host of the Darksiders lay like a swollen shadow along the ground. It seethed and moved in restless waves, flowing forward. Big vans and wagons were piled high with spears and arrows, pulled by draft-megathons whose manes flowed in the wind. On war-megathons and on foot the Darksiders surged like an irresistible wave across the plains. On high waved their kaatra-tail banners. Here and there a pennon whipped like a striking lash in the breeze. And their engines of war, their catapults and mangonels, trundled along at the same swift pace.
"They will overflow the Klarnvan cities," whispered Flane to himself. "There is nothing on all Klarn that can stop that horde—except my violet-gun. And even that—" he shook his head dubiously, staring at the vast throng below.
On board the magniship there was great activity. Men ran back and forth, reaching for weapons, shouting hoarsely.
Now the horde had seen them. A roar went up from the assembled throats, the howl of a wolf on sighting its prey. Lifted lances shook, sunlight glistening from their sanded tips. Here and there a bow was raised, and an arrow fitted to its string. The tailed banners danced in the hands of the standard-bearers.
"Let me speak to them," Flane said to Harth who nervously fingered a dagger in his belt. "I may dissuade them from their venture. If only I had the key to the Machine! Then, indeed, would I have a weapon to bargain with!"
He wound his legs in a plaited rope and was dangled over the side, below the flat keel of the ship. He swayed in the wind, the violet-gun at ease in his hands.
A Darksider with a wolfskin wrapped around him bellowed upwards, racing underneath him, trying to stab him with his spear. Flane grinned and shouted, "Peace, Darksider. I come to offer terms."
A group of mounted outlanders rode toward him. They sat their saddles easily, bending as their steeds curvetted.
"The people of Moornal desire to dwell in peace with the Darksiders," shouted Flane. "We look for the key to the Machine. If we find it, the Machine's power will be given to all."