Damn. Forces from three sides that, united, would blow them right out of the water. They could meet any of them alone, but....
"If we could slip south," he pondered aloud, "we could—"
Tahn snarled, his face an unearthly mask in the dimming light. His breath whistled between his teeth.
"You polasti!" he hissed. Ward straightened and faced him. The Kali around froze in their tracks. Polasti was the foulest word in their language.
"Kali have died in this water just now," Tahn was barely able to manage his voice. "They are down there right now. We will not run and disgrace them! We will stand here. We will put a wall of sails and guns around this spot, and if we die it will be in honor. We will run no more. We will run no more!"
He was trembling when he finished, and Ward expected a knife to make one final arc. It was impossible to try to explain. It was broken....
That thought crashed through as a knife never could.
It's over. The Grimnal will surround this pitiful fleet like a storm. It's over; we've lost the fight, the war and the planet. And I've done it. It's my baby.
The thing seared him, roared through him, shook him—and touched a secret place. A deep place where he stored his anger. All his past angers, big and little; covered stifled, caught and hidden. Old hurts, old dreams, old reproaches screamed and gibbered through him like a thousand ghosts and devils. They swamped the gentle man. They dragged him down and gagged him. And something else took his place—something that had never been allowed to stand before.
"You stupid bastards!" he roared, wheeling to face them all. "You God-forsaken fools! A Grimnal baby is a greater fighter than your bravest man. Look what he has done to you. Look! Like blind animals you have been led into a trap. You have been put in a cage of your own ignorance. You call me polasti! I am the only one who can show you how to win. The only thing you know is to bunch together and be killed like animals at slaughter. You stand together in one tight group to make it easy for him. You know how it will be? Look!"