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.One of his captives had died ofa bleeding flux.The captain had early assigned his eleven-year-old cabin boy to be thecaptives' tutor, and the boy showed a talent for language.By the time they'd reached Hithmearc, both tutor and captive had made majorprogress in speaking and understanding the other's language.And in theprocess, the cabin boy learned that the ylver had indeed arrived in Vismearc,and prospered.TheYlvinCoast began a day south of the captive's village.At the voitik crown prince's order, the cabin boy remained the captive'scompanion.A year later, the captive died of a plague.Page 114ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe cabin boy then became the crown prince's personal language instructor,and indirect resource for the hive mind.24AnIll wind«^»On the horizon, the admiral of the voitik armada could see a low coast thatcould only be Vismearc.But where in Vismearc? TheYlvinCoast ? South of it?North of it?The armada had clocks; clocks had long been familiar in Hithmearc.It alsohad sextants, courtesy of the Occult Bureau of the Nazi SS, via the BavarianGate.So the admiral knew rather closely where on the globe they were.But ashe pointed out to the crown prince, what he didn't know was where on the globethey needed to be.The crown prince was not, of course, surprised, but the admiral feltuncomfortable with it.He was, after all, merely human, as were all thearmada's officers and crew, and one preferred not to disappoint one's voitikmasters.Minutes later, the lookout reported a small sailboat to windward, and thecrown prince ordered a captive taken.The admiral had signal flags run up, andfor miles astern, the vast fleet hove to.A courier schooner was sent in topick up the boat's occupant.From him, the crown prince learned that the ylverland was "off north some'rs" far enough, he knew no more about it.Off northwas adequate.The armada had experienced no major storm, but constant strong westerlies hadseriously slowed it.The crossing had taken sixty-four days, and supplies ofdrinking water were seriously depleted.So instead of turning north at once,the crown prince decided to land and refill the water casks.Meanwhile thetroops could go ashore.The voitar were desperate to stand on stable ground,and stop taking the antiseasickness potion provided by voitik herbalists.Prolonged use had caused chronic bowel disorders.The flat, sandyScrubCoast had no harbors to accommodate 304 ships.By Hithikstandards it had no harbors at all.Its fishing boats and smugglers' sloopssheltered in the lee of offshore islands and sand spits.And in the tidewatersof streams, few of them large, though some could accommodate ships in theirlower reaches.Thus the armada was scattered along some ten miles of coast.Ships carryingthe wasted, ramshackle cavalry horses took turns at such wharves as couldaccommodate a bark.Others lay in crowded anchorages, many of them aground atlow tide, for there were no deep water anchorages inshore.Many lay at anchorin the open sea.Lifeboats shuttled to the beaches and back, landing troops.The local population had fled into the sparse forest before the first anchordropped.Only elders and the disabled remained, and they were questioned.There was, they insisted, no land route northward to the ylvin land "theempire," they called it.A great swamp intervened.Cavalry patrols were sent out on the more serviceable saddle mounts, seekingfodder and grain for the horses, and women for the officers.They found thecountry sandy, and the forage coarse.Here and there were boggy areas, mostlyPage 115ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlsmall, with lusty mosquito populations.Scattered along the streams werehard-scrabble farms, on silty or sandy bottomlands, growing corn, squash,melons and groundnuts.But not fodder.Few owned a horse, and their cows andpigs foraged for themselves, tended by boys and young girls in no better fleshthan the livestock.The ships' crews were hard at work [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]