Four bodies this way, four bodies that, then another cross-hatching of dead women and Lordsmen and another, and he had a platform. He leaped up and peered in the direction of the Pethcine tents. What he saw gave some slight encouragement. He was gambling that Honcho, to save himself in the bitter end, would try to save the Maiduke girl if Org was defeated. Then he would try to bargain.
So far the gamble was a good one. The horses and drivers were gone now, no doubt pressed into the battle, and Zulekia was staked out on the plain near the tents. The neuter Honcho, peering beneath his hand at the square, was pacing anxiously to and fro. Blade"s smile was cold. Honcho was a worried neuter! He could not know when, or if, Blade and Sutha would again summon the Power. Until they did Honcho was himself shorn of all technical tricks. If Blade never did have recourse to the Power - and by now Honcho must suspect that such was the case, a thing he would not understand at all - then the Pethcines had to win the day or the neuter was in the deepest trouble.
Blade, peering across the death strewn plain, could almost read Honcho"s thoughts.
Blade watched Org step from the ranks and raise a small horn to his bearded lips. Org had found new armor and helmet, and was carrying a new and larger shield. He looked as fat and fierce as ever, and appeared not in the least bit battle weary. Blade extended a reluctant admiration to his foe. Barbarian, savage, yet he was all warrior. He watched as Org began to sound the little horn, wondering at the significance. Why the horn instead of the braying trumpets?
A moment later he understood. Org was playing a little tune on the horn, a reedy, high pitched, simple little strain with four notes. Immediately the ma.s.sed Pethcines separated and reformed, marching and counter-marching into a new formation. Blade cursed fervently. They were going to attack three sides of the square at once. Blade shot a look at the glacis. There Org"s column, set to interdict any escape, was unmoving. It had formed into two ranks, one kneeling with long spears, the other back three paces with swords and a small contingent of bowmen. They would, Blade knew, wait until the square began to break and then cut down those who tried to flee up the glacis and into the fort Org meant to make a thorough job of it this time.
Org was playing a different note on the horn now. Totha brought her crescent of chariots a little closer up behind Org"s center. Blade leaped from the platform of corpses and shouted at Isma. She nodded understanding, and in turn gave orders to several of her women officers.
Xeno tugged at Blade"s sword belt and made slaveface. Blade growled at him. "You were long enough!"
Xeno clutched at the necklace Blade had given him, as though his Lord meant to take it away then and there. "It was very bad among the catapults, Lord Blade. They would not obey at first, would not stop firing. I had to take harsh steps, summon whippers, before the Maidens would listen to me. Their senses had left them and they did not care where they fired or whom they killed."
Blade nodded and patted Xeno"s shoulder. Battle frenzy took strange forms. "You did well enough. Now stand by. I want you always close to me. Understood?"
"Understood, Lord Blade."
And now the time had run out. The trumpets blared their harsh summons and the Pethcine hordes came on for a last attack. Blade watched it with some trepidation and not a little sense of triumph. He had bled them! He had bled them terribly, a fast reckoning made them no more than two thousand odd. Now, if only Isma and her women would obey orders for once, and execute them properly, and if Totha"s chariots could be handled.
Org sounded his little horn again and the barbarians broke into a run, shouting bloodthirsty threats. They came in from three sides, the trumpets clamoring brazenly and incessantly. Terror tactics.
Blade swung his great sword in a glittering arc and called down to his troops: "Stand steady. Hold fast and remember your orders. Above all - obey, orders when they are given!" He could only hope they would.
Xeno handed Blade a standard with a long pennon attached. He waved it over his head. The catapult crews saw it and went into action again. This time they were on target and the machines fell into a regular chonk-chonk-chonk-chonk rhythm as their missiles began to chew up Org"s lines. As the front ranks went down Org pushed new men in to nil the gaps.
Blade gave another signal and arrow and airgun fire began to come from the flanks and the smaller forts. It was wavering and inaccurate, but now every dart and arrow counted.
He had arranged the front rank of the square with spearwomen kneeling. Behind them the second rank wielded swords and a few bows and airguns. The third rank stood ready to step into the gaps. The next three ranks, back to Blade and Isma, stood ready in reserve.
Org had timed it well. The attack washed against the embattled square on three sides, simultaneously. The din was outlandish, deafening, a garbled symphony of hate and fear, a howling of demons unfettered. The 926 screeching their battle songs. The Pethcines snarled like wolves as they began to hew a lane into the square.
Org led the first threat, as Blade had known he would. He meant to be there. If he could kill Org before the chariots, under Totha, could be brought into action it might well carry the day. But Org was too cunning to send his war chariots against a square - he knew the horses would die and pile up and form a barrier. Org knew the chariots were his last resort and he would not use them until the square had been broken and thinned. Then he would send in the chariots, with their cruelly scythed wheels, to finish the job.
Org, at the point of a spear of barbarians, savaged his way into the square. His was the only breakthrough. Otherwise the square held fast as the Pethcines, dying on spears and swords, piled up and blocked the pa.s.sage of the warriors behind them. But Org had pushed a mortal enclave into the Tharnians, mortal unless it was healed at once. Blade went in to heal it.
Their swords glinted and chimed together, hack and slash, counter and parry. Org, his beard soaked with blood, his piggy eyes gleaming red through a mask of fury, let out a hoa.r.s.e shout as their swords crossed.
"You again, Lord Mazda! Ha - Ho...Blade, the traitor who calls himself Mazda...I, I, Org, will show you who is a G.o.d!" For a moment he drove Blade back with the sheer ferocity of his attack.
Blade taunted him. "Where is Totha? Where is your s.l.u.t of a daughter, Org? I would bed her once more, before I give her to my ceboids for their sport." He began to press Org furiously, the big sword licking in and out like a steel tongue, wounding Org in the shoulder, the thigh, slashing his sword arm above the elbow. Org began to drop back. Most of his men had fallen now as the Tharnian women closed in to heal the gap in the square.
Blade slashed off part of Org"s beard. "You should not have listened to Honcho," he taunted anew. "You see where it has led you. You are being defeated by women!"
That was too much for Org to bear. He might have slipped back and disengaged, fought his way out of the square, but instead he let out a dreadful yell and rushed at Blade. All his men were down now and the square close in behind him.
Blade parried a blow, then slashed at Org"s hand. The hand, with the sword still in it, flew high into the air. Org screamed and stood staring down at his arm. Before Blade could strike again Org reached and wrested a sword from one of the last Lordsmen. He charged at Blade again, using his left hand now, waving his b.l.o.o.d.y arm like a battle flag.
Blade took a backward step and held the long sword straight before him. Org, in a raging and baffled fury, ran straight onto the sword. It cut through his armor just below the breastbone and, as he still pushed on, stood out two feet behind the broad back. Org, defiant and hating until the last, ran right up on the jeweled hilt, face to face with Blade. Then, with his eyes dying, he tried to spit.
Blade lowered the sword and let the Pethcine King"s body slide off to the blood drenched earth. Isma watched him, and Xeno, and all of the inner ranks. On the perimeter of the square the battle still raged loud and feral. The Pethcines did not yet know their King was dead.
Blade hacked off Org"s head and impaled it on the sword. He leaped high on the corpse platform and brandished the b.l.o.o.d.y head at the Pethcines. He cleared his powerful lungs and bellowed so that he was heard above the wailing trumpets.
"Pethcines. Here is your King!"
For a moment there was no effect, then as more and more of the barbarians saw the lifeless eyes of Org staring from the sword point, his blood still dribbling down the steel, the battle clamor began to still. The Pethcines in the rear, those not yet committed, began to wail. The front ranks, so fierce only a minute before, began to disengage and fall back.
Blade spoke sharply to Xeno. "Signal the catapults. They must fire everything now - everything they have! Fire until the last arrow is gone."
Blade raised on his toes and waved the head at Totha, still waiting out on the plain with her chariots. Totha was impulsive, a murderous little savage to the core. But would she take the bait?
Totha did. The watching Blade saw her scream in fury at the chariot driver beside her. She raised a sh.e.l.l horn to her lips and sounded a blast. The crescent of war chariots began to move forward, slowly gaining momentum. Blade grinned like a tiger over meat and shouted his commands at Isma.
"Break your square. Wheel out, wheel out! Double ranks, close order. You all know the trick, but wait, wait until you hear me give the order!"
The Tharnian women broke the square and began to wheel into a thin double line. There were less than 500 of them left. Blade was everywhere, praising, cajoling, threatening, cursing, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and dressing the line. He was close to victory now. He could smell it. If only Totha, mad for revenge, brought her war chariots into the trap...
But there was now new chaos on the plain before the Tharnian front. Blade groaned. To lose total victory now, when he was so close, would be a cruel blow. To lose it because of the panic inspired by Org"s death, for which he was himself responsible, would be ironic. Blade stared out at the deadly confusion and scowled. Totha was being given time for second thoughts - she could still disengage and order a planned retreat, and the Pethcines would live to fight another day, the last thing Blade wanted.
The fleeing Pethdne warriors, as the rout gained momentum, ran straight into the advancing chariots. Totha sounded the charge and the war chariots picked up speed. There was no turning back now. Running men met speeding chariots in one great shock wave. Instantly the plain was a wilderness of awesome disorder, or screaming legless men, flashing wheel scythes, cursing and frantic drivers and warriors, rearing and plunging horses. The chariots slowed, the charge blunted, and some of the Pethcine warriors, in their confusion and fear, began to attack their own people in an effort to get clear.
Totha, in a frenzy of screaming rage, set about putting matters straight. Blade watched admiringly as she wheeled around and around in her chariot, shouting orders and spearing anyone who got in her way. Gradually she got her chariots free of the crush of retreating men, and back into battle line. She sounded her sh.e.l.l horn again and the chariots came on. Blade nodded and waited. It had worked out well for him. Totha was coming into the trap, thinking the Tharnian line an easy prey for the chariots. But now there would be no time for the chariots to pick up speed again, and Totha could not guess at Blade"s guile.
Totha was well in the van as the scythed chariots crunched down on the line of women. Each chariot carried a warrior and a driver. As the chariots drew near the warriors began to send a hail of arrows into the Tharnian line and a few women fell. Blade, with Xeno, at his side, stood a little back of his right flank. Isma and her by now pitifully small bodyguard had the same position on the left.
Fifty yards. The drivers were whipping up the horses. They came on with eyes wild and flashing, manes tossing, hooves drumming out a sullen beat on the packed b.l.o.o.d.y earth. The drivers and warriors were screaming in a thin threatening crescendo. The Tharnian line waited in silence, as Blade had ordered. They must hear his command when it came.
Twenty-five yards. Blade took a step nearer the line and tucked his sword under his left arm. He cupped his hands around his mouth.
Ten yards. Five yards. Blade drew air deep into his lungs. A wheel came off a chariot and bounded high in the air, skipping toward him. Horses, chariot, and occupants went down in a b.l.o.o.d.y screaming heap.
"Now," Blade yelled. "Now!"
The Tharnian line parted nimbly to left and right in segments, to let the chariots race through. Those who could not get out of the way threw themselves beneath the gleaming scythes, and some rose unharmed. Still there were casualties aplenty. Some of the women did not move fast enough and lost both legs above the knees. Others fell on the scythes and were cut in half or disemboweled. But in large part the maneuver worked.
Blade gave the order, trumpeting through his cupped hands. "Wheel about! Charge and destroy!"
He might have saved his breath. The women knew what to do and they set about it with screams of triumph and rage. They, as did Blade, scented victory.
Even then Totha could have recovered had she kept her head and given the right order, set the right example. She could have whipped up her horses and kept going, slashing through the ceboids now closing in on the flanks, and come around for another try. Or retreated. She did neither. She ordered her driver to hold up sharply, wheel, and charge back directly at the Tharnian line. The other war chariots, obeying her, did the same. It was fatal, as Blade had hoped it would be. Before the chariots could wheel about and pick up new speed they were inundated by the Tharnian women, some of whom had been given special orders to hamstring the horses. The orders were carried out furiously and efficiently. The poor beasts began to go down, taking the chariots with them, in a kicking, screaming melee. Drivers were speared and hacked to pieces with swords and the warriors, fighting back valiantly, fared little better. They were not accustomed to fighting on foot and they were outnumbered now by the women who swarmed over them like vengeful Furies.
Blade kept a watchful eye on Totha. She was still fighting magnificently. As soon as she realized the trap, she had pushed her driver from the chariot and taken the reins herself. She cut a scarlet swathe through the ceboids coming up in the flanks, then whirled and whipped her horses back into the midst of the fray. Blade, watching, knew that Totha meant to die here, near where her father had died. His smile was grim. It was fitting enough.
The Tharnian women, mindful of what had been done to their sisters, were taking revenge. As the Pethcines died, or fell badly wounded, they began to cut up the remains. One towering war maiden ran past Blade, smiling and screaming at him, and holding up a pair of b.l.o.o.d.y genitals.
Blade turned to Xeno. The battle was won, all but the mopping up, and he had not much stomach for this. He tried to see beyond the melee, over the plain to the Pethcine tents, but swirling dust obscured his vision.
Blade nodded toward a chariot and team that stood nearby, the horses unharmed and calmly grazing on some errant mani that had somehow seeded here. The chariot was intact, the driver slumped in it with a spear through him.
"Fetch me that," said Blade. It was time to go after Zulekia and Honcho now. More than time. It might even be too late.
Xeno, wondering, tumbled the dead driver out of the chariot and brought it to Blade. Blade leaped into the chariot, sheathing his sword. He picked up the reins.
"I have something to do," he told Xeno. "You will "tell Isma that I will return as soon as possible. I..." Xeno, who had been watching the diminishing battle, and the growing carnage as the women sated their bloodl.u.s.t, let out a shout of warning.
"Careful, my Lord Blade! The barbarian Princess!
Totha, by some miracle - and tenacity of desire for revenge - had broken through and was whipping her horses straight at Blade. Her helmet was gone and she was bleeding from a score of wounds. Her hair streamed about her b.l.o.o.d.y face, and her screaming mouth was just another gaping wound. She came at Blade full tilt, a last spear poised in her hand. She rode down two women who leaped to check the horses, and a third was decapitated as she slipped and fell before the scythes. Blade had only time to wheel his chariot broadside before Totha was upon him.
Totha hurled the spear at him. "Die, Blade! Die with me! Die with Totha, daughter of Org!"
Blade ducked away. He had no shield. The spear point caught him in the side and ripped a long seam in the flesh, a b.l.o.o.d.y but minor wound. He tried to draw his sword. Totha"s horses crashed into Blade"s chariot, rearing and pawing at it, and it was smashed sideways. Xeno leaped at Totha, only to be beaten back by her flashing sword. She brought her chariot close alongside Blade"s, controlling her team with one hand, and slashed at Blade. He was partially stunned trying to keep his footing, and had not yet had a chance to draw his sword. Totha screamed in triumph and was on the point of leaping into his chariot to finish him when she choked, stood stiffly upright, her eyes glaring, and then clutched at the basketwork of the chariot.
Blood cascaded from her open mouth, a spear point protruded from her left breast.
Totha, still standing, holding to the chariot side, stared at Blade. She tried to speak but choked on blood and fell over the side, between the chariots.
Isma walked to the body and tugged out her spear. She looked up at Blade. "It is over," she said. "The Pethcines are all but destroyed. Forever. We can hunt the others down as we choose. And I, Blade, have saved your life. I, Isma, High Priestess of Tharn."
Blade nodded gravely. "That is true. My thanks, Isma." He was tense now, alert. She had never been so dangerous.
Isma smiled at him and made a sign. A cup bearer came forward, a neuter whom Blade did not remember seeing before. The neuter handed Isma a tall chalice of teksin. Blade caught the odor of soka.
Isma handed the cup to Blade. "A victory cup, my Lord Blade. I will drink after you."
Blade was thirsty, so much so that his tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth. He smiled at Isma. She thought him a child, a low-level neuter, a witless ceboid? To fall prey to such a trick?
He was preparing to fumble and drop the cup when Xeno sprang forward with a cry. "No, my Lord! No! Do not drink! I saw the cup prepared. It is poi..."
Isma drove her sword into Xeno"s heart. Blade grieved inwardly. Poor Xeno. Had he only kept his mouth shut...
Isma left her b.l.o.o.d.y sword in Xeno and stared defiantly at Blade. He stared back. Behind her the Second Neuter moved uneasily and would not meet Blade"s eye. The women, battle weary and stained with b.l.o.o.d.y sweat, crowding around with their grisly trophies, muttered and exchanged puzzled glances. They had no clear idea of what was going on.
Blade tilted the cup and poured the contents slowly to the ground between himself and Isma. The soka puddled there, mixing with the blood of Totha who lay close by.
Blade pointed to the puddle. "That will always be between us, Isma. Remember it!"
He flung the cup at her and seized the reins of the chariot horses, shouting to them. As he wheeled the chariot around the women leaped to escape the scythes. Isma and the Second Neuter stepped back to safety and watched him go, whipping the horses furiously across the plain.
Blade lashed the horses on. They had rested and were fresh enough. He made his way through a nightmare plain, littered with dead and still dying, toward the Pethcine tents. There were a few looters, dazed and maddened, and the walking wounded, but no one paid him any attention or tried to harm him. One Pethcine warrior, badly hurt, had dragged a Tharnian corpse back toward the tents and was methodically cutting it into small pieces. He stared without interest as Blade thundered past.
Zulekia and Honcho were gone. Blade was not surprised. He had been too long coming, and the neuter would have known the battle lost when he saw Org"s head. He would not have tarried for the grim finale with Totha"s chariots.
The stakes to which Zulekia had been bound were still in place. Blade contemplated them briefly, then whipped his horses around and headed north. There was only one place Honcho could go.
Chapter Sixteen.
The old King of Neuters, Sutha, knelt beside the sarcophagus of Astar I. He had been kneeling for a long time and his bony knees were sore. His hands trembled as he put them on the edge of the sarcophagus and pulled himself up. It would not be long now before they came. Sutha had employed a staff of young neuters to keep him abreast of the news from the battlefield, and the last messenger had departed only a few minikronos before. No - it could not be long.
Sutha stood looking down at the dual face of Astar and Isma. Astar I had been the first. The Astar recently murdered by Isma would be the last Sutha was sure of it. Blade"s coming had changed everything in Tharn. Had changed Tharn itself. For the better, Sutha prayed, when it was all over. It was not over yet.
As he gazed down at the dead and long mummified flesh he wondered why he bothered to pray at all. He did not really believe. Nor did any true homid, the intelligent Tharnians, the People. Belief had been lost for multikronos now, lost in the engulfing mists of cruel superst.i.tion and heartless technique.
On impulse Sutha reached and touched the cheek of Astar I. He had never dared before. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away. Cold. So cold!
He sighed and went back to the teksin ledge, glancing down into the Power Pool, at the glimmering box in the quiet depths. Blade was right, of course. Sutha understood, though Blade had never put it into so many words. The Power had been good at first. Now it was bad. The Power had taken over. It dominated them all, even to the last ignorant ceboid. With what Blade proposed to replace the Power Sutha did not know, nor care much. That was Blade"s problem.
There was a stack of slates on the ledge beside Sutha. He had filled this time of waiting by writing a long missive that Blade might someday find. Or might not find. That did not matter much either. What did matter was that Sutha, through stylus and onto slate, had managed to transcribe thoughts, at last, that he had never dared admit before.
In that moment he found that he could feel deep pity, he thought he understood the word now, for Honcho. They were, after all, a great deal alike. Both aborts, both so nearly homid and still lacking in the ultimate manifestation of manhood. It was, had been, cruel. Had he not been better adjusted, deeper read, a step higher in intelligence, he might easily have chosen Honcho"s path. Honcho had not studied the ancient mysteries as Sutha had, had not ruined his eyes with years of probing for an elusive thing called Truth. And now it was too late for both of them. Tharn must be destroyed before it could be rebuilt again.
Sutha picked up a fresh slate and poised his stylus. Then he put it down and reached for the first slate he had filed. He read it over with a grim little smile.
My Lord Blade: I write this so that you may understand. I do not know the why of your coming to Tharn, nor what it will mean, or even if you will ever see this. But I think, in spite of all my ignorance, that you have been sent to save Tharn. To rebuild it. For it must first be destroyed, the Tharn we now know, a cruel and decadent Tharn that is ignorant in its vast wisdom. So I - Sutha, a very old and ignorant neuter - am going to do what must be done. Perhaps, if you live and prevail, you will one day understand the how and why of all this. I do not know. I cannot guess. I can only act. And I am afraid, very much afraid...
They were coming now. Sutha put down the slate on the neat stack and prepared himself. He had never really understood pain, but now he would have the chance to find out about it. For him, now, there could be no easy and painless destruct. He only hoped he could go through with it. Neuters did not have much courage.
They were here.
Isma, tattered and stained with battle, strode into the Sacred Chamber. Behind her followed the Second Neuter, a smirk of antic.i.p.ation on his long face, and half a dozen of the women who had been made privy to Isma"s plans.
Isma did not bother to make obeisance to Astar I. She walked briskly past the sarcophagus and confronted Sutha. She had discarded her battle sword and now carried an ornamental and sacred phallus blade.
Sutha inclined his head. "My greetings, Isma. High Priestess of Tharn. I have heard that the news is good. The Pethcines are crushed?"
Isma glared at him. "That is so. No thanks to you, Sutha, who have sulked here in safety and, worse, denied us the Power. Denied me the Power. Me. Isma! How dare you do this?"
Sutha showed his long neuter"s teeth in a smile that was meant to be gentle. "I dared, Isma, because Lord Blade thought it best. By so doing we denied the Power also to Honcho, Honcho the renegade, who would have destroyed us all. Has it not worked out for the best, Isma?"
Isma scowled at him. Her face worked in anger and she pointed the phallic sword at him. "I have lost over half my People, old fool! That is how well it has worked out. It was not necessary. AH my Lordsmen gone! Blade planned that. I know it. And you, Sutha, have served Blade too well and me not at all. I will not suffer this any longer. I do not need Blade now. I have tired of him. Nor do I need you. I depose you, Sutha. Second Neuter is now in your place, King of all Neuters."
Sutha looked past her at the Second Neuter. "That should please him. He has long plotted and coveted this moment."
Isma waved the sword at Sutha. "You are under arrest. Because you are old, and have served well, before Blade came, you shall be destructed painlessly instead of tortured."
There was a sudden coldness in the chamber that Isma did not like. She glanced around uneasily. She knew she had violated taboo by bringing the Second Neuter and the women warriors into the Sacred Chamber. But what matter? She, and she alone, would rule Tharn now. When the Power was restored it would be easy to hunt down Blade and destroy him, along with the Maiduke girl he had gone after and obviously preferred to herself. That was an insult never to be forgiven!
Isma beckoned to the Second Neuter. "Place him under arrest. Take the chain of office from him. It is yours now."
"I do not think so," said Sutha. At that moment he found that he was not afraid. Not afraid at all. He fell backward off the ledge into the Power Pool. He had taken the precaution to line his tunic with the very heaviest of teksin so he would sink rapidly. He did. The glimmering casket at the bottom of the Pool waited for his touch.