"Of the 12th level, my Lord. I was apprenticed as a Maiduke monitor until Sutha appointed me to serve you."
Blade could have wished the level higher, but it would have to do. He remembered that Moyna, the first neuter he had ever seen, had only been 4th level and Moyna managed pretty well until Honcho had destructed him.
"I would have you serve me," said Blade.
Xeno made another slaveface. He was puzzled. "But of course, my Lord Blade. What else am I for?"
Blade started to scowl, then his white teeth glinted through the black beard. Of course Xeno did not understand. It would have to be explained.
Blade was wearing an authority chain. It was of golden tinted teksin with a small pendant phallus. He took it from his own person and placed it around Xeno"s neck. The young neuter stared down at it in fascinated puzzlement. What did it mean? Everything in Tharn was changing so fast!
Blade pointed a big finger at the neuter. "I did not mean exactly that. Listen well. When I have finished you will tell me what you understand and what you do not." Blade half smiled. "If you do not understand enough I will take the chain back and send you to live with the ceboids. Now.
"I have appointed you my ADC. Adjutant. Lieutenant. Translate it into Tharnian as you wish. You will remain with me constantly, unless I send you on a task. You will take orders from me alone. Only me! That is most important, and that includes the High Priestess Isma and King Sutha of the neuters. Remember that - only I give you orders!
"I place you in command of all the ceboid-masters. And the ceboids, of course. About them I will give you more specific orders later.
"You will collect all the food in Urcit, and all the water, and you will have them stored where I tell you. You will do the same with all the unprocessed mani. You will also gather, in a place I will designate, all the stocks of raw teksin. That is important. I will need every bit of it. As soon as you leave me you will begin to do these things. But this is only the beginning, Xeno. We are going to have to work hard. And then fight hard. Now, is there anything you do not understand?"
Xeno was regarding Blade with eyes that reflected mingled perplexity and adulation. He fingered the chain Blade had bestowed on him.
Before the neuter could answer Blade added what he hoped would be the clincher. "Serve me well, Xeno, well and faithfully, and intelligently, and when Sutha is finished I shall see that you have his place. Now I ask again - what do you not understand? Do not be afraid to ask. It is important that everything be perfectly clear to you."
"I understand all that you have said, Lord Blade. But there is something..."
"What is it?"
"That." Xeno pointed to the sky. "It makes me afraid, Lord. What is happening?"
The curdled skim of Tharnian sky had cleared in the west. A single star glinted silver, pinned on a background of rose-blue. The sun was going down.
Blade smiled at Xeno. "Do not be afraid." he told the neuter. "The sky is not falling down."
Chapter Thirteen.
Blade had calculated, by converting Tharnian kronos into hours, the time it would take Honcho and Org about four days to bring the Pethcine host to Urcit. Blade did not sleep in those four days.
He managed to check incipient chaos before it could set in, but for a time events were in precarious balance. For the first time in millions of kronos Urcit, and all Tharn, was without the Power. Blade, almost literally, had a mob of bewildered children on his hands. For one thing he was grateful - they were not frightened. There was no panic. Tharn, Urcit especially, had lived so long in indolence and luxury, had been so long guarded by the magveils and other technical marvels, that they had forgotten the meaning of fear. They had also forgotten how to fight. There was a dim folk memory, among the People and the older neuters, of a long ago Pethcinian invasion; there was memory also of a revolt or two by the ceboids, but these had been quickly suppressed and memory scabbed over, and for a great many kronos now none of the People had actually witnessed murder and rapine. Ceremonial killing did not count, nor did the rare executions of ceboids. The latter had, in any case, been kept down to a minimum by order of Sutha.
The upshot of it all was that while Blade did not have an army - it was more of a semi-disciplined mob - he did have a corps eager to fight, if only someone would show them how. Many of the People had been bored without knowing it, and the emergency was an outlet. It did not take much, Blade noted, to arouse blood l.u.s.t among a group of beautiful woman who, by law, were permitted everything but s.e.x. Coi.
Isma surprised and pleased him by the manner in which she took over the command of the 927. At the first a.s.sembly in the Square of the Phallus, Isma appeared in a complete suit of golden-teksin armor. She carried sword and spear, a shield barely larger than the one Blade had used at the Sacer of the Pethcines, and a helmet with a magnificent panache of feathered jewels. She was impressive, and Blade was especially impressed when he found that she could use the sword.
Isma"s manner toward Blade was now cool and remote, and he knew that there would be a later reckoning. He did not concern himself with it and, after telling Isma what she must do, he stood aside as much as possible. And approved of the manner in which she appointed her officers and began to put the women through drills that were arduous enough.
Blade was curt, as stern as he had to be, and he did not have to repeat many orders. Discipline was no problem among the ceboids and the neuters, and not much of a problem with the Bearer Maidens and the Maidukes. They had all been educated and conditioned to obey. It was only from the People that he expected trouble. When the trouble did come he was thankful, and pleasantly surprised, that it was minor and that Isma handled it with alacrity and firmness.
One of the women had missed muster several times. At last she was found concealed in the Lordsmen"s Cage, reeling with soka, and intent on working her way through the entire roster of the young Lordsmen in a sort of communal coi.
Isma did not ask Blade for advice. She had the erring woman dragged to the square, where she personally cut off the blonde head and showed it to the remaining 926. The women all seemed to get the message. The head was impaled on one of the many phalli gracing the square, where they could all see it as they drilled.
There were nights now in Tharn, with a moon and stars, but Blade hardly knew the difference. He kept driving. He was everywhere, inspecting and suggesting changes and snapping out orders. He ran Xeno nearly to death. Now and then Blade would receive a slate from Sutha, or send one, but there was not really much to say. Sutha remained at his post in the Power Cubicle, awaiting the word to restore the Power to Tharn, and only Blade knew that the word was never going to come.
At the end of three days and nights Blade knew that he had wrought a miracle. Whether it would bear up under duress was another matter.
On the northern side of the city the ceboid hovels had been torn down and made into barricades. Blade, personally supervising this, had built his crude forts as near a long teksin plant as possible, thus providing some protection for his rear. On the roof of the teksin plant he mounted the dozen catapults he had been able to make. These were manned by the Bearer Maidens, even those who were in advanced stages of insemination, under the command of a neuter chosen by Xeno. The catapults hurled great jagged chunks of teksin, flaming oil of teksin in bags, and two of the machines could fire a dozen long arrows at a time.
Blade, with a cunning eye, had chosen the one spot where the ground sloped sharply away to the north. A natural glacis. Into this he set long stakes of teksin, sharpened and barbed. Between the stakes he spun a web of very fine filaments of teksin, invisible until the sun caught them. He also bastioned the forts as best he could, and left adequate sally ports. He had one intent, one clear battle plan, and inherent in it was a large element of chance, of gamble.
He intended to bleed the Pethcines to death. He meant to goad and tempt them into a frontal attack. He was sure of Org. Org was a barbarian and knew only one way to fight. Direct attack. Totha might be more intelligent, but Org would be running this battle. Blade was counting on that because, while he did not see how Honcho could know much about actual fighting, he was still a most intelligent neuter. Honcho would see the trap and guess at Blade"s strategy. Let him. So long as he could not override Org. King Org was going to come roaring against the forts in a frenzy of blood l.u.s.t.
Blade was prepared to offer Org a number of tempting targets. His scouts had not yet returned, they were on foot and Blade greatly d.a.m.ned the technical prowess that had long ago deprived Tharn of horseflesh, the wheel, and even metal. But for his great sword there was no trace of metal in Urcit. It did not appease him that teksin was superior to metal in many ways, and had a million uses, that it was flammable and malleable and under certain conditions could even be eaten. Blade would gladly have settled for the crude iron weapons of the Pethcines if he could also have had horses. He had sent a score of scouting parties out soon after the Power had died, and not one had returned.
But he had targets and he planned to be generous with them. Even in the absence of reports he did not reckon that the Pethcines would have much in the way of transport. They would have just so many arrows and spears. He planned to mulct the enemy of these weapons as soon as possible.
To that end, when on the third day he moved his forces into position, he stationed a heavy contingent of ceboids on either flank. This, he thought, would offer some slight protection to his flanks, and might draw some of Org"s men off in diversionary attacks. Blade did not trust the ceboids to stand without neuters to whip them forward, and so he placed a line of ceboid-masters just behind the ceboids.
Behind the masters, the neuters, he then placed a line of specially selected ceboid officers, the more intelligent beasts, with orders to kill any neuter that ran. Blade had in person watched this order being translated to the ceboids, and he saw with what puzzlement and joy, it was received. The moist animal eyes examined Blade with awe and fear, but there could be no doubt of their obedience. Blade expected to lose them, all of them, but they would draw a lot of fire and it would take a lot of arrows and spears to kill them all. And they might even kill a few Pethcines.
Blade also planned to sacrifice the Lordsmen. Every one of them big enough to carry a sword into battle. They would be no great loss. He made them a Guard of Honor to Isma and placed them under her command. And his - when the time came.
The Second Neuter, in fact all the neuters of high rank, he kept around him as staff. They were not good for anything else, and they did exercise an awesome authority over the minor neuters and the ceboids. More than that - they were a nucleus. Blade was thinking far ahead.
On the fourth day, still without sleep, Blade constantly inspected his line of forts while keeping an anxious eye on the northern horizon. The twilight sky had all sloughed away now and the new Tharnian sun was mild, the visibility clear for miles, and still nothing moved out on the flat plain. And still no scouts returned.
Blade had instructed Isma in the techniques of the square and the phalanx. He had stationed the women, the 926 now, in his center. Everything, in the last a.n.a.lysis, depended on them. Everything. When the time came, when he had bled the Pethcines as much as possible, he meant to lead the women straight through the opposing center in a frontal attack of his own. Straight to the standards of Org and Totha. At the same time the ceboids would attack on the flanks.
He watched the tall beauties practice the intricacies of the square and the phalanx with mingled emotions. They were willing and anxious, these prima donnas, now full of song and bloodthirst, but they were still bacchantes and voluptuaries, still coi-hungry women to whom coi was forbidden. It might, Blade thought grimly, make them better killers.
The women shouted and sang as they drilled. Each had a Maiduke girl in attendance, as an arms bearer. On one of the flanks Blade was keeping a small contingent of the Maidukes in reserve. They were equipped with the antique air guns, of the type that Moyna had first shown him; he had been able to find about fifty of them. His troops were fighting with arfactis, obsolete weapons, because it was all he had.
Blade checked on the last-minute emplacement of bales of raw mani, they would absorb a lot of arrows and lances, and then returned to the Palace command post. He was weary to the bone, and for the moment his mood was dour. If he failed, and Tharn fell, it would be irony spelt large - a civilization that had advanced too far, too fast. Too much trust placed in advanced techniques. Old virtues forgotten before new ones were acquired. In his other life he had known a truism: the barbarians always won!
The terrace atop the Palace was now a busy place, aswarm with neuters and ceboids scurrying about on various errands. Blade settled himself at a large table and studied the slates on which he had sketched his battle plan. He could see no way to improve it. Let it stand. He did not expect the battle to go exactly to plan, they never did, but he had done all he could and he must, above all, retain a certain degree of flexibility.
Xeno came running up to the desk. "A scout has returned, Lord."
Blade forced his eyes open. He had been nearly asleep over the slates. "Fetch him, then. Quickly."
The returned scout was a neuter of the seventh level. He was disheveled and haggard and there was blood on the shoulder of his tunic. He made slaveface.
Blade scowled impatiently. "Get on with it. What have you found out there?"
"Many Pethcines, my Lord Blade. They approach from the north. They will be here before the morning."
Blade studied him. "How many Pethcines?"
"I did not see them all, Lord, but I saw many. I and my ceboids were driven off before I could see more."
"How did your ceboids fight?"
The wounded neuter shrugged. "Some fought, Lord. Some ran. We all ran when the Pethcines attacked us in the wheeled platforms. They have great knives on the wheels, my Lord, and nothing can stand against them."
Blade pulled at his beard. "Wheeled platforms?" He motioned to Xeno. "Speak with him in low neuter, just what does he mean?"
Xeno spoke rapidly to the scout in a patois that neuters used among themselves. Xeno turned to Blade.
"I think I understand him, Lord. Many kronos ago, in the old times, Tharnians used these platforms. And wheels as well. They are drawn by two horses, which we also once had in Tharn, and they have swords on the wheels." Xeno made a face. "A childish weapon, my Lord Blade. Fit only for barbarians."
Battle chariots. He had not counted on that! Blade scowled at Xeno. "Childish, eh? You will change your mind before this is over."
But he was not particularly worried about the chariots. He knew of a tactic that could handle them, if the women were up to it. But if Org and Honcho had chariots and horses, they were bound to have adequate transport as well. Supplies in plenty. That was bad. Urcit could not, was in no position, to withstand a siege. It had to be decided quickly.
It only confirmed what Blade already knew. Honcho had been preparing for this day a long time. Long before Blade had come to Tharn. Honcho had told him as much. It had been a slow and laborious process, the transferring of so many men, and so much material, from the depths of the Gorge to the plains of Tharn.
Blade questioned the neuter for an hour, then sent him away to be attended to. He was one of the lucky ones. There were no medical facilities and Blade did not intend to be burdened with wounded. He had already designated mercy squads to cut the throats of the badly wounded, regardless of rank.
When the scout had been taken away Xeno said, "The news is bad, my Lord?"
Blade shook his head. "No. Nor good. I will sleep now, Xeno. Wake me if I am needed. In the morning we fight."
He stretched out on two tables pushed together, covered himself with a robe, and was asleep in seconds.
Xeno stood guard over him. At times the young neuter would finger the necklace Blade had given him, then smile at his sleeping Lord. Toward dawn he saw Isma and the Second Neuter come to the top of the stairs and halt, whispering and looking in the direction of the sleeping man. Xeno who had been sitting, stood up.
Isma and the Second Neuter started toward him. Xeno drew his short sword. It was greatly daring of him, and he knew he was as good as dead, but he drew the sword anyway.
Isma stopped, tie Second Neuter also. Nothing was said. The Second Neuter trembled behind the High Priestess. Xeno was silent, holding the sword ready, trying not to let the terror overcome him.
Isma gave him a long look from her dark eyes, then turned away. She and the Second Neuter vanished down the stairs.
The cloak had fallen away from the sleeping Blade. Xeno replaced it and made slaveface. Something had stirred in him for a moment, had nearly come through. He wondered what it was like to be a man. A G.o.d?
Chapter Fourteen.
Xeno, obeying his instructions, awakened Blade with the first gray chill of dawn. He told the big man of Isma"s visit. Blade nodded curtly and strode to the terrace railing, fastening his cloak around his shoulders again a rising wind. Tharn"s new weather seemed to be turning bad. As he reached the rail a spatter of cold rain slashed the open terrace.
The campfires of the Pethcines made a great crescent on the plain before Urcit, a concave shimmer of yellow and ruby light extending on both flanks of Blade"s forts. He counted upward of a hundred fires and wondered if they actually represented Pethcinian troops or if Org, at Honcho"s prodding, was trying to fake it. Org would not think of such a device himself. Blade shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. What matter? Today would tell the story. The die was cast and all his fortunes were at stake.
Xeno set about awakening and organizing staff neuters. Blade ate and had a great draught of warm soka. Then he gave concise orders and he and Xeno left the Palace for the lines. It was growing lighter by the moment, a bleak dank morning with an increasing wind and cold drizzle and no hint of sun. The wind, Blade thought, might help him. Otherwise he did not care about the weather.
Squarely in the midst of the main fort, a little behind the spot where the women would form ranks, Blade had ordered the erection of a high platform of mani bales. This was built in the shape of a pyramid and crowned by a single large bale. There was room enough for Blade alone. Xeno and his lesser aides were cl.u.s.tered on the next level down.
When it was light enough Blade ascended the pyramid and stood peering over at the Pethcine camp. The campfires were dying now, some of them smoking badly, and the easterly wind was blowing a gray film of smoke across the dark lines of Pethcine warriors already a.s.sembled. Blade counted files, rapidly multiplied, and whistled softly under his breath. He kept his face impa.s.sive. They were all watching him. But eight thousand! Not counting the charioteers that were drawn up far to the rear of Org"s first rank.
Blade loosened the huge sword in the scabbard. It was going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y day.
Behind the center of Org"s line, not too far back, were the skin tents of Org and his ranking officers. Totha"s tent, perhaps. And certainly Honcho"s. And in Honcho"s tent, Blade was sure, would be Zulekia. The neuter had certainly brought the Maiduke girl, to increase the pressure on Blade and make sure that he lived up to his bargain. Blade"s little smile was grim. He was counting on Zulekia being there. And he had no intention of living up to his bargain.
He could make out King Org"s tent now. It stood a little apart from the others and before it a standard fluttered and snapped in the wind. It was a spear jabbed deep into the earth and from the b.u.t.t was hung a shield and three horse tails.
Org, Honcho, and Totha came out of the tent as Blade watched. They were all in armor. Totha, wearing breastplates and a short leathern girdle, carried a helmet under one arm. She stopped and stared, looking straight at Blade. He raised a hand. Totha stared for a moment longer, then turned to where Honcho and Org were talking animatedly. Blade grinned. He wondered just how Honcho had managed it, how the neuter had gotten around Totha. Blade had left her primed to kill the neuter, had been more than half convinced the ploy would work. But no. Why? Not that it mattered now.
From the Pethcine lines came a harsh bray of trumpets. Blade smiled again. This was the beginning of the trickery, as Honcho had planned it. There was to be a parley and he, Blade, was to surrender after only a token resistance. The terms would be very generous. Blade and Isma would continue to share the throne of Tharn. Sutha had to go, and Honcho would allow a merciful destruct. Honcho then to be appointed King of Neuters. The Pethcines to be allowed emigration from the Gorge, to settle the plains of Tharn, and be accorded status equal to the People.
Later, as Honcho planned it, the Pethcines would be divided and destroyed in their turn, bit by bit. And, as Blade now extrapolated it, soon it would be Isma"s turn. And his own. Then Honcho would rule Tharn alone. And his surgeon would make a man of him. Victory. Heart"s desire. Total achievement of aims.
Blade"s smile was as cold as the rain. Dream on, Honcho!
The Pethcine trumpets blared again. Org, with Totha and Honcho on either side of him, left his lines and walked toward the main fort. He had no bodyguard. Such was the plan. They would come halfway and wait for Blade.
Blade leaped nimbly down the pyramid of bales. He gave an order to Xeno, who went running off toward the teksin factory behind them. Blade adjusted his helmet at an angle, the black plume brave in the wind, and went out through the sally port to meet the enemy.
He pa.s.sed Isma and her women, drawn up in a great square, and raised his sword in salute.
The women thrust their swords high in answer. They roared: "Blade! Blade!"
Blade smiled at them. Isma, in the center of the square, flanked about by her Lordsmen, raised her sword but she did not shout nor smile. Her dark eyes followed Blade as he left the fort.
He went alone to meet the three of them. When he was within six paces he halted and saluted with the Pethcine sword. King Org, his greasy ringlets crammed beneath a helmet of metal and leather, glared at the sword and then at Blade. His piggy eyes, ever bloodshot, glared above his curling beard. His voice was thick and cruel, rasping.
"Well, Blade? Do you betray us again? Or do you keep the terms you made with Honcho?" His warrior"s eyes roved over the forts and the ceboid troops drawn up on the flanks. "This does not look like surrender to me!"
Blade"s smile was glacial. "I agree, Org. It does not."
Org"s hand went to his sword. Honcho, with a long-toothed smile, put a hand out to stay it. His green eyes glinted at Blade.
"Surely you will not be fool enough to betray us a second time, Blade. I have shown you what will happen. She is with us, you know. In Org"s tent."
Blade stared at him. "I had guessed that. And I do not betray you, Honcho. I never meant to keep any bargain with you, as I am sure you knew. Nor will I betray Urcit, or myself. If you want Urcit, and Tharn, and me - you must take us."
He was conscious of Totha"s eyes on him. She was standing easy, relaxed, but her deep brown eyes never left him. Fires burnt in those eyes that sent a chill down Blade"s spine. Her mouth was as scarlet, her teeth as white, as they had been in the Gorge when she had done things to his body, and had demanded so much of him. That body, even in armor, was nubile and lithe and the dusky ivory skin as sensuous as ever.
Totha spoke now, for the first time. "You also betray me, Blade! You have made a lie of everything between us."
Blade glanced from Totha to Honcho. "I could name a promise that you have not kept, Totha." He might yet sow a little dissension.