Guardians Of The Coral Throne

Chapter 15

The Guardians wound upward through the Pass of Scador. Blade scanned the distant gray slopes as he rode. Nothing moved on the bare rock, either human or animal. Only a few birds wheeled high up in the lonely sky above the peaks.

To Blade's surprise, the Emperor's huge purple banner remained in the lead all the way up to the peak of the pass. It still led the Guardians as they rode down the other side onto the plateau of Scador. When they finally pitched camp for the night, the Emperor's tent was in the center of the great circle the Guardians formed.

Zogades was only mildly impressed. «I can't see how anything could be dangerous this close to the pass. I'm damned sure Jores knows that too. So for the moment he's not worried. Or maybe he's just more afraid of looking bad than he is of the Scadori. I wonder how long the young fellow's nerve's going to last.»

Blade shrugged. «As long as he thinks he needs to look good, I suppose. If his reputation takes a big knock now, when he's only been on the Coral Throne three years and hasn't got any children…» Blade let his voice trail off under Zogades' warning stare. He'd said all he felt needed saying, in any case.

He went off toward his tent, and Tera. Around him silence was descending on the camp as people drifted off to sleep. The only lights were the small watchfires of the sentries and the lanterns hung on the Imperial tent.

Blade would have liked more fires. No campfires meant nothing to drive away the cold that could turn a man's nose or fingers white with frostbite. No campfires meant that the ghost-filled darkness of the plateau could crowd much too close.

Blade sighed wearily. He wasn't a magician who could conjure wood out of the barren plateau of Scador. For the moment he was only a trooper in the Guardians of the Coral Throne. There was nothing he could do now except return to his tent and find the warmth he always found with Tera.

But as he walked through the sleeping camp, he could not help hearing the thin, chill moan of the wind as it swept across the miles.

That wind was in Blade's ears for the next week, day and night. He awoke in cold gray dawns hearing it whistling around the tent. He went to bed with Tera warm against him, hearing it as he drifted off to sleep.

The wind was in everyone's ears, and men less iron-nerved than Blade got nightmares from it. Every morning there were always a few men missing, men who had mounted up and ridden headlong back toward the pass. There were usually a few others found lying stiff and gray-faced, their own bloody swords clutched in their hands, gaping wounds in throats or wrists or stomachs. The people left alive rode with faces twisted and pale. The army seemed to be waiting for something horrible to come sweeping down upon it on the wings of that endless grim wind.

Meanwhile they marched on across the plateau. Patrols rode out each morning. The main body never saw a live Scadori, and the patrols saw only small bands of warriors, some mounted, some on foot. The warriors fought even more desperately than usual if the Guardians did come up with them. So every one of those skirmishes left a few more empty saddles in the Emperor's Regiments.

«Damn it, where are they?» exploded Zogades one night. «Blade, you marched with them. Where could the bastards have gone that we can't come up with them? At least the ones we catch aren't scared of us, that's for sure!»

Blade honestly wished he could answer that question.

He didn't like the feeling of pursuing a race of ghosts any better than any of the other Guardians. But he could only guess.

«I saw no towns or villages when we passed through here on our march to the pass this spring,» he said. «Of course that doesn't prove there aren't any. I won't claim I see everything-«

«That makes you more honest than most of the officers,» said Zogades, with a smile that was half a grimace as well.

«Anyway, if there aren't any towns or villages, the Scadori could flee easily. Pack up their tents, drive off their herds, shoulder their spears, and head for the horizon.»

The next day the scouts did discover a fair-sized Scadori town, perhaps half the size of Ukush. It lay abandoned and stripped of everything that could be moved. The only things that moved in its empty streets were a few half-starved dogs and the endlessly blowing wind. The main column of the Guardians marched past the town that afternoon. Blade noticed how even Zogades turned his eyes away from the empty houses. The abandoned town was not a pleasant sight for men with nerves already stretched tight.

«It's like coming on a body all ripped up and chewed when you're out in the woods at night,» said Zogades. He looked back over his shoulder as the town slowly dropped out of sight. «It makes you wonder what might be out there in the woods along with you.»

Blade had one or two ideas about what the Scadori might be up to. Their best course would be to refuse battle until the Guardians moved onto some rough ground where their horses would not give them such an advantage. That meant the Scadori would not offer battle out here on the open plateau. They would wait-and wait, and wait, and wait, if necessary. But this was only a guess, so Blade kept his mouth shut.

Two days later the Karani came on a Scadori town before the people completely abandoned it. A last party of women and children with their bundles of possessions was captured. So was a small herd of cattle and the score of old men and boys driving it off.

Except for a few who tried to run, most of the Scadori were captured alive. They would have done better to die trying to run. Those who were captured also died very slowly. They died of every torture that the ingenuity and the available equipment of the Karani could inflict. The torture and the screams went on all night, as hundreds of the Guardians shoved and elbowed each other for the best places to watch. A few hideously mangled bodies still showed signs of life at dawn.

Blade kept as far away as possible. He managed to eat a few mouthfuls of half-raw beef hacked from the slaughtered cattle. He would have given most of even that small share to Tera if she had been able to eat. But for once her courage failed her. All she could do was shrink deeper and deeper into the blankets, hold her hands over her ears, and lie shaking and sobbing. All Blade could do was sit by her, stroke her hair, and wish them all out of this cursed lonely plateau.

The next morning it seemed as though his wishes were going to be answered. When the main column moved out, the Emperor's banner soon began to swing back toward the northeast.

Toward the Pass of Scador? Blade took the first chance he got to ask Zogades.

The sergeant shrugged. «I don't see where else we can wind up,» he said. «Word is, some of the prisoners talked before they died. Said all the warriors of all the tribes of Scador were heading off to the west.»

Blade looked back over his shoulder toward the flat bleak horizon in that direction. It looked as if the plateau went on and on to the end of the world.

Zogades nodded. «Right. Nobody had the stomach for taking all the Guardians off that way, the gods themselves don't know how far, and no way to know if we'll ever come up with the Scadori before our horses start dying under us. It's getting cold here, and it's going to get a damned sight colder damned fast before much longer. So I guess the big heads around the Emperor must have talked him out of going any farther.»

The weather was indeed getting colder. The second night of the march it snowed, just enough to leave the ground shimmering white until the sun rose high enough. But it was a taste of things to come, and the column increased its pace. The horses were getting thin now, but their riders took extra care of them. No one wanted to be left up here on the lonely plateau with its wind and its ghostly Scadori.

By the evening of the sixth day of the return march, Blade could see the mountains that rimmed the plateau to the north and east rising against the sky. The summits and upper slopes gleamed white with snow. Up there, no doubt, lay the answer to what had happened to the mountain tribes. But Blade now found that mystery totally uninteresting. All that interested him now was how fast they could march through the pass that lay out of sight below those distant mountains.

Just before darkness fell, word went around the camp that a party of refugees had arrived from the mountain tribes. At first Blade couldn't see what difference that made. Then the rumors started getting more and more detailed.

The refugees, it was said, were bringing word of a Scadori invasion of their mountains. More than two thousand Scadori warriors were roaming through the lands of the tribes that had helped the Karani, slaughtering men, women, children, even animals. There would not be one of the mountain people left alive when winter came if the Karani did not come to their aid.

In desperation the tribes had set aside all their past quarrels and gathered together on one mountain. There the Scadori had them besieged. In a few more days starvation and cold would drive them out into a last battle, from which not one of them would escape.

The gods themselves would curse the Karani if they did not send aid!

Blade personally felt that the gods would be more likely to curse the Karani for being complete idiots if they ran off into the mountains with winter coming on! But he hadn't realized how frustrated the Guardians were after the long weary march across the plateau. When the word went around that the Scadori were only two days' march away, cheers went up to the sky from all over the camp. It might be idiotic, but suddenly everyone was wild with joy. At last they could get their hands on a bunch of those damned stinking Scadori! Oh, how they'd make the bastards pay for all the cold and weariness and frustration! The night air was filled with bloodcurdling threats.

Blade could understand the Guardians' feelings. He also suspected that even if they hadn't felt that way, Jores VII would have. This was the young Emperor's last chance to make his first campaign even a small triumph, instead of a large disgrace that could only encourage his numerous enemies.

The weather up in the mountains would be uncertain, perhaps dangerous. The land was rough and unknown. Even a handful of Scadori could fight on fairly equal terms, then fade away into the forests where the Guardians would have to dismount to follow them.

Even worse, suppose there were more than just a handful of Scadori? It made no sense to Blade that the enemy would divide their forces this way. The warriors sent to attack the mountain tribes were too far from the rest of their comrades to be helped. The Scadori were too good to make that stupid mistake.

At least, that was the way Blade saw them. But he was the only one who had seen the Scadori froze the inside. Who would listen to what he had to say, a former slave of unknown origins? Who would believe him, even if they listened politely? Blade felt all sorts of uncertainties about this march up into the mountains. But he was also quite certain that he couldn't do anything except keep his mouth shut and be ready to fight for his life.