Guardians Of The Coral Throne

Chapter 6

The march across the plateau went on for several days. One by one, other columns of the warriors of Scador marched up over the horizon and joined the men of Ukush. By the tenth day, over three thousand warriors and five hundred camp followers were marching steadily on in a single great column.

By now Blade knew they were marching north. The nights were almost as chilly as they had been in Ukush before spring came. Blade found Tera snuggling closer to him at night, and seldom took off his clothes even to air them out. Washing was out of the question. The occasional pond or spring provided just enough water to fill the water bags and drinking bottles.

On the thirteenth day Blade saw snow-covered summits lifting over the horizon to the north and northwest. About noon on that day the whole column swung off toward the northwest. A dozen of the more experienced warriors mounted up on leaders' horses and rode off ahead of the column as scouts. They were approaching the northern end of the plateau, and the pass that led the Scadori through the mountains and down into the lowlands. The Karani had never fortified or garrisoned that pass in all the centuries the Scadori had been fighting them. But none of the leaders wanted to take any chances. The Scadori had learned much from the wars. It was possible that the Karani had done the same.

The column camped for the night several hours earlier than usual, just out of sight of the pass. Blade found Tera wilder in her passion that night than ever before. She knew as well as Blade did that the march was over and the fighting about to begin.

«I would be unhappy to be apart from you for the rest of my life,» she said with a sigh. «I pray every hour to the Watchers that other warriors may fall, but not you. It is not a good prayer, and I do not know if the Watchers will answer. But I hope they will.»

«We must all bow to the Watchers,» said Blade. «I pray, rather, that I do not fail those who follow me through any lack of skill or courage. I also pray to do my best in our battles. If that is granted, I think we will not be apart when the fighting is over.» Blade knew that might very well turn out to be a lie, if he chose to flee to the Karani without her. But if he ended up leaving Tera, why not let her think he had met his death in battle? She would suffer enough as it was.

The camp awoke long before dawn, as soon as the scouts returned to report that the pass was clear. Several hundred fur-clad warriors with stoneheaded axes and spears marched in from the mountain-dwelling tribes, to join the column. Two of the clans whose warriors were expected did not appear, but this seemed a minor detail. When the column set out on its march in the darkness, it was nearly four thousand strong.

They climbed up to the peak of the pass in the early dawn and crossed it before full daylight. As the sky overhead turned blue, Blade could look down the slopes of the mountains to the green lowlands at the bottom, dotted with the silver of lakes and the dark green of forests. Miles away a few curls of smoke rose from the chimneys of farms and villages. Their people would not live to see sunset, and would be lucky to die quickly and cleanly.

There were no signs of any large Karani force nearby. No smoke from campfires, no glint of sun on armor, no dust clouds that the Riders of Death on the march might have thrown up.

Degar shrugged. «How could they get ready for us, anyway? They cannot watch us from the mountain tops to see us coming across the plains. The Emperor's soldiers will only know that we have come when the farmers who outrun us reach the nearest garrison. That will be several days. It will be several days more before they come to us.

Even then we may not see the Riders of Death. Often they do not leave Karanopolis for a whole year at a time, even to fight us.»

«Good.» Blade was not quite speaking his mind. If it would be a week before they were fighting Karani soldiers, it would be a week before he could safely leave the Scadori, with or without Tera. He could not leave unnoticed until there was enough fighting so that the «fog of war» would hide him. He might not be able to leave at all if the Karani did not react fast enough.

His staying would make Tera happy, of course. But meanwhile he would have to march with the Scadori. He would see farms burning, farmers slaughtered, their women raped and then kidnapped, their children shot full of arrows, and many other things he would rather not see, let alone help do.

By noon the whole army of Scador was out of the pass. The warriors in the lead were several miles out into Karani lands. Soon they were passing little mounds of blackened stones that showed where farms had once stood. The Karani peasants were obviously born optimists, to go on building and farming so close to the normal invasion route of the enemy. But by now word had probably reached the nearer farms that the Scadori were coming, and at least the women and children would be on their way to safety as fast as they could go. Blade hoped so. The afternoon wore on. They came to the first farms-already abandoned, as Blade had hoped. Some of the livestock had not been driven off, though. Blade heard the protesting baaaing of sheep and the lowing of cattle as they were slaughtered for the warriors' dinner. The prospect of fresh meat appealed to Blade. The food he had brought from Ukush had lasted this long only by his skipping a meal each day. Tera would gladly have given up half her food to him, but he would not let her do that.

«No warrior of my people would starve his woman to maintain his own strength. If he was that weak, he would be sent back to the camps of the boys for more training in what a warrior must do.»

«There must be terrible strength in your warriors, for them to do this.»

«There is. There is also the belief that it is a great evil to hurt a woman unless she has done a wrong to you.» Blade had reached down then, and stroked Tera's long hair. It was clean now, for he had taught her to wash it once a week. «You have done nothing wrong to me.»

«And I shall not, Blade. That would be evil of me.» Her smile showed love that was almost worship.

They made camp for the night several miles beyond the first farms. Clouds of smoke from the burning buildings smudged the sky behind them. Other clouds of smoke soon rose from campfires, and soon after that the smell of roasting meat. One by one the warriors of Scador relaxed, enjoying the pleasure of sitting or lying on soft earth that smelled of growing things.

They were obviously enjoying this so much that Blade began to worry about how to keep an alert watch during the night. He had heard a dozen times that the Karani did not attack by night. Therefore it seemed likely to Blade that the Karani would do just exactly that, if they had any troops in the area. But as the scouts rode back from the surrounding countryside, even Blade began to believe that Degar was right. The nearest Karani soldier must be a good many miles away.

There was not enough of the roast meat to go around, so Blade got only enough to feed Tera. She obviously thought he was mad to treat his woman so well. But it was a madness that made her very happy. She squatted down at the door of their little tent and tore into the meat.

Blade spent the rest of the evening walking around the camp, helping to keep order among the hungry warriors and ignoring the rumblings of his own stomach. Well after dark he returned to the tent to find Tera already sound asleep. He decided to let her sleep, and gently stroked her hair. Damn it! Everything seemed to be making it harder and harder for him to decide a question he had to answer. Take Tera or leave her? He was even beginning to wonder if he was losing the power of quick and easy decision-making. That would be a problem.

An explosion of trumpet blasts and shouting jerked Blade out of a sound sleep. He sat up and listened. Some of the trumpets were the flat-toned animal-horn instruments of Scador. But others were deeper, louder, with a brassy note in their calls. From the same direction came shouts of «Forward! Forward for the Emperor!»

Blade leaped to his feet so fast that he smashed his head into the ridgepole of the tent. Ignoring this, he knelt to snatch up weapons and clothing. Tera sprang up, stark naked, and began wriggling swiftly into her own leather tunic and trousers. Her eyes were wide and she was obviously keeping her jaw clamped shut to keep her teeth from chattering in fear.

Blade finished pulling on his clothes and both swords, then grabbed a helmet with one hand and a spear with the other. He plunged out of the tent, brandishing the spear and clapping the helmet on his head as he ran.

It was still dark, and the only light was the embers from the dying campfires. Scadori warriors were dashing about like escaped madmen, stumbling over tent ropes, crashing into one another, swearing and shouting. The screams of the women rose above the shouting. But they could not drown out the war-cries and trumpets of the attacking army, or the mounting clang and crash of weapons as the Scadori ran to meet the attack.

Blade followed the sound, clearing a path with shouts and elbows and flourishes of his spear. He reached the improvised Scadori battle line just as fresh Karani soldiers came storming out of the woods. The uproar swelled, with more trumpet calls, more clang of weapons, the crunching of bushes being trampled underfoot, and the screams of dying men.

Blade's eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness now. He saw the dying firelight reflected off the round helmets, the breastplates and greaves, the rectangular shields of the Karani infantry. He came up to the fighting line between two Scadori warriors, just as six of the enemy chose the same place as their point of attack.

Blade's arm rose and snapped forward. His spear darted between the two Scadori and took the leading attacker in the throat before he could raise his shield. He gurgled, reeled, sprayed blood right and left, then tottered backward into the path of his five comrades. They bunched up, taking a few extra seconds to go around him.

In those few seconds Blade was on them. He no longer cared that the Karani were civilized, that he wanted to leave the Scadori and join them. He was only a fighting man as he charged, almost a fighting animal, thinking of nothing but striking down his enemies and defending himself and his woman. He no longer cared who the Karani were, and would not have stopped or spared these five even if he had remembered.

Both swords were in his hands as he reached the enemy. The broadsword in his right hand crashed down on top of a Karani shield so hard that it drove the shield down and clanged into the man's helmet. He staggered, but kept on his feet and backed away half-stunned, leaving his neighbor's flank open. Blade was around that flank in a moment, short sword in his left hand stabbing in past the man's shield before he could swing it around. The point went through the man's heavy leather thigh guards and deep into his thigh. He screamed, and was still screaming as Blade's broadsword whipped around and sheared through his neck. His head flew one way, his body toppled another. Blood spouted high, drenching Blade and the two Scadori warriors now coming up to help him.

One of them took out Blade's fourth opponent, feinting with a sword in one hand and then stabbing low with a spear in the other. But the mortally wounded Karani soldier stumbled forward, short sword darting in and out. The Scadori screamed and the two men fell, kicking and clawing at the earth and at each other with the last of their strength. Blade stepped back as half a dozen more Karani ran in, literally dragging the other Scadori warrior with him by the hair. The man glared at Blade, then still more of the enemy were on them, and there was no time to argue or do anything else except fight for their lives.

How long the battle for the camp went on, Blade never knew. For a while it was just one explosion of slashing and thrusting and grappling hand-to-hand after another. Then the Scadori line began to stiffen, as the leaders ran up and down behind it. They shifted men from one part of the line to another. They helped wounded men out of the line to where the women and the servants could do as much as possible for them. They gave dying men a quick, merciful death with their swords. They rallied the warriors when the Karani came on more fiercely than usual.

Once the Karani broke clear through the line, and a dozen of them ran wildly about the camp, stabbing and slashing at the women and the wounded. Blade found himself fighting side by side with Degar and Chudo, at the head of a score of warriors who ran to seal off the break in the line. Then when the break was sealed, there was a deadly stalking hunt among the tents until the last of the Karani lay screaming and writhing in the campfire where Blade threw him. The smell of burning human flesh rose into the air, to add itself to all the other smells that made the air over the camp sickeningly heavy.

Blade did not know how long the battle went on. But he did know that eventually it ended. Covered with blood, none of it his own, Blade stood with Degar and watched the Karani infantry form up and retreat slowly into the cover of the forest. A few bold Scadori tried to follow them, but well-thrown spears from the enemy's rear guard brought them down. Then there was only the fading crackle of branches, the regular tramping of feet, and occasional shouted orders as the Karani marched away.

Degar turned to Blade. He also was covered with blood, some of it his own, although none of his wounds were serious. He heaved a sigh of relief, but his face was grim.

«This was a night of mysteries as well as one of battle, Blade. But it is no mystery what we must do. Our march into the lands of the Karani cannot go on, now that they are alerted and present in strength. We must march back to Scador.»

Blade had to agree. The rising sun shone down on at least six or seven hundred bodies lying along the edge of the camp. More than half were Scadori. Many more of Scador's warriors lay wounded or dying in the tents behind. Blade could hear their moans as he stood. The surprise attack, their superior armor, and their discipline had given the Karani the edge they usually had in a stand-up fight.

Degar went on. «I do not know how the infantry was so far away last night that our scouts could not find them, yet close enough to attack in the night. If they had not been forced to attack through the forest, they would have overrun the camp while we still struggled up from sleep. Then the sun would be shining down on your body and mine and Tera's as well.» Hardened warrior as he was, Degar could not keep from shuddering at the thought. Blade had a moment's vision of Tera screaming and writhing under the pounding bodies of a succession of Karani soldiers, and almost shuddered himself.

«Another mystery is where the horsemen are,» said Degar. «The Riders of Death do not often come out. But an army of Karan always has horsemen somewhere nearby. If they had struck us on one side or the other while we fought off the infantry…» This time he found the idea too disturbing to even finish the sentence.

«Yes,» said Blade. «We've been lucky to escape as lightly as we have. But let us get ready to march, or the Watchers may take good fortune away from us and give it to the Karani. This talk of mysteries is to ask questions that we shall not be answering here and now.»

Degar nodded slowly. «You speak truly, Blade. It is time to admit that this night the Karani have won, and see that they do not win again.» He turned away and began shouting orders.