The Golden Steed

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Three weeks later Blade sat on his horse and watched Rojag horsemen milling about on the outskirts of a burning Pendari town. His horse was not the Golden Steed, for that beast was too sacred in the eyes of the Pendari to be risked in battle. Instead he rode a tall, dark gray stallion from the royal stables, the personal gift of King Nefus. It was larger than the average Pendari horse, and so quite equal to Blade's two hundred pounds. The Golden Steed was back in the palace stables in Pendar, no doubt gorging itself in luxury.

Blade almost wished he could be there also. He had been furiously busy during those past weeks, working night and day training the soldiers of the Pendarnoth's Guard. That was no easy job, for Blade had to polish up his own skills at mounted archery at the same time. All that kept the job from being completely impossible was Guroth's constant and loyal aid. The new High Captain of the Pendarnoth's Guard was as able an instructor as he had been a combat soldier. He was able to teach Blade at the same time he was teaching the guard. And he had won the confidence of the soldiers to such an extent that Blade had no hesitation about leaving them in Guroth's hands when he himself rode off to war. Only a small force of guardsmen rode with him, for it was not part of the plan for him to do any heavy fighting now.

It was as well that Guroth had proved so loyal and so able. Klerus was pushing his plots ahead as fast as he dared, now that his Lanyri allies were actually on the march. The Pendari armies were being ordered to fall back before the invaders. One general who had given battle on his own initiative, and actually wiped out a small Lanyri force, had been assassinated. That had produced much grumbling among the soldiers. But the more outspoken grumblers had met the same fate as the aggressive general. After that there was silence in the ranks of the army, although the western horizon was marred each day by the smoke from burning Pendari farms and villages.

And Klerus was recruiting his own guard. Since Blade had the blessing of the priests as well as the support of the king for the formation of his own guard, Klerus had chosen not to oppose it openly. Instead he was secretly assembling a force of his own. It was already so large that any attempt to arrest Klerus would mean a pitched battle. Before too much longer Klerus would have enough men around him and under his orders to stage an outright military takeover, if he couldn't manage things any other way. So much of the Pendari army was now out in the field watching the advancing Lanyri that it would be easy to seize the palace and even Vilesh.

Fortunately, Guroth and most of the Pendarnoth's Guard were back in Vilesh. They would do all that could be done there to fight Klerus. Blade could stop worrying about that and concentrate on learning about the Lanyri.

He had not seen enough of the tough Lanyri infantry to really know if they were as good as he had been told they were. But he had seen far too many Rojag horsemen scouting and marauding ahead of the Lanyri. Apparently the Rojags had turned out every man they could put on a horse. No doubt they hoped that their alliance with the Lanyri would bring them Pendari land and slaves when the Lanyri had won. Some of them even now had bows, no doubt captured from the Pendari, although they could not yet use them well from horseback. But they did provide the Lanyri with a scouting force that could move just as fast as the Pendari. Not to mention the looting, burning, and massacring they accomplished wherever they went. Blade had seen a Pendari village after the Rojags got through with it, and he still felt a little sick at the memory.

The smoke from the village was rising now in three distinct columns. As Blade watched, one of the columns turned a dirty blue. Something in a shop, no doubt, making the smoke come out that color. Some of the Rojags seemed to be dismounting, no doubt to loot and rape more effectively.

Blade scanned the bare brown hills beyond the village's green fringe for any further signs of the enemy. He could see nothing, but that didn't mean there was nothing there. The Rojags were past masters at using cover, and the Lanyri were no less clever.

Blade heard a hail from behind him and turned. The officer commanding the fifty-man troop of horsemen riding with Blade was coming toward him. The officer bowed his head as he rode up and said, «Hail, Pendarnoth. I think we can attack those Rojag creatures and perhaps save the village. There are fifty of my men here and twenty of your own guard. I do not think there are more than half that many Rojags.»

Looking toward the village again, Blade was inclined to agree. He could not count the cloaked, armed figures very accurately, but certainly he could not see more than about twenty-five. He wasn't supposed to get involved in heavy fighting, but this could hardly be called heavy fighting. And a victory here might save at least one Pendari village from ending up as a heap of smoking rubble, its maimed and tortured people sprawled hideously in the streets.

He nodded. «Very well. We shall attack. You will give the orders. I will lead my guard only.» Blade did not yet feel he understood the finer points of Pendari tactics well enough to take command from an officer who had been learning them for nearly twenty years.

The officer rode back to his men and Blade heard his voice rise in shouted orders. He turned to his guard and told them of the plan. He was rewarded by savage grins. These were among the toughest soldiers in the whole army of Pendar, spoiling for the fight he had been denying them for nearly a week. They would follow him into anything, even if he were not the Pendarnoth. Then he turned his horse's head toward the village and waited for the horn blast that would signal the charge.

It came, harsh, raucous, floating across the fields to the ears of the Rojags. Blade saw some of the moving figures stop dead and rammed his spurs into the horse's flanks. It leaped and scrambled up the slope out of the gully. Behind Blade came the guardsmen, and off to his left dust rose in a cloud as the other horsemen came up the slope. Their bows were already in position, and Blade saw the sunlight glint on arrowheads as they began shooting. He did not bother with his own bow, for he had no hope of hitting anything with a horsebow arrow at this range.

Now all seventy of the Pendari horsemen were out on the level ground and picking up speed. The hoof beats thundered in Blade's ears, and the clouds of dust about him made him cough. Through the yellow swirl he could see the Rojags scattering to their horses. Some of them were already mounted, spurring their horses toward the far side of the village. But others already lay still or writhing in the streets, arrows in their bodies.

Blade urged his horse to the left, toward the center of the advancing Pendari line. The fringe of an attack was no place for the Pendarnoth. He saw the houses of the village closed. Had the inhabitants managed to barricade themselves inside their houses? A Rojag arrow arched across his field of vision, ill-aimed but close enough so that he heard its whistle. Time to try a few shots with his own bow-the range was getting down.

By the time Blade had nocked an arrow to his bow the charging Pendari were almost in the village. He took his first shot at a man scrambling onto his horse in the street to his right. The arrow missed the man but stung his horse. It broke into a gallop, thundering away up the street while the man ran frantically after it, waving his arms. Then the Pendari were in among the houses, and with walls on all sides there was no more room to use the bow. Blade drew his sword and raised his eyes to the hill beyond the town. It was dotted with little plumes of dust raised by the horses of the Rojags as they fled pell-mell up the hill. Blade dug his heels into the horse's flanks again and urged it down the street.

As he did so, horns blared all over the village. Not the raucous, bellowing signal horns of the Pendari, but horns with a deeper, clearer note, like great bells. Blade's horse reared in surprise. Before he could spur it into movement again, every door of every house in the village flew open with a crash. The deep horns sounded again. And from inside the houses, Lanyri soldiers poured out at a run, swords drawn and shields up.

The Lanyri infantrymen were trained to perfection. Blade recovered from his surprise within a few seconds, but even that was too slow. In those few seconds the Lanyri had blocked off both ends of Blade's street with a double row of soldiers, and they were doubling that again. In either direction he saw the sun glinting on massed Lanyri armor and weapons.

Blade knew that nothing short of a winged horse could get him past those lines of grim infantrymen without aid. But if the Pendari charged from the other side…

He raised his voice in a mighty shout. «Halloooooo! I'm trapped in the central street! Charge them from the rear!» At least his shouts startled the Lanyri. He saw the formations stir. Then the rear rank of each one faced about. Out came six-foot throwing spears with burnished iron heads, and up they went, forming a bristling row of points facing any possible Pendari charge. But there was no response from the Pendari to Blade's call, not even an answering shout.

An ugly suspicion formed in his mind. Was the whole attack on the village intended as a way of leading him into a Lanyri trap? Certainly the Lanyri must have been waiting in the houses, from the way they swarmed out on signal. A trap, definitely. For him, probably. He looked beyond the soldiers to the slope of the hill. And what he saw there turned suspicion to certainty.

The entire Pendari force was charging up the hill, yelling, screaming, waving swords and lances, and shooting arrows, in mad pursuit of the fleeing Rojags. The latter had almost vanished over the hill, but the Pendari showed no signs of slowing. The whole hillside was hazed with the dust raised by the hooves of their horses. Even the Pendari who had been in the village, who should have been responding to Blade's call, were pounding away into the distance.

Blade looked behind him to see if the rear offered a way out. The Lanyri were just as thick and looked just as ready there. But beyond them Blade saw half a dozen Pendari he recognized as members of his guard. He raised his voice in another below.

«Halloooo! Guards! To me, to me!» Desperate as he was, he would not shout out the name of the Pendarnoth in the hearing of the Lanyri. If the enemy had the slightest doubt of his identity, he wanted to leave them doubting.

The Pendari heard him. They wheeled their horses in a wide circle and nocked arrows to their bows. The Lanyri, however, promptly lowered their heads and raised their shields to form a solid leather roof over their ranks. Blade shook his head. Half a dozen Pendari could do nothing against the well-protected Lanyri flanks merely by shooting arrows at them. They would have to press home a charge.

Three flights of arrows whistled down onto the Lanyri shield-roof before the Pendari saw what Blade had already seen. They had no horns with them, but Blade faintly heard their senior man shouting as he wheeled his men into line. Blade backed his horse up until he was just outside sword range of the Lanyri at the other end of the street. He wanted as much room to pick up speed as possible, and he was willing to gamble that Lanyri orders were to take him alive. It seemed likely. If they had wanted him dead, they could have put two dozen spears into him five minutes ago.

The Pendari were lined up now. Blade could see the horses pawing at the ground as the riders' excitement communicated itself to their mounts. Then the senior man barked a single word, and all six men plunged forward. At the same moment Blade kicked his horse into motion, charging down on the Lanyri.

It almost worked. Blade saw the line of spears waver for a moment, but then it steadied. The first line of Lanyri dropped to their knees, still holding their spears out. In a single precise sequence of motions, the second line dropped their shields, drew back their right arms, and threw their spears over the heads of the first line. At the same moment the volley of spears struck the charging Pendari, Blade struck the other side of the Lanyri lines.

If the soldiers facing him had been two seconds slower raising their spears, Blade would have plowed straight into their unprotected ranks. But the gleaming metal points flashed up. Blade sawed frantically on the reins, trying to turn or slow his horse. But it was moving too fast. Still at a gallop, it impaled itself on half a dozen points.

Even so the shock nearly broke the Lanyri line. Half the soldiers in the rank facing Blade went down like bowling pins, helmets and shields flying in all directions. Even some of the ones in the rank behind reeled backward. But Blade's horse also went down, dead before it hit the ground, blood gushing from its wounds.

Blade managed to leap to one side as his horse toppled, and to land on his feet, sword swinging. He knew his only chance was to plunge straight at the Lanyri. Perhaps he could cut his way through their ranks before they recovered from the shock. He charged.

He sprang into the gap in the line his horse had broken. His sword lashed out to either side and ahead in a deadly pattern. His blows clanged uselessly, jarringly, off Lanyri helmets and shields. He had to leap backward to avoid their sword thrusts. Lanyri swords were short, less than two feet long, which made them deadly for thrusting, deadly in this type of close fighting.

Blade came in again, and this time one of his sword slashes was deflected by the top of a shield into an enemy throat. Blade snatched the man's sword from his sagging hand and used it to thrust into a second man's thigh. Now there was a wider gap in the Lanyri line facing him and he hurled himself into it, both swords flashing. Two more men in front of him went down, and a third on his left. But from both sides other Lanyri were crowding around him. He could not fight so many on all sides, not with those deadly, thrusting, short swords. If he stayed in close, sooner or later someone was going to get a thrust into him. Whether or not they planned to take him prisoner, there could always be mistakes.

Again he backed away. As he did so, a man whose steel breast plate was silvered stepped out into the open.

«Ho, Pendarnoth!»

Blade frowned. So they did know his name. «What is this hailing me as the Pendarnoth?»

The officer threw his head back and laughed. «Don't play the fool, friend. You are indeed the man hailed by those dirty Pendari as their Father, the Pendarnoth. If we weren't sure you were the Pendarnoth, you'd have been dead ten minutes ago. My men have strict orders from General Ornilan to take you alive. How much alive he didn't say though. You'll be better off if you surrender now. Most of your men have run off and we've killed the ones who didn't.» He pointed behind him, and Blade saw that all six of the guardsmen lay dead on the ground, drilled through by Lanyri spears. So did five of their horses. «Well?» the officer barked.

Blade thought fast. He didn't know what reason the Lanyri had to keep him alive. But if they were going to do so, for whatever reason, he'd be better off than continuing the fight against this kind of odds. If he surrendered unwounded, there was a better chance of escape.

«Very well,» he said. «I submit.»

The Lanyri officer grinned, and his men ran forward to surround Blade.