The Torian Pearls

Chapter 11

Blade spent the day alternately practicing with his weapon and cutting up more bat-birds. By noon he saw Paor making the rounds with a pole-weapon of his own. By midafternoon other warriors were coming around to pick up beaks and talons, while others started cutting up bat-birds on their own. By nightfall half the spare tent poles in the camp of the Red People had been carried off to be made into weapons.

There would still have been another bloody slaughter on both sides if the bat-birds had attacked that night. A hundred warriors stood watch all night, just in case. A few bat-birds flew high overhead, but none came swooping down to the attack.

The next morning a wood-cutting party rode off toward the forest, to cut branches and saplings for weapon shafts. That afternoon Paor discovered that tying a piece of sharp metal to the end of a pole made an even more effective weapon-a proper spear, in fact. The blacksmiths suddenly found themselves being asked to beat points and edges on every bit of scrap metal in their wagons.

A second night went by without the bat-birds attacking. By the next evening several hundred warriors had spears or some sort of other pole weapon. Blade even saw Rehod practicing with a ten-foot pole that had a full-sized longsword tied to the end. He didn't stay around to watch Rehod's exercises. The man glared as though he would much rather use his new weapon on Blade than on the bat-birds.

Everyone had a chance to try out their new weapons that night. The bat-birds came again, twice as many as before. This time Blade himself could clearly see some direction and coordination in their attack. Those who attacked attacked fiercely against carefully chosen weak points. At the same time they held back what could only be called a reserve.

The warriors of the Red People didn't care about any of this. They went into action with their new weapons and a grim determination to avenge their fallen comrades and protect their women and herds. Some of them died, but more of them killed and went on killing until there were no more bat-birds to kill. Archers rode among the drend herds, bows ready. They still could not bring the bat-birds down from the air, but they could often shoot them off the back of a drend before the beast suffered any harm. The women and children huddled safe in the tents or wagons.

There were dead Kargoi on the ground when the sun rose, but there were a great many more dead bat-birds. There were so many that half the warriors of the Red People could have made weapons from their victims' beaks and talons, if Paor hadn't taught them the advantage of metal points.

After that, no one expected the bat-birds to return for some time. The scouts sent on ahead toward the shore came in, reporting that all three Peoples of the Kargoi would have to form a single column to pass along the shore. The hills ahead came almost down to the water, and reached far inland without a pass the wagons could hope to cross safely.

So it was either stay here, or risk the dash along the shore. Before the attack of the bat-birds, there were many who'd thought of settling here, with the plain on one hand and the forest on the other. The bat-birds had changed all that. No one cared to settle in a land where the darkness might hold so much horrible death. They'd got the better of the creatures, to be sure, but was that the only death that stalked by night in this land?

The drends were fat from good grazing. There was food for several weeks in the wagons, and there would be fish and game along the shore. The scouts reported many birds and large herds of the boar-like animals Blade had seen in the forest. Pushing on was clearly the best thing to do.

Blade agreed, but wondered if the land ahead would be much safer than the land they were leaving. If something was in fact directing the bat-birds down on the marching Kargoi, could it perhaps direct something else against them as they moved along the shore? Blade couldn't be sure, nor could he put his doubts and suspicions into words the Kargoi would understand or believe.

The next attack didn't catch Blade asleep, although it came in the same darkness as the attack of the bat-birds. It came as he lay beside Naula in a tent half a mile from the edge of the water. They'd just made love, but neither was so tired that sleep tempted them. They lay awake, exchanging pats and caresses, waiting until time would bring desire again.

Mounted sentries gave warning of the attack, but did little more. Against what came out of the sea against the Kargoi, there was no way they could have done much more.

Blade stretched, and found desire growing in him again, not fierce this time but warm and comfortable. His hand reached out, hovered in the air, and dropped gently on Naula's breast. In the darkness he could sense she was smiling, feeling her own desire rising to match his.

Her hand was creeping across the hard muscles of his chest when a hissing roar blasted out of the night. Blade threw off the furs and started to rise. Naula lay with her caressing hand suspended in midair, frozen into a rigid claw.

As Blade rose, the first roar was echoed by others, too many to count and blending too rapidly into a monstrous sound that beat on Blade's ears like the solid fists of an attacker. A hundred huge boilers all seemed to be letting off steam in a single moment.

Blade jerked Naula to her feet with one hand and picked up her clothes with the other. «Dress and follow me,» he said, bending to pick up his weapons.

As he led Naula out into the darkness, Blade was fully armed with both swords, two spears, a knife, a bow, a quiver. He wore nothing except a padded loinguard and a leather brace on his right forearm. Clothes would only be a burden tonight, not a protection.

In the darkness terror was stalking the Kargoi, terror in the form of sixty-foot hulks of living flesh that hissed and roared, made the ground shake under their weight, and moved steadily forward. A single glance toward the sea showed Blade more than a hundred huge reptilian beasts heading toward the camp, forming a line more than a mile wide, like an incoming tide of armored flesh. Behind the first line he could dimly make out patches of foam as more beasts churned their way through the shallows.

There was fear in the camp, but the fear was not exploding into panic. From the rows of tents on the seaward side of the camp, women ran toward the circle of wagons, carrying crying babies or dragging shrieking children by the hand. Blade knew the beasts coming out of the sea could smash a wagon to kindling wood, but any shelter doubtless looked better than none.

Meanwhile the warriors ran toward the advancing reptiles, brandishing their swords and spears. The craftsmen ran with them, waving hammers and axes. Even the workers were there, with cooking spits and logs of firewood.

It was magnificent courage, but Blade was certain more would be needed before this night was over. Each of the reptiles looked far too strong to be attacked wildly or blindly, and there were far too many of them. Too many warriors would die under teeth and claws, trampling feet and lashing tails.

Who or what wanted things to happen that way? There was someone or something that did. Blade was now certain of that. He could not believe there was any natural cause for this attack. He could imagine natural causes for the sea reptiles gathering together in such numbers-a sudden abundance of food in one place, for example. He could not imagine them coming forward onto the land to attack humans or their livestock, and above all he could not imagine them coming forward in a line as solid and rigid as guardsmen on parade.

Mounted warriors now rode forward to join their comrades. Arrows whistled toward the oncoming enemy as archers let fly. With the darkness and the archers' excitement, not all the arrows flew high enough. Blade saw a Kargoi warrior fall from his saddle, hand clapped to a thigh neatly skewered by one of his comrade's arrows.

Naula was still clinging tightly to him. Blade slapped her on the rump and pointed toward the wagons. «Run!» She looked at him, wide-eyed with fear that was more for him than for herself, then ran. Blade zig-zagged through the confusion of hurrying men, caught the reins of the riderless drend, and vaulted on to its broad back. Gripping the reins with one hand, he got his feet under him and stood on the saddle pad.

Now he could look out across the exploding battle, as the first of the lumbering reptiles and the onrushing men collided. Three of the beasts came on, and a fringe of men suddenly formed around them, spears thrusting and swords hacking at the scaly hides. A crested head rose, with a writhing stick figure clamped in long tangs that dripped blood. Two more men were scythed down by the sweep of a tail three feet thick and twenty feet long. Then the fringe of men broke up and two of the three beasts lumbered onward. The third beast remained behind, down on its knees with half a dozen warriors stabbing at the eyes and seeking out weak spots in the armored hide. Another half-dozen warriors lay still, writhed feebly, or crawled jerkily toward what safety they could find. One lay on his back, hands clapped to his groin, courage forgotten and all his remaining strength poured into an endless agonized screaming.

The beasts' masters had not only formed them into an unnaturally precise line for their attack, they seemed to be filling them with an equally unnatural ferocity. Half a dozen warriors maimed or dead for every beast killed meant the end of the Kargoi, if not tonight then soon.

A bright moon shone now, and Blade could see all along the attacking line and past it to the shore. He could count more than two hundred of the reptiles, of half a dozen different breeds. All were huge, all were hideous, all were moving steadily toward him, driving the warriors of the Kargoi before them. Here and there one of the beasts was down, kicking out its life under Kargoi steel, but there were far too few of these.

At least no more of the reptiles were surging out of the water to join the attack. They were not endless-at least not tonight. Now Blade knew what to do about tonight's attack.

He filled his chest and roared out in a terrible voice, «Ho, Kargoi! Listen! Listen, and learn how to stand against these monsters as you stood against the batbirds!»

When he wanted to, Richard Blade could make himself heard in the middle of an exploding ammunition dump. His voice carried halfway across the battlefield. Men turned to stare at him, and even some of the advancing reptiles raised their heads in bewilderment at the strange sound.

Blade shouted again. «Form lines, two or three of them, wide lines all across the field! Stand with your spears toward the beasts. Stand, and let nothing but death move you! Stand, and let the archers aim at the eyes. Swordsmen, axemen, when they are blinded, strike!»

That was about as complicated a set of instructions as anybody would be likely to hear or understand, let alone follow, in the middle of a night battle. Blade hoped it would be enough to make clear to the Kargoi what they should do.

It should work. The pikemen of medieval and Renaissance Europe had often stood successfully against the massed charge of armored knights. Admittedly, the Kargoi were not trained infantry, and tonight at least they would be fighting with eight- and ten-foot spears instead of pikes twice as long. Also, the beasts coming at them out of the sea were more ferocious than any knight and weighed ten times as much as any horse.

They were also a great deal slower on their feet and hopefully slower in their wits. Whoever drove them on to the attack could not give them speed that was not in their massive bodies or intelligence that was not in the tiny brains inside the thick skulls.

Blade kept shouting his instructions, until his breath rasped in his raw throat, his chest heaved as if he'd run ten miles, and he could see that he was being heard. Ten, twenty, thirty warriors at a time would gather, then spread out into a line. Single lines at first, then double and triple lines as more warriors ran up from the rear or in from the flanks. The short lines grew longer, grew toward each other, formed longer lines of a hundred or two hundred warriors.

These lines were beginning to do what Blade had hoped they would. Where they found the lines across their paths, the sea reptiles were slowing down. Sometimes they would stop or even draw back when they felt a dozen spear points pricking their snouts, stabbing at their nostrils or eyes or into their open mouths. Others would press on, snapping and clawing as ferociously as ever. With warriors all around them, they did not last long. There was always someone ready and willing to strike when a beast was stopped. They struck with spears at the brain, down through the eyes or up through the open mouths. They struck from beneath with whatever weapon came to hand, ripping through the lighter belly scales. They struck at the necks, the flanks, the legs, even under the tails. They struck everywhere they could find a target. Blade heard a continuous drum roll of metal and wood pounding on scaly skin and slicing deep into the flesh beneath it. He also heard the bellows and roars of monstrous beasts in mortal agony. The warriors of the Kargoi were still going down, but now so were the attackers.

Once or twice a reptile plowed clear through a line, to break into the open beyond it and go rampaging among the tents. Blade heard screams as women who hadn't fled in time died in those tents, and hoped Naula had run fast enough and far enough.

Other beasts had the good luck or the good sense to find open flanks where the sections of line hadn't linked up. They plunged on toward the tents and the wagons, heads down and feet churning up the ground.

One of these beasts got as far as a trio of tethered riding drends. With a bellow, one of the drends broke its tether and charged the oncoming reptile. They met head-on, the drend's long horns hooking wickedly, driving the reptile's head to one side. Before it could recover a second drend came lumbering in and butted it in the flank. A full-grown riding drend weighed nearly a ton, and the impact shoved the reptile bodily to one side. Then someone dashed up and drove a cooking spit into one eye, deep enough to reach the brain. The beast slumped down into death and the drends lumbered off, bellowing in noisy triumph.

Blade realized it was time he got into the fight. He'd done about all he could do by standing on the back of a drend and shouting orders at the top of his lungs. Besides, his voice was completely gone.

So he leaped down from the back of the drend and ran forward. A dead reptile lay in his path. He swerved, ran across a patch of ground turned into mud by the beast's blood, leaped over its outstretched tail, and found himself in the rear of a line of warriors. He ran along it until he came to the right flank and stepped into place.

Several of the warriors recognized him and shouted greetings, bared teeth startlingly white in blood-smeared faces. Shouts from farther along the line told of another reptile making its charge. As spears rose into position, it slowed but did not stop. A warrior ran out of the line with a spear and thrust at the beast's eyes. The fanged head swung sideways, knocking the man down. He was unhurt. Before the jaws could close on him, he rolled clear, leaped up, and returned to the attack. Blade dashed forward to join the man.

Blade had to hear what he did after that from other people, who saw it all and marveled at it. He was never sure how much of what they said was the truth and how much of it just a good tale they enjoyed telling about a hero.

The Kargoi said he killed seven of the reptiles himself, helped other warriors kill five others, and drove half a dozen more back into the sea. He was willing to believe them. Certainly by the time he became aware of the world around him again, all his weapons were blunted and he was exhausted, aching, horribly thirsty, and covered with blood from head to foot.

He was less willing to believe that he'd strangled one of the beasts with his bare hands and lifted another completely off the ground, to drop it on its head and break its neck. Other tales of what he'd done were even less believable. It was, however, believable that the Kargoi had won. In fact it was certain.

Except for a dozen of so that had made their way back into the sea, all of the beasts were dead, more than two hundred of them. So were nearly three hundred warriors and a hundred women and children of the Kargoi. A hundred drends were dead, and a thousand more scattered all over the countryside by stampedes. Twenty wagons were smashed to splinters. Blade's idea of forming lines hadn't prevented a considerable toll of casualties, but it had certainly prevented disaster.

The drends were rounded up and harnessed; one by one the wagons rolled out of their circle and headed south. Blade bathed in the sea and climbed into his wagon, quite content not to be asked for any advice at the moment. The only thing he would have advised, the Kargoi were already doing-getting out of here! He fell asleep with his head in Naula's lap as the wagon creaked into motion.