by Джеффри Лорд
The four maids stood as if turned to stone while the steel-clad men tramped toward them. One of the girls shrieked and ran. Her panic made her clumsy. She went down, and shrieked again as two of the men fell on her before she could rise.
Whatever Duskas Mon might lack in brains, there was nothing wrong with his courage. The maid's shrieks drove him into action. Naked and unarmed as he was, he roared a war cry and charged down at the oncoming men. Perhaps he hoped to distract them long enough for Queen Kayarna and even the maids to escape.
Duskas covered only a few steps before one of the men pointed a tube at him and jerked on the «sculpture.» There was a terrible noise, a cloud of white smoke, and a hideous 'plat as something tore through Duskas's body and out his back. He fell on his face, kicked twice, and lay still. In his back Kayarna saw a gaping red hole large enough to hold a man's fist.
Kayarna knew suddenly that she could do nothing for herself or for Tor except run like the wind. Duskas was dead and the maids were doomed. The other three were now trying to run, but the men were hard on their heels. Four of the invaders started up the dune toward Kayarna. They came a few steps through the soft sand, then Kayarna was sprinting toward the trees where the horses were tethered.
She did not throw her sword away, for that would be neither honorable for the ruler of a warrior people nor sensible for a woman who might yet have to kill herself. She took nothing else-not a single stitch of clothing, not a single one of her jewels. She was as naked as the day of her birth as she dashed across the sand, expecting every moment to feel one of the smoke tubes hurling something into her back.
Instead the men coming after her tried to run her down on foot. Their armor and weapons dragged them back as Kayarna's fear drove her forward. She easily outdistanced them, leaped into the saddle of the first horse she reached, slashed the tether with her sword, and dug her bare heels into the horse's flanks. Sand flew up and branches lashed her across the face and shoulders hard enough to draw blood. She ignored the pain and everything else except driving the horse onward as fast as it would go.
Another of the tubes banged far behind her, as one of the men made a last desperate effort to bring her down. Whatever the tube threw came nowhere near her or her horse. Then she was far out of the invaders' reach, galloping along the shore, looking for a place to turn inland. Tordas had to be warned, and more than warned. It had to be prepared to fight these people who had come from the sea, in spite of their steel clothing and hats and their strange smoke tubes that reached out like the arrows from a bow but were something altogether new and terrible.
The Torians soon learned that the people from the sea called themselves the Vodi. They also found many other names to call them, all rude and some unprintable.
Ten thousand Vodi in two hundred ships came out of the sea and landed before Tordas. They fought on foot, so they could not run away from a Torian charge, but they didn't need to. They stood, threw balls of stone and lead from their smoke tubes, shrugged off arrows and lances with their steel coats, and slew Torians by the hundreds with their axes and swords. The Torians fought five battles in fifteen days, lost all of them, and lost ten men for every one of the Vodi they killed or hurt.
Within three weeks of the coming of the Vodi Tordas was surrounded. Food could no longer get in, and the poor who'd never eaten well anyway began to starve. Messengers could still get in and out, but they did no good. None of the captains of the garrisons of the other cities of Tor had any wish to hurl their horsemen against the smoke tubes and steel coats of the Vodi. Kayarna was also sure that some of those captains were holding back in hopes of making a separate peace with the Vodi after Tordas fell and the throne of Tor stood vacant.
Those captains would not have to wait long. The Vodi had other weapons besides starvation to use against Tordas. They had enormous smoke tubes, as long as a ship's boat and many times heavier, hurling stone balls as large as a horse's head and as heavy as a man. The stones crashed into the walls, rolled down the streets, fell through the roofs of palaces, hovels, temples, and shops with a gruesome impartiality. The walls of Tordas would certainly let the Torians beat off any assault as long as they stood. How long would those walls stand, under the battering of the smoke tubes?
Kayarna wondered. She did not show her doubts when she rode about the battered streets. She urged on the captains and the soldiers, consoled the bereaved, saw that widows were fed and orphans were housed in the palace itself. She spent eighteen hours a day awake and most of those hours in the saddle. This not only inspired the Torians, it gave Kayarna herself peaceful sleep at night, untroubled by nightmares of what would happen when the walls finally came down and the Vodi stormed the city.
If the gods had willed it that she should be the last ruler of Tor, then she would at least try to die in a manner worthy of those who'd gone before her.
It was several more weeks before Richard Blade learned precisely what was happening to Tordas and why the Torians would not be attacking the Kargoi any time soon. He had to get the story bit by bit from Torian prisoners.
Naturally these men were reluctant to admit how helpless their land was against the Kargoi. The Kargoi found convincing methods of persuading them to tell all they knew.
When Blade had a clear picture of what was happening to the west, he sat down with Fudan, Loya, and Paor to decide the best course of action.
«The Torians will not be able to hold out much longer. That seems certain. In England we have some experience with smoke tubes such as the Vodi are using. We call them guns. Against large guns no wall can stand, unless it is built specially to resist them.
«So the Vodi are on the road to victory, and in the end they will win without our help. We cannot earn their gratitude by helping them defeat Tor. We can only hurry the day when they will rule all the land to the west and feel ready to move against us.
«If we hold back from aiding either side, the Vodi will still win. It will take them a little longer, but sooner or later they will rule in Tor. Then they will also think of coming east-«
«Why should they do that?» said Paor. «If they have settled in a new homeland that is large enough for them, will they want more land?»
«They have not come across the sea because the waters have risen to swallow their own homeland,» said Blade. «They have come because they think the rising waters have made other peoples weak, and this is a good time to make those peoples into slaves.»
Fudan struggled for words to express his horror. «They-they are monsters!»
«I do not know about that,» said Blade. «I do know that such people will not stop with conquering Tor. Sooner or later they will march and sail against us. Also, a people like the Vodi, who love war, might some day be tempted to ally themselves with the Menel, to gain their help in conquering far and wide.»
That idea made the other three totally speechless for a moment. Then Loya burst out, «No! The gods forbid!»
Blade smiled. «The gods may forbid it, but I think we ourselves can do a better and more certain job.»
«How?» said Paor. Then he answered his own question. «We should go west and help the Torians drive the Vodi into the sea?»
«Yes. If we do that, the Vodi may not come again for many years. The Torians will be grateful, and it will be easy to get them to join with us against the Menel. With the Torians, the Hauri, and the Kargoi all united and given guns, the Menel will not have an easy time of it.»
«That is true enough,» said Fudan. «We will be a thousand to their one, and none of us will be cowards. But what of the-the guns of the Vodi? The Torians have suffered terribly from them. Do you think we can win against them, when the Torians have failed?»
«Yes,» said Blade. «The guns throw their stones by setting fire to a strong powder. The Vodi can only have brought a certain amount of the powder across the sea with them, and they have been burning it rapidly. If they have burned it all, or if we can destroy what is left, their guns will be useless. Then we can fight them in
the old ways, which we know so well.»
Blade was making an educated guess when he said that, and he hoped he'd guessed right. If not, he could be leading the two peoples who trusted his wisdom to their deaths.
«If all this is true,» said Paor, «then Blade has spoken wisely. We shall go west to aid the Torians.»
«We shall,» said Fudan and Loya together. All four of them rose from the table, stepped into a circle, and joined their hands together.
Chapter 24
A hundred-pound ball of stone plunged out of the sky, to crash into the corner of a house in the Street of the Tailors. Half of the house shivered, sagged, and crumbled in a swelling roar of falling masonry and a billowing cloud of dust. The rescue workers moved toward the ruins, their dust-coated faces drawn, their steps slow and shuffling. Not even the eyes of their queen upon them could make them move swiftly. The siege of Tordas had gone on too long.
Kayarna gentled her horse with one hand and brushed the dust from her face with the other. At least horses no longer bolted at the crash and thunder of the stone-belching Vodi smoke tubes. Many of them were so gaunt they could hardly have had the strength; fodder was running short. A few more days and none of the horses in the city would have the strength to charge. A few days after that, and it would be time to slaughter and eat them. By eating the horses that had once carried its fighting men proudly across the plains, Tordas might last another week or two-if the smoke tubes didn't batter it into ruins first.
Kayarna urged her horse forward. As she did, two riders came trotting out of the dust cloud filling the street ahead and reined in on either side of her. She recognized two of the captains who'd been among the boldest in getting messages in and out of the city.
«Your Majesty,» one of them gasped. «We are lost! The wagon people are advancing upon the city. Their army is in sight from the walls. In another hour they will be joining the Vodi, and then…»
Kayarna cut off the man's babblings with a sharp gesture, although a sickening feeling was rising in her too. If the wagon people had indeed come west to join the Vodi, Tordas had only a few more days to live. For a moment she thought she would be physically ill with despair.
Then she straightened in her saddle. Whatever this meant for Tor, she wanted to see it with her own eyes. «Let us go to the wall,» she said. She spurred her horse forward, and the two pale-faced messengers fell in with her escort to follow her.
Richard Blade climbed to the platform set on top of his command wagon and looked at the scene spread out before him. Visibility was nearly perfect, except where the siege guns belched smoke and their shot threw up clouds of dust. He could see every last detail of the situation in front of him.
On his right rose the battered walls of Tordas, the tops bristling with defenders. A thin line of Vodi mounted on captured Torian horses was thrown completely around the city. These men could watch the gates, intercept messengers, and warn of the Torians trying to come out. They were not strong enough to do much more.
In the center, the Vodi had a strong siege camp, where their heavy guns blazed away at Tordas from behind earthworks. The commanders and the supplies might be in that camp, but the earthworks could make it too tough a nut to crack-unless something was happening elsewhere at the same time, to distract the Vodi.
On the left more tents stretched away in an arc toward the beach, unprotected except by a light palisade of stakes. That was the main camp, where the soldiers lived.
Beyond the camps and camp defenses was the beach and the ships. Many boats and a number of the smaller ships were drawn right up on the shore. The rest were anchored in a ragged line stretching for several miles. The Vodi did not seem to be worrying much about an attack from the sea.
All of this was just as Blade had heard from the reports of his scouts. That was good. He'd made his plans on the basis of those reports, and now he wouldn't have to change anything. With an army like this one, enthusiastic but not well disciplined, the fewer changes of plan the better. Changes of plan also took time, and Tordas could not hold out much longer.
The Vodi didn't seem to be moving out to meet him, although his advanced guard was in plain sight. That was as he'd expected. The Vodi were infantry, and infantry fought cavalry by letting the cavalry come to them. That meant he had the initiative for the time being.
So a quick thrust with his own mounted men, to scatter the Vodi watching the gates. That would link up with the Torians, and perhaps draw the Vodi into a hasty move. Once the Torians and their new and unexpected allies had fought a battle side by side, it would be easier to arrange things for the next stage of the campaign. The Torian leaders would be much more willing to trust the Kargoi and listen to their High Baudz.
Blade scrambled down from the platform and leaped into the saddle of his captured Torian horse. He rode at a canter out in front of the mounted troops. There were about four hundred of them-half mounted like him, on captured horses, the other half mounted on drends. Blade waved an arm and heard the sound of horse hooves and drend hooves swell behind him as he galloped forward.
Queen Kayarna reached the top of the stairs and burst out into the daylight. She ran along the wall, ignoring the sentries, leaving her own guards behind, paying no attention to occasional enemy shots whistling past. She ran until she came to the corner of the wall that offered the best view toward the army of the new enemy.
A solid column of mounted men was moving out from that army. Some rode like the Vodi, on captured Torian horses, while others rode the great battle oxen of the wagon people. The horses were slowly drawing away from the oxen, although their captain was obviously trying to slow them down. He was easy to pick out-a huge dark man, riding a horse with almost arrogant skill and handling a Torian lance as if he'd been born with one in his hand. He could not be very wise, though, considering what he was doing. What sense was there in leading a wild charge against nothing but the walls of Tordas?
Kayarna laughed. Were the oxen going to butt down the walls with their heads and…?
Then she stopped, and her eyes and mouth both opened wide, as all around her the soldiers began shouting in wild amazement. The charge was sweeping over the mounted Vodi, and they were going down before it!
This was happening, or her eyes were betraying her beyond all reason. She saw the big captain ride at one of the Vodi and lift him from the saddle with a lance thrust. The man crashed to the ground and was trampled out of sight under fifty sets of hooves. The charge swept on.
Now the captain was thrusting through another of the Vodi, but this time his lance broke off. He dropped the butt, drew one of the wagon people's long swords, and began slashing in deadly arcs around him as he rode on. Behind him hundreds more of his men were coming on, and before them the Vodi were disappearing like morning dew sucked up by the sun.
Kayarna screamed out her triumph and joy, then turned and ran back for the stairs. She had to get into the saddle and ride out to meet this captain and his men. She had to ride out, to see these men sent by the gods themselves to save Tor!
Blade rode at one of the Vodi who was foolishly trying to swing a two-handed axe from the back of a skittish horse. His own sword slashed down, cutting off both the man's arms at once. The arms and the axe fell to the ground on one side of the horse, the man himself fell with a scream on the other side. Blade's horse shouldered the dead man's mount aside and he rode on.
Now Blade found himself free of enemies for long enough to look about him. The mounted Vodi were either down, scattering wildly, or being driven into small clusters. Around each cluster swarmed Kargoi, both mounted and on foot, slashing with their swords and thrusting with their pikes. The Vodi were obviously not horsemen by inclination; their cavalry was entirely improvised. It was fighting no worse than usual for such an improvised force, but no better either.
So on Blade's left the way was open to the gates of Tordas. In the center the Vodi were assembling the rest of their cavalry. Some of these carried muskets, but there were no more tha
n a few hundred of them altogether. They didn't worry Blade.
What did worry him was the mass of men he saw assembling behind the Vodi cavalry. The Vodi were gathering their infantry, two or three thousand at least. It would not be long before they advanced, and most of the Kargoi pikemen weren't up yet. Even when they came, would they stand up against the muskets of the Vodi? Dust and distance made it impossible to tell if the Vodi infantry were carrying muskets, and if so, how many. A primitive army's first encounter with gunpowder was always a chancy business, no matter how much they'd been told about it beforehand. The Kargoi….
Blade suddenly realized that a new cloud of dust was spreading around one of the gates of Tordas. For a moment he thought one of the gate towers or a section of wall had collapsed. Then he saw horsemen streaming out of the gate under the umbrella of dust. They were all riding in a hell-for-leather style rare even among the Torians. A white standard streamed out from a lance held by one of the leading riders.
Blade pulled his mount's head around and cantered toward the approaching Torians. He'd just started when someone among the Vodi also noticed the Torian riders. The enemy cavalry lurched into motion. A few fell off, many grabbed saddles to keep themselves on, but the whole mass went staggering toward the Torians. Blade saw the leading Vodi raising muskets.
Suddenly Blade recognized the white standard floating above the Torian horsemen. It was the royal standard of Tor. One of those charging riders must be Queen Kayarna herself! Blade couldn't understand why she'd ridden out like this, but she had. By doing so she'd given the Vodi a chance at complete victory in one easy stroke, before Tor's new allies could make a bit of difference!
Blade shouted to all the Kargoi within earshot to follow him and spurred on his own horse. It leaped forward, with Blade waving his sword and cursing Kayarna's badly timed courage. Some of the Kargoi followed Blade because they heard him, others because they saw him moving out and wanted to be part of whatever the High Baudz was about to do. Now there were three ragged masses of mounted men all moving across the plain as fast as their mounts would go, heading straight for the common collision point.
