by Джеффри Лорд
«Listen to me!» he shouted again. «Do not heed this man. He would curse you all. What god will aid men who abandon their friends? What god will not curse them? Answer that, any of you!»
«Are the city people our friends?» someone shouted. He sounded uncertain rather than angry.
«Who else?» replied Skroga. «Do you expect mercy from the Protector.» That drew laughter.
«The Forest People-«began someone else. Skroga snorted in derision.
«The Forest People! Many of you were once of the Forest. What do you say to a man who asks you for help, if he deserts friends on a battlefield? What do you think wise chiefs like Swebon will say if you come now?» There were mutterings, and Blade heard at least one man say, «Mebbe he’s right. Don’t much like city people, but if we have to stay….»
Skroga sensed he had the audience shifting toward him. He stepped forward, turning his back to Vosgu as he did so. The man on the barrel acted so swiftly that Blade couldn’t even shout. His sword slashed down, easily cutting through Skroga’s leather cap and into his skull.
I should have killed that bastard when I had the chance, thought Blade. Then he let out a roar that turned every head in the crowd toward him. His arm came up and then his spear was standing out from Vosgu’s chest. The man dropped his sword, looked wildly around him as if he couldn’t believe what had happened, then toppled off the barrel.
Before Vosgu stopped twitching, Blade pushed his way through the stunned crowd and sprang up on top of the barrel. He pointed to Skroga and then to Vosgu’s body. Those gestures were enough to keep the crowd silent as he spoke.
«Skroga, the man we all honored, has been murdered. His murderer is also dead. That murderer was once one of us before he became a traitor and a fool, but Skroga still died fighting for our freedom. For all our freedoms-fighters of the Games, city men, and Forest People. Skroga made no difference among them. Certainly the Protector will not. Can we do less?»
By then Blade knew he had his audience. In only a few more minutes, Blade knew the fighters of the Games would stand by Gerhaa to live or die with the city in battle against the Protector.
Chapter 21
There was plenty of dying before the battle was over, but not immediately. In fact, the two sides settled down to what seemed more like an armed truce than a war.
The Protector’s forces held about a third of the city itself, and all the settled countryside beyond it. The rebels held about two-thirds of the city, including the riverside. The rebels couldn’t break out, but the Protector’s troops couldn’t get in. The rebels’ barricades were as strong as the Protector’s, and while the armed city people weren’t particularly good soldiers, they were desperate. Behind barricades they could fight well enough to delay any attack until the fighters of the Games came up. Then the balance shifted, because one trained fighter of the Games was worth two regular soldiers or three of the Protector’s Pets.
So the Protector couldn’t get at the rebels and the rebels couldn’t get out of Gerhaa. The catapults on the towers along the waterfront kept the Protector’s fleet from closing in and launching an attack on the cliff. At the same time, the catapults of the fleet sank many of the rebel ships tied up along the quays. Blade was very glad he’d sent off Meera and her escort in the first few hours of the rebellion.
Holding the countryside meant the Protector’s men wouldn’t run short of food or water. Fortunately for the rebels, Gerhaa was normally stocked with several months’ worth of food, and they’d captured most of the warehouses and wells. Blade worked out a system of rationing, and he expected it would be at least two months before any of the rebels really started getting hungry.
Unfortunately, hunger wasn’t the greatest enemy. At the moment the Protector was short of reliable men. He had the survivors of the original garrison, both Guard and regular, plus the nobles and wealthy merchants who’d armed themselves. He was keeping most of the latter out patrolling the countryside, since most of them had horses but few of them could face the fighters of the Games in battle. The Protector couldn’t afford to lose men, so he couldn’t afford to take many chances.
All this would change when the fleet from Mashom-Gad arrived with the Protector’s reinforcements. Then he’d have enough ships and men to launch attacks on the rebels in two or three places at once, and enough trained soldiers to match the fighters of the Games. He’d even have enough siege equipment to hammer away at the rebel-held parts of the city for days before he launched the attacks. Blade wasn’t sure the rebels’ courage would survive such a bombardment.
When the fleet from Mashom-Gad finally did arrive, it was closer to fifty ships than forty, and some of them were huge vessels flying the Imperial banner of Kylan. Two days later the rebels captured their first prisoner from the reinforcements, and the situation began to look even more complicated. At least a thousand of the reinforcements were regular soldiers of the Imperial army of Kylan, under one of the Emperor’s toughest generals. They kept very much to themselves, and the regular soldiers of the garrison of Gerhaa were beginning to look to the general rather than the Protector for leadership.
At least the prisoner said so, although Blade wasn’t ready to believe all of it. Prisoners in every war in every Dimension tended to say what they thought their captors would like to hear. On the other hand, the bad blood between the regulars and the Protector’s men was certainly a fact. The arrival of Imperial reinforcements could have made it worse, and if it had-Unfortunately, there was a catch to this. Fear that matters were slipping out of his control could drive the Protector to drastic action. So could a desire to retrieve his rather battered reputation by leading a successful attack on the city.
The race against time was still on. If anything, it was getting tighter. Would Swebon lead the tribes of the Forest People down the Great River before the Protector led his reinforced army against the rebels of Gerhaa?
Swebon heard the drums begin to beat before he stepped out of his hut. As he walked toward the riverbank, they grew louder. He’d never heard so many drums beating all together, and that was no surprise. Never in all the years men had lived in the Forest had so many warriors been gathered together in one place. Never had warriors of all the Great Tribes and many of the small ones gathered together in peace. Never had any warriors gathered to sail upon the Great River and make war against Gerhaa the Stone Village. The night was warm, but Swebon shivered at the thought of what was happening in the Forest.
It did not all begin with Blade, as some of the chiefs and priests and many of the warriors thought. No one saw it at the time, but it really began when the Protectors of the Stone Village began to strike hard blows at the Forest People. Yet Swebon knew that he hadn’t seen that himself before Blade came to tell him, so perhaps everything did begin with Blade after all.
Certainly without Blade, this gathering of the warriors of the tribes of the Forest would not be as it was. They could not hope to travel by night, if he hadn’t taught them to make the sticks against the Horned Ones. There were many of those sticks in each of the five hundred canoes drawn up along the river’s bank tonight.
They wouldn’t have the strong bows, if Blade hadn’t gone into the Forest and found the woods and boiled the kohkol sap. It was unfortunate that there weren’t enough of these bows to give one to every warrior sailing against the Stone Village. The bows were not hard to make once a man knew how. Swebon himself was a warrior, not a carpenter, yet he’d made three. Meera had made two. But with everything else that had to be done, there was only time to make strong bows for one man in four. That might still be enough, because only the best archers of each tribe carried the strong bows.
There would not be warriors of all the tribes gathered here tonight without all that Blade had done. The strong bow was only part of it. More important was his leading the men of the Games of Hapanu against the soldiers of the Protector. He showed to all the Forest that the Stone Village could fall, if the Forest People brought all their strength against it.
If there had not been a Blade to show this, Swebon knew that no chief or priest in the Forest would have thought of it.
Indeed, some of the priests were against all this, even after Blade had shown how it could be done. How many, Swebon did not know. None of the priests of Four Springs village had done anything suspicious since the day Meera returned and he spoke to them. Perhaps this was because of the way he spoke to them.
«One of you has worked with my brother Guno to kill Blade the Englishman, then to kill me,» he began. «In doing this he has worked against the Forest People and for the Sons of Hapanu. He has worked as if he wanted to sell his brothers and sisters into slavery in the Stone Village.
«He is evil.
«But I do not know who this evil priest is. Also, I do not want to punish good men for what evil men have done. So I will do nothing to anyone. But from this moment until I say otherwise, two warriors will be with each of you every moment of the night and day. They will go where you go, see what you see, and tell me everything you do and say. If I learn from them who is the evil priest, he will be thrown to the Horned Ones.»
After that, the priests were silent and most of them worked hard. That was enough for Swebon. Any man who worked hard now was helping to save the Forest People, whatever he did before. Much hard work was needed before the men of the tribes came together at Four Springs village to sail against Gerhaa.
Four thousand warriors were gathered here tonight. Swebon was the high chief over all of them until the Stone Village fell, although he did not lead the greatest number of warriors. But one chief spoke for all when he said:
«We must all follow one man to destroy the Sons of Hapanu, who do the same. Swebon should be that man. He is as wise as any of us. Also, Blade trusts him and he trusts Blade and knows how the man from England thinks in war. This is the War of Blade, so how can we find a better chief than Swebon, the friend of Blade?» No one could answer that question.
With the other chiefs, Swebon spent much time looking at the map Blade sent them. Meera helped them to understand how Blade had drawn it. In fact, at first she understood the map much better than Swebon or any other chief. No doubt Blade told her much, but certainly Meera was a very wise woman.
The Protector would have some of his men on land by the walls of the city, and others in ships on the Great River. How many would be in each place, Blade did not know. He did want the Forest People to send most of their men against the ships. Swebon did not need Meera to tell him why Blade wanted this.
To destroy the ships of the Sons of Hapanu would cut them off from their homeland. The homeland could send them no more men or weapons. The Protector would be at the mercy of the Forest People and the men in Gerhaa. Even if he did not give up the fight at once, the Forest People could go into Gerhaa any time they wanted, with warriors, weapons, and food. The Protector’s enemies would get stronger and stronger, and he would have to give up or die sooner or later.
Before that happened, Swebon knew there would be much terrible fighting. He could not avoid this, and neither could Blade. Both of them could only hope not to lead too many of their people to their deaths. Swebon had a plan he thought would help, and the other chiefs agreed that it was a good one.
Trees stretched close to Gerhaa on the west-not the true High Forest, but thick enough so that the Forest People would be at home there. Some of the best warriors would go into these trees, creep close to Gerhaa, and do as much harm as they could to all the Sons of Hapanu they could find. They would not fight large bands of the enemy, but they would fight with the strong bows, so when they struck they would strike hard. Blade said the Sons of Hapanu did not know of the strong bow, so many would die and others would lose their courage when they faced it.
The Protector would not know how many men were coming from the Forest against him. He might think there was a mighty army. Then he would take men from the ships. When he did this, all the Forest People on the Great River in their canoes would come to attack the ships. Three thousand warriors would strike all together. Swebon did not see how the ships could stand such an attack.
So it would be, if the Forest Spirit allowed it. The Forest Spirit would certainly take many brave men as the price of the victory, and Swebon knew that he himself might be among them. But if they won, and he survived—
If he survived, he would do what Blade asked of him take Meera as his woman. She was wise and strong and beautiful, and their sons and daughters would be chiefs or the wives of chiefs.
As if his thoughts were calling her, Meera stepped out of the darkness. She wore a man’s clothing, with a patch of the skin of a Horned One tied across her breasts. A strong bow and a quiver of arrows were slung across her back. In the dim torchlight she looked like something neither man nor woman nor indeed quite made out of flesh and blood, but something sent from elsewhere by the Forest Spirit.
Swebon knew that she was flesh and blood. He looked forward to the pleasures he would get and give when he took her to his bed. That was one reason why he was glad Blade was going to be returning to England soon.
Meera was the most selfish reason he had for wishing Blade to be gone, but she was not the only one. Swebon meant everything he’d said to Blade about the man from England being a chief warriors would follow. So many would follow him, perhaps, that Blade might begin to think of ruling not only in Gerhaa but in the Forest itself. It would take a fool not to see that this might be, and Blade was not a fool.
Only a fool would also yield without a fight, and Swebon was not a fool either. Without either man truly wishing to be the enemy of the other, he and Blade would sooner or later be at war. Then one or both of them might die, and certainly many men of Gerhaa and the Forest. Nothing would come of all this dying, except to undo the victory they had won over the Protector. That must not be, and perhaps whoever sent Blade his vision knew this.
Swebon laughed and beckoned Meera to follow him toward the waiting canoes. The Forest was large, and it would be larger still when the Protector was thrown down. It would never be large enough to hold two such men as Richard Blade of England and Swebon of the Fak’si.
Chapter 22
Blade was standing by the railing of the balcony at the top of the central tower of the Protector’s palace when the messenger came from Swebon. From the balcony he had an excellent view of Gerhaa in all directions, out to the farmlands to the north and the Great River to the south.
To the north the campfires of the besieging army were beginning to glow in the twilight. They were divided into two groups, a good mile apart. The one on the left held the Protector’s men, the one to the right the regular Kylanan soldiers. He’d heard reports that men had been seen going into the Protector’s camp all day. Certainly there seemed to be more campfires in it tonight than there’d been before.
To the south the Great River shone like dark bronze as the light faded. Lanterns twinkled in the rigging of the ships anchored in the harbor, some almost at the base of the cliff. As Blade watched, he saw something black rise into the air from between the masts of one large ship. It flew high over the riverside wall, then plunged down into the city. Blade heard the crash and could imagine the screams, the clouds of dust and splinters, and the soldiers running to help the victims.
The noose was tightening around Gerhaa, as it had been tightening for ten days. Everyone in the city felt as if the noose was around his own neck. Tempers were getting shorter as the last desperate battle seemed to be coming closer. It was almost impossible to get the men on the barricades to take prisoners now. Blade hadn’t heard what was happening in the enemy’s camp since four days ago.
Another stone flew from the anchored fleet and crashed into the city. Blade winced. In the first few days after the fleet’s arrival, their siege engines knocked down many of the towers on the city’s riverside wall and drove the defenders off the rest. The catapults no longer kept the Protector’s ships at a distance. Even in the fading light Blade could recognize the four ships where wooden siege towers were
rising on the decks. When those towers were finished and the ships filled with soldiers, they would be towed close under the cliffs. Then Gerhaa would be attacked from two directions at once.
What then? Blade was far from certain that the rebels could hold against a double attack. Even if they did hold, the battle would be savage and bloody. It might not leave enough people alive on either side to give anyone an advantage. That would be a victory of sorts, at least for the Forest People. But what about the people of Gerhaa, who deserved better after all they’d endured from the Protector and now from their struggle to overthrow him.
Crash, crunch, thud! Three more stones in rapid succession. This time Blade didn’t have to imagine the clouds of dust rising. Something large must have collapsed. At least the rubble would make good barricades, and the besiegers hadn’t used firepots yet. They probably wouldn’t, either. The Protector’s wealth and that of most of his supporters was still inside Gerhaa. The last thing he’d want to do was risk burning it.
Behind Blade someone coughed, to get his attention. He turned and saw Kuka. The man was red-eyed and even thinner than usual. One arm was crudely bandaged, and Blade knew that arm would become infected if Kuka wouldn’t take time to have a doctor look at it. If there could only be the Shield of Life in Gerhaa. But there wasn’t, so Kuka might very well lose his arm.
Then Blade noticed the man standing beside Kuka, and stared. It was one of the men he’d sent upriver with Meera. In fact, he had Meera’s silver arm ring tied to his belt. He wore a crude shirt and trousers of soaking-wet rawhide, and all his exposed skin was caked and stinking with some sort of grease. Somehow Blade had the feeling the man’s appearance meant good news. He smiled.
«Welcome back, my friend. What does Swebon say?»
Blade and Kuka both listened intently as the man described the army Swebon was bringing down the Great River and his plans for using it. As Blade expected, the plans were sound. Swebon did not have very much to learn about war in general or even about the use of the new bows. No doubt the men he’d sent ashore to make a diversion behind the Protector were the reason troops were going ashore from the ships.
