by Джеффри Лорд
Movement high overhead caught Efroin’s eye, then stopped him completely. A winged shape far larger than any bird he’d ever imagined was coming toward the camp from the direction of the cliff. The thing must be larger than a rolgha! That was improbable enough, but there seemed to be a man hanging underneath it, and that was simply impossible.
Then the impossible birdman was flying over the rolghas, higher than the top of the highest tree. Two black balls dropped from him. Efroin felt his insides turn to ice. Then the balls struck, and two flowers of blue flame blossomed among the rolghas. Efroin heard their screams, and the icy feeling gave way to a flood of nausea.
Lord of the Grass, what do we do now?
Efroin stood amazed long enough for a second birdman to drop his fire among the rolghas. The first one was already passing over the camp, heading toward the river. Behind the first two he saw others, in a long line trailing across the sky to the top of the cliffs. There seemed to be no end of them, and in that line of bird-men Efroin saw terrible danger to his army and the future of Jaghd.
However, nothing is written so that a brave man can’t change the writing if he tries. Efroin shouted, «The Elstani are attacking the rolghas! Every man to the corral to mount and get them to the ford! Everyone! Run, you fools, if you don’t want to walk back to Jahgd!»
More than a hundred gliders had gone off the cliff. Most of the pilots dropped their loads on the rolghas below. Two-thirds made safe landings on the far bank of the river, and some who’d landed on the flatland side were running toward safety. The woodcutters and armed refugees beyond the river were now out in the open, picking up wounded pilots and trying to salvage the gliders. Most of the gliders would be junk after today, but Blade didn’t care as long as their work was done.
Once more he thought briefly of a scene from the far future of this Dimension. A war museum, where the splintered remains of one of the gliders used in the ancient war between Jaghd and Elstan lay in a glass case. People who’d flown to the museum’s city in jet airliners would stand around marveling at the courage of their warrior ancestors and wondering why the young people of today were so lazy.
The gliders were now going off five and six at a time. They’d have gone off faster if Blade had let them, but he knew there wasn’t room for more than that to make their takeoff runs safely. With Daimarz’s help Blade used his voice, his grim face, and occasionally his fists to enforce order. For quite a while he was too busy to pay any attention to what was happening in the camp below.
Then it finally happened-a fuse burning too quickly. A glider and its pilot became a ball of blue flame in the sky. There was a groan from the waiting pilots around Blade. He thought he could hear the burning man’s screams. The ball of fire plunged down, reached out with what seemed sadistic slowness, and touched another glider’s wing. The first ball of fire burned itself out as the second flared up, then two charred skeletons were trailing smoke down through the sky. Blade heard another groan around him as they vanished into the smoke rising from the camp.
Blade looked down, to study the scene carefully for the first time since Fadorn took to the air. The smoke made it hard to see details. All that showed through was some of the brighter fires and the shadowy swirling as thousands of panic-stricken rolghas ran back and forth. Some of them broke and ran for the river, trailing smoke or even fire. Some of these collapsed in smoking heaps, others reached the steep bank and leaped. The surface of the river was slowly becoming speckled with rolghas, mostly dead but a few swimming for the far side.
Blade looked at the men around him. The sight of two of their comrades burned alive in mid-air had shaken them. Then he felt a stronger puff of wind on his cheek, a second, then a steady breeze. He signaled to stop the launching of the gliders, and watched as the smoke canopy over the camp slowly broke up. Now he could see dozens of small fires, as well as the handful of larger ones. He could also pinpoint the Jaghdi campfires.
He turned to Daimarz. «We can stop lighting the fuses up here. There are enough fires down there so that we can just drop the pots.» Coming down from more than a thousand feet, the Living Fire would splatter far and wide. If it splattered into even the smallest spark, there would be as nice a fire as anyone could ask.
Daimarz passed the word, while Blade signaled his own two bearers. It was time he got into the air himself. With his large glider, no pots, and the rising wind he could stay in the air longer than anyone else, possibly even soar to gain more height and land back on top of the cliffs. It would help to have a report of how things looked from the air.
He also knew that he would have gone even if he’d known he was only going to glide down to the river. He couldn’t stand and watch other men die any more than Daimarz could. No doubt it was unfair to indulge himself and keep Daimarz on the ground, but in every war of every Dimension, rank had its privileges.
Efroin knew what was happening now, and also the best way to fight it. He didn’t know why it was happening, but that was a question worth asking only if he and his army lived through the day.
The Elstani had found a way of flying like birds, or at least floating down from the cliffs above the Kettle of the Winds like leaves from a tall tree. As they came, they dropped fire among the rolghas, who were going mad with fear. From what Efroin had seen and heard, at least two thousand were already dead or crippled, or had run off beyond any hope of getting them back.
However, if they could save the rest, the army might survive to fight another day. That day might not come this year, but it would come. So Efroin ran back and forth through the camp, until someone was able to saddle and bridle a rolgha for him. Then he continued his work mounted, surrounded by a slowly increasing band of guards. He hadn’t pulled on his armor before he mounted, in order not to be slowed down. Now he couldn’t take the time, at least not until he no longer had to be everywhere at once. If only Tressana were here!
Efroin rode from the ford to the corral wall and back again, shouting orders for the rolghas to be saddled as fast as possible, for a party of mounted men to go out and ride down the Elstani bird-men who were landing on this side of the river, for another party to support the patrol at the ford.
«Lord Efroin, could I take some of your men to the ford?» asked one noble when he heard this last order. Efroin nodded. He knew that the noble wanted men to help him seize the glory of defending the ford, but didn’t care. If the ford was defended, the glory did not matter, and certainly he could spare the men. He waved to the thirty-odd men on his left and watched them ride off after the noble.
His rolgha was beginning to cough from the smoke. He reined in between two tents and dismounted to look for some water. Then a man stepped out from behind the tent. He was naked, dark-skinned, and held a short spear. With more irritation than fear, Efroin recognized an Elstani prisoner. Were they escaping in the confusion?
Then suddenly the spear was not in the Elstani’s hand, but sticking out of Efroin’s stomach. He looked down at it, then at his remaining guards as they ran past him to cut the Elstani to ribbons. He let his rolgha go. After a moment he felt a dull ache in his stomach, and realized that his feet wouldn’t go where he wanted them to.
Then his world was torn apart in pain, and he heard nothing except screams that he vaguely recognized as his own.
Chapter 21
Blade knew he’d have problems soaring, even with the rising wind, unless he stayed in the updraft along the face of the cliffs. The sun hadn’t been up long enough to create thermals from heated rocks on the ground. As long as he stayed close to the cliffs, though, he would be flying a thin line between stalling out at high altitude and crashing into the rock.
Blade made three complete circles in the updraft, twice skimming within a few feet of disaster. He lost only a hundred feet of altitude, but found it hard to pay attention to what was happening below. Fortunately the wind was still blowing the veil of smoke away, so when he could look down he could see fairly clearly. The Jaghdi were scurrying around franti
cally, but they also seemed to be getting at least some of their rolghas under control.
Then the pilots with unlighted pots started going off the cliffs and dropping their loads. Blade watched the blue flames flare up in a dozen new places every minute. The gamble of dropping the pots unlighted seemed to be paying off. The smoke rose faster than the wind could carry it away, and so did the unmistakable smell of burning flesh. Blade hoped it was rolghas rather than men.
Blade stopped looking down, and instead looked across the river. Some of the woodcutters were moving up to the ford, but not enough to hold it if the Jaghdi really tried to break out. The Elstani would need all the woodcutters and most of the refugees, formed into a battle line.
Time to go on down himself and take command on the ground. The battle was half won, but the second half was going to be much more complicated and dangerous than the first half unless the Jaghdi completely lost their nerve. So far they hadn’t shown enough signs of doing that. He swung his glider into a gentle turn until its nose was pointing toward the river, then straightened out.
As Blade straightened out, he heard a distinct pop, just a little louder than the sigh of the wind or the muted uproar from the ground a thousand feet below. Blade waited until the glider was completely set on its course for the river, then cautiously turned his head from side to side. He saw that some of the cloth was pulling loose from the left-hand reed spar. The stitching must have been faulty. Fortunately the Elstani cloth was much stiffer than anything used in Home Dimension gliders. It should hold its shape well enough to keep him safely in the air for a while.
He was still on the horns of a nasty dilemma. Should he lose altitude fast and risk more strain on the stitching? Or should he let the glider descend naturally and risk its coming unstitched high in the air? He decided to risk a natural descent. Until he got over the river, it didn’t matter if the glider collapsed at five hundred feet or at fifty. He’d hit the ground much too hard from either height. Blade settled down to steering the straightest course he could, to put the least strain on the stitching from any more maneuvering.
He heard several more pops as the glider bumped and jolted its way over the camp. The sun wasn’t creating updrafts yet, but the fires were now hot enough to do so and getting hotter every minute.
By the time Blade was out of the updrafts, enough stitching was gone so that his glider was losing a serious amount of lift. He still had enough control to fly a straight course, but he was sinking rapidly. It was like being on an immense escalator sliding down through the sky. Before he’d covered half the distance between the camp and the river, Blade knew he was never going to reach the riverbank. That wouldn’t have bothered him so much if he hadn’t seen Jaghdi cavalry riding out of the camp to sweep their bank of the river clean of surviving glider pilots.
If there’d been any large band of gliders visible, Blade might have steered for it. As it was, the pilots who hadn’t made it to the river were scattered across nearly two miles of ground. Once a glider was down, it was every man for himself.
So Blade kept his glider on a straight course, trying only to stay out of bowshot of the ground. He didn’t entirely succeed-one Jaghd put an arrow through the right corner of the glider. In spite of this, Blade was able to bring his glider down to a safe landing at least fifty yards from the nearest enemy.
He lay down as his glider collapsed around him, then shifted position carefully. Now he could see the nearest Jaghdi and also be ready to get up in a hurry. The four riders were sitting motionless on their rolghas. The smoke was now drifting out over the flatlands thickly enough to make it hard to judge distances.
Blade took only shallow breaths to keep from coughing from the smoke. If all of the riders came over at once, he’d be in trouble. But if one or two came over, and got close enough
A rolgha neighed as its rider dug in spurs and turned its head toward Blade. The Jaghd pulled his lance out of the saddle bucket but didn’t lower it all the way to striking position. Blade lay still, not even blinking as the enemy trotted toward him. The Jaghd reined in just out of lance-reach. He studied Blade, who tried to keep his eyes unfocused and take the shallowest possible breaths. Then the Jaghd made his rolgha step sideways, leaned out of the saddle, and thrust his lance down at Blade.
Instantly Blade snapped himself up to a sitting position and gripped the shaft of the lance at the same time. The Jaghd neither straightened up nor let go of his lance fast enough. Blade tightened his grip and pulled. The Jaghd lost his balance, fell headfirst out of the saddle, and broke his neck.
Blade nearly stepped on the dead man as he gripped the saddle. He swung himself up and into place so swiftly that the rolgha barely had time to realize its old rider was gone before the new one was holding the reins. Then Blade was putting in the spurs and the rolgha jumped forward, more like a kangaroo than a horse. It was cantering before any of the dead man’s comrades even noticed that his rolgha had changed owners. It kept trying to work up to a gallop, but Blade fought it back to a canter. Both visibility and footing were uncertain. He’d managed to avoid breaking his neck in the glider, and didn’t want to do the job now in a riding accident on the very edge of safety.
The next moment he wondered just how close he was to safety. An arrow whistled past him less than a foot away. Another struck the rolgha in the leg, but fortunately low down where there was nothing except skin and solid bone. Blade had another fight to keep the rolgha under control, and by the time he’d won, the archer was out of accurate shooting range. Now the smoke was on Blade’s side.
He kept the rolgha at a canter as he headed toward the ford. He also let it drift to the right as far as he could, toward the river bank. If he couldn’t break through to the ford he could always ride the rolgha off the bank into the river and swim for it.
He heard shouts and neighings around him in the smoke as he rode, but no more arrows came at him. He suspected the Jaghdi were sufficiently confused so that one odd rider more or less looked enough like a Jaghdi cavalry outfit to be deceptive at first glance.
He was more than halfway to the ford when he saw a line of mounted men emerging from the smoke ahead. He turned even more sharply to the right, and someone, thinking he was a Jaghdi, shouted, «Hey! Where do you think you’re going! Join us!»
Before the man could shout again, Blade put his head down and his spurs in. There were at least sixty riders in the line ahead, and that was too many. Saving a little time in getting across the river wasn’t worth the risk of not getting there at all.
Blade’s gallop should have signaled «Enemy» to the Jaghdi archers. As it was, the idea of an Elstani on a rolgha penetrated too slowly to let them shoot while Blade was an easy target. Arrows whistled all around him as the smoke swallowed him up, and two struck the larger target of the rolgha. It screamed and seemed about to go out of control, but Blade once more fought the animal so that it calmed down.
Then he was out of the smoke and riding down to the riverbank. Once again the sheer novelty of a mounted Elstani helped him. It also helped that more than half the Jaghdi guarding the river were looking across to the other bank. Blade was glad to see that most of the Elstani refugees were on the march toward the ford now. Only a thin line remained along the bank, enough to help escaping glider pilots out of the water.
Some of the Jaghdi had dismounted and were standing around a body on the ground, prodding at it with lances. Blade’s mouth twisted and he rode on toward the bank, hoping that the fallen man was already past feeling pain. Then he saw the man writhing, and saw that under the blood he wore a green belt.
Fador’n!
Suddenly Blade knew that what made sense and what he was going to do were different things. It wasn’t in him to let Fador’n lead the gliders into action, and then leave him to be tortured to death by the Jaghdi! Before he’d finished the thought, Blade’s sword was out of its scabbard and his mouth opened in a war cry that made the men around Fador’n turn. Before they could realize they were in danger,
he was on them.
It would have been a thoroughly one-sided battle if Blade had dared let his rolgha use its teeth and hooves on the Jaghdi. Unfortunately he couldn’t risk having Fador’n savaged or trampled. So he had to keep his distance and use his sword. He split a skull, chopped off an arm, and laid open a shoulder in four strokes, but then another man drove a spear into his rolgha’s belly. Blade knew from its scream that it was not only going to die but was likely to go out of control before it did. He threw himself out of the saddle, landing so hard he nearly lost his sword. The Jaghd was more worried about the rolgha than about its rider, and didn’t take advantage of Blade’s moment off balance. He retreated, dropping his spear and drawing his own sword.
Then Blade regained his balance and raised his sword. The Jaghdi’s mouth opened in a scream that died abruptly as Blade’s sword came down. The Jaghdi’s head toppled from his shoulders and his body fell almost on top of Fador’n. The Elstani tried to get to his feet, looked up at Blade, then fainted from pain and loss of blood. Blade scooped him up and ran for the riverbank. Fador’n’s hundred and forty pounds was a small weight for Blade’s adrenalin-driven strength.
Blade reached the bank where it was ten feet high and nearly vertical. When he saw that, he didn’t even break stride but dove off as arrows started cutting through the air where he’d been. He went almost to the bottom, and lost his grip on Fador’n. The current lifted them both and drove them back together. Blade surfaced with a new grip on Fador’n’s collar, just enough to keep the man’s head above water. With both legs and the other hand, he struck out for the opposite bank.
