by Джеффри Лорд
The creatures were dark green with irregular patterns of grayish-brown stripes, except for white tails and ears. They might look ludicrous, but Blade suspected they would be unpleasantly formidable opponents in battle.
The riders wore chain mail shirts over broad-skirted leather coats and plate leg armor over blue leather trousers. They wore high-crested helmets with jointed cheek-pieces, and all were bearded. All of them had a shield and a light ten-foot lance, and either two swords or a sword and a vicious-looking double-bladed axe with a four-foot handle. The weapons and armor looked well worn, and the men themselves were tanned, scarred, and relaxed in their saddles. They had the stamp of veterans all over them.
So did the men marching on foot. There were about a hundred of them, in two lines. They were dressed like the cavalry, except for the leg armor. All of them carried sword and shield. About half carried bows and quivers, while the other half carried long matchlock muskets and powder horns.
Between the two lines of infantry was a mixed column of men, beasts, and vehicles. There were five small cannon on crude mountings, no more than blocks of wood with wheels attached. There were a score of ox-carts, some piled high with canvas-covered sacks and chests, others rattling along empty. There was a pair of four-wheeled wagons covered with embroidered red curtains. Blade heard female voices and laughter coming from behind the curtains. There were two more low-slung wagons, each carrying four barred wooden cages. Blade heard a hissing sound as the two wagonloads of cages rattled past and thought he smelled a faint animal musk.
In the middle of everything was a palanquin curtained with gilded leather and decorated with floral designs in silver picked out with jewels. In front a pole supported a long banner, pale green, showing a black claw holding a burning torch. Eight heavily muscles bearers carried the palanquin. Except for shoulder pads, loincloths, boots, and ankle chains, they were naked. Two more eight-man bearer teams marched behind the palanquin, under the guard of a dozen soldiers wearing blue-lacquered helmets and silvered mail.
A punitive expedition, a royal progress, a general's tour of inspection, a tax-gatherer's visit, or what?
There were enough men and animals and gear for the party to be any of these things, or several of them at once. He decided to follow them for a while, although he'd keep his distance at first. He didn't want to find out the hard way that these people killed or enslaved strangers on sight.
Whatever the men were and wherever they were going, they were going there fast. The drums thudded, the trumpets blared, wheels banged and rumbled over rock, ungreased axles squealed, hooves and feet clattered and thumped. In a few minutes the whole party was past, and the last rider was disappearing in the mist. Blade waited until the noise started to fade away, then scrambled down to the valley floor and set out in pursuit.
The trail showed poorly on the hard rock, but the soldiers made so much noise that only a deaf man could have had any trouble following them. Blade kept a good mile behind them, out of sight in the mist, stopping whenever silence from ahead told him the soldiers had stopped. Twice he dropped back even farther as the mist lifted briefly. Otherwise he was on the move all day, his long legs easily keeping pace with the soldiers ahead.
The soldiers kept on through the thickening mist of evening until the light was gone. Then they made camp. From the splashing sounds, Blade guessed they'd made camp around a stream or spring. Wearily, he resigned himself to a chill and thirsty night. He decided he'd scout out the camp, though, just to see what more he could learn about these people.
He made his approach two hours after dark and promptly learned one thing. The soldiers had made a circle of their wagons and crept inside that circle like mice into their holes. They hadn't even bothered to post a guard over the spring. Blade took advantage of that, drinking the ice-cold water until his thirst was gone. Then he made a complete circle around the camp, coming so close that he felt he could almost reach out through the mist and touch the wagons. Except for the occasional lowing of the draft animals or the choking snore of a restless soldier, the camp was as silent as the rest of the dark valley.
Blade refused to believe this was sheer carelessness. These men looked like experienced soldiers who wouldn't leave a camp unguarded without some good reason. Either they knew there was nothing prowling the valley by night that could do them any harm, or there was something against which there was no possible defense. That was not a pleasant thought, and Blade found himself looking cautiously around him and taking extra care to move silently.
Then he laughed softly to himself. If the soldiers who knew this land had decided there was no point in losing sleep, he would take his cue from them. He retreated to a safe distance and found level ground behind a large boulder that would conceal him when dawn came. Then he settled down for another night of trying to find soft spots in the rocks.
Chapter 3
The camp woke at dawn with a burst of human and animal voices, drums and trumpets, and the clatter of equipment and weapons. Blade listened, trying to make out what was being said.
He knew that if he made out any words he'd be able to understand them. As he passed into each new Dimension, the computer somehow altered his brain so that the language of that Dimension came to him as plain English-and his own speech came out in the new language. He'd experienced this miracle every time he went into Dimension X, but even Lord Leighton and the Project's best neurologists didn't understand exactly how the miracle took place.
Unfortunately, he was too far off to make out any words. He started crawling closer, but before he'd covered half the distance, the soldiers were marching off again. All he could make out was, «Hud, na, na, ni! Hud, na, na, ni!»-which was probably nothing more than a marching cadence and certainly didn't tell him very much. He settled down to another day on the trail of the soldiers.
After about three hours, the ground began to slope sharply upward. The mist began to thin out, until Blade could look ahead and see two sharp peaks with a pass between them. The soldiers were climbing a slope that rose up to the pass. Some of the cavalry were already riding back and forth across the pass. Blade found cover and waited, listening to the distant cracking of whips and the lowing of the oxen as they were prodded up the slope. When the last rider had vanished around the flank of the peak to the left, Blade left cover and plunged forward. He saw that the pass was unguarded and went up the slope like a long-distance runner.
Ahead of him a gently rolling, sparsely wooded plain stretched away toward a distant line of hills. High overhead he saw a flock of birds, black specks wheeling against a clear sky. Far away across the plain, he could see the flickering banner and the glint of sunlight on armor and weapons. On the softer ground here, the trail was clearly visible-a wide strip of footprints, hoofmarks, and wheel ruts. The ground was still rock-strewn, but now it was almost covered with coarse grass. With no mist to conceal him, Blade had to drop back until he could barely see the soldiers. At that distance he was quite sure they could hardly make out a lone figure stalking along behind them, even if they were keeping a good watch.
Over the next two hours the ground slowly became more and more overgrown with large bushes and small trees. Blade found he was able to slowly close up on the solders with no risk of being seen. He was within three hundred yards of the rear of the party when a village appeared ahead.
The village seemed large and prosperous. Around it stretched pastures, grain fields, orchards, kitchen gardens, and even a vineyard. The village itself was completely surrounded by a stone wall crowned with thorny branches. The buildings inside were either sod or stone, and all had heavily thatched roofs. The smoke from many hearths and fires rose from brick chimneys.
As the soldiers marched past, the farmers working in the fields or pruning the trees threw them brief glances. Then they went back to work, as if the soldiers were no more interesting than a light shower of rain and somewhat less important than an escaped pig.
The closer the soldiers got to the village, the mo
re alert they seemed. The mounted men were trying to look in all directions at once, and the infantry marched with their heads up and their hands on their swords. Blade saw men climbing down from the wagons and walking close behind the five cannon.
The soldiers marched out on to a broad area of flat, beaten earth directly in front of the gate of the village. The drums beat a long roll, and the trumpets blasted out an even longer, ear-torturing peal that seemed to go on forever. Blade listened from behind a wall in the orchard, less than a hundred yards away. He half expected the village wall to collapse from the sheer volume of noise, like the walls of Jericho and Joshua's trumpets.
The noise-it could hardly be called music-died away. By now the infantry was drawn up in two lines, the musketeers in front and the archers in back. The wagons stood behind the infantry, and the cannon rested on either flank. Gunners stood behind each of the cannon, lighted matches in their hands. The cavalry was riding around the village at a slow trot, their shields on their arms and their lances held ready for action.
The curtains of the palanquin opened, and its occupant climbed out. Blade could see that he was more than six feet tall and wore a blue robe with a white sash. He carried a golden helmet under one arm and had a long curved sword slung across his back. He put on the helmet and appeared to be closely examining the village. The gate was still tightly closed. The man drew his sword, waved it, at the wall, and shouted loudly:
«In the name of the Shoba, as Aygoon of the Tribute, I call the village of Hores to the business of the day.»
There was no response. The Aygoon repeated the summons, shouting louder and waving the sword more vigorously. Still silence. He did everything a third time, and this time he looked to Blade as if he were about to have a fit.
Without a word the Aygoon waved his sword at one of the cannon. The gunner thrust his match into the touchhole, and the gun went off with a whooomp and a thick cloud of white smoke. Dust and stone chips flew from the village wall where the shot struck. The Aygoon waited for the dust to clear, then waved his sword at another cannon.
Whooomp! Whooomp! Whooomp! Three cannon went off in rapid succession, and all three balls struck the same section of wall as the first one. The wall shivered, and a six-foot section of the crest went down with a crash and a rumble. A final shot from the last gun smashed one of the hinges of the gate.
Blade heard angry shouts from inside the wall, but the gate remained closed. Some of the archers stepped forward and sent arrows arching over the wall into the village. This drew more shouts and a few screams. The archers kept up a low but steady fire until the cannon were reloaded.
Now the gunners unfastened the rear wheels from one of the cannon so that the breech end of the carriage dropped to the ground. The gunner pressed the match down into the touchhole, and the gun hurled a shot clear over the wall to land among the houses. Blade heard even louder screams, this time of pain, and the unmistakable crashing and crackling of a roof caving in.
That ended the defiance of the villagers. Perhaps they'd hoped their stubbornness would make the soldiers hesitate or even withdraw. Perhaps they'd just been bluffing. In any case, the soldiers hadn't hesitated, the bluff had been called, and the cannon were ready to hammer the village into rubble about the ears of its people.
The screams and shouts from the village died away. Then the gate opened, and the people began filing out to face the Shoba's soldiers. Someone in the village began pounding away on a gong. Blade saw the farmers and herdsmen in the fields and pastures drop their tools and staffs and begin running toward the village. Some of them had stripped to loincloths and came in such a hurry that they didn't even bother to dress.
The people of the village might not be willing to face destruction, but they still weren't willing to crawl to their enemies. They came out with their heads up and their faces blank. A few children burst into tears at the sight of the soldiers drawn up before them, but were quickly hushed by their mothers.
At last the whole village was assembled, ready to submit to the Shoba's demands. Blade counted nearly a thousand people, including more than two hundred men of military age.
Now the blue-robed Aygoon stepped forward, and from the ranks of the villagers, their chief stepped forward to meet his enemy. Blade had no trouble recognizing the chief for what he was. He wore only soiled white breeches and sandals, and his only sign of rank was a wide copper band around his left arm just above the elbow. Yet the villagers stepped aside to make a path for him, and although he was a small man, he carried himself so that he seemed eight feet tall. The Shoba might take anything else from his people, but not their pride.
The discussion between the chief and the Aygoon was short, and Blade couldn't hear a word of it. Then the soldiers went into action. They plunged into the ranks of the villagers and one by one hauled out twelve young men. These were promptly dragged off behind the wagons and chained together.
Then the Aygoon clapped his hands together and shouted a single word. A ripple went through the villagers, and the soldiers promptly raised their muskets and arrows. The tension-filled silence lasted another moment; then the chief slowly nodded. Twenty men turned silently and walked back through the gate.
They were back out in a few minutes. Eighteen of them staggered under the weight of bulging sacks of grain. Two carried wooden trays covered with white cloths. On each tray was stacked a pile of small metal bars. Even from a hundred yards away, Blade could not mistake the sheen of pure gold.
The men laid the sacks and the gold at the feet of the Aygoon and stepped back. The Aygoon tapped each bag and the two stacks of gold with his sword, nodded, and started to turn away. Blade could almost feel the tension go out of the air. In spite of the ominous beginning, the day's business was ending peacefully. The Shoba's men weren't the type to provoke a fight purely for their own amusement-just about what Blade would have expected if they were as well-trained as they seemed to be.
Then, in a single moment, the peace came in an end. A small head appeared over the top of the wall in the middle of the section battered by the cannon. The child seemed to recognize somebody among the twelve young men now shackled to the wagons and let out a shrill scream. The Aygoon shouted and dropped into a fighting stance, sword raised in both hands. Then he shouted again, and half a dozen of the musketeers raised their weapons and let fly. Their muskets weren't particularly accurate, but there were enough of them and the range was short. The child's head turned into red paste and dropped out of sight.
A rumble of anger went through the crowd of villagers, punctuated with shrill cries. The rest of the musketeers leveled their pieces, and the archers drew. The chief turned and gestured frantically to his people. Apparently the child's appearance on the wall was a serious breach of one of the Shoba's rules for the tribute-collection days. Only by keeping totally calm could the villagers prevent a massacre.
The angry rumble died into silence. The Aygoon shifted his sword to one hand and seemed to be looking over the people in front of him. Then his free hand shot out, pointing. Again soldiers tramped forward and plunged into the crowd. There was a flurry of movement as they seized someone; then they were coming out into the open again.
They were half carrying, half dragging a slender, darkhaired young woman in a leather skirt and tunic. She cried out as they ripped off the tunic, leaving her bare to the waist.
At the sight of the woman, the village chief quivered all over, as if he'd been struck with a whip. At her cry, he let out a cry of his own, with agony in it as if he'd been stabbed.
«Twana! No!»
The Aygoon said nothing. He merely pointed at the chief. Two of the musketeers came at him, their weapons held high, butt down. The butts swung, and the chief sprawled on the ground, clutching one arm. One of the soldiers kicked him in the groin, and this time there were no words in his scream of agony.
Blade held his breath. He was certain that in the next moment he'd see a bloody massacre as the villagers stormed forward and the soldie
rs let fly with muskets and bows. Without the iron determination of their chief, what would hold back the villagers?
In that moment Blade would have given an arm and a leg for some weapon that could reach across the distance between him and the Aygoon to strike the man down.
There was no massacre. The musketeers and the archers kept their weapons raised. The cavalry assembled on either side of the villagers, set to ride into the crowd with lances out. The Aygoon stood in the middle of it all, his sword raised, not sparing a look for the man on the ground or the woman his soldiers were now loading into one of the red-curtained wagons. Gradually the villagers' anger and will to fight faded away. Still more gradually they drifted back through the gate into the villager or back out toward their fields and pastures.
Blade didn't wait for the soldiers to form up and march off. He crept away from the wall, then ran through the orchard to the fields. He worked his way through the waist-high standing grain until he came to where he'd seen some of the men at work. As he'd guessed, there were clothes and footgear lying scattered where the men had left them. Just as important, there were tools that could be used as weapons. Blade rapidly snatched up a pair of baggy leggings and a goatskin jacket, then a sickle and a six-foot staff of limber, dark wood. He was on his way back into the orchard before the first villagers entered the field. With luck, they'd assume the Shoba's men had carried off the missing articles along with everything else they'd taken and not bother looking for a thief.
