Jeffrey Lord - Jewel of Tharn

Blade was tempted. If he could get to Org and kill him it would be all but over. He glanced at the chariots and changed his mind. They were moving now. Not yet attacking, but moving and forming back on the flat plain. Blade put temptation behind him. Stick to the battle plan.

A runner arrived from Isma. Could she sally out and down the glacis? Cut down the trapped and moiling Pethcines?

Blade looked beyond the gray below him. There were still four ranks of Pethcine warriors not committed. He sent back his answer. No.

As an afterthought he said: "Tell Isma to send the Lordsmen if she likes." It was a chance to get rid of some of her bodyguard. The Pethcines would eat them alive.

Isma obeyed only in part. Blade watched as she formed her Lordsmen and sent them screaming down the glacis with herself at their head. Her 926 remained as ordered, sullen and impatient in their square.

By now Org and fifty or so of his men had cut their way through the stakes and wire and were starting up the glacis toward the walls. They met the charging Isma and her Lordsmen head on, with fierce cries of exaltation. Here at last was real red meat for their swords.

It was pitiful. A massacre. Org's sword was a gleaming wheel of light as he ravaged the Lordsmen, hacking through their thin ornamental armor, sending heads spraying like bowling balls. His men did as well, leaping in with howls of bloodthirsty delight.

The Lordsmen were dying fast. Isma, defending herself with more skill than Blade had known she possessed, began to retreat back up the glacis. Org, hewing off a head, then skewering a belly with a thrust, waved his reeking sword and plunged up after her. Blade was off the pyramid in two great leaps and running, sword in hand. He did not want Isma to die this way. Not by his calculated treachery. The Lordsmen, yes, for they were worthless. Isma, no. He did not know how well the women would fight without her.

Isma and two Lordsmen made it as far as the sally port. There they had to turn and defend themselves again. Org and half a dozen of his men closed in for the death. There was uneasy movement among the women, but they held their square and waited.

Org chose Isma for his special prey. He leaped at her, screaming death, his helmet askew and his face shining with sweat and blood\\'85Isma shouted back and lunged at him. Org countered, their sword hilts locked, and Org disarmed her with a twist of his powerful wrist. He showed his black stumps of teeth in an evil grimace and drew his sword back, meaning to transfix Isma squarely between the breasts. Blade was still twenty feet away, running hard.

A dying Pethcine, studded with arrows like a pincushion, stumbled between them with blood pouring from his mouth. He fell, clutching wildly at Org, and Org's sword drove into his vitals instead of Isma's. Org cursed, pushed the man aside, and leaped at Isma again just as Blade arrived.

The huge Pethcinian sword was an extension of Blade now, as much a part of him as his own arm. He parried Org's blow, shoved Isma back out of danger, and backhanded a blow at Org that slashed his helmet in half. Org grunted and retreated two paces, bringing up his shield to ward Blade's next stroke. The shield split down the middle. Org let out a bellow of rage and leaped at Blade, in bad position and wide open for Blade's thrust. Blade would have killed him then but another Pethcine, seeing his King's peril, leaped between them. Blade could not hold back his stroke and put his sword all the way through the man. It stuck there, the dying man screaming and clutching at the steel in him, falling and nearly dragging the sword from Blade's hand. The jeweled hilt was slippery with blood. Blade put a foot against the dead man's chest and pulled, cursing, trying to extricate the sword. Org, seeing the chance, let out a bellow of command and he and four warriors rushed in for the kill.

The sword came unstuck just in time. It glinted and whirled like a live thing as Blade slowly gave ground. One of the Pethcines tried to get behind him. Blade leaped back, feinted for the belly, and laid the man's throat open. He sank to his knees, spewing blood.

Blade kicked him in front of two of the charging barbarians. They fell over him, slashing wildly at Blade as they went down. He beheaded one with a stroke, then rammed a killing thrust through the breast armor of the other. Again the sword was stuck, entangled in flesh and metal and leather. Org was swinging a cruel mace now, a spiked ball at the end of a chain. He whirled it at Blade and the heavy ball mashed the big man's helmet. Sparks flew. Blade reeled in shock and near blindness for a breath, but managed to duck the follow-up blow. He caught the iron ball on his shield and hacked Org in the shoulder, a deep cut. Org shouted defiance and came on.

A Pethcine leaped in on Blade's flank. He backed another two steps and turned from Org long enough to put his sword into the man's groin. He recovered the steel quickly this time, leaving the Pethcine staring down at his ruined manhood, and faced Org once more. Org was not attacking. Org had turned, screaming commands at his men, and was running with them down the glacis. For a moment Blade could not fathom it. Then he was hit and engulfed from behind, by the massed phalanx of the women. Isma's 926, pouring past him in hot pursuit of the enemy. Isma had disobeyed orders and committed her women. There was very little Blade could do about it.

He was knocked aside by the charge of singing, shouting, screaming women. Had he gone down he might have been trampled to death. Blade shouted a hoarse command, trying to stop them and knowing it was useless. The women were caught up in a blood frenzy.

Blade was nearly winded. He was bleeding from minor wounds, sweating, his body armor slashed and torn. There was a great dent in his helmet where Org had so nearly brained him. He would gladly have rested for a few minutes but there was no time. Isma's disobedience had placed his whole battle plan in the direst jeopardy.

Org and the survivors of the charge had fought clear of the glacis now and were reforming on the plain. The women, the phalanx tattering and coming to pieces now, were pursuing. Blade cupped his hands and shouted, cursing like a madman. Isma was playing directly into Org's merciless hands, leaving the sheltering advantage of the forts to fight on the open plain. Blade groaned aloud and started forward. If he could get to Isma in time, take command from her, he might yet avert the disaster that was building. Beyond the moil he saw Org's four ranks of reserves moving into position to attack, and behind them, moving slowly in a wide horned crescent, were the war chariots. Totha was leading them, standing beside her driver and brandishing a spear.

Xeno appeared at Blade's side. Blade was about to give him orders when new disaster struck. The catapults were now back into action, all of them, hurling arrows, balls and chunks, fire and shrapnel into the battle that was beginning to shape on the plain. Isma had managed to get her women into a square, and for the moment was beating back the barbarians, but now the deadly hail from the catapults was falling short and wreaking havoc in the square.

Blade sent Xeno on the run to silence the catapults. He went to join Isma in the square. There was still a chance, if he could get the women back up the glacis and into the fort again. Blade was grim as he made his way through the crowded ranks of the square. It would not be easy to withdraw in the face of constant fierce attack.

Another barrage of arrows from the catapults slammed into the packed square. One arrow gutted three women just beside Blade. They fell, screaming and bleeding and thrashing about, strangely linked together in death. A huge block of teksin slammed four more women into bloody mush. Blade pushed on, becoming more and more alarmed. Isma had formed her square badly. It was too tight.