Jeffrey Lord - Jewel of Tharn

Then he was beside her. She was attended by what was left of the Lordsmen. They were few now, and badly frightened, the fight gone out of them.

Not so Isma. She rested in the center of the square, leaning on a lance, a bloody sword at her side. Her helmet was missing and her hair was down around her shoulders, streaked with dirt and blood. Her corselet had been slashed away, and one of her breasts was exposed and bleeding from a long scratch. As Blade approached her dark eyes were enigmatic and her smile was chill. She greeted him.

"You see, my Lord Blade, how my people can fight! Soon we will destroy these barbarian scum."

He regarded her grimly and shook his head. "Not this way, Isma. We must get back into the fort. Quickly! While we can. This way we are fighting Org's battle!"

Another salvo of shrapnel from the catapults sprayed through the square. A Lordsman screamed and fell with half his face gone.

Isma did not flinch. She stared at Blade in defiance. With her hair wild around her she looked like a beautiful bloody witch.

"I will not, Blade. I stand here. Here we fight. Here we win, or perish!"

Org's main reserve had not yet come into the attack. His bowmen, what few were left, poured a desultory fire into the square that was not nearly so damaging as the catapults. The war chariots had wheeled out far to the left and halted, still in crescent formation.

Blade ran it all through his mind in a split instant and made his plans. There was still a chance.

Now he pointed to where some half-dozen of the women, wounded or dead, had been dragged into the Pethcine ranks and were being raped. There was no system about it, no order, and Org, if he even noticed, did not seem to mind this contravention of discipline. The women had been stripped of their armor and lay naked on the plain. Some moved, writhed, showing signs of life. Some were obviously dead. It made no difference to the Pethcine warriors who were so inclined: they dropped their weapons, raped the dead or badly wounded women for a minute or so, then recovered their weapons and got back into the ranks. The moans of the still living women could be heard at times above the battle din.

Blade pointed with his sword. "That will happen to you, Isma, and all your people unless you obey me!"

She glowered at him. "It will not. Nothing can defeat me - I am Isma, High Priestess of Tharn!"

It was useless to argue. Blade knew it. She would not be cajoled. He would have to make the best of it.

He stepped close and seized her arm. She tried to pull away and he was brutal, tightening his grip until she would have cried out in pain but for her fierce pride. One of the Lordsmen, bolder than the rest, stepped forward. Blade glared at him. The man shrank back.

"Very well," Blade said. "We will fight your way, Isma. And the Gods have pity on us. Look. See that?"

He released her arm. She followed his pointing finger. Org had sent a column of Pethcines to get behind them, cutting the square off from the fort and the glacis.

Blade shrugged. "It is decided now. We fight here.

But listen to me, listen well, and there may still be a chance."

Isma, with the fickleness of women, did listen. She had had her way, and she knew that Blade planned well.

Blade loosened the square. He formed six ranks, detaching the Lordsmen and sending them into the front rank, and remained with Isma in the center of the square. The catapults had ceased firing now, for which Blade was thankful, but there was no sign of Xeno. The ceboids on the flanks had reformed and were waiting for orders. The glacis and the plain around the square were choked thick with the dead and dying. Org's column, once it had moved in to cut them off from the fort, had halted and was waiting. Blade noted that many of the savages in that column were wounded or battle weary. He did not think they would attack. Org was running short of manpower and was using his wounded as a cork, to plug up Blade's escape.

The wind had fallen off now and the rain stopped. Rays of faint sunlight fought through the massy clouds and set the Pethcine banners to shimmering. Still the main attack did not come.

Isma sank white teeth into a scarlet nether lip and stared at Blade. "Why do they wait? They are cowards, then? Afraid!"

"Not Org," said Blade with a grim smile. "Be patient. They will come when they are ready."

He gave orders and had a platform of corpses built so that he could see above the battle. He must know how it was with Zulekia and Honcho.

Four bodies this way, four bodies that, then another cross-hatching of dead women and Lordsmen and another, and he had a platform. He leaped up and peered in the direction of the Pethcine tents. What he saw gave some slight encouragement. He was gambling that Honcho, to save himself in the bitter end, would try to save the Maiduke girl if Org was defeated. Then he would try to bargain.

So far the gamble was a good one. The horses and drivers were gone now, no doubt pressed into the battle, and Zulekia was staked out on the plain near the tents. The neuter Honcho, peering beneath his hand at the square, was pacing anxiously to and fro. Blade's smile was cold. Honcho was a worried neuter! He could not know when, or if, Blade and Sutha would again summon the Power. Until they did Honcho was himself shorn of all technical tricks. If Blade never did have recourse to the Power - and by now Honcho must suspect that such was the case, a thing he would not understand at all - then the Pethcines had to win the day or the neuter was in the deepest trouble.

Blade, peering across the death strewn plain, could almost read Honcho's thoughts.

Blade watched Org step from the ranks and raise a small horn to his bearded lips. Org had found new armor and helmet, and was carrying a new and larger shield. He looked as fat and fierce as ever, and appeared not in the least bit battle weary. Blade extended a reluctant admiration to his foe. Barbarian, savage, yet he was all warrior. He watched as Org began to sound the little horn, wondering at the significance. Why the horn instead of the braying trumpets?

A moment later he understood. Org was playing a little tune on the horn, a reedy, high pitched, simple little strain with four notes. Immediately the massed Pethcines separated and reformed, marching and counter-marching into a new formation. Blade cursed fervently. They were going to attack three sides of the square at once. Blade shot a look at the glacis. There Org's column, set to interdict any escape, was unmoving. It had formed into two ranks, one kneeling with long spears, the other back three paces with swords and a small contingent of bowmen. They would, Blade knew, wait until the square began to break and then cut down those who tried to flee up the glacis and into the fort Org meant to make a thorough job of it this time.

Org was playing a different note on the horn now. Totha brought her crescent of chariots a little closer up behind Org's center. Blade leaped from the platform of corpses and shouted at Isma. She nodded understanding, and in turn gave orders to several of her women officers.

Xeno tugged at Blade's sword belt and made slaveface. Blade growled at him. "You were long enough!"

Xeno clutched at the necklace Blade had given him, as though his Lord meant to take it away then and there. "It was very bad among the catapults, Lord Blade. They would not obey at first, would not stop firing. I had to take harsh steps, summon whippers, before the Maidens would listen to me. Their senses had left them and they did not care where they fired or whom they killed."

Blade nodded and patted Xeno's shoulder. Battle frenzy took strange forms. "You did well enough. Now stand by. I want you always close to me. Understood?"

"Understood, Lord Blade."

And now the time had run out. The trumpets blared their harsh summons and the Pethcine hordes came on for a last attack. Blade watched it with some trepidation and not a little sense of triumph. He had bled them! He had bled them terribly, a fast reckoning made them no more than two thousand odd. Now, if only Isma and her women would obey orders for once, and execute them properly, and if Totha's chariots could be handled.