by Джеффри Лорд
Blade felt himself going down, knew in the same moment that he had to stay clear of both the horse and the snake and hold on to his sword as well, then hit the ground with a crash. His breath went out of him and consciousness nearly went with it. Somehow he rolled clear of the horse’s flailing hooves as it also went down and thrashed about. Somehow he did not roll within range of the snake’s fangs before the panic-stricken horse rolled over it and crushed it fiat.
Somehow, also, the sword flew from his hand and thudded to the ground yards away.
Blade sprang to his feet just as the Steppeman turned his horse and rode toward the fallen sword. Blade lunged at it too. The Steppeman swung his own sword wide, and Blade sprang back to avoid having his belly sliced open. The Steppeman swung his sword down like a polo mallet, catching Blade’s fallen weapon. It sailed glittering into the air and fell to the ground nearly fifty feet away.
This time Blade did not dash wildly toward it. He knew perfectly well that he had no hope of outrunning the mounted Steppeman. The Steppeman would be there first, no matter how often he tried to retrieve his sword. In fact, he would be giving the Steppeman an easy victory by moving along a predictable path.
Blade could not use speed or the power of his sword any more. That did not mean he had no resources left.
There was still his own enormous strength and the element of surprise.
Blade pushed the cheers of the Steppemen and the howls and groans of the pirates and Kukon’s men out of his mind. He concentrated all his attention on the Steppeman, as his opponent whirled his horse around and swung back in toward him. This was going to require extremely fine timing, and he would get only one good chance.
As the Steppeman approached Blade, he slowed his horse almost to a trot. Perhaps he too wanted to put on a show. Perhaps he wanted to slice off Blade’s head with a single neat stroke. Or perhaps he wanted to come in slowly merely so there would be no chance of a miss or a sloppy cut to the chest or arm or belly.
As the Steppeman’s sword swung toward him, Blade fell into a crouch. The sword hissed over his head. Blade sprang up, whirling as he did so. His arms shot out and his hands clamped on the horse’s tail as it swept past him. Then Blade threw himself backward. The horse screamed as it was dragged to a stop in midstride with its tail half pulled out by the roots. It reared. The Steppeman forgot about Blade, clutched his sword with one hand, and tried desperately to get his mount under control with the other.
That was a mistake-the Steppeman’s last one. Blade let go of the horse’s tail. As it settled back onto all fours he vaulted up onto its rump behind the rider. Again Blade’s arms shot out and his hands clamped shut. This time they clamped shut on the Steppeman’s throat.
Again Blade heaved. Both men sailed backward off the horse and landed with a crash on the ground behind it. The Steppeman’s sword flew out of his hand. The horse snorted, shook its aching tail to make sure it was still there, and trotted off, obviously happy to have nothing further to do with this nonsense.
Blade landed with the Steppeman on top of him but almost helpless. The man tried to struggle as Blade’s hands tightened on his windpipe. Then he stopped trying. His eyes bulged out, his swollen tongue thrust itself out between his teeth, and he stopped moving completely. Blade stood up and let the body drop to the ground at his feet.
There was a moment of the most total silence Blade had ever heard, as nearly ten thousand men tried to realize what they’d seen. Then the pirates and Kukon’s men began to cheer. Their cheering swelled from a murmur into a roar and from a roar into a sound that was something tangible, battering at Blade like a landslide.
He started to brush himself off. Before he could finish, Emass ran out onto the field, just ahead of Kukon’s men, led by Prince Durouman. The Speaker for the Seven Brothers was practically dancing with excitement.
«Prince Blade, that was magnificent, that was unbelievable, that was done by the favor of the gods to you and yours. The Free Brothers will stand beside Prince Durouman. Yes, absolutely, they will, now and forever. Oh, yes, it is certain that they will.»
For a moment Blade considered mentioning the Steppeman’s treachery with the snake. Then he decided against it. In the present mood of the pirates, that would lead straight to a pitched battle with the Steppemen. The Steppemen were probably ready for a battle, but the pirates certainly were not. Such a confrontation could very well undo the results of his victory by getting the pirates and himself and Prince Durouman all slaughtered together. Even if they won, the pirates would be weakened, and many hundreds of men would die for no reason.
No one would hear of the snake if he kept his mouth shut. He hoped that the pirates kept a very good watch tonight-and that dawn would see the Steppemen well on their way home.
Then Prince Durouman and Dzhai were each catching him under one arm and hoisting him upon their shoulders. All of Kukon’s men were crowding around, screaming at the top of their lungs, waving swords, spears, and muskets, and beyond them were the pirates making even more noise.
Chapter 23
Blade munched a piece of boiled salt pork on a toasted ship’s biscuit and looked out across the dark water toward the shore. Lights flickered there, cooking fires among the tents of the Steppemen, lanterns in the house of the Seven Brothers, campfires and torches among the huts of the tribesmen, where the pirates were celebrating Blade’s victory and their new alliance.
Blade did not blame them for celebrating. The new alliance meant an end to the terrible feeling of being alone against whatever Kul-Nam might hurl at them.
Unfortunately, it also meant a relaxation of their guard. Blade didn’t like that at all, and he spoke against it as long and as loudly as he dared. He accomplished nothing, and neither did Prince Durouman. In the end both men gave up. Their new alliance might not survive their openly telling the pirates that they were fools.
The pirates were still prepared to meet attack from the sea. All thirty galleys were anchored in a great half-circle, bows pointing seaward. Their guns could easily fire on an enemy approaching from that direction. It would also be easy for them to weigh anchor and row out against that same enemy, as soon as the rowers were back on board.
There was the problem. Tonight at least half the pirates were ashore, drinking beer and captured wine, gambling, wrestling, competing for the favors of the tribal girls and women. Their barges, boats, and fishing craft were lined up three deep along the beach, ready to take them back aboard their ships at dawn. How fast could they regain their ships in the darkness?
Inside the half-circle Kukon lay at anchor. She was in the place of honor, normally reserved for the senior captain’s own ship. There all could see her and no enemy could come at her without passing through the ring of galleys around her.
The honor was flattering, even to Blade and Prince Durouman. It seemed to mean that the pirates were genuinely interested in making this strange alliance work.
It also meant that Kukon lay anchored within two hundred yards of the shore. To both Blade and the prince, that was far more important. Both expected trouble tonight; both expected it would come on land-from the Steppemen.
Neither man could believe the Steppemen would do nothing to avenge their defeat. If they’d been prepared to stoop to treachery to win the duel, they would almost certainly be unprepared to tamely accept losing it. With more than three thousand warriors camped fifteen minutes’ fast walking from the celebrating pirates, they could do a good deal. Perhaps they could do enough to cripple the pirates, making them fatally vulnerable to Kul-Nam.
Not that the Steppemen would really wish to serve the cause of His Magnificence Kul-Nam. They would not be thinking of him or of Saram at all, only of vengeance on enemies who had humiliated them. They would take that vengeance if they possibly could, and in taking that vengeance they might give Prince Durouman’s cause a blow from which it could never recover.
The Steppemen could afford to be indifferent to that. Blade and Prince Durouman could not.
So after the two men failed to persuade the pirate captains to keep their men aboard ship until after the Steppemen had left, they returned to Kukon. There they gave certain orders, and then settled down to wait out the night.
Blade had been waiting in the darkness now for nearly four hours.
«Aaaarrgggh!»
The cry carried faintly across the water. Blade strode to the extreme bow and scanned the shore. He couldn’t see anything unusual. Probably the cry came from a drunken pirate caught in a brawl or trying to—
Blade stiffened. A shadowy figure was stealing along the water’s edge toward the pirate boats drawn up along the beach. Behind it crept at least four others.
Someone on one of the boats shouted, in surprise or as a challenge. Fire flared in the darkness as one of the moving shadows lit a torch and raised it over his head. Then the shrill, yipping warcries of the Steppemen exploded and the shadowy figures darted forward. They moved clumsily, as Steppemen always did on foot. But they moved forward with a furious energy that told Blade all he needed to know.
More shadows were springing out of the darkness along the shore as Blade spun around to give his orders. He did not shout so that he would not warn the enemy. In any case, the key men aboard Kukon already knew what they had to do and were doing it without waiting for Blade’s orders.
To port, twenty sailors were scrambling down into a barge tied alongside. Each sailor carried a bow across his back and a sword in his belt. Oars flashed and dipped into the water, and the barge shot away from the galley’s side toward the shore.
Dzhai and Prince Durouman came running forward along the starboard gangway. Both were armed. In addition to sword and dagger, the prince carried a wicked-looking mace swinging from his belt.
In his good hand Dzhai carried an axe. He sprang up onto the foc’sle, raised the axe high, and brought it down with a chunk! It bit through the anchor cable, and Kukon was free to move.
Prince Durouman turned as his guards came clattering up on deck, gesturing furiously, waving them to silence. Fifteen of the green-liveried musketeers were there. So were the eight surviving guards of the treacherous commandant of Parine. They had begged to be allowed to join in the next fight, to regain the honor they’d lost through their leader’s treason. Blade and Prince Durouman listened to that plea. Now the eight would have their chance.
To starboard a fishing boat was tied to the galley’s side. The men in its bow pulled it in; then Prince Durouman’s party began scrambling down into it. The prince himself waited until all were aboard, then leaped down. He misjudged the distance, landed off balance, and fell with a clatter of armor and an explosion of curses from the men under him. Plenty of noise there to carry across the water and alert the Steppemen! Or rather, there would have been plenty of noise if the battle on shore hadn’t already been making its own uproar.
Blade watched and listened. Flames were already flickering around several of the pirates’ boats. The glow of torches showed where Steppemen were moving among the boats to set more fires. Slowly the light grew.
Around the house of the Seven Brothers moving figures swirled light occasionally playing on swords and armor. From farther back in the darkness came the flashes and bangs of muskets. The pirates were slowly waking to realize what was happening. Would they wake fast enough? Blade doubted it.
He had no doubt at all of what was happening. The Steppemen knew that half the pirates were ashore, so they were sending a small party-perhaps no more than a couple of hundred men-to set fire to the boats on the beach. That would trap all the pirates on shore and keep the ones on board the galleys from sending reinforcements. Then the main force of Steppemen would sweep in on horseback against the trapped and disorganized pirates. It would be a massacre, not a battle.
Perhaps. But suppose a force of tough, well-armed men came out of the darkness to fight the Steppemen among the boats? Suppose the Steppemen were taken by surprise as badly as they’d taken the pirates?
The fishing boat shoved off, sailors and soldiers all manning the oars together. On shore the fires still grew. They seemed to be silhouetting the Steppemen nicely, without sending much light out to sea. Blade grinned savagely.
Behind him he beard an occasional faint thump or clatter as the rowers took their places, but there was little noise. All of these men knew their ship blindfolded, and all of them were entirely sober. The pirates had sent some wine aboard for Kukon’s men during the afternoon, but Dzhai had promptly locked it up.
«Anybody breaks out the wine,» he snapped, «I’ll throw the jug overboard and him after it! Then he can drink all he wants from the sea!» Not even the toughest of the men wanted to argue the point with Dzhai. By now he could do easily with one arm things that most men had trouble doing with two, including breaking the heads of unruly sailors.
Blade raised both arms, then dropped them in a silent signal to the rowers. The oars ran out and Kukon began to move slowly toward the land.
The pirates there seemed to be rapidly awakening now. The shadows around the huts were alive with moving figures, stumbling and lurching and shouting in fear or warning or drunken defiance as they ran. Anybody who wasn’t awake by now might not live long enough to wake up. The Steppemen were moving steadily along the beach, and some of them were also among the huts. Flames were spurting up from at least three thatched roofs, pouring more light over the battlefield but still leaving the water in shadow. The boats from Kukon were nearly in range now. If the darkness over the water lasted just another couple of minutes
It lasted until suddenly the flash and rattle of muskets broke it apart. Between the musket shots Blade could hear the wicked metallic snick of crossbows. Every man in the two boats was picking a target. Most of the men brought their targets down. Blade saw the Steppemen on the beach waver. A ripple seemed to run through them, like grass rippling in a high wind. Then the lines and clusters were breaking up and scattering, leaving dozens of dark forms on the ground. Some writhed and screamed; others lay still.
The men in the boats reloaded frantically. Blade saw one yellow flash, heard one hissing explosion and then a scream of agony as a man set off his powder accidentally. Blade held his breath, half expecting the boat to disintegrate in a roaring explosion. Instead he heard a splash and then another hiss. The burning man had jumped overboard to put out the fire, willing to drown rather than risk endangering his comrades.
The rippling rattle of muskets and bows came again. More Steppemen went down or reeled back. Some were taking cover behind the pirate’s boats along the beach.
The light was bright enough now that Kukon’s two boats stood out clearly. Blade saw the men dig in their oars again. The boats surged forward and ran up onto the beach. Before they’d stopped moving, the men in them were leaping over the sides and wading to shore, holding their bows and muskets high, reloading and recocking as they moved. Blade saw Prince Durouman splashing furiously through the water, brandishing his mace, to take the lead.
Blade looked out to sea. Lanterns and torches now glowed aboard some of the pirate galleys. Drums and trumpets rolled and called out. Boats were putting off from other galleys, but none of them were moving yet. For a while longer the battle against the Steppemen would be in the hands of the pirates on land, with whatever help Kukon and her landing parties could bring them.
Then new sounds joined the uproar on land. Blade caught the unmistakable rapid roll of the horse drums of the Steppemen and behind them the swelling sound of hundreds of fast-moving hooves. The Steppemen were pushing in their main attack. If it struck now, it might sweep right into the pirates’ camp. It would certainly sweep away Kukon’s landing party. Just as certainly, it had to be stopped.
Blade roared orders to the gunners around him. Then he spun around and called out to Dzhai. There was no need for him to speak quietly now-a raging thunder storm would have been drowned out in the crash and roar of the battle. Kukon’s rowers put their backs into a faster stroke without waiting for a signal
from the drummers. The men at the tiller heaved furiously, feet scrabbling on the deck. The rudder went hard over and Kukon began to turn.
As she did, the first line of enemy horsemen swept out of the darkness. They were moving along the shore at a fast trot, eyes forward, swords in their hands, guiding their horses by the pressure of their knees. They were so completely intent on pressing home their charge against their enemies on land that they did not think of the sea, or of what might come from it. So Kukon caught them totally by surprise when she swept out of the darkness and fired her bow guns into their ranks.
All four guns went off together with a flash and a shock that temporarily blinded everyone on the foc’sle and knocked everyone except Blade flat on the deck. Before anyone could rise or regain his sight, Blade’s ears told him that Kukon’s salvo had reached its target.
All four guns had been crammed to the muzzle with every stray bit and piece of matter the ship’s gunners could find. Beach stones, nails, jagged chunks of wood, old musket balls and old muskets-flying death in a thousand shapes tore through the Steppemen. A hideous chorus from screaming men and screaming horses filled the night, nearly as deafening as the blast of the guns, drowning out every other sound just as thoroughly.
Blade opened his eyes and looked toward the land. The details of the slaughter, mercifully, were half lost in the darkness. At least two hundred Steppemen must have gone down. Nearly as many more had fallen as their horses stumbled over corpses or panicked at the blood and mangled bits splattered all over them.
Blade also saw that Kukon was coming up fast on the shore-much too fast. In their enthusiasm to get in close and get at the enemy, Dzhai and the rowers had worked too hard. Before Blade could open his mouth to shout an order, Kukon ran aground with a tremendous jolt and a horrible grating sound as her keel ploughed over the gravel of the beach.