Part 11 (1/2)

”I'm not going to waste time thinking, and don't you do it either. Put all the sentries on the alert and give them torches. Get the reserve archers awake and have them ready to man the walls.”

”You-”

”I'm going to take the mounted guards and head for the palace. I'll pick up the extra men I need on the way. Oh, load a dozen or so of our tar barrels into a wagon. I'll want to take them with me.”

”I-”.

”You'll stay here. If anything's happening at the palace, it may still be just a diversion. There could be an attack planned on the walls, if we send everybody off to the palace. So you'll stay here and take care of the walls.”

Blade had forgotten he was addressing the heir-apparent of Morina and wouldn't have cared if he'd remembered. He was almost sure something was badly wrong at the palace. He was absolutely sure that if it was, minutes would be precious, and wasting time in being polite a crime.

Fortunately Zemun was too good a soldier to worry about manners in an emergency. He nodded. ”I'll have them start loading the barrels at once, Lord Blade.” He looked down inside the wall and opened his mouth to shout to the nearest man. Blade pulled him back and whispered fiercely in his ear.

”Don't shout yet. We don't want the whole city awake and in a panic. That could be part of the Wolves' plan.”

If there was an enemy plan, thought Blade as he headed for the nearest stairs to the ground. He still couldn't be sure whether he'd be saving Morina by sounding the alert or just making a complete a.s.s of himself. However, he could survive looking foolish better than Morina could survive an attack by the Wolves.

He went down the stairs two at a time, sprang on to his heuda's back without touching the stirrups, and galloped off toward the quarters of the mounted guards. Behind him he heard the rumble of barrels being rolled across the cobblestones and the creaking as they were loaded into the wagon. The tar barrels were intended to provide light on the walls, and also to be dropped on Wolves. Tonight they might have other uses.

During the night, the mounted guards kept their heudas saddled and ready to go. Half were always awake and the others slept in their armor with their weapons close at hand. All Blade had to do was ride up, dismount, and call softly into the guardroom. The guards came swarming out, the ones who'd been sleeping only a little behind their comrades. All seventy-five were mounted in a few minutes. Blade sent some off to alert more of Morina's defenders and led the rest toward the palace.

The streets of Morina wound and twisted, and houses with high-peaked roofs crowded close on either side. Blade caught only rare glimpses of the bell tower. The third time he saw it, the bell chamber was lit up again, more brightly than before. He watched until the roofs once more cut off his view, but saw nothing moving up there. He did see the ducal banner, now visible around one corner of the tower. It was hanging as limply as a wet handkerchief. No wind had blown out the lanterns.

The clattering hooves of the mounted guards' heudas on the cobblestones brought heads popping out of windows as they pa.s.sed. Blade called out rea.s.surances.

”Stay in your houses., everybody, and keep your doors locked. Get your weapons out if you have any, but leave things to the soldiers for the moment. We'll warn you all the moment there's any danger.”

At last they came out into a slightly broader street between high-walled n.o.blemen's houses. A hundred feet farther on, the street led them into the square in front of the ducal palace. Its walls rose thirty feet above the square, grim, ancient blocks of dark stone. The gate itself looked like a small castle. The torches burning on the gate towers, the sentries marching back and forth; helmeted heads visible above the battlements, the lights in the palace buildings beyond the wall-everything was perfectly normal.

No, not everything. At the foot of the wall lay a sprawled body. It wore the clothing of one of the palace guards, except for the helmet. The torches above cast enough light for Blade to see a dark stain on the pavement under the body.

Blade reined his heuda to a stop and as he did the bolt from a crossbow whistled past his head. A second threw up sparks from the pavement, and a third drilled his heuda through the skull. Blade leaped clear as the dying animal toppled, landed on hands and knees, and leaped to his feet shouting orders.

Battle was joined now, and there was no more reason to be quiet. Blade roared out his orders in a voice that could be heard clear across the square. ”Wolves in the palace! The duke has betrayed us. Mounted guards-back, and block the street. Get the tar barrels into a line and light them!”

His arms danced wildly. ”You--ride to Lord Zemun. Tell him to get the torches lit and man the walls.

”You-ride back to the men coming up behind us. Send them around to block all the streets leading out from the palace. Have them use wagons, furniture, barrels, tear up the cobblestones if they have to. We've got to surround the palace and keep it surrounded!”

More bolts sailed down from the gate to punctuate Blade's remarks. One struck a guard in the arm, nearly knocking him out of his saddle. He cried out, but with surprise and rage more than pain.

”You, you, you-ride through the streets and wake up the people. Tell them the Wolves are in the city and must be stopped. Tell them to turn out, block the streets, light torches and be ready to fight for their lives.” Blade's mind went back to Winston Churchill's call of 1940, when Britain faced a German invasion. ”Remember, you can always take one with you.”

The messengers clattered off into the darkness on their various missions, pursued by more bolts from the gate. The rest dismounted, some to lead away the heudas, others to unload the tar barrels and pile them across the street. Still others broke down the doors of nearby houses and started dragging furniture out into the street to add to the barricade. At first men shouted angrily at the invasion of their homes. Then they heard what was happening and came swarming out to join the mounted guards at the barricade.

They came in their nightclothes or in no clothes at all. Some came with axes and spears, others with improvised clubs, chair legs, or even stones. Some climbed up to top-floor windows and got ready to throw things down on the heads of the Wolves. None of them seemed to have any idea of how to fight a battle except killing all the Wolves they could find. Blade had seldom commanded a stranger or more ragged army, but he'd never commanded one as eager to fight!

Now Blade could hear a growing uproar behind the walls of the palace. Heudas stamped and cried out, men shouted orders, a rumble of voices rose and fell. The Wolves were gathering there in strength, but they seemed to be taking their time about coming out to attack. Blade wondered if they despised the Morinans that much. Surely they could see the barricades rising all around the palace! Did they think they had all night?

Then silence fell behind the palace walls. In the next moment the main gate crashed open. In the moment after that what seemed like a thousand Wolves came charging out of the palace on their heudas.

At the head of the column was a ma.s.s of leaders in full armor, riding almost shoulder to shoulder, their lances raised, pennons fluttering, armor gleaming in the torchlight. They cantered out into the square, the lances dipped, and the whole ma.s.s came thundering down on Blade's force. They were a terrifying sight-a ma.s.sed charge by armored heavy cavalry always is. As he dashed forward with a torch to ignite the tar barrels, Blade wondered if he'd be alone when he turned around.

The torch fell, the tar blazed up, and a wall of flame rose between Blade and the charging Wolves. He dashed back for the cover of the barricade, vaulted it, and shouted to his men. ”Men with spears and lances-line up and hold them out in front of you. The rest-gather on the flanks and the rear. No prisoners!”

Then the Wolves reached the wall of flame, and Blade stopped shouting because he could no longer make himself heard.

The Wolves tried hard to rein in and stay out of the flames. But the first rank, the second, and some of the third were too close, and the sheer weight of their comrades behind them pushed them into the fire. Men and heudas came down like falling trees, and all the screams blended together into one ghastly uproar.

Blade saw a Wolf leader plunge to the ground at his feet and start to get up. Then a pain-maddened heuda reared above him and brought both front hooves down on his chest The armor caved in like tinfoil and the man died writhing and gasping, unable to cry out.

Another Wolf landed face down in the thickest of the burning tar. By some miracle he got to his feet and came lurching toward Blade, flames shooting out from the c.h.i.n.ks of his armor as the tar ate away his flesh, screaming with every step he took. Three spears jabbed the man in the chest, knocking him over. Blade knelt over the fallen man and thrust his dagger through the eyes-lit of the helmet to end the screaming.

A man in a nights.h.i.+rt seemed to go mad, rus.h.i.+ng past the line of spears waving an ax. His clothing caught fire, but he kept on, straight into the middle of the Wolves. ”For Magra, for Magra, for Magra!” he howled, as the flames charred his flesh and the Wolves' swords bit into it. Then his ax came down, sweeping a man-at-arms out of the saddle, and both fell dead. Magra was avenged.

Dead or dying men and heudas piled up along the wall of flame, writhing and twisting, filling the air with screams and the overpowering stench of burning flesh. A few of the men-at-arms unlimbered crossbows and sent stray bolts whistling into the ranks of the defenders. The archers were shooting blind, though, and did little damage.

At last the bodies piled up high enough to make a clear path through the flames at one end. The Wolves turned toward it, found they could not force their heudas over the bodies, drew back, and milled around, apparently uncertain what to do next. Blade wished he had about fifty archers, and thought of sending a message to ask for some from the walls. He decided against it. The Wolves here made a tempting target but it was still too soon to risk stripping the walls.

As he watched the Wolves milling around, a suspicion grew in Blade's mind and slowly turned into a certainty. The Wizard was not here. Perhaps he was not in the besieging army at all, but certainly he was nowhere within sight of this force of Wolves. He was not seeing what was going on, either by view-ball or with his own eyes. So he could not give them any orders. Without the orders they'd always had from their master, the orders that had so often saved them from having to think for themselves, the Wolf leaders could not lead. Without the Wizard the Wolves might not be toothless, but they certainly seemed witless. They could march, burn a countryside, set up a siege camp. They could not fight a pitched battle against opponents who fought back, thought for themselves, and could spring sudden surprises!

It was hard for Blade to believe anything else. The Wizard had fought in many battles, or at least knew how they should be fought. If he'd been giving orders to these Wolves, they would not have waited so long to come out of the palace. They would not have charged blindly straight at the wall of flame and a barricade that might conceal anything. They would not be milling around now like a flock of sheep without a leader.

Morina was going to win.

”Morina will win!” Blade roared. ”Morina will win! The Wizard does not lead the Wolves, and they cannot lead themselves! Stand, men of Morina, and from this night on you will be the masters of the Wizard's Wolves! Stand, kill, and be free!”

”Stand!”

”Kill the Wolves!”

”This is the night of our freedom!”

The cries rose behind Blade, until they were as loud as the screams had been. The surviving Wolf leaders started scrambling down from their heudas, shouting to the men-at-arms to do the same. Holding their lances out in front of them like pikes, the leaders began crowding across the piled bodies, the men-at-arms behind them.

Now the Wolves' archers could no longer fire without risk of hitting their own comrades. A messenger ran up to Blade and shouted in his ear. The other streets were all barricaded; did the Lord Blade wish some of the men there to come around to meet the Wolves here?

”No. We can hold them for the time being. Stay where you are. You'll have your share of fighting before the night's over, don't worry.”

The messenger dashed off. Blade sheathed his sword and bent to pick up an intricately engraved battle ax, fallen from the hand of a Wolf leader. He raised it high and the light of the burning tar flamed across the polished blue steel.

”Men of Morina!” he shouted, and then another rallying cry from Home Dimension's warfare sprang to his mind. ”Men of Morina! They shall not pa.s.s!” Blade whirled the ax over his head, then sent it whining toward the shaft of a Wolf's lance. The lance split in two, the point rang on the cobblestones, and Blade sprang into the gap it left to close with the Wolf.

The Wolf leaders were fully armored and Blade was not. With both sides on foot that was an advantage for Blade. The Wolf leaders had to move eighty pounds of steel with every step they took. Blade carried less than a third that much. He stormed through the ranks of the Wolf leaders as though he was the Wolf and they the sheep. His ax whirled, whined, and smashed down with sparks, the clang of splitting armor, and the indescribable sounds of shattering bones and tearing flesh.

The Wolf leaders tried to surround Blade, but the gap was so narrow and they were so tightly packed together he could block them completely. One Wolf leader did get around Blade, tried to stab him in the back, and was promptly attacked by five Morinans. His mace smashed two of them into the ground, then the others drove him into the barricade. He fell over a jutting chair leg, fell back into an upturned table, and the other three men swarmed over him. He knocked another down with his mace, but the last two got up again and he did not.