By the time Blade had nocked an arrow to his bow the charging Pendari were almost in the village. He took his first shot at a man scrambling onto his horse in the street to his right. The arrow missed the man but stung his horse. It broke into a gallop, thundering away up the street while the man ran frantically after it, waving his arms. Then the Pendari were in among the houses, and with walls on all sides there was no more room to use the bow. Blade drew his sword and raised his eyes to the hill beyond the town. It was dotted with little plumes of dust raised by the horses of the Rojags as they fled pell-mell up the hill. Blade dug his heels into the horse's flanks again and urged it down the street.

As he did so, horns blared all over the village. Not the raucous, bellowing signal horns of the Pendari, but horns with a deeper, clearer note, like great bells. Blade's horse reared in surprise. Before he could spur it into movement again, every door of every house in the village flew open with a crash. The deep horns sounded again. And from inside the houses, Lanyri soldiers poured out at a run, swords drawn and shields up.

The Lanyri infantrymen were trained to perfection. Blade recovered from his surprise within a few seconds, but even that was too slow. In those few seconds the Lanyri had blocked off both ends of Blade's street with a double row of soldiers, and they were doubling that again. In either direction he saw the sun glinting on massed Lanyri armor and weapons.

Blade knew that nothing short of a winged horse could get him past those lines of grim infantrymen without aid. But if the Pendari charged from the other side…

He raised his voice in a mighty shout. «Halloooooo! I'm trapped in the central street! Charge them from the rear!» At least his shouts startled the Lanyri. He saw the formations stir. Then the rear rank of each one faced about. Out came six-foot throwing spears with burnished iron heads, and up they went, forming a bristling row of points facing any possible Pendari charge. But there was no response from the Pendari to Blade's call, not even an answering shout.

An ugly suspicion formed in his mind. Was the whole attack on the village intended as a way of leading him into a Lanyri trap? Certainly the Lanyri must have been waiting in the houses, from the way they swarmed out on signal. A trap, definitely. For him, probably. He looked beyond the soldiers to the slope of the hill. And what he saw there turned suspicion to certainty.

The entire Pendari force was charging up the hill, yelling, screaming, waving swords and lances, and shooting arrows, in mad pursuit of the fleeing Rojags. The latter had almost vanished over the hill, but the Pendari showed no signs of slowing. The whole hillside was hazed with the dust raised by the hooves of their horses. Even the Pendari who had been in the village, who should have been responding to Blade's call, were pounding away into the distance.

Blade looked behind him to see if the rear offered a way out. The Lanyri were just as thick and looked just as ready there. But beyond them Blade saw half a dozen Pendari he recognized as members of his guard. He raised his voice in another below.

«Halloooo! Guards! To me, to me!» Desperate as he was, he would not shout out the name of the Pendarnoth in the hearing of the Lanyri. If the enemy had the slightest doubt of his identity, he wanted to leave them doubting.

The Pendari heard him. They wheeled their horses in a wide circle and nocked arrows to their bows. The Lanyri, however, promptly lowered their heads and raised their shields to form a solid leather roof over their ranks. Blade shook his head. Half a dozen Pendari could do nothing against the well-protected Lanyri flanks merely by shooting arrows at them. They would have to press home a charge.

Three flights of arrows whistled down onto the Lanyri shield-roof before the Pendari saw what Blade had already seen. They had no horns with them, but Blade faintly heard their senior man shouting as he wheeled his men into line. Blade backed his horse up until he was just outside sword range of the Lanyri at the other end of the street. He wanted as much room to pick up speed as possible, and he was willing to gamble that Lanyri orders were to take him alive. It seemed likely. If they had wanted him dead, they could have put two dozen spears into him five minutes ago.

The Pendari were lined up now. Blade could see the horses pawing at the ground as the riders' excitement communicated itself to their mounts. Then the senior man barked a single word, and all six men plunged forward. At the same moment Blade kicked his horse into motion, charging down on the Lanyri.

It almost worked. Blade saw the line of spears waver for a moment, but then it steadied. The first line of Lanyri dropped to their knees, still holding their spears out. In a single precise sequence of motions, the second line dropped their shields, drew back their right arms, and threw their spears over the heads of the first line. At the same moment the volley of spears struck the charging Pendari, Blade struck the other side of the Lanyri lines.

If the soldiers facing him had been two seconds slower raising their spears, Blade would have plowed straight into their unprotected ranks. But the gleaming metal points flashed up. Blade sawed frantically on the reins, trying to turn or slow his horse. But it was moving too fast. Still at a gallop, it impaled itself on half a dozen points.

Even so the shock nearly broke the Lanyri line. Half the soldiers in the rank facing Blade went down like bowling pins, helmets and shields flying in all directions. Even some of the ones in the rank behind reeled backward. But Blade's horse also went down, dead before it hit the ground, blood gushing from its wounds.

Blade managed to leap to one side as his horse toppled, and to land on his feet, sword swinging. He knew his only chance was to plunge straight at the Lanyri. Perhaps he could cut his way through their ranks before they recovered from the shock. He charged.

He sprang into the gap in the line his horse had broken. His sword lashed out to either side and ahead in a deadly pattern. His blows clanged uselessly, jarringly, off Lanyri helmets and shields. He had to leap backward to avoid their sword thrusts. Lanyri swords were short, less than two feet long, which made them deadly for thrusting, deadly in this type of close fighting.

Blade came in again, and this time one of his sword slashes was deflected by the top of a shield into an enemy throat. Blade snatched the man's sword from his sagging hand and used it to thrust into a second man's thigh. Now there was a wider gap in the Lanyri line facing him and he hurled himself into it, both swords flashing. Two more men in front of him went down, and a third on his left. But from both sides other Lanyri were crowding around him. He could not fight so many on all sides, not with those deadly, thrusting, short swords. If he stayed in close, sooner or later someone was going to get a thrust into him. Whether or not they planned to take him prisoner, there could always be mistakes.

Again he backed away. As he did so, a man whose steel breast plate was silvered stepped out into the open.

«Ho, Pendarnoth!»

Blade frowned. So they did know his name. «What is this hailing me as the Pendarnoth?»

The officer threw his head back and laughed. «Don't play the fool, friend. You are indeed the man hailed by those dirty Pendari as their Father, the Pendarnoth. If we weren't sure you were the Pendarnoth, you'd have been dead ten minutes ago. My men have strict orders from General Ornilan to take you alive. How much alive he didn't say though. You'll be better off if you surrender now. Most of your men have run off and we've killed the ones who didn't.» He pointed behind him, and Blade saw that all six of the guardsmen lay dead on the ground, drilled through by Lanyri spears. So did five of their horses. «Well?» the officer barked.