As Blade stepped back from the stiffening body, a pike sailed down from above, slicing into the earth with a thump six feet away. He glared upward for a moment, then he noticed that a slip of white paper was fastened to the butt of the pike. He picked it up and read:
Balcony secured. Main attack force getting into position. Join us as soon as possible. Bryg-Noz.
The signature was unmistakable. Blade turned to his men and shouted, «We've got the balcony. They'll be sending down lifters for us in a moment. Everybody follow me.»
The war party was no threat any more. Half its members were dead or maimed, the other half either fleeing or fled, and demoralized by the sudden nightmare attack out of the greenness. By the time they recovered their nerve, if they ever did, the main battle in the tower would have been decided one way or the other.
Blade waited as the lifters came down one by one, and his unwounded men scrambled into them and rose up toward the balcony. The smoke was almost gone now, and he could see that the railing far above was lined with a motley array of figures. A good many of them were carrying pikes.
When the last of his men had gone, Blade climbed into a lifter of his own. The cord tightened, and the lifter lurched and swayed sickeningly up into the air. Blade held on and swallowed. The battle had not affected him at all-he had seen much worse many times. But the pendulum motion of a rapidly-rising lifter was something he was never going to get used to, no matter how long he stayed in Melnon.
Chapter NINETEEN
Bryg-Noz met Blade as the Englishman climbed out of his lifter on to the balcony. The Melnonian's right arm was wrapped in a crude bandage caked with rust-colored dried blood, but he seemed steady enough on his feet. Certainly his voice was clear enough as he summed up the situation. Practically the whole attacking force was up, and the lifters and reels were being temporarily disabled.
«Why?» asked Blade.
«We don't want any of Nris-Pol's men escaping to other towers. And we don't want any of the other towers sending men over to help Nris-Pol. We want to fight this out among ourselves.»
Blade nodded. «What about the pikes and the Low People?»
«Over a thousand of them have already been armed. We are holding them back for the moment.»
«Why the devil are you doing that?» snapped Blade. «We've got to move fast. There isn't any time for fussing about details, or trying to keep the Low People under control.» He clapped his hands together suddenly as a thought struck him, so loudly that Bryg-Noz jumped in surprise.
«What is it, Blade-Liza?»
«Are the shafts still working?»
«Yes.»
«Good. That means Nris-Pol still doesn't realize how big an attack this is. Otherwise he'd shut off the shafts and let us try fighting our way up the stairs one level at a time. That could take weeks. But with the shafts still running…» Blade turned away, a frown on his face as his mind ran over the possibilities and the risks. Then he turned back to Bryg-Noz. «Can you give me fifty of your best fighters?»
«Fifty? What for?»
«I want to go up the queen's shaft to the queen's chambers and try to take and hold them.»
Bryg-Noz's jaw dropped, but he managed to close it as Blade raced on. «Mir-Kasa is something that Nris-Pol is going to have to defend. Even if he doesn't want to, the warriors will probably do it without his orders, or even against them. Unless, of course, he is planning to kill her…» He saw Bryg-Noz shudder at the thought.
«Either way, my attack should draw a few hundred of Nris-Pol's fighters up to a higher level. There may not be enough left to even hold the stairs, particularly if you let the Low People loose.»
«Let the Low People loose?» echoed Bryg-Noz. «They will-«
«I know perfectly well what they'll do.» Both time and his temper were getting shorter. He raised a hand to mop the sweat off his forehead. «But you've already done most of the damage, by making the attack in the first place. Are you going to hold back from one more step, one that might give you victory, and let all you've done so far be wasted? Are you going to let Kun-Rala's death be a waste?»
That shaft struck home. Bryg-Noz winced, and for a moment Blade could see the man's lower lip trembling. Bryg-Noz's voice was half-choked as he nodded and said almost in a whisper, «And perhaps you will save Mir-Kasa herself, too.» There must have been real affection between them once, Blade realized.
Blade did not have much time to think about Bryg-Noz's feelings. Word of what he wanted had spread around the balcony almost instantly. Men swarmed around Blade, clamoring to be chosen to join him. He could not help being moved by this sign of his reputation, particularly when he was leading them on what might well turn out to be a suicide mission.
With the fifty men behind him, Blade dashed toward the queen's shaft. He knew the shaft cars were large enough to hold at least twenty-five men and still give them room to breathe and even use their weapons. He sent the other half of his party around to the shaft of the warriors, with orders to get off at the level of the queen's chambers. He didn't like dividing his forces this way, but it was either that or try walking up three thousand feet of stairs. And Blade wanted his men to arrive in shape to fight.
The shaft door opened as Blade led the head of his column toward it. He drew both swords, but stopped dead as the First Warrior himself led a column of his own out of the car, into the corridor. Then it was the First Warrior's turn to stop, stare, and shout to the men still in the car.
Blade tossed his short sword into the air, caught it by the tip, and threw it. It drove through the armor of a man just stepping out of the car door. He clutched at the sword suddenly standing out from his stomach, gave a choked, gurgling cry, and collapsed to the floor. His body blocked the track of the door, jamming it open as the men inside struggled to close it. One of them bent to drag the body tree. Blade charged, long sword raised high. It came down, and the bending man's head lolled hideously. Now there were two bodies jamming the door open, and the men inside the car gave up the effort to close the door. They drew their swords and poured out around Blade, yelling incoherently as much in fear as in anger. Their wide staring eyes and gaping mouths made an ugly sight.
But they were too furious or too frightened to be very good swordsmen. None of their wild slashes came anywhere near Blade. He backed away, and as he did so, his own men charged forward and swirled around the defenders. The defenders were outnumbered almost two to one, apart from being frightened half out of their wits. Six of them went down in as many seconds.
The First Warrior made no effort to draw his sword or defend himself otherwise. So none of Blade's men considered him dangerous, or even worth attacking. He stayed alive a little bit longer than the rest of his men, and even began to edge away down the corridor, with his eyes roaming about in a frantic search for escape. Then a great yelling and screaming split the air. Hard behind it came the sound of running feet, as a swarm of Low People came charging down the corridor, brandishing pikes. The First Warrior had just time to throw up his hands and scream- «Nnnoooooooo!»-before the Low People were on him. They knew his love for administering Low People very well. By the time they had finished shoving their pikes into his body, the First Warrior was a mangled mess, lying in the middle of a spreading pool of blood.
Blade took in the sight briefly, considering what it meant. If the people above had sent the First Warrior himself down to lead the counterattack-well, their notions of what was going on below must be even more confused than Blade had thought. And he was going to strike before they had time to sort things out.