The warriors behind them broke into a run, clumping and lumbering along in their heavy boots, sometimes stumbling and sprawling on the ground. Blade's mind could not help returning to the image of the ambush. If a force of tower warriors was ever attacked in the Waste Lands, half of them would break their necks falling over their own feet before a single sword touched them!
The warriors of the Tower of the Serpent rushed across the last few hundred yards of their tower's Waste Land and reached the edge of the Plain of War. Pen-Jerg called a halt there, and stared out toward the center of the Plain.
From the edge of the Waste Land the ground sloped sharply down to the level of the Plain nearly a hundred feet below. The slope was all grass, thick and as neatly-trimmed as a suburban lawn, in vivid contrast to the yellow coating of the Plain. The grass strip was nearly a hundred yards wide and divided into seven sections by lines of pink stones. Yes, definitely pink. The color at first seemed ridiculous to Blade. Then he realized that against the green it was probably the most visible color not already associated with one of the seven towers.
Five of the sections were already dotted with moving colored specks-people, no doubt, dressed in the colors of their tower. The Serpents' section and the one directly across from it were both empty. Blade noticed that pale green flowers had been planted in the Serpents' section in the form of a gigantic snake with its head raised to strike. In the Eagles' section, on the other hand, was the enormous white silhouette of an eagle. Then as he looked, he saw a line of white specks moving down into the Eagles' section. The opposition in the day's war had arrived. Pen-Jerg raised his hand, and motioned the line of Serpents forward down the slope.
As they scrambled down to the Plain, Blade could not help asking Pen-Jerg one more question.
«Why are the sections of the Serpents and Eagles empty, Pen-Jerg?»
Pen-Jerg apparently recognized this question as coming from legitimate curiosity. «The War Wisdom has it thus, Blade. For it is the great fear that if the people of the towers actually fighting the war were to come to see it, they might become angry when they saw their tower losing. They might run on to the Plain and join the fight, and make the war an uncontrollable slaughter, like the wars you say you have in England.»
«Particularly the Low People, I suppose.»
«What are you thinking of, Blade?» said Pen-Jerg sharply. «You must realize that the Low People never leave their towers. They are not taught to use the lifters or the reels. The Peace Wisdom forbids it. They could only leap from the balconies and die among the stones of the Waste Land below. No, it is the anger of the High People that the War Wisdom guards us against. To fight under the eyes of warriors only from the other towers keeps those actually in the war from violating the War Wisdom.»
«I can see that,» said Blade. «But what if the warriors of one of the other towers favor the victory of one of the warring towers more than the other?»
«That also is against the War Wisdom,» said Pen-Jerg. «That is called an 'Alliance,' and any tower urging it would find itself rejected at once. In fact, it would find itself dishonored, and any of its warriors captured in war would be sent down among the Low People of those who captured them. But enough questions, Blade. We are almost into the War Circle.»
Blade nodded and fell silent. Most of the things he felt like saying were in any case better left unsaid. Obedience to the War Wisdom must be rather precarious, considering how unnatural most of it seemed. That the War Wisdom had endured as basic law among the towers for fifteen generations was a miracle. But perhaps they could be-
Blade shut off that thought. This was the wrong time and place for it. Besides, if the people of the towers were happy with this apparently preposterous system-well, that was their problem. He was not going to try to play games with it, at least not before he knew a great deal more. And in the meantime there was a war to fight-and to live through.
The actual Plain was divided into seven segments by more lines of pink stones. Still more stones outlined a circle about three hundred yards in diameter in the very center of the Plain. As the Serpent warriors jogged toward the circle, Blade saw that its surface was scuffed as if scarred by many booted feet. He suddenly realized that he was within minutes of entering a fight whose rules he didn't know.
«Pen-Jerg,» he said quickly. «Is there any part of the War Wisdom in particular that I must know to fight in this war?»
«The fighting is the simplest part of the War Wisdom,» said Pen-Jerg. «If the Eagles accept that you were properly chosen and can use Kir-Noz's weapons, you will have no real problems.»
«Yes,» said Blade patiently. «I can see that. But how is the war actually fought?»
Again Blade got a look as though he had been a half-wit. «The only way it is lawful to fight a war. Each Tower lines its warriors up in four lines of ten men apiece. The man at the head of each line fights his opponent until one or the other falls. Then the second man in each line fights likewise, and so on. You must use the two swords, and you must not try to get around to your opponent's back.»
«I see,» said Blade. «And how long does this-go on?» He very nearly said «this nonsense.»
«Until all the men on one side have fought, or until one side has won so many fights that the other could not hope to catch up.»
«And the side which yields or runs out of men first loses the war?»
«You understand it exactly. Are you sure the English have never fought like this?»
«Not exactly.» The only people he knew of who had tried to fight this way in real battles were the medieval French knights. And the English longbow had punctured their pretensions, their tactics, and the knights themselves all very thoroughly. He wondered how long it would be before something equally drastic happened to this stylized, rule-bound game the people of the towers called «war.»
Now the warriors of both sides were approaching the center of the marked-off circle. The warriors of the Tower of the Eagle were dressed identically to those of the Tower of the Serpent, down to the last detail. But everything they wore was glossy white, and their commander wore a long white plume in the crest of his helmet.
Two seconds later the commander apparently caught sight of Blade. He shouted «Halt!» and his entire column stopped dead and piled up behind him. Their eyes switched back and forth between Blade and their own commander as he stepped out in front of them and hailed Pen-Jerg.
«What is this-whatever or whoever he is-you are bringing practically naked to a war, Pen-Jerg? And why do you wear the commander's plume anyway? I thought Kir-Noz was to command the Serpents today?»
«He was, Commander Zef-Dron. But he chose to be First on the Ground also. In the Waste Lands he met this warrior, Blade.» Pen-Jerg briefly summarized what had happened. As he mentioned Blade's being chosen to fill Kir-Noz's place, the other commander shook his head wearily.
«When you said this naked-man-had defeated Kir-Noz, I thought you were trying to make a bad joke worse. But you have said that he was chosen, and even given Kir-Noz's weapons. Do you swear this is true, by the War Wisdom?»
«I do so swear.»
Zef-Dron shrugged. «Then I cannot by the War Wisdom go against your warrior's choice. Is he planning to fight as he is-naked but for the weapons?»
Blade nodded. «I am.»
«I think I will not waste time asking where you get the idea you can do this and survive. Your first opponent will slice you into small pieces. But if you and Pen-Jerg wish your life thrown away…» Zef-Dron shrugged again.
Blade grinned. «Do not count your victories-or your surviving men-Zef-Dron, until I am dead. And that may be longer than you think.»