So far, there was no sign that anyone on the ground had even noticed them, let alone fired at them. That was just as well. Blade knew they would have to stay closer to the Looters than he liked until after the bomb went off-or didn't go off. He had to watch what happened and then return to the people to tell the tale. If the defenders would just stay asleep until the bomb woke them up, that was all right with him!
Blade had guessed it would take the bomb roughly two minutes to reach the ground. Before the first minute was past they were racing through the patrol line. On one screen Blade saw a distant flash of purple as one of the patrol machines let loose with its ray. A desperate shot at them, or was the enemy firing at some ghost sprung from his own surprise and nerves?
One minute. One minute twenty seconds. One minute forty seconds. Two minutes. Two minutes ten seconds. Damn it, was the bloody thing going to take forever to fall? Or had it already hit and smashed itself to bits instead of going off? In another min-
Then there was no darkness anywhere, as the sun seemed to rise behind them. Silora screamed and clapped her hands over her eyes as the rear screen dissolved into a searing blaze of blinding white light. Blade shut his eyes and fumbled for the button to cut off the screen. When he heard the switch click over he opened his eyes again.
The plain still showed up with almost daylight clarity in the other screens. Blade nosed upward, so that the shock wave would not slam the machine against the ground.
The shock wave caught them a hundred feet up, throwing the machine nose down and tail up until Blade thought it was going to turn a complete somersault, end over end. Then the roar and rumble was past, spreading out into the darkness that was slowly returning to the plain.
Blade cut in the rear screen again. The fireball was almost gone now. Where it had been a terrible glowing gray white pillar of smoke loomed miles high in the night. The top was already reaching the stratosphere and beginning to spread out in the high winds and thin air many miles aloft. Around the base of the pillar were scattered hunched dark shapes, some of them giving off their own clouds of smoke.
Blade swung the machine around and raced back toward the base of the pillar. Three miles out he stopped. That was close enough to see clearly, not close enough to risk catching too much fall-out or being an easy target if some Looter was somehow still alert and on his feet.
Blade did see clearly, and what he saw was enough to make him turn away again. Not a machine in the whole machine camp could have been more than a mile from ground zero. The ones that hadn't been vaporized completely or melted into slag would never fly or fight again. Less than a hundred yards away a full-sized war machine lay on the ground, flung three miles through the air by the blast, half-buried and half-crushed by the impact of its landing. On one blackened metal side a pale man-shaped silhouette stood out with startling clarity. That was doubtless the shadow cast by a Looter, a Looter who had been standing between the machine and ground zero, a Looter who now formed part of the cloud that towered ten miles above the plain.
A crack Royal Air Force bomber crew might have dropped the bomb more precisely. But any more precision than Blade had managed would have been wasted. Blade's eyes and reflexes and instincts had done all that was needed.
Blade let out a sigh of relief as he turned the machine homeward. He could return to the people bringing word that the first part of their victory had been won this night.
He could also return bringing Silora with him. He could not say that he loved her as he had loved Zulekia. But he could say that he would not have been at all happy to leave her behind as part of that monstrous cloud-pillar.
Chapter 25
Blade's return with news of destroying the Looter machines set off a grand celebration. Only the fighting men and women of the people were now left in the camps around the New City, nearly three thousand of them. It was they who danced wildly up and down the streets, drank up what seemed like every drop of beer in Tharn, dragged each other off into deserted buts and sheltered places to make love. Blade saw Chara leading one of the lines of dancers, waving a sword in one hand and a beer cup in the other.
«They seem to think the war is already won,» said Blade as he watched the celebration from the roof of the King's House.
His son shrugged. «A great victory has certainly been won, as you yourself promised. They are happy about that, happy that now they can face the Looters on equal terms.»
«The terms will not be equal if in their pride and courage they forget what we have taught them,» said Blade quietly. «Even if they can remember, many of them will still die in the battle against the Looters.»
King Rikard smiled. «All the more reason for them to celebrate. For many of those down there this may be the last time they will ever make love, taste beer, dance with their friends. Would you deny them these last pleasures?»
Blade could hardly argue that point. In fact, it reminded him of Silora. He was Mazda, but that did not make him immortal or mean that tonight might not be his last chance to make love.
So he went off to the chamber where Silora lay, and soon they were locked around each other. They did not unwind until the light of dawn and the sound of drums and trumpets told them it was daylight and time to mount up and ride out.
Blade did not leave the New City on horseback. He and Chara and Silora rode in one of the war machines that formed a scouting line well out in front of the advancing people. Possibly the mercenaries would stay where they were, paralyzed by the shock of the bombing. It was even possible that they were right now marching through the dimension door, back to Konis. But Blade doubted it, and Silora doubted it even more.
«The Principal Technician of War is not a fool,» she said. «But he is stubborn enough to seem one. The mercenaries will fight, and fight hard. We must face that.»
That meant the Looter army would have to be found, in all the endless miles of plain. Three of the captured machines formed an aerial scouting line, radioing reports back to the fourth, which flew just above the center of the main army.
There was something strange in aerial reconnaissance for an Iron Age cavalry army. But Blade knew that the plains of Tharn would see even stranger sights before much longer. The coming battle would mix more ages and stages of weaponry and the military art than Blade would have believed possible.
It was a pity that no Home Dimension military historians were ever likely to hear of this battle. He would have liked to hear them trying to explain away all its apparent contradictions and impossibilities. He was not going to worry about those contradictions and impossibilities, however. He would worry about winning, and nothing else.
The Looters were easy to find and not hard to count. There were more than two thousand of them. An army of that size could not be hidden on the open plain even in camouflaged uniforms.
They advanced on a front of about two miles, with their main body in three columns. Behind them came a fourth column, most of which seemed to be unarmed. In that column were also three large machines — a command machine, a large cargo machine, and a gleaming silver ovoid shape.
«That fourth column will be mostly unarmed Peace Lords under guard. They are bringing them along so that their guards can aid the main force when the fighting starts.» That was Silora's guess.
She went on. «The Principal Technician of War doubtless rides in the command machine. The second probably carries ammunition and spare weapons. The oval one carries the machinery for creating the dimension door.»