It was more than two days before the men on the walls of the fort saw Torian banners lifting over the western horizon. The garrison had plenty of time to finish preparing a proper reception for them.
There was also time for Kargoi reinforcements to arrive-three hundred mounted warriors. The men were welcome, although there was no room for their drends and these had to be turned loose, to take their chances with the Torians, A great deal less welcome was the leader of the reinforcements-Rehod.
Some of the scouts had obviously ridden straight off to the man, to warn him that the Torians were coming and the West Fort needed help. If he could get there in time, he would be able to share with Blade the glory and honor to be won in the coming battle.
Blade wasn't too happy about this. It suggested that Rehod was finding at least some warriors of the Kargoi who would neglect their duty and disobey the orders of the High Baudz himself, to help him win glory.
Blade didn't mind it that Rehod would have another chance to make a hero of himself, one he didn't really deserve. He did mind not knowing how far Rehod might carry his rivalry, or how many of the three hundred warriors he brought with him were his personal followers. In the middle of a desperate battle, Blade didn't want to have to worry about getting men under him to obey his orders, or about guarding his back from anybody except the Torians.
Rehod's men settled in, the sun went down, and the night passed, hour after hour of uneasy watching the darkness. No one slept very well. It was like some of the watchful nights by the shore, with one great difference. Whatever else might be said against them and however formidable they might be, the Torians were human.
Dawn came, with the usual display of colors spreading across the eastern sky. They were just starting to fade when suddenly the horizon was dark with the banners and the horses of the Torians.
There were almost four thousand of them, with a hundred wagonloads of gear and several hundred head of cattle. They settled down around the fort and the garrison settled down inside it. Torian archers rode in to within bowshot of the walls and sent their arrows whistling past the sentries. The sentries returned the favor. Few men on either side were hurt.
Night fell again. Blade considered launching a quick raid, to take the Torians by surprise. He decided against it. He had too few men to spare a strong force, and the Torians hadn't shown what tricks they might have up their sleeve.
Instead, Blade simply doubled the guards on the walls and set lighted torches on the railing every twenty feet. The torches were made of drend-hair rope, soaked in naphtha from a pool the Kargoi had found in the forest and wound around a wooden shaft. There were hundreds of the torches ready and many more gallons of the naphtha in bags made from the intestines of the sea reptiles. The Hauri used the naphtha in their lamps, but had never thought of using it as a weapon. Blade expected it would be a disagreeable surprise for the Torians.
The next morning a convoy of empty wagons rumbled off from the Torian camp under heavy escort. The day passed with more exchanges of arrows, and the night passed with more watching by torchlight from the walls.
In the morning the wagons returned. They were piled high with brushwood and several of them carried heavy logs. Blade could see the Torians fitting the logs with crude handles, tying the brushwood into bundles, and unloading dozens of scaling ladders.
The coming battle would be a straight, head-on collision, in which fighting ability, courage, and sheer stubbornness would mean more than any tricks or surprises. It would also be a bloody shambles, but Blade was confident the Kargoi would hold on no matter how bloody the fighting became. The only thing he had to fear was sheer weight of numbers-and perhaps Rehod's treachery.
It was not pleasant, to realize that he could be more sure of the enemy's tactics in the battle than of a comrade's loyalty.
Chapter 20
Another dawn, the fourth since the Torians arrived. A breeze blew across the grass from the Torian camp, bringing with it the smell of wood smoke and roasting meat. The Torians were getting plenty of firewood from the forests to the east, but they must be getting short of food. The fort, on the other hand, held several weeks' supplies.
The Torians' morning patrol was mounting up. It seemed to be stronger than usual this morning-several hundred men at least. Blade scanned the line of blue horses and barrel-chested, bowlegged riders. The average Torian seemed to be about five and a half feet tall, and wore a combination of pigtail and mustache that gave him a distinctly Mongolian appearance.
Each of the riders had a piece of equipment Blade had never seen before-a large square wooden shield, slung on one side of his mount. Blade stared at the shields for another long moment. Then he whirled, cupped his hands, and bellowed, «Sound the alarm! The Torians are attacking!»
His voice carried to every corner of the fort. Men were dashing out of their huts and tents and scrambling up the ladders on the inside of the wall before Blade could repeat his call a third time.
By the time the gongs and drums sounded, the Torians were on the move. They seemed to explode out of their camp toward the fort like members of a well-rehearsed dance group. Doubtless they had been doing more than a little rehearsing, well out of sight of the fort's defenders. As he watched the Torian attack unfold, Blade could not help admiring their skill, even though he realized that skill might mean his death within the next few hours.
The horsemen with the shields headed straight for the fort at an easy trot. Behind them moved more than a thousand men on foot, each two or three men carrying either a scaling ladder or a bundle of brushwood. The mass of men and horses moving forward raised a veil of dust from the dry ground. It was impossible to see through that veil and make out what was happening with the Torian battering rams. Doubtless they would appear in their own good time.
Meanwhile the Kargoi were manning the walls with a rush, each warrior with every weapon he had. As they reached the top of the wall and saw the Torian attack, they began dropping swords and spears and unslinging their bows. One by one they knelt, nocked arrows, and let fly.
In their eagerness the Kargoi opened fire before any of the Torians were within range. The Torians' speed quickly brought them under Kargoi fire, though. The wooden shields were too clumsy to protect a man on horseback, and in any case the Kargoi aimed at the horses. The blue-skinned animals began to go down, screaming, kicking, rolling about and sometimes rolling onto their fallen riders. Parts of the incoming line became ghastly tangles of riderless or fallen or stumbling horses and staggering or crawling or fallen men. Neither the Torians nor their horses died quietly.
The Torians came on, and soon they could dismount and return the arrow fire. With the speed and precision of circus riders, they sprang down from their horses, bows in one hand and the great shields in the other. With shouts and slaps they turned their horses back. The animals dashed away through the oncoming infantry, who opened their ranks to let them pass.
Meanwhile the archers set up their shields on the ground and knelt behind them. The Kargoi shifted their fire, but it was hard to hit a shielded man and nearly impossible to kill him. The Torians would duck behind their shields, nock an arrow, pop up, let fly, then duck down before the Kargoi could fire. They were not shooting very well, but they were shooting fast and furiously. A steady stream of arrows poured over the wall, and Kargoi began to go down as the arrows pierced their reptile-hide armor or found exposed areas of their bodies.