Before he'd stopped blowing, a weird and hideous uproar answered him from behind. War cries of Kargoi and Torians, the neighing of horses, the bellowing of angry drends, and then a swelling thunder of hooves. Blade spurred his horse inland; away from the beach, as the thunder became deafening. He was barely out of the way when the vanguard of a thousand furious stampeding wagon drends pounded past, toward the camp of the Vodi.
Behind the drends, around them, even among them rode Torians and Kargoi on horses and riding drends. They shouted at the stampeding animals, they blew horns and beat drums in their ears, they even prodded them in the rumps with swords and lances. The wagon drends moved faster and faster, angry and frightened at the same time.
The noise of the stampede became deafening; the Vodi in their camp would certainly be hearing it by now. That wouldn't make much difference when the drends reached the camp. They were an unstoppable battering ram of living flesh, like the sea reptiles controlled by the Menel.
A moment's thought about the Menel passed through Blade's mind. What would happen if tonight's defeat drove the desperate and reeling Vodi to ally themselves with the Menel? That was a risk, but one that had to be accepted. The Vodi were a menace already at hand, while the Menel were one lurking in the background. The Vodi had to go first.
There was another risk to run tonight. All four of the people who knew the secret of the Menel were in the forefront of the attack-Blade here, Paor with the Kargoi pikemen, Fudan and Loya with the Hauri coming in from the sea. Their people demanded leadership from in front, and any or all of them might die because of this. If they all died, who would be left to plan against the Menel?
Sometimes there were advantages to a general's being able to sit out a battle safe in a bunker far behind the lines!
Behind the drends rode more Torians and more Kargoi, a thousand of them, all armed with every weapon they could carry. On the flanks of the drends bounced bulging sacks of naphtha. When those sacks started going into the Vodi campfires…!
Blade rode back and forth along the landward flank of the stampeding drends. Sometimes he had to ride in and hold back the mounted attackers. In their eagerness some of them would gladly have ridden into the stampede or even ahead of it, willing to risk being trampled for the sake of more quickly getting at the enemy. Blade drove them back with shouts and curses and a waving sword. Tonight's battle would be confused enough, without hotheads making it worse!
Dust boiled up from under the hooves of drends and horses, making the dark night darker. It was beginning to be like riding through an old-fashioned London fog. Blade was edging his own horse out of the dust cloud when the palisade around the Vodi camp appeared ahead. The Vodi had built it well enough to stand against men or horses. They hadn't built it well enough to stand against a stampede of maddened drends. The sentries at the palisade held lighted torches, and by the light of those torches Blade saw everything that happened.
The drends went over the shallow ditch made to stop charging horsemen, went over it as if it wasn't there. Some of them went down and others piled up on top of them and around them, but the wild bawling and bellowing simply made the ones left on their feet move faster. They came up to the palisade at a speed Blade wouldn't have believed drends could reach. Somehow they sensed what lay in their path; they lowered their heads and charged on. Two hundred sets of horns struck the palisade almost in the same moment.
Blade heard an explosion of cracking and splintering wood and all the torches along a wide stretch of palisade went out. As the torches died, a hideous chorus of screams rose, lasting for the few seconds it took the drends to trample the palisade flat. Caught first under the logs and then under the hooves of the drends, most of the Vodi sentries were simply crushed into jelly after those few seconds of screaming. The drends were slowed but not stopped. They plunged on, straight among the tents.
Now the riders were following the drends as fast as their mounts would move. Blade could have yelled his lungs out or killed half of them without slowing them down at all. The riders scented the blood of their enemies, and like a pack of wolves they wanted to make their kill while their chances were best. The horses and the riding drends poured forward, catching up with the stampede, finding gaps in it, dashing out ahead of it into the camp of the Vodi.
Now it was by the light of enemy campfires that Blade saw what happened. Most of the Vodi were awake and armed by now, so few of them died in tents trampled flat by the drends. A good many died on their feet. Blade saw one of the Vodi swing his axe at a drend, smashing in its skull, then die pinned, writhing and screaming in agony as the beast fell squarely on him. Others tried to flee, tripped and were trampled, fell into campfires and were burned alive.
Those who survived the stampede had to face the mounted Kargoi and Torians moments later. At that point most of the Vodi lost whatever courage they had left, turned, and tried to run. Many of them didn't get very far before Torians rode them down, thrusting lances neatly into the backs of their necks or other vulnerable points. Blade saw one musketeer turn to fire, bringing down a Torian and his horse. Another Torian charged him, striking him a glancing blow with the lance. The Vodi stumbled to one side, fell into a fire-and the powder flask on his belt exploded. Even the battle-trained Torian horses shied away from what was left after the explosion died.
Other explosions now sounded farther down in the camp. Blade saw long tongues of flame spurting up and out. Either the Vodi had somehow managed to turn their siege guns on some of the attackers or some of the attackers were getting through to the powder magazines. Paor had a dozen men of his personal guard specially assigned to burn or blow up anything that looked like gunpowder. Blade hoped some of the men would survive their assignment, but doubted it. They'd been too enthusiastic about the damage the explosions might do to the enemy to worry much about being caught themselves.
Flames were also booming up behind Blade, with the distinctive color of naphtha fires. He hoped his men weren't wasting the naphtha on minor targets, and also hoped they wouldn't destroy too much. If the camp could be captured with some of its gear intact ….
Blade spurred his horse into a gallop toward the shore. It was there the battle would become completely decisive, there and out among the ships. Danger to their boats and ships-their line of retreat-would break or destroy the Vodi more certainly than anything else.
The horse responded to Blade so eagerly that he reached the shore well ahead of his own men. Suddenly he found himself trotting along the beach, the lathered and sweating horse kicking up sand instead of dust. He was far enough from the rest of the battle to find darkness and silence around him again.
The darkness and silence lasted only a few seconds. Muskets began banging as the sentries on the drawn-up boats let fly at the first target they'd been offered all night. Blade was a target impossible to miss, even for the most inaccurate weapons in the hands of the worst shots. A bullet ripped Blade's shortsword from his belt and another ripped his helmet from his head. A third ploughed along his temple, cleaning off the hair and opening the skin so that he felt blood flowing. Then two more bullets slammed into the horse; it went down and the half-stunned Blade went down with it.
He managed to roll clear of his dying mount and struggled for footing in the sand. The Vodi dropped their empty muskets and ran toward him from all directions. Blade was just ready to defend himself when the first two came at him.