Manro wished the men had taken him with them. He didn't want to be around Tressana either. But maybe Dark Jollya would be enough. She was only a woman, but a woman could be very strong.
«-by the Soul of the Land, by the Heart of the Steel, and by the Highest Powers of my own land of England, this I swear.»
Everyone standing around the fire cheered the ritual four times. Daimarz tossed a small cup of Living Fire onto the blazing logs. The whooosh of blue flame nearly singed Blade's eyebrows, and he was afraid Chaia's long red hair would catch fire. He hastily pulled her back, then she raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him.
He found himself kissing her back. Either Haima's daughter had been acquiring experience behind her mother's back, or she had a good deal of natural talent. It didn't help either that she looked closer to eighteen than fourteen, a slimmer version of her mother. Blade finally reminded himself that she was only fourteen, and that this was only the betrothal, not the marriage.
The kiss lasted so long that everyone was laughing by the time Chaia stepped out of Blade's arms. Haima was laughing the loudest. «Do you still think our women are like those of England, girls until they are sixteen?»
«I may change my mind. I guess I'll know for sure after tomorrow.»
«Ah. Yes.» The mention of tomorrow sobered her.
Blade looked away from the fire. When his night vision returned he saw a steady procession of shadowy figures passing. Some of them seemed to be weird four-legged animals, with long thin bodies and no heads. Those were bearers, each pair of men carrying a rolled-up hang glider. Other bearers carried the pots of Living Fire in reed baskets on their backs. The glider pilots themselves were traveling light. They would have plenty of work to do tomorrow.
A pilot broke out of the procession and hurried toward Blade. He wore an elaborately tooled green leather belt.
As he came into the firelight, Blade recognized Fador'n. So did Daimarz.
«What are you doing here?» the woodcutter leader growled. He seemed to be doing a lot of growling lately. The strain was telling on all of them, except perhaps Haima.
«I want to ask Blade something,» said Fador'n firmly.
«I'll give you something-«began Daimarz, clapping his hand to his sword.
Blade raised his hand for silence. «What is it that you want?»
Fador'n swallowed, and Blade saw that he was sweating. «Blade, I have been wrong in the way I saw you, the man who may save Elstan tomorrow. For this I have been called a fool. I may be that. I have also been called a coward, and I cannot bear that.»
«I have never called you a coward,» said Blade.
«No, but… Blade, let me be the first man to leap from the cliff tomorrow and throw the Living Fire on the Jaghdi. I beg you-let me prove that at least I am not a coward!»
Blade considered this. The first man off didn't have to be a leader, but he did have to be a better than average pilot. The men following him would have to make much of their judgment of the wind from the way his glider behaved.
«I have never seen Fador'n fly,» Blade admitted. «Daimarz, have you?»
The woodcutter seemed reluctant to answer until Haima gently elbowed him in the ribs. «Come on, lad. The man's asked a question. He wants an honest answer.»
Daimarz sighed. «Fador'n is a very good flyer. He has sometimes made a complete circle before he lands.»
Anybody who could make a 360-degree turn in a three-hundred foot drop was lucky, but he was also good. He wouldn't have all his bones intact otherwise.
«All right, Fador'n. You can be the first.»
Fador'n didn't say anything, and he shook all over. Blade was afraid the man was going to kneel to him. Instead he turned and ran back into the procession and the darkness.
Blade and the others around the fire watched in silence until the last of the procession was past. Two thousand men and women were marching off into the hills to a perch on the cliffs above the Kettle of the Winds. Five hundred were the glider pilots, the rest bearers and guards. When the last of the pilots had flown, the rest would come down the hills and take a position to the northwest of the Kettle. There they would stand between the retreating Jaghdi and the main valleys of Elstan.
The glider pilots who survived would join a small army of men on the far side of the river from the Kettle. Five hundred of the army were woodcutters and weavers. The rest were hardly more than a mob, but a well-armed one and very determined. They were the refugees who'd fled before the Jaghdi advance. They didn't have to wait to get word from Masters to fight. They'd seen their houses burned, their livestock driven off, their crops looted. Many had kin to avenge. Tomorrow they would take that vengeance, if the work of the gliders gave them half a chance.
Five thousand men to fight half again that many. It won't be easy, but it won't be impossible. The Jaghdi are all cavalry, and if they suddenly lose their rolghas…
Blade would have been less optimistic if the Jaghdi had brought infantry to guard the camp. But all the enemy's infantry was in the valley of the Adrim, making faces at the Elstani holding the pass above them. The Elstani made faces back, and occasionally rolled rocks down the hills. Perhaps the guilds who'd refused to believe Blade in time to send men south to help him would do some good after all, now that they saw how the war was progressing.
Now it was time to stop worrying and get some sleep.
Blade didn't get to sleep for quite a while, because Haima insisted on making love with almost desperate eagerness. Blade found himself responding in the same way. Either Chaia's kisses had roused him even more than he'd suspected, or he had the sense that this might be the last time he would hold a woman.
The thought made Blade sit up straight. He wondered if he was getting old. A few years ago he wouldn't have been thinking anything of the kind on the eve of a battle. Or was it that his preference for being alone was finally beginning to weaken? Was it possible that he needed companionship more than he ever had before? That was an even more interesting thought.
He lay back under the furs, and fell asleep listening to Haima's breathing and Lorma's purring.
Chapter 20
The dawn air seemed chillier than usual at the Kettle of the Winds. Blade wondered if this was just his own anticipation of the coming battle, or if the weather was really getting colder. Probably both. He'd talked the Elstani into staking their whole future not only on one battle but very nearly on one weapon. And the year was getting on toward autumn.
Daimarz crawled up beside him, barefoot in order to move silently but otherwise wearing his woodcutter's clothing. Together they looked down the precipitous cliff at the Jaghdi camp, where men and rolghas appeared no bigger than dots. The cooks were hard at work on breakfast, judging from the strings of smoke from the fire pits. One of the night patrols was riding back in with more Elstani prisoners. The day patrols were assembling by the ford, ready to head up the valleys. The patrols looked like insects swarming below.
«Still no sign of the royal banners,» said Daimarz. «Curse it! I want Tressana dead.»
Blade said nothing. The Elstani desire for vengeance on Tressana made sense from their point of view. The more chaos in Jaghd, the better. But would it be a step forward for civilization in this Dimension? Blade doubted it.
Tressana's not being here left Efroin of the Red Band in command. Blade was certain that after Curim's death, Tressana would have appointed Efroin as captain of the men, and that he would prove a dangerously good battle leader. Certainly he'd done well so far, keeping his men together and sending out patrols. No one could be sure how many Elstani prisoners were in the camp, but there might be more than a thousand already. Blade knew that the Elstani wanted their people safe, and they wanted them safe now.