But the mindbolt flinger was strong even in the dying. Amplified, agonized, his thought thundered in the aether.
The Goddess will avenge us. Accursed through the world’s age be those who resort to the blood-metal. A bloody tide will overwhelm them.
An instant later, his soul flickered out.
The Lowlife named Homi, having retrieved the three iron quarrels for reuse in his crossbow, appeared at the window and waved. Then he and Pliktharn set to work chipping and prying at the heavy milestone windowsill until its mortar gave way. The stone smashed the thin lava crust beneath the window, sending up a gush of smoke and flame. Before the fresh rift could heal, the human and the Firvulag were seen to toss certain small containers into the pit of molten rock, after which they climbed out a different window and made their way carefully back the way they had come.
A young girl clad in shiny black jogged in apparent tirelessness along the narrow Vosges jungle trail. Shadows grew deeper and a cool wind swept from the heights into the ravine that the footpath followed. Treefrogs were beginning their evening songs. Before long, the predators would awaken. After nightfall, there would be so many hostile creatures on the prowl that Felice would be unable to fend them off with her coercive power. She would be forced to bivouac and wait until dawn.
“And I’ll be too late! The Truce starts at sunup and the war in Finiah will be over! “How far had she come? Perhaps two-thirds of the 106 kilometers that lay between Hidden Springs and the western bank of the Rhine? She had lost so much time this morning before getting started, and the sun went down at eighteen hundred hours…
“Damn Richard. I damn him for getting hurt!”
She should have insisted on going with them in the flyer. She could have done something. Helped old Claude steady the Spear. Assisted Madame’s mental defense. Even deflected the globe of ball lightning that had blinded Richard in one eye and caused him to crash the flyer.
“Damn him! Damn him! The Firvulag will quit fighting when the Truce begins and our people will have to withdraw. Ill be too late to get my golden torc! Too late!”
She splashed heedlessly across a small stream. Ravens, disturbed in their feeding upon some otter’s leftovers, rose squawking into the vine-hung forest canopy. A hyena mocked her, its mad laugh echoing from the ravine wall.
Too late.
The glass carnyx of a fighting Tanu woman sounded the charge. Armored chalikos, bearing knights who coruscated each in a different jewel-color, galloped down the corpse-strewn boulevard toward the barricade where the contingent of Lowlives was making its stand.
“Na bardito! Na bardito!”
There were no Firvulag allies at hand to dampen the mental assault. Images of brain-searing intensity whipped and stabbed at the humans. The night was fraught with unspeakable menace and pain. Plunging exotics in their sparkling harness seemed to be coming from all directions, gorgeous and invulnerable. The humans loosed iron-tipped arrows, but skillful psychokinetics among the Tanu turned most of the fusillade aside, while the rest clattered harmlessly against the plates of the glass armor.
“The spooks! Where are the spooks?” howled a despairing Lowlife. A moment later one of the knights crashed upon him, impaling his claw-torn body with a sapphire lance.
Of the sixty-three human beings who had made their stand in that street, only five escaped into the narrow alleys where hanging awnings, lines of washing, and crowded ranks of rubbish carts abandoned by panicked rama sanitary workers made it impossible for the mounted Tanu to follow.
A mammoth bonfire was ablaze in the Central Plaza of Finiah. Jubilant phantoms in a hundred hideous guises capered around it waving battle standards festooned with strings of freshly psychogilded skulls.
Khalid Khan protested. “They’re wasting time, Mighty Sharn! Our people are taking a terrible beating when they meet the Tanu unsupported by Firvulag mind-cover Even the mounted gray-torcs can cut right through our infantry. We’ve got to work together! And we must find some way to counter those chaliko-riders.”
The great luminous scorpion bent over the turbaned Pakistani, multicolored organs within its translucent body throbbing to the rhythm of the exotic war chant.
“It has been many years since we had cause for celebration.” The unhuman voice clanged in Khalid’s brain. “For too long the Foe has lurked safely behind stout city walls, despising us. You do not understand how it has been with us, the humiliation our race has suffered, draining our valor and driving even the most powerful of us to hopeless inaction. But behold! Look upon the trophy skulls, and these only a small proportion of the total!
“And how many of them belong to Tanu? Dammit, Sharn, most of the enemy casualties have been among the torced and bareneck humans! The noncombatant Tanu are all holed up in House Velteyn where we can’t reach them, and only a handful of their mounted knights have been killed!”
“The Tanu chivalry”, the eerie voice hesitated and then made reluctant admission, “presents a formidable challenge to us. Armored war steeds with their minds held in thrall by the riders are not intimidated by our horrific illusions or shape-shifting. We must contend against them physically, and not all of the Firvulag company are of heroic frame. Our obsidian weapons, our swords, halberds, chain-flails, and throwing spears, are not often effective against chaliko cavalry in the Grand Combat. And the same obtains in this battle.”
“You need a change in tactics. There are ways for foot soldiers to put down charging horsemen.” The metalsmith’s teeth glittered in a brief grin. “My ancestors, Pathan hillmen, knew how!”
The response of the Firvulag general was cool. “Our battle customs are fixed by sacred tradition.”
“No wonder you’re losers! The Tanu weren’t afraid to innovate, to take advantage of human science. Now you Firvulag have human allies on your side, and you stick one timid little toe into the battlefield and then mess about singing and dancing instead of going for the prize!”
“Beware lest I punish your insolence, Lowlife!” But the furious retort lacked conviction.
Khalid said softly, “Would you help us if we try a new tactic? Would you shield our minds while we try to knock those long-shanked bastards out of the saddle?”
“Yes… we would do that.”
“Then pay close attention.”
The monster scorpion metamorphosed into a handsome young ogre wearing a thoughtful scowl. After a few minutes the hobgoblins left off their madcap dancing, changed into gnomish warriors, and crowded in to listen.
Converting Sharn’s lieutenants proved to be more difficult. Khalid had to engineer a demonstration. He rounded up ten volunteer Lowlives equipped with iron-tipped javelins and led them to the approaches of House Velteyn, where gray-torc and Tanu riders guarded the ultimate sanctuary. The paved avenue-was lit by widely spaced torchères. No other invaders were to be seen because of the heavy concentration of defenders. Sharn and six of his Great Ones lurked in the shelter of a deserted mansion while Khalid deliberately led his squad of spearmen into plain sight of a patrolling gray troop.
The human leader, fully armored in blue glass, drew his vitredur blade and led a charge at the gallop down the cobblestone street. Instead of scattering, the Lowlives drew closely together, forming a tight phalanx bristling with four-meter spears.
The patrol swerved to the right at the last instant to avoid crashing into the iron porcupine, individual troopers reining up and wheeling their mounts about so that they could strike with longsword or battleaxe. They were plainly nonplussed, since almost all of the antagonists they had encountered thus far had emulated the Firvulag maneuver of tossing their pole-arms and then fleeing. This pack of innovators stood their ground until the animals were off balance in the turn, then stabbed deep into the unarmored bellies of the huge clawed beasts.