«Won't the mountain tribes give warning of any Scadori ambushes?» asked Blade.
Zogades spat into the dust. «That for the mountain tribes. We frightened and bribed them into warning us about the Scadori raid where you were-uh, the last Scadori raid. The Scadori didn't know it, either. But I'm good and damned sure they know now. Any of the mountain tribes they've got their hands on are going to be too dead to help us. The others are going to be too damned scared. I think we're going to be on our own up on the plateau, and I don't like it.»
Zogades was one of the few Guardians who had once been an infantryman, so he was one of the few who had seen real fighting. Officers as high as the commanders of Regiments were supposed to have asked for the old sergeant's advice.
So they marched on, and at the end of the month they reached the Pass of Scador.
The army that reached the pass was not quite as impressive as the army that set out from Karanopolis. Desertions, brawls, and camp diseases had taken their toll. Tera made quite a reputation for herself among the camp women, skillfully and tenderly nursing a good many of them through fevers.
But the horses were still sleek from lush grazing, weapons were sharp, armor was dusty but sound. The army was ready, and the Guardians were positively eager to cross the pass.
Zogades had things to say about that eagerness. «I've always thought most of them were a bunch of damned gilded fools. Now I know. Doesn't one of them know a single thing about war?»
Blade shrugged. «I'm beginning to wonder myself.»
Zogades sighed. «Oh well, as long as they send up the infantry too there'll be a few people up there who know something.»
The next day the word came down that the Guardians were to march through the pass and carry out the raid into Scador without the infantry. The Emperor himself would lead them.
Zogades was speechless for a while. Then all he could do was curse. He cursed all the officers of the Guardians, he cursed all the nobles of Karan, he cursed the Emperor. His face turned red under its tan and the graying fringe of hair on his almost bald head stood out in all directions like the quills of a porcupine.
After he ran out of curses, all he could say was, «I wonder what gold-armored clown thought this one up?»
Five days after the army arrived at the pass, the Guardians formed up for their march onto the plateau. Scouts reported no sign of the mountain tribes, but no sign of any Scadori either.
Blade was on his horse and Tera was in her wagon the morning the Emperor rode out in front of his Guardians, his bodyguard around him. He kept his speech mercifully short.
«Now is the moment when Our Guardians of the Coral Throne will smite the barbarians of Scador. Now is the moment when the barbarians will die or flee in terror, for they shall not stand against us. Now is the moment when the menace of the Scadori shall forever be lifted from Our loyal subjects.»
«Now is the moment when Jores is going to say he is too sick in the gut to come with us,» muttered Zogades. Anything else he said was drowned out by the blare of the trumpets and the thunder of the drums as the Guardians moved out.
Chapter 15
The Guardians wound upward through the Pass of Scador. Blade scanned the distant gray slopes as he rode. Nothing moved on the bare rock, either human or animal. Only a few birds wheeled high up in the lonely sky above the peaks.
To Blade's surprise, the Emperor's huge purple banner remained in the lead all the way up to the peak of the pass. It still led the Guardians as they rode down the other side onto the plateau of Scador. When they finally pitched camp for the night, the Emperor's tent was in the center of the great circle the Guardians formed.
Zogades was only mildly impressed. «I can't see how anything could be dangerous this close to the pass. I'm damned sure Jores knows that too. So for the moment he's not worried. Or maybe he's just more afraid of looking bad than he is of the Scadori. I wonder how long the young fellow's nerve's going to last.»
Blade shrugged. «As long as he thinks he needs to look good, I suppose. If his reputation takes a big knock now, when he's only been on the Coral Throne three years and hasn't got any children…» Blade let his voice trail off under Zogades' warning stare. He'd said all he felt needed saying, in any case.
He went off toward his tent, and Tera. Around him silence was descending on the camp as people drifted off to sleep. The only lights were the small watchfires of the sentries and the lanterns hung on the Imperial tent.
Blade would have liked more fires. No campfires meant nothing to drive away the cold that could turn a man's nose or fingers white with frostbite. No campfires meant that the ghost-filled darkness of the plateau could crowd much too close.
Blade sighed wearily. He wasn't a magician who could conjure wood out of the barren plateau of Scador. For the moment he was only a trooper in the Guardians of the Coral Throne. There was nothing he could do now except return to his tent and find the warmth he always found with Tera.
But as he walked through the sleeping camp, he could not help hearing the thin, chill moan of the wind as it swept across the miles.
That wind was in Blade's ears for the next week, day and night. He awoke in cold gray dawns hearing it whistling around the tent. He went to bed with Tera warm against him, hearing it as he drifted off to sleep.
The wind was in everyone's ears, and men less iron-nerved than Blade got nightmares from it. Every morning there were always a few men missing, men who had mounted up and ridden headlong back toward the pass. There were usually a few others found lying stiff and gray-faced, their own bloody swords clutched in their hands, gaping wounds in throats or wrists or stomachs. The people left alive rode with faces twisted and pale. The army seemed to be waiting for something horrible to come sweeping down upon it on the wings of that endless grim wind.
Meanwhile they marched on across the plateau. Patrols rode out each morning. The main body never saw a live Scadori, and the patrols saw only small bands of warriors, some mounted, some on foot. The warriors fought even more desperately than usual if the Guardians did come up with them. So every one of those skirmishes left a few more empty saddles in the Emperor's Regiments.
«Damn it, where are they?» exploded Zogades one night. «Blade, you marched with them. Where could the bastards have gone that we can't come up with them? At least the ones we catch aren't scared of us, that's for sure!»
Blade honestly wished he could answer that question.
He didn't like the feeling of pursuing a race of ghosts any better than any of the other Guardians. But he could only guess.
«I saw no towns or villages when we passed through here on our march to the pass this spring,» he said. «Of course that doesn't prove there aren't any. I won't claim I see everything-«
«That makes you more honest than most of the officers,» said Zogades, with a smile that was half a grimace as well.
«Anyway, if there aren't any towns or villages, the Scadori could flee easily. Pack up their tents, drive off their herds, shoulder their spears, and head for the horizon.»
The next day the scouts did discover a fair-sized Scadori town, perhaps half the size of Ukush. It lay abandoned and stripped of everything that could be moved. The only things that moved in its empty streets were a few half-starved dogs and the endlessly blowing wind. The main column of the Guardians marched past the town that afternoon. Blade noticed how even Zogades turned his eyes away from the empty houses. The abandoned town was not a pleasant sight for men with nerves already stretched tight.