Blade spurred his horse to a trot and headed out toward the scouting line. Anyara followed him.
The scouting line was pulling back, following their orders. Blade could now see the six Looter machines out on the plain. They were coming along slowly, about as fast as a galloping horse. They were spread out in a single line a hundred yards or so apart.
Blade drew his signal baton out of its sling on his saddle. It was a telescoping wooden pole with a great bushy tuft of yellow-dyed feathers on top. He shook it out to its full eight feet and raised it high. Then he waved it to his right, drew it sharply downward, and swung it from side to side.
That signal meant, «Everybody move over to the right, spread out, then stop.»
Trying to catch the machines on the run would soon exhaust the horses. Let the machines come to them, then strike!
If the machines noticed Blade's signals, there was no sign of it. But the riders of the people did. The scouts pulled their horses around in wide circles and headed in the direction Blade indicated. The rest fell in behind and on either side of him and Anyara. Blade slowed to a trot to spare the horses and the formation eddied and swirled as the other riders did the same.
In minutes they reached the position Blade indicated. He reined in his horse and hurled the baton downward. The butt, tipped with sharpened teksin, sank into the hard earth and the feathers bobbed wildly. On either side Blade saw the others rein in, spreading out to form a line stretching two hundred yards from end to end, parallel to the path of the Looter machines.
The machines paid no more attention to the horsemen than if they had been so many tufts of down blowing in the breeze. All six advanced as steadily as if they had been running on rails. The nearest one passed down the front of the horsemen less than a hundred yards away.
Blade felt forty-nine sets of eyes flicking from the machine to him and back again. He could almost smell the desire to plunge forward in a mad charge against the enemy. But he shook his head and jerked his thumb down toward the ground. He heard murmurs of disappointment and even Anyara's face fell. But Mazda had made his decision, and the fighters of the people would obey.
The machines glided away toward the lake, still in their unbroken line. They reached the nearer shore of the lake, then their line split apart in the middle. Three machines moved around each side of the lake, shifting into a single line as they did so.
Blade reached out of the saddle, jerked the baton free of the ground, and waved it three times toward the lake. It was time to move out on the trail.
The machines reached the foot of the hill where Miros stood about the time the riders reached the nearer edge of the lake. Blade ordered a halt and watched the machines. Each trio was shifting into a triangle less than a hundred yards on a side. They were also slowing down. A moment later their legs sprang out and all six of them settled down on the ground.
Blade could hardly keep from cheering out loud as he saw the way the machines had arranged themselves. The two triangles stood, one on each end of the hill and the city, a good mile or more apart. Each was well-placed to scan its surroundings in all directions, but not to support the other one. They were too far apart. Two machines of each triangle were also fairly close to the bushes around the lake. The people's final attack could go in on foot, under cover. There would be no need to take horses within range of the subsonics.
Blade signaled for the team leaders to gather around him and then dismounted. Each fighter unslung his pack of combat gear from his saddle, then drifted over to join the circle assembling around Blade. With the point of his teksin sword Blade drew his plan on a bare patch of ground. When he had finished giving his orders, he straightened up and looked soberly at the even soberer faces around him. «This is our moment, our moment to stand up to the Looters and prove that the people can defend themselves against all enemies. The eyes of all the people are on us, not just the living but all those who have died that the people might live to this moment.
«We shall not let them down.»
Blade shrugged his shoulders to settle his pack into a more comfortable position on his back, raised his baton, and led the way toward the shore of the lake.
The bushes were thick and thorny. The fighters creeping through them made enough noise to be heard a mile away by anyone not totally deaf. Fortunately the machines seemed to be just exactly that.
As they slipped within range of the subsonics, Blade noticed apprehensive or grim looks spreading across the faces of the fighters. Was their new knowledge, the loss of the fear of the unknown, going to be enough of a defense? For a minute or two Blade couldn't help wondering. Then slowly the faces straightened and the eighteen men and women moved on steadily.
The fighters in Blade's teams were scratched and sweating by the time they settled under cover. Then came a hot, nerve-wracking wait in the grass and under the shrubbery. They had to allow Anyara's teams plenty of time to get into their positions on the other side of the lake. Both attacks had to go in as nearly as possible at the same moment.
So they waited, impatiently whittling at twigs with their teksin knives, slapping at the insects that whined maddeningly around eyes and into ears, wiping off the sweat that trickled down foreheads and necks. The sun moved higher until it burned down almost straight out of a cloudless sky, baking the earth and filling the day with a sleepy warmth.
Hot, sweaty, insect-ridden minutes followed each other, one by one, until Blade knew that at least half an hour must have gone by. Had something happened to the other teams? Had they been ambushed and destroyed, silently and swiftly. They might have- A woman lying next to Blade grabbed his arm and pointed off to the right. Blade's eyes followed the woman's pointing finger. Through a gap between two branches Blade saw an orange handkerchief waving on the other side of the lake. It was the signal «ready and waiting» from Anyara's teams.
Blade took a deep breath. He reached into his pack and took out a bag of teksin wedges and a hammer with a teksin head and a wooden shaft. He tied these to his belt. He saw flickers of movement in the bushes all along the line of fighters, as each one of them got out his particular equipment and hung it on his belt.
Then Blade reached into his pack once more, and pulled out a teksin whistle with a gilded leather thong. He looped the thong about his sunburnt neck, put the whistle between his lips, took another deep breath-and blew with all the power in his lungs.
Bushes exploded with cracklings and crashings as Blade and eighteen others leaped to their feet and plunged out into the open. Some of them were obviously dizzy from heat and strain and the subsonics. They lurched and staggered as they ran. But they stayed on their feet and kept going.
Blade swung to the right as he ran, moving up to join the team that was heading for the right-hand machine. It grew larger and larger as they ran, squatting there in all its metallic ugliness. The turret was turning slowly, but the machine showed no sign that it noticed the approaching people.
Then the turret stopped dead and began to swivel slowly back toward Blade. It had registered that the world outside was sprouting something strange, possibly unnatural, possibly even dangerous.
Run, run, run! Blade almost shouted the words out loud. Get to the machine before it starts moving or shooting. Thirty yards, twenty, ten. Breath rasped in his throat, his chest was tight and painful with strain and tension. Five yards, four, three- A young man, even more agile than Blade, sprang into the air like an Olympic broad-jumper, leaping for the machine's rear platform. He landed on his feet, nearly going forward on hands and knees. Metal clanged and boomed under him. He turned forward, grabbing for the bag and the hammer at his belt. Blade leaped up onto the platform beside him.