Again the gate shivered. This time one of the crosspieces split apart with a sharp crack. The gate was designed to keep out thieves and the wild animals of the mountain forests, not half-ton stolofs, charging meytans, or battering rams wielded by warriors of Trawn.
Crash! A third blow, and this time one of the logs of the gate twisted out of position and sagged inward. Through the gap Blade could see a confused, churning mass of nightmare shapes-stolofs, the great floppy-eared heads of the meytans, the helmets of warriors. The foul smell of stolofs reached Blade on the night breeze, so strong that he gasped and coughed to clear it out of his throat and nostrils.
He heard the chug of an arrow sinking into flesh, and one of the warrior's heads twisted and jerked and sagged out of sight. A moment later a stolof chittered hysterically, closer to the forest. Another hideous scream came, along with the crunching of mandibles as they closed on a human body.
Blade swore. Mountain clansmen were dying out there, perhaps needlessly, and if so it was his fault. He had deliberately not armed the clansmen on guard with sprayers, so they would not be tempted to attack raiders instead of just giving warning. He should have remembered how the mountain men hated those of Trawn, and how none of them would hold back from a battle, regardless of what weapons they held. He had made a mistake.
Well, there was a good chance he would pay for that mistake himself, and Neena along with him. The alarm would certainly bring warriors by the score up the hill within a few minutes. That would be soon enough to save the workshop. But he and Neena were another matter. Draad would have its victory-Blade was sure of that.
But he was not so sure that he and Neena would live to see it.
At least they would get that chance he'd hoped for, to test the distilled sleeping water on live stolofs!
Something sputtered and hissed outside. A sickly yellow glow lit up the churning shapes beyond the gate, making them look even more ghastly than before. Then something trailing yellow flame and sparks came flying over the wall. It struck the roof of the workshop, bounced, and rolled off onto the ground. It lay there sputtering and sizzling and spitting more flames and more sparks and puffing out foul-smelling dark greasy smoke.
Blade swore and slapped Neena on the shoulder. «Run back inside to the assistants. Tell them to get the fire buckets filled and ready, but not to come outside. Those bastards are trying to burn us out.» Neena dropped her weapons, turned, and dashed back into the workshop.
As she disappeared, three arrows came whistling down from the top of the wall and smacked into the workshop just above the doorway. Blade looked up to see that three of the enemy warriors had climbed the outside of the wall and were straddling it precariously. They were already nocking fresh arrows to their bows.
Blade caught up one of Neena's spears and hurled it. It smashed squarely into the mouth of one of the raiders and up into his brain in a spray of blood and smashed teeth. He threw up his hands and toppled backward off the wall without a sound. A second warrior jerked, lost his balance, and toppled forward with a scream. He fell head first and afterward lay without moving, his neck bent at an impossible angle. The third warrior loosed his arrow, but it smacked into the ground well to one side of Blade and skittered away into the darkness.
Before the warrior could nock another arrow, stolof-whistles sounded outside the gate. So did the chittering of the creatures, louder and fiercer than before. They surged forward against the gate and two more logs fell clear, one of them splitting in two as it fell. A spear sailed in through the wider gap and Blade had to dart to one side to avoid being hit.
Then with a tremendous cracking and crunching the gate caved in completely, and the way into the compound was open. For a moment it was solidly blocked by the mass of stolofs, meytans, and warriors crowded in the gateway. That was a moment that Blade used well. It was a moment when all his enormous strength and lightning reflexes were turned to one purpose-killing. It was a moment when he was in fact nothing but a killing machine.
Blade hurled the second spear at the last archer on the wall, and hit him just as he was loosing another arrow. The arrow sailed off into the darkness and the archer sailed backward off the wall, the spear through his stomach. Before the man hit the ground Blade whirled, snatched up a pot of sleeping water, and hurled it into the mob in the gateway.
He aimed at the head of the nearest stolof, and his aim was flawless. The pot flew straight and smashed into the creature just above the three eyes. Sleeping water sluiced down over its head and over its breathing holes. It chittered frantically, then fell silent. Slowly it tilted over to the left as all the legs on one side gave way. Then the rest of its legs folded up and it lay down. It was not dead, for its mandibles still clicked feebly, but it was a dead weight, squarely in the path of the other attackers.
Blade went flat as two arrows whistled by, then sprang up with his sprayer in both hands. The range was long but he did not need to aim precisely. He swung the sprayer back and forth across the gateway, firing steady bursts until it was empty. A second stolof stopped dead, chittering steadily. It did not collapse, but no amount of whistling or yelling by the warriors could get it moving again.
One of the warriors lost his patience and scrambled forward over the collapsed stolof, sword in one hand and spear raised to throw in the other. As he thrust his head up and forward, Blade hit him squarely in the mouth with a jet from the sprayer. The warrior's weapons dropped from his suddenly limp fingers. He collapsed facedown on top of the stolof, then rolled off onto the ground.
Another warrior sprang up on top of the fallen stolof, a lighted firemaker swinging in one hand. He hurled it straight into the nearest window of the workshop. Blade yelled for fire buckets. Answering shouts came from inside.
Then Neena dashed out into the courtyard. In her hands was a bow, an arrow already nocked to the string. She took aim and shot, and the warrior who'd thrown the firemaker screamed as an arrow suddenly sprouted in his left eye. He did not go down, but he turned and reeled away, still screaming.
The man's screams seemed to paralyze all of his comrades and their animals. For a moment nothing moved and not a weapon was raised in the crowd at the gateway. Blade and Neena could look out clearly, to see Lord Desgo ride up on a meytan, holding a naked Queen Sanaya in front of him.
Neena shrieked like a madwoman and snatched frantically for an arrow. As if in answer to her scream, angry shouts and war cries exploded from the forest. Then came the sound of scores of running feet and the crackling of scores of men pushing through bushes. The stolof killers were moving into the attack.
Neena shot, the twang of her bowstring lost in the uproar. Her arrow flashed toward Lord Desgo, but the nobleman's reflexes were even quicker. He ducked, jerking Sanaya across in front of him as a shield. The arrow sank into her body just below the left breast. She shrieked, clawing at the arrow, then shrieked again as Desgo heaved her off the back of the meytan and dug in his spurs.
Neena slung her bow and she and Blade leaped forward. They sprang up onto the back of the fallen stolof, facing two warriors. Neena whipped her threebo up and over and down on one man's shoulder, and his sword arm dropped limply. The threebo scythed in a deadly arc from the left, and the man's head snapped violently to one side as temple and jaw caved in.
Blade's man tried to run. Blade thrust him through the neck from behind, so that the sword went through the man's spine going in and through his windpipe coming out. Blade jerked his sword free and let the man topple.