The smoke from the village was rising now in three distinct columns. As Blade watched, one of the columns turned a dirty blue. Something in a shop, no doubt, making the smoke come out that color. Some of the Rojags seemed to be dismounting, no doubt to loot and rape more effectively.
Blade scanned the bare brown hills beyond the village's green fringe for any further signs of the enemy. He could see nothing, but that didn't mean there was nothing there. The Rojags were past masters at using cover, and the Lanyri were no less clever.
Blade heard a hail from behind him and turned. The officer commanding the fifty-man troop of horsemen riding with Blade was coming toward him. The officer bowed his head as he rode up and said, «Hail, Pendarnoth. I think we can attack those Rojag creatures and perhaps save the village. There are fifty of my men here and twenty of your own guard. I do not think there are more than half that many Rojags.»
Looking toward the village again, Blade was inclined to agree. He could not count the cloaked, armed figures very accurately, but certainly he could not see more than about twenty-five. He wasn't supposed to get involved in heavy fighting, but this could hardly be called heavy fighting. And a victory here might save at least one Pendari village from ending up as a heap of smoking rubble, its maimed and tortured people sprawled hideously in the streets.
He nodded. «Very well. We shall attack. You will give the orders. I will lead my guard only.» Blade did not yet feel he understood the finer points of Pendari tactics well enough to take command from an officer who had been learning them for nearly twenty years.
The officer rode back to his men and Blade heard his voice rise in shouted orders. He turned to his guard and told them of the plan. He was rewarded by savage grins. These were among the toughest soldiers in the whole army of Pendar, spoiling for the fight he had been denying them for nearly a week. They would follow him into anything, even if he were not the Pendarnoth. Then he turned his horse's head toward the village and waited for the horn blast that would signal the charge.
It came, harsh, raucous, floating across the fields to the ears of the Rojags. Blade saw some of the moving figures stop dead and rammed his spurs into the horse's flanks. It leaped and scrambled up the slope out of the gully. Behind Blade came the guardsmen, and off to his left dust rose in a cloud as the other horsemen came up the slope. Their bows were already in position, and Blade saw the sunlight glint on arrowheads as they began shooting. He did not bother with his own bow, for he had no hope of hitting anything with a horsebow arrow at this range.
Now all seventy of the Pendari horsemen were out on the level ground and picking up speed. The hoof beats thundered in Blade's ears, and the clouds of dust about him made him cough. Through the yellow swirl he could see the Rojags scattering to their horses. Some of them were already mounted, spurring their horses toward the far side of the village. But others already lay still or writhing in the streets, arrows in their bodies.
Blade urged his horse to the left, toward the center of the advancing Pendari line. The fringe of an attack was no place for the Pendarnoth. He saw the houses of the village closed. Had the inhabitants managed to barricade themselves inside their houses? A Rojag arrow arched across his field of vision, ill-aimed but close enough so that he heard its whistle. Time to try a few shots with his own bow-the range was getting down.
By the time Blade had nocked an arrow to his bow the charging Pendari were almost in the village. He took his first shot at a man scrambling onto his horse in the street to his right. The arrow missed the man but stung his horse. It broke into a gallop, thundering away up the street while the man ran frantically after it, waving his arms. Then the Pendari were in among the houses, and with walls on all sides there was no more room to use the bow. Blade drew his sword and raised his eyes to the hill beyond the town. It was dotted with little plumes of dust raised by the horses of the Rojags as they fled pell-mell up the hill. Blade dug his heels into the horse's flanks again and urged it down the street.
As he did so, horns blared all over the village. Not the raucous, bellowing signal horns of the Pendari, but horns with a deeper, clearer note, like great bells. Blade's horse reared in surprise. Before he could spur it into movement again, every door of every house in the village flew open with a crash. The deep horns sounded again. And from inside the houses, Lanyri soldiers poured out at a run, swords drawn and shields up.
The Lanyri infantrymen were trained to perfection. Blade recovered from his surprise within a few seconds, but even that was too slow. In those few seconds the Lanyri had blocked off both ends of Blade's street with a double row of soldiers, and they were doubling that again. In either direction he saw the sun glinting on massed Lanyri armor and weapons.
Blade knew that nothing short of a winged horse could get him past those lines of grim infantrymen without aid. But if the Pendari charged from the other side…
He raised his voice in a mighty shout. «Halloooooo! I'm trapped in the central street! Charge them from the rear!» At least his shouts startled the Lanyri. He saw the formations stir. Then the rear rank of each one faced about. Out came six-foot throwing spears with burnished iron heads, and up they went, forming a bristling row of points facing any possible Pendari charge. But there was no response from the Pendari to Blade's call, not even an answering shout.
An ugly suspicion formed in his mind. Was the whole attack on the village intended as a way of leading him into a Lanyri trap? Certainly the Lanyri must have been waiting in the houses, from the way they swarmed out on signal. A trap, definitely. For him, probably. He looked beyond the soldiers to the slope of the hill. And what he saw there turned suspicion to certainty.
The entire Pendari force was charging up the hill, yelling, screaming, waving swords and lances, and shooting arrows, in mad pursuit of the fleeing Rojags. The latter had almost vanished over the hill, but the Pendari showed no signs of slowing. The whole hillside was hazed with the dust raised by the hooves of their horses. Even the Pendari who had been in the village, who should have been responding to Blade's call, were pounding away into the distance.
Blade looked behind him to see if the rear offered a way out. The Lanyri were just as thick and looked just as ready there. But beyond them Blade saw half a dozen Pendari he recognized as members of his guard. He raised his voice in another below.
«Halloooo! Guards! To me, to me!» Desperate as he was, he would not shout out the name of the Pendarnoth in the hearing of the Lanyri. If the enemy had the slightest doubt of his identity, he wanted to leave them doubting.
The Pendari heard him. They wheeled their horses in a wide circle and nocked arrows to their bows. The Lanyri, however, promptly lowered their heads and raised their shields to form a solid leather roof over their ranks. Blade shook his head. Half a dozen Pendari could do nothing against the well-protected Lanyri flanks merely by shooting arrows at them. They would have to press home a charge.
Three flights of arrows whistled down onto the Lanyri shield-roof before the Pendari saw what Blade had already seen. They had no horns with them, but Blade faintly heard their senior man shouting as he wheeled his men into line. Blade backed his horse up until he was just outside sword range of the Lanyri at the other end of the street. He wanted as much room to pick up speed as possible, and he was willing to gamble that Lanyri orders were to take him alive. It seemed likely. If they had wanted him dead, they could have put two dozen spears into him five minutes ago.