The message went home. Indeed, it could hardly have done otherwise, unless the councilors were very foolish or very tired of life. They voted Blade into the office without a dissenting vote. Then they sat down to discuss how to prepare Pendar to meet the Lanyri invasion.
Blade kept the meeting short and the discussion perfunctory. He had no intention of revealing his plans for surprising and destroying the Lanyri too soon. And he would never reveal them before a group whose loyalty he distrusted as much as the councilors'. So he merely spoke of the need to increase the output of the armorers' shops, train the soldiers, lay in supplies, and so on. The only specific item he mentioned was the need to increase the number of siege engines, particularly the long-range ones. There were already a hundred of these, but Blade wanted three times as many. The councilors listened in silence, not even bothering to ask questions. Those who had always been loyal didn't need to; those who had supported Klerus were afraid to. Again, without a dissenting vote, they endorsed Blade's program.
Blade saved the meat of his plans for a very private session that evening. Only Nefus, Harima, Guroth, and some other reliable officers attended. Blade gave them a frank outline of the way he saw the situation, then turned to his plans.
«I will no longer be content with merely driving the Lanyri back,» he said. «I want to see them destroyed, destroyed the way they have destroyed Pendari towns and lives.»
«That will be difficult,» said Guroth. «If there was nothing but the Lanyri infantry coming against us, we could do as we have always done. Ride around and around them, picking our time of attack to take them at their weakest, and then drive home our charge. But the Rojags are riding with them, and that will make it hard for us to choose the time we will fight. We need to destroy the Rojags as well if we wish to destroy the Lanyri.»
«That may not be as hard as you think,» said Blade. «The Rojags are strong when they are in a mass. But break up that mass, and they have no discipline, no courage. They scatter and run. If we can break up their formations, we will have the chance to fight the Lanyri in the usual manner.»
«That is true,» said Nefus. «But how can we do this thing? It is not as easy to attack another army of horsemen as it is to attack soldiers on foot. The horsemen can choose where to fight much more easily.»
«Then we tempt them to fight where we choose,» said Blade.
«You make it sound so easy,» said Guroth sourly.
«It is not easy,» said Blade. «I have never thought it is, or will be. But it is our best chance.» And he began describing his plan for the decisive battle. Occasionally Guroth or one of the other officers would ask a question. Usually it was simply to clarify a technical point. But once Guroth broke out in indignation. He was joined by Nefus and Harima.
«This cannot be, oh Pendarnoth! We cannot let you risk your life again, after you have already risked it so many times. What would be the effect on the minds of our soldiers, if they saw you fall?»
«I hope they will avenge me properly,» said Blade. «No, I must ask you to let me do this as I have proposed. General Ornilan is too able to miss an open trap unless we somehow blind him to its presence. And the best way of blinding him is to offer me as the bait of the trap. I humiliated him by my escape. He will desperately want to wipe out that humiliation by killing or capturing me.»
«Desperately enough to throw sound tactics to the wind?» asked Guroth.
«I think so,» said Blade. «I cannot make any promises. But can any general do more?»
Inevitably, for they recognized the realities of war, they accepted this. And because they accepted this, they also accepted Blade's plan. Blade walked out of the chamber arm in arm with Harima, feeling certain that he had done his best. He could only hope that would be good enough. And he had at least the consolation of knowing that he would have his answer within a few weeks.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Less than a mile behind Blade rose the walls of Vilesh. Two miles ahead rose a cloud of dust marking the advancing Rojags. Invisible behind that dust curtain was the Lanyri army-invisible, but there, where they were supposed to be. Scouts had been bringing in reports at ten-minute intervals all morning. Behind a cavalry screen thrown out by their Rojag allies, the Lanyri were advancing straight toward Vilesh.
Ornilan was throwing his entire army straight at the Pendari capital. Perhaps he did not know that the main Pendari army was lurking off to his right rear. Most of its fifty thousand men and horses were hidden in groves of fruit trees and fields of ripening grain. Most of the men were dismounted, saving their horses. Only a few thousand were mounted, enough to keep the Rojag scouts pushed back.
Or perhaps Ornilan knew and didn't care. Perhaps he couldn't resist this opportunity to get his army within striking distance of the walls of Vilesh without fighting a battle. If Ornilan was that sort of headlong fighter, perhaps there was no need to lure him into the trap prepared for him?
Blade very much wanted to believe that. Around him was only the Pendarnoth's Guard and two army regiments-barely two thousand horsemen in all. He wanted very much to believe that he didn't really have to sit out here on the Golden Steed and wait while five times that many Rojag cavalry advanced on him. But he couldn't let himself be that optimistic. He simply had to wait and see.
Around him also stood ruined cottages, the souvenirs of a Rojag raid two weeks ago. A thousand enemy horsemen had pushed right up to the walls of Vilesh. But when the smoke had cleared away, Blade realized that the Rojags had given him a valuable gift.
He scanned the ground around the ruins, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun. He would have traded five hundred horsemen for a pair of sunglasses, and a thousand for a pair of binoculars. But even his naked eyes could make out furrows and dents on the ground. During those two weeks, the long-range siege engines lurking behind the walls of Vilesh had been ranging in on the ruins. Now they could drop a salvo of two hundred stones and spears within a hundred-yard radius of the ruins. Blade had seen them do it. The next time they did it, those stones and bolts would be coming down on a mass of Rojag cavalry. Or so Blade planned. Part of the plan was for him to ride out in the face of ten thousand Rojags with his two thousand Pendari to wave the bait in their faces.
If he was going to be bait, he was going to be tempting bait: Not only was he riding the Golden Steed, he was wearing the ceremonial war garb of the Pendarnoth. There had been no such thing until the night before, when a regiment of craftsmen urged on by Princess Harima had finished their work. Now Blade gleamed and sparkled all over as he sat in the saddle. His high-crested helmet was gilded and burnished, and the metal clasps of his leather armor shone golden. A massive gold buckle set with diamonds held a blue cloak encrusted with gold embroidery around his shoulders. His belt was made of gilded links of fine steel, with a gold buckle almost large enough to armor his stomach and groin. A scabbard of gilded leather held together with gold-headed rivets carried a sword with a jeweled and gilded hilt and gold engraving on the blued steel blade. The inscription read: «THAT THE PENDARNOTH MAY STRIKE DOWN THE ENEMIES OF PENDAR.»
Gilded greaves on his calves, gilded spurs on his boots, gilded bit and bridle and stirrups, gilded rivets holding the high-peaked saddle together-the gold and gilding went on and on. Neither Blade nor the Golden Steed could so much as twitch a muscle without making sun blaze from something golden. Blade hoped he and his mount looked both impressive and tempting. But he had a private, nagging feeling that he merely looked ridiculous.