“And it is all a trick,” Ahankk said, grinning behind his hand. ‘We will not attack to the east after all?!”
“You are correct.” The warlord had their complete attention, the officers leaning forward unconsciously so as not to miss a word. “As soon as it is dark, the horde will ride west, a day’s and a night’s ride should bring us to The Slash, the valley that leads to the weasel’s heartland. We will attack the defenders, with the gunpowder bombs against their forts, and seize control before reinforcements can arrive.”
“Bad fighting there,” one of the officers grumbled, fingering an old wound. “Nothing there to fight for.”
“No, nothing there, you brainless fool,” Temuchin said in such a cold and angry tone that the man recoiled, “nothing at all. But it is the gateway to their homeland. A few hundred can stop an army in The Slash, but once we are through they are lost. We will destroy their tribes one by one until the weasel clan will be only a memory for the jongleurs to sing about. Now issue your orders and sleep. Tomorrow night the long ride and the attack begins.”
As the others filed out, Temuchin took Jason by the arm.
“The gunpowder bombs,” he said. “They will blow up each time they are used?”
“Of course,” Jason answered, with far more enthusiasm than he felt. “You have my word on that.”
It wasn’t the bombs that were worrying him, he had already taken precautions to assure satisfactory explosions, but the prospect of another nonstop ride even longer than the first. The nomads would do it, there was no doubt about that, and the Pyrrans could make it as well. But could he?
The night air was bitterly cold when he emerged from the heat of the camach. His breath made a sudden silver fog against the stars before it vanished. The plains were still, cut through by the occasional snort of a tired morope or the drunken shouts of the soldiers.
Yes, he would make the ride all right. He might have to be tied to the saddle and hopped up with drugs, but he was going to make it. What really concerned him was the shape he would arrive in at the other end of the ride. This did not bear thinking about.
13
“Hold on for just a short while longer. The Slash is in sight ahead,” Kerk shouted.
Jason nodded, then realized that his head was bobbing continuously with the Inorope’s canter and his nodding was indistinguishable from this motion. He tried to answer, but started coughing at the cracked dryness of his throat, filled and caked with the dust stirred up by the running animals. In the end he released his cramped grip on the saddle pommel long enough to wave, then clutched at it again. The army rode on.
It was a nightmare journey. It had started soon after dark on the previous night, when company after company of riders had slipped away to the west. After the first few hours, fatigue and pain had blended together for Jason into a misty unreality that, with the darkness and the countless rows of running shapes, soon resembled a dream more than reality. A particularly loathsome dream. They had galloped, without stopping, until dawn, when Temuchin had permitted a short halt to feed and water the morope.s for the balance of the journey. This stop may have helped their mounts, but it had almost finished Jason.
Instead of dismounting, he had fallen from his morope, and when he tried to stand, his legs had failed him. Kerk had dragged him to his feet and walked him in a circle while another Pyrran cared for both their mounts. Feeling had finally returned to his numb legs and with it excruciating pain. His thighs were soaked with blood where the continual friction of the saddle had chafed away the skin. He had permitted himself a light injection of painkiller and some stiiulant, then the ride had begun again. One fact he knew and hated was that he had to be sparing with the drugs. When this ride was over, the real battle would begin, and that would be the time when he would need all of his wits and strength. So the strongest drugs would have to be saved until then.
In an inverse way he could be proud of himself. More than one rider and inorope had been lost during this insane ride, and he, the offworlder who had never seen one of the creatures until a few months ago, was still going on. Barely. Some of the mounts had stumbled and fallen. Other riders had apparently gone to sleep or passed out, had slipped from their saddles and been trampled. It was certain death to drop beneath those running claws.
If The Slash was up ahead, the time had finally come to utilize the drugs he had been hoarding. Squinting against the late, afternoon sun and the blinding clouds of dust, he saw a dark cut against the gray white of the mountains ahead. The Slash. The valley they hoped to capture that would lead them to certain victory. Right now the drugs were more important than any number of victories. He dialed the medikit with clumsy fingers and jammed it against the heel of his hand.
As the drugs cleared the haze of fatigue and drew numbing layers over the pain, Jason realized that Temuchin was insane.
“He’s calling for a charge!” Jason shouted across to Kerk as the signal horns sounded on all sides. “After all this riding…”
“Of course,” Kerk said. “It is the correct way.”
The correct way. It wins wars and kills men. An angry morope, squealing at the pain of ruthlessly applied spurs, reared up and threw its rider under the running feet of the others. This was not the only death. Still, the attack was pressed home.
Across the plains the army swept and into the mouth of the valley. Picked bowmen dismounted and clambered along the walls of The Slash to add their fire to the attack of the solid column streaming by below them. The leaders vanished into the valley and still others followed. A cloud of dust obscured the entrance. The Pyrrans pressed forward to the attack with the others while Jason turned off and headed for Temuchin’s standard as he had been ordered. The personal guardsmen opened to let him through.
Temuchin took a report from a rider, then turned to Jason. “Get your bombs,” he ordered.
“Why?” Jason asked, then ‘hurried on as the light of instant anger burst in the other man’s eyes. “What do you want me to do with them? Order, great Temuchin, and I shall obey. Only please give me some idea what you want me for.”
The anger vanished as quickly as it had come. “The battle has gone as did all the others,” the warlord said. ‘We have taken them by surprise and only the normal garrison is here. The lower redoubts have been taken and we now press on the higher ones. These are rockwalled and set into the cliff. Arrows cannot reach the defenders. They must be attacked on foot, slowly, from behind shields, if we are not to lose half an army. They cannot be stormed. Each time before it has been this way. One by one we take the redoubts and work our way up The Slash. Before we reach the other end the reinforcements have arrived and further battle is useless. But this rime it will be different.”
“I can just guess. You think that a gunpowder bomb in each position would take the fight out of the defenders and speed the attack?”
“You speak correctly.”
“Then here I go, the First Felicitian Grenadiers to the attack. I will want some of my people to help me. They can throw farther and better than I can.”
“The order will be issued.”
By the time Jason had found the pack animals and unloaded the first of the bombs, the Pyrrans had arrived, Kerk and two others, sweaty and dusty from the fight, with that look of grim pleasure Pyrrans have only during battle.
“Ready to throw some bombs?” Jason asked Kerk.
“Of course. What is the mechanism?”
“Improved. I had a feeling that excuses are not much good with Ternuchin and I wanted grenades that would go off every rime.” He held up one of the pot-bombs and pointed to the cloth wick. “There’s gunpowder in these things all right, but mostly for the smoke and the stink. The wick is a dummy. You’ll have to light it. I’ve made punk pots from grass for this, but that is just for effect. Let the wick smolder a bit, then pull up on it sharply. There is a microgrenade embedded in each one of these things, with the cloth wick tied to the trip pin. After you pull, you have three seconds to toss and duck.”