“The spooks! Where are the spooks?” howled a despairing Lowlife. A moment later one of the knights crashed upon him, impaling his claw-torn body with a sapphire lance.
Of the sixty-three human beings who had made their stand in that street, only five escaped into the narrow alleys where hanging awnings, lines of washing, and crowded ranks of rubbish carts abandoned by panicked rama sanitary workers made it impossible for the mounted Tanu to follow.
A mammoth bonfire was ablaze in the Central Plaza of Finiah. Jubilant phantoms in a hundred hideous guises capered around it waving battle standards festooned with strings of freshly psychogilded skulls.
Khalid Khan protested. “They’re wasting time, Mighty Sharn! Our people are taking a terrible beating when they meet the Tanu unsupported by Firvulag mind-cover Even the mounted gray-torcs can cut right through our infantry. We’ve got to work together! And we must find some way to counter those chaliko-riders.”
The great luminous scorpion bent over the turbaned Pakistani, multicolored organs within its translucent body throbbing to the rhythm of the exotic war chant.
“It has been many years since we had cause for celebration.” The unhuman voice clanged in Khalid’s brain. “For too long the Foe has lurked safely behind stout city walls, despising us. You do not understand how it has been with us, the humiliation our race has suffered, draining our valor and driving even the most powerful of us to hopeless inaction. But behold! Look upon the trophy skulls, and these only a small proportion of the total!
“And how many of them belong to Tanu? Dammit, Sharn, most of the enemy casualties have been among the torced and bareneck humans! The noncombatant Tanu are all holed up in House Velteyn where we can’t reach them, and only a handful of their mounted knights have been killed!”
“The Tanu chivalry”, the eerie voice hesitated and then made reluctant admission, “presents a formidable challenge to us. Armored war steeds with their minds held in thrall by the riders are not intimidated by our horrific illusions or shape-shifting. We must contend against them physically, and not all of the Firvulag company are of heroic frame. Our obsidian weapons, our swords, halberds, chain-flails, and throwing spears, are not often effective against chaliko cavalry in the Grand Combat. And the same obtains in this battle.”
“You need a change in tactics. There are ways for foot soldiers to put down charging horsemen.” The metalsmith’s teeth glittered in a brief grin. “My ancestors, Pathan hillmen, knew how!”
The response of the Firvulag general was cool. “Our battle customs are fixed by sacred tradition.”
“No wonder you’re losers! The Tanu weren’t afraid to innovate, to take advantage of human science. Now you Firvulag have human allies on your side, and you stick one timid little toe into the battlefield and then mess about singing and dancing instead of going for the prize!”
“Beware lest I punish your insolence, Lowlife!” But the furious retort lacked conviction.
Khalid said softly, “Would you help us if we try a new tactic? Would you shield our minds while we try to knock those long-shanked bastards out of the saddle?”
“Yes… we would do that.”
“Then pay close attention.”
The monster scorpion metamorphosed into a handsome young ogre wearing a thoughtful scowl. After a few minutes the hobgoblins left off their madcap dancing, changed into gnomish warriors, and crowded in to listen.
Converting Sharn’s lieutenants proved to be more difficult. Khalid had to engineer a demonstration. He rounded up ten volunteer Lowlives equipped with iron-tipped javelins and led them to the approaches of House Velteyn, where gray-torc and Tanu riders guarded the ultimate sanctuary. The paved avenue-was lit by widely spaced torchères. No other invaders were to be seen because of the heavy concentration of defenders. Sharn and six of his Great Ones lurked in the shelter of a deserted mansion while Khalid deliberately led his squad of spearmen into plain sight of a patrolling gray troop.
The human leader, fully armored in blue glass, drew his vitredur blade and led a charge at the gallop down the cobblestone street. Instead of scattering, the Lowlives drew closely together, forming a tight phalanx bristling with four-meter spears.
The patrol swerved to the right at the last instant to avoid crashing into the iron porcupine, individual troopers reining up and wheeling their mounts about so that they could strike with longsword or battleaxe. They were plainly nonplussed, since almost all of the antagonists they had encountered thus far had emulated the Firvulag maneuver of tossing their pole-arms and then fleeing. This pack of innovators stood their ground until the animals were off balance in the turn, then stabbed deep into the unarmored bellies of the huge clawed beasts.
The hideous pain of disembowelment overrode the mind-control exerted by each rider upon his mount. Wounded chalikos stumbled and fell, or went careening off in a frenzy while the troopers hung on for their lives. Khalid’s warriors pounced upon the unhorsed, dispatching them with spear or blade. Five minutes after the initiation of the attack, every member of the gray troop was either dead or had fled.
“But will it work on the Foe?” inquired Betularn of the White Hand skeptically. With Pallol Battlemaster a non-participant, he was the doyen of Firvulag stalwarts, and his opinion counted for much.
Khalid grinned at the beetle-browed giant while one of his comrades tried to staunch bleeding arm and leg wounds with torn strips of the dead captal’s cloak. “It will work on the Tanu, providing we take them by surprise. We must assemble as many Lowlives and Firvulag as possible for a massed thrust against House Velteyn. Those of our people who don’t have spears will improvise them from bamboo awning poles. We needn’t use iron to gut the chalikos, but each human fighter will have to have an iron weapon to use against downed Tanu riders. And your people will have to be right in the thick of things beside ours, handling mind-defense and getting in whatever licks they can.”
The venerable warrior shook his head slowly. He said to Sharn, “This is contrary to our Way, as you know, Great Captain. But the Foe has defied tradition for more than forty years.” The other five Great Ones growled assent. “We have prayed to the Goddess for a chance to recoup our honor. And so I say… let us essay the Lowlife tactic. And her will be done.”
Long after midnight, with smoke from the burning city blotting out the stars and the untended torchères guttering low, Lowlives and Little People gathered for the grand assault. In a rare display of cooperative virtuosity, the best of the Firvulag illusion-spinners wove a curtain of confusion to deceive the farsensing Foe. The Tanu besieged within House Velteyn knew that the enemy was up to something, but the nature of the assault remained in doubt.
The Lord of Finiah himself, aloft once again with several of his most trusted tacticians, made pass after pass at low altitude, atempting to discern the plan of the invaders; but the meta-psychic shimmer was just dense enough to defeat his farsight. He beheld the Foe massed opposite the main portal of his palace. There were to be no feints, no multipronged storming of the several entrances, that much was self-evident. With typical Firvulag singlemindedness, Sharn seemed to be gambling everything on a last great frontal assault.
Velteyn sent the telepathic order on the intimate mode to each knight commander, and these in turn transmitted the Lord’s words to their subordinates: