The Torians soon learned that the people from the sea called themselves the Vodi. They also found many other names to call them, all rude and some unprintable.
Ten thousand Vodi in two hundred ships came out of the sea and landed before Tordas. They fought on foot, so they could not run away from a Torian charge, but they didn't need to. They stood, threw balls of stone and lead from their smoke tubes, shrugged off arrows and lances with their steel coats, and slew Torians by the hundreds with their axes and swords. The Torians fought five battles in fifteen days, lost all of them, and lost ten men for every one of the Vodi they killed or hurt.
Within three weeks of the coming of the Vodi Tordas was surrounded. Food could no longer get in, and the poor who'd never eaten well anyway began to starve. Messengers could still get in and out, but they did no good. None of the captains of the garrisons of the other cities of Tor had any wish to hurl their horsemen against the smoke tubes and steel coats of the Vodi. Kayarna was also sure that some of those captains were holding back in hopes of making a separate peace with the Vodi after Tordas fell and the throne of Tor stood vacant.
Those captains would not have to wait long. The Vodi had other weapons besides starvation to use against Tordas. They had enormous smoke tubes, as long as a ship's boat and many times heavier, hurling stone balls as large as a horse's head and as heavy as a man. The stones crashed into the walls, rolled down the streets, fell through the roofs of palaces, hovels, temples, and shops with a gruesome impartiality. The walls of Tordas would certainly let the Torians beat off any assault as long as they stood. How long would those walls stand, under the battering of the smoke tubes?
Kayarna wondered. She did not show her doubts when she rode about the battered streets. She urged on the captains and the soldiers, consoled the bereaved, saw that widows were fed and orphans were housed in the palace itself. She spent eighteen hours a day awake and most of those hours in the saddle. This not only inspired the Torians, it gave Kayarna herself peaceful sleep at night, untroubled by nightmares of what would happen when the walls finally came down and the Vodi stormed the city.
If the gods had willed it that she should be the last ruler of Tor, then she would at least try to die in a manner worthy of those who'd gone before her.
It was several more weeks before Richard Blade learned precisely what was happening to Tordas and why the Torians would not be attacking the Kargoi any time soon. He had to get the story bit by bit from Torian prisoners.
Naturally these men were reluctant to admit how helpless their land was against the Kargoi. The Kargoi found convincing methods of persuading them to tell all they knew.
When Blade had a clear picture of what was happening to the west, he sat down with Fudan, Loya, and Paor to decide the best course of action.
«The Torians will not be able to hold out much longer. That seems certain. In England we have some experience with smoke tubes such as the Vodi are using. We call them guns. Against large guns no wall can stand, unless it is built specially to resist them.
«So the Vodi are on the road to victory, and in the end they will win without our help. We cannot earn their gratitude by helping them defeat Tor. We can only hurry the day when they will rule all the land to the west and feel ready to move against us.
«If we hold back from aiding either side, the Vodi will still win. It will take them a little longer, but sooner or later they will rule in Tor. Then they will also think of coming east-«
«Why should they do that?» said Paor. «If they have settled in a new homeland that is large enough for them, will they want more land?»
«They have not come across the sea because the waters have risen to swallow their own homeland,» said Blade. «They have come because they think the rising waters have made other peoples weak, and this is a good time to make those peoples into slaves.»
Fudan struggled for words to express his horror. «They-they are monsters!»
«I do not know about that,» said Blade. «I do know that such people will not stop with conquering Tor. Sooner or later they will march and sail against us. Also, a people like the Vodi, who love war, might some day be tempted to ally themselves with the Menel, to gain their help in conquering far and wide.»
That idea made the other three totally speechless for a moment. Then Loya burst out, «No! The gods forbid!»
Blade smiled. «The gods may forbid it, but I think we ourselves can do a better and more certain job.»
«How?» said Paor. Then he answered his own question. «We should go west and help the Torians drive the Vodi into the sea?»
«Yes. If we do that, the Vodi may not come again for many years. The Torians will be grateful, and it will be easy to get them to join with us against the Menel. With the Torians, the Hauri, and the Kargoi all united and given guns, the Menel will not have an easy time of it.»
«That is true enough,» said Fudan. «We will be a thousand to their one, and none of us will be cowards. But what of the-the guns of the Vodi? The Torians have suffered terribly from them. Do you think we can win against them, when the Torians have failed?»
«Yes,» said Blade. «The guns throw their stones by setting fire to a strong powder. The Vodi can only have brought a certain amount of the powder across the sea with them, and they have been burning it rapidly. If they have burned it all, or if we can destroy what is left, their guns will be useless. Then we can fight them in the old ways, which we know so well.»
Blade was making an educated guess when he said that, and he hoped he'd guessed right. If not, he could be leading the two peoples who trusted his wisdom to their deaths.
«If all this is true,» said Paor, «then Blade has spoken wisely. We shall go west to aid the Torians.»
«We shall,» said Fudan and Loya together. All four of them rose from the table, stepped into a circle, and joined their hands together.
Chapter 24
A hundred-pound ball of stone plunged out of the sky, to crash into the corner of a house in the Street of the Tailors. Half of the house shivered, sagged, and crumbled in a swelling roar of falling masonry and a billowing cloud of dust. The rescue workers moved toward the ruins, their dust-coated faces drawn, their steps slow and shuffling. Not even the eyes of their queen upon them could make them move swiftly. The siege of Tordas had gone on too long.
Kayarna gentled her horse with one hand and brushed the dust from her face with the other. At least horses no longer bolted at the crash and thunder of the stone-belching Vodi smoke tubes. Many of them were so gaunt they could hardly have had the strength; fodder was running short. A few more days and none of the horses in the city would have the strength to charge. A few days after that, and it would be time to slaughter and eat them. By eating the horses that had once carried its fighting men proudly across the plains, Tordas might last another week or two-if the smoke tubes didn't batter it into ruins first.
Kayarna urged her horse forward. As she did, two riders came trotting out of the dust cloud filling the street ahead and reined in on either side of her. She recognized two of the captains who'd been among the boldest in getting messages in and out of the city.
«Your Majesty,» one of them gasped. «We are lost! The wagon people are advancing upon the city. Their army is in sight from the walls. In another hour they will be joining the Vodi, and then…»