are on our own!”
“Not for long!” I fairly shrieked over the fresh hubbub. “Into them! We must open the gates!”
This was the red hurly-burly of action very far removed from sitting a zorca in the rear and methodically working out which way a battle should be run. We were up at the sharp end and if our wits and our sword arms failed us we were done for.
The party of mercenaries blocking the stairway resisted our efforts. They were fighting men. Many of them showed the gleam of the pakmort at throat, or looped into the shoulder of the war harness. We charged into them and were thrust back, struggling desperately.
Our numbers were thinning. Flung stuxes, those thick and heavy throwing spears with the small cross quillons set back from the head, flew into our ranks. Men shrieked and died, blowing bloody froth, vomiting. I hurdled a sprawled bleg, three of his legs missing, and launched myself at the mercenaries. Their swords flamed. It was all a mad business of cut and hack, of duck, of thrust, of parry, and recover.
I do not think, I seriously do not think, we could have done it. Looking back at that scene of carnage it seems to me the enemy were slowly overmastering us. We fought; but we were few and they continually fed reinforcements up from the garrison so that we faced what appeared to be an unending stream of foemen.
And then...
And then!
By Zair! But to think of it brings that excruciating tingle in the blood, sets the pulses jumping, shows it all again in splendor.
A shadow dropped down over us, a twinned shadow from the twin suns. An airboat hovered, for she could not settle with that seething mass of struggling men below without squashing friend and foe alike. From the voller leaped men. I saw them. Over the coamings they jumped, roaring into action. I saw their yellow hair flying free, for the Maiden with the Many Smiles was not in the sky. I saw the height of them, seven foot, each fighting man. I saw their weapons, those long single-bladed Saxon-pattern axes. Oh, yes, I saw them as they smashed into the mercenaries and the axes whirled in that old familiar way, ripping arcs of silver and red.
Warriors of Ng’groga, they were, tall sinewy axemen, and there was about their work the fierce controlled power of the typhoon.
At their head, urging them on, slashing with cunning skill, opening a path through the enemy — at their head, in the lead, roared on that tall familiar figure that meant so much to me.
“By Zair!” I said. “If only Seg were here now!”
With that and with renewed heart we swept the enemy from before the stairway. They were sent screaming to topple over the battlements of the tower. The stairway was cleared and men raced down, yelling, striking this way and that with lethal axes. The gate was opened.
After that — why, the army poured in and in next to no time the citadel of Kanarsmot was in our hands.
Delia found me as I walked out of the open gate and over the bridge. Walking was not easy for the arrows and the corpses. The Sword Watch were busily engaged in the citadel in rounding up prisoners and discovering what portable property there might be worthy the consideration of a guardsman of the Emperor’s Sword Watch.
“Oh, Dray! When you climbed the rope—”
“Did you see him?”
She smiled and the world of Kregen took on a roseate light. “Yes. I saw him. And here he is, walking up just as though nothing had happened.” She was looking past me and as I turned so Delia ran by and threw herself at that tall, yellow-haired, grimly ferocious axeman. He clasped her in his long arms.
“Inch!”
He looked at me over Delia’s brown hair and I swear he had to swallow before he spoke.
“As a comrade of ours would say, Dray — Lahal, my old dom.”
“Lahal and Lahal a thousand times, Inch.”
And I strode forward to clasp his hand. He had had to swallow before speaking. Damned if I didn’t, too...
Chapter Eight
Vondium Dances
Inch’s adventures would fill
“Not for long!” I fairly shrieked over the fresh hubbub. “Into them! We must open the gates!”
This was the red hurly-burly of action very far removed from sitting a zorca in the rear and methodically working out which way a battle should be run. We were up at the sharp end and if our wits and our sword arms failed us we were done for.
The party of mercenaries blocking the stairway resisted our efforts. They were fighting men. Many of them showed the gleam of the pakmort at throat, or looped into the shoulder of the war harness. We charged into them and were thrust back, struggling desperately.
Our numbers were thinning. Flung stuxes, those thick and heavy throwing spears with the small cross quillons set back from the head, flew into our ranks. Men shrieked and died, blowing bloody froth, vomiting. I hurdled a sprawled bleg, three of his legs missing, and launched myself at the mercenaries. Their swords flamed. It was all a mad business of cut and hack, of duck, of thrust, of parry, and recover.
I do not think, I seriously do not think, we could have done it. Looking back at that scene of carnage it seems to me the enemy were slowly overmastering us. We fought; but we were few and they continually fed reinforcements up from the garrison so that we faced what appeared to be an unending stream of foemen.
And then...
And then!
By Zair! But to think of it brings that excruciating tingle in the blood, sets the pulses jumping, shows it all again in splendor.
A shadow dropped down over us, a twinned shadow from the twin suns. An airboat hovered, for she could not settle with that seething mass of struggling men below without squashing friend and foe alike. From the voller leaped men. I saw them. Over the coamings they jumped, roaring into action. I saw their yellow hair flying free, for the Maiden with the Many Smiles was not in the sky. I saw the height of them, seven foot, each fighting man. I saw their weapons, those long single-bladed Saxon-pattern axes. Oh, yes, I saw them as they smashed into the mercenaries and the axes whirled in that old familiar way, ripping arcs of silver and red.
Warriors of Ng’groga, they were, tall sinewy axemen, and there was about their work the fierce controlled power of the typhoon.
At their head, urging them on, slashing with cunning skill, opening a path through the enemy — at their head, in the lead, roared on that tall familiar figure that meant so much to me.
“By Zair!” I said. “If only Seg were here now!”
With that and with renewed heart we swept the enemy from before the stairway. They were sent screaming to topple over the battlements of the tower. The stairway was cleared and men raced down, yelling, striking this way and that with lethal axes. The gate was opened.
After that — why, the army poured in and in next to no time the citadel of Kanarsmot was in our hands.
Delia found me as I walked out of the open gate and over the bridge. Walking was not easy for the arrows and the corpses. The Sword Watch were busily engaged in the citadel in rounding up prisoners and discovering what portable property there might be worthy the consideration of a guardsman of the Emperor’s Sword Watch.
“Oh, Dray! When you climbed the rope—”
“Did you see him?”
She smiled and the world of Kregen took on a roseate light. “Yes. I saw him. And here he is, walking up just as though nothing had happened.” She was looking past me and as I turned so Delia ran by and threw herself at that tall, yellow-haired, grimly ferocious axeman. He clasped her in his long arms.
“Inch!”
He looked at me over Delia’s brown hair and I swear he had to swallow before he spoke.
“As a comrade of ours would say, Dray — Lahal, my old dom.”
“Lahal and Lahal a thousand times, Inch.”
And I strode forward to clasp his hand. He had had to swallow before speaking. Damned if I didn’t, too...
Chapter Eight
Vondium Dances
Inch’s adventures would fill
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