Guardians Of The Coral Throne

Chapter 7

The raiders of Scador were on the march back toward the pass before the sun was much higher in the sky. The High Chiefs sent off two hundred archers as soon as the battle was over, to march straight to the pass and hold it to the death. The Karani had never attempted to seize the pass before. But then, they had never made a night attack before. Fear of the unknown now filled the warriors of Scador. What new surprise was the enemy going to spring on them? Blade saw veterans of a dozen raids into Karan looking about them as though they expected the Riders of Death to sprout from the ground like grass or fly down from the sky like eagles.

Blade and the fifty-odd survivors of his band formed part of the rear guard, four hundred strong. All of them were warriors, except Tera. Blade would have sent her up to the main body where she would be under her father's protection. But she refused to leave Blade's side just as stubbornly as he had refused to eat her share of the food on the march.

«I will live in shame if I am not as strong and brave in a woman's way as you are in a warrior's way,» she said. «Would you have me live that way?» There was no good answer to that. So Tera tramped along in her usual place behind Blade's horse as the army of Scador wound its way up out of the lowlands toward the pass.

Blade was not marching with the rear guard in any hope of fleeing to the Karani. He knew that would have to wait until another time and another raid. That might be quite awhile. But in the meantime he would be honored among the Scadori. Besides, there was Tera.

But he did want to observe Karani fighting methods more closely. That was just common sense, and also an unbreakable habit. The rear guard was most likely to see more fighting today, and therefore the best place for Blade.

As the sun rose higher, Blade found sweat pouring down his body, itching horribly under his armor and leather and mixing itself with the caked blood that he hadn't found the time or water to wash off. Gradually the army climbed upward, the landscape around them showed more rocks and less grass and trees, and the air turned cooler. The mountains flanking the pass began to loom higher and higher against the blue sky.

The bare land stretched farther and farther on either side. They were not yet above the tree line, but the nearest stand of forest that could give cover to any sizable force was now a good two miles away. No force of heavily equipped Karani infantry could cross those miles without being seen, or strike before the Scadori were formed and ready to fight. In fact, they might never even reach the Scadori. On a long uphill run, a warrior of Scador could easily leave the best and toughest Karani soldier panting far behind.

But what was that glint of sunlight on metal, on the fringes of that distant stand of woods? Blade shaded his eyes with his hands and looked. The sunlight was unmistakably glinting from the armor of-horsemen-swarming out of the forest. Some of the leaders were already beginning to sweep out across the open slopes, toward the Scadori. Blade opened his mouth to shout a warning.

Before he could take a single deep breath a dozen others shouted the warning for him. «Ho! Ha! Ha! Stand, stand and pray to the Watchers! The Riders of Death come! The Riders of Death are upon us!»

For once, four hundred warriors of Scador seemed ready to panic. Some took to their heels, dashing away up the slope, hoping to reach whatever protection they might find in the main body and in the rough ground closer to the pass. Others, even more panic-stricken, ran wildly off in directions that offered no hope at all of safety. A few threw their weapons down on the ground and knelt, crossing their arms and bowing their heads in prayer.

Blade leaped out of the saddle, drawing his broadsword with one hand and grabbing Tera around the waist with the other. He practically heaved her into the saddle. She clutched the reins by instinct, tottered, but stayed on the horse.

«Ride! Ride, woman! Ride for the pass and for Degar! Pray for yourself until you get there, and for the rest of us when you are safe!» He slapped the horse on the rump. It whinnied and started off up-slope. Tera screamed back at him, eyes wide.

«Blade, I will not-!»

«Yes, you will!» he roared. «You will not disobey me this time, I swear by the Watchers!»

Tera threw a frantic, pleading look at him, her face twisted more in fear for him than for herself. But the horse was gathering speed, and her desperate pulls on the reins had no effect. Blade could only hope that she could stop the beast at the pass or that someone could stop it for her. Then he put her out of his mind and turned back to rally the rear guard. Once again he was thinking only as a fighter, a fighter determined to go out on his feet. The Karani were the enemy, and that was all they were.

His voice roared out above the prayers, the shouts, and the mounting thunder of the approaching Riders. «Stand and fight, you crawling black bugs, or you won't live for the Karani to kill you!» He brandished both of his swords so that dazzling light glinted from them and he seemed to be waving fire above his head. «Stand and give those high-riding swine a fight they'll remember if they live through it! Stand and give them a fight until our comrades are safe in the pass! We'll have our comrades' prayers and the prayers of their sons and their women when we go to the Watchers! Stand, and be warriors of Scador and not pigs or mongrel dogs or things that crawl in the dust!»

Every man in the rear guard heard him. The Riders of Death more than a mile away could have heard him! The Scadori who were starting to flee froze in their tracks.

Some of those who had already run started back to join their comrades, shouting war cries as they came. A solid square of warriors formed around Blade almost as he watched. He saw Jarud shouting and pushing warriors into position along one side of the square, and called to him.

«Jarud! When I fall, the leadership is yours!» Jarud pressed the tip of his sword to his forehead in the traditional sign of sworn obedience and turned back to his work. Blade found the highest patch of ground inside the square and stared out over the heads of the warriors at the approaching Riders of Death.

He got a good look at them, as the rough ground slowed them bit by bit from a gallop to a trot. But the horses were sure-footed and the Riders skilled, and they came on steadily, five hundred or more of them in a long crescent half a mile from tip to tip. Deep-voiced Karani trumpets sounded as they came on, and above the center of the crescent floated a long banner, something black glistening in the middle of a dark red field.

Each Rider wore a silvered helmet and breastplate, and more silver highlighted harnesses and weapons. The weapons included a short thick bow, two swords, one long and one short, a quiver of arrows and another of long throwing darts, and light eight-foot lances with silvered heads and small blue pennants. Slung on their backs over the quivers were small round shields.

Blade couldn't help wondering if the Riders of Death got themselves up like mobile arsenals just to impress people, or if they could really use all the hardware they carried around. Certainly the tales he had heard said they could. Even more certainly they were coming on, steadily holding formation like disciplined and trained men. But around him, Blade could see that the Scadori were also holding their square. They might not be professionals, but they were warriors determined to make their last fight a good one.

Four hundred yards out; the Karani unslung their bows and snatched arrows from their quivers. At three hundred yards they opened fire. Arrows whistled down out of the sky, striking hard enough to drive through armor. But unless they were mortally hit, the Scadori stayed on their feet. Blade saw Jarud grit his teeth, snap off an arrow driven clean through his shoulder, throw both pieces away, and shift his spear to his other hand. Scadori did go down, but as warriors fell or crawled away, others moved up to take their places in the outer rank of the square. Blade realized that he didn't need to give any more orders. Now that he had rallied them from their first panic, the Scadori would fight as long and as well as possible. He gripped broadsword and spear until his knuckles stood out white under the calluses and grime, and waited.

The Riders kept up their arrow fire as their line slowly curved around the Scadori square, folding the wings of the crescent around it. When all the Riders were within a hundred yards, the bows were slung and the darts came out. The name «darts» seemed too innocent for what the Riders brandished now. They were more like thick-shafted miniature spears, three feet long, finned and balanced.

Twenty at a time, the Riders swept in toward the square, riding in a single line. The line curved in toward the Scadori until the lead Rider was twenty yards away. His arm snapped forward, the head of his dart gleamed in the air, and a Scadori warrior gasped as the dart drove through his shield and pinned it to his shield arm. Before the man's scream died away the Rider was swinging away, moving out of spear range as another Karani rode in, dart swinging, seeking a target of his own.

The Riders of Death could have cut down the Scadori with arrows from a distance without any danger to themselves. They might have ridden down the Scadori with their lances with only light losses. What they were actually doing was much more dangerous. Blade saw Riders go down, men or horses pierced by Scadori spears. It was also slow. But then the Karani commander had all the time in the world. If he didn't care about his men, or cared more about putting on a good show…

The Scadori lines were growing thin, and the center of the square was filling up with men who writhed and groaned or simply lay quiet, staring up at the sky. Blade saw Jarud go down with a dart in his thigh and another in his stomach, his heavy shield pincushioned with five more darts. Blade stepped forward, picked up the shield, and took Jarud's place in the outer line.

Blade's spear took one Rider's horse in the chest. The horse went to its knees and the Rider sailed over its head and crashed to the ground. Before he could rise Blade jerked a dart from his shield and flung it with deadly accuracy. It drove into the man's skull just below the ear, and he promptly stopped moving.

Then a woman's shrill scream cut through the pounding hooves and Karani and Scadori war cries. Blade's head jerked in the direction of the sound, and his breath stuck in his throat. A man in spectacularly gilded armor was riding up to the Karani line. Over his saddle he was carrying a woman. She was completely naked, and her dark hair tossed as she struggled wildly against the hand pressed brutally down on the small of her back.

Tera.

Blade's breath went out of him in a long, slow hiss. Suddenly he had a purpose that was more than standing here among the Scadori until his luck ran out. As the next Rider came trotting in, Blade pulled another dart out of the shield and waited. The Rider's arm was just going up for his throw when Blade flung his own dart squarely into the man's face. He threw up his hands and tottered backward. Out of control, his horse swept onward toward the Scadori.

Blade met the horse as it crashed through the Scadori line. He dropped his shield, clutched the bridle with one hand, and struck at the toppling Rider with his sword. The man's head flew from his shoulders and the impact of the blow swept him out of the saddle and over the rump of his horse. Before the headless corpse hit the ground, Blade was swinging himself up into the empty saddle. He was firmly seated before the horse could realize what was going on and make up its mind to resist.

Blade had the horse back through the Scadori line and moving out at a trot before any of the other Riders could react. The first one he met seemed frozen by surprise as Blade rode at him. Blade's lance swung down into striking position and smashed the Rider out of his saddle. The Rider behind him pulled up so abruptly that his horse lost its footing on the rocky ground and spilled him, directly into Blade's path. The man gave one horrible scream as the hooves crushed in his chest, then he was left behind, kicking and groaning for breath. Blade dug his heels into the horse's flanks, urging it forward still faster.

He would have been a fine archery target if anyone had bothered to shoot at him. But half the Riders were too surprised and the other half were too afraid of hitting their comrades. Blade pounded across the open ground, crouching low in the saddle, urging the horse on with shouts and kicks. There was only one thing in his mind now-the man with the gilded armor and Tera sprawled across his saddle.

A moment later the man realized that he was Blade's target. He dug his spurs into his horse and turned away as a dozen of his men rode forward on either side, forming a solid line facing Blade. But by this time Blade had his horse moving at a canter. He hit the line before it was fully formed. His Scadori broadsword swept in a murderous are that sliced through one Rider's raised forearm, helmet, and skull. It stuck in the skull and jerked out of Blade's hand as the dead Rider toppled. Blade urged his horse on and drew the long Karani sword out of its saddle-mounted scabbard.

Now the man in the gilded armor apparently realized that Tera was a handicap. His free arm heaved, sending her flying headfirst out of the saddle. She struck the hard ground with a scream, sprawling face down. She was just rising to her hands and knees as Blade rode up. For a moment he was tempted to snatch her up and try to ride clear with her. She stared wide-eyed at him, mouth dripping blood from a cut lip and bruises already showing dark on her arms, breasts, and thighs.

In the next moment trumpets sounded again, and behind him Blade heard the thunder of fast-moving horses, hundreds of them. He turned and saw what seemed like a thousand more Riders pouring up the slope, brandishing lances and swords and bellowing war-cries. At their head was another man in gilded armor. But this one looked seven feet tall at least, rode a horse that seemed the size of a small elephant, and brandished a club that looked like a young tree. Before Blade could reach down for Tera or get his horse moving again, the giant was on him.

Blade's sword flashed up. The club came down on it, and the steel snapped as though it had been made of bamboo. The club rose again in a feint at Blade's head, then swept in an arc that ended in the center of Blade's chest.

Suddenly he had no more breath, and no more strength to hold on to the saddle or his sword. He knew he was toppling sideways out of the saddle, knew that the giant was charging on past with roars of laughter, knew that the ground came up and hit him hard. Then he stopped knowing anything.