Master Of The Hashomi

Chapter 24

Blade's men couldn't afford to sit on the ledge above the Valley of the Hashomi forever. There was a spring of fresh water that would supply them until the end of time, but the food in the hospital would only last about ten days. Before that, the Baran's main army was supposed to push its way into the valley, or at least send reinforcements and supplies through the mountains to Blade.

The night after Blade arrived, he sent a strong force down the trail to the valley floor. Half of them fought their way through the guarding Hashomi and marched out into the valley, stealing all the livestock they found.

The other half went to work with axes, chopping down trees and building a fortified stockade around the bottom of the trail. They'd finished by the time the cattle raiders returned. The livestock was driven into the stockade, and a ditch dug around the outside of it. Now Blade had a fortified strongpoint on the valley floor and several tons of fresh meat on the hoof to add to his supplies. The Hashomi had lost forty more men as against Blade's twenty. They'd also been given a pointed notice that they'd better take him seriously, or it would be worse for them. Blade intended to march everywhere in the valley and carry off everything and everybody that wasn't nailed down, if the Hashomi were fool enough to let him.

That day he had a barricade of logs and stones built halfway down the tunnel. Now he had a line of defense to hold even if he lost control of the bridge. Then he had the doors in the tunnel unlocked: Some of the caves were empty, while others held nothing but skeletons and stenches. A few held living prisoners.

Most of the prisoners were farmers, craftsmen, and women who hadn't been willing to play their assigned roles in the Hashomi's scheme of things. A few were Hashomi who'd been too openly skeptical of the Master's wisdom.

All of them were more than ready to greet Blade as a liberator, and fight the Hashomi and the Master with all their strength. Unfortunately, few of them had the strength to get out of bed, let alone raise a sword. So they were carried into the hospital and put in charge of the doctors. At least they would keep the doctors too busy with medical duties to have time for plotting.

Blade wanted able-bodied supporters from the valley people, though. Or at least he wanted to give the Hashomi the impression that he expected to get them. That was the next job.

The last fifty men to come down the mountain each brought one piece of a small catapult. The catapult was now set up and put into action. From the roof of the main hospital building it could reach out nearly a mile into the valley.

Blade kept it firing all day and all night. It shot spears, bundles of arrows, stones, bags of nails and broken glass, filled chamberpots, and anything else that would hurt if it hit somebody. It also fired sacks made of old sheets and filled with appeals to the people of the valley.

«The end of the Hashomi is at hand. Their doom approaches. Freedom for all those who have been their slaves is coming. Kill them. Take their weapons. Gather up food and come to the House of the Free Men by the hospital on K'baq Cliff.»

That was one message. There were many others, most of them written by freed prisoners who had the strength to sit up and use a pen. Dozens of the messages were fired off each day, and sometimes the winds in the valley caught them and carried them far beyond the range of the catapult.

It became a point of pride among the defenders of the hospital to keep the catapult going. When a beam broke, one of the hospital carpenters and one of Blade's men carved a new one from a timber of one of the huts. When the rope broke, the women cut off their hair and braided a new one that made the catapult more powerful than before.

It also became a point to count how many people fled to the House of the Free Men-and how many Hashomi were killed in the process. Both figures mounted steadily. Every night shouts, screams, the clash of weapons floated up from the valley, as refugees tried to make their way through the line of watching Hashomi. Several hundred succeeded. As many more died, but so did a good many Hashomi.

Eventually the guards grew so strong that the valley people stopped trying to get through. By that time there were more than two hundred Hashomi tied down, watching Blade's force. Nearly that many had been killed or wounded since Blade arrived at the hospital.

«That makes four hundred Hashomi the Baran will not have to face when he and his men reach the head of the valley,» said Blade. «We haven't finished with them, either.»

«True,» said Giraz. «But I don't imagine they've finished with us, either. If the Master is as you say he is, it's going to take all the running we can do to keep ahead of him.»

«Also true,» said Blade, and began giving orders to prepare the hospital for defense. The ditch around the stockade was deepened and timbers placed in the bottom, jutting upward. Blade's archers kept the Hashomi at a safe distance until the work was done.

Other archers were placed along the trail from the stockade up to the hospital, at every place where the slope might let a Hashom climb up. During daylight they carried improvised drams to give the alarm, by night they had torches.

Still more archers were stationed along the rim of the hospital's ledge, with a clear field of fire down into the valley. At first the Hashomi tried to keep a line of bonfires alight all along the base of the cliff. They quickly discovered this made them excellent targets for archers they could not even see, let alone reach from four hundred feet below. The Hashomi then tried maintaining their watch without fires, and the valley people at once started slipping through again to join Blade. At last the Hashomi had to draw back and form their line of guards out of range of both the archers and the catapult. That tripled the length of the line and the number of men needed to maintain it. Blade had now tied up a force of Hashomi greater than his own strength, apart from the two hundred casualties he'd inflicted. He'd lost no more than eighty killed and wounded.

It was tempting to think that the job was done, but that was a temptation Blade resisted. Sooner or later the Hashomi would react more violently and effectively than they'd done so far. Then Blade's easy campaign would suddenly turn into a bloody last-ditch struggle.

He did everything he could to get ready for that struggle.

Every container that would hold water was filled and distributed among the buildings of the hospital. The Hashomi might poison the spring or climb up above the hospital and shoot arrows down. If they did, Blade wanted to be sure that no one would be poisoned or have to expose himself to get water.

Wooden shields were made for the fighting men, so they could move about even under a hail of arrows and stones from above. Large rocks were piled all along the path, ready to be rolled down the slopes at Hashomi trying to climb up.

The refugees from the valley did much of the work, slaving away sixteen and eighteen hours a day. Whatever had brought them to Blade in the first place, they now knew that their only hope of survival was his victory. If Blade's position was overrun, they were doomed to a quick death in the fighting, or a slower and far more painful death afterward. They knew that the Master of the Hashomi would take the time for a proper vengeance even if the Baran's army was storming the mouth of the valley at that exact moment.

Day after day went by, and the supply of food in the hospital shrank. The fighting men went on half rations, the civilians on quarter rations. The only people still getting a full ration were the sick and wounded. Faces began to look drawn and flesh melted off bones, but now they had another week before the food would be entirely gone. Before that happened, the Baran's army or at least fresh supplies should be on hand.

The very next night the Master launched his offensive. He used his wits and the skill of his men, but more than either he used the sheer brute strength and ferocity of the assarani, the great black reptiles. He brought them up under cover of a misty day, and that night he sent them in against the stockade. How many he sent no one ever knew, but they seemed endless to those who had to face them coming out of the night.

They came hissing and roaring, hurling themselves into the ditch, screaming as they impaled themselves on the stakes. They piled up in the ditch until it was filled with writhing scaled flesh. Then the survivors climbed over the dead and dying and hurled themselves like battering rams against the stockade itself.

The stockade held just long enough for some of the refugees to run up the trail toward the hospital. Then it collapsed in four places at once, the assarani swarmed in, and the Hashomi swarmed in after them. Fifty of Blade's fighting men and more than half the refugees died in a few minutes, under the teeth and claws of the monsters and the swords and knives of the Hashomi. More than four hundred refugees survived to be taken prisoner.

Blade didn't have time to worry about them, because he was too busy with other Hashomi. At every place the cliffs offered any hope, they swarmed up toward the trail, some of them holding their knives in their teeth to leave both hands free. These Hashomi climbed with eerie howls that made the toughest of Blade's men shudder.

Some of the climbing Hashomi missed hand or footholds and fell. Some were picked off by arrows or knocked loose by hurled stones. Some reached the trail and ran wild among the guards and the fleeing refugees. They were all killed in the end, but so were a good many of the guards and refugees. The Hashomi seemed to take a special delight in slaughtering the valley people. If they had time, they castrated the men and mutilated the women just as obscenely. Blade and most of his men would have vomited at the sight of what the Hashomi left behind them, if they'd had anything in their stomachs.

Eventually dawn came and with it the end of the Hashomi attack. Blade was able to add up the night's score. It was a bloody one, on both sides.

He'd lost a hundred killed or wounded, about a third of what he had left. The refugees had been slaughtered or captured wholesale. The House of Free Men was gone, and so was the whole trail down into the valley. Blade could no longer hold anything below the tunnel and the gap.

On the other hand, the Hashomi had lost more than a hundred more fighting men, besides the assarani. The huge reptiles would no longer be nearly so great a menace to the Baran's army.

The Hashomi had paid heavily for their victory, but Blade had lost more than he could afford. He could still hurt the enemy if he was prepared to fight to the last man, and he himself was. He also knew that it was easy for a general to decide to fight to the last man and even plan for it, but not so easy to get even the best soldiers to obey him.

In any case, the initiative now lay with the Master of the Hashomi. Much depended on whether he could think up any more new schemes in the next few days.

Sooner or later, the Baran's army had to arrive!

The morning of the second day after the attack, Giraz woke Blade from a restless, hunger-ridden sleep.

«The Hashomi have gathered in the valley, Blade.»

«Within catapult range?»

«Yes. But they've got more than a hundred prisoners with them. The refugees won't let the catapult crew open fire.»

Blade sprang out of bed and pulled on his clothes. Giraz led him to the edge of the cliff and pointed. Barely two hundred yards from the base of the cliff the Hashomi were gathered around several piles of wood. They were guarding a mass of prisoners. Blade could see that all the prisoners were naked, with their hands bound behind their backs.

Then the Hashomi began setting the piles of wood on fire. When the wood was blazing high, they picked up six of the prisoners. They swung them back and forth, then heaved them onto the blazing wood.

The screams reached the top of the cliff, and after a while so did the smell of burning human flesh.

The Hashomi went on burning their prisoners alive all day, until more than three-quarters of them were gone. Blade's men went about their business with faces even paler and more drawn than usual. Blade was also aware of sullen, fearful looks from many of the surviving refugees. A few of them, maddened by recognizing relatives among the day's victims, had hurled themselves off the ledge.

The next morning the Master pushed his psychological siege a step further. Blade was called to the mouth of the tunnel, to look across the gap and see the Master standing there. Around him was a force of Hashomi, both archers and swordsmen, escorting two prisoners completely concealed in blankets.

«Blade!» shouted the Master. «Yesterday the prisoners died by fire. A clean death, and almost a quick one. Today they will die like this one-!» pointing at one of the two blanket-covered prisoners.

The Hashomi stripped off the blanket, exposing the prisoner to Blade's stare. He was a man of about forty, as far as Blade could tell. It was hard to tell, since the man hardly looked human any more. He'd been beaten, cut, flogged, and burned until hardly an inch of his skin was still intact. One eye had been gouged out, both ears cut off, several fingers and toes had been cut off, and he'd been castrated.

Blade had just time to get a good look at the man. Then two of the Hashomi seized him and heaved him off the cliff. Blade's eyes followed the falling man all the way down, until he hit the ground in a puff of dust. By the time he turned back to the Master, the blanket was off the second prisoner.

Blade stared again. The second prisoner was Mirna, stark naked, showing a few bruises but otherwise unharmed. Her eyes were wide but clear. She hadn't been drugged, and when they started on her she would feel everything.

The Master threw back his head and laughed shrilly. «She will be next, Blade. After her, all the others. Only can you stop us-only you. Bring your men down from where they are, give up your fight, and the prisoners will live. Otherwise-«he jerked a thumb downward.

Blade heard a confused growling and muttering from both the Hashomi and the soldiers and refugees behind him. After a moment he shut it out of his awareness. His mind never worked better or faster than when he faced a total crisis that called for a split-second decision. This was one of those crises.

With dramatic suddenness Blade straightened up, and made an obscene gesture at the Master of the Hashomi. «Coward!» he shouted. He repeated the gesture. «Lover of small boys! Eater of dung!»

The Master stiffened, and the Hashomi around him gripped their weapons and stared at Blade. Blade waited just long enough to be sure that the Hashomi's archers weren't going to let fly, and repeated his gesture a third time.

«Coward, I say,» he went on, more softly. «You are only able to fight old men, women, and children. You cannot fight men, such as myself or those who follow me. Your followers at least have tried-and failed. They have died-but it is you who have sent them to their deaths. The death you cannot face yourself. Master of the Hashomi? I call you unworthy to be the master of dogs who feed on carrion!»

The Master of the Hashomi was now as erect as his own staff, and pale as milk except for his eyes, which blazed red. He seemed to be struggling for words. Blade did not give him a chance to speak, but threw out his challenge.

«Master of the Hashomi, do you dare to meet a man? Then tomorrow at this time I will face you, here on the bridge. I will come to you, naked as I was born, with only my hands. You shall bear your staff, equipped as you see fit. We shall meet thus, on the bridge, and fight to the death. If the death is mine, then no man may call you coward again. What say you, Master of the Hashomi? Have you the courage to earn your name and rank?»

There was more muttering among the Hashomi. Blade could see them looking at each other, then at the master. He noticed that some of the sharpest looks were from those who wore bandages on their heads or arms. The Master's control over his people stood on thin ice after so many defeats and so many losses. It might not survive a refusal of Blade's challenge-or so the Master would think.

Blade would have prayed, if he'd thought that would affect the Master's decision.

Then the Master swallowed, and raised one hand in salute. «Blade, it shall be as you say. Here on the bridge, at this time tomorrow, you naked, me as I am now, with my staff. Let all present hear us!»

«We hear!» shouted the Hashomi, and Blade thought he detected a note of relief in some of the shouts. He raised his arms in a signal to his own people, and they repeated the shout.

«We hear!»

Then Blade lowered his arms and whispered sharply,

«Now let's get out of here!»

He could not remember taking a single breath until they were all safely behind the barricade in the tunnel.