The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 25

For Blade and Neena, the days after the testing and Sanaya's disappearance seemed to fly past, one after another, in rapid succession, like migrating birds. There were enough things to do each day to fill many more than twenty-four hours. Yet somehow they found a little time to spend together.

«Your work and my jealousy and anger kept us apart for too long,» Neena said. «That was an evil time, but now it is over.»

There were a dozen things for Blade to do himself and as many more things to supervise. There were sprayers and sleeping water to make in vast quantities, there were hundreds of warriors to train in using the sprayers, there were new battle tactics to devise and teach for the whole army of Draad. There were enough things to keep three Richard Blades busy, an idea that Neena found rather amusing.

«I suppose that if there were three of you, I could keep one with me and let the other two work all the time.» She bit him gently on the ear. «But they'd have to be absolutely identical. I would not take any imitations.» Her lips moved down his body and conversation came to an end for quite a while.

Fortunately all of Blade's work showed results. Kulo had taught the other three assistants well. They in turn taught dozens of craftsmen how to make the sprayers. Soon there were more of them than the workshop could hold, and Blade had a shed built to store the overflow.

Beside the shed for the sprayers stood another shed where bottles and jars of the sleeping water soon rose to the ceiling. A dozen stills now worked around the clock. Before long there would be enough sleeping water to slay all the stolofs in Trawn five times over.

Most of the water would go into the sprayers, but some was poured into small clay pots. In the coming battles these pots would be thrown at stolofs or their masters. They were not as accurate as the sprayers, but they could be thrown from beyond the range of a stolof's ribbon. Every warrior trained as a stolof killer would have both a sack of pots on his back and a sprayer in his hands.

There would be a great many such warriors-or at least Blade intended that there would be, given enough time. He did not know if there would be enough time, so he pushed the training as if the armies of Trawn were already marching through the passes of the Mountains of Hoga.

For training, he used a method he had used before. He taught ten selected warriors and hunters (including King Embor and Neena) how to use the sprayers and pots, then had each of them teach ten more, and so on. Within a few days more than a thousand fighting men of Draad at least knew one end of a sprayer from the other. Within a few more days most of them could hit what they fired at more than half the time.

That was a good start. Blade had no intention of training all the fighting men of Draad to be stolof killers, in any case. There would be only so many stolofs to kill. The rest of Trawn's army would be human warriors, and swords, spears, arrows, axes, and clubs would do for them.

Blade was not entirely free of worries, however. Reports continued to come in from the clansmen, telling of more and more raiders from Trawn in the mountains. A few parties were attacked and wiped out, but no prisoners were taken, and even these victories were few.

The coming of such a mass of raiders-or scouts-from Trawn made Blade wonder. It was hard to see what else could be following them except an invading army. «Would you like to have more warriors camping up here to guard the workshop?» King Embor asked Blade.

Blade shook his head. «The camp of the stolof killers is only two miles down the hill. That is close enough so that they can reach the workshop quickly, without staying around here.»

Embor nodded in understanding. «The secret, again?»

«Yes,» said Blade. «Of course, many now know what our weapon is, and how to use it. But few know how it is made. I would rather things stayed that way until we have met and destroyed the army of Trawn. There is a risk in leaving the workshop weakly guarded, but it is one I think we can afford better than having the secret leak out.»

Embor did send a good many warriors to watch each of the passes through the Mountains of Hoga. That way no large force from Trawn could get through and devastate the lands of Draad without being detected at once and brought to battle soon afterward. The king also set up a line of warriors stretching from the workshop down to the camp of the stolof killers. Each warrior stood within shouting distance of the next. Word of any danger could fly along the line to the camp much faster than a man could run. King Embor was an excellent strategist and leader; Blade was not worried about leaving that part of the campaign in his hands for now.

He still worried at times over what might have happened to Queen Sanaya. Her fur cloak had been found, and one shredded, bloodstained boot. Did that mean she had been attacked and killed by wild animals? It might, or it might not. There was nothing to prove that Sanaya hadn't vanished into thin air or sunk without a trace into the earth.

«I can hope so,» said Neena. «I cannot wish even on Sanaya the death she would receive from those of Trawn.»

«No,» said Blade. «You are not eaten up with vengeance, as she would be in your place.» He kissed her and blew out the candle. After a moment he felt her flowing against him in the darkness, warm in the chill of the forest night. After another moment, he found himself responding as he always did.

It was the fourteenth night after the test in the arena and Queen Sanaya's flight into the forest.

Lord Desgo reined in his meytan and raised his hand in signal for those behind him to do the same. Silence fell over the forest as a score of six-legged beasts ceased their steady trot. Absentmindedly, Lord Desgo scratched his mount between its long golden-furred ears, then swung himself down out of the saddle. The warriors behind him did the same, then gathered around him.

«I think I need say what we are to do only once more. Capture the Princess Neena and at least one of the Kaireens at the workshop. Slay the tall man Blade and every other living thing in sight. Then burn all that can burn, and depart with the prisoners. You all have firemakers?» The warriors nodded and patted the pouches at their belts.

«Good.» Two more warriors stepped forward out of the shadows. Between them they led Queen Sanaya, naked, shivering, and with her hands tied behind her back. She cringed as she became aware of all the warriors' eyes running up and down her body.

Desgo smiled grimly. Sanaya was not feigning her shame before the warriors. That only made her disguise all the more perfect. The bound hands and the nudity marked her as a prisoner, but in her heart and soul Sanaya was no longer a prisoner.

Instead, she was Desgo's ally. Or rather, she thought herself his ally. With her guiding him, Desgo would tonight destroy Draad's secret weapons, slay Prince Blade, and begin his vengeance against Princess Neena. Then in a few days he would order the waiting army of Trawn forward. It would pour into Draad, killing every warrior who stood against it, but as few others as possible.

Lord Desgo had no tenderness for the women and children of Draad. He had only a coldly calculating desire to make them grateful to him and to Queen Sanaya for sparing them. He would be ruling them with her beside him, and soon. After such a victory as he would win, King Furzun could hardly make anyone else viceroy over the newly conquered lands.

And after that? The visions of what might be were even more enticing. With Queen Sanaya to advise him, he could certainly devise ways of winning and keeping the loyalty of the people of Draad. The emerald mines would give him wealth, wealth to reward any warrior of Draad or Trawn who would follow his standard, wealth also to reward those nobles and merchants of Trawnom-Driba who had already promised to be his allies.

Over the years, he would forge his warriors and allies into an army, an army standing ready like a weapon for his hand to wield. In the end, he would wield it against King Furzun. Furzun would die in his own prison chambers, and King Desgo would rule Trawn and Draad and all the lands and forests of Gleor!

With the favor of the gods, he would do it. He would have prayed for that favor, except that this was no time for prayer and Desgo was not a praying man in any case. Loud prayers would earn less favor from the gods than shrewd blows with a sword.

He took Sanaya from the hands of the two guards and lifted her onto the neck of the meytan. Then he scrambled back up into the saddle behind her. The other warriors of the raiding party did the same. All of them carried swords, bows, and throwing spears; five of them led stolofs. One of the stolofs chittered briefly, and was promptly silenced by a spear butt rapped across its head. Desgo raised his hand, then pointed forward into the darkness and dug in his spurs.

The gods would be with them tonight. Desgo was certain of that. The warriors and the stolofs and the riding meytans were all picked and trained, the best available. The workshop was guarded weakly, if at all. The mountain clans might patrol the forests all around, to be sure. They could not see in the dark like a meytan, nor stand against stolofs.

Guided by Queen Sanaya and mounted as they were, the raiders would be on their enemy before any alarm could be given. Then it would be fire, death, bonds of captivity for Neena, and flight into the darkness faster than any of Draad could follow!

Princess Neena had no more than an hour of freedom left. Prince Blade had no more than an hour of life.