The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 26

Blade awoke in the darkness with Neena's warm body curled against him. That wasn't what had awakened him, though. Something else had penetrated into his sleep and brought him out of it. He sat up in bed and listened. The darkness around him seemed utterly silent. He'd heard something-he was sure of it. He had the instincts of a hunting animal for the dangerous or the unusual, instincts that seldom let him down.

Then a sound came out of the darkness, faint and far away, muffled by distance and by the forest. It was also a sound that shouldn't have been heard anywhere for many miles around. It was unmistakably the chittering of a stolof.

Blade rolled out of bed and began pulling on his clothes and weapons. The noises he made awakened Neena. She sat up in bed, pulling the blankets around her against the chill of the night air on her bare skin, and stared sleepily at Blade. She did not have his knack of being fully alert the moment she awoke. He was about to shake her when the chittering came out of the night again. It was just as unmistakable this time, and it was closer.

Neena leaped out of bed as if she'd received an electric shock and began dressing. Blade finished belting on his sword and hurried into the room where the three assistants slept. He woke them quickly and silently.

«Raiders from Trawn approach. Arm yourselves, but stay here and guard our comrade.» He pointed to the door of the room where Kulo tossed in his pain-ridden sleep. «Don't move out unless I call, or you have to. Whatever you do, don't let yourselves be captured alive.»

The three young men stared at him, then scrambled out of their beds. They might not understand exactly what he'd said, but they understood his tone of voice. Certainly they understood what being captured by raiders from Trawn might mean.

Blade was sure they would do their best. He turned and dashed back to the bedroom, where Neena was now fully armed and dressed except for her tunic. Blade passed on without stopping, heading for the main door. He wanted to get out into the courtyard, where he would have fighting room and a clear view of what was going on. He also wanted to call out and start the alarm on its way to the main camp of the stolof killers two miles away.

As Blade put his hand on the bar of the door, a wild scream came out of the darkness. «Raiders, raiders! They come with sto-«The words ended in another sort of scream, one with agony as well as terror in it. A moment of silence, then a chorus of chittering that sounded like a whole herd of stolofs, an unmistakably human war cry, stolof-whistles, and the pad-pad-pad of dozens of soft hooves on the earth.

Neena stared at Blade. «They must have come in on meytans, to come in so fast like this. The gods only know what they may be bringing with them!»

«The gods won't get the word to us in time,» snapped Blade. He kicked the door open so hard that it nearly flew off its hinges. Then he snatched up a loaded sprayer with one hand and a sack of throwing pots with the other. Behind him Neena grabbed up her two spears and her threebo, tucked them under one arm, then picked up a sprayer with her free hand. Both of them dashed through the open door and out into the courtyard.

As they reached the open, another sentry died outside the walls with a horrible gurgling scream. Again the chorus of chitterings sounded, as well as heavy grunting that must have been the meytans. Something heavy crashed against the outside of the main gate. Blade saw the logs shiver and pieces of bark fall to the ground.

He also heard other shouts-«Raiders, raiders, raiders of Trawn. Come, come, come!» The clansmen and warriors on alert were doing their job, shouting the warning from one to another down the hill to the camp. When word reached the camp, King Embor would be on his way with enough trained stolof killers to swamp the raiders. How long would that take?

Again the gate shivered. This time one of the crosspieces split apart with a sharp crack. The gate was designed to keep out thieves and the wild animals of the mountain forests, not half-ton stolofs, charging meytans, or battering rams wielded by warriors of Trawn.

Crash! A third blow, and this time one of the logs of the gate twisted out of position and sagged inward. Through the gap Blade could see a confused, churning mass of nightmare shapes-stolofs, the great floppy-eared heads of the meytans, the helmets of warriors. The foul smell of stolofs reached Blade on the night breeze, so strong that he gasped and coughed to clear it out of his throat and nostrils.

He heard the chug of an arrow sinking into flesh, and one of the warrior's heads twisted and jerked and sagged out of sight. A moment later a stolof chittered hysterically, closer to the forest. Another hideous scream came, along with the crunching of mandibles as they closed on a human body.

Blade swore. Mountain clansmen were dying out there, perhaps needlessly, and if so it was his fault. He had deliberately not armed the clansmen on guard with sprayers, so they would not be tempted to attack raiders instead of just giving warning. He should have remembered how the mountain men hated those of Trawn, and how none of them would hold back from a battle, regardless of what weapons they held. He had made a mistake.

Well, there was a good chance he would pay for that mistake himself, and Neena along with him. The alarm would certainly bring warriors by the score up the hill within a few minutes. That would be soon enough to save the workshop. But he and Neena were another matter. Draad would have its victory-Blade was sure of that.

But he was not so sure that he and Neena would live to see it.

At least they would get that chance he'd hoped for, to test the distilled sleeping water on live stolofs!

Something sputtered and hissed outside. A sickly yellow glow lit up the churning shapes beyond the gate, making them look even more ghastly than before. Then something trailing yellow flame and sparks came flying over the wall. It struck the roof of the workshop, bounced, and rolled off onto the ground. It lay there sputtering and sizzling and spitting more flames and more sparks and puffing out foul-smelling dark greasy smoke.

Blade swore and slapped Neena on the shoulder. «Run back inside to the assistants. Tell them to get the fire buckets filled and ready, but not to come outside. Those bastards are trying to burn us out.» Neena dropped her weapons, turned, and dashed back into the workshop.

As she disappeared, three arrows came whistling down from the top of the wall and smacked into the workshop just above the doorway. Blade looked up to see that three of the enemy warriors had climbed the outside of the wall and were straddling it precariously. They were already nocking fresh arrows to their bows.

Blade caught up one of Neena's spears and hurled it. It smashed squarely into the mouth of one of the raiders and up into his brain in a spray of blood and smashed teeth. He threw up his hands and toppled backward off the wall without a sound. A second warrior jerked, lost his balance, and toppled forward with a scream. He fell head first and afterward lay without moving, his neck bent at an impossible angle. The third warrior loosed his arrow, but it smacked into the ground well to one side of Blade and skittered away into the darkness.

Before the warrior could nock another arrow, stolof-whistles sounded outside the gate. So did the chittering of the creatures, louder and fiercer than before. They surged forward against the gate and two more logs fell clear, one of them splitting in two as it fell. A spear sailed in through the wider gap and Blade had to dart to one side to avoid being hit.

Then with a tremendous cracking and crunching the gate caved in completely, and the way into the compound was open. For a moment it was solidly blocked by the mass of stolofs, meytans, and warriors crowded in the gateway. That was a moment that Blade used well. It was a moment when all his enormous strength and lightning reflexes were turned to one purpose-killing. It was a moment when he was in fact nothing but a killing machine.

Blade hurled the second spear at the last archer on the wall, and hit him just as he was loosing another arrow. The arrow sailed off into the darkness and the archer sailed backward off the wall, the spear through his stomach. Before the man hit the ground Blade whirled, snatched up a pot of sleeping water, and hurled it into the mob in the gateway.

He aimed at the head of the nearest stolof, and his aim was flawless. The pot flew straight and smashed into the creature just above the three eyes. Sleeping water sluiced down over its head and over its breathing holes. It chittered frantically, then fell silent. Slowly it tilted over to the left as all the legs on one side gave way. Then the rest of its legs folded up and it lay down. It was not dead, for its mandibles still clicked feebly, but it was a dead weight, squarely in the path of the other attackers.

Blade went flat as two arrows whistled by, then sprang up with his sprayer in both hands. The range was long but he did not need to aim precisely. He swung the sprayer back and forth across the gateway, firing steady bursts until it was empty. A second stolof stopped dead, chittering steadily. It did not collapse, but no amount of whistling or yelling by the warriors could get it moving again.

One of the warriors lost his patience and scrambled forward over the collapsed stolof, sword in one hand and spear raised to throw in the other. As he thrust his head up and forward, Blade hit him squarely in the mouth with a jet from the sprayer. The warrior's weapons dropped from his suddenly limp fingers. He collapsed facedown on top of the stolof, then rolled off onto the ground.

Another warrior sprang up on top of the fallen stolof, a lighted firemaker swinging in one hand. He hurled it straight into the nearest window of the workshop. Blade yelled for fire buckets. Answering shouts came from inside.

Then Neena dashed out into the courtyard. In her hands was a bow, an arrow already nocked to the string. She took aim and shot, and the warrior who'd thrown the firemaker screamed as an arrow suddenly sprouted in his left eye. He did not go down, but he turned and reeled away, still screaming.

The man's screams seemed to paralyze all of his comrades and their animals. For a moment nothing moved and not a weapon was raised in the crowd at the gateway. Blade and Neena could look out clearly, to see Lord Desgo ride up on a meytan, holding a naked Queen Sanaya in front of him.

Neena shrieked like a madwoman and snatched frantically for an arrow. As if in answer to her scream, angry shouts and war cries exploded from the forest. Then came the sound of scores of running feet and the crackling of scores of men pushing through bushes. The stolof killers were moving into the attack.

Neena shot, the twang of her bowstring lost in the uproar. Her arrow flashed toward Lord Desgo, but the nobleman's reflexes were even quicker. He ducked, jerking Sanaya across in front of him as a shield. The arrow sank into her body just below the left breast. She shrieked, clawing at the arrow, then shrieked again as Desgo heaved her off the back of the meytan and dug in his spurs.

Neena slung her bow and she and Blade leaped forward. They sprang up onto the back of the fallen stolof, facing two warriors. Neena whipped her threebo up and over and down on one man's shoulder, and his sword arm dropped limply. The threebo scythed in a deadly arc from the left, and the man's head snapped violently to one side as temple and jaw caved in.

Blade's man tried to run. Blade thrust him through the neck from behind, so that the sword went through the man's spine going in and through his windpipe coming out. Blade jerked his sword free and let the man topple.

Then the stolof killers of Draad swarmed out of the forest and charged past the gate. Some of them threw away their sprayers and drew clubs and axes as they saw how few stolofs there were to kill. One team of four faced a live and healthy stolof and its master, and Blade shouted for joy as he saw them put their training to work.

One dashed around to engage the stolof's master, stone-headed axe against sword. Two others stood ready to attack the stolof, and the last raised his sprayer. As he took aim, the stolof launched a ribbon. The ribbon fell on his shoulder and one arm, but he did not flinch. He rammed in the plunger and the sleeping water jetted out in a precisely aimed spray and fell on the stolofs breathing holes. The stolof's master whistled, trying to make it rear and jerk the sprayer man off his feet. The stolof would not obey. It only stood there, quivering and chittering softly. The sprayer man fired again. At the same moment the stolof's master thrust his sword through his opponent's belly, and died as the other's axe crashed down on his skull. Then the remaining two warriors of Draad charged in, sinking an axe and a spear into the stolof's eyes. It chittered one last time, hissed, sprayed yellowish mist and foam, then collapsed and lay still. Blade shouted again.

By now all of the men and beasts of the raiding party were either dead, caught, or fleeing for their lives. Blade caught a glimpse of Lord Desgo pounding away toward the safety of the woods, alone. Neena saw this too, and unslung her bow. It was a long shot, made harder by the darkness and the fast-moving target, but Neena's eye was deadly and her aim nearly as good. Blade saw Lord Desgo jump high, nearly leaping out of his saddle, then clap his hands to his buttocks, where Neena's arrow stood out like a suddenly sprouted tail. Blade threw back his head and roared with laughter as Lord Desgo vanished into the dark. Then he threw his arms around Neena, and they laughed and shouted and pounded each other on the back and danced each other around in a circle.

They were still doing that when they realized that the battle's uproar was fading away around them. They stepped apart and Blade told Neena to go seek out her father. He himself turned and went back into the workshop compound.

There he found everything surprisingly well in hand. Two of the raiders had tried to climb over the rear wall, to make a diversion. One had fallen off and knocked himself out. One of the assistants had ambushed the other in a dark alley between two sheds and hit him over the head with a bucket. Both men were still alive, and Blade gave orders to keep them that way. A little interrogation would do nobody (except possibly the prisoners) any harm. The firemaker had done some damage to the living quarters, but none to anything else. Blade looked in briefly on Kulo, who had somehow managed to stay asleep through the whole battle, and went back outside.

By this time Neena had found her father. Both of them were standing over a sprawled form on the ground. It was Queen Sanaya, and she was not a pleasant sight. The arrow had pierced a lung, and then she had broken several bones being flung down from Desgo's mount. After that, meytans, stolofs, and running men of both sides had trampled her. She was covered with dirt and blood, and there was only a very little bit of life still in her. As she realized that people were standing over her, she turned her head and tried to speak, but all that came out were small bubbles of blood.

King Embor sighed. «Have her taken to a safe place and given all possible care by Kaireens.»

«It will do no good, father,» said Neena.

Embor sighed. «True enough, daughter. But she was once my wife and my queen.» He turned away, calling to his guards.

Queen Sanaya died just before dawn, and soon after that so did the last of the prisoners. Neena had taken charge of their interrogation, and she had not been gentle. She had learned much that would be useful.

«Desgo and the other raiders and scouts come from an army that is indeed nearly upon us,» she said. «The last the prisoners knew of it, it was only four days' march from the Mountains of Hoga and under orders to stay there until Lord Desgo returned.»

«How large is it?» said Embor.

«All the prisoners spoke of at least twenty thousand warriors and a thousand stolofs. None of them knew too much, and the one who seemed to know the most died the soonest.»

«Perhaps you should have gone easier on him,» said Blade. Neena tossed her head with a snort of contempt at the idea of «going easy» on anyone from Trawn.

«In any case,» she went on, «we shall have our war with Trawn sooner than we expected. Within weeks perhaps, within a month or two certainly. Lord Desgo is disgraced, and damn the gods that he is not dead! He will want vengeance for that arrow that I put into his rear end, and soon. He will come to us. We can do best by gathering our strength and waiting for him to come.»

There was nothing Blade or King Embor could say against that strategy. It was not only the best for Draad, it was nearly the only one. They would be fighting against heavy odds, even with their new and now proven weapons.

«Very well,» said King Embor. «We shall do that. Meanwhile we shall gather all the chiefs and principal warriors, and give Sanaya a proper funeral.»

Neena's eyebrows shot up, her face darkened, and she would undoubtedly have exploded if Blade hadn't put a hand firmly over her mouth. King Embor shook his head.

«It shall be as I say, daughter. We know what Queen Sanaya did, the three of us, but few others, and they can be kept silent. She lived foolishly and died shamefully, but let that be the end of her dishonor. I will not add to it, nor will I shame her clan, not now of all times!»

Neena looked as if she still wanted to protest, but King Embor and Blade both stared her down and her protest died unspoken.

King Embor was right, Blade had to admit. Whatever Queen Sanaya might have done, she had in the end died without doing any real harm. There was an end to the affair and an end to her, and there was nothing more to be said about either.