The Mountains Of Brega

Chapter 17

Immediate and total pandemonium.

The shrieks and screams that rose from the Blue section were echoed seconds later from all around the arena. The women in the Green section rose in a body. Some of them scurried for the exits, while others drew their swords and started scrambling toward the Blues. Elsewhere in the stands women sat as if turned to stone; still others were dropping down onto the sand. Were they coming in to attack Idrana's archers or join them?

Blade didn't know, and badly wanted to. He wanted even more badly to find some place well out of the battle that would certainly be raging within a few minutes. If it was a place that offered an escape route, even better. He began looking around the arena.

Meanwhile, Idrana's archers kept up their fire, pumping flight after flight of arrows into the Blue section. That section was becoming a mass of writhing bodies and blood now, although a few of the Blue warriors had unlimbered their own bows and were shooting back.

As Blade ducked an arrow screaming toward him, he saw six women in the dirty gray clothes of manual workers leap down from the stands. The one in the lead waved her arms frantically at Blade. Blade stiffened as he recognized Truja.

He didn't wait. Shoving two of the archers aside, he dashed toward the approaching women. Truja leaped into the air in delight, then waved her arm at one of the open doors under the stands.

Blade and the women sprinted toward the door. As they ran, Blade heard a shriek of rage behind him-Idrana had seen her chosen male getting away. Blade tried to keep his head as low as possible.

But Idrana could not afford to waste arrows needed for the Blues on a fleeing male. Only a single flight came whistling over. All were aimed at Blade; none of them hit him, but by ill chance two struck one of Truja's women in the back. She screamed and staggered, then went down. Blade bent to help her up, but Truja stepped in front of him.

«No!» she snapped. Her hand darted in under her robes and drew out a sword. The woman writhing on the ground looked up and nodded. The sword plunged into the woman's neck, and she heaved convulsively in a death spasm and lay still. It was a quicker death than Idrana would have given her, and now she could not be tortured into betraying them.

The five surviving women and Blade charged into the door at a dead run, drawing their swords as they did so. The underground chamber was full of cages of Senar and chained women. The guards were already on the alert from the uproar above. They raised their swords as Truja's party charged in.

«Out of my way!» she snapped. «Business of the House!» «Business of the House» meant the affairs of the House of Fertility. None in the city except the Guardians of Fertility and Mistress herself might question these words. The guards drew back, the massive door rumbled open, and Truja led the way out into the underground corridor.

«Business of the House!» got them past the other two guard posts under the arena and several parties of armed women who were rushing about in a frenzy like ants in a broken nest. None of them paid any attention to Blade, although it was impossible to conceal him.

Truja grinned at that. «With everything else they've got on their minds now, I don't think they'd notice if you were fourteen feet tall and had two heads and long purple fur.»

Then they were outside the Arena. The roar from inside was, if anything, growing louder. The women in the streets were staring toward it in curiosity and mounting fear. They were much too busy to notice the five women and the strange-looking Senar who slipped out of one of the underground passages.

Now the women stripped off their workers' robes. Under them they wore hunting costumes, complete with short, heavy bows and quivers. They tossed the robes to Blade, who made a rough cloak and loincloth out of them. Then all six headed for the gates of the city.

They covered the three miles at a dead run, without stopping once or slowing more often than the wretched streets underfoot required. After three weeks of confinement and nearly three hours in the arena, Blade found the run an ordeal. His heart seemed about to burst out through his ribs, and his lungs felt as if they were full of flaming-hot gas. Hot needles drove into the muscles of his legs. But from somewhere he found the strength to keep going.

The city gates were still open when Blade and the women came in sight of them. They promptly slowed down to a walk and tried to get their breathing back to normal.

The officer commanding the gate peered down out of the gatehouse at them as they approached. The uproar from the arena was beginning to be audible even here. And someone must have started setting fires. Several columns of black smoke were swirling up from the quarter of the city around the arena.

«What in the name of the Mother is happening?» the officer shouted.

«There's a riot at the arena,» Truja called back.

«The Greens and the Blues?» the officer asked.

Truja shrugged. «Who else?»

«Damn them!» said the officer. «Where are you going? «

«Out to warn the farms and the patrols,» Truja said. «The thing with us is a Senar the House of Fertility is sending out to a farm near Ufol Valley. He's an odd one, and they want to see how well he can work.»

«All right,» the officer said, and waved them on through.

Once out of sight of the gate; the six broke into a run again. This time they kept running until they did not have the breath left to run any farther, then slowed down to a fast walk. They did not stop until they had covered five or six miles and the city was only a patch of darkness on the horizon behind them. They took shelter in one of the ruined buildings of the old city and collapsed.

Eventually Blade found the breath to ask a few questions and Truja found the breath to answer them.

«How are things at the camp?»

«I wouldn't know. I left for the city only two days after you were captured. As much as we wanted to get you back, getting the sisters out of the city was more important.»

Blade shrugged. «I can't blame you. Nugun and I shouldn't have let ourselves get captured the way we did. Did you get the women out?»

«All but a handful, yes. Most of them will probably be at the camp by the time we get there.»

«How many fighters?»

«Four hundred or more.»

«Good. That may be the largest body of city fighting women left by the time the Blues and the Greens get through slaughtering each other.»

«I know. And Rilgon's army is less than a week from the walls.»

«Has any word of it come to the city?»

«Not that I heard. And would the Greens have struck if they had heard of Rilgon's approach?»

«I don't know,» said Blade. «Their war leader Idrana is an ambitious fanatic. I'm not sure it would have made any difference.»

«May Mother Kina curse her,» said Truja slowly, pounding her clenched fist on the ground.

An hour later they were all sufficiently rested to be able to move out again. They did not run or trot now, but Truja still set a brisk pace along the road.

They were about two hours farther on when they saw a cloud of dust on the road ahead. They stopped, and Truja told Blade to slip into the bushes that bordered the road. He obeyed, and from his hiding place he heard and saw what followed.

There were four women, each wearing a large yellow triangle on their tunics. They approached at a run, and as they did Blade could see that they had been running for a long time. Their faces were gray with fatigue and caked with dust, their eyes stared blindly, and their tongues protruded through cracked lips.

They slowed slightly as they saw Truja.

«Hail, Messengers! What news?»

One of the four took a deep breath. «There is an army of Senar in the land! Thousands of them, thousands! They are coming to the city. Mother Kina save us, for we are all lost!»

«Nonsense!» said Truja sharply. «Mother Kina watches over those who keep her Law-and sharpen their swords in good time. Go on to the city, and tell them that also!»

The women nodded and got into their stride again. They went pounding away down the road and soon were again a cloud of dust on the horizon. Blade stepped out into the road. Truja was standing there numbly, her face working and tears glistening in the corner of her eyes.

«Why couldn't they have come just a few hours earlier?» she groaned. «Brega is doomed, doomed!»

«As you yourself said-nonsense!» retorted Blade. «Right now the best thing we can do is get back to the camp as fast as possible. We can't do anything by ourselves.»

It took them barely two days to get back to the camp of the Purple River fighters by the War House. Truja kept Blade and the women moving on hour after hour, as if every extra step they took crushed one of Rilgon's Senar underfoot. Like the run through the city, the march was an ordeal for Blade. But again, he kept on going.

When they reached the camp on the morning of the third day, there were surprises on both sides. Himgar and the others had long since given up both Truja and Blade for dead, and were delighted to see them tramping out of the forest. On the other hand, they were far from delighted with the news that the women of the city had decided to fight a civil war just at the moment that Rilgon had decided to strike. Himgar, even more high-strung and nervous than usual, nearly burst into tears at that news.

For Blade and Truja, the surprise was to find that nearly five hundred farm women had joined the Purple River camp. And more were coming in every day. Some of them had been driven from their farms by Rilgon's army and lost everything but the desire for revenge. Others were simply the independent-minded. The women of the farms had never much trusted the city, always kept the Laws of Mother Kina according to their own lights, and tended to rely more on strong arms than on strong customs. As far as they could see, the Purple River people now had the strongest arms around.

«Yes, you are the best fighters now,» one of them said to Blade. «And more will think that when they hear how the Blues and Greens fight in the city. The others will come here, and if they do not come here, they will tell what they see and hear.»

In other words, thought Blade, they would be willing to act as scouts for us. They would give the Purple River army an enormous advantage. Blade doubted if Rilgon and his Blenar knew any more about scouting than they did about nuclear physics. And the women of the city-well, they seemed to be good enough fighters individually. But had they ever fought a regular battle or campaign? Of course there was the factional civil war that Idrana had just started. No doubt it would give many of the fighting women of the city experience in large-scale combat. But would it leave any reasonable number of them alive, to profit by that experience and use it against Rilgon? Blade wondered.

He went directly to Himgar and broached the notion of using the farm women as scouts. The War Councilor was dubious.

«That could mean word of our presence getting to the city,» he said. «If our scouts betray us-«

«You seem to trust the women in camp,» Blade interrupted.

«Yes, but they are under our eyes all the time. These — they would be beyond our control.»

«So what?» said Blade, annoyed. «The women of the city certainly aren't going to be able to attack us before Rilgon's army arrives. And we're going to have to deal with the women as equals sooner or later, whether we trust them or not.»

Himgar's eyebrows went up. «Has Truja converted you to her views? Do you think we should help the women of the city defeat Rilgon and then negotiate with them?»

Blade had to be silent for only a few seconds before he found his answer. «Yes. The farm women have come to us in the belief that we would do this. And so have most of the women from the city. I think both would leave us at once if we simply broke camp and headed north. They would try to fight Rilgon by themselves, they would lose, and they would die. And then so would the city and everything that we might make of it. But if we stay and fight-«

«How can we?» said Himgar, half-despairing.

Blade did not attempt to conceal the scorn in his voice. «You call yourself a War Councilor, and you ask that question? Truja has pointed the way. We attack them from the rear. With the farm women scouting for us, we will have no problems finding that rear.»

«But-«

«Himgar, if you do not agree to fight Rilgon, I will join Truja. We will lead the farm women and the city women away, and you and the rest of the Purple River people can all go to the devil!» He caught his breath. «You know that I have even less reason to love the women of the city than you do. But I can see that they are worth saving, in spite of that. You cannot, and you are not wise.»

Himgar was silent for a much longer time than Blade had been. Finally he said quietly, «I have heard of how Truja gave you leadership of the scouts. Would you like to become War Councilor of our people in my place? If we are going to do what you suggest, perhaps you should lead.»

«No, Himgar, I am only a warrior from a distant land, and most of your people do not know me well enough to trust me. But I will stand at your right hand and give you all the advice you need.»

«In other words, you will run the battle?»

«Yes,» said Blade.

Himgar shrugged. «So be it. I trust you enough so that I trust your plan, for all that you can do to carry it out. But there are others who may have something to say.»

«I know. Rilgon. And the women of the city.»

Blade wasted no time in setting up his network of scouts. Even though Melyna was among the Purple River army's fighting women, he had little time or attention to spare for her. And there would have been little privacy for them even if he had found the time. The Purple River army and all its assorted allies overflowed the War House and spread out into the forest around it.

It helped matters that Rilgon's army sat down for nearly a week at a point three days' march west of the camp. The Senar and even the Blenar indulged in an orgy of gluttony, rape, pillage, and destruction.

«Rilgon either has no control over his army or doesn't care,» said Blade when he heard that news. «Half of them won't want to move on again. Those that do will have only half their minds on fighting.» And in fact Rilgon's army was distinctly smaller when it moved on at the end of the week.

It was moving along a course that would take it well south of the camp. That was good news for Blade. There were now just over three thousand men and women in the camp. He did not want to try moving such a large and mixed group across country with an enemy-in fact two enemies-nearby.

Rilgon's army lumbered past to the south and settled down again, a day's march farther on toward the city. In the camp, tension mounted by the hour. The sound of weapons being sharpened rose loud enough to be heard miles away. But all the farm women in the area had either fled or joined the camp. There was no one to hear. Only the scouts moved back and forth across the countryside, bringing and sending word.

It was on the fourth day that they brought the long-awaited word. The army of the city-Blues and Greens together-was marching out. Tomorrow it would be up to Rilgon's army. And the day after that it would fight.

So Blade and Himgar and Truja gave their orders also. And their army too marched out, gathering up the scouts as it went. It moved forward-into the rear of the enemy.