Blade shrugged. "It is decided now. We fight here.
But listen to me, listen well, and there may still be a chance."
Isma, with the fickleness of women, did listen. She had had her way, and she knew that Blade planned well.
Blade loosened the square. He formed six ranks, detaching the Lordsmen and sending them into the front rank, and remained with Isma in the center of the square. The catapults had ceased firing now, for which Blade was thankful, but there was no sign of Xeno. The ceboids on the flanks had reformed and were waiting for orders. The glacis and the plain around the square were choked thick with the dead and dying. Org's column, once it had moved in to cut them off from the fort, had halted and was waiting. Blade noted that many of the savages in that column were wounded or battle weary. He did not think they would attack. Org was running short of manpower and was using his wounded as a cork, to plug up Blade's escape.
The wind had fallen off now and the rain stopped. Rays of faint sunlight fought through the massy clouds and set the Pethcine banners to shimmering. Still the main attack did not come.
Isma sank white teeth into a scarlet nether lip and stared at Blade. "Why do they wait? They are cowards, then? Afraid!"
"Not Org," said Blade with a grim smile. "Be patient. They will come when they are ready."
He gave orders and had a platform of corpses built so that he could see above the battle. He must know how it was with Zulekia and Honcho.
Four bodies this way, four bodies that, then another cross-hatching of dead women and Lordsmen and another, and he had a platform. He leaped up and peered in the direction of the Pethcine tents. What he saw gave some slight encouragement. He was gambling that Honcho, to save himself in the bitter end, would try to save the Maiduke girl if Org was defeated. Then he would try to bargain.
So far the gamble was a good one. The horses and drivers were gone now, no doubt pressed into the battle, and Zulekia was staked out on the plain near the tents. The neuter Honcho, peering beneath his hand at the square, was pacing anxiously to and fro. Blade's smile was cold. Honcho was a worried neuter! He could not know when, or if, Blade and Sutha would again summon the Power. Until they did Honcho was himself shorn of all technical tricks. If Blade never did have recourse to the Power - and by now Honcho must suspect that such was the case, a thing he would not understand at all - then the Pethcines had to win the day or the neuter was in the deepest trouble.
Blade, peering across the death strewn plain, could almost read Honcho's thoughts.
Blade watched Org step from the ranks and raise a small horn to his bearded lips. Org had found new armor and helmet, and was carrying a new and larger shield. He looked as fat and fierce as ever, and appeared not in the least bit battle weary. Blade extended a reluctant admiration to his foe. Barbarian, savage, yet he was all warrior. He watched as Org began to sound the little horn, wondering at the significance. Why the horn instead of the braying trumpets?
A moment later he understood. Org was playing a little tune on the horn, a reedy, high pitched, simple little strain with four notes. Immediately the massed Pethcines separated and reformed, marching and counter-marching into a new formation. Blade cursed fervently. They were going to attack three sides of the square at once. Blade shot a look at the glacis. There Org's column, set to interdict any escape, was unmoving. It had formed into two ranks, one kneeling with long spears, the other back three paces with swords and a small contingent of bowmen. They would, Blade knew, wait until the square began to break and then cut down those who tried to flee up the glacis and into the fort Org meant to make a thorough job of it this time.
Org was playing a different note on the horn now. Totha brought her crescent of chariots a little closer up behind Org's center. Blade leaped from the platform of corpses and shouted at Isma. She nodded understanding, and in turn gave orders to several of her women officers.
Xeno tugged at Blade's sword belt and made slaveface. Blade growled at him. "You were long enough!"
Xeno clutched at the necklace Blade had given him, as though his Lord meant to take it away then and there. "It was very bad among the catapults, Lord Blade. They would not obey at first, would not stop firing. I had to take harsh steps, summon whippers, before the Maidens would listen to me. Their senses had left them and they did not care where they fired or whom they killed."
Blade nodded and patted Xeno's shoulder. Battle frenzy took strange forms. "You did well enough. Now stand by. I want you always close to me. Understood?"
"Understood, Lord Blade."
And now the time had run out. The trumpets blared their harsh summons and the Pethcine hordes came on for a last attack. Blade watched it with some trepidation and not a little sense of triumph. He had bled them! He had bled them terribly, a fast reckoning made them no more than two thousand odd. Now, if only Isma and her women would obey orders for once, and execute them properly, and if Totha's chariots could be handled.
Org sounded his little horn again and the barbarians broke into a run, shouting bloodthirsty threats. They came in from three sides, the trumpets clamoring brazenly and incessantly. Terror tactics.
Blade swung his great sword in a glittering arc and called down to his troops: "Stand steady. Hold fast and remember your orders. Above all - obey, orders when they are given!" He could only hope they would.
Xeno handed Blade a standard with a long pennon attached. He waved it over his head. The catapult crews saw it and went into action again. This time they were on target and the machines fell into a regular chonk-chonk-chonk-chonk rhythm as their missiles began to chew up Org's lines. As the front ranks went down Org pushed new men in to nil the gaps.
Blade gave another signal and arrow and airgun fire began to come from the flanks and the smaller forts. It was wavering and inaccurate, but now every dart and arrow counted.
He had arranged the front rank of the square with spearwomen kneeling. Behind them the second rank wielded swords and a few bows and airguns. The third rank stood ready to step into the gaps. The next three ranks, back to Blade and Isma, stood ready in reserve.
Org had timed it well. The attack washed against the embattled square on three sides, simultaneously. The din was outlandish, deafening, a garbled symphony of hate and fear, a howling of demons unfettered. The 926 screeching their battle songs. The Pethcines snarled like wolves as they began to hew a lane into the square.
Org led the first threat, as Blade had known he would. He meant to be there. If he could kill Org before the chariots, under Totha, could be brought into action it might well carry the day. But Org was too cunning to send his war chariots against a square - he knew the horses would die and pile up and form a barrier. Org knew the chariots were his last resort and he would not use them until the square had been broken and thinned. Then he would send in the chariots, with their cruelly scythed wheels, to finish the job.
Org, at the point of a spear of barbarians, savaged his way into the square. His was the only breakthrough. Otherwise the square held fast as the Pethcines, dying on spears and swords, piled up and blocked the passage of the warriors behind them. But Org had pushed a mortal enclave into the Tharnians, mortal unless it was healed at once. Blade went in to heal it.
Their swords glinted and chimed together, hack and slash, counter and parry. Org, his beard soaked with blood, his piggy eyes gleaming red through a mask of fury, let out a hoarse shout as their swords crossed.
"You again, Lord Mazda! Ha - Ho...Blade, the traitor who calls himself Mazda...I, I, Org, will show you who is a God!" For a moment he drove Blade back with the sheer ferocity of his attack.