"Hold ye one moment, Bobir," said Padras. "Come aside and speak privily.''
Reith and the trooper fidgeted while the two officers conferred in low tones. When they turned back, Bobir said, "We've devised our own plan, Sir Fergus. True, it hath a few features like unto yours; still and all 'tis ours. Well mass our men betwixt these towers. Then, when we're signaled ..."
Colonel Bobir described a plan exactly like Reith's; but Reith thought it inexpedient to comment on the feet.
"Who shall be our signalman?" said Padras. "I mislike to waste a single fighter."
Reith said: "Give the job to the Terrans' leading actress, Mistress Norris. She has more guts than any of the men. By the bye, the commander at Kandakh expects an attack through the mountains. His men will be staring westward over their wall when they should be galloping eastward, towards the river, to surprise the Qaathians from the rear. We should send him a message."
"That would mean detaching another warrior," said Bobir uncertainly. "We must not disperse our meager strenth—"
"I can furnish you a non-combatant rider," said Reith. "Give her your fastest aya and she'll beat any of your soldiers, since she's lighter than they." He looked up at the towers. Sighting Alicia's shining hair, he shouted "Hey, Lish! A-lish-a!" When he caught her attention, he beckoned.
Bobir and Padras were arguing over the best aya for the job. Reith heard: "... and you're ever bragging of that beast of yours hight 'Thunder. 'Tis time we put your boasts to the test!"
"But she'll ruin the animal, spurring it uphill—"
"She's an experienced rider," interjected Reith. "And at the worst, it'll be ruined in a good cause."
While horns blew, ayas squealed, and armored men clattered about, Alicia swung into Thunder's saddle. She trotted to the river, picked her way across, and spurred to a canter up the mountain road. Reith breathed a sigh of relief. She, at least, would survive.
"Sir Fergus," said Bobir, "worthy though your Terrans be in other ways, as untrained warriors they'd be worth no more than a herd of unhas. So we'd best not put them in the fore. I trust they'll not be insulted?"
Knowing how desirous the Terrans were of missing the battle altogether, Reith hid a smile. "I'll explain it to them, and I'm sure they'll understand."
"We intend," continued Bobir, "to hold them back as our reserve. If—may the divine stars forbid—the Qaathians break through our lines, we'll send the Terrans against them at that point."
Fodor, his huge frame outfitted in a mail shirt too small to be properly laced at one side, had elected himself commander of the Terran contingent, and none disputed the choice. He named Reith, Fairweather, Strachan, and Fallon as his junior officers, saying: "As a born barbarian, I ought to be fighting on the ozzer side. But I will give the Knights of Qarar good mercenary service, like the barbarian Stihcho did the Romans."
The Krishnan units had too few spare weapons to equip all the Terrans, so Attila Fodor made up the difference, handing out the souvenir swords he had bought in Mishé" until all the men were armed. About half the Terrans received mailshirts; a few wore Krishnan helmets.
The braver women waited in the towers beside their cameras. Others hid in the shrubbery with food and water and such makeshift weapons as they could find, mostly knives from the cook tent Cassie Norris, wearing a saucepan for a helmet, stood with flag in hand on the topmost story of one of the openwork towers. She cried, loudly enough to be heard below: "If those gooks burn this tower down, they'll make me a second Joan of Arc, like when I played her two years ago. If you've got to go, I say go in style!"
The long wait began. As Roqir slid slowly down the turquoise sky, quiet descended on the scene, broken only by the whir of flying arthropods, the furtive whispers of the defenders, and the snarls of officers ordering their troops to silence.
At last Reith saw the flag—a square of white cloth on the end of a spear—float outward from the tower and wave horizontally to signal "enemy in sight."
Sir Bobir shouted "Mount!" The clatter of weapons and the creak of harness shattered the silence. Stavrakos had to be boosted into the saddle by two of his squad.
Reith relayed the command to his men and badgered them into the proper stance. "Matthews, you've got your reins twisted!"
"Saito, press your knees in!"
A quarter-hour later, Cassie waved the flag in a circle, to indicate that the Qaathians were crossing the ford.
At last a vertical wave ended the weary wait. The colonels passed commands, and the long double line of cavalry advanced, slowly at first, then faster.
Fodor raised his sword in his left hand, seemingly unhindered by the substitution. Standing in his stirrups, he craned his neck to look up at the women manning cameras and bellowed: "Sound! Cameras! Action!" To his company he cried: "Forward at a walk! Trot!"
Reith and the other junior officers tried to keep their men in line; but to Reith the advance was the most ragged and unsoldierly he had seen. The ayas disobeyed their riders' unskilled commands. In trying to straighten out their fine, riders drove their beasts into one another. One reluctant warrior was hooked in the leg by a horn. Two of the animals started a fight. When one tyro pricked his neighbor's aya with his sword, the animal bucked its rider off. The fallen man got up and limped after his mount, which trotted ahead just out of reach.
At last, behind the Krishnan force, the Terrans trotted raggedly over the sheltering bulge. Down the long slope, the Krishnan soldiery were now traveling at a canter, with lances in the front rank and drawn swords in the second. Before them, the Qaathian nomads who had crossed the river churned in a dark mass. Others were splashing through the ford, while still others awaited their turn on the far side of the stream.
The knights met the enemy with a thunderous crash. Reith could see nothing but the armored backs of knights and men-at-arms, obscured by a thickening cloud of dust. War-cries, screams, and cheers mingled with the clatter of swords against shields and mail.
Little by little, the nomads were pressed back. The line of knights formed a crescent, trapping the Qaathians against the banks of the river.
A knot of Qaathians broke through the lines, and a desperate score of them swirled up the slope. As they approached, Reith picked out their fur caps and baggy garments of shaihan wool, and the short, curved swords held in dirty, olive-brown fists. They clustered about a Qaathian whose towering stature was augmented by a tall helmet with gilded decorations.
"Come on!" shouted Fodor. "The colonel says to kill those guys! Charge!"
Arrows, shot at a high angle by the Qaathians at the ford, began to rain down on the Terrans. Precipitately, Fodor spurred ahead. Some of the shooting crew tried to keep pace with him; others, less heroic, hesitated lest they be the first to collide with the foe. Two wheeled their animals about and galloped back up the slope.
Roaring a Magyar war cry, Fodor drew farther and farther ahead of his Terran companions, until he was charging the enemy alone. He headed straight for the leader in the gilded helmet. There was an anvil-like hammering of blade on blade, and the gilded helmet disappeared. Then the fallen one's comrades surrounded Fodor, hacking and thrusting.
Seconds later, Reith confronted a Qaathian. With upraised sword, the fellow rode directly at him. Reith heeled his aya at the nomad and, as the animals came into contact, thrust out his blade at arm's length. He felt the point bite through cloth and flesh. The slash that the Qaathian had aimed at Reith's head wavered and missed as the attacker, run through the body, pitched out of his saddle.
Then Reith faced another nomad. Since his mount had lost momentum, he could not this time use his sword as a lance. He parried two wild slashes and then thrust home through the Qaathian's cloth coat. He felt his point pierce meat, before he had to jerk the blade back to parry a furious backhand. Reith caught the blow—and his sword broke a few centimeters from the hilt. Before he could react, a second cut descended on his head, slicing through the helmet and into his scalp. He saw stars, felt the ground come up and hit him, and knew no more.