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Besides the leaders' women, there were a score more for the service of the warriors. Most of these were Karani or Nessiri prisoners or women of Scador enslaved for one or another sort of misbehavior. There were also a score of older men and younger boys to feed the horses, build the fires, clean armor and weapons, and do the rest of the dirty work. Altogether, nearly two hundred and fifty of Ukush's people marched out across the plateau when Degar's trumpeter blew the signal.
Looking back over his shoulder, Blade could see Tera tramping along with a long, free stride in her proper place behind his horse. Behind her the column of the men he led trailed away across the hard bare earth and short grass toward Ukush. The walls of the town were lined with those left behind, cheering, shouting, beating on drums, and waving everything they could wave.
Blade found that he was not quite as happy about leaving Ukush behind as he had expected to be. The way of life and customs there were not his. But the Scadori had welcomed him, a stranger, and given him as much of a home as they could.
Gradually Ukush on its hill sank into the plateau, and within an hour it was gone, vanished below the horizon. The warriors marched steadily forward behind their leaders, the women and servants following them. Occasionally someone would sing one of Scador's harsh, bellowing war songs. Otherwise there was no sound but the hooves of the horses and the feet of the marchers on the hard ground, and above them all the endless whisper and moan of the wind.
Chapter 6
The march across the plateau went on for several days. One by one, other columns of the warriors of Scador marched up over the horizon and joined the men of Ukush. By the tenth day, over three thousand warriors and five hundred camp followers were marching steadily on in a single great column.
By now Blade knew they were marching north. The nights were almost as chilly as they had been in Ukush before spring came. Blade found Tera snuggling closer to him at night, and seldom took off his clothes even to air them out. Washing was out of the question. The occasional pond or spring provided just enough water to fill the water bags and drinking bottles.
On the thirteenth day Blade saw snow-covered summits lifting over the horizon to the north and northwest. About noon on that day the whole column swung off toward the northwest. A dozen of the more experienced warriors mounted up on leaders' horses and rode off ahead of the column as scouts. They were approaching the northern end of the plateau, and the pass that led the Scadori through the mountains and down into the lowlands. The Karani had never fortified or garrisoned that pass in all the centuries the Scadori had been fighting them. But none of the leaders wanted to take any chances. The Scadori had learned much from the wars. It was possible that the Karani had done the same.
The column camped for the night several hours earlier than usual, just out of sight of the pass. Blade found Tera wilder in her passion that night than ever before. She knew as well as Blade did that the march was over and the fighting about to begin.
«I would be unhappy to be apart from you for the rest of my life,» she said with a sigh. «I pray every hour to the Watchers that other warriors may fall, but not you. It is not a good prayer, and I do not know if the Watchers will answer. But I hope they will.»
«We must all bow to the Watchers,» said Blade. «I pray, rather, that I do not fail those who follow me through any lack of skill or courage. I also pray to do my best in our battles. If that is granted, I think we will not be apart when the fighting is over.» Blade knew that might very well turn out to be a lie, if he chose to flee to the Karani without her. But if he ended up leaving Tera, why not let her think he had met his death in battle? She would suffer enough as it was.
The camp awoke long before dawn, as soon as the scouts returned to report that the pass was clear. Several hundred fur-clad warriors with stoneheaded axes and spears marched in from the mountain-dwelling tribes, to join the column. Two of the clans whose warriors were expected did not appear, but this seemed a minor detail. When the column set out on its march in the darkness, it was nearly four thousand strong.
They climbed up to the peak of the pass in the early dawn and crossed it before full daylight. As the sky overhead turned blue, Blade could look down the slopes of the mountains to the green lowlands at the bottom, dotted with the silver of lakes and the dark green of forests. Miles away a few curls of smoke rose from the chimneys of farms and villages. Their people would not live to see sunset, and would be lucky to die quickly and cleanly.
There were no signs of any large Karani force nearby. No smoke from campfires, no glint of sun on armor, no dust clouds that the Riders of Death on the march might have thrown up.
Degar shrugged. «How could they get ready for us, anyway? They ca
Even then we may not see the Riders of Death. Often they do not leave Karanopolis for a whole year at a time, even to fight us.»
«Good.» Blade was not quite speaking his mind. If it would be a week before they were fighting Karani soldiers, it would be a week before he could safely leave the Scadori, with or without Tera. He could not leave u
His staying would make Tera happy, of course. But meanwhile he would have to march with the Scadori. He would see farms burning, farmers slaughtered, their women raped and then kidnapped, their children shot full of arrows, and many other things he would rather not see, let alone help do.
By noon the whole army of Scador was out of the pass. The warriors in the lead were several miles out into Karani lands. Soon they were passing little mounds of blackened stones that showed where farms had once stood. The Karani peasants were obviously born optimists, to go on building and farming so close to the normal invasion route of the enemy. But by now word had probably reached the nearer farms that the Scadori were coming, and at least the women and children would be on their way to safety as fast as they could go. Blade hoped so. The afternoon wore on. They came to the first farms-already abandoned, as Blade had hoped. Some of the livestock had not been driven off, though. Blade heard the protesting baaaing of sheep and the lowing of cattle as they were slaughtered for the warriors' di
«No warrior of my people would starve his woman to maintain his own strength. If he was that weak, he would be sent back to the camps of the boys for more training in what a warrior must do.»
«There must be terrible strength in your warriors, for them to do this.»
«There is. There is also the belief that it is a great evil to hurt a woman unless she has done a wrong to you.» Blade had reached down then, and stroked Tera's long hair. It was clean now, for he had taught her to wash it once a week. «You have done nothing wrong to me.»
«And I shall not, Blade. That would be evil of me.» Her smile showed love that was almost worship.
They made camp for the night several miles beyond the first farms. Clouds of smoke from the burning buildings smudged the sky behind them. Other clouds of smoke soon rose from campfires, and soon after that the smell of roasting meat. One by one the warriors of Scador relaxed, enjoying the pleasure of sitting or lying on soft earth that smelled of growing things.