Empire Of Blood

As Blade tried to pick out the landing party from the tangled scene on shore, he heard a choked cry behind him. He turned to see Dzhai reeling, convulsively trying to pluck an arrow out of his stomach with his crippled arm. Then a second arrow sliced down and struck him just below the left eye. His mouth opened to let out a gush of blood, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Blade leaped to catch him and lowered him gently to the deck. As he did, he felt the pulse fade out of Dzhai's wrist, and the body went limp.

Blade suddenly realized that he'd been holding his breath. He let it out between his teeth with a long hiss. Then he rose to his full height, unslung the great Steppe sword from his back, and raised it high over his head.

«Men of Kukon!» he roared. «For our ship, for Captain Dzhai, for all our comrades, for our allies the Free Brothers of Nongai, for our ruler Prince Durouman-follow me!»

Then he turned and leaped through a gap in the bulwarks.

Blade landed precariously on Kukon's ram, which now rose a few inches above the surface of the water. As he struggled to keep his balance on the slippery surface, Kukon's heavy gun fired again. The blast knocked him off the ram into the water. He went completely under, came up spluttering, and found his footing. The water was only a little more than waist deep.

He raised his sword again and plowed forward, water churning about his armored torso. Around him he heard the whistle of more arrows; behind him he heard more splashes as Kukon's men at last started following him.

He hoped enough would stay at the oars to back her off the beach into deep water, but for the moment he couldn't care too much about that. He was no longer thinking of tactics or strategy or high-level politics. He thought only of closing with the enemy, of fighting and killing.

So it was not a man who emerged from the sea and charged into the oncoming Steppemen. It was a giant who roared warcries in a voice as terrible as that of the sea itself. It was a giant who swung a two-handed Steppe sword as easily as if he'd been swinging a feather fan.

Yet the sword was not made of feathers. It had the weight and the deadly edge of steel. Where it struck, Steppemen died. They died with their heads lopped off or split apart like rotten fruit. They died trying to hold their guts inside their gaping bellies or trying to stop the spurting blood from hacked-off arms and legs. They died, sometimes, before they could even cry out or fall to the ground.

In one way or another, all whom the giant struck died. The giant did not die. He kept on, blood and water dripping from his sword and his armor. He no longer shouted or cursed. He saved his breath for fighting.

Archers might have brought him down. But the press of men around him was too thick for the archers to shoot without hitting their own comrades. Some tried anyway. None of their arrows struck the giant. Some struck down the men around him; most struck the ground or men who were already past feeling anything that could happen to them.

Blade had long since lost track of the number of men he'd faced and struck down. He was begi

He saw the prince in the lead, sword in one hand, mace in the other, both weapons continuously striking and smashing. He saw the prince's musketeers following behind their leader, trying to keep up with him as he crashed into the enemy. Most of them were no longer trying to shoot. They held their muskets by the barrels and swung them like clubs. The butts of the muskets were already matted and glistening with blood and hair.

The commandant's guards were also there, thrusting savagely with their short swords. Blade saw only five of them, but saw each one of them kill a Steppeman. They would certainly win back their honor tonight, if any of them lived to enjoy it.

Would anyone on either side live through this night? Blade wondered if they would go on tearing at each other, hour after hour, even day after day, until the last man on both sides slumped to the ground dead.

Another wave of Steppemen came in, mounted and trying to ride their horses into the battle. Kukon's guns blasted scores of them out of their saddles. Blade and Prince Durouman led their men in against the rest, ducking low, thrusting or slashing up at the bellies of the horses, then clubbing the riders out of their saddles.

Kukon's guns roared again. Blade turned to see her backing away from the shore, a few Steppemen clinging to her ram. They still clung to it as it submerged. Some of them surfaced briefly, to thrash about screaming until they sank.

Kukon nearly backed into two pirate galleys moving in toward the shore. But both ships had alert rowers, and both swung wide and continued to approach the beach until they could bring their guns to bear on the Steppemen without hitting the men around Blade and Prince Durouman. All the guns crashed out and more Steppemen died. Farther along the beach, Blade could see other flashes of gunfire as pirate galleys moved in to bombard the Steppemen's camp. Flames were rising there also. Landing parties must have made it to shore and gone to work among the tents.

Then the shouts and drums signaled more Steppemen coming in, both on foot and on horseback. Blade and Prince Durouman had time to shake hands and slap armored shoulders dented and caked with blood. Then the battle swept them apart again.

To Blade's mild surprise, the battle did not go on forever. It ended shortly before dawn. All the Steppemen who were still on the shore lay dead or dying. All the Steppemen who still lived were fleeing inland as fast as their own legs or their horses would carry them. The pirates counted more than three thousand Steppeman bodies strewn along the shore between the two camps.

The pirates' casualties were not light. More than three hundred were dead, twice as many wounded. The tribesmen had lost their share as well. They had primitive weapons but stout hearts and only one simple idea of what to do with an enemy: kill him. It had been a good night for such simple, practical philosophies.

Kukon had twenty-five dead besides Dzhai and fifty more wounded. All the unwounded men were exhausted, and there was hardly a cupful of gunpowder left aboard. This was the price paid for disposing of better than five hundred Steppemen and, for all practical purposes, saving the whole battle.

There was no denying it, and the pirates didn't try. The work of Kukon's landing party and Kukon's guns had broken up the Steppemen's first attacks, saving the boats and giving the pirates on land time to rally. Without Kukon, there would have been no rallying-and three thousand pirates lying dead on the beach when dawn came.

Emass put the pirates' gratitude eloquently, although he spoke from a cot where he lay with one leg bandaged from thigh to calf.

«Prince Durouman, Prince Blade. The Free Brothers of Nongai owe you their future. We did not expect that our alliance would bear such a mighty fruit so soon. Now that it has, we have only one question to ask of you.

«How may we best serve you?»

Prince Durouman's answer was nearly as brief. «Gather all the ships and all the fighting men, all the guns and powder and stores you can. Bring all of them to Parine as fast as you can.

«Sail in strong fleets-thirty or more galleys together. Do not waste time and powder attacking the Emperor's scout ships. Protect and defend the ships of the Five Sea Kingdoms wherever and whenever you find them in need. Lose no time for anything else. We have only one goal now-Kul-Nam's fleet.»

«We have another,» sail Blade. «Kul-Nam's head. And after that, a third. The Eagle Crown of Saram, on your head.»