The Torian Pearls

Blade bellowed orders for the Kargoi to kneel behind the railing. That gave them some extra protection, but the arrows continued to whistle over them and into the fort.

Arrows began to run short on the wall. Someone inside the fort organized a line of the women to pass filled quivers up to the archers, while others collected Torian arrows. Blade saw Naula ru

Well, if she wanted to get into a full-scale battle, shed chosen the right time and place. Reluctantly Blade put the girl out of his mind and turned back to the battle.

The archers of both sides were shooting as furiously as ever, but no longer very effectively. Both sides were now so well protected that they were neither taking nor doing much damage. If there'd been only archers on hand, the archery duel could have gone on all day, the archers using and reusing each others arrows until all the arrows and all the bowstrings were broken and not an archer on either side could lift a finger.

Now the Torian infantry were crowding up behind their archers, standing ready to advance when somebody gave them the word. They stood there for several minutes, long enough for the Kargoi to pick off some of them, long enough for some Torian commander to realize that the Kargoi archers weren't going to give up. Then a horn blew at one end of the Torian line, and all the Torians surged forward, a solid mass of more than a thousand men hurling themselves at the wall of the West Fort.

Along the wall Blade saw the Kargoi dropping their bows and picking up spears and swords. The men with the bags of naphtha did not pick them up, but stood close by them, ready to go to work.

The oncoming mass of Torians reached the ditch around the fort and the men with the brushwood bundles ran forward. They hurled the bundles down into the ditch while their own archers kept up a steady fire. Blade saw Kargoi rise to hurl spears and be picked off by arrows.

He shouted to them to get down and save their spears for the close combat that was only minutes away. Some of them heard him, others were too full of battle fury to listen to anyone or anything. Blade ran along the wall, ignoring the arrows flying past, jerking men down onto their knees.

Now the ditch was filled nearly to the top with brushwood in three places, and the Torians with the scaling ladders were coming to the front. The Torians wore no armor and their weapons for fighting on foot were not as good as those of the Kargoi-only a short curved sword and a small circular wooden shield. There might not have been much to fear, if the Torians hadn't so badly outnumbered the defenders and if they hadn't been coming on as if nothing but death could stop them. Probably nothing could.

Now the ladders were banging up against the wall and the first Torians were scrambling up them. Some Kargoi eagerly thrust their spears against the ladders the moment they were in position. Other waited until Torians were on the ladders, then pushed. Ladders and Torians fell with clatters, thuds, and screams.

Blade ran to where three ladders were rising above the wall almost side by side. The shower of incoming arrows had stopped; the Torian archers were too afraid of hitting their own men. The Kargoi had no such fear, and wherever the Torians were not coming up the wall Kargoi bows were at work. The ground outside the ditch was becoming littered with still or writhing bodies and stained with blood.

Blade reached the first of the ladders just as a Torian head popped up over the railing. His sword fell with a swish, the Torian head leaped from its shoulders, and the blood-spouting corpse fell back on the men climbing up behind it. The ladder swung away from the wall and crashed down on top of half a dozen more Torians. Kargoi arrows hissed down onto the men before they could get themselves sorted out, and several of them never got up again.

From the second ladder a Torian actually scrambled over the railing, onto the wall. Blade and a Kargoi warrior struck him in the same moment. The Kargoi's spear went through the man from the back, while Blade's sword laid open his belly. Each grabbed the Torian by one arm and heaved his body off the wall.

More Torians were ru

Now Blade had a few moments free to look over the fort. He saw at once that too many men were trying to get in on the defense of the wall, and not enough were ready elsewhere. He began shouting, waving men away and pushing others toward the ladders. Gradually he got warriors and women drifting across the fort toward the gate. He would have liked to see Naula join that drift, but she seemed determined to stay with him on the wall until the last Torian attacker was beaten down or beaten back.

Blade's orders reinforcing the gate came just in time. Only minutes after the warriors started moving that way, the Torians attacked with their battering-ram. A tremendous booming crash rolled across the fort as the ram struck its first blow, drowning out all other sounds for a moment. The echoes died away, harsh Torian voices rose in a heaving chant, and the ram crashed home again. Blade saw the heavy logs of the gate shiver.

Torian heads appeared over the outer railing of the gate house and Kargoi scrambled up to meet them. A new and furious battle exploded up there, as the ram pounded away at the gate below. Blade saw Rehod leading warriors and a band of women and workers carrying logs, to brace the sagging gate. From the gate house Torian archers fired at Rehod's band, each one getting off an arrow or two before he was killed. Blade saw Rehod bend and pick up something from the ground, then run on toward the gate.

The Torians kept trying to scale the wall where Blade stood until all their brushwood and most of their ladders had been used up-smashed or burned or buried under mounds of corpses. In several places the ditch was nearly filled with Torian bodies. They'd lost nearly five hundred men, enough to make the bravest draw back and think again. Blade saw warriors begi

The gate seemed to be only minutes from collapse. Blade saw several men shot down trying to toss naphtha down on the crew of the rare. Flames and screams rose in one place, but not the right one. The pounding of the ram went on.

Blade was heading for a ladder, to go down and join the defense of the gate, when a woman's cry struck a sudden new note in his ear. He turned, to see Naula standing close behind him. She was swaying like a drunkard, her teeth clamped down hard on her lower lip. Blade reached out a hand to steady her, then saw the Torian arrow driven into her breast.

Her lips moved, twisting painfully to get the words out. «Rehod-at you-saw him-he wanted us to think Torians-kill-«Then she sagged forward, and would have fallen off the wall if Blade hadn't caught her. He held her for a moment, long enough to feel the life go out of her. Then he laid her down, wiped the blood from her lips, and sprang down from the wall into the fort like a tiger on the hunt.

He had to kill Rehod, and quickly, before the baudz could attack again or get any of his personal followers to defend him against Blade. It would have to be a stealthy killing, too, or the garrison would see their two commanders locked in deadly combat as the Torians broke through the gate. That spectacle could sow panic and give the Torians victory.