Jeffrey Lord Blade 25 Torian Pearls.

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no longer get in, and the poor who'd never eaten well anyway began to starve.
Messengers could still get in and out, but they did no good. None of the
captains of the garrisons of the other cities of Tor had any wish to hurl
their horsemen against the smoke tubes and steel coats of the Vodi. Kayarna
was also sure that some of those captains were holding back in hopes of making
a separate peace with the Vodi after Tordas fell and the throne of Tor stood
vacant.
Those captains would not have to wait long. The Vodi had other weapons besides
starvation to use against Tordas. They had enormous smoke tubes, as long as a
ship's boat and many times heavier, hurling stone balls as large as a horse's
head and as heavy as a man. The stones crashed into the walls, rolled down the
streets, fell through the roofs of palaces, hovels, temples, and shops with a
gruesome impartiality. The walls of Tordas would certainly let the Torians
beat off any assault as long as they stood.
How long would those walls stand, under the battering of the smoke tubes?
Kayarna wondered. She did not show her doubts when she rode about the battered
streets. She urged on the captains and the soldiers, consoled the bereaved,
saw that widows were fed and orphans were housed in the palace itself. She
spent eighteen hours a day awake and most of those hours in the saddle.
This not only inspired the Torians, it gave Kayarna herself peaceful sleep at
night, untroubled by nightmares of what would happen when the walls finally
came down and the Vodi stormed the city.
If the gods had willed it that she should be the last ruler of Tor, then she
would at least try to die in a manner worthy of those who'd gone before her.
It was several more weeks before Richard Blade learned precisely what was
happening to Tordas and why the Torians would not be attacking the Kargoi any
time soon. He had to get the story bit by bit from
Torian prisoners.
Naturally these men were reluctant to admit how helpless their land was
against the Kargoi. The Kargoi found convincing methods of persuading them to
tell all they knew.
When Blade had a clear picture of what was happening to the west, he sat down
with Fudan, Loya, and
Paor to decide the best course of action.
"The Torians will not be able to hold out much longer. That seems certain. In
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England we have some experience with smoke tubes such as the Vodi are using.
We call them guns. Against large guns no wall can stand, unless it is built
specially to resist them.
"So the Vodi are on the road to victory, and in the end they will win without
our help. We cannot earn their gratitude by helping them defeat Tor. We can
only hurry the day when they will rule all the land to the west and feel ready
to move against us.
"If we hold back from aiding either side, the Vodi will still win. It will
take them a little longer, but sooner or later they will rule in Tor. Then
they will also think of coming east-"
"Why should they do that?" said Paor. "If they have settled in a new homeland
that is large enough for them, will they want more land?"
"They have not come across the sea because the waters have risen to swallow
their own homeland," said
Blade. "They have come because they think the rising waters have made other
peoples weak, and this is a good time to make those peoples into slaves."
Fudan struggled for words to express his horror. "They-they are monsters!"
"I do not know about that," said Blade. "I do know that such people will not
stop with conquering Tor.
Sooner or later they will march and sail against us. Also, a people like the
Vodi, who love war, might some day be tempted to ally themselves with the
Menel, to gain their help in conquering far and wide."
That idea made the other three totally speechless for a moment. Then Loya
burst out, "No! The gods forbid!"
Blade smiled. "The gods may forbid it, but I think we ourselves can do a
better and more certain job."
"How?" said Paor. Then he answered his own question. "We should go west and
help the Torians drive the Vodi into the sea?"
"Yes. If we do that, the Vodi may not come again for many years. The Torians
will be grateful, and it will be easy to get them to join with us against the
Menel. With the Torians, the Hauri, and the Kargoi all united and given guns,
the Menel will not have an easy time of it."
"That is true enough," said Fudan. "We will be a thousand to their one, and
none of us will be cowards.
But what of the-the guns of the Vodi? The Torians have suffered terribly from
them. Do you think we can win against them, when the Torians have failed?"
"Yes," said Blade. "The guns throw their stones by setting fire to a strong
powder. The Vodi can only have brought a certain amount of the powder across
the sea with them, and they have been burning it rapidly. If they have burned
it all, or if we can destroy what is left, their guns will be useless. Then we
can fight them in the old ways, which we know so well."
Blade was making an educated guess when he said that, and he hoped he'd
guessed right. If not, he could be leading the two peoples who trusted his
wisdom to their deaths.
"If all this is true," said Paor, "then Blade has spoken wisely. We shall go
west to aid the Torians."
"We shall," said Fudan and Loya together. All four of them rose from the
table, stepped into a circle, and joined their hands together.
Chapter 24
A hundred-pound ball of stone plunged out of the sky, to crash into the corner
of a house in the Street of the Tailors. Half of the house shivered, sagged,
and crumbled in a swelling roar of falling masonry and a billowing cloud of
dust. The rescue workers moved toward the ruins, their dust-coated faces
drawn, their steps slow and shuffling. Not even the eyes of their queen upon
them could make them move swiftly. The siege of Tordas had gone on too long.
Kayarna gentled her horse with one hand and brushed the dust from her face
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with the other. At least horses no longer bolted at the crash and thunder of
the stone-belching Vodi smoke tubes. Many of them were so gaunt they could
hardly have had the strength; fodder was running short. A few more days and
none of the horses in the city would have the strength to charge. A few days
after that, and it would be time to slaughter and eat them. By eating the
horses that had once carried its fighting men proudly across the plains,
Tordas might last another week or two-if the smoke tubes didn't batter it into
ruins first.
Kayarna urged her horse forward. As she did, two riders came trotting out of
the dust cloud filling the street ahead and reined in on either side of her.
She recognized two of the captains who'd been among the boldest in getting
messages in and out of the city.
"Your Majesty," one of them gasped. "We are lost! The wagon people are
advancing upon the city.
Their army is in sight from the walls. In another hour they will be joining
the Vodi, and then . . . ."
Kayarna cut off the man's babblings with a sharp gesture, although a sickening
feeling was rising in her too. If the wagon people had indeed come west to
join the Vodi, Tordas had only a few more days to live. For a moment she
thought she would be physically ill with despair.
Then she straightened in her saddle. Whatever this meant for Tor, she wanted
to see it with her own eyes. "Let us go to the wall," she said. She spurred
her horse forward, and the two pale-faced messengers fell in with her escort
to follow her.
Richard Blade climbed to the platform set on top of his command wagon and
looked at the scene spread out before him. Visibility was nearly perfect,
except where the siege guns belched smoke and their shot threw up clouds of
dust. He could see every last detail of the situation in front of him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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