“As your Warlord I am in command of this battlefield, and I see an opportunity that the Viscount didn’t plan for.” Snarling, Rabban activated his transmitter and sent his command to the soldiers. “All troops, push forward and strike the enemy. We will never have a better chance.”
“This is not wise, Rabban!” Brom insisted, raising a gloved fist. “We follow the orders of the Viscount.”
“Your Viscount made me Warlord. Obey my instructions, or die at the point of my sword.” He gestured to the chaotic enemy army below. “Isn’t it obvious? Look!”
Reluctantly, the Grumman soldier placed a hand over his own chest armor, and turned his gaze aside.
Barking another command, Rabban ordered two of his Harkonnen officers to join the troops, which they did, galloping off on their stallions. Moments later, the disguised Harkonnen division, as well as the Grumman warriors, raised a howling battle cry and plunged forward onto the dry plain that had once been a shallow inland sea.
The Ecazi troops saw the charge and required no orders to know how to respond. With an answering howl, they raised their weapons to meet the enemy, and rushed forward.
Rabban glanced up at the shielded fortress keep, knowing that Moritani must be watching with interest, most likely applauding Rabban’s snap decision. He guided his uneasy horse down out of the hills toward the edge of the battlefield.
Brom followed. “If you insist on this fight, Warlord, we should participate ourselves — as true commanders.”
“I agree.” The two men, with fifty of the elite Moritani warriors who had been stationed with them, rode toward the edge of the seabed, ready to join the main forces immediately after the initial clash. The bulk of their troops rushed across the plain toward the enemy at full gallop.
Explosions rumbled from beneath the ground. The surface of the seabed began to collapse inward, dropping away like countless trapdoors beneath not only the Ecazi army, but the mounted Grumman soldiers riding toward them. Rabban couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the hell is happening?”
An entire section of the plain collapsed, revealing hundreds of underground tunnels and shafts. Rabban knew that House Moritani mined and extracted chemicals and minerals from beneath the ground, but now it seemed that someone had detonated the support walls of the fragile honeycombed shell, causing these particular tunnels to collapse.
In an instant, more than half of the Moritani and Harkonnen soldiers had plunged to their deaths, along with an equal number of the enemy Ecazi, swallowed up by the battlefield itself.
Stunned, Rabban wondered about the explosions. Who could have done that? His mind went blank. Had this entire scenario been a trap, intentionally set by the Viscount to lure the enemy across the battlefield? Suddenly, he saw the logic of it.
Furious that Moritani would keep such vital information from him, he turned to look at Brom, but saw only murderous, accusing hatred on the other warrior’s face. Brom drew his sword.
“What?” Rabban said, pointing out at the collapsed battlefield. “Your own Viscount must have done that! To our troops as well as the enemy! He should have warned —”
“The Viscount knew his plan,” Brom said. “He gave you instructions. You disobeyed.”
Rabban backed up his stallion, but Grumman soldiers began closing in around him.
6
I want no allies but myself. Friends can be as dangerous as enemies.
The rumble of explosions and the billowing dust took a long time to subside. The screams continued much longer. Making certain that Paul was unharmed, Duncan Idaho struggled to grasp the disaster that had just swallowed the front ranks of the Ecazi-Atreides army. Hundreds of tunnels had collapsed beneath the advancing forces — a primitive trap, but an effective one. Moans and shouts echoed from the rubble, along with whinnies and clatters as the last frenzied stallions crashed about and stampeded away, some of them falling into the yawning pits.
Gurney stood beside Duncan, his face twisted in anger and shock. “That was intentional — like a hunter’s covered pit, with explosives planted so deep our mine sweepers could not detect them.”
“But his own cavalry charged right into the middle of it, too,” Paul said. “I don’t understand — why would the Grummans do that? By rushing out to meet us, they lost as many forces as we did. All those men… all those men…” He stared ashen at the disaster before him. “It’s as though the Viscount’s own commanders didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Out on the field, Ecazi and Atreides officers shouted orders, trying to regroup their surviving fighters into ranks. The allied soldiers gathered their weapons once more and picked their way across the hazardous ground. They were angry now, and their murmur rapidly built to an uproar.
Duke Leto’s hovering command vehicle rushed to the edge of the battlefield, and Duncan went to meet him, keeping Paul close by his side. “Your son is safe, my Lord,” he shouted over the roar of the engines. “He is here with us.”
Leto opened the hatch of the suspensor-hovering craft. The tone of his voice allowed no argument. “Paul, come aboard with me. Now.”
The young man let himself be pulled up into the hovering command vehicle. Obviously, he’d had enough of the battlefield.
As the dusty air cleared, Gurney stared transfixed at the far side of the dry seabed, where the commander of the Grumman forces, wearing a gaudy black-plumed helmet, sat astride a tall stallion not far from the shielded fortress city. The warlord had been giving the orders earlier, rushing along at the rear of the abortive charge that had been swallowed up in the collapsing seabed.
Gurney saw him up on the hillside now, with other soldiers around him. “My Lord, if Duncan and I were to take a pair of fast scout cycles, we could intercept their commander and take him prisoner. That might break the Grumman resistance.”
Duncan added, “He seems to have lost half of his troops already.”
With a firm and protective hand on his son’s shoulder, Duke Leto frowned. “Even if you succeed, I don’t think the Viscount places any value on hostages.”
But Gurney grinned fiercely. “After what just happened, it’ll be good for
Duncan raised his new sword. “I agree with Gurney.”
“You two are my best fighters.” Leto drew a deep breath. “Go and show that Grumman commander the meaning of Atreides vengeance.” The Duke summoned two fast scout cycles for the race across the plain.
Duncan nodded appreciatively at the sleek vehicles. “That warlord is only on horseback. We’ll catch up to him in no time.” He smiled at Gurney. “My new sword is thirsty for blood.”
THE ANGRY GRUMMAN WARRIORS closed in around Rabban. Five of the unmounted, well-muscled men held sharpened blades. Brom, astride his stallion, glowered at Rabban. “It is the way of the warrior. The blood of an army is the blood of its commander.”
Rabban neither understood nor cared about Grumman philosophy, despite his personal interest in violence. “Find out how many of our soldiers survived,” he shouted, trying to salvage his command. “Brom, rally the remaining fighters, and we will make a stand! The Viscount has other weapons he can use, if he ever decides to support us.”
The Grummans moved closer, appeared to be on the verge of pouncing. “This battle is already lost,” Brom said. “We
Rabban’s stallion shifted again, backing away.
