Chapter Thirteen
Blade had calculated, by converting Tharnian kronos into hours, the time it would take Honcho and Org about four days to bring the Pethcine host to Urcit. Blade did not sleep in those four days.
He managed to check incipient chaos before it could set in, but for a time events were in precarious balance. For the first time in millions of kronos Urcit, and all Tharn, was without the Power. Blade, almost literally, had a mob of bewildered children on his hands. For one thing he was grateful - they were not frightened. There was no panic. Tharn, Urcit especially, had lived so long in indolence and luxury, had been so long guarded by the magveils and other technical marvels, that they had forgotten the meaning of fear. They had also forgotten how to fight. There was a dim folk memory, among the People and the older neuters, of a long ago Pethcinian invasion; there was memory also of a revolt or two by the ceboids, but these had been quickly suppressed and memory scabbed over, and for a great many kronos now none of the People had actually witnessed murder and rapine. Ceremonial killing did not count, nor did the rare executions of ceboids. The latter had, in any case, been kept down to a minimum by order of Sutha.
The upshot of it all was that while Blade did not have an army - it was more of a semi-disciplined mob - he did have a corps eager to fight, if only someone would show them how. Many of the People had been bored without knowing it, and the emergency was an outlet. It did not take much, Blade noted, to arouse blood lust among a group of beautiful woman who, by law, were permitted everything but sex. Coi.
Isma surprised and pleased him by the manner in which she took over the command of the 927. At the first assembly in the Square of the Phallus, Isma appeared in a complete suit of golden-teksin armor. She carried sword and spear, a shield barely larger than the one Blade had used at the Sacer of the Pethcines, and a helmet with a magnificent panache of feathered jewels. She was impressive, and Blade was especially impressed when he found that she could use the sword.
Isma's manner toward Blade was now cool and remote, and he knew that there would be a later reckoning. He did not concern himself with it and, after telling Isma what she must do, he stood aside as much as possible. And approved of the manner in which she appointed her officers and began to put the women through drills that were arduous enough.
Blade was curt, as stern as he had to be, and he did not have to repeat many orders. Discipline was no problem among the ceboids and the neuters, and not much of a problem with the Bearer Maidens and the Maidukes. They had all been educated and conditioned to obey. It was only from the People that he expected trouble. When the trouble did come he was thankful, and pleasantly surprised, that it was minor and that Isma handled it with alacrity and firmness.
One of the women had missed muster several times. At last she was found concealed in the Lordsmen's Cage, reeling with soka, and intent on working her way through the entire roster of the young Lordsmen in a sort of communal coi.
Isma did not ask Blade for advice. She had the erring woman dragged to the square, where she personally cut off the blonde head and showed it to the remaining 926. The women all seemed to get the message. The head was impaled on one of the many phalli gracing the square, where they could all see it as they drilled.
There were nights now in Tharn, with a moon and stars, but Blade hardly knew the difference. He kept driving. He was everywhere, inspecting and suggesting changes and snapping out orders. He ran Xeno nearly to death. Now and then Blade would receive a slate from Sutha, or send one, but there was not really much to say. Sutha remained at his post in the Power Cubicle, awaiting the word to restore the Power to Tharn, and only Blade knew that the word was never going to come.
At the end of three days and nights Blade knew that he had wrought a miracle. Whether it would bear up under duress was another matter.
On the northern side of the city the ceboid hovels had been torn down and made into barricades. Blade, personally supervising this, had built his crude forts as near a long teksin plant as possible, thus providing some protection for his rear. On the roof of the teksin plant he mounted the dozen catapults he had been able to make. These were manned by the Bearer Maidens, even those who were in advanced stages of insemination, under the command of a neuter chosen by Xeno. The catapults hurled great jagged chunks of teksin, flaming oil of teksin in bags, and two of the machines could fire a dozen long arrows at a time.
Blade, with a cunning eye, had chosen the one spot where the ground sloped sharply away to the north. A natural glacis. Into this he set long stakes of teksin, sharpened and barbed. Between the stakes he spun a web of very fine filaments of teksin, invisible until the sun caught them. He also bastioned the forts as best he could, and left adequate sally ports. He had one intent, one clear battle plan, and inherent in it was a large element of chance, of gamble.
He intended to bleed the Pethcines to death. He meant to goad and tempt them into a frontal attack. He was sure of Org. Org was a barbarian and knew only one way to fight. Direct attack. Totha might be more intelligent, but Org would be running this battle. Blade was counting on that because, while he did not see how Honcho could know much about actual fighting, he was still a most intelligent neuter. Honcho would see the trap and guess at Blade's strategy. Let him. So long as he could not override Org. King Org was going to come roaring against the forts in a frenzy of blood lust.
Blade was prepared to offer Org a number of tempting targets. His scouts had not yet returned, they were on foot and Blade greatly damned the technical prowess that had long ago deprived Tharn of horseflesh, the wheel, and even metal. But for his great sword there was no trace of metal in Urcit. It did not appease him that teksin was superior to metal in many ways, and had a million uses, that it was flammable and malleable and under certain conditions could even be eaten. Blade would gladly have settled for the crude iron weapons of the Pethcines if he could also have had horses. He had sent a score of scouting parties out soon after the Power had died, and not one had returned.
But he had targets and he planned to be generous with them. Even in the absence of reports he did not reckon that the Pethcines would have much in the way of transport. They would have just so many arrows and spears. He planned to mulct the enemy of these weapons as soon as possible.
To that end, when on the third day he moved his forces into position, he stationed a heavy contingent of ceboids on either flank. This, he thought, would offer some slight protection to his flanks, and might draw some of Org's men off in diversionary attacks. Blade did not trust the ceboids to stand without neuters to whip them forward, and so he placed a line of ceboid-masters just behind the ceboids.
Behind the masters, the neuters, he then placed a line of specially selected ceboid officers, the more intelligent beasts, with orders to kill any neuter that ran. Blade had in person watched this order being translated to the ceboids, and he saw with what puzzlement and joy, it was received. The moist animal eyes examined Blade with awe and fear, but there could be no doubt of their obedience. Blade expected to lose them, all of them, but they would draw a lot of fire and it would take a lot of arrows and spears to kill them all. And they might even kill a few Pethcines.
