Blade also planned to sacrifice the Lordsmen. Every one of them big enough to carry a sword into battle. They would be no great loss. He made them a Guard of Honor to Isma and placed them under her command. And his - when the time came.
The Second Neuter, in fact all the neuters of high rank, he kept around him as staff. They were not good for anything else, and they did exercise an awesome authority over the minor neuters and the ceboids. More than that - they were a nucleus. Blade was thinking far ahead.
On the fourth day, still without sleep, Blade constantly inspected his line of forts while keeping an anxious eye on the northern horizon. The twilight sky had all sloughed away now and the new Tharnian sun was mild, the visibility clear for miles, and still nothing moved out on the flat plain. And still no scouts returned.
Blade had instructed Isma in the techniques of the square and the phalanx. He had stationed the women, the 926 now, in his center. Everything, in the last analysis, depended on them. Everything. When the time came, when he had bled the Pethcines as much as possible, he meant to lead the women straight through the opposing center in a frontal attack of his own. Straight to the standards of Org and Totha. At the same time the ceboids would attack on the flanks.
He watched the tall beauties practice the intricacies of the square and the phalanx with mingled emotions. They were willing and anxious, these prima donnas, now full of song and bloodthirst, but they were still bacchantes and voluptuaries, still coi-hungry women to whom coi was forbidden. It might, Blade thought grimly, make them better killers.
The women shouted and sang as they drilled. Each had a Maiduke girl in attendance, as an arms bearer. On one of the flanks Blade was keeping a small contingent of the Maidukes in reserve. They were equipped with the antique air guns, of the type that Moyna had first shown him; he had been able to find about fifty of them. His troops were fighting with arfactis, obsolete weapons, because it was all he had.
Blade checked on the last-minute emplacement of bales of raw mani, they would absorb a lot of arrows and lances, and then returned to the Palace command post. He was weary to the bone, and for the moment his mood was dour. If he failed, and Tharn fell, it would be irony spelt large - a civilization that had advanced too far, too fast. Too much trust placed in advanced techniques. Old virtues forgotten before new ones were acquired. In his other life he had known a truism: the barbarians always won!
The terrace atop the Palace was now a busy place, aswarm with neuters and ceboids scurrying about on various errands. Blade settled himself at a large table and studied the slates on which he had sketched his battle plan. He could see no way to improve it. Let it stand. He did not expect the battle to go exactly to plan, they never did, but he had done all he could and he must, above all, retain a certain degree of flexibility.
Xeno came running up to the desk. 'A scout has returned, Lord.'
Blade forced his eyes open. He had been nearly asleep over the slates. 'Fetch him, then. Quickly.'
The returned scout was a neuter of the seventh level. He was disheveled and haggard and there was blood on the shoulder of his tunic. He made slaveface.
Blade scowled impatiently. 'Get on with it. What have you found out there?'
'Many Pethcines, my Lord Blade. They approach from the north. They will be here before the morning.'
Blade studied him. 'How many Pethcines?'
'I did not see them all, Lord, but I saw many. I and my ceboids were driven off before I could see more.'
'How did your ceboids fight?'
The wounded neuter shrugged. 'Some fought, Lord. Some ran. We all ran when the Pethcines attacked us in the wheeled platforms. They have great knives on the wheels, my Lord, and nothing can stand against them.'
Blade pulled at his beard. 'Wheeled platforms?' He motioned to Xeno. 'Speak with him in low neuter, just what does he mean?'
Xeno spoke rapidly to the scout in a patois that neuters used among themselves. Xeno turned to Blade.
'I think I understand him, Lord. Many kronos ago, in the old times, Tharnians used these platforms. And wheels as well. They are drawn by two horses, which we also once had in Tharn, and they have swords on the wheels.' Xeno made a face. 'A childish weapon, my Lord Blade. Fit only for barbarians.'
Battle chariots. He had not counted on that! Blade scowled at Xeno. 'Childish, eh? You will change your mind before this is over.'
But he was not particularly worried about the chariots. He knew of a tactic that could handle them, if the women were up to it. But if Org and Honcho had chariots and horses, they were bound to have adequate transport as well. Supplies in plenty. That was bad. Urcit could not, was in no position, to withstand a siege. It had to be decided quickly.
It only confirmed what Blade already knew. Honcho had been preparing for this day a long time. Long before Blade had come to Tharn. Honcho had told him as much. It had been a slow and laborious process, the transferring of so many men, and so much material, from the depths of the Gorge to the plains of Tharn.
Blade questioned the neuter for an hour, then sent him away to be attended to. He was one of the lucky ones. There were no medical facilities and Blade did not intend to be burdened with wounded. He had already designated mercy squads to cut the throats of the badly wounded, regardless of rank.
When the scout had been taken away Xeno said, 'The news is bad, my Lord?'
Blade shook his head. 'No. Nor good. I will sleep now, Xeno. Wake me if I am needed. In the morning we fight.'
He stretched out on two tables pushed together, covered himself with a robe, and was asleep in seconds.
Xeno stood guard over him. At times the young neuter would finger the necklace Blade had given him, then smile at his sleeping Lord. Toward dawn he saw Isma and the Second Neuter come to the top of the stairs and halt, whispering and looking in the direction of the sleeping man. Xeno who had been sitting, stood up.
Isma and the Second Neuter started toward him. Xeno drew his short sword. It was greatly daring of him, and he knew he was as good as dead, but he drew the sword anyway.
