Jeffrey Lord Blade 28 Wizard of Rentoro

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a guard in the arm, nearly knocking him out of his saddle. He cried out, but
with surprise and rage more than pain.
"You, you, you ride through the streets and wake up the people. Tell them the
Wolves are in the city and must be stopped. Tell them to turn out, block the
streets, light torches and be ready to fight for their lives." Blade's mind
went back to Winston Churchill's call of 1940, when Britain faced a German
invasion. "Remember, you can always take one with you."
The messengers clattered off into the darkness on their various missions,
pursued by more bolts from the gate. The rest dismounted, some to lead away
the heudas, others to unload the tar barrels and pile them across the street.
Still others broke down the doors of nearby houses and started dragging
furniture out into the street to add to the barricade. At first men shouted
angrily at the invasion of their homes.
Then they heard what was happening and came swarming out to join the
mounted guards at the barricade.
They came in their nightclothes or in no clothes at all. Some came with axes
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and spears, others with improvised clubs, chair legs, or even stones. Some
climbed up to top-floor windows and got ready to throw things down on the
heads of the Wolves. None of them seemed to have any idea of how to fight a
battle except killing all the Wolves they could find. Blade had seldom
commanded a stranger or more ragged army, but he'd never commanded one as
eager to fight!
Now Blade could hear a growing uproar behind the walls of the palace. Heudas
stamped and cried out, men shouted orders, a rumble of voices rose and fell.
The Wolves were gathering there in strength,
but they seemed to be taking their time about coming out to attack. Blade
wondered if they despised the
Morinans that much. Surely they could see the barricades rising all around the
palace! Did they think they had all night?
Then silence fell behind the palace walls. In the next moment the main gate
crashed open. In the moment after that what seemed like a thousand Wolves came
charging out of the palace on their heudas.
At the head of the column was a mass of leaders in full armor, riding almost
shoulder to shoulder, their lances raised, pennons fluttering, armor gleaming
in the torchlight. They cantered out into the square, the lances dipped, and
the whole mass came thundering down on Blade's force. They were a terrifying
sight a massed charge by armored heavy cavalry always is. As he dashed forward
with a torch to ignite the tar barrels, Blade wondered if he'd be alone when
he turned around.
The torch fell, the tar blazed up, and a wall of flame rose between Blade and
the charging Wolves.
He dashed back for the cover of the barricade, vaulted it, and shouted to his
men. "Men with spears and lances line up and hold them out in front of you.
The rest gather on the flanks and the rear. No prisoners!"
Then the Wolves reached the wall of flame, and Blade stopped shouting because
he could no longer make himself heard.
The Wolves tried hard to rein in and stay out of the flames. But the first
rank, the second, and some of the third were too close, and the sheer weight
of their comrades behind them pushed them into the fire.
Men and heudas came down like falling trees, and all the screams blended
together into one ghastly uproar.
Blade saw a Wolf leader plunge to the ground at his feet and start to get up.
Then a pain-maddened heuda reared above him and brought both front hooves down
on his chest. The armor caved in like tinfoil and the man died writhing and
gasping, unable to cry out.
Another Wolf landed face down in the thickest of the burning tar. By some
miracle he got to his feet and came lurching toward Blade, flames shooting out
from the chinks of his armor as the tar ate away his flesh, screaming with
every step he took. Three spears jabbed the man in the chest, knocking him
over.
Blade knelt over the fallen man and thrust his dagger through the eyeslit of
the helmet to end the screaming.
A man in a nightshirt seemed to go mad, rushing past the line of spears waving
an ax. His clothing caught fire, but he kept on, straight into the middle of
the Wolves. "For Magra, for Magra, for Magra!"
he howled, as the flames charred his flesh and the Wolves' swords bit into it.
Then his ax came down, sweeping a man-at-arms out of the saddle, and both fell
dead. Magra was avenged.
Dead or dying men and heudas piled up along the wall of flame, writhing and
twisting, filling the air with screams and the overpowering stench of burning
flesh. A few of the men-at-arms unlimbered crossbows and sent stray bolts
whistling into the ranks of the defenders. The archers were shooting blind,
though, and did little damage.
At last the bodies piled up high enough to make a clear path through the
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flames at one end. The
Wolves turned toward it, found they could not force their heudas over the
bodies, drew back, and milled around, apparently uncertain what to do next.
Blade wished he had about fifty archers, and thought of sending a message to
ask for some from the walls. He decided against it. The Wolves here made a
tempting target but it was still too soon to risk stripping the walls.
As he watched the Wolves milling around, a suspicion grew in Blade's mind and
slowly turned into a certainty. The Wizard was not here. Perhaps he was not in
the besieging army at all, but certainly he was
nowhere within sight of this force of Wolves. He was not seeing what was going
on, either by view-ball or with his own eyes. So he could not give them any
orders. Without the orders they'd always had from their master, the orders
that had so often saved them from having to think for themselves, the Wolf
leaders could not lead. Without the Wizard the Wolves might not be toothless,
but they certainly seemed witless. They could march, burn a countryside, set
up a siege camp. They could not fight a pitched battle against opponents who
fought back, thought for themselves, and could spring sudden surprises!
It was hard for Blade to believe anything else. The Wizard had fought in many
battles, or at least knew how they should be fought. If he'd been giving
orders to these Wolves, they would not have waited so long to come out of the
palace. They would not have charged blindly straight at the wall of flame and
a barricade that might conceal anything. They would not be milling around now
like a flock of sheep without a leader.
Morina was going to win.
"Morina will win!" Blade roared. "Morina will win! The Wizard does not lead
the Wolves, and they cannot lead themselves! Stand, men of Morina, and from
this night on you will be the masters of the
Wizard's Wolves! Stand, kill, and be free!"
"Stand!"
"Kill the Wolves!"
"This is the night of our freedom!"
The cries rose behind Blade, until they were as loud as the screams had been.
The surviving Wolf leaders started scrambling down from their heudas, shouting
to the men-at-arms to do the same. Holding their lances out in front of them
like pikes, the leaders began crowding across the piled bodies, the
men-at-arms behind them.
Now the Wolves' archers could no longer fire without risk of
hitting their own comrades. A
messenger ran up to Blade and shouted in his ear. The other streets were all
barricaded; did the Lord
Blade wish some of the men there to come around to meet the Wolves here?
"No. We can hold them for the time being. Stay where you are. You'll have your
share of fighting before the night's over, don't worry."
The messenger dashed off. Blade sheathed his sword and bent to pick up an
intricately engraved battle ax, fallen from the hand of a Wolf leader. He
raised it high and the light of the burning tar flamed across the polished
blue steel.
"Men of Morina!" he shouted, and then another rallying cry from Home
Dimension's warfare sprang to his mind. "Men of Morina! They shall not pass!"
Blade whirled the ax over his head, then sent it whining toward the shaft of a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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