Blade #06 - Monster of the Maze by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord [Lord, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523404363
Publisher: Pinnacle Books (Mm)
Published: 1972-08-14T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The invasion of the Hitts was launched at dawn on the tenth day after Blade's arrival on the coast. The west pontoon had been forced, by much blood and sweat, to within a few hundred yards of the Hitt shore. The beach here was shallow and ended abruptly in towering cliffs broken by occasional defiles. Loth Bloodax had five thousand warriors waiting on the beach; his main host, which Blade judged as near to ten thousand, waited in a crescent battle array atop the cliffs. All the previous night fires had blazed on the cliffs and beaches, and the battle songs of the Hitts had blown across the channel to Blade and his men.

Ogier had twenty thousand men, three-quarters of whom were raw recruits. Blade, waiting in the dunes beyond the sunken pontoon, had a bare three thousand men, but they were the best in the Zirnian army. He had three troops of cavalry, six hundred horse in all, and in the first light of dawn he led the first troop out of the dunes and down to the shore. The pontoon, twelve feet wide, was marked by strips of red cloth just visible above the water. The large cove, near half a mile opposite them, appeared deserted. A light breeze from the west bore the sounds of Ogier's battle; he had made a circle of picket boats around the end of the pontoon and was sending off his first transports to effect a landing. Mist still clung to the water and Blade could not see the battle, but the air was filled with the defiant chanting of the Hitts, The sound filled the sky. Yeeeeeee-ahhhhhhh- Yeeeeeee-ahhhhhh.

Blade wore new burnished armor, and a scarlet panache fluttered from his helmet. He bore sword and mace, and a saddle sheath carried three short spears. Thane, riding at his side, was accoutered much the same but for the bronze-horned helmet.

As they rode to the water's edge Thane said a little prayer to the Hitt gods he had forsaken. "Give me the head of Galligantus this day," he finished, "so the bones of my Trosa may rest in peace."

Their chargers were skittish and did not want to enter the sea, unknowing of the planks a foot below the already bloodstained water. For the current here set to the east and, even as they forced their horses, the first corpses came bobbing into sight.

Blade put the spurs to his beast and forced it into the water between the red flags. As soon as the animal felt the planks beneath it all was well; it began to move, fetlock deep, out upon the hidden pontoon. Thane came after Blade and they paused for a moment. Blade turned in his saddle and raised an arm and let out a bellow.

"Men of Zir-follow me!"

He and Thane set out across the channel, the horses moving well but cautiously. The far shore loomed through the mist, desolate and forsaken. Nothing moved in the cove that was Blade's first objective. He grinned at Thane and glanced back.

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