Blade #19 - Looters of Tharn by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord [Lord, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523008554
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 1976-05-31T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Blade knew that the Looter machines had made mistakes that day which they probably would not make again. Nobody else seemed to care about this. Everyone was feeling too good. After a few hours Blade gave up trying to remind them of unpleasant possibilities. It didn't matter that much for now, anyway, as long as they didn't get sloppy in keeping the guards and scouts posted.

Besides, they had done well, and it had really been a memorable victory. Six Looter machines gone-four crippled and captured in usable condition, two smashed to twisted wreckage by the errors of their own computers. Only one of the people dead, and only a few minor injuries. They had won a battle, not a war. But they had won, and winning had lowered the Looters' strength a good deal and raised the spirits of the people even more.

Blade made a quick round of the sentries and scouts on horseback. Then he dismounted, stripped, and joined those who were celebrating the victory in the lake. He heard several people wishing there was some beer. But everybody was already feeling too happy to need any.

The celebration went on for a good many hours, until night fell on the expedition's camp. Then those who had guard duty took up their posts. Those who didn't fell asleep with dreams of bigger and better victories to come.

Originally Blade planned to withdraw after the first successful encounter with the Looters. But they had been so successful that he decided on a new plan. They would stay in and around Miros and wait for the next wave of Looters to move in. Blade was sure there would be another one. If it was weak or badly commanded, the people would fight. If it was strong and well commanded, they could disperse and lay ambushes.

Some of the towers of the city were more than a quarter of a mile high, offering a magnificent view over the plain. The lake would provide water, some of the bushes bore fruit and berries, and the neighborhood seemed rich in game for the people and grass for the horses. They could sit almost in the lap of luxury and wait for the Looters to appear.

That optimistic plan left out a few things, of course. Blade mentioned some of them to Anyara.

"If they use one of the superbombs that make the flat topped clouds, they can wipe out all of us. The only way we could avoid that is to disperse so far that we could not attack effectively."

"What about their rockets?"

"I am less afraid of those. They are powerful, I admit, and they will do a great deal of damage if we let them. But I doubt if the Looters bring very many of them from their homeland. They probably cannot afford to fire them off the way we fire arrows. If we do not give them a tempting target, I doubt that we will have much to fear from them. I have even been thinking of ways of attacking the big machines, the ones that carry the rockets and the red rays.

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