There had been a few skirmishes with royal outposts. But the three pass forts commanding their road had been abandoned before the rebels reached them, a circumstance which did not relieve Terran minds. Long years of battle training had taught them to be highly suspicious of anything easy. And added to this worry were the rumors that they might just be heading into a trap. The one encounter with the spy had been built into a brush with a group of armed Mechs. And even wilder stories were beginning to make the rounds of the night camps. While Yorke and his officers presented an impassive front, the Combatants kept apart from their native allies—and the service took on the aspect of an engagement from which the off-world fighters would be only too glad to withdraw.
One mid-day Kana accompanied Deke Mills in a tedious climb to the crest of a pinnacle which would afford them a clear view of the road ahead. As Mills adjusted the screw on his far vision lenses, Kana cupped his gloved hands about his eyes and tried his unaided sight. There was a glint below which could only be light striking metal—and it moved.
“They’re waiting for us down there,” Mills agreed. “Two—three royal standards. Three companies at least. There go Skura’s mounted scouts. Wait—they’re waving a flag! Parley?”
Kana could just make out those dots drifting down the mountain road to clot in a black blot.
“Yorke should know about this. Tell him they’ve signaled for a parley and it looks as if Skura is going to oblige—”
Kana slid down to locate the Blademaster at the foot of the pinnacle, occupied with a native map, his three Swordtans in consultation. At the news of the parley Yorke mounted the riding gu Skura had given him and rode off after the native van while Kana climbed back to Mills.
“Look!” The young veteran thrust the glasses into Kana’s hands. “Over there—to the left. What do you make of that?”
Kana looked. There was a small body of the Llor rebels riding forward to meet a handful of royalists. But another group had dismounted and were making their way undercover to half circle the conference spot.
“An ambush? But they’re meeting under a parley flag!”
“Just so.” Deke Mills’ voice was dry.
For a long moment there was little action below. The conferring leaders, mounted on guen, remained under the wind-whipped parley standard. Then the hidden rebels struck. The group of officers became a melee of fighting Llor and guen. Rebels dragged unsuspecting royalists from their mounts, leaving some limp upon the ground and pulling others with them back into the shelter of the rocks. As the angry enemy tried to follow, those in ambush covered the kidnappers with a wave of fire from their air rifles until the royalists were forced to retire in confusion. And the parley streamer beat the air over ground occupied only by the dead. The surprise had been as successful as it was treacherous.
The two Terrans, shocked by this drastic betrayal of a code which had been ingrained in them from their earliest days of training, climbed down to join their fellows.
“Something up?” Mic, quick to sense their tension, asked as they scrambled by him.
Kana nodded but Mills did not pause to explain. What that act of violence might mean to the Combatants no one could guess. It might even lead to a complete repudiation of their contract with Skura and their speedy return to Secundus.
Quick as they were about returning to the command post they arrived only seconds before Yorke. The Blademaster’s face was an emotionless mask, but the set of his mouth, the gleam in his eyes, showed his worry.
Mills made his report and when he had finished Yorke laughed, though the sound held no mirth. “Yes”—his voice cut across the silence of the group— “it is true. Hansu, Bloor”—he jerked a beckoning finger at the two senior officers— “come along. This is the time for us to talk too. And”—his eyes swept the circle of Swordsmen— “you, you and you—” Kana realized with a start as Mills prodded him in the ribs that he was one the Blademaster had selected, together with Deke and Bogate. A pace or two behind the officers they trotted downhill.
Deke unslung his rifle, a gesture the other two copied. Accurate as the air rifles of the Llor were, the men who used them had neither the skill nor the startling marksmanship of the Terrans. If Yorke needed any show of force to back his meeting with Skura he was going to have it.
They found the rebel leader in a rocky defile where the caravan trail of the mountains widened into a respectable road. Llor mounted and on foot provided an audience for the scene in the center of that dusty track. Three royalist officers, bloody from minor wounds, their arms strapped behind them, were lined up before Skura who was haranguing them in the native language. He paused as the Terrans pushed through the ring of his men. It was impossible for any Combatant to read expression on the furred face of the rebel leader, but it was plain that Skura did not relish the arrival of Yorke.
Together the three Swordsmen planted themselves and their rifles in open view. It might be possible that they would be called upon to use those arms.
Yorke edged his gu on until he was abreast of Skura. The Llor about the leaders pulled back. They had seen too many examples of Terran shooting to wish to provide targets.
“Highness, what have I seen—this is not the proper way of war—” Yorke’s voice was not pitched for speech-making but it carried well.
“I am Gatanu, the Gatanu makes war as he pleases,” Skura returned. “These serve S’Tork. Men of mine have they killed, so—”
His hand moved in a swift gesture. Steel flashed in the air and the three royalists fell forward as their dark blood splattered as far as Skura’s boots.
Yorke’s mouth was a single hard line. “That was ill done, Highness. From evil springs evil.”
“So? On your world you do as custom rules. Customs are different here, off-worlder!”
The Llor leader was within his rights. And Yorke could make no answer. One of the rules of the Combat forces was not to question any native dealings with each other according to the established customs of the alien world. Perhaps on Fronn the desecration of a parley flag was accepted as a regular move in war time. But Kana heard Bogate mutter:
“No luck outta this—no luck for us when there’s blood on a truce flag.”
The Blademaster turned and rode away and in a compact group the Terrans fell back to their own force. But added to their constant suspicion was now another disturbing thought. War as they knew it was governed by certain unbreakable rules. Should these few laws to which they had always sworn allegiance be broken, what might be the end?
There was a council of war to which a representative from each team was summoned, while the remainder of the Combatants stood to their arms and prepared for trouble, suspecting attack now not only from the royalists but from their so-called allies as well.
By dawn the decision was made. Since Skura had quoted custom their contract held and under it they must go into battle with the rebels. The royalists had been beaten out of the foothills and the rebel forces were spreading out in long pinchers. Skura had some companies of infantry but guen cavalry was his preferred arm and his few regiments of foot moved as light wings to the heavier Terran Horde. According to his intelligence the royal army opposing them was small. The majority of the great lords of the plains had not yet chosen sides. A quick victory over this force—it was really only the household troops S’Tork had managed to marshal against them—would bring the nobles to declare for the rebels and the whole of the plains would fall to Skura with only a few isolated mopping-up expeditions to be sent against lords stubbornly holding for his cousin.
The shrill fluting of the Llor war trumpets sounded across the rolling country. And the rebels appeared confident of the outcome of the battle as small detachments of foot trotted up to join the wings of the Terran company, and troops of cavalry rode on to establish contact with the enemy.
The Horde stripped for action. Gone were the ornaments and the attention-catching trappings. They were in a uniform green-gray battle dress which blended with the patches of bare soil as they took cover.
Kana stretched his legs along a slight hollow and rested the barrel of his rifle on a conveniently crooked limb of the runty bush which gave him cover. Overhead a flock of flying creatures zigzagged and screeched their fear and anger at this invasion of their private world.