Beyond the camp, the rising sun was beginning to strike fire from the high towers of Mak'loh. Blade had lived among them for so long that he'd forgotten their beauty. Now he was more aware of that beauty than ever before, with the heightened awareness that sometimes came to him as he waited for battle.

He'd have to wait for quite a while this morning. Sela and Geetro had to make the first move.

Sela stood at the head of her company and looked behind her. Three thousand humans and six thousand soldier androids were drawn up in lines by the city wall. Around them on the other three sides rose lower walls, built from demolished buildings by the hordes of worker androids. Anyone coming in through the new gates in the city wall would find himself boxed in by these walls. He would then find himself under fire from android riflemen and even the mortars.

Sela hoped the mortars wouldn't be needed to hold the city today. They could do so much more in the battle in the open that was now less than half an hour away. Much depended on how fast the Shoba's men responded to Mak'loh's challenge, of course. Blade thought they wouldn't resist a chance to crush a weaker foe, and Sela hoped he was right.

Sela raised her hand and signalled. Three sharp explosions sounded from the city wall. The metal plates that disguised both sides of the new gates tottered and fell, inward and outward. Sela looked through the center gate to see green grass rolling away toward the distant sprawling mass of the enemy's camp.

Then she raised her hand again, fired her rifle into the air, and led her people toward the gateways.

Sela's humans and androids came out of the gates faster than Blade had dared hope. There would be no danger of the Shoba's army launching a quick attack in the hope of catching their enemy divided and unformed. Good. Such an attack might not win the battle for the Shoba, but it would certainly make it far more costly for Mak'loh. It would probably mean Sela's death, at the very least.

Before the Shoba's soldiers realized what was going on, nearly all of Sela's army was out of the city. Then the trumpets and drums began to sound, building into a steady din that was almost painfully loud even to Blade. The soldiers ignored it, bustling around with the furious purposefulness of ants. A thousand riders mounted up and trotted out to support the morning guard. Another column marched off to protect the siege towers. Other detachments went off to guard the camp and the slaves. All the rest formed into a massive column and marched out of the camp toward Sela's army.

By that time Sela had formed her army for battle, with two lines of androids in front and a third line of humans. A small reserve of androids stood behind the humans. It was a simple formation, as Blade had intended. His total plan for today's battle was complex, but each individual piece of it was fairly simple. It had to be that way-no one under his command was really a trained soldier. If the Shoba's men had come two years later- But they hadn't.

Now the Shoba's army was nearly all out of the camp and forming up for battle. With their gleaming armor and bristling weapons, the Shoba's men looked far more warlike and ferocious than Mak'loh's army with its coveralls and rifles. They formed a line stretching two miles from end to end; and they moved forward with drums, trumpets, and the steady thud of more than thirty thousand pairs of marching feet. The archers led this time, with the musketeers behind. On the flanks rode the cavalry, their massed druns looking like great patches of some weird fungus creeping across the earth. In the gaps between the massed infantry, the cannon rolled forward.

Blade was impressed. It was easy to say that the Shoba's army was formidable. It was another thing to see it going into action and realize just how formidable it was, how much work had gone into creating that discipline and those well-chosen formations.

Blade hoped Sela's army would not crumble away at the mere sight of the enemy's advance. The androids would probably not retreat without human orders, but if panic swept the humans ….

Now the Shoba's army was within mortar range of the city. They were coming straight down to the attack, as Blade had hoped. He shifted his gaze to the camp. Soldiers were still moving about inside the palisade, but only a comparative handful. Three or four thousand, at most-not enough to defend the camp against any serious attack, if the palisade were breached.

Silver-gray smoke suddenly gushed up behind Sela's army, swiftly forming into a wall. Blade shrugged. That wasn't quite according to plan. Apparently Sela had decided her people could no longer simply stand and watch the enemy come at them. They had to do something. So she'd ordered the smokescreen laid down. A little ahead of time, to be sure. But of all the things she could have done, it was the one least likely to alarm the enemy.

In fact, it didn't seem to be alarming the enemy at all. The cavalry was reining in, but it didn't matter whether it charged or not. The infantry was marching steadily on, and now the range was down to no more than five hundred yards. They would be within easy range for the mortars inside the walls of Mak'loh.

Sela saw the enemy's cannon pulling to a stop and their crews scurrying about to load and aim them. She felt a cold fluttering in her stomach at the thought of those balls of solid iron smashing into her people. She hoped she'd done enough to steady them, by ordering the smokescreen laid down.

Brrroooommm. A long, ragged explosion, as half a dozen of the cannon went off together. A ripping sound overhead, like an enormous piece of fabric tearing apart. Then thuds and screams as the balls struck. They'd landed among the reserve androids to the rear. A shiver went along all three lines. Sela tried to will every set of feet in her army to stay rooted to the ground.

The advancing enemy was slowing down. The archers took two extra steps as the musketeers behind them stopped. Then they nocked arrows, drew, and let fly.

Ten thousand arrows whistled down on Sela's army. She heard screams of both fear and pain as they struck, but not many. Every human and android wore a helmet and new armor that protected not only the body but the limbs. Ten thousand arrows that should have cut down half the army killed and wounded less than a hundred.

Without raising her head, Sela lifted her radio to her lips and spoke quickly. «They've opened fire, Geetro. Time for the mortars.»

«Understood, Sela.» A faint chuckle, then silence.

A second volley of arrows whistled down, and a third. Then there was a long pause. The Shoba's archers seemed to have trouble understanding why the enemy was still on its feet after so many arrows pumped into the ranks. They began to shoot individually at picked targets, rather than in massed volleys.

Before they could shoot many more arrows, the first mortar salvo arrived. Twelve short savage whistles were followed by twelve thunderous explosions. Twelve columns of smoke mushroomed up, carrying with them weapons, bits of armor, chunks of flesh. Around the base of each column was a wide circle where mangled soldiers lay or crawled blindly, as if a giant hand had crushed them flat. The explosions died away. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the screams of the wounded and the whistles as a few hardy archers let fly. Then the second mortar salvo came down, the shells falling almost where the first twelve had. Again the smoke and the flying pieces of what had been human beings; again the ear-pounding roars, again the screams.

Sela raised her rifle and fired twice into the air. On either side of her, human and androids dashed forward. A few went down to lucky arrows. More started to go down as the archers realized they were facing a charge and began shooting flat instead of lofting their arrows, hitting unprotected faces. Musketeers swarmed forward and opened fire. White smoke spread along the enemy's front, joining the gray smoke of the mortar bursts. The cannon kept shooting, and some of their balls plowed into Sela's advancing lines.