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.He resigned himself to this fact and set about planning the best tactics.The Shoba's army kept a close watch on the northern wall of the city.In fact, they cleared all the ground between their camp and the city until nothing larger than a rabbit could get in or out without being noticed.On the other three sides of the city, they kept watch with nothing more than occasional cavalry patrols.They seemed to be waiting for Mak'loh to show its hand.Blade would be happy to let them wait as long as they pleased.The night after the Warlands army made camp, a convoy of trucks rolled out of a gate in the south wall of the city.It brought to the camp a month's food and the promised two thousand shock rifles, then returned before dawn brought the enemy's patrols.Doubtless the drun-riders saw the wheel tracks, but could not follow them up.Druns were stronger than horses and faster on level ground, but much less surefooted.As long as the villagers were shielded by the forest, they'd be safe from detection.A number of Geetro's people came out in the convoy to instruct the villagers in using the rifles.Blade gave them their orders, then flew back into the city, and sat down with Geetro and Sela to make their plans for the battle.Mak'loh had a number of assets that could give it a resounding victory if they were properly used.There were the mortars.There were the six-wheeled trucks.There were the robots-the last few Watchers and all the work models.There were the thousands upon thousands of worker androids.They could build or tear down anything that might be needed for any plans Blade might make.Finally, there was the wall around the city.Blade had often cursed it, for Twana had died there.Now he was grateful for it.It kept the Shoba's men out of the streets of Mak'loh and completely concealed from them anything that might go on there.The androids patrolled it too well for anyone to climb it.The Shoba's men could only stare at it from a distance and wonder who and what lay behind it.Dawn, and Blade was climbing up through the branches of a tree on the edge of the forest nearest the enemy's camp.The leaves were still damp.He found a high branch that would bear his weight and crawled out on it.The camp was already coming awake in the gray light, with drums and trumpets, smoke curling up from cook fires, and the clink of armor and thud of feet as the night guard marched in and the morning guard marched out.Both lines of men marched with the snap and precision Blade had always seen in the Shoba's men.Their discipline and training were unbroken.Surrounded by their own palisade, three wooden siege towers rose to the left of the camp.Each tower stood fifty feet high and was mounted on solid wheels that were sections of whole trees.Three more were under construction.All six would soon be spearheading an assault on the walls of Mak'loh.They would be virtually invulnerable to the shock rifles or to any weapon the Warlanders carried.As Blade had expected, it wasn't safe to leave the initiative to the Shoba's soldiers.They could do too much with it.An army like that had to be confronted with an attack so violent and so sudden that it simply couldn't react fast enough.Behind him under cover of the forest lay the twelve thousand fighting men of the Warlands villages.They were stripped to weapons and loinguards for speed and ease of movement.Their chiefs walked among them now, promising death to any man who held back or who spoke above a whisper before the High Chief Blade gave the signal.They needed surprise.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
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