by Джеффри Лорд
As he did so, he heard a roar of pain and rage from Nugun. Blade opened his eyes, to see the Senar reach down and jerk an arrow out of his right calf. He raised the bloody thing high, then snapped it between thumb and forefinger and threw the pieces to the sand.
«Are you badly hurt?» Blade called.
The Senar growled and shook his head. «Not bad hurt for Senar. Blenar or woman curl up and die. Not Nugun.»
«Good.» He waved encouragement to the Senar. The dance of death went on.
But it was not long before Blade realized that the arrow had done more damage than Nugun was willing to admit. A muscle torn, a major blood vessel open? More likely the former, since the bleeding didn't seem to be continuing. But Nugun was definitely favoring his right leg. Blade grimaced, realizing what this could mean, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
The third round came to an end and the fourth began without more damage to either Blade or Nugun. But there was no doubt that Nugun was beginning to slow. Apart from his wound, the Senar would have been treated even worse in the prison than Blade had been. And Blade knew what the treatment in prison had done to his strength and endurance. If he had not done his best to stay in shape, he knew he would have been shot down long ago.
As the fourth round continued, it seemed to Blade that the arrows were coming in faster, just as he and Nugun were beginning to slow down. Perhaps Idrana had decided to push the games toward a conclusion. And there would be no merciful shot aimed straight to the heart. Blade and Nugun would die bit by bit, pierced by arrow after arrow, and eventually killed only when they could no longer move and provide a good show for the staring thousands in the stands of the arena. That fitted Idrana's nature.
Halfway through the fourth round, Blade took his first wound. An arrow raked along his ribs, leaving a bleeding red gouge. An inch deeper and it would have gone through muscles and blood vessels, slowing him disastrously. As it was, he could clench his teeth against the raw pain and continue to leap about as fast as his muscles and breath would let him.
Nugun was slowing even more. That he had not been badly hit yet was perhaps just good luck. Or perhaps the women knew that he was no longer such a challenging target. Although he was now almost lumbering about instead of leaping, Nugun still bore only two wounds.
The fourth round, the fifth. They had now been out here in the center of the arena, providing targets for Idrana's archers, for more than two hours. To Blade it seemed more like two days.
And then the sixth round started, and its fourth arrow plunged down out of the sky into Nugun's thigh. The Senar did not scream or shout or growl. His breath only hissed out between his teeth. He turned to Blade, and raised a hand in salute. Blade jumped aside from his own next arrow without taking his eyes off the Senar. A cold feeling was working inside him as he watched Nugun.
Then without a sound or a word, Nugun spun around and plunged toward the edge of the arena. He covered a quarter of the distance to the archers before they realized what he was doing. He covered another quarter before they could readjust their aim to a target running straight and fast across the sand. Nugun was halfway before the first arrow struck him. And even then it only tore through one arm. Nugun bellowed in rage, but did not stop, did not slow, did not even break his stride. If anything, he increased his pace. Blood from his wounded thigh pumped out, brightly visible to Blade in the center of the arena, but that also did not slow Nugun down.
Two more arrows struck him, one in the shoulder, one low in the back. Then he was too close to one side of the arena for the archers on the other side to fire at him without hitting their comrades. And the ones facing his charge were too unnerved to aim very well. Blade saw arrows flying wide by the dozens and had to step lively to avoid being hit by some that sailed out into the arena.
Only one more arrow struck Nugun, and that did not slow him down any more than the others had. Then he was at the edge of the arena, and the women were scattering to either side of him. They might have drawn their swords, but even from a hundred yards off Blade could see that they were too frightened.
They did not scatter fast enough. Nugun's arm swung out and down like a club, and a woman rolled in the dust and lay motionless. Another he smashed back against the wall with one blow, caving in her face with a second. Then he was up with Idrana, and Blade held his breath as Idrana's sword flashed. It leaped forward, driving low into Nugun's stomach. The Senar howled in agony, reeled, seemed about to double up. Idrana stepped back and motioned one of the other women to give the finishing blow.
The moment the woman was within reach, Nugun straightened up. His hands clutched the woman, lifting her off her feet, high over his head, then twisting her savagely. Like a broken doll she dropped to the sand, and Nugun dropped beside her, still writhing feebly. Another sword-thrust from Idrana ended his writhing.
Blade knelt on the sand, not risking the smallest move that the women might interpret as an attack. Nugun was gone, taking enemies with him as he had promised, and now Blade was alone. Alone to plan his escape as best he could-if the frightened and nervous women all around him did not simply let fly and drop him to the sand bristling with arrows.
How long he knelt there on the sand Blade never knew. But no arrows drove into his flesh or even whistled down near him. There was a vast silence throughout the whole arena. And then the silence was broken by an explosion of cheering.
Blade looked up. The entire Green section was on its feet, cheering and waving. They were not only waving their arms and their banners; they were waving handkerchiefs, scarves, or anything else white they could find. After a few moments, the cheering began to spread, and soon the whole arena was a mass of dancing white.
Blade kept his emotions under tight control. He recalled that in the Roman arena waving white was a request for mercy for the gladiators. He hoped it was the same here. But even if it were, he knew that there was more involved. The cheering and waving of the Greens had been too pat, too well timed. They had a place somewhere in Idrana's plans.
He realized that the archers were breaking out of their positions around the arena and coming toward him. Idrana was moving faster than the others, almost running across the sand, and reached him before the others did.
«Follow me, Blade,» she hissed. «Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. That Senar is dead and you can no longer do anything for him. But you can still be the man beside me as I rise to power in the city. Is that not better than lying dead on the sand?»
«It is.»
«Good,» she said, and then the other women were coming up. They swept Blade along as they ran toward the section of the arena stands where the two factions were. By the time the forty-odd survivors of Idrana's archers were gathered there, all the cheering had died.
Idrana stepped forward, lifting her bow in salute. In the front row of the Blue section, someone rose to her feet and bowed in return. In one swift, flowing motion, Idrana snatched an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, drew, and sent the arrow hurtling into the bowing woman. She doubled up and fell out of the stands onto the sand with a scream and a thud. Before she had struck the ground, all the rest of Idrana's archers had followed their leader's cue.
A hail of arrows whistled down into the Blue section.
Chapter 17
Immediate and total pandemonium.
The shrieks and screams that rose from the Blue section were echoed seconds later from all around the arena. The women in the Green section rose in a body. Some of them scurried for the exits, while others drew their swords and started scrambling toward the Blues. Elsewhere in the stands women sat as if turned to stone; still others were dropping down onto the sand. Were they coming in to attack Idrana's archers or join them?
Blade didn't know, and badly wanted to. He wanted even more badly to find some place well out of the battle that would certainly be raging within a few minutes. If it was a place that offered an escape route, even better. He began looking around the arena.
Mean
while, Idrana's archers kept up their fire, pumping flight after flight of arrows into the Blue section. That section was becoming a mass of writhing bodies and blood now, although a few of the Blue warriors had unlimbered their own bows and were shooting back.
As Blade ducked an arrow screaming toward him, he saw six women in the dirty gray clothes of manual workers leap down from the stands. The one in the lead waved her arms frantically at Blade. Blade stiffened as he recognized Truja.
He didn't wait. Shoving two of the archers aside, he dashed toward the approaching women. Truja leaped into the air in delight, then waved her arm at one of the open doors under the stands.
Blade and the women sprinted toward the door. As they ran, Blade heard a shriek of rage behind him-Idrana had seen her chosen male getting away. Blade tried to keep his head as low as possible.
But Idrana could not afford to waste arrows needed for the Blues on a fleeing male. Only a single flight came whistling over. All were aimed at Blade; none of them hit him, but by ill chance two struck one of Truja's women in the back. She screamed and staggered, then went down. Blade bent to help her up, but Truja stepped in front of him.
«No!» she snapped. Her hand darted in under her robes and drew out a sword. The woman writhing on the ground looked up and nodded. The sword plunged into the woman's neck, and she heaved convulsively in a death spasm and lay still. It was a quicker death than Idrana would have given her, and now she could not be tortured into betraying them.
The five surviving women and Blade charged into the door at a dead run, drawing their swords as they did so. The underground chamber was full of cages of Senar and chained women. The guards were already on the alert from the uproar above. They raised their swords as Truja's party charged in.
«Out of my way!» she snapped. «Business of the House!» «Business of the House» meant the affairs of the House of Fertility. None in the city except the Guardians of Fertility and Mistress herself might question these words. The guards drew back, the massive door rumbled open, and Truja led the way out into the underground corridor.
«Business of the House!» got them past the other two guard posts under the arena and several parties of armed women who were rushing about in a frenzy like ants in a broken nest. None of them paid any attention to Blade, although it was impossible to conceal him.
Truja grinned at that. «With everything else they've got on their minds now, I don't think they'd notice if you were fourteen feet tall and had two heads and long purple fur.»
Then they were outside the Arena. The roar from inside was, if anything, growing louder. The women in the streets were staring toward it in curiosity and mounting fear. They were much too busy to notice the five women and the strange-looking Senar who slipped out of one of the underground passages.
Now the women stripped off their workers' robes. Under them they wore hunting costumes, complete with short, heavy bows and quivers. They tossed the robes to Blade, who made a rough cloak and loincloth out of them. Then all six headed for the gates of the city.
They covered the three miles at a dead run, without stopping once or slowing more often than the wretched streets underfoot required. After three weeks of confinement and nearly three hours in the arena, Blade found the run an ordeal. His heart seemed about to burst out through his ribs, and his lungs felt as if they were full of flaming-hot gas. Hot needles drove into the muscles of his legs. But from somewhere he found the strength to keep going.
The city gates were still open when Blade and the women came in sight of them. They promptly slowed down to a walk and tried to get their breathing back to normal.
The officer commanding the gate peered down out of the gatehouse at them as they approached. The uproar from the arena was beginning to be audible even here. And someone must have started setting fires. Several columns of black smoke were swirling up from the quarter of the city around the arena.
«What in the name of the Mother is happening?» the officer shouted.
«There's a riot at the arena,» Truja called back.
«The Greens and the Blues?» the officer asked.
Truja shrugged. «Who else?»
«Damn them!» said the officer. «Where are you going? «
«Out to warn the farms and the patrols,» Truja said. «The thing with us is a Senar the House of Fertility is sending out to a farm near Ufol Valley. He's an odd one, and they want to see how well he can work.»
«All right,» the officer said, and waved them on through.
Once out of sight of the gate; the six broke into a run again. This time they kept running until they did not have the breath left to run any farther, then slowed down to a fast walk. They did not stop until they had covered five or six miles and the city was only a patch of darkness on the horizon behind them. They took shelter in one of the ruined buildings of the old city and collapsed.
Eventually Blade found the breath to ask a few questions and Truja found the breath to answer them.
«How are things at the camp?»
«I wouldn't know. I left for the city only two days after you were captured. As much as we wanted to get you back, getting the sisters out of the city was more important.»
Blade shrugged. «I can't blame you. Nugun and I shouldn't have let ourselves get captured the way we did. Did you get the women out?»
«All but a handful, yes. Most of them will probably be at the camp by the time we get there.»
«How many fighters?»
«Four hundred or more.»
«Good. That may be the largest body of city fighting women left by the time the Blues and the Greens get through slaughtering each other.»
«I know. And Rilgon's army is less than a week from the walls.»
«Has any word of it come to the city?»
«Not that I heard. And would the Greens have struck if they had heard of Rilgon's approach?»
«I don't know,» said Blade. «Their war leader Idrana is an ambitious fanatic. I'm not sure it would have made any difference.»
«May Mother Kina curse her,» said Truja slowly, pounding her clenched fist on the ground.
An hour later they were all sufficiently rested to be able to move out again. They did not run or trot now, but Truja still set a brisk pace along the road.
They were about two hours farther on when they saw a cloud of dust on the road ahead. They stopped, and Truja told Blade to slip into the bushes that bordered the road. He obeyed, and from his hiding place he heard and saw what followed.
There were four women, each wearing a large yellow triangle on their tunics. They approached at a run, and as they did Blade could see that they had been running for a long time. Their faces were gray with fatigue and caked with dust, their eyes stared blindly, and their tongues protruded through cracked lips.
They slowed slightly as they saw Truja.
«Hail, Messengers! What news?»
One of the four took a deep breath. «There is an army of Senar in the land! Thousands of them, thousands! They are coming to the city. Mother Kina save us, for we are all lost!»
«Nonsense!» said Truja sharply. «Mother Kina watches over those who keep her Law-and sharpen their swords in good time. Go on to the city, and tell them that also!»
The women nodded and got into their stride again. They went pounding away down the road and soon were again a cloud of dust on the horizon. Blade stepped out into the road. Truja was standing there numbly, her face working and tears glistening in the corner of her eyes.
«Why couldn't they have come just a few hours earlier?» she groaned. «Brega is doomed, doomed!»
«As you yourself said-nonsense!» retorted Blade. «Right now the best thing we can do is get back to the camp as fast as possible. We can't do anything by ourselves.»
It took them barely two days to get back to the camp of the Purple River fighters by the War House. Truja kept Blade and the women moving on hour after hour, as if every extra step they took crushed one of Rilgon's Senar underfoot. Like the run through the
city, the march was an ordeal for Blade. But again, he kept on going.
When they reached the camp on the morning of the third day, there were surprises on both sides. Himgar and the others had long since given up both Truja and Blade for dead, and were delighted to see them tramping out of the forest. On the other hand, they were far from delighted with the news that the women of the city had decided to fight a civil war just at the moment that Rilgon had decided to strike. Himgar, even more high-strung and nervous than usual, nearly burst into tears at that news.
For Blade and Truja, the surprise was to find that nearly five hundred farm women had joined the Purple River camp. And more were coming in every day. Some of them had been driven from their farms by Rilgon's army and lost everything but the desire for revenge. Others were simply the independent-minded. The women of the farms had never much trusted the city, always kept the Laws of Mother Kina according to their own lights, and tended to rely more on strong arms than on strong customs. As far as they could see, the Purple River people now had the strongest arms around.
«Yes, you are the best fighters now,» one of them said to Blade. «And more will think that when they hear how the Blues and Greens fight in the city. The others will come here, and if they do not come here, they will tell what they see and hear.»
In other words, thought Blade, they would be willing to act as scouts for us. They would give the Purple River army an enormous advantage. Blade doubted if Rilgon and his Blenar knew any more about scouting than they did about nuclear physics. And the women of the city-well, they seemed to be good enough fighters individually. But had they ever fought a regular battle or campaign? Of course there was the factional civil war that Idrana had just started. No doubt it would give many of the fighting women of the city experience in large-scale combat. But would it leave any reasonable number of them alive, to profit by that experience and use it against Rilgon? Blade wondered.