The area in which he had to maneuver was about the size of a boxing ring in Home Dimension. Blade, who was a superb boxer, now called on all his skill. He ducked and slipped and evaded and back-pedaled. He was constantly on the run, around and around the narrow circle. He began to breathe hard and now his streaming sweat was hot and stinging in the wounds. Still Porrex could not get in a killing blow. His sword had not yet touched Blade. It swooshed and swished and darted, hungrily seeking flesh, and Blade was never there. He was as evanescent as a shadow, always vacating a spot just before the sword arrived. Not by much, but enough. Once the flashing sword clipped hair from his head, and still Blade lived. And by now he had a plan.
There was no question of Porrex’s tiring. The Api could fight all day at this pace. It was Blade who was tiring, who was sobbing for breath, whose legs were weary. The time was fast arriving when he must stop running and take the fight to Porrex, dare everything, put matters to the final test. Soon now. He had a plan and it might work — but even if it did work it might still be the death of him.
Blade began to let Porrex see how weary he was, how he was gasping for breath, how his legs were stiffening and turning to lead. Porrex grinned his baboon grin and shuffled after Blade, plodding and serene, confident of victory and only mildly puzzled as to why it was taking so long.
Blade wanted to lull the Api still further. He skipped away from a lunge of that terrible sword and notched one of his poorly made arrows to the bow. He aimed the arrow at Porrex and drew it back until the vine string was taut.
Several of the watching goons laughed. Porrex stopped his pursuit and cocked his head, his sword lowered, one paw akimbo. He also laughed.
«What sort of toy weapon is that, stranger? You intend to fight me, Porrex, with it? To kill me, perhaps, with a piece of wood and a string?»
Blade stalled desperately. He needed every precious second he could get to catch his breath and regain his strength. If Porrex charged him now and that terrible sword flickered, Blade knew he must die. He must have time.
«I will show you,» he panted. He let the arrow fly at Porrex.
The shaft lodged in the huge paw that the Api raised to fend it off. Porrex snarled in annoyance and dropped his sword to pluck out the thing that was pin-pricking him. He placed a great splayed foot on the sword. His obvious contempt for Blade did not make him careless.
Blade moved in with every bit of speed, strength and concentration he possessed. Now or never. Live or die. In Home Dimension he had attended harsh schools and learned cruel tricks. He used one now.
Swift as a heartbeat Blade was within the circle of those massive furred arms. Porrex, though caught off guard, surprised, embraced him with a triumphant growl. His fangs probed for Blade’s throat.
Blade counted on three seconds before he was crushed to death, squeezed and stamped out of shape like matter in a hydraulic press. He used his three seconds. He kept his forearms and elbows free and rammed his thumbs into the inner corners of the Api leader’s eyes. Blade’s nails had grown long and sharp. His thumbs were like steel meathooks gouging into the tender tissue. At just the proper instant Blade rolled his thumbs, hooking and pulling up and outward. Porrex screamed in agony and rage. He forgot Blade and tore at his bleeding sockets with his paws. Blade skipped nimbly back and held both his hands aloft for the other goons to see — the pulped, bloody, grape-like mess that had been Porrex’s eyes. The Api stared, shocked and unbelieving, and Blade counted on this lapse in comprehension.
Time was everything. Blade scooped up Porrex’s sword, jabbed him with it and shouted insults. Porrex, his paws still fumbling at his bloody empty sockets, let out a roar and shambled toward the sound of Blade’s voice. Blade retreated a step or two, taunting the goon leader, luring him on. He risked one glance at the other Api — they were still in shock, still not quite believing that this thing had really happened, still undecided what to do. He had, Blade reckoned, another few seconds.
He called mockingly to the groping Porrex. «Over here. This way, Porrex. Who is the fool now? Who is blind now? Come and kill me, Porrex, if you can.»
Porrex let out a horrendous shriek of rage and pain and bafflement. He left off clawing at his eye sockets, raised his great arms in the air, two prongs of a terrible vise, and rushed at the sound of Blade’s voice. Blade stood his ground. He shifted his feet deftly and extended the sword. Porrex ran squarely on it with all the driving force of his six hundred pounds. The Api stopped and reared back, ripping at the embedded sword with his paws, his screams stifled by the blood gushing from his throat. Blade lunged then, with all his might, and drove the sword on through the thick body and out the back.
Dying, Porrex still refused to topple. He very nearly wrenched the sword away from Blade. But he was weakening fast as the blood spurted in arterial fountains. Blade put a foot against the creature’s chest and tugged the sword out. Porrex swayed, roared again, then toppled with a crash. Blade watched the ring of Api. They began to move in.
Fast now. Each minisecond that ticked away lessened his chances of bringing off the gamble. Blade put one foot on the still-twitching Porrex and brandished the bloodstained sword aloft. In a stentorian voice of authority he roared:
«Stop! I, Blade, command it. There will be no more fighting, no more bloodshed. I have slain your leader and so I am now leader. And as your new leader I promise you this — women for all! Women and easier and more pleasant duty. I, Blade, promise you this. Take it and be content. Or fight me and die like Porrex.»
So saying, calmly ignoring them, Blade turned his attention to the corpse of Porrex. The die was cast now. He either won or lost his gamble and the next few seconds would tell which it was to be. He began to hack off the head of the dead leader, apparently intent on his task, not deigning to cast a glance at the goons who crept closer and closer. But he heard them well enough, heard them muttering among themselves.
«Rush him. Kill him. He has killed our leader.»
«No. Wait. Who are you to command? We are all equal now. And you heard what he said — women for all!»
«I do not believe. Where would he get women? He has only one woman, which he claims for himself. Are we fools, then? Take his woman. Kill him. Then we will share her equally.»
«Hah. Yes! At least he has done us the favor of slaying Porrex, who would have kept her for himself until she was useless.»
«I say no. Let us hear from him how he intends to get us women. And how he will make our duty more pleasant. We would be fools not to listen, and we can always kill him later.»
«I am not so sure. You all saw what happened. He is bound to kill some of us before we can kill him. And if we are to have women I do not want to die yet. Let us talk.»
Blade breathed easier. His bet had been that there was no natural leader among them. They were all followers, not leaders, and the dead Porrex had not been loved. Now he had a chance.
He severed the head from the body. He impaled it on his sword and held it aloft. The huge baboon head was heavy, the sword long and also heavy, and the muscles of Blade’s biceps corded and writhed as he waved it back and forth.
«You make a wise choice,» Blade told them. If he treated it as a fait accompli it might in fact become one, though hazards enough remained. «I will take this,» he said, indicating the head, «as a passport into the land of the Jedds. You will send a signal to the next Api station, explaining everything and promising, in my name, that all shall have women and better living and working conditions. For, as I am leader here now, I shall also be leader among the Jedds. What I promise will come to pass. I swear it.»
If you were going to lie and bluff, Blade had long ago learned, it was better to do it big, without stint. The big lie, the colossal bluff, had the better chance of succeeding.
Still they hesitated, snarling and muttering, unable to come to agreement. Blade plunged into a more elaborate and cunning lie, waxing sweetly reasonable and attempting to gauge the degree of their intelligence and attune
the lie exactly to it.
He lowered the head, disengaged it from the swordpoint and moved it with his foot toward one of the Api. «Take that and find a bag for it. Wrap it carefully. Quickly now. Move!»
The goon hesitated, glanced at his companions, then picked up the head and carried it away toward the stone hut. The others watched him go in silence. Blade felt his heartbeat slow. He was going to make it. Yet he needed a clincher.
He began to clean the sword, jabbing it into the ground and talking all the while. «Think of it this way, Api. If you kill me you gain nothing. I will kill some of you. This you know. But if I go in peace, with the woman and without trouble, and come to Jedd and become leader there and keep my promise, then see how much you will have gained. Women for all! Is that not worth a chance? What can you lose even if I prove to be a liar?» Which he most assuredly was, a whopping great one. Blade had no intention, should he ever reach the Jedds and gain leadership, of sending women to these Api. He knew this. The Api did not. Blade kept at them, talking, using again and again the key word — women — women — women.
It worked. The goons consulted among themselves. Blade, from a distance, saw them take some sort of a vote using a helmet and colored stones for box and ballots. While they were about this he made a furtive sign to Ooma, who had ventured a little way from her rocky cover. She hesitated to obey, plainly bored with hiding and curious about the turn of events, forgetting both her fear and her nakedness, and Blade cursed her softly. He mouthed at her — get back! Stay under cover.
Damn her! She was an intelligent child, but still a child. And she could very well get him killed yet — and herself well raped.
He let out a sigh of relief as she disappeared again behind her boulder. And breathed still easier when two of the Api guards came and told him: «Pass, Blade. Quickly. Six of us favor you, three do not. We will all stay in the hut until you are gone. And see that you keep your word, Blade. Send us women. Young women who have not been overmuch used.»
It was, Blade realized, the universal plaint of soldiers. Even in this X-Dimension as in Home D. Send us women.
When the Api disappeared into the hut Blade went to Ooma and, in silence and pulling her along not too gently, made a wide circle around the hut and began to run toward the glistening mountains. He would not answer her questions and soon she was too much out of breath to ask them. Blade did not slacken his pace, nor allow her to rest, until they were over the horizon and out of sight of the guard hut.
He scooped a shallow hole with his broken spear and buried the head of Porrex. Ooma sulked because he would not let her unwrap the grisly object and have a look. Blade, as his anger faded, considered this new facet of her character and judged her leniently. She did not appear bloodthirsty or vindictive, only curious, and he supposed that captivity among the lake people had brutalized her.
Ooma did not sulk long. She tried to ease his displeasure in the only way she knew, but Blade would have none of it. He hustled her on, saying there was no time for dalliance. Which was true. Too true. They were not out of danger yet. Blade had no thought of trying to talk, or fight, his way through another Api station. It had been a very near thing and he still could hardly believe his luck. He would not tempt Fate again.
As they rested he said, «We will keep along this course until dark, then we will leave it and swing wide and into the mountains. Do you know a path, a way through, that will bypass the Api guard stations?»
Ooma shook her head. «I know of none. There is only one pass leading into the valley of the Jedds. We must take it.»
«No,» said Blade. «We will not take it. I have a feeling about the Api — next time they will kill me and take you for their use. We were lucky this time. Next time there will be more of them and more intelligent and higher-ranking officers. I have a sense for these things and I smell death if we are again taken by the Api. We go around them.»
A pale vestige of moon was hanging in the late afternoon sky. He pointed to it. «For a few hours we will have moonlight. It will give us a chance. There must be a way around the pass.»
Ooma nestled against him and stroked his cheek. She nodded. «As you say, Blade master. You go and I will follow.»
He gave her a sharp look. «You are not to call me master. We agreed on that. Call me Blade.»
Her look was demure, her eyes tilted with suppressed laughter, her lips quirking at the corners. «That was when you were not angry with me, Blade. Now you are and I must call you master. Unless—»
Blade could not repress his own smile. «Unless what, you minx?»
She laughed and threw her arms about him and kissed him for a long time. «Unless you prove that you are no longer angry, Blade. Prove it now.»
Blade wondered, as he set about proving it, if he would have the strength to climb mountains that night.
Chapter Twelve
Ooraa had been right. There was no way around the pass. So Blade made one. Made it with his strength and his guts and his skills as a mountaineer — he had climbed every major peak in Europe — and by lashing his superb body to an effort beyond anything even he had attained before. More than once he was on the verge of defeat but would not surrender. His nerves frayed and his temper went and he shouted obscenities and defiance at the mountain gods; he staggered through snow and sleet and wind and clawed his way over countless glaciers. He scaled crags that could not be scaled and took chances that a mountain goat would have disdained. This latter was no particular credit to Blade — he had nothing to lose. He could not go back. He could not stay in the mountains. It was forward or die.
After the first few hours he had to carry Ooma most of the way. The girl, near to death from cold, soon ceased to care if she lived or died. When the moonlight petered out and he could not see to climb farther, Blade cast about for a spot where they might have at least a chance of surviving until morning. He spotted two huge, black, uprearing rocks that formed a crude cave and carried the girl toward them. It was a decision that eventually saved them both.
The animal, whatever it was, had scented them long before and was in hiding. But when Blade approached its lair it charged with a high bellow. Blade barely had time to drop Ooma and step aside. As it was, the creature caught him a glancing blow with one of its great horns, a blow that stunned Blade and sent him reeling near the edge of the precipice. He recovered his footing in time, plucked the little stone knife from his belt and cagily moved away from the edge of the fallaway. He could not see the animal well, but it was food and it had fur or wool of some sort. He did not want it charging him again and going over the edge. For already Blade knew that this beast, whatever it might be, spelled the difference between life and death. Blade charged it. The animal came to meet him, snorting and stamping its front hooves in fury and fear.
The last of the moon had gone and Blade had to kill it in the dark. He met the charge with his own great shoulders, was knocked back, kept his footing and clung to one of the curved horns with one hand as he daggered with the stone knife. He got a terrible leverage and bent the horn over and flung the animal on its side. Then Blade, a berserk animal himself, making mindless sounds, leaped on it and used the stone knife with both hands. His hands were red and hot and steaming with blood and still he attacked. Again and again, over and over, he stabbed and ripped and tore with the stone knife. When his senses came back the animal had been dead for minutes. Blade stood over it, his legs trembling, gouts of blood congealing on him, and knew that for a moment he had been very near to madness. Fatigue, fear, nervous strain, constant alertness, the great hazards he had already faced — they were all beginning to take a deadly toll.
Blade let out a great shuddering breath and slumped in relaxation. He laughed into the black wind. It was like this in Dimension X. Always.
He groped his way back to where he had dropped Ooma. She lay huddled, knees up, shivering convulsively. «I am so cold, Blade. So c-c-cold. We are going to die here, I know. It would have been b-b-better to take our chances with t
he Api in the pass.»
He laughed as he picked her up. «You are wrong, Ooma. We are not going to die and we would not be better off with the Api. I will have you warm in a few minutes.»
She mistook his meaning and shook her head. «N-no,
Blade. Not even that can save me now. I am too cold. I will die. Jedds do not stand cold well.»
Blade chuckled and carried her into the shallow cave that offered little but some shelter from the wind. He put her down and went back for the thing he had killed. It was totally dark now with no sign of stars or moon. The sky was a dark canopy pressing down on the mountain peaks, the wind a dank, cold sword seeking them out.
Blade, working by touch, gutted the huge woolly animal. He pulled the hot, steaming guts out and dumped them nearby, then picked up the shivering girl. «This is going to be bloody and messy,» he told her, «but you will be warm.»
By now Ooma was too cold, too near death, to care or to answer. She tried to cling to him, but her arms would not function. Blade put her into the hot cavern of the gutted animal and, wedging her as deeply into the carcass as he could, closed it about her. He fumbled for the entrails, found them, strung them out and used them to bind the two sides of the carcass together by looping the gut around the front and back legs. Ooma, at least, would be warm for tonight. He spoke to her down through the bloody slitted belly of the dead animal.
«How is it, girl? Snug enough now?»
«Warm, Blade. So warm. I think I will sleep now. It is like being in my mother’s womb again.»
Blade smiled, shook his head and went about the business of his own survival. He hacked off lengths of the entrails and forced himself to eat. He would need all his strength tomorrow. He wedged himself back into a corner of the little makeshift cave, then pulled the carcass, with Ooma inside it, over on top of him. Wind and sleet, cheated for the moment, moaned in constant threnody past the rock opening.
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