by Джеффри Лорд
Geddo came on, looming like a charging elephant. One spear was now raised high overhead for a downward thrust, the other held low and close to his side. Blade judged his moment, then launched his own attack.
His own thrust was low, with his left-hand spear. His right arm shot up, the spear held crosswise, to block Geddo's attack and perhaps break his arm as it swung down. Geddo ignored Blade's counterattack. He drove home his own as though Blade was standing helplessly, waiting to be struck down.
Blade detected that mistake in almost the same moment Geddo made it. His right-hand spear whipped upward. The shaft cracked into Geddo's arm just above the elbow. Geddo's spearpoint flashed harmlessly past Blade's ear. Pain twisted the High Chief's face, but he still managed to block Blade's other attack with a quick shift of his other spear. The two spearheads crashed together, spraying sparks on to the ground. Blade disengaged and thrust quickly, one, two, three times with his right. Each time he thrust a little bit faster. Each time Geddo blocked him. Each time Blade came closer to getting his point home.
That was good news. He had the advantage in speed he desperately needed. He'd also taken something out of Geddo's right arm. Not surprising. That whip-crack of the spearshaft would have broken the arm of a smaller man, and the pain had affected even Geddo. Now to try to get in a similar stroke on Geddo's left arm, then to push the fight to a finish.
The whistle, swish, and clang of fast-moving spears went on without a break as the two opponents stood and fought. It was all speed and strength of arm and quickness of eye, with no place for thought or footwork or very much strategy. Blade could have done better with more freedom of movement, but he did well enough with what he had. Several times he broke through Geddo's defenses to draw blood, while he himself remained unmarked.
After a few more minutes Blade began to realize that he was gaining the edge. Geddo was still fast, still strong, still enormously dangerous. But his breath came now in clearly audible pants and gasps, and sweat was pouring off him. The High Chief lacked endurance, and Blade knew why.
Geddo hadn't had to fight this hard for this long in many years, not since he was a much younger warrior in prime condition. In all those years his enormous strength had let him strike down or cripple all his opponents in a few minutes. Facing Blade, who was no man's easy victim, was a different matter. Geddo still said nothing but the wary, uncertain look in his eyes told Blade that the High Chief was becoming aware of the situation. In a few more minutes he would be desperate. That would be the most dangerous moment of the fight. Then Geddo would take any risk to strike down Blade while he still had enough strength and speed. Then the fight would explode in a flurry of blood and die away as one fighter collapsed, dead or dying.
Blade fought with extra care and extra alertness now, watching for Geddo to launch his all-out attack. It had to come soon. Geddo was definitely beginning to slow down.
In a few more minutes Geddo had slowed enough so that the warriors and even the workers and slaves in the crowd all around could notice it. Excitement rose from the crowd as they realized what they were seeing and what they might see. Blade, the Stranger, the warrior who had wandered into the land of the Ganthi, was getting the better of the High Chief Geddo, invincible for more years than some of the younger warriors had lived. Geddo was bloody, Geddo was pouring out rivers of sweat, Geddo was beginning to pant for breath. In a few minutes Geddo would be down on the ground, his life flowing out of him. Then Blade would rise, and when he did, he would be the new High Chief of the Ganthi.
Blade hoped that he was breaking no vital taboo among the Ganthi. If he was, he had the choice between dying at Geddo's hands and being lynched by the crowd for killing the High Chief. Neither appealed to him, and both would leave Catherine helpless. He threw her a brief glance. Her face was set and pale, and sweat made trails in the dust on her skin.
The duel went on. Blade began pushing his attacks home faster and faster, taking more chances in order to do more damage. The more wounds the High Chief took, the slower he would be.
Once Blade took too big a chance. One of Geddo's spears pinked him lightly in the left shoulder as he pulled back. The crowd murmured at the first sight of blood on the Stranger. But that was the only time Geddo drew blood. Blade drew blood four more times. The High Chief was beginning to look like a statue of red mud, as the blood and the dust on his skin mixed, caked, and dried. Blade had to admit that the man had courage, and an enormous ability to take punishment.
But no man could go on much longer with as many wounds as Geddo had taken.
The two fighters were no longer standing still as they exchanged thrusts and slashes. Now they were slowly shifting position, one step at a time, circling around each other like a pair of fighting cocks. Blade threw a quick glance upward at the sun. They were slowly shifting toward a position where the sun would be shining in his eyes. That would be Geddo's best chance to launch his attack. Blade stepped up the pressure, determined to weaken Geddo still more. In the next three minutes, he drew blood three more times and took a slash across his left cheek. He could taste the oozing blood in the corner of his mouth. Geddo looked totally hideous, and he was beginning to stagger. Insects droned around his head, drawn by the scent of the blood. Blade looked at the sun again. In another minute-
Pain seared through the calf of his right leg. He bit back a yell of sheer agony and looked down. A hard-thrown spear had gone clear through the flesh of the calf. The bloody head stood out on one side, the shaft on the other. Shouts, yells, and gasps of surprise and confusion rose from the crowd. Geddo stared over Blade's shoulder. Blade turned and looked in the same direction.
Stul was trying to back out of sight into the crowd, his face drawn and pale. He had only one spear. Blade bent down, gritted his teeth, snapped the shaft of the spear, then drew it out. He had to bite back another yell of pain as he did, and the blood flowed freely as the spear came out. He was able to control the bleeding with a rough bandage torn from his loincloth. But he could no longer move fast on his right leg. In fact, he had to grit his teeth to stand at all.
Meanwhile Geddo glowered around at the crowd, his bloody, filthy face set in a terrible mask. Blade saw that no one would meet the High Chief's eyes. The message was plain. What Stul had done was contrary to all law and custom. But it had also given Geddo back the advantage in the fight. The High Chief would win this fight, slay Blade, and then be free to deal with anyone who might protest against what Stul had done. No one would lift a hand to punish Stul or help Blade. For Blade, that meant the end-a quick and bloody end. For Catherine-
Blade looked toward the woman. She had gone a bleached white under her dirt and sunburn. He'd promised himself that she would not have to endure slavery to Geddo. He would keep that promise. Blade estimated the distance to the woman, knew that he could throw accurately that far, and was fairly sure he could give her a quick death with a spear to the heart. That would leave him with only one spear and nothing to do but launch his own last-ditch attack. He might still take Geddo with him.
The High Chief was raising his spears again and looking arrogantly toward the limping, slow-footed Stranger who would now be his latest easy victim. All Geddo's pride and self-confidence had returned. If the man would just go on striking that pose, showing off rather than keeping his mind on business-Blade raised a spear, aimed at a point just below Catherine's left breast, and got ready to throw. Another second-
As Blade's arm snapped forward, the ground under his feet heaved upward and sideways in one sharp motion. His wounded leg gave under him and he sat down abruptly. The spear sailed off wildly. He never saw where it went or what it hit. A sudden silence fell on the crowd.
Then the earth heaved again. The silence dissolved in a pandemonium of screams and yells. A thousand people or more were all crying out at once, cursing, praying to gods and ancestors, shouting out in fear and anger.
The earth heaved a third time. Blade staggered to his feet in time to see clouds of dust rise from in
side Thessu as buildings collapsed. Part of the mud-brick wall went down in a whirlwind of brown dust, carrying a dozen banner-bearing warriors with it. Distant screams of pain joined the rest of the uproar.
Geddo stood in the center of the circle, staring wildly about him with a mad look in his eyes. He seemed stunned and numb. The earthquake had struck at the moment when he was tasting victory. Now he seemed unable to imagine what to do next.
Blade had no such problem. His wits had never worked as fast as they did in the next few seconds, as he realized that the earthquake had given him a sudden, unexpected chance at victory.
He took a deep breath and let out a terrible wordless roar, louder than Geddo's, trying to beat down and drown out the noise of the panic-stricken crowd. Scores of heads turned toward him. He raised his spear and pointed first at the earth and then at the sky.
«The gods have spoken!» he thundered. «Stul's treachery has called down their wrath. The earth moves because of it. It will move again and again until Thessu lies in ruins if we do not turn away the wrath of the gods. Find Stul! Find Stul and slay him for his treachery! Offer his blood to the gods, offer his flesh and his bones. Turn their wrath away and save your city, save your land!» He was tempted to go on and ask them to slay the High Chief himself, but that would have been asking too much.
Blade's words struck home in the crowd. The sounds of panic began to fade, the sounds of anger began to swell. Spears and cries both rose.
«Slay Stul!»
«Cut his throat!»
«Take his manhood!»
«KILL!»
The crowd churned and heaved as people looked about them for their victim. Geddo continued to stare wildly about him. Blade raised his spear and sighted on the High Chief's blood-smeared chest. A single well-aimed spear, and Geddo exploded out of his daze and charged at Blade, both spears flailing the air. His eyes seemed blind with blood, dirt, sweat, and sheer rage. He still came straight at Blade, his feet leaving bloody prints on the ground.
Blade stood his ground again. He doubted if he could move fast enough to get clear in any case, with his wounded leg. He also knew that he could still turn the crowd back to Geddo's side by showing anything they would call cowardice. As Geddo charged in, Blade raised his spear in both hands and thrust forward with all his strength and all his weight behind the thrust.
Geddo did not stop or slow his mad-bull's charge at Blade. Instead he ran himself straight onto the out thrust spear. The point tore through his chest and burst out his back. He screamed and kept on coming, his three hundred pounds driving him right up the spearshaft at Blade.
Blade held on to his spear as Geddo loomed monstrously over him. He heard the blood gurgle in the High Chief's throat and felt one of Geddo's spearpoints slash his right ear. Geddo choked and coughed again, drenching Blade in blood. Then he fell. Blade had no time to jump clear before the High Chief's three hundred pounds of dead weight hammered him to the ground.
Blade's head struck the ground so hard that for a moment the world spun crazily about him in a gray fog. He lay still for another moment, until his head started clearing and he could distinguish the roaring in his ears from the roaring of the crowd. Faintly, in the middle of the roaring, he heard someone scream, screaming three times in prolonged and terrible agony.
Then warriors and Hunters, with Kordu in the lead, were running out from the crowd, grabbing Geddo's body by the ankles and unceremoniously dragging it off Blade. Others bent over Blade and helped him to his feet. He lurched and staggered, but he managed to stand.
Another warrior ran out of the crowd, carrying something bloody in one hand. He threw it at Blade's feet. Blade saw it was Stul's severed head. Somehow he managed to thank the man, although it hurt him to speak. His throat felt as if it were filled with red-hot pebbles.
Then Catherine broke away from the warriors guarding her and ran toward Blade. Blade held out both arms to her and she ran straight up to him, flowing up against his chest. He felt her shivering and trembling, heard her incoherent murmurs in his ear, and held her tightly. Gradually he felt her grow calm and quiet.
Kordu stepped up to Blade and knelt as he had by the river after Blade had killed the giant three-horns.
«Blade, what is your will?»
«My will?» The words came out in a croak the first time. Then the thought burst in Blade's mind.
By his victory, for better or worse, he was now the High Chief of all the Ganthi.
Chapter Eighteen
The first thing the new High Chief of the Ganthi nearly did was fall flat on his face in front of more than a thousand of his new subjects. Blade was hot, horribly thirsty, and dizzy from pain and loss of blood.
Catherine chose that moment to faint in his arms, from sheer relief. He lowered her gently to the ground. Then for a while he was much too busy seeing that she was properly treated to worry about his own wounds.
He was also much too busy listening to what she babbled as she tossed and turned on her sleeping mat in the grip of fever and nightmares. He listened very carefully, and he did not like what he heard.
She babbled in Russian, to start with. Blade knew the language well enough to understand most of what she said. She was disoriented, and she thought she was in a hospital deep inside Russia, being cared for after returning from a mission in the West! Then she cried out and clutched at her head and stomach, moaning something about Lord Leighton, J, and a terrible gray monster of a computer.
She moaned and murmured and babbled a good deal more, and by the time she fell into a quiet, healthy sleep Blade knew most of what he had to know about Katerina, who she was, and how she had been sent into Dimension X.
Katerina was a Russian undercover agent. She had successfully penetrated the Project by getting her job as a computer technician. That in itself was going to mean a monumental uproar in Project Security. Probably the uproar was already underway, if Lord Leighton and J were moving as fast as they usually did when the Dimension X secret seemed to be in danger.
Somehow she had been detected and caught. Blade could easily see the logic of what had happened next. The best way of keeping the secret of the Project was for Katerina to quietly disappear. The best way to do that was to send her off to Dimension X. Whatever happened to her, she would never come back to Home Dimension with what she'd learned.
So far so good. But none of this explained how in the name of Whoever ruled Dimension X Katerina had managed to arrive here, alive, sane, and entirely functional! How had it happened? How had half a dozen picked Englishmen died or gone mad on trips to Dimension X, while Katerina hadn't? How had years of searching for someone else who could survive the trip been totally unsuccessful, if Katerina had done it so easily? What had gone wrong?
Blade realized that this trip into Dimension X was sprouting unanswerable questions like an untended garden sprouting weeds. Certainly they were unanswerable by anyone except Lord Leighton and his team of scientists, far away in Home Dimension. There wasn't too much Blade could do beyond observing what happened and staying alive to return to Home Dimension and report on it. It was maddening to have to play such a passive role, but unfortunately he didn't have much choice.
One thing he could do on the spot was do his best to get from Katerina the story of who she was, what she had done, and how she had managed to survive her trip. That raised a knotty question. Should he frankly tell her that he knew who she was, and that she shouldn't waste time with cover stories? Would he learn more, or less, if he did that? Would he be in more or less danger?
He turned the question over and over in his mind for several hours, and decided in favor of telling the truth, as far as he would tell Katerina anything. If she was as good an agent as she probably was, he had to assume that she knew who he was, and that she would be on the alert in any case. She would not really expect him to believe her cover story, which would certainly be lame and full of holes. There was no really convincing way for her to explain how she had gotten here! She would also be l
ess likely to try extracting information from him, if he let her know that he was aware and alert. She would know then that probing him would be a waste of time.
Of course, there was the danger of setting up a total stand-off, in which neither could hope to learn very much about the other. As long as they were both in this situation, however, there wouldn't be too much danger to the Dimension X secret. Blade knew he had to start by protecting that as best he could and letting anything else come second.
There were other methods for extracting information from Katerina without giving any himself. Blade had used those methods before, even on women. He never enjoyed using them on anyone, but he never hesitated when the need arose.
But here in Dimension X, it was hardly safe to proceed to drastic methods. He and Katerina were alone here among the Ganthi, and for the moment they would do better as temporary allies, guarding each other's backs. Threatening Katerina would certainly make her an open enemy, determined to destroy him at any reasonable risk to herself. She would be a formidable enemy, Blade knew. The Russians chose their top agents well and trained them better.
Even if Katerina did not kill him, an open fight between them would leave the Ganthi confused and wondering what was going on. The Ganthi might well decide to end their new High Chief's life. Blade could not afford to risk his own life that way in order to extract Katerina's secrets. Anything he might learn would be wasted if it died with him.
There were also two more considerations. First, Katerina might very well not make it back to Home Dimension, even with his help. She'd made the trip one way, but that didn't guarantee she could make it both ways. If she didn't return to Home Dimension alive and sane, it didn't matter how much she learned.
Second, she was somebody from Home Dimension, even if she was from the opposition. Without some good reason, Blade could not bring himself to simply kill, torture, or even deceive somebody able to survive the trip, somebody who was, by virtue of that quality alone, set apart from the rest of the human race, who was in a way his equal and his comrade. It would be like wantonly destroying a great work of art, to «terminate» or even endanger Katerina unless he had to.