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wait?
They had pushed on for half an hour before entering another cavern. The floor
was littered and jumbled with stone pillars and there were ledges all about
the cavern.
Sariah, carrying a torch, advanced beyond the center and pointed to another
tunnel leading away. "This one."
The Hitts struck them. They came yelling from the ledges and behind the
pillars and in the semigloom and confusion it was soon over. Blade and Thane
fought back to back and slew a dozen Hitts before rope nets were tossed over
them and they went down. They were trussed up and lashed to poles and carried
off. The Hitts cut off the heads of Blade's men and stuck them on lances.
There was no sign of Sariah.
Blade went now to his fire and poked it up. He added more wood. The Hitts fed
him well and kept him well supplied with wood and all other things for which
he asked. That Bloodax had plans for him Blade did not doubt, though what
those plans were he could not begin to guess. In the meantime he was treated
well and his wishes indulged. He regarded the pile of skins he was fashioning
into a balloon and the rawhide tube that would conduct the smoke into it.
Blade smiled. It was simple enough. The Hitts could not dream of a balloon any
more than an ordinary person in
Home Dimension could dream of Dimension X. They might puzzle at Blade's
demands and think him a bit mad, but they would never guess at what he was
making. Until the moment came to use it. That would be risky. He had not
forgotten the leather-men. They would be after him.
He sat cross-legged and began to sew, and thoughts of Thane came back. The big
man had been recognized and condemned immediately to die as a traitor, as a
Hitt who had deserted to the Zirnians. Blade, held in isolation in a bee-hive
hut, had been told nothing but that Thane was to die a traitor's death. And
that he must watch it.
Blade put away his needle. He had tears in his eyes and he was not ashamed of
them. His fault. All his fault. Thane had been a drunk and a hard man to
handle, but he had been loyal. At engineering he had been a genius by Zirnian
standards. But most of all he had been Blade's friend.
Blade had watched. They took him to the place of execution in a valley. Loth
Bloodax was there and the man called Galligantus, though Blade was not
permitted near them. He near forgot Bloodax, for he so longed to be at the
throat of
Galligantus, a lean and sinewy man with a mean, pinched face and eyes like
dull diamonds. Galligantus who was victor in the end.
Thane died well. He spat in the face of Galligantus. Blade shouted in fury and
frustration and was gagged. He willed himself not to watch it and failed. He
looked.
He had to look.
It was explained to him. The punishment for traitors was the Death of Five
Strokes. Galligantus had begged to be executioner and his wish had been
granted.
Thane's left hand was struck off. Then his left foot. Then his right hand and
right foot. He was left to grovel in the dirt, his face twisting in agony. He
did not scream and he tried as best he could, scrabbling on bloody stubs, to
get to Galligantus. At the very last he spat again.
Galligantus stepped near and cut off his head.
The head of Thane was stuck on a pole and brought to Blade, and he was made to
look at it for an hour. His mind turned at the end of the time and he thought
he saw Thane grin and ask for wine. After that he became dizzy and sick and
only half aware of what went on. When he came to himself again he was in the
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hut on his plateau prison. He lay ill for a week, sometimes raving, only dimly
sensing that people came and went and that he was being cared for. He was sure
he dreamt, and then not so sure, that a girl tended him. Once, in a moment of
lucidity, she called herself Lisma and said that she was daughter of Loth
Bloodax. Another time, though of this he was never positive, he thought she
made love to him, that she aroused him and had her fill of him and he half
conscious.
Blade heard the trapdoor rise and clatter and put his needle away. He pushed
the pile of skins back into a corner. He had not dreamt it all her name was
Lisma and she was daughter to Bloodax and she had made love to him then. And
many times since. Lisma came to him three times a week. Her purpose, as she
explained without guile, was to become pregnant. It was Hitt logic,
Dimension-X fantasy, and Blade could not fault it. It was pleasant enough and
it killed the time. He did not like her, nor trust her, and it did not matter.
No doubt she felt the same way about him. She was, Lisma explained, only being
dutiful to her father's wishes when she came to him.
Now, as he watched her fit the trapdoor back into place and start toward the
hut, Blade determined to force the issue. He must have an audience with Loth
Bloodax.
So far he had been denied this, for Bloodax showed little interest in his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]