The Forests Of Gleor rb-22

by Джеффри Лорд

  Kulo was standing his ground, torn trousers and all. Blade wouldn't have blamed the young man if he'd led the flight of the assistants. Once more Kulo seemed determined to show a warrior's courage. Blade wasn't sure whether this was showing good sense or not, but it was too late now to do anything else.

  A hideous scream rose from outside the wall, and Neena threw her other spear. Blade saw her leap up and down, shaking her fists at her own poor marksmanship. The screams went on, mixed with the furious growls of a black stalker.

  «Kulo!» he roared. «Don't try to spray them! They're drugged or mad!» For all their ferocity, Blade had never heard of black stalkers attacking in this frenzied way. There was something unnatural and horrible about it, as well as deadly dangerous. Did the madness of the stalkers have anything to do with Queen Sanaya's «illness»?

  Then Blade forgot about Queen Sanaya, Neena, Kulo, the poor wretch dying in agony outside the wall, everything else except the three hundred pounds of black-furred death hurling itself at him.

  He held the sprayer crosswise at arm's length in front of him. It met the black stalker in midleap, slamming hard into the creature's broad chest. The tough, resin-bound wood held, but the shock was enough to knock Blade backward off his feet. He landed on his back with the creature on top of him.

  Both wits and muscles worked even faster than before. Blade slammed the threebo up and forward, into the stalker's gaping, drooling jaws as they opened above him. The jaws clamped shut like a hydraulic press. That was too much even for the threebo, and the sprayer snapped. All the sleeping water gushed out into the black stalker's mouth. As Blade struggled to draw his sword and thrust upward into the creature's throat, it gave one tremendous gasp and went limp. A moment later its eyes closed and Blade was able to roll out from under the dead body.

  As he staggered to his feet he heard Kulo give a horrible scream. Blade whirled to see the young man go down under the leap of the other black stalker. Kulo screamed a second time as the claws tore at his shoulders and chest. By some miracle he was able to clamp his hands around the creature's throat, pushing its head back far enough to keep the teeth away from his own throat. The teeth snapped together inches from his nose, and the stalker growled and snarled in raw fury.

  Blade drew his sword, sprang onto a stump, then down from the stump onto the stalker's back. His two hundred pounds drove his heavy boots down on the creature's back. It sprawled flat on Kulo, momentarily stunned. Then Blade slashed downward. The sharpened edge of his sword sliced through fur, skin, and flesh, biting into the spine. The black stalker howled in agony, gave one convulsive twist that threw Blade sprawling, and died.

  Blade leaped to his feet and dragged the dead stalker off Kulo. Mercifully, the young man was unconscious. His shoulders and chest were a mass of shredded, blood-soaked leather and torn flesh. But he still breathed, and there was no blood bubbling out of his mouth to indicate internal injuries. Luck and the care of the Kaireens might pull him through.

  As Blade stood up from his examination of Kulo, he heard someone call his name. As he turned around, Neena dashed toward him, tears streaking the dust on her face. She threw herself into his arms, her lips pressing warmly and hungrily against his. Her hands stroked his hair, and after a moment his arms seemed to rise of their own accord and tighten around her.

  Then King Embor stepped up to them and coughed softly to get their attention. Slowly they stepped apart and faced him, still holding hands.

  Blade's heart still pounded, his breath still came in gasps, and sweat still poured down off him in streams. His mind was working clearly again.

  «Neena, my Lord King. Tell me-what the bloody hell is going on around here?»

  Neena spoke before King Embor could even open his mouth. «Blade, I have done you a terrible wrong. I have been jealous of you and Queen Sanaya, and yet I see now that-«

  King Embor coughed again. «Blade, it were better that I spoke of this. If my foolish, jealous, loving daughter who is your wife tries to speak of it, the sun will be down before you understand what happened. I think you do not wish to wait that long. Is that not so?»

  Blade nodded. «Indeed it is. I gather that Queen Sanaya has had something to do with all this?»

  «You are correct. Some weeks ago, mountain hunters found one of the queen's personal guards where he should not have been. By custom they would have killed him on the spot. But they thought it wiser to send him down into the valley and on to me.

  «He was brought to me, and when he would not explain what he had done, he was tortured. Then he told a story of how you raped Queen Sanaya and held a long bout of love with her in a hut in the forest.»

  Blade nodded. «She did-let us say, she did bring me to her bed in such a place. She threatened to tell just that story if I refused her.»

  King Embor laughed bitterly. «That is what I thought, and what Neena should have realized.» The princess nodded silently and squeezed Blade's hand more tightly. «Had Sanaya herself come to me with such a story, I would have laughed in her face. I did not know all of her qualities when I took her to wife, but I am not so old that I cannot see what goes on around me and learn from it. I know how much to believe of what she tells me.»

  «Nothing,» put in Neena.

  Embor nodded. «But the guard's tale was another matter. It seemed to me that he just might be telling the truth.»

  «I was sure he was,» said Neena, with a catch in her voice. «Yet-«

  Once more King Embor held up a hand for silence. «So perhaps you had indeed done me and Neena a considerable wrong. At the same time you were working hard for Draad, and your work might give us some hope of victory over Trawn. I could not set that hope aside, even for so great an offense. Yet if the secret of your crime were known, the jealousy of the clan chiefs would mean your death, and sooner rather than later.

  «So Neena and I did what seemed the wisest thing. We told no one of what we thought you had done, except some of my oldest and most trusted guards. We also gave the order that your work was to be tested at once.

  «If you had worked well, you would be too valuable to punish, whether or not you were guilty. Then the secret would die with us. If you had not done what you promised, it would make no difference to our people whether you lived or died. Then we would have risen to denounce you before all the chiefs of Draad, and your death would have followed swiftly.»

  Blade frowned. His escape had been even narrower than he'd suspected. «And now-?»

  «Now you have shown us all the power of the new sleeping water. I have listened to the chiefs talking. Most of them have already realized what your invention could do to stolofs. Also, you have shown enormous skill and courage before them all.» Embor laughed. «I think they would all fight to keep anything from happening to you, regardless of what you'd done.»

  Blade nodded. It seemed clear enough, so far. «What of the black stalkers, and all they did?» He pointed to where Kulo lay on the ground, still unconscious. The High Kaireen himself and two assistants were at work on him. They'd already cut away the leather tunic and were at work cleaning the wounds.

  «We are not certain, now,» said Neena. Her face was still very pale. «But somehow Sanaya learned-here, today-that we knew of her game. It was doubtless a shock to her, so perhaps she was really ill. In any case she was certainly in a panic.»

  At this point the High Kaireen joined them and took up the tale. «The Kaireen she called to attend her was most foully in her pay. She told him to use certain drubs he had with him to drive the black stalkers into a mad frenzy. Then certain of her guards were to release them. This was done, and the rest you have seen.» He faced the king, his deeply lined face grim. «Lord, have I your permission to take upon myself the punishment of the Kaireen who did this thing? He has dishonored and shamed all of us, and I assure you that he will trouble Draad no more.»

  «I see no reason why you should not do this,» said the king. «But perhaps Prince Blade would care to speak. He was put in the greatest dan
ger and a comrade of his lies desperately wounded.»

  «The Kaireens certainly have every right to punish their own traitors,» said Blade. «What happened to the other stalkers?»

  «Both are dead,» said Embor. «But so are four of my guards. Six more will bear scars to the end of their lives.»

  «And Queen Sanaya?»

  «She has fled into the forest,» said Neena. «It hardly seems worth the trouble to hunt her down. She has no skill or swiftness in the woods, and death will overtake her without our help.»

  Blade frowned. «I am not so sure of that. Terror can give skill and speed to anyone. Even if she does die, she may live long enough to reach those who ought not to hear of what she has seen today.»

  He looked at King Embor, the High Kaireen, and Neena. All three of them nodded.

  Chapter 24

  Queen Sanaya ran through the forest. She didn't know where she was running, and didn't care. She knew that she ran from King Embor and also from Neena and from Blade. She ran from death because those three people knew everything she had tried to do. They would kill her if she didn't run. She didn't care how little she knew about the forests or the Mountains of Hoga and how to live in them. She didn't know or care how long her strength would last. She only knew that it would last somehow until she was far, away from the arena, even if she dropped down dead the moment after that.

  She almost hoped she would. It would be a quicker death than dying of hunger or snake bite. That death in turn would be quicker than what Embor and Blade would give her if they caught her. And as for Princess Neena-Sanaya sobbed aloud in fear at the thought of the princess going to work on her. A lingering remnant of sanity told her she should not waste her breath weeping. She ran on in silence.

  She ran on until she had to slow down. Now she moved at a painful trot, then a walk, then a lurching stagger. She gasped for breath at each step. At each gasp it felt as if molten metal was rising up in her throat. Her head throbbed until it seemed that it would split open and let her brains ooze out. Her eyes watered, then streamed; she felt the salt of tears on her lips, mixing with blood. Somewhere at some moment she had bitten deep into her lower lip.

  She felt cold, damp earth and slickly wet leaves against her feet and looked down. Her boots were soft leather, designed for show, not for hard walking and still less for running in the forest. Both boots were ripped and worn through. The skin of her feet already showed darkening bruises made by stones and roots and thin red lines left by thorns.

  She was afraid that if she stopped she would never start up again. She did not know how far she had come from the arena and her enemies. She only knew in her pounding heart and fear-ridden mind that she hadn't come far enough. The knowledge gave her the strength to stumble onward.

  Some impossibly long time later, a jutting branch caught one boot and jerked it right off. Sanaya staggered and fell painfully forward on her hands and knees. She slumped down on her face and lay gasping for breath, as mindless as a wounded animal.

  After a while strength returned to the muscles she needed for sitting up and stripping off the other boot. She noticed also that her fur cloak was gone, fallen from her shoulders somewhere now miles behind her. Below her knees her skirt was shredded by thorns and branches and dark with grass stains, mud, and dampness.

  If she was strong enough to see clearly, she must be strong enough to move on again. She reached for a bush and held onto its branches, using them to pull herself to her feet. She swayed and staggered, but did not fall again. Her hands were dotted with oozing red punctures, from thorns she hadn't even felt.

  The sunlight no longer sparkled down golden from high above. It was turning red and slanting in from the west. The day was dying; in another couple of hours it would be dead. But the day would live again, the next time the sun rose. If Blade or Neena caught her, she would die, and for her death would be final. She would go on.

  She did, although a child just learning to walk could have gone as fast. Before long the skirt of her gown grew so heavy and wet that she stopped again to rip it off up to the knees.

  The breeze now blew chill against her bare legs and bruised and swollen feet.

  Before long the insects came to her. They whined in her ears, they made a cloud in front of her eves, they bit furiously at every bit of exposed skin. Some of the bites left red and yellow blotches, others drew blood which drew more insects. She began to wonder if the dizziness and the blurred vision were still just fatigue. Or were poison and the loss of blood from insect bites beginning to take their toll? She did not know, she would never find out, and she could not afford to care.

  How much longer Sanaya stumbled on through the gathering twilight, she never knew. When she finally felt her strength beginning to leave her for good, it was nearly dark. When she looked down at her feet, she now saw blood oozing up between the toes, and bloody footprints on the ground behind her. The insects swarmed more thickly. She groaned, and kept moving.

  Suddenly the ground was dropping away in front of her. She staggered, and tried to throw herself backward. Legs where every joint and muscle flamed with a separate agony would not respond. She felt herself lurching forward, flailed wildly at the air, screamed, and, fell.

  She did not plunge down into a bottomless depth and smash herself to pieces. Instead she fell only a few feet, hit a steep slope overgrown with thorn bushes, and rolled. The thorns clawed and stabbed at her as she rolled.

  Then she reached the bottom of the slope. Her head grazed a massive tree root, and pain even fiercer and sharper than before exploded behind her eyes. For a moment she saw nothing but darkness. For another moment she had the horrible feeling that she'd gone blind.

  Through that darkness stabbed a man's loud, harsh voice. Then came the sound of footsteps, and a chittering sound Sanaya had never heard herself but heard described far too often. Blindly she tried to roll away from the approaching stolof. She did not worry about how it had come here. She only knew that she had to get away from it and from the man who must be its master.

  A new pain burned as a whip slashed down across her bare legs, wrapping itself around them. She was dragged to a stop, and somehow the pain seemed to clear her vision. She twisted her head to look at the man standing over her.

  He was tall and burly, with the unmistakable mark of a warrior noble of Trawn in the way he carried himself. He wore a tunic reinforced with copper bands, and across his broad back was slung a long curved two-handed sword. A long, ugly red scar ran down the right side of his face, from forehead to chin and just missing the eve. The eyes that glared down out of that face glittered with both an animal's mindless cruelty and a wise man's ability to think and scheme.

  Panic roared and howled in Sanaya's mind again, drowning out everything else she could feel. She clawed at the ground, drooled, tried to jerk herself to her feet. The man let her rise to her knees. Then his fist smashed down like a thunderbolt, taking her on the side of the jaw. Sanaya sprawled backward on the ground, and this time the darkness did not go away for a long time.

  When Sanaya did awake, she found herself lying on a dirt floor, looking up at a dirt ceiling and dirt walls. She was bound hand and foot with the skin-tearing cords of Trawn, and she was completely naked.

  Pains itched, burned, and throbbed in every part of her body. She felt as though she had been torn into little pieces and then crudely and hastily put back together.

  Gradually the pains stopped overpowering her awareness of everything else. She realized that she was in a tunnel or cave running deep into the side of a hill. By moving her head only a little she could see the mouth of the cave, a rough circle faintly defined by the distant glow of a campfire off in the forest. She could see the silhouettes of men moving back and forth across the mouth of the cave. Outbursts of chittering and a faintly sour, acrid odor told her of stolofs nearby.

  She was in the hands of scouts or raiders from Trawn, who had crossed the Mountains of Hoga. They had stolofs, they had the strength and self-confide
nce to make camp in the forests and light fires. It would not be easy to escape from them, even if she regained her strength quickly.

  Panic nearly swamped her again. She was in the hands of warriors of Trawn, with all their viciousness and cruelty. She was in the hands of perhaps the only people in all of Gleor who would kill her more painfully than Neena might. There was nothing she could do about it. THERE WAS NOTHING SHE COULD DO ABOUT IT!

  «Yes, there is something you can do about it,» said a voice from behind her. She gasped, realizing that she must have spoken her thoughts aloud.

  The scar-faced nobleman sat cross-legged on the floor of the cave, staring at her. He wore only a short kilt and boots, and carried only a short sword. He held one of the long five-stranded whips of Trawn across his tanned knees. Involuntarily Sanaya's eyes focused on those knees and the man's muscular legs. Then she caught herself and quickly shifted her gaze. The man smiled, and Sanaya shivered as she realized that her little slip had not escaped his notice.

  «Would you like to know what can be done about it?» he asked, his smile broadening. It was by no means a friendly or reassuring smile. It was more of an unpleasantly triumphant gloating over a prize.

  Sanaya hadn't expected anything else from a warrior of Trawn. Her lips were trembling so badly that she could not speak in reply, but only nodded.

  «You can start by telling me who you are,» the warrior said. «You are clearly a woman of high rank in Draad. Yet you are in a most strange place and in an even stranger condition for one such. Who are you, and how did you come to be here?»

  Now Sanaya could not even move a muscle, let alone speak coherent words. Behind the panic flickered one faint trace of rational thought. Nothing this man could do to her for keeping silent would be as horrible as he would do if she lied, or admitted who she was.

  The warrior grunted and approached her until he could reach down and put a hand under her chin. He lifted it gently until her eyes met his. Then suddenly he tightened his grip so hard that his long dirty nails stabbed through Sanaya's skin into her flesh. She gasped at the sudden pain. Then the warrior drew back his other hand and brought it across Sanaya's face as hard as he could. She gasped again. If her head hadn't been held still, she would have sprawled backward.