by Джеффри Лорд
He couldn't have found himself a better disguise if he'd thought the matter over for a solid week. The computer had done its usual job of altering his brain so that he both spoke and understood the local language, so he'd have no problems there. He could move on at his own pace, going where he wanted, listening and learning without attracting any notice.
That would be more than useful. It could save his life. Blade suspected that sooner or later rumors of wandering strangers in this Dimension reached the wolfs-head riders or their master. He didn't want them coming after him before he knew more about them.
Blade still did not have quite enough faith in his disguise to head openly down the road. He kept under cover of the trees, just within sight of the road, as long as the forest lasted. Once he saw a civilian rider pass, spurring his shaggy mount to a ponderous gallop. Another time he saw a cart loaded with clattering barrels rumble past behind four yoked oxen.
After three hours Blade was out of the forest and into cultivated land again. Here there were orchards instead of vineyards, row after row of squat close-grown trees with blackish green leaves and small blue flowers that exhaled an overpowering sweetness. Men and women were already busily at work among the trees with knives, hooks, and binding ropes, or on the stone walls that separated the orchards.
Each party of workers greeted Blade as they saw him, dropped their tools, and crowded around him. In a medieval world of isolated villages, any stranger could earn a welcome by bringing news.
«We heard that the Wolves came down on Frinda,» said one man. «Did you hear or see anything of it?»
Frinda must be the village Blade had seen raided, and the Wolves could only be the armored riders. He shook his head, hoping in that way to learn more from these people. «No. They had no work for me, so I passed on through. I must have been in the forest before the Wolves came to Frinda, and yesterday was not a time to see far.»
The man nodded. «Perhaps it's a good thing you didn't stay. You'd have stood great good chance of the Wolves taking you. Strong, young, healthy, wandering with no kin to miss you and mutter-aye, the Wolves like such as you.»
«So I've heard,» said Blade cautiously. «What of your village, my friend? I'll work for you with pleasure, but if the Wolves are going to come down on you like they did on Frinda-«
«Na, na,» the man said, shaking his head. «We of Isstano are not those of Frinda. We'd not shelter a Chosen Girl like those fools did. They brought the Wolves on themselves, they did. We know better.»
So the Wolves collected tribute or taxes for their unknown master and punished those who tried to evade their share. That didn't surprise Blade. What did surprise him was the way those peasants spoke of the Wolves. They seemed to be proud of being dutiful and obedient, with no thought of resisting the Wolves, any more than of resisting the weather or the passage of the seasons. Something had driven all thought of rebellion out of their minds. Was it the skill in arms of the Wolves, or perhaps something more? Blade wondered.
He listened carefully to the gossip in the village that afternoon as he chopped firewood, split rails for fences, and cut beams for a cattle shed. What he heard confirmed his first impressions. This Dimension-or at least this land of Rentoro-was ruled with an iron hand by some powerful tyrant. The Wolves on their shaggy white heudas were the tyrant's army and police. They enforced his laws, collected his taxes and his slaves, and suppressed any signs of rebellion against his authority. A Chosen Girl was one the tyrant had picked out, no doubt for his harem. The one who'd fled to the village of Frinda instead of meekly accepting her fate had committed an act of rebellion. By sheltering her, even out of pure kindness, the village of Frinda joined her in that rebellion. To be sure, it was only a small act of rebellion, so the punishment was light. The tyrant seldom turned the Wolves loose to kill, destroy, and burn indiscriminately.
That made a grim sort of sense. The tyrant appeared to see everything and everyone in Rentoro as his personal property. A wise man, no matter how brutal he might be, did not wantonly destroy his own property. This tyrant was wise-the careful training he'd given his Wolves showed that clearly enough.
The Wolves had their training and their armor, while the people of Rentoro seemed to have nothing but axes, light hunting bows, and boar spears. So half a dozen Wolves could do as they pleased in a village. A hundred could no doubt do the same in a town.
Blade learned a good deal about the Wolves from listening to village gossip, but not much about their master. In fact, he didn't even learn the man's name or title. Neither was ever mentioned. The villagers seldom mentioned the tyrant at all, and when they did they referred to him solemnly as «he.»
Blade was frustrated and annoyed, although he was also sorry for the villagers. Asking them to violate what seemed to be a rigid taboo would simply frighten them. That would cost Blade his chance of a hot meal and a warm bed in the village tonight, and perhaps more. The villagers talked of the tyrant as if he knew everything that went on in Rentoro. This suggested a large force of loyal spies. Suspicious questions might lead Blade not to information but to a lonely grave.
So he kept his mouth shut, ate the bread and meat the village headman offered him, and slept comfortably in the straw of a barn. In the morning he ate more bread, drank warm milk fresh from the cow, accepted a bundle of sausage, and moved on.
Blade was on the move for the next six days, from village to village and from farm to farm. He drifted north, then east, then back toward the south, guiding himself by the sun and by the peasants' advice. In each village and at each farm he was able to exchange a few hours' work with his ax for a bed and a meal. Once they threw in a handful of crude brass coins.
No one seemed to suspect that Blade was anything other than what he seemed to be-a traveling woodcutter and carpenter. No one hesitated about talking freely in his presence. No one told him anything he hadn't learned in the first village. After the first couple of days he more or less gave up expecting to hear anything new.
Rentoro was a rich and fertile land, the people well-fed, the animals sleek, the houses snug and clean. Apart from the Wolves, the tyrant's hand did not seem to fall heavily on his people. In this land of fertile soil and hard-working peasants, a wise ruler could certainly collect all the wealth he wanted without leaving anyone hungry or homeless.
Blade's six days of travel were one of the most pleasant vacations he'd ever had. He had plenty of food, fresh air, and exercise, and very little to guard against or worry about. He knew he could quite cheerfully wander about Rentoro this way for another month.
One of these days, if he went on traveling into Dimension X, he would probably have to do just that. One of these days he would find a Dimension with no technology, no great empires, no wars to fight, and no resources or secrets to be dug out and brought back to Home Dimension. Then there would be nothing for him to do but find a place to live and a way to make a living until it was time to return to Home Dimension. He'd have to thank Lord Leighton for the excellent vacation when this happened.
It wasn't going to happen in this Dimension, though. There was no sign of the Wolves during Blade's days on the road, but they were never entirely out of his mind. The Wolves and the mysterious tyrant who sent them out were a mystery. Behind every mystery Blade had ever found in Dimension X lay something dangerous, and also something valuable.
Chapter 5
On the evening of the sixth day Blade reached a farm lying at the foot of a range of wooded hills. Over dinner in the farmer's hut Blade learned that beyond the hills lay a walled town called Dodini. There was no good wagon road over the hills, so the farmers on this side did little trading with the town. But a strong man on his own two feet could easily pass through the forest up to the crest of the range.
«Then ye be seein' town for yeself, and a good mornin's walk'll take ye there.»
A town large enough to need walls and impress these peasants might have only a few thousand people. It still sounded more like civilization than anything B
lade had seen so far in Rentoro. It was time to bring his vacation to an end.
Blade left the farm well before dawn the next morning, not sure exactly how far he had to travel but hoping to reach Dodini before dark. He plunged into the forest as the sky turned light. Fortunately it was a clear day, and the canopy of branches overhead was thin enough so he could guide himself by the sun. Within an hour the trees were growing thinner, and an hour later he was striding across open moorland. The grass was long enough to ripple pleasantly in the stiff breeze, and bushes studded with pale red flowers seemed to be everywhere.
Shortly before noon he reached the crest of the range and saw the country beyond spread out before him. Through it ran a large river, so blue that it seemed to glow in the sunlight, and on the banks of the river squatted a walled town. Both walls and town seemed to sprout towers everywhere and smoke curled up from many chimneys. Blade measured the distance and heaved a sigh of relief. The town was less than ten miles away. He shifted the ax to the other shoulder and started downhill.
Blade reached level ground in an hour and in two more he was halfway to Dodini. A few hundred yards ahead the path he was following joined a wide road, roughly paved with stone slabs. To the right of the path rose a rock hill, its slopes too bare and steep to support even grass. Blade headed for this hill. It would give him a final chance to examine the town from a safely concealed perch, before entering it.
He reached the hill and scrambled up the near side. The bare rock reflected the heat of the sun until the slope was like a griddle. Blade's clothes were dark with sweat and torn in several places long before he reached the top of the hill.
He was only a few yards below the top when he heard a sudden soft thump that seemed to come from the other side of the hill. It sounded like an enormous feather mattress falling. Blade froze, then heard a more familiar sound-iron-shod hooves, moving fast across a hard surface. Blade flung himself toward the hilltop. As he reached it, the sound of human shouts joined the clatter of hooves. He threw himself flat and stared down the far slope of the hill.
The Wolves had come to Dodini. At least forty of them were heading down the hill, their heudas kicking up clouds of dust and gravel. Blade counted seven of the fully armored leaders with their shields and pennoned lances, with a cluster of men-at-arms following each one.
At least half the men-at-arms were leading pack heudas with large leather sacks or wicker baskets slung on either side. The heudas were ungraceful, almost grotesque in their movements, but they covered ground at a pace no horse could have matched on that slope.
Blade's eyes followed the trail of dust across the hillside to a pair of large boulders, each twice as high as a man. With a sudden shock he realized that the trail ended there. All the Wolves seemed to be riding out of the gap between the boulders-but none of them rode into a gap from the other side. The rising cloud of dust did not conceal the hillside beyond the boulders. It lay bare, empty, and undisturbed.
Blade looked again, more carefully, and saw the same thing he'd seen the first time. He forced himself to consider what it meant. He might be hallucinating. His eyes might be playing perfectly normal tricks on him-overlooking some natural feature which hid the Wolves until they appeared between the boulders.
Or he might be seeing what was actually happening-the Wolves appearing out of thin air and riding off toward Dodini.
Blade refused to use the word «impossible.» It was always foolish, and in Dimension X it was dangerous. Still, a force of heavy cavalry riding out of thin air wasn't something he met every day, even in Dimension X.
Suddenly the mystery behind the Wolves was much greater than before. The secret behind the Wolves was no longer just the identity of their master. It was much more how much more Blade didn't even want to try guessing for now. For now that would be a waste of time.
The vacation was definitely over, though.
Blade lay on his stomach until the last of the Wolves appeared and rode off down the hill. Among the men-at-arms behind the last leader Blade recognized the huge red-bearded man who'd wielded the ax in Frinda.
There were more than a hundred Wolves in sight by the time they stopped coming. As the last ones thundered off down the hill, the first ones were already reaching level ground. They spurred their mounts toward the road that led to Dodini. Farmers in the fields scampered out of the Wolves' path or threw themselves to the ground.
The Wolves struck the road, swung to the left, and pounded off toward Dodini. A thin column of red smoke seemed to be curling up from one of the towers. Otherwise the town lay quiet in the sunlight, as if the Wolves charging at its walls were no more than a thunderstorm which would come and go regardless of what men did.
As the last Wolf struck the road, Blade sprang up and scrambled down the hillside as fast as he could. On level ground he broke into a run. He headed straight for the town, cutting across fields and through woods, feet pounding, long legs eating up the ground. He could hardly have run faster if the Wolves had been behind him rather than ahead of him.
If he could get his hands on one of the Wolves, things would be a great deal simpler. But to do that safely he had to reach Dodini hard on the Wolves' heels. In the uproar of their arrival, no one would be paying attention to a ragged stranger with an ax over his shoulder.
There were many things that could go wrong with this rough plan. There always were, when one man decided to challenge a hundred. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but run. Blade ran, and ahead of him the towers of Dodim rose higher and higher above the trees.
A final patch of woods gave Blade cover almost up to the walls. The trees grew so close that Blade wondered if the people of Dodini had ever heard of enemies creeping up to their walls under this ready cover. Had Dodini been at peace, except for the Wolves, since before these trees were planted? That was a long time. The trees were solid gray-barked things two feet thick at the base. They might have been here for a century or more.
This suggested not just one tyrant, keeping the peace in this Dimension by sending out the Wolves to collect his taxes and crush his enemies. It suggested a whole dynasty of tyrants, extending back a century or more, tightening their rule, picking and training their troops, getting people to accept their authority as something inevitable and inescapable, ruthlessly enforcing peace. Now Richard Blade faced that dynasty single-handed, ready to challenge its picked troops and try to dig out its secret-or die trying.
It was not going to be the easiest challenge he'd ever met. However, he'd faced longer odds in other Dimensions. He was still alive and most of the people who'd tried to kill him were dead. He'd just have to go ahead once more, do his best, and trust to luck for what he couldn't control. So far luck had been with him, and his best had been very good indeed.
It might even be good enough to keep him alive against a hundred Wolves.
Chapter 6
Blade crept to the edge of the trees and peered out. Luck was going to be with him, at least for now. Only two Wolves guarded the nearest gate into Dodini, and only one of them was mounted. The one on foot stood with his back to Blade, eyes firmly fixed on the narrow street visible through the gateway. The mounted Wolf sat with his heuda's head toward the trees. He himself spent half his time looking back over his shoulder into the town, rather than toward the trees or along the narrow road at the base of the wall on either side of him.
Blade was not entirely surprised to find only two Wolves. A hundred Wolves might seem like a mighty army, but in fact they would be spread fairly thin against a town the size of Dodini. Simply keeping the streets clear could use up fifty men. Two men at each gate would be enough to keep any hotheads from trying to lock the Wolves into Dodini and give warning of anyone trying to escape.
Nor was it surprising that the two Wolves were not completely alert. They were well-trained and well-disciplined, but they were also men who expected little resistance and no real fighting. Perhaps they were like the legions of Rome-men whose fathers and grandfathers had carried al
l before them, until they could no longer believe that anyone in the world would even try to stand against the Wolves. They were about to get a rude surprise.
Blade was happy to find Wolves at the gates. He wouldn't have to enter Dodini, hunt down a Wolf through its streets, then bring the man safely out again. He could strike at the men here, then have weapons, a heuda, a prisoner to question, and nothing else to do except get away from Dodini as fast as possible. He could only hope that his blow against the Wolves wouldn't bring some bloody retaliation against the town.
Blade's eyes scanned a half-circle from right to left, taking in everything along the edge of the trees, the road, and the wall of Dodini. The wall curved so that the other gates and their guards were out of sight. They wouldn't be out of hearing, though. He'd have to move fast. Fortunately the ground between Blade and the road was clear and level. A ditch lay on the far side of the road, between it and the wall, shallow and filled with scummy water, but that would be more of a problem for the two Wolves than for Blade. He moved a few yards to the right, gripped his ax, and got ready to charge.
He was about to leap to his feet when he heard a distant but unmistakable roll of thunder. As it died away he heard the echoing rattle of hooves on stone approaching along the street inside the gate. A Wolf appeared, mace swinging in one hand and leading his heuda with the other. Across the animal's back was tied a slender young woman with long dark hair, wearing only a stained and ragged shift.
As the Wolf stepped out of the shadows Blade recognized the red-bearded axman of Frinda. He led his mount out through the gate, across the wooden bridge over the ditch, and onto the road. Then he looped the reins negligently over a bush and drew his knife to cut the woman's bindings.
The mounted Wolf looked at him, and a grin spread across his face. «Ho, Sigo; you dog, you! I never thought I'd see you snatch off one of his Chosen. Are you ready to kiss your balls good-bye, then? I'd hardly thought you'd done all you wanted with them, but-«
