by Джеффри Лорд
Now the ridgeline was only a few yards away. Blade had to fight the temptation to jump to his feet and make rude gestures at the men below. Another few feet-he rose from his crouch and took a long step forward.
It felt as though someone had slammed a bar of red-hot iron across the back of his left leg, halfway between buttock and knee. Blade swore again in a blazing rage at his luck's running out now. He dropped to his hands and knees for a moment; then rose to crouch again, biting back a gasp of pain.
Below in the valley someone was finally shouting orders. Blade heard the sound of feet scrambling up the slope behind him, and, incredibly, the sound of a horse's hooves. He swore again. He knew he would never get clear now. He turned, drew his sword, and prepared to make a good last stand.
Half a dozen men were scrambling up the slope on foot after him, waving swords. Well out in front of them rode an enormously tall, incredibly lean figure on a thick-legged horse that he was somehow managing to get up the slope. The man had a sword and a pistol stuck in his belt, but in his free hand there was nothing except a heavy riding whip.
Blade stood up as the thin rider approached, raising his sword with both hands. He wanted to see how the thin man's grand gesture would look after his dead horse fell on him. This was one opponent at least whom Blade was determined to take with him.
As Blade took a painful step forward, the man's whip lashed out and down. Blade's wound slowed him just a little too much. The weighted tip of the whip caught him below the right elbow, stinging like a thousand wasps. Two feet of thin supple leather coiled itself around Blade's forearm like a hungry snake around a mouse. The thin man let go of the handle of his whip and vaulted lightly out of the saddle, drawing his sword as he did so. The light sword whirled down and then rose again in a lightning-fast arc, coming up under Blade's scimitar. There was a sharp clang, and the scimitar flew ten feet into the air and landed with another clang.
Blade stood there, staring grimly into the thin man's face. He was fairly sure he was going to die, but he was damned if he was going to give this man any other satisfaction. The other had won just about fairly. So be it. Blade raised his head and waited for the other's sword to whistle in another arc, one that would end in his skull or throat.
It never did. Instead a shout came from below. «Ho, Mirdon! Wait! What of the Mouth of the Gods! It has not been fed since-«
Mirdon and Blade both turned and looked down toward the valley. Three more men were scrambling up the slope behind the line of swordsmen. The center figure wore a heavy cloak with embroidered edges and a heavy metal medallion on a chain around his neck. The medallion was in the shape of a leaping flame. He was the one calling out.
Mirdon turned back to Blade. The sword remained point-down on the ground, but the warrior grasped the handle of the whip.
«Ha, Rauf,» he said, glaring at Blade. «You were not wise to come, back to your kill, like a hungry jackal. Now we will have a little vengeance for those poor wretches down there. Where did your comrades go?» Blade was silent.
Mirdon dropped his sword, drew a small riding crop from his belt, and slashed Blade hard across the face. Like the whip, the riding crop had sharp metal tied into it. Blade managed not to flinch or make a sound, but he felt blood trickling where his cheek had been torn open. A pleasant customer, this Mirdon, at least to anyone he thought was one of the Raufi. No doubt that was the name the people of Kano used for their enemies, the white-robed worshippers of Jannah.
«I asked you a question, dirty Rauf. When Mirdon of Kano asks questions, Raufi give answers, sooner or later, whether they want to or not.» He gestured with the riding crop toward Blade's groin.
«I am not dirty, nor am I a Rauf,» said Blade in a chill voice. «So do not be so sure that I will answer any of your questions.»
Instead of another slash of the riding crop, Mirdon's answer to this was a great roaring burst of laughter. It was loud enough and long enough to echo up and down the valley. Blade looked at Mirdon, wondering if he faced a madman.
Eventually Mirdon stopped laughing and looked at Blade again. His eyes were not mad, but they were as chill, lifeless, and unfriendly as the desert night. So was his voice as he spoke.
«It would be better for you to be thought a Rauf than a liar or a coward. The Raufi are warriors, though it is their false god Jannah that makes them so. Liars and cowards are shunned by gods and men alike. They have no place among any people worthy of the name.»
By this time the man with the cloak and the flame medallion was close enough to overhear Mirdon's words. «I told you to stay your sword. Mirdon. Did you not hear me?» The warrior's face set in an immobile mask. «It were better I thought you did not hear me. Otherwise it might be said you have disobeyed me. I am Second among the Consecrated of Kano, and in time I shall be First.»
«In the gods' good time, this may be so.»
«It shall be so,» said the cloaked man. «It has been spoken to me, Jormin, in the flames of the Mouth of the Gods. Let no one doubt it.»
«I do not doubt it.»
«That is wise. Did you also hear me when I asked that this one be saved for the Mouth of the Gods?» His voice was laden with menace and tension. Blade looked at Jormin and found himself suddenly feeling much friendlier toward Mirdon. The warrior was harsh but not mad. This Jormin was at least a fanatic, if not a madman. The look in his eyes was unmistakable and frightening.
«No, Jormin, I did not hear you when you spoke the first time,» said Mirdon. He spoke slowly, one reluctant word at a time, as though each one was pulled painfully out of him by his fear of the fanatical priest. «It was not my wish to disobey you, Jormin, for you are Second among the Consecrated.» He said the last words in the same tones he would have used to say, «Your mother weaned you on cameldung.» Jormin did not notice.
Mirdon took a deep breath and went on. «But I ask you, Jormin. Is it wise to take him for the Mouth? I must ask him a few questions about where his comrades have gone. He is not likely to answer them without persuasion. If I must persuade him he is not likely to be healed in time to enter the Mouth as whole as he must be.»
«No, that is true. Therefore he shall be mine, and mine only. You shall ask him nothing.»
«But-«Mirdon's mouth opened, but only the one outraged word came out.
«Yes, Mirdon?» said the priest, his voice silky. «You seem to care more for your own victory than for the favor of the gods. I hope that is not so.»
Mirdon's mouth clamped tightly shut. He looked like a man who dared not say a single word or move a single muscle, for fear of cursing or even of Jormin, striking him down. He stood, hard eyes fixed on the priest, for what seemed like many minutes. Then he let out his breath with a hiss and turned away. His arms rose, urging his swordsmen back and away.
«Enough, enough. The Second among the Consecrated has spoken. This man will go into the Mouth of the Gods. I doubt if he would have told us anything anyway, at least not until his comrades were all safely beyond our reach.» Blade's ears caught in Mirdon's voice the tones of a man saying what has to be said, but not believing a word of it.
As Mirdon's swordsmen stepped back, Jormin's two bodyguards stepped forward carrying cords. They unwound the whip from Blade's arm and casually tossed it down into the dirt. They made him lie down while they cleaned, salved, and bandaged his wounds. They made him drink a strong fruit-flavored cordial from a silver flask. Finally they helped him to his feet and down the slope to the valley floor.
A camel was waiting there with a canvas litter slung on one side. Jormin and his bodyguards helped Blade into the litter, then mounted their own horses. The priest himself took the leading reins of Blade's beast.
There must have been a strong sleeping drug in the cordial. By the time Mirdon and his warriors were mounted, Blade found himself drifting off to sleep. As the column moved out, one question remained flickering on the fringes of his mind. It went on flickering until he fell asleep.
What was the Mouth of the Gods?
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br /> Chapter Five
Blade awoke with sun glaring in his eyes and the sounds and smells of a camp all around him. He was bound hand and foot, and the heavily bandaged wound on his left leg hurt. He managed to twist himself around on his litter and get some sort of view of his surroundings.
The patrol from Kano was camped on top of a small hill with a view for miles in all directions. Flickers of movement far out on the red-brown sand indicated mounted sentries in position.
Several of the camels from the ambushed caravan were tethered near the foot of the hill. Their packs bulged grotesquely. As Blade watched, four horsemen rode up, leading two more loaded camels and carrying loaded sacks over their own saddles. Apparently Mirdon was salvaging as much gear as he could, but burying the bodies where they fell.
At this point someone noticed that Blade was awake. There was a shout, and the priest Jormin and one of his bodyguards came running over. Both went busily and silently to work examining Blade's wounds. They worked with so much pulling and tugging and probing that the wounds on both Blade's leg and his face started hurting him even more.
Eventually they stood up. «Good,» said Jormin. «I thought the bullet was not in the wound, but last night I could not be sure. It has gone, and the wound will heal fast and clean.»
«With your great arts helping it, that is certain,» said the guard. Blade noticed Jormin did not look disgusted at the obsequious flattery. He merely nodded graciously, as if the guard had stated a self-evident truth.
Mirdon was passing close enough to hear the exchange. He did look disgusted, but only when his face was turned away from Jormin. The warrior's large dark eyes met Blade's briefly. Blade thought he saw sympathy, or at least curiosity, in those eyes. He also saw that Mirdon was indeed as tall as he had looked in the middle of last night's battle. The man stood at least six-and-a-half feet tall. He was also rail-thin, and Blade was quite sure he could break Mirdon in half without much trouble. He wasn't sure he'd want to, even if he had the chance. Mirdon was a soldier, a professional-or, at least, not a public menace like Jormin.
Breakfast was flat cakes of bread, cheese, onions, and sour wine with some sort of herb in it. The herb did not put Blade to sleep again. It did dull the pain of his wounds and of being moved around. He watched in a rather detached frame of mind as the men of the patrol loaded up everything, including him, and prepared to move out.
It took them three days to reach Kano. By the end of the first day they were definitely leaving the desert behind them. The bushes now rose nearly as high as trees, flocks of ash-gray birds flew overhead, and small herds of antelope ran off as the party rode by. Once they splashed through a few inches of slow-moving mud-brown water at the bottom of a gulley. They camped within sight of a small pond and filled their empty waterskins and bottles to the bulging point.
By noon of the second day they were completely out of the desert, into a region of small villages, sparse grain fields, and fruit orchards. It reminded Blade of parts of California he had seen when he had been in the United States for a desert-survival course.
Some of the villages and orchards were flourishing., From these Jormin's guards brought back whole baskets of oranges and lemons so plump and shiny they seemed to be glowing in the sunlight. From the sullen looks on the faces of the villagers, Blade doubted that Jormin had paid for the fruit.
This was also a frontier land, where the Raufi could strike at any time, sweeping in and out of the desert on their fast-striding camels. Wherever they struck, they left fields turned to dry, blowing dust, orchard of trees girdled, chopped down, or blackened by fire, and the ashes and rubble of huts and meeting halls. They carried the women off into the desert, slaughtered the men on the spot, and drove the survivors in panic into Kano.
Blade saw enough ruins and overheard enough grimfaced snatches of conversation to understand clearly what faced Kano and its people. For centuries the city had stood on the edge of the desert. Fields and orchards surrounded it, fed it, made it a pleasant place to live. But it had risen to power and wealth and beauty on the black jade. Blade had guessed right. Under the rock and sand of the desert lay black jade, endless miles of it. Five centuries of mining had barely scratched the surface. Another five might possibly make a real dent in the supply, if Kano lasted that long.
The black jade poured out of the mines. Some of it remained in Kano, to build the great beautiful city, to adorn its temples and its women. Most of it was loaded into caravans, into carts, into riverboats. The caravans and carts and boats took it off to all the lands that lay farther to the east and brought back whatever they produced that Kano wanted. Of all the cities known to the people of this Dimension, Kano was the richest, and all because of the black jade.
For just as many centuries, the Raufi had ridden out of their grim, sun-baked deserts on their raids. Their harsh life gave them enormous endurance and made them expert riders and expert shots. Few men of Kano could match them. Their fanatical worship of Jannah made them completely merciless and utterly contemptuous of death. They neither gave nor asked for quarter. They had always been formidable; they always would be. Over the centuries Kano had grown and flourished in spite of them. They had always been a nuisance, but seldom a menace.
Now, however, the situation was different. It had been changing for the last three years. A new war chief had come to power among the Raufi, a man called Dahrad Bin Saffar. A brilliant commander as well as a brave warrior, he had united all the Raufi as no man had done for three hundred years. No man had ever led the united tribes to such success against the men of Kano. In the past three years the Raufi had become a menace-and one that grew daily.
It was not only the new united strength of the Raufi under Dahrad Bin Saffar that made them a menace. It was the weakness of Kano. No enemy had approached its walls in nearly a thousand years. There was a mobile fighting force, to meet the raids of the individual Raufi clans and tribes. That force was passably good-Mirdon was one of its officers-but it was small. It was much too small to face the united Raufi.
In the past, Kano would have hired mercenaries from lands farther east to meet such a crisis. Now there were none to be hired, at any price. Blade heard a good many bitter remarks about this. Had Kano been too proud and overbearing, until her neighbors and customers were happy to see her in trouble? Did the eastern cities and kingdoms hope to see Kano and the Raufi destroy each other-so that they could then take the jade mines and the orchards for themselves without effort?
The «whys» didn't really matter. What did matter was that the people of Kano now had to take up arms themselves. After centuries of indolent luxury, most of them were finding this painfully difficult. Even those who tried hardest found they could not learn all they needed as fast as they needed to learn it. The few trained men like Mirdon did their best, but they were spread thin.
So it was only very rarely that the men of Kano could meet the Raufi on anything like equal terms. Over the past three years they had lost five men for every Raufi warrior killed. Their strength and courage shrank as the Raufi grew bolder and bolder. It was only a matter of time before the Raufi had grown strong and bold enough to ride out of the desert in a united host and lay siege to Kano itself.
That would be final disaster. Fighting behind their own walls, the people of Kano might gain courage, but they would gain no skill. The Raufi might swarm over the walls and treat mighty Kano like any frontier village.
Even if the walls held at first, it would only delay the end. The Raufi would hold all the country around the city, the fields and the orchards, even the jade mines themselves. They would bar all the roads and rivers to reinforcements and supplies. If Dahrad Bin Saffar could hold his men together, sooner or later power and food would run out in the besieged city.
«Then the Raufi will dash out babies' brains on the walls of our temples. They will rape women under the bushes in the Gardens of Stam. They will stable their camels in the House of the Consecrated, and shovel camel dung into the Mouth of the
Gods. It must not be!» That was Mirdon, in an unusual fit of passion.
Jormin's reply was cool. «We cannot hope to be saved without the favor of the gods. So it is proper that such a strong man as this Rauf prisoner be thrust into the Mouth. It is also proper that the words of the Consecrated be heeded.»
Mirdon's face puckered up as though he had tasted a rotten lemon. «I have already said that I respect your decisions. There is no need for any more words on that.»
«I say otherwise. You respect me when you are thinking clearly. But your wits are not always as keen as the edge of your sword, or as swift as your whip, or as sure as the feet of your horse. When they fall, you speak words best left unsaid. I must remind you of this.» Mirdon took the lecture in silence, then spurred his horse on ahead, out of Blade's sight and hearing.
On the morning of the third day, they started out unusually early. By noon they had covered more than thirty miles. The roads underfoot were now broad and well kept, paved with a blackish cement and bordered with trees and bushes. Beyond the trees Blade began to see country estates, sprawling whitewashed houses roofed and trimmed with black jade tiles.
Another hour, and they were riding past marching columns of cavalry and infantry. Blade's professional eye took in their clumsiness, their exhaustion, the men who were barely staying in their saddles or on their feet. Only a few men here and there seemed to know what they were doing. What Blade saw now confirmed everything he had heard about the army Kano was improvising.
From time to time the road was half-blocked by enormous carts with six and eight wheels, drawn by teams of a dozen or more oxen or draft horses. On the heavily timbered beds of the carts rose small mountains of jade blocks and slabs, on their way from the mines to the city. Each wagon was guarded by half a dozen mounted men, who sat their horses well and carried well-kept swords and pistols. They wore black cloaks, and a black pennant fluttered from a pole beside the driver of each cart.
