by Джеффри Лорд
Twana's story of the Watchers still further aroused Blade's curiosity. Like the Wall itself, the Watchers hinted at an advanced civilization lying somewhere to the west. Unlike the Wall, which could have stood a thousand years after the last of its builders vanished, the Watchers suggested that civilization still survived.
For the moment this would make no difference to Blade's plans. He would cheerfully risk his own neck many times over to satisfy his curiosity, but he would not put Twana in danger if he could avoid it. They would continue their flight as if the Wall and the Watchers didn't exist, until either they were safe or the Shoba's men overtook them.
«Very well. We shall not go near the Wall unless the Shoba's men are about to catch us. Then we will go up the hill and take our chances with the Watchers.»
«But…»
«Twana, the Shoba's men will kill us when they catch us, won't they?» She nodded, shuddering. «Then what do we have to lose? Even if the Watchers do kill us, it will surely be a quicker, cleaner death than the Shoba's men would give us. And who knows? The Watchers may not kill us after all. Perhaps the men who went up to the Wall found a rich land, with beautiful women and rivers of beer. They didn't come back because they didn't want to.» It was a feeble joke, but enough to make Twana smile. She was still smiling as Blade turned to the slope and began scrambling upward.
The smile died swiftly when he returned, his face set as hard as the rocks of the hillside. «They are coming after us, aren't they?» she said.
«Yes. Mounted men, light carts, and two things that move low along the ground.»
The sniffers. Neither of them said the word, because it wasn't necessary. Blade had a brief, bleak moment of realizing that Twana had been right. If the Shoba's men had been willing to follow this far, they were not easily discouraged. If the sniffers could follow such a faint trail, they were as good as Twana said they were. The odds were not good.
They weren't hopeless either. If the Shoba's men weren't easily discouraged, neither was Blade. Sniffers might have supernatural powers of scent, but not after they were dead. If all else failed, there was still the Wall.
Blade slung his pack and took Twana's hand. The chase was on again, deadlier than before.
Chapter 7
The next three days were exhausting, but also a challenge to Blade's skill and experience. He could almost have enjoyed it if Twana hadn't been with him and if the stakes hadn't been so high. If they were caught, the best they could hope for was a swift death.
Blade used every trick that he'd ever learned and a few he made up on the spot. He sought out the rockiest ground, where there was nothing to show a footprint or hold a scent. He zigzagged and doubled back whenever he could afford the time and distance. He marched for miles in his bare feet, carrying Twana on his back. He led the chase through every stream and pond that was shallow enough to wade. Once they even took off their clothes and swam a mile down a small river. Another time they came to a stand of trees that grew close together. They climbed the nearest tree and covered several hundred yards by swinging from branch to branch, like Tarzan of the Apes. They did everything except walk on their hands, and Blade would have done that if possible.
It was not enough.
The sniffers never lost the trail, at least not for more than an hour or two. Every time Blade climbed the hill to look to the north, the Shoba's men were a little bit closer.
Fortunately, the enemy could only pursue at the speed of the sniffers. The sniffers could move only a little faster than a man on foot, and there were only two of them. They had tremendous endurance though-like machines of steel and rubber, rather than creatures of flesh and blood. Slowly the gap between the pursuers and the pursued closed.
On the evening of the third day, Blade knew that he and Twana had reached the end of their running. Their pursuers were so close that sometimes he could hear the high-pitched whistling cries of the green riding animals, the druns. Fortunately, the ground was turning rugged, cut up with low hills and ravines that provided plenty of cover. Without that cover, the enemy would long since have been able to charge forward and ride down their prey with no further help from the sniffers.
Blade knew that in another day or two he and Twana would no longer be able to afford the time to sleep at night. Then exhaustion would bring them down swiftly and make them an easy, even helpless, prey for their pursuers.
Fight or climb the Wall? The Wall was still with them, although they must have come more than a hundred miles from where Blade first saw it. A half-hour's brisk climbing, and they would be at its base. Then Blade could climb any of the overgrown stretches and haul Twana up with the rope. He'd worry about the Watchers when and if he had to.
Blade decided to fight. «They seem to be only twelve men and two sniffers,» he said. «Even if we do not kill all the men, we may kill the sniffers, and then the men will have to give up the pursuit. There are no other men of the Shoba for many miles around. Then we can stop running, regain our strength, and return north to Hores.
«I will go in at night,» he went on. «Even if they have some warning from the sniffers, I won't be an easy target. Also, they may be slow to use arrows or guns in the camp for fear of hitting friends.»
«Yes,» said Twana. «While you fight, I can creep close to the druns and cut them loose, so they will run off.»
Blade opened his mouth to tell the girl she wouldn't be anywhere near the fight, but she shook her head firmly. «No, Blade. I will not sit in the darkness and hear you die. I can cut the druns loose. I can watch your back. I can set fire to the tents. I cannot fight a soldier of the Shoba as you can, but I can kill those you have wounded. We do not want to leave any of them alive if we can.» There was chill hatred in those last words, a hatred built up over many generations and now entirely sweeping away her fear. «We are together in this, Blade. We must be. We must be together in this battle as we were in the love we shared last night.»
Blade swore mentally, but there was a smile on his face. Such courage moved him. Twana would hardly be in more danger coming with him than staying behind, and an extra pair of eyes and hands would be useful.
«Very well, together,» he said, and kissed her.
The night was totally black, and a brisk north wind blew stinging dust into Blade's eyes. Since he would be coming up on the enemy camp from the south, the wind would blow his scent away from the sniffers and any sound he might make away from the ears of the sentries.
Blade reached out and ran his fingers over Twana's face. She was almost invisible in the darkness. Like Blade, she had put on her darkest clothing and then rubbed dirt on her hands and face. They would be as hard to see as black cats, and Blade hoped they could move as silently.
They crept forward. The wind brought them the cries of the tethered druns, but no human voices. There were certain to be sentries posted, but not many. With surprise and darkness on his side, Blade was certain he could take care of these before their comrades could wake.
The approach to the camp seemed to take hours, although they had barely a mile to cover. Blade was half-expecting dawn to appear in the eastern sky before they reached striking range of the camp.
From the hillside the evening before, Blade had watched the enemy settling down for the night. He'd carefully noted the lay of the land and the best approach to the camp. Now he led Twana behind a low rise in the ground, just high enough to conceal them. Twana lay still while Blade crept out into the open. After a while, his night vision could make out the dim shapes of the druns and the wagon that held the sniffers. He could also make out three sentries. No tents, no fire. As before, the Shoba's men would not light a fire this close to the Wall and its Watchers.
Blade twisted on to his side and drew an arrow from his quiver. Then he sprang to his feet and, in almost the same motion, aimed, drew and let fly. The arrow whistled through fifty yards of wind-whipped night air to find a target in the sentry's chest. He was dying before his ears registered the whistle of the arrow that killed
him. Blade nocked a second arrow. The second sentry turned toward him, and the man's white face gave him a fine aiming point. The man died with a gurgling scream.
The scream startled the druns into shrill cries and alerted the third sentry on the far side of the camp. He raised his musket and let fly with a thundering crash and a flare of orange-red flame. His ball sailed off into the night, but the noise brought every man in the camp awake.
Blade shot a third arrow into the men as they kicked themselves free of their blankets. Then he dropped the bow and drew both sword and knife.
«Get the animals,» he called to Twana and ran forward. He knew without hearing or seeing her that she was running forward with him, knife in hand. Now it would be all close-quarters fighting, where Blade's strength and speed would be deadly and the enemy's bows and muskets useless.
A soldier came at Blade, trying to cut between him and the animals. The man wore only boots and breechclout but carried sword and shield. His sword whistled at Blade's head. Blade savagely parried the cut with his knife. Sparks sprayed down, and the man was a little slow in drawing back his arm. Blade thrust his knife deep into the flesh of that arm, then swung his sword. The man's throat gaped wide as though he'd suddenly opened a second, blood-gushing mouth.
One of the druns screamed, in pain this time. Twana was at work with her knife. Another man came at Blade, this one carrying shield and a single-handed axe. He used both of them skillfully, forcing Blade to give ground. Blade would have liked to close and kill the man, but he knew he couldn't afford to let himself be held in any one place for long. That would give the others time to surround him and put their superior numbers to work.
Blade kept backing, until he realized be was in danger of being backed right out of the camp, leaving Twana alone. He charged, swinging around to the left of the axeman, faster than the other could turn, then closing in. He stabbed the man in the groin with his knife and hacked his weapons arm nearly free of the shoulder. The man reeled back, dropping his axe. Blade snatched it up, looked for Twana's slim figure darting about among the animals, saw her. He raised the axe, shouted «Get this!», and threw it. The axe would be a good weapon for killing the sniffers.
Now Twana had released one of the druns and prodded it into a panic-stricken flight. It charged through the camp, nearly knocking Blade flat. He leaped clear in time, got his feet tangled in someone's discarded blankets, went down, rolled with expert skill, and came up still armed and ready.
His opponent's weren't quite so fortunate. The maddened drun knocked two of them flat and brought the rest to a standstill. Before they could recover, Blade charged.
He leaped over one of the fallen men and came down on the chest of the other in an explosive crackling of shattered ribs. He leaped down to the ground as the man went into a final blood-spraying convulsion. His sword cut the air in a flat arc and took a head off its shoulders. The corpse toppled almost at Blade's feet. He stepped behind it, keeping two more men at a distance great enough to spoil their attack. Their swords lashed out. Blade parried one with his knife, immobilizing it. He lopped off the hand that held the other sword, then turned back to the first man.
As he did, Twana screamed in raw terror. Blade smashed the shield of the man facing him with a brutal downcut, laid open his chest with a second cut, and backed away as the man fell. Now he could clearly see Twana and why she'd screamed.
One of the sniffers was loose. Twana was backed against the wagon, shaking with fear as she stared wildly at the creature in front of her. Every time she moved so much as a finger, the deadly spine-studded tail waved toward her. Every time the poisoned tips stopped inches from her skin. At other times the sniffer opened its mouth and hissed angrily. The mouth was full of teeth, chisel-shaped like a beaver's-long and sharp enough to do plenty of damage if they sank into human flesh. Twana's axe lay on the ground at her feet, its head dark with blood.
Blade's sword chopped into the base of the sniffer's spine. The poisoned tail lashed wildly back toward him, so hard that some of the spines raked across his boots. They left dark, oozing lines across the leather but didn't penetrate to the skin. Then the tail flopped limply to the ground as the sniffer lost control of it. Half mad with pain, it turned to face Blade, and Blade's sword came down across the back of its neck. The sniffer dropped nose first to the ground and lay there, quivering all over. It made noises so much like the cries of a kitten that Blade was relieved when Twana picked up the axe and brought it down hard, ending the sniffer's death agony.
Then she was dropping the axe and clinging desperately to his left arm. Gently he shook her loose and turned to face his remaining human enemies. After a long moment's staring into the darkness around him, he realized there weren't any in sight.
Instantly Blade's mind conjured up a picture of the Shoba's men backing away until they could fill him and Twana with arrows, with little danger to themselves. He grabbed Twana by the wrist and dragged her with him under the sniffer's wagon. They lay flat, eyes searching the darkness for any sign of the enemy, ears listening for the whistle of descending arrows.
He heard and saw nothing. He whispered to Twana, «What about the other sniffer?»
«I killed it with the axe before the other one came at me.» He could feel her shivering. The generations-old terror of the Shoba's sniffers was still in her.
Blade waited, but gradually he began to suspect there was nothing to wait for. With both their sniffers dead, the rest of the Shoba's men might have decided they had no chance anymore of carrying out their mission. The best course would be to clear out, try to run down their scattered druns, and then ride to rejoin their comrades.
Blade wondered, in spite of this. The Shoba's men could still have made a good try at killing him while he was busy with the sniffer. As far as he knew, they hadn't lifted a finger. They'd just vanished into the night. It wasn't what he would have expected from soldiers who'd shown themselves so tough and determined.
Slowly Blade crawled out from under the wagon. When this drew no shouts or arrows, he called softly to Twana. She scrambled out with frantic haste, and together they searched the camp. Blade gathered up two more knives, a sword, and a spare bow. He packed his quiver full of arrows, but decided against picking up a musket. It would be far too heavy in proportion to its range and striking power, and useless when its powder ran out.
Meanwhile, Twana had been collecting pouches of dried meat and hard biscuit scattered among the blankets. They were a welcome find, one that promised better eating on the way north. But why had the soldiers abandoned them? And it made no sense for them to abandon the food…?
Oh well. Blade decided to put the matter of the strange behavior of the Shoba's soldiers out of his mind. He knew he was only guessing-always a waste of time when he knew so little for certain.
At last Blade led Twana out of the camp. He wanted to get well away from it and then under cover, in case one or two of the soldiers might have the courage to return. A night's sleep, a quick climb up the hill to make sure the enemy was really gone, and they could start back toward Hores. Once there, he could leave Twana and get about his real business in this Dimension, which was now the Wall and whatever might lie beyond it.
They slept behind some squat trees, so close to the foot of the hills that the ground already sloped upward. Blade and Twana had to brace themselves against gnarled roots, and against each other, to keep from rolling down the slope into a pond.
At dawn they rose, filled their water bottles, and climbed the hill together. Blade was happy that Twana had found the courage to climb up with him. If she returned to her village with some of the terror of the Wall shaken out of her mind, it might be a good thing for her people.
They had to climb farther than usual to get above the morning mist. At last they climbed into clear air and looked to the north. Blade looked for a long time-then his angry words echoed around the rocky hillside, until Twana stared at him as if he'd gone mad. Then he started to laugh, and she stared even more
. She was beginning to look frightened, when Blade threw out one arm and pointed to the north.
«Look again, Twana!»
She did so and saw what Blade had seen. Moving steadily south on their trail was another party of the Shoba's soldiers. In this one there were at least thirty men, as many druns, and no less than five sniffers.
Blade stopped laughing. «I can see what they must have done. They must have been sending the men we fought on ahead by day. The others stayed well behind and probably moved only by night, when we couldn't have seen them even if we'd been looking for them. That's why the soldiers ran away last night. They knew they had some place to run to. Now they're back on our trail again.» He didn't add that this seemed to be the second time he'd badly underestimated the Shoba's men.
Aloud, he went on. «There are too many of them for us to fight, I'm afraid. We either stay down here and die, or climb up to the Wall and let the Watchers do their worst.»
Twana shivered, but her voice was steady as she replied, «The Wall. I do not know for certain what the Watchers can do. I know the Shoba's men.»
They began their climb to the Wall.
Chapter 8
They climbed in as nearly a straight line as they could manage. Blade wanted to get high above the plain and well out of bowshot before the second party of pursuers caught up with them.
This stretch of hillside was steeper than most and also booby trapped with loose slabs of rock. In spite of the occasional falls and scraped skin, Blade was happy about the difficult slope. The Shoba's heavily equipped soldiers would have a slow and painful time tackling the hillside. In the process, they would make fine targets of themselves for a man waiting above with a bow and a large supply of arrows.
