by Jeffrey Lord
The light in Mokanna’s hut went out. Barracid lay in total darkness but for the bloody moonlight. Blade, straining his eyes and ears, thought he saw shadows move across the drill grounds, thought he heard a faint clang of steel on steel. He could not be sure.
Mokanna’s light came on again.
Mokanna had agreed not to send the torch signal to the waiting Equebus until he was sure Blade had failed and was dead. Then, to protect himself, he was to send a belated signal and swear that Blade had escaped beforehand, deserting the uprising he had inspired, and had come on Equebus in the ravine by accident.
There was no signal. The solitary light glowed in Mokanna’s quarters. Barracid waited for Blade to return, brooding in the dark night under a red moon, and Blade was now convinced that it was another trap. Something had gone badly wrong.
Blade left the shadows, sword in hand, and began to walk back toward the encampment. There was nothing else to do, nowhere for him to go. If he struck out alone, on his own, he would be classed as a deserter, a runaway, and so forfeit the protection of Zeena and, through Zeena, the Queen Mother Pphira. Blade needed all the protection he could get.
And he could not leave Pelops to the not so tender mercies of Mokanna. With Blade labeled a runaway and deserter the little man would have no protection at all. It was only Blade, and through Blade, Zeena, who kept the teacher alive and with some degree of freedom as Blade’s servant.
Blade entered the first ring of stone huts. He heard men snoring, men crying out in their sleep, men awake and cursing and whispering. The battlemen, at least some of them, knew that something strange and dangerous was afoot tonight.
He went wide of the hut corners, his sword ready. Nothing moved on the broad drill fields. Blade stopped with his back against a stone wall and peered at the big hut of Mokanna. The light still glowed through an open window.
Something lay in the dirt near the door of Mokanna’s hut. A body. A headless body.
He took a few steps toward the thing. Not headless. The head was there. Neatly perched atop the leather clad buttocks. Mokanna’s head.
Blade stopped. Nothing moved. No sound. Yet the hut of Mokanna waited for him, waited as though it were a living, breathing thing. A chill traced down Blade’s spine. He did not like this.
He stopped a foot short of the body and stared down at it. It was Mokanna right enough. The big hairy shoulders, the powerful bowed legs. Moonlight glinted on the head. The mouth was open, the teeth showing, the eyes staring. Something shiny sparkled and Blade saw that it was the chain of office. Someone had draped it over the head and around what had been a neck.
A shadow at the window. A voice said, “You who are called Richard Blade! Come into the hut. You will not be harmed. But drop your sword first. At once. Drop it!”
Blade hesitated. The window was empty again, the shadow gone. The hut waited.
“Obey, Blade! I, Equebus, give the order in the name of Queen Pphira. You will not be harmed. You are under the Queen’s protection now.”
Relief surged through Blade. Zeena! She had worked fast in Sarmacid, had seen her mother and told her of Blade and the marriage. The Queen, then, had not been so difficult as Pelops had warned. Blade nearly laughed. Pelops was an old woman in the guise of a man. It was all right. He tossed his sword down near the body and stalked toward the hut Mokanna’s dead eyes seemed to follow him.
A dozen torches flared as Blade kicked open the hut door. A little arrogance now, he thought. A time for showing absolute confidence.
Blade went down before the rush of a dozen men. He let out a bellow of rage and struggled to his knees, smashing heads together in his fury. He caught a glimpse of Pelops lying in chains in a corner.
Blade fought like a demon gone mad. He broke an arm, cracked a neck, drove awesome punches into guts and faces. He went down time and again and kept getting up. More men rushed at him. Lance butts shattered over his head and broad back. Blade winced and bled and planted his legs like stone columns and fought back.
Equebus, scarlet cloaked in a far corner of the big room, looked on with a sneer.
“Are you children?” he asked his men scathingly, “that one man can defeat you all? Take him. Now! At once. Use your lances on his head - but do not kill him. The man who kills him dies!”
Blade used a judo hold and flung a man at Equebus. The Captain of the Slave Patrol skipped nimbly to one side, his mouth a thin line of contempt beneath the feral hooked nose. “Beat him,” screamed Equebus. “Beat him down! Beat him bloody! Only keep him alive and break no bones.”
More men leaped into the fight. They were Sarmaians and small men compared to Blade, but well muscled and wiry. They were slave catchers and they knew their trade. Blade at last went down and could not rise again. Lance butts smashed him into oblivion.
Blade was not out long. When he regained consciousness he was face down on the dirt floor and he was in chains. Massive iron manacles on his wrists and ankles were linked with chains and fastened to another great chain around his waist. The mere weight of the chains told Blade that he was well caught. He could not break these bonds.
The hut was silent. Where was everybody? Blade groaned, his bones ached and he bled from a dozen minor wounds, and rolled over and tried to get to his feet. A foot caught him from behind and kicked him off balance. Blade went sprawling into the dirt again. Pain lanced his beknobbed skull. He cursed and rolled over again to stare upward.
The tall man who stood wide legged, his thumbs hooked into a sword belt, was the same man Blade had seen on the beach that day with Zeena. Equebus. Captain of the Slave Patrol. Thickset, sturdy and as tall nearly as Blade himself, he was a giant among the Sarmaians. What had Pelops called this man - Equebus the Cruel? Blade could believe it.
The swarthy face was axe-like, the nose a hooking scimitar over a thin bloodless mouth. The beard was black, bushy and tinged with gray here and there. The narrow eyes were a Sarmaian dark. But Blade knew that this was no true Sarmaian - too much hair, too rounded a head, much too tall. Blade put a hand to feel his mouth - he seemed to have all his teeth.
At last the man spoke. “I am Equebus. Now that Mokanna is dead I am in sole command here. You know of me?”
Blade rubbed his sore mouth. He glared back. “I know of you. You are said to be cruel - you are also a liar!”
Equebus raised his foot. Blade brought his manacled hand up into a defensive position. “Kick me and I will tear your leg off.”
The Captain moved away to one side. He nodded and his teeth glinted pale behind the black beard. “I think perhaps you would. So I will not kick you again - because if you touch my person I would have to kill you and that would be contrary to my Queen’s orders.”
Blade glowered. “I say again that you are a liar. You promised that I would not be harmed - yet I am beaten near to death. If this is the Queen’s protection I can do without it.”
Chains clanked in a corner. Pelops was staring at Blade, his eyes wide with terror. Blade winked at him.
Torches flared in wall and ceiling sconces. Equebus pulled up a three legged stool and straddled it, leaning to study Blade in the wavering yellow glare. He took off his silver helmet, bejeweled and spiked, and cradled it on his knees. In his glance there was some puzzlement.
“I was angered,” he said at last, “at the ease with which you handled my men. They are sturdy enough rascals and I have never seen them so beaten before. I did not admire, for I admire none, but I was impressed. You are a battleman such as has never been seen in Sarma. Is it true that you are also proficient in weapons?”
Blade, who worked out with battle axe and mace and lance in London, where most men chose tennis or handball, nodded sullenly. “I am that. I would like to show you now if you will take off these chains.”
The cold dark eyes studied him. The thin mouth did not smile. “That is not possible. I take you to Sarmacid on the orders of the Queen. She is quite anxious to see you, for a reason you will know soon enough. And in Sar
macid you will be given a chance to show off your skill and strength. You are to fight in the games when Otto the Black comes to the city. If it were not for that, and her Majesty’s wish, you would now be as dead as Mokanna.”
Blade glanced at the cowering Pelops. The little man shook his head at Blade. Blade winked again and stared back at Equebus.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Equebus took a narrow scroll of parchment from his pocket and began to read the chicken tracks that passed for writing in Sarma. Pelops had begun to teach Blade to read and write in Sarmaian, but they had not made much progress yet.
Equebus read the scroll in a formal voice of authority. The gist of it was that one Richard Blade, known to be a stranger cast ashore by storm, and now training as a battleman at Barracid, be brought to Sarmacid at once to be held for the pleasure of the Queen.
Equebus smiled at that phrase. Smiled and cast a sly glance at Blade in his chains on the floor. “There is more in that sentence than meets the eye,” he said. “Which you will come to know for yourself.”
Blade hardly heard him. Zeena had done her work well. Perhaps she had even begun to spread Blade’s lie about his twin brother. It would help. Thousands of eyes were better than just two - he might find the Russian agent, his double, if the agent was in this particular Dimension X.
Equebus was still reading. “… said Blade to be handed over on presentation of this scroll by Mokanna, Captain of Barracid.”
Blade allowed himself an evil grin, even though it hurt his bruised mouth. “That is not the way Mokanna told it, Captain. I remember something about a slave rising, a frameup, and I was to be killed. Whatever happened to that little plan?”
In the corner Pelops groaned and his chains jangled as he made the T sign. Blade smiled at him. “Stop worrying, little man. It’s going to be all right. You heard the Captain - we’re under the Queen’s protection.”
Equebus tossed the scroll away. “You are right, Blade. There was another plan. Before the rider brought this message in the Queen’s own name. Until that time I had only received flag signals to find you. Which I did.”
Blade had figured it out long ago. “So you cooked up a little scheme with Mokanna? Only he double-crossed you. And you triple-crossed him!”
Equebus stood up and kicked away the stool. His smile was superior. “Mokanna was always a fool. I have known him since we were boys together in cadet school. He was twice a fool to match wits with me. I did not know his plan, nor did it matter. I distrusted him just because he was Mokanna. And I have spies here in Barracid just as he had spies in my fortress. This time my spies were best. Mokanna is dead. And you, Blade, live only because the Queen wishes it.” Again the odd sly smile. “In the end, Blade, you may yet regret that I did not kill you along with Mokanna.”
Equebus clapped his hands. Armed men came into the hut to hustle Blade and Pelops away.
Blade pointed to the little man. “What of Pelops? He is servant to me, and also friend. I would have him well treated.”
The Captain’s shoulders moved in a contemptuous shrug. “I care nothing for servants and slaves, even school teachers. He will be well treated - as well treated as you are.”
There was, Blade thought, something ominous about those last words.
Chapter Ten
The long line of weary battlemen wavered across the dusty brown plain like a crippled snake. They marched in pairs and a massive chain, half a mile long, stretched from front to back between them. Each man was attached to the master chain by his individual manacles. The slave patrol marched with them, prodding them with lances when they faltered. Captain Equebus rode ahead on the same white horse Blade had seen on the beach.
Blade and Pelops were in the middle of the file and linked together by the master chain. After the first day - it was three marches to Sarmacid - the little man swore that he could not go on. Blade coddled him and swore that he would. Until he could come again to Zeena he needed Pelops for guide and mentor. Despite all that had happened to him he was still very much a stranger in Sarma. Quite apart from all this, and a bit to his own surprise, Blade found that he had grown fond of the timid ex-school teacher. He did not want anything to happen to him.
They were well fed and watered, for they must be in condition to fight in the upcoming games in honor of Otto the Black’s visit. Yet, if a man fell more than three times, he was taken from the chain and examined by the Captain himself. If he was thought worth saving the man was allowed to ride on a sledge drawn by horses. If Equebus made a fist and slashed it downward the man was lanced on the spot. Blade counted a dozen bodies that first day.
He gave Pelops most of his own food and water, having no doubt as to the Captain’s decision should Pelops fall. Even so the little man fell once the first day and again on the second. Equebus dropped back occasionally to ride near them, silent and watching with a faint sneer. Blade marched with one big hand hooked into the chain about Pelops’ middle.
Once, as the Captain rode close by and watched, Blade called out, “I can carry him easily enough. He is no weight.”
Equebus shook his head and laughed. “It is forbidden. If he falls again I will examine him and decide.” His dark stare mocked Blade. “You doubt my mercy?”
Blade tried to spit, but his throat was too dry. He had given his last ration of water to Pelops. But at least he made the gesture.
Equebus laughed again and spurred away to speak to two of his patrol. After that, Blade noted, the two guards marched close and kept watching Pelops. Blade hardened his jaw and tugged at his curling black beard, now well grown and full of tangles. He lifted Pelops off the ground with a sudden jerk.
“Keep going,” he growled. “You can do it, little man, because you must! One step after another - that is the way. Just think of it as one step and then another step and then another. One at a time. Cry out if you are about to fall, but not too loudly. I will hold you up.”
“I cannot,” moaned Pelops. “I cannot, sire. Let me go. Let them kill me. I care not.”
“I care,” Blade said grimly. “I need you, Pelops. Think of me, small one. I have no friend in Sarma but you.”
Pelops stumbled. Blade snatched him upright and glanced at the guards. They were talking and had not seen.
“You have the Princess Zeena,” Pelops muttered. “Though I have begun to wonder - “
“As have I,” Blade concurred. “Something has gone wrong.”
It was the first time he had voiced the thought, though it had been with him since the march began. He and Pelops were given the same harsh treatment as the other battlemen - even harsher. Blade could not fathom this - not if Zeena had successfully intervened with her mother the Queen, had told of the marriage to Blade and received a parental blessing. Surely the Queen would not treat a new son-in-law and his servant so harshly. Ergo - Zeena had not been successful, or at least not altogether. Blade remembered the words of the Captain - he was being taken to Sarmacid at the Queen’s pleasure. Not a word had been said about Zeena!
One thing Blade understood only too well: The Captain was obeying his orders, but just barely. It would please him if something happened to Blade and Pelops enroute, and no doubt he would have a plausible story ready for the Queen.
At night they slept in the dirt, still attached to the great chain. Men defecated where they lay and slept in it too weary to care. Blade, by constant dinning and nagging, kept Pelops awake as long as possible so that he might learn more about Sarma. He learned the basics of the Sarmaian script and the secrets of the signal flags. He memorized (he table of organization of the matriarchy that governed the country. He studied the religion of Bek-Tor. Even during the march he gave Pelops no peace, questioning constantly, feeding the information into his expanded memory center. Lord Leighton had promised him, and now he found it to be true, that he would not have to consciously struggle to remember. The material would file itself and be ready when wanted.
During his last stay in
Home Dimension Blade had been at first cajoled, then ordered, to expand his studies. He fretted at first, for it took time away from his regular duties with MI6 - he still thought of himself primarily as a secret agent- - and it also interfered with his sex life. For a time, after losing Zoe, he had been like a faun in heat.
Now, as his cortex was receiving and storing new engrams and neutral patterns, as new dangers and consequent survival patterns were imprinted, he was grateful for his study in ontology and epistemology. In teleology. For by late afternoon of the third day Blade had come to realize that he was deep in trouble. To mortal danger.
The column of chained men, like a wounded lizard, crawled painfully up a steep and narrow pass and debouched on a high plateau. They halted for rest on the brink of sheer cliff. In the distance, touched dull silver by the westing sun, glittered the towers and turrets and cubes of Sarmacid. The salt air tingled in Blade’s nostrils and beyond the city he saw again the Purple Sea. A long rectangular harbor, guarded by moles, was crowded with shipping. He knew, from Pelops, that Sarma was essentially a seafaring country.
Pelops groaned and dropped in his tracks. Men did likewise all along the length of the cruel chain. Blade stood, brawny arms akimbo, and surveyed the plain below the cliff. It was in essence a triangular peninsula jutting into the sea. The city was built at the apex of the triangle and well guarded by a fortified isthmus. In the exact center of the city, on a single eminence to which all streets led, was the Palace of Queen Pphira. A low rambling building of white stone with one tall tower to which was attached a flagpole.
As Blade watched a gaggle of colored flags of different shapes and sizes fluttered up the pole. He read: WELCOME EQUEBUS - BRING THE STRANGER AT ONCE - PPHIRA
