The seven men moved out into the morning in two lines of three, one on each side of the street, with Blade himself taking the lead, spear in hand. He would have liked to head for the nearest Dreamer-held vault by the shortest route, but that route ran for a mile along a level street so broad that even the debris from collapsed buildings on either side had hardly narrowed it at all. By now even the newest Dreamer recruit understood why it was not wise to travel along a wide street where one stood out like a fly on a tabletop to anyone watching from above.
Blade brought up the rear while they crossed the avenue. Crouching behind a fallen slab of metal roofing, Blade watched the other six dash in succession across the open street, scramble up the ridge of debris on the far side, and vanish down the other side. To the north of the avenue lay a maze of smaller streets that offered a far more sheltered route than the avenue's hundred-foot expanse of stone.
The last of the six vanished, and now it was Blade's turn. He nearly fell on his face as his foot came down on a rainslick patch, but miraculously he kept his balance and charged across the street. Using hands and feet, he hurled himself at the twenty-foot slope of rubble. Loosened chunks toppled down into the street with nerve-racking crashes and thumps. He reached the crest, flung himself over it, then turned back to search the avenue in both directions. As his eyes swung to the left and east, he saw something moving furtively on the far side of the avenue.
Blade froze and fixed his eyes on the spot. But the pavement there lay deep in shadow, too deep for him to clearly make out what was moving. What else could it be but a Waker moving by day? One or many? Again he couldn't see, not even with his abnormally acute vision. But still less could he wait to find out. Time was suddenly precious. They would have to make their way east and into shelter before the Wakers could detect them and launch a full-scale hunt.
He scrambled down into the street. His haste should have told the six waiting below that something was wrong, even if he hadn't quickly explained the situation. Narlena paled, and the four recruits frantically tried to look in all directions at once.
Erlik, however, nodded in the same resigned way he usually did when he heard bad news. He said with a sigh, «Well, if they catch up with us it won't be as easy for them as it would have been back in the spring. We've given them a good run so far, and we'll give them another before we go down» Then he shrugged and turned away to take up his place at the end of the left-hand line.
Back in formation again the seven moved north two blocks and then turned right. Blade did not want to get too far north of the avenue. If all else failed, they could always try to reach it and then try outrunning any pursuing Wakers. Two forlorn hopes.
They moved forward in leap-frog fashion, hurrying down each block where buildings on either side rose high enough to block the view on either side. At each north-south street they halted to make sure that it was clear in both directions and then scurried across the street and on along the next block. Occasionally masses of rubble from collapsed buildings forced them into a noisy scrambling climb. Once they found the decaying body of a Waker who, must have fallen while climbing a tower. Blade wondered if the man had been killed instantly or died slowly in the darkness.
Now they were perhaps halfway to their goal. no hunted looks of the six Dreamers were slowly beginning to ease. Then a swsssssh sounded close overhead. Down from a building high above flashed an arrow, trailing a thick cloud of blue-green smoke. The arrow smacked into the street fifty feet ahead, and the smoke poured up in a thick column, rising steadily and greasily into the damp air. Even in the morning gloom it would be visible from a great distance.
Blade went cold inside. Instead of his finding the trained Waker gang, the gang had found him. There was at least one archer, with marker arrows that could give away their position and make both flight and concealment hopeless. Would the Wakers have other bowmen to pick off the patrol when they had been surrounded and trapped? Or would it come to a final, hand-to-hand clash of weapons in the streets of the dying city?
Blade waved the patrol forward. They followed at a run, up the block to the next corner, where they continued around to the right and headed south toward the avenue. The avenue offered their last hope for escape. They pounded down the block, hearing another arrow swssssh so high overhead and so far away that for a moment Blade hoped they had given the bowman the slip. The corner was only fifty yards away now; beyond it only one more block to the avenue. Fifty yards, forty, thirty, twenty.
And from both east and west Wakers poured into the intersection with a great pounding of feet and howling of war cries. Blade did not even need to look at them to know that they would form in pairs, one with a sword and one with a spear. In the next few seconds he put together more than twenty years of training and experience.
Instead of stopping dead, Blade kept on going, closing in to less than spear-throwing distance before the Wakers realized that he was still moving. He held his own spear out in front of him like a knight's lance as he crashed down into the ranks of the Wakers. His thrust was aimed at a tall, bearded man who appeared to be the leader. But the man jumped aside at the last possible split-second. The sharp spear point tore along his upper arm and sank deep into the chest of the man behind him. The man died so quickly that he did not even have the time to look surprised before the light went out of his eyes and he sagged downward, pulling the spear out of Blade's hands.
Seeing a gap open in the Waker line, the other Dreamers charged toward it. For a moment Blade was in as much danger of being trampled or speared by his companions as he was by the Wakers.
«Head for the avenue and run! Run!» he roared. But as the Dreamers tried to push on through the gap, Wakers came up on either side to close it. Two of the Dreamers went down, thrust through with spears. One of them rolled against Narlena's legs just as she gathered herself to sprint forward through the confusion, knocking her to the ground. In an instant four Wakers pounced on her, three pointing their spears down at her stomach while the fourth reversed his with a lightning snap and brought the butt end crashing down on her bead. She went limp. Blade let out an animal roar and charged at the four men.
The one who had struck Narlena died before he could reverse his spear again. As he raised it across his chest like a quarterstaff, Blade's descending swordstroke chopped through the solid metal shaft, the man's collarbone, most of his ribs, and his heart. The blood spewed all over Blade's arms and hands so that he nearly lost his grip on his sword. He held on to it, batted a spear-point down with the fiat of the blade, thrust the spearman through the neck, then kicked another swordsman in the stomach and sliced his head off as he crumpled.
As the space around Blade suddenly cleared, another clump of Wakers surged toward him, furiously dueling with Erlik and the other two surviving Dreamers. Before another attack could move against him, Blade charged at the new clump with the speed and ferocity of a springing tiger, hitting them with the same deadly suddenness.
With a spear he snatched from the ground, he hurled his two hundred plus pounds forward and tore the clump of Wakers apart like a rotten cabbage. The Wakers leaped aside in every direction and the two Dreamers broke free. Blade saw Erlik turn toward him, raising his bloody sword with a savage look in his eyes.
Before the man could start back into the fight, Blade yelled again, «Run, you fool! Run for your life!» He had the small joy of seeing Erlik turn away and sprint for the avenue as though monsters were at his heels, sword still waving in his hand. Then Blade turned back to the Wakers crowding around him.