Finally a summer afternoon came without a cloud in the sky. There was even a brisk wind blowing over the city and blowing away the normal mugginess of its summer climate. Up on top of a ten-story building the wind was even brisker than it had been down on the street level. Blade stepped cautiously up to the crumbling parapet and looked out over the city. The wind blew away the sweat he had worked up in the climb from the street below. Behind him stood the four guards, expressionless and silent. After many days of alternately ignoring and browbeating them, they had given up trying to do anything except stay with Blade or at least in sight of him. That was exactly the way Blade wanted it. The more apathetic the guards, the better for him when the time came to move.
His eyes drifted downward-and he started violently. His hand clenched the parapet so hard that a piece of the rotten stone jerked loose and toppled over the edge. He watched it plunge down a hundred feet and more to land in the street with a faint distant crash. It missed the working party of slaves winding past below by only a few feet. There were about twenty of the slaves, guarded by a half-dozen fighters. Among the slaves, hobbling along halfway down the line, was Narlena.
Trying to keep his excitement from showing either on his face or in his voice, Blade turned around and said to the guards, «Let's go back down. I want to talk to the guards of that working party.» He led the way to the stairs without another word, and the guards followed him in equal silence.
Going down the murky, dust-clogged stairs, it was hard enough to keep from breaking into a run. He reached the street and broke out into the sunlight again to see Narlena less than a hundred feet away. There was nothing between them now except the guards of the working party. He forced his feet to stay at a walk. A fast walk, though, one that soon brought him up with the rear of the working party. Now Narlena was only twenty feet away.
His own four watchdogs were behind him. Two guards were at the rear of the party, and two more were in the middle just ahead of Narlena. Ten of the twelve fighters on hand were in a position to move against him quickly. Long odds, but surprise would be on his side. The, problem would come once they had broken free-if enough guards were still on their feet, they might wolf-pack him and Narlena, making it extremely difficult for them to make a run for it. And they could not hide and wait for dark-not when Krog would turn out every man and woman to find them. Only one hope-get out, fast!
They were approaching an intersection. The street running off to the left would take them west, to the edge of the city. Once out in the country, there would be more room to run, hide, eventually circle back across the river, and come into Dreamer territory from the south. The intersection moved closer-fifty feet away, now twenty, now-
Blade lunged forward, sword flashing free of its scabbard, into the back of the guard in front of him in a single sweeping motion. Blade was halfway to Narlena before the falling guard hit the ground, before any of the four guards behind him could do anything more than stare and gape.
Narlena turned toward him as he dashed up to her. He slapped her hard on the rear and pointed down the street. «Run!» he yelled, and swung his sword at the guard on his right as the man rushed at him with spear held high and ready. The sword clanged down off the spear shaft and laid open the man's stomach. He screamed and reeled back, clutching at his blood-spurting midriff. Blade sprang through the line of slaves, dragging Narlena behind him. He chopped down the left-hand guard before the stunned and bemused man could raise his sword. Then he shouted again, this time to all the slaves. «Run! Flee! The People of the Blue Eye are doomed. I go to bring vengeance on them. Vengeance!»
The roaring voice jotted the slaves into action. Blade saw the four at the head of the line lunge at the two lead guards, clawing at the spears as they rose to stab downward. A slave screamed as one spear ran through his stomach, but both guards went down under the clawing hands and kicking feet. A second later Blade heard screaming. He waited no longer; the street lay open before him and Narlena. He pointed west and broke into a run.
A spear whistled past him as they ran. Another skipped off the rocks many feet to one side of them. Then there was nothing but the wind in their ears and the pounding of their own feet on the rubble-strewn streets. The sounds of a savage little battle faded behind them-the slaves and the guards were fighting each other to the death. They would delay the pursuit.
On they ran. Now there was silence behind them and only the empty city lying before them, its buildings steadily dwindling as they moved west. Narlena was keeping up far better than Blade had expected. The hope of freedom and revenge seemed to be pumping super-human strength into her thin, battered limbs. Only the tightness in her face revealed the effort she was making.
Blade's memories of maps and patrols told him that they had about three miles to cover before reaching open country. They were nearing the end of the second mile before Narlena started to flag and slow. Her breath was coming in tortured gasps as she thrashed her arms about wildly. Blade led her off the street and into a building that offered shade from the sun. She collapsed in the dust and lay still. Without the convulsive heaving of her chest Blade would have thought her dead or dying. After a few minutes she sat up and gasped, «Is there any water?»
Blade shook his head. «I couldn't bring any with me. That would have made the guards suspicious.»
She nodded wearily. «At least those guards won't bother anybody any more. I kept telling the slaves that they could drag the guards down by sheer weight of numbers any time they wanted to do it. They finally believed me.»
«You were responsible for that?» Blade let his surprise show openly in his voice.
«Why not?» she said matter-of-factly. «I have learned much while I was a slave. I am a Dreamer no longer. I will never be one again, even when we go back to the other Dreamers and lead them to kill every Waker in Pura.» Her jaw tightened as she said that. Blade reached out and took her hand.
He sat there holding it silently until Narlena shook herself and said, «Blade, I think I can run again.» He helped her to her feet. They went out into the street again, looking cautiously about them for signs of approaching pursuers. For a moment Blade considered climbing to the top of the nearest tall building to get a better view to the east. Then he decided against it. The time it would take might give the pursuit a chance to organize, even to catch up. Getting caught in a building would be the end of them.
They set off to the west again. Now they moved at a steady lope that Blade knew he could keep up for hours and Narlena could manage as far as the edge of the city. Among the buildings were occasional patches of rank grass that had once been parks. Scarecrow trees stood tossing their branches in the stiffening breeze.
Soon they reached the streets where the purple thistles were growing in hedgelike masses from cracks where slabs of pavement many feet square had been heaved upward. The gutters were thick with mud, debris, and dead leaves. Some of the more ruined buildings were completely overgrown by moss, grass, thistles, and even small trees until there was practically nothing to show that a building had once stood there. Finally, there were no more buildings on either side: They slowed their pace to a walk as they passed through the five-century-old arch that marked the western edge of the city.