Now the man in the gilded armor apparently realized that Tera was a handicap. His free arm heaved, sending her flying headfirst out of the saddle. She struck the hard ground with a scream, sprawling face down. She was just rising to her hands and knees as Blade rode up. For a moment he was tempted to snatch her up and try to ride clear with her. She stared wide-eyed at him, mouth dripping blood from a cut lip and bruises already showing dark on her arms, breasts, and thighs.
In the next moment trumpets sounded again, and behind him Blade heard the thunder of fast-moving horses, hundreds of them. He turned and saw what seemed like a thousand more Riders pouring up the slope, brandishing lances and swords and bellowing war-cries. At their head was another man in gilded armor. But this one looked seven feet tall at least, rode a horse that seemed the size of a small elephant, and brandished a club that looked like a young tree. Before Blade could reach down for Tera or get his horse moving again, the giant was on him.
Blade's sword flashed up. The club came down on it, and the steel snapped as though it had been made of bamboo. The club rose again in a feint at Blade's head, then swept in an arc that ended in the center of Blade's chest.
Suddenly he had no more breath, and no more strength to hold on to the saddle or his sword. He knew he was toppling sideways out of the saddle, knew that the giant was charging on past with roars of laughter, knew that the ground came up and hit him hard. Then he stopped knowing anything.
Chapter 8
Blade awoke bit by bit. His head hurt as though an anvil had fallen on it, and most of the rest of his body hurt almost as much. He quickly discovered that both his wrists and his ankles were tied. For the moment he was alive and reasonably healthy. Somebody had put enough value on him to take him prisoner rather than kill him outright.
It looked as though he was going to wind up among the Karani, whether he wanted to or not and whether Tera came with him or not. His jaw tightened as he thought of Tera tumbling painfully to the ground as the first man in gilded armor rode off in a panic. That man had given him a score to settle. Settle it he would if he had the slightest chance, even if he could only avenge Tera instead of rescue her.
Blade writhed and twisted himself into a sitting position. He was sitting on the edge of the forest from which the Riders had come. A long row of Scadori prisoners stretched away on either side of him. Most of them were still unconscious or too frightened to move. Blade saw no one he recognized, and no sign of Tera.
Farther out on the mountainside Blade saw a ragged square of bodies. Black-winged scavenger birds were already circling above as the Karani stripped the bodies. The rear guard's battle had ended as it had to. Toward the pass Blade saw no sign of anything or anyone moving.
Several Riders were ambling back and forth in front of the Scadori prisoners, lances resting casually on their shoulders, drinking from wine jugs as they walked. As Blade watched, they suddenly stiffened, hooked their jugs onto their belts, and swung their lances upright.
The man who had captured Tera and the gold-armored giant were approaching each other along the line of prisoners, from opposite directions. Each moved in the middle of a circle of armed Riders, tanned, scarred, cold-eyed men who looked formidably tough.
The first man still wore his gold armor and would have looked fairly impressive in any other company. He was as tanned and tough-looking as his men, and moved like a hunting animal. But he could not quite match the impression made by the giant.
The man was not quite seven feet tall-only about six and a half, Blade realized, but broad in proportion. He now wore a blue tunic and embroidered black trousers, the tunic opening at the chest to reveal a good deal of fat and even more muscle. The man was entirely bald, but the lack of lines on his heavy-jawed face suggested someone no more than forty. The club no longer swung in his hand, but was slung across his back.
«Ho, Pardes,» the smaller man shouted. «What have you to say to me?»
The larger man smiled, but it was a smile that reminded Blade of a shark opening its mouth to bite. The man had a full set of white teeth, and showed them all.
«Iscaros, I have a great many things to say to you, and I hope that His Sacred Majesty will have a great many more. Your orders were to lead your Riders to the pass and hold it with dismounted archery. You were not to put on a pretty show against a handful of those vermin. We could have trapped them all, but because of you we had barely a quarter of them, and that includes what we killed in the night's battle. Iscaros, you are a fool, and if she herself-«The man broke off, as though he had caught himself going on too far and too frankly. From his highpitched voice, Blade suspected the man was a eunuch.
The man called Iscaros laughed, but it was a laugh no more friendly than Pardes' smile. «She herself will do nothing, you prickless wonder. For I can do something, and go on doing it, that you never have. Besides, why should I lead my men to where they will do all the fighting and dying and then let yours come in and snatch up all the prisoners? Consider the woman I got by riding on in.
«Oh, I will consider her,» replied the big eunuch. «I will consider how you dropped her and no doubt dropped something in your trousers when that woman's master rode at you. I will consider how little use you will get of her, after the one you pant and whimper around hears of her. Oh yes, I will consider much.»
Iscaros' superficial calm cracked. «You fat no-prick, when the time comes-«
«If it comes,» said Pardes in a voice suddenly ice-cold. «And it is true that I have been a eunuch for many years. But I cannot say I have done badly. Having no balls, there is no place my brains can flow down into, the way yours have done.»
For a moment it looked as though Iscaros was not only going to explode into rage but into violence. Bows swung off shoulders and swords rasped out of scabbards as both sets of bodyguards got ready for a fight. Pardes unslung his club and rested it lightly on one shoulder, ready to swing.
Then Iscaros appeared to lose his nerve. His shoulders slumped, and a barked order sent his men's weapons out of sight. «Pardes, you wield a mighty tongue, and so shall it be always. Let us put off this squabbling like children to another time, and divide up the prisoners. I claim the woman.»
So Tera was alive! Blade's cracked lips curved in a smile. He was sure she would do badly in Iscaros' hands. But while she lived, she might be rescued, not just avenged.
Pardes nodded. «On your head be it, as it shall be when Princess Amadora hears of your new captive. I shall claim the man whose woman she was. From the way he rode out and struck down Riders, I would call him neither Scador nor Nessir nor Karan. He seems something new that I want to know more about.»
Iscaros looked dubious. His mouth opened and shut several times before he finally nodded. «Very well. Have him and get what you can out of him, for as long as you can.» Another harsh laugh. «Do not let yourself hope that will be long.»
Pardes didn't seem to consider that a reply was even necessary. Instead he jerked a thumb in Blade's direction and four of his bodyguards started toward the Englishman. They reached him, cut the rope on his ankles with their swords, and dragged him to his feet. By then Pardes had joined them.
Seen close up he again looked seven feet tall. In fact he looked big enough to almost make Blade feel small and weak. But the man was certainly no mere mass of bone and muscle. He seemed to be a key player in some deadly game of intrigue going on in Karan.