Tera was dead, but she had died without feeling that he had betrayed her or stopped loving her. She had known that he loved her, as long as she was able to know anything.
Tera was dead, and now there was nothing and nobody to think about in this damned Dimension except himself. Now there was nothing to keep him from taking his sword and ramming a foot of it into Princess Amadora's stomach.
He knew that Amadora must have given some of the orders that led to Tera's tormented death. She would be the first to go. Count Iscaros had doubtless given other orders, and he would die next. Then there would be a reckoning with Descares. Perhaps the scar-faced warrior had given no orders. But it was hard to believe that his tongue had not wagged when it should have remained still. It must have been he who passed on the word of how much Blade cared for Tera and how much he was willing to do for her. Then Princess Amadora's jealousy and ambition would have done the rest.
If Blade had been thinking more clearly, he might have realized that his rage was exactly what Amadora and Iscaros had hoped to provoke. He would not have been surprised at the ambush that caught him on the road to her palace. Even though he was surprised, he still managed to lay about him well enough to leave nearly a dozen of the ambushers dead or hurt. But their numbers and their weighted nets eventually brought him down.
He was also surprised when they did not go ahead and kill him. But then as he lay on his back, his hands and feet bound, he saw Count Iscaros looking down at him. The count's face was split in a broad grin, and he almost glowed with the joy of a man who sees his enemy at his mercy and victory at hand.
Blade made a mental resolution that the first chance he had he would chop that grin right down the middle with a sword. That was all he had time to do before Iscaros stepped up and kicked him in the head.
Chapter 21
Blade wasn't surprised to awake chained hand and foot in a smelly, damp darkness. He was surprised to wake up at all. For some reason or other, his head was still on his shoulders. It ached abominably, but it was still there. How much longer it would stay there, Blade didn't know. But for the time being he was alive, and that was always more useful than being dead.
On that thought he went back to sleep.
The next time he awoke he realized that three things had changed. His head hurt a good deal less. The wooden surface under him was heaving slowly up and down and from side to side, creaking loudly as it did so. Somebody was standing over him, looking down at him.
Blade looked up at the somebody. There was enough light to make out a man clad in a loincloth, nearly as tall as Blade and a good deal wider. The man's black hair and beard were enormously long, thick, and tangled. The high cheekbones and arched nose showed Nessiri blood. The eyes that looked down at Blade showed a glint of amusement.
«Well, friend. So you are with us again?»
«I suppose you could say that,» replied Blade cautiously.
«I just did. Welcome aboard the Green Gull.»
So the movement and creaking was that of a ship at sea. «If you can call this a welcome.» Blade made a gesture that took in the whole dismal hold.
The man threw back his head and roared with laughter until his massive paunch was shaking. Then he sobered abruptly. «I'd best not enjoy myself too much, or even Thickhead'll realize something's afoot.»
«Thickhead?»
«Captain Gazes, if you're wanting to be formal.»
Blade struggled into a more comfortable position. «All right. So now I know who Thickhead is. Who are you? What are you doing down here? And where are we going?»
The big man squatted down on his haunches and looked shrewdly at Blade. «What will you do to me if I don't say anything at all?»
«Pull that damned beard of yours out by the roots the first chance I get,» snapped Blade. «That'll do for a start.» He wondered if he could reach out a leg far enough to hook this clown's feet out from under him.
Instead of getting angry, the big Nessiri looked as though he was going to burst out laughing again. Then he sat down cross-legged on the deck and looked at Blade.
«Well. I can see you're a fighting man. That's what I suspected. Probably somebody pretty good, too, or they wouldn't have shaved your head to keep people from recognizing you. You're the first fighting man Green Gull's had on her slave deck since Thickhead started trusting me. That's good. You and me, together, maybe we can take this ship and do a little something with her. I know places where we can get a full crew of people who'd be glad to help us turn pirate.»
For a moment Blade felt as though he had been hit on the head again. He had just been told he was imprisoned aboard Green Gull, probably a slave. Now he was being offered a chance to break out and turn pirate. What sort of lunatic was he dealing with here?
But the man sounded both sane and sincere, as far as Blade could tell. Certainly if the big Nessiri was offering him any kind of chance, it might not be a bad idea to take it. This wasn't Scador. He didn't have to worry about Tera any more. Here, what he needed to think about was avenging her.
Blade smiled. «You still haven't told me who and what you are,» he said.
The big man nodded. «Name's Gursun. Nessiri, I suppose you've guessed. A warrior, once, but the Karani took me fifteen years ago. I've turned into a damned good slave, though. That's why Captain Thickhead trusts me, and why I've started thinking about taking the ship and turning pirate. I'm still young enough to die like a warrior, by all the gods!»
«What do I have to do with all this?»
«I figured quite some time back that with two really good fighters I could take the ship. There's only thirteen sailors besides Thickhead. Only five of them're much good in any sort of fight.»
«You've seen them in action?» Blade didn't expect an answer to the question. What he wanted was to remind Gursun that he was an experienced fighter who wouldn't take anything on trust.
«Enough times to guess pretty good what they're like.»
«All right. Go on.»
Blade's suddenly starting to give orders didn't seem to bother Gursun. That was good. The man wasn't so mad or proud that there would be no way of getting along with him except doing what he said. Blade was perfectly willing to obey ten madmen, let alone one, if it would get him off this ship and back to where he could strike at Iscaros and Amadora. But he would much rather not have to.
He suddenly realized that he was horribly thirsty. «Before we go on-could I have some water?»
Gursun nodded, vanished briefly, and returned with a large clay jug. The water was cool and refreshing; it washed the sour dryness out of Blade's mouth and finished clearing up his head. When Blade had finished drinking, Gursun went on.
In a fight the other eight crewmen could be taken care of by releasing the other nine slaves aboard Green Guild. The nine didn't know much about fighting, but they did know a good deal about hating their masters.
Blade laughed. «So far so good.» He held up his chained hands. «How are you going to get these off me?»
It seemed that Captain Gazes was fond of having Gursun wrestle other captain's slaves. Usually he won. Considering his barrel-like torso and tree-trunk arms and legs, that wasn't surprising. Gursun looked powerful enough to give even Duke Pardes a stiff fight.