Now they were coming up to the entrance to the Ice Master's chambers. Blade brought his section to a halt; there were bound to be guards in the chambers. The door was closed, but Blade noticed with a faint chill that both it and the floor in front of it showed the marks of Menel claws. So they had been all the way up here. When would they come again?
He shut off that line of thinking as the door slid open, to reveal a guard's face peering suspiciously out over a spear point. Blade smiled disarmingly, then his arms rose and came down like sledgehammers, right fist smashing into the guard's jaw and left hand snaking past the spear point to grab the hand holding the spear. He jerked the guard forward, wedging him in the door, then snatched a spear from one of the men behind him and began to pry the door the rest of the way open. In a moment there was a crackling sound and a cloud of foul blue smoke as something burned out, and the door slid easily open.
Instantly Blade and his section dove to the scarred floor, as three guards hefted spears and hurled them. One of the men behind Blade was not quite fast enough; a spear caught him through the chest on the way down. But the others were up again in the same instant as Blade and barely a step behind him as he charged through the door at the three guards, his sword drawn.
He chopped down one guard and sent him reeling back against a second, who leaped aside but in so doing got off balance long enough for one of Blade's companions to engage him. Steel clanged, sparks sprayed in all directions as the two went at it in a blind frenzy. The third guard backed away from the struggle, then turned with a grim look in his eyes and dashed for the door into the inner chambers. Blade did not need to see the man draw the long knife from his belt to know that killing Leyndt was in his mind. He lunged past the two duelists and after the fleeing guard, but the man had a head start and a good pair of legs. By the time Blade entered the next chamber, it was empty, and he could not tell which of the three closed doors in its walls might take him to Leyndt.
A second later he knew. Behind the door to the right sounded a scream-not a scream of terror, but a scream intended to sow terror, to make an attacker draw back in fear at its raw frenzy, and to alert help if help was near. Blade dashed to the door, slapped the opening plate, saw nothing happen, looked frantically around the chamber for something heavy as the scream sounded again. There was a squat black table in a corner; Blade hefted it, feeling his muscles strain and creak under its nearly two hundred pounds, then lifted it over his head and sent it crashing against the door. The door split apart and Blade leaped over the smashed door panels and the pieces of the table into the room.
Leyndt, naked except for a Girl's short trunks, was backed into a corner, holding a large thick cushion in front of her to block or absorb the thrusts and slashes of her attacker's knife. Some of them had still gone home, though-blood was oozing across cheek, shoulder above her right breast, and thigh just above the left knee. As Blade burst into the room the guard whirled around, kicking out suddenly with a foot that sailed in under the pillow and drove into Leyndt's stomach. The breath went out of her with an explosive gasp and she collapsed as the guard turned to face Blade.
Blade knew already this guard was a quicker thinker than usual; now he had a nasty surprise in the man's speed. The guard was at him and on him before he could bring up his sword for either a slash or a thrust, darted past the half-raised point, and struck with the knife at Blade's wide-open throat. Blade felt the knife whisper past the side of his neck as a lightning twisting of his whole body moved him clear just in time, then raised the sword with the point still aimed at the ceiling and brought the heavy metal guard down on his opponent's shoulder. The man gasped and his left arm-not his knife arm, unfortunately-sagged limply; Blade lowered the sword and thrust at his opponent's stomach, only to have the tip scrape along the man's metal-mesh belt and nick him only slightly. The guard sprang back out of Blade's immediate reach in a single bound, whirled, and took two steps toward Leyndt, knife raised. The knife was just coming down, and so was one raised foot, when Blade caught up with the man and rammed the sword through his back before he could turn. The point burst through his chest, and he toppled face down on top of Leyndt, his blood pouring over her.
Blade spent only enough time examining Leyndt to make sure that she was breathing and that none of her knife wounds were serious. When he had done this, he hoisted her limp body over his shoulder and rejoined his companions at the entrance. There were only three of them now; the two duelists had killed each other. Blade led the others back toward the elevator chamber.
As they approached it, the sound of a fight-shouts, screams, the clang of weapons-came battering down the corridor at them. Blade slowed his pace and motioned the others to a halt while he put Leyndt down and stalked forward, pressing as close as possible to the wall, until he could see clearly into the chamber.
The ten men left in the chamber were standing off a furious attack by at least three times that many guards. Two of the defenders were already down, others showed blood, but at least seven guards lay writhing or still on the floor, and as Blade watched he heard the crossbow among the squad twang, with the usual result of a guard clutching wildly at his chest and collapsing. But the crossbowmen could not fire quickly and the attackers were already pressing the defending raiders into a back-to-back formation for a last stand.
Blade looked behind him, nodded to the others. Three right arms hefted spears then snapped forward at the same instant, three spears flew down the corridor and into the massed ranks of the guards. The scream from one of them as he died paralyzed both sides for a moment, and in that moment Blade rushed out and charged the guards, sword in one hand, knife in the other, the three others with him running hard behind him and fanning out to come in on either side of him.
Blade's sword whistled out and down, slashing through a spear shaft and throwing the wielder enough off balance for Blade to thrust him through with the knife. Another man came at Blade with a sword in each hand; he gave back a step, sliced off the man's left arm with one slash, then sent the other sword flying in a savage metallic clash of weapons. The man reached out for Blade with his good arm, trying a desperate body-to-body grapple, but crumpled, thrust through by Blade's knife from in front and a raider's spear from behind.
Now two guards came at Blade together, so intent on him that they forgot the man protecting Blade's left, whose sword swished out and around in a flat arc like a scythe, passing through one man's neck as though it had been a cornstalk. Blade brought both sword and knife up to guard against the survivor's downswing, locked the other's plunging sword in the V formed by his own two weapons, twisted the sword out of the man's grasp, and as it flew through the air slashed the man in the body. A crossbow quarrel went into a nearby body with a meaty thunk, and the man facing Blade's right-hanker folded forward and went down on to a floor that was becoming slippery underfoot with the smeared pools of blood from the rapidly increasing number of bodies.
Then Blade stopped taking note of individual opponents, and was lost in a continuous frenzy of slash, thrust, parry, guard, give back, step forward, chop like a butcher, thrust like a matador, smell the sweat, smell the blood (none of it his own-yet)-until suddenly there were no more attackers staying to fight, and only a handful of them sprinting or staggering away down the corridor. Some left blood trails as they went. Blade saw the bowman pick off a final victim. Then again there was silence in the chamber, except for the heaving and rasping breath of Blade, his two companions, and the six Survivors of the defending squad.