If you were going to lie and bluff, Blade had long ago learned, it was better to do it big, without stint. The big lie, the colossal bluff, had the better chance of succeeding.
Still they hesitated, snarling and muttering, unable to come to agreement. Blade plunged into a more elaborate and cunning lie, waxing sweetly reasonable and attempting to gauge the degree of their intelligence and attune the lie exactly to it.
He lowered the head, disengaged it from the swordpoint and moved it with his foot toward one of the Api. «Take that and find a bag for it. Wrap it carefully. Quickly now. Move!»
The goon hesitated, glanced at his companions, then picked up the head and carried it away toward the stone hut. The others watched him go in silence. Blade felt his heartbeat slow. He was going to make it. Yet he needed a clincher.
He began to clean the sword, jabbing it into the ground and talking all the while. «Think of it this way, Api. If you kill me you gain nothing. I will kill some of you. This you know. But if I go in peace, with the woman and without trouble, and come to Jedd and become leader there and keep my promise, then see how much you will have gained. Women for all! Is that not worth a chance? What can you lose even if I prove to be a liar?» Which he most assuredly was, a whopping great one. Blade had no intention, should he ever reach the Jedds and gain leadership, of sending women to these Api. He knew this. The Api did not. Blade kept at them, talking, using again and again the key word — women — women — women.
It worked. The goons consulted among themselves. Blade, from a distance, saw them take some sort of a vote using a helmet and colored stones for box and ballots. While they were about this he made a furtive sign to Ooma, who had ventured a little way from her rocky cover. She hesitated to obey, plainly bored with hiding and curious about the turn of events, forgetting both her fear and her nakedness, and Blade cursed her softly. He mouthed at her — get back! Stay under cover.
Damn her! She was an intelligent child, but still a child. And she could very well get him killed yet — and herself well raped.
He let out a sigh of relief as she disappeared again behind her boulder. And breathed still easier when two of the Api guards came and told him: «Pass, Blade. Quickly. Six of us favor you, three do not. We will all stay in the hut until you are gone. And see that you keep your word, Blade. Send us women. Young women who have not been overmuch used.»
It was, Blade realized, the universal plaint of soldiers. Even in this X-Dimension as in Home D. Send us women.
When the Api disappeared into the hut Blade went to Ooma and, in silence and pulling her along not too gently, made a wide circle around the hut and began to run toward the glistening mountains. He would not answer her questions and soon she was too much out of breath to ask them. Blade did not slacken his pace, nor allow her to rest, until they were over the horizon and out of sight of the guard hut.
He scooped a shallow hole with his broken spear and buried the head of Porrex. Ooma sulked because he would not let her unwrap the grisly object and have a look. Blade, as his anger faded, considered this new facet of her character and judged her leniently. She did not appear bloodthirsty or vindictive, only curious, and he supposed that captivity among the lake people had brutalized her.
Ooma did not sulk long. She tried to ease his displeasure in the only way she knew, but Blade would have none of it. He hustled her on, saying there was no time for dalliance. Which was true. Too true. They were not out of danger yet. Blade had no thought of trying to talk, or fight, his way through another Api station. It had been a very near thing and he still could hardly believe his luck. He would not tempt Fate again.
As they rested he said, «We will keep along this course until dark, then we will leave it and swing wide and into the mountains. Do you know a path, a way through, that will bypass the Api guard stations?»
Ooma shook her head. «I know of none. There is only one pass leading into the valley of the Jedds. We must take it.»
«No,» said Blade. «We will not take it. I have a feeling about the Api — next time they will kill me and take you for their use. We were lucky this time. Next time there will be more of them and more intelligent and higher-ranking officers. I have a sense for these things and I smell death if we are again taken by the Api. We go around them.»
A pale vestige of moon was hanging in the late afternoon sky. He pointed to it. «For a few hours we will have moonlight. It will give us a chance. There must be a way around the pass.»
Ooma nestled against him and stroked his cheek. She nodded. «As you say, Blade master. You go and I will follow.»
He gave her a sharp look. «You are not to call me master. We agreed on that. Call me Blade.»
Her look was demure, her eyes tilted with suppressed laughter, her lips quirking at the corners. «That was when you were not angry with me, Blade. Now you are and I must call you master. Unless—»
Blade could not repress his own smile. «Unless what, you minx?»
She laughed and threw her arms about him and kissed him for a long time. «Unless you prove that you are no longer angry, Blade. Prove it now.»
Blade wondered, as he set about proving it, if he would have the strength to climb mountains that night.
Chapter Twelve
Ooraa had been right. There was no way around the pass. So Blade made one. Made it with his strength and his guts and his skills as a mountaineer — he had climbed every major peak in Europe — and by lashing his superb body to an effort beyond anything even he had attained before. More than once he was on the verge of defeat but would not surrender. His nerves frayed and his temper went and he shouted obscenities and defiance at the mountain gods; he staggered through snow and sleet and wind and clawed his way over countless glaciers. He scaled crags that could not be scaled and took chances that a mountain goat would have disdained. This latter was no particular credit to Blade — he had nothing to lose. He could not go back. He could not stay in the mountains. It was forward or die.
After the first few hours he had to carry Ooma most of the way. The girl, near to death from cold, soon ceased to care if she lived or died. When the moonlight petered out and he could not see to climb farther, Blade cast about for a spot where they might have at least a chance of surviving until morning. He spotted two huge, black, uprearing rocks that formed a crude cave and carried the girl toward them. It was a decision that eventually saved them both.
The animal, whatever it was, had scented them long before and was in hiding. But when Blade approached its lair it charged with a high bellow. Blade barely had time to drop Ooma and step aside. As it was, the creature caught him a glancing blow with one of its great horns, a blow that stunned Blade and sent him reeling near the edge of the precipice. He recovered his footing in time, plucked the little stone knife from his belt and cagily moved away from the edge of the fallaway. He could not see the animal well, but it was food and it had fur or wool of some sort. He did not want it charging him again and going over the edge. For already Blade knew that this beast, whatever it might be, spelled the difference between life and death. Blade charged it. The animal came to meet him, snorting and stamping its front hooves in fury and fear.