The last of the moon had gone and Blade had to kill it in the dark. He met the charge with his own great shoulders, was knocked back, kept his footing and clung to one of the curved horns with one hand as he daggered with the stone knife. He got a terrible leverage and bent the horn over and flung the animal on its side. Then Blade, a berserk animal himself, making mindless sounds, leaped on it and used the stone knife with both hands. His hands were red and hot and steaming with blood and still he attacked. Again and again, over and over, he stabbed and ripped and tore with the stone knife. When his senses came back the animal had been dead for minutes. Blade stood over it, his legs trembling, gouts of blood congealing on him, and knew that for a moment he had been very near to madness. Fatigue, fear, nervous strain, constant alertness, the great hazards he had already faced — they were all beginning to take a deadly toll.
Blade let out a great shuddering breath and slumped in relaxation. He laughed into the black wind. It was like this in Dimension X. Always.
He groped his way back to where he had dropped Ooma. She lay huddled, knees up, shivering convulsively. «I am so cold, Blade. So c-c-cold. We are going to die here, I know. It would have been b-b-better to take our chances with the Api in the pass.»
He laughed as he picked her up. «You are wrong, Ooma. We are not going to die and we would not be better off with the Api. I will have you warm in a few minutes.»
She mistook his meaning and shook her head. «N-no,
Blade. Not even that can save me now. I am too cold. I will die. Jedds do not stand cold well.»
Blade chuckled and carried her into the shallow cave that offered little but some shelter from the wind. He put her down and went back for the thing he had killed. It was totally dark now with no sign of stars or moon. The sky was a dark canopy pressing down on the mountain peaks, the wind a dank, cold sword seeking them out.
Blade, working by touch, gutted the huge woolly animal. He pulled the hot, steaming guts out and dumped them nearby, then picked up the shivering girl. «This is going to be bloody and messy,» he told her, «but you will be warm.»
By now Ooma was too cold, too near death, to care or to answer. She tried to cling to him, but her arms would not function. Blade put her into the hot cavern of the gutted animal and, wedging her as deeply into the carcass as he could, closed it about her. He fumbled for the entrails, found them, strung them out and used them to bind the two sides of the carcass together by looping the gut around the front and back legs. Ooma, at least, would be warm for tonight. He spoke to her down through the bloody slitted belly of the dead animal.
«How is it, girl? Snug enough now?»
«Warm, Blade. So warm. I think I will sleep now. It is like being in my mother's womb again.»
Blade smiled, shook his head and went about the business of his own survival. He hacked off lengths of the entrails and forced himself to eat. He would need all his strength tomorrow. He wedged himself back into a corner of the little makeshift cave, then pulled the carcass, with Ooma inside it, over on top of him. Wind and sleet, cheated for the moment, moaned in constant threnody past the rock opening.
Richard Blade slept.
Two days later he and Ooma half slid, half fell, down the last rocky, shale-strewn incline and stood in a narrow ravine that led in turn into the lush valley of the Jedds.
It would be, Ooma said, some days yet before they came to the city of her people. As they left the ravine and came into the valley proper, she pointed about and explained: «This land is old, nearly as old as the Idol of Birkbegn. When my people first came here, after being driven from their own land because they disobeyed the Books, they resolved to do better and so set about creating new and better lives for all the people. So it is written in the Books. Of course it did not last. The Jedds are an ill-fated people.»
Blade, gazing far down the valley, felt a moment of regret that he would not be able to explore these ancient wonders. But his time was growing short — on the final descent into the valley he had been seized with that sudden sharp pain, the brain spasm, that told him Lord Leighton was groping with the computer. Any time now he could be snatched back to Home Dimension. Tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month. Or in the next minute.
He put an arm about Ooma's shoulders and gave her a hug. «The first thing we do,» he said, «is to find water and clean ourselves. If we come on any of your people looking as we do now they will either kill us for demons or die of fright.»
It was true. They were both covered with dirt and dried blood, and Ooma's hair was one great tangle. Blade had hacked the skin of the beast into two equal parts and made crude cloaks for them both, binding them around their waists with twists of gut. With the leftover scraps he made a pair of shoes of sorts for the girl — his own feet and legs were a mass of bruises, sores and still-oozing rock cuts. They were in truth sorry sights, both of them, but as Blade glanced back at the mountains he was not discontent. They were alive, with the barrier range and the Api behind them, and that in itself was miracle enough.
Over the valley, narrow and steep-sided and lushly rank with greenery out of control for centuries, there hung a great and perfect silence. Dry canals, choked with weeds, interlaced to make a great frond-choked net. Everywhere were deserted temples and desolate, leering images, some in the image of the Idol of Birkbegn, others merely grotesque. Ooma did not know their meaning or origin.
After some hours of walking, during which their thirst grew — the snow they had eaten in the mountains was gone — they at last found a temple which mirrored itself in a cool, steel-colored pond. It had no visible source and the water, when they plunged in, was icy cold. Blade guessed at springs on the bottom.
They drank and scrubbed and drank and scrubbed. Ooma made brushes of twigs and leaves and they washed each other. They flung away the raw skins. Ooma, a little to Blade's amusement, made a small prayer for the soul of the unknown animal that had saved them. Blade, by this time, had come to think of it as a Dimension-X version of a mountain sheep or goat.
Ooma was her old self again. This Blade knew when, being clean at last and their thirst slaked, she insisted on making love on an altar before one of the eroded idols. He held back for a moment, teasing her.
«You forget, girl. It is not yet dark and we have not yet eaten. It is against all the Jedd law and custom, so you told me. So it is written in the Books of Birkbegn.» He grinned and pointed around with a finger. «You see what happens when you disobey the Books? All this desolation.»
Ooma scowled at him and snatched at his penis, which was belying his words. «Do not tease me, Blade. It was you who begged me to break the laws, remember? And I did and I liked it. So I care not what happens now. Come, Blade, and carry me to the altar and we will celebrate being alive again. For we were all but dead and you know it.»
When they had made love and both lay satiated and content beneath the vacant stare of a long-forgotten idol, Blade said at last: «How far do you reckon it from here to the city of your Jedds?»
Ooma stirred lazily in his arms. She was nearly asleep. There was no sun, but a warm gray haze lay like a blanket over the valley and the air was silky against their newly-scrubbed flesh. When she did not answer, Blade nudged her. «Come, girl. This is no time for sleep. We must be on our way. For one thing there is the matter of food — I like your valley and it is warm and peaceful here, but there is nothing to eat. Your little stomach may still be content, but mine is not.» They had long ago eaten the last of the mountain beast, Blade taking the larger share since he needed it more and had had the burden of carrying Ooma over the most difficult trails.