«We will push on, he said. «We will split into small, separate parties and scout carefully in these tunnels. Use the line we brought from the ships to guide us back to this place. There must be no fighting, no engagement, if the enemy is sighted. He who does so will return here at once and warn the others. When we have found Bloodax, if he is here, I will determine a plan to take him.»
Thane groaned. «I wish I had wine. I would not mind this foolishness so much if I had wine.»
The girl Sariah spoke then. «I have been through this place once when I was small and played with my brother on the beach. There is one tunnel that goes for miles and comes into a valley that in turn leads into the mountains.»
«That would be it,» Blade said. «I'll wager it. Which tunnel, Sariah?»
She pointed it out and they entered. A hundred yards into the tunnel they found a Hitt dead of wounds. Thane moved the body with his foot. «They came this way, right enough. But what of it-we have but twenty men and they not at their best. Nor am I. That leaves you and a girl.» He glowered at Sariah. «And I am not sure I would trust her.»
The girl stared at them and shrugged. «I cannot force trust on you. I care not.»
Blade studied her and could read nothing in her eyes or on her face. Thane was probably in the right of it, but it was a chance that must be taken.
«I have told the truth,» Sariah said. «This tunnel leads into a valley, and that valley leads into the mountains and to the place of the Hitt kings. I saw it as a child and I have never forgotten. Do as you will.»
« You are no more than a child now,» growled Thane, «and since you have gotten your belly full and are safe from rape you are a snotty child!» He raised his hand.
«Forego that,» ordered Blade. «We will push on. Sariah will go first, as far as possible ahead of us and still in sight.» He gave a command to a bowman. «Keep her well in view. If she seeks to escape, to run, kill her.»
Sariah smiled.
It was very cold on the plateau. Blade's fingers and lips were numb and blue. He went back to his hut and huddled by the fire.
He was still not positive that Sariah had led them into the trap. There was no proof and how could she have known that Loth Bloodax and his men were lying in wait?
They had pushed on for half an hour before entering another cavern. The floor was littered and jumbled with stone pillars and there were ledges all about the cavern. Sariah, carrying a torch, advanced beyond the center and pointed to another tunnel leading away. «This one.»
The Hitts struck them. They came yelling from the ledges and behind the pillars and in the semigloom and confusion it was soon over. Blade and Thane fought back to back and slew a dozen Hitts before rope nets were tossed over them and they went down. They were trussed up and lashed to poles and carried off. The Hitts cut off the heads of Blade's men and stuck them on lances. There was no sign of Sariah.
Blade went now to his fire and poked it up. He added more wood. The Hitts fed him well and kept him well supplied with wood and all other things for which he asked. That Bloodax had plans for him Blade did not doubt, though what those plans were he could not begin to guess. In the meantime he was treated well and his wishes indulged. He regarded the pile of skins he was fashioning into a balloon and the rawhide tube that would conduct the smoke into it. Blade smiled. It was simple enough. The Hitts could not dream of a balloon any more than an ordinary person in Home Dimension could dream of Dimension X. They might puzzle at Blade's demands and think him a bit mad, but they would never guess at what he was making. Until the moment came to use it. That would be risky. He had not forgotten the leather-men. They would be after him.
He sat cross-legged and began to sew, and thoughts of Thane came back. The big man had been recognized and condemned immediately to die as a traitor, as a Hitt who had deserted to the Zirnians. Blade, held in isolation in a bee-hive hut, had been told nothing but that Thane was to die a traitor's death. And that he must watch it.
Blade put away his needle. He had tears in his eyes and he was not ashamed of them. His fault. All his fault. Thane had been a drunk and a hard man to handle, but he had been loyal. At engineering he had been a genius by Zirnian standards. But most of all he had been Blade's friend.
Blade had watched. They took him to the place of execution in a valley. Loth Bloodax was there and the man called Galligantus, though Blade was not permitted near them. He near forgot Bloodax, for he so longed to be at the throat of Galligantus, a lean and sinewy man with a mean, pinched face and eyes like dull diamonds. Galligantus who was victor in the end.
Thane died well. He spat in the face of Galligantus. Blade shouted in fury and frustration and was gagged. He willed himself not to watch it and failed. He looked. He had to look.
It was explained to him. The punishment for traitors was the Death of Five Strokes. Galligantus had begged to be executioner and his wish had been granted.
Thane's left hand was struck off. Then his left foot. Then his right hand and right foot. He was left to grovel in the dirt, his face twisting in agony. He did not scream and he tried as best he could, scrabbling on bloody stubs, to get to Galligantus. At the very last he spat again.
Galligantus stepped near and cut off his head.
The head of Thane was stuck on a pole and brought to Blade, and he was made to look at it for an hour. His mind turned at the end of the time and he thought he saw Thane grin and ask for wine. After that he became dizzy and sick and only half aware of what went on. When he came to himself again he was in the hut on his plateau prison. He lay ill for a week, sometimes raving, only dimly sensing that people came and went and that he was being cared for. He was sure he dreamt, and then not so sure, that a girl tended him. Once, in a moment of lucidity, she called herself Lisma and said that she was daughter of Loth Bloodax. Another time, though of this he was never positive, he thought she made love to him, that she aroused him and had her fill of him and he half conscious.
Blade heard the trapdoor rise and clatter and put his needle away. He pushed the pile of skins back into a corner. He had not dreamt it all-her name was Lisma and she was daughter to Bloodax and she had made love to him then. And many times since. Lisma came to him three times a week. Her purpose, as she explained without guile, was to become pregnant. It was Hitt logic, Dimension-X fantasy, and Blade could not fault it. It was pleasant enough and it killed the time. He did not like her, nor trust her, and it did not matter. No doubt she felt the same way about him. She was, Lisma explained, only being dutiful to her father's wishes when she came to him.
Now, as he watched her fit the trapdoor back into place and start toward the hut, Blade determined to force the issue. He must have an audience with Loth Bloodax. So far he had been denied this, for Bloodax showed little interest in his prisoner, and with every day Blade grew more frustrated and enraged. How could he cozen Bloodax, or win him over, if he could not come to see him!
He stepped away from the door and bowed as Lisma entered. She bore her usual grave and unsmiling look. She was a small girl, fragile in bone, with a tiny waist and slim legs and large breasts that belied the rest of her. She brushed past Blade and went directly to a chair and perched on the edge of it like a wary bird.