Blade raised the torch in salute. «In time, Janina. In time.»
Chapter 13
Blade told his lie, that Galligantus had slipped-mayhap a swoon or fit? — and fallen into the abyss. The junior officer did not believe it and Blade would have died then but for the order of Bloodax that he return safely. Galligantus had passed the order on and so his men dared not slay Blade now. They took him back, bound and with a halter about his neck, and he was once again imprisoned on the tower of rock. Lisma was forbidden to visit him.
But visit him she did, creeping in the dead of night after having bribed the guards. Blade did not ask how. She brought him a long dagger and minced no words as she handed it to him. She would not let him touch her.
«My father broods on this matter,» she told him. «It is not his way to act suddenly. He keeps apart, even from me, and when he comes to a decision it is never changed. In the end, Blade, I think he will find you guilty of killing Galligantus.»
«And what of you, Lisma? Do you think me guilty?»
She sat in the chair, tense, her hands nervous. «Yes. I think you slew Galligantus. Because of what he did to your friend Thane. I can understand that-any Hitt can. And to my thinking it is no great loss-his widow Sariah is not weeping overmuch. But that is not the point-Galligantus was a Hitt chief and a friend of my father. They were boys together. Galligantus was mean and envious, a man not much liked, but he was loyal. My father cannot let the matter pass as nothing, cannot ignore it, for there would be trouble with the tribes. He will punish you in-the end, Blade.»
Blade, seated on his cot, toyed with the dagger she had given him. It had a curved eight-inch blade and was razor sharp. The haft was of polished wood.
«What manner of punishment, Lisma?»
Her blue eyes were soft and moist. A sudden tear ran down her cheek. Yet buried somewhere in those eyes he detected a hardness, an unforgiving hatred, and found it also in her voice when she spoke.
«You will be taken to a mountain top and staked out for the vultures. It will be a slow death and a terrible one. We are quits, Blade, and I have been your fool. But I do not wish you such a death. That is why I gave you the dagger.»
He regarded the weapon with a half smile. «You think I should use it on myself?»
«If you have the courage. It will be better than the vultures.»
Blade nodded. «Yes. I agree to that.»
Lisma left the chair and came to within a foot of him. «I will go now, Blade, and will not come again. It may be that I will have your child. I hope not, for I will have to kill it, god or no.»
He was shocked and let it show. Of all things, he had not expected this. «Kill our child?»
Her blue eyes narrowed and her cold smile sent a chill up his back. He had near forgot that she was a Hitt-and a woman.
«When I sought to have your child without love between us-that was one thing. But then you spoke of love and I gave love and thought you did. You lied, Blade. You gave no love. You lied to me and made a fool of me, thus causing me to make a fool of my father. I want no child from that. Goodbye, Blade. Use the knife.»
She was gone. Blade sat in thought for some minutes before he used the knife. Not as she had suggested.
He found a long pole, taken from the cot frame, and bound the dagger to it with some of his rawhide. It made a crude spear.
He began to build up his fire. When it blazed well he covered it with green wood, for smoke, and went out on the plateau of stone. The wind was brisk, from the north as usual, and it lacked but an hour to sunset. He went to the rampart of boulders and gazed southward. A leatherman glided nearby and scrutinized him with hard eyes, then disappeared under the far rim.
Beyond those peaks lay the thalassic coast, the channel with its coves and inlets, and Blade knew he would find corpses there. And so armor and weapons. The Hitts did not bother to bury the common dead. Could he reach the coast, or even gain near to it, he had a chance. But he must go at once. Any moment now the brooding Loth Bloodax might cease brooding and come to action.
He would have to do it in the dark. He did not like the idea, even with a moon already visible in the east, but it must be done. He dared not wait for another dawn. He would have to take his chances. The balloon was going up-he smiled grimly at the Home-Dimension slang-and he with it, and he had no way of knowing how it would end. He glanced again at the peaks, flaming gold in the crepuscular light, and turned back to the hut. Looking would not solve anything. It was murderous terrain and he would need all his luck.
As the sun slid from view the trapdoor opened. Blade felt a tightness in his chest and held his breath. Were they coming for him now? He reached for the crude spear. If they came, he would fight it out here, for once bound and helpless he would be vulture bait.
A hand appeared and shoved a bowl of food and a can of water onto the roof, then disappeared. The trapdoor closed. Blade breathed again. He drank the water and wolfed down the food, not knowing when he would eat or drink again. The moon was gibbous, scratching its hump on a far peak, and he must go before it grew too light. He had never known the leather-men to fly at night, but did not preclude it.
He began to work. The balloon was complete, sewn as tightly as he could get it, and, though there would be leaks, he thought it would work. It had better. This pillar, this sandstone phallus on which he now stood, fell away sheer for five hundred feet. A long way to fall.
Thus far he had proceeded on theory, not daring to run a test. When it was full dark, but for the moon, he hauled his bag of skins out on the rock and spread it ready for inflating. He fitted a rawhide tube into the bottom opening and ran it to the hut chimney. Over the chimney top he fitted a leather apron and pushed the tube into a hole left for it. The smoke, thick and greasy, began to filter through the tube and into the balloon. There were many leaks and about this he could do nothing.
Blade had been short of rawhide and, not daring to ask for more lest he arouse suspicion, could not rig a full net over the balloon. He settled for straps tied into the skins near the fringe, knotting them together to give him a handhold. He had no way of making grommets, and if the straps pulled loose, or if the skins tore away. . he did not like to think of it.
By the time the moon was an hour high the balloon was swelling, a puffed and lopsided monstrosity that moved with the wind and tugged at its tethering strip of rawhide. Blade regarded it askance and for a moment even his stout heart quailed. Could this poor thing even get him off the stone tower? Would it not be better to wait, to take his chances and await a better time to escape?
He went into the hut and heaped more wood on the fire. He had come this far with the plan and he would finish with it. He took his homemade spear and went back to the balloon. It was in the air now, tugging ever more fiercely at its halter. Smoke leaped from a score of seams. Blade punched it with his big fist. Solid, crammed with hot air longing to rise. It would not be long now.
A leather-man came over. Blade cursed. He had guessed wrong. They did fly at night, and with the moon so bright they could not fail to see the balloon. See, yes, but would they understand?
The leather-man glided past with the usual hissing sound, not twenty feet above the balloon. For a moment Blade thought the Hitt was going to land on the tower, and he snatched at his spear and stood ready. The leather-man barely cleared the far precipice-they were skilled at that-and drifted down into the valley. How much had he seen or understood? Blade ran to the rampart and peered anxiously down.