He pointed at the sacks. «Harvest good?»
The men looked at him sharply, and one nodded. «Best in years,» he said.
Another added: «Lucky, too. We got it all in before the storm.»
Then the men left, locking and barring the door from the outside. Blade and Khraishamo had a candle, a jug of water, a bucket, and nothing to do but wait for their host to make up his mind who they were and what should be done with them.
Blade leaned back against the piled sacks. «Where do we go from here, I wonder?» he said, half to himself.
«To sleep, if you've got the brains of a fish,» said Khraishamo wearily. The pirate was not only tired, the ale he'd taken with dinner had affected him more than Blade. The Sarumi seldom used alcohol.
«If I had the brains of a fish here, I'd eat them,» said Blade. «I was just asking myself, are we among friends or enemies?»
Khraishamo looked up at the ceiling. «I wouldn't shut a friend up in a room like this, myself.» Blade had to agree. There was no window, and the door was made of solid planks several inches thick. The walls were stone, and the ceiling was more planks held up by beams as thick as Blade's body. Short of using dynamite, the only way out of this room was through the locked door.
«On the other hand,» Khraishamo went on, «I wouldn't feed and bathe an enemy like he did.» He shrugged. «Maybe he can't be sure what we are. So he's holding us until somebody comes along to tell him.»
«Either that, or he thinks we're lying but can't do enough harm to be worth worrying about.» Blade rather hoped his guess was the correct one. If Khraishamo was right, the three of them would be well treated but carefully guarded. If they were considered harmless and more or less ignored, they might find a chance to slip away. It would be dangerous here if the Maghri in Kloret's pay did come storming down on the farm. The filled store rooms hinted that the rebels were gathering in force, but they could hardly be strong enough yet to meet the force of Maghri Blade had seen.
If the worst happened, Blade knew he himself could plunge into the wilderness and survive there until it was time to return to Home Dimension. But that would mean leaving Khraishamo and Rhodina behind-so forget that, he told himself. The Three Musketeers of Shell Island would stand together, win, lose, or die. That was one certainty in all the confusion spreading across this Dimension.
Now that he'd settled this in his mind, the best thing was to go to sleep. In one corner of the room was a pile of empty sacks. Blade divided the pile in two and gave half to Khraishamo. Before Blade could spread out his own sacks, the pirate was sprawled on his, snoring like a distant thunderstorm.
When Blade awoke, he thought at first that a real thunderstorm had come to join Khraishamo's snores. Certainly there was a tremendous din from outside, loud enough to penetrate even the solid stone walls. Then he started picking out individual noises. In the next moment he was completely awake and on his feet.
Outside, horses were neighing, fists pounded on doors, feet thudded on the ground, and men and women were shouting, both in Goharan and in another language Blade couldn't make out. A distant rumble growing rapidly louder told of more horsemen riding up at a gallop. Blade found himself listening for the crackle of flames, then realized he'd heard enough already.
The Maghri were attacking the farm, he and Khraishamo might die like trapped rats, and Rhodina was probably already dead. She might be able to convince the Maghri that she'd be worth more as a slave than a corpse, if she got the chance. She probably wouldn't. If the Maghri were in Kloret's pay their orders might be to simply kill everyone who might be a rebel.
Then someone started lifting the bar outside the door. By now Khraishamo was awake. They looked at each other, then picked up a handful of sacks apiece. The sacks wouldn't do much as weapons, but they might serve as shields long enough for them to snatch weapons from the Maghri. After that it would be a short fight, but Blade was determined to make it a bloody one. He saw the same determination in Khraishamo's eyes.
The bar clattered to the floor, the bolt was thrown, the door started to open, and Blade and Khraishamo got ready to fight. Then Rhodina hurried into the room, a short sleeping robe flapping around her knees and a broad smile on her face. She stopped as she saw Blade and Khraishamo.
«Why are you-? Oh, I see. You thought-maybe the Maghri were attacking. They're here, but they're friends! The people here-they're rebels, and they've promised friendship with the Maghri against Gohar.» She seemed ready to start dancing with delight and excitement. «I don't understand it or how it all is, but-«
«I don't understand it either,» said Blade. «But then I don't understand most of what's happening in Gohar these days. At least that explains why the Maghri weren't on their guard. They did expect this would be friendly territory.» Rhodina nodded, took Khraishamo's hand, and led him out the door. Blade followed.
Out in the barnyard the noise struck Blade like a physical blow. There were three or four hundred mounted Maghri in sight, and more coming every few minutes. On top of all the other noises, Blade now heard the rumble of cartwheels on the bricks of the yard. Several men were hauling carts piled high with grain sacks out of the barn. That explained the stored grain-it was intended to feed the men and horses of the rebels' Maghri allies.
For a few minutes the farm people seemed to forget that Blade and his friends existed. It would have been possible to escape in all the confusion, but things had changed now. They weren't in danger of being slaughtered by the Maghri, and if they could persuade the rebels' new allies to take them along when they moved on-Blade began to rehearse arguments to use on the Maghri chiefs.
He didn't need them. A few minutes later Gribbon came up, along with several armed farmhands and three Maghri. One of them carried a bronze-face shield and wore a chief's headdress.
«Blade,» snapped Gribbon. «You and your friends-get ready to mount up. We're moving out.»
Khraishamo and Rhodina looked at each other. Then Khraishamo shook his head. «I can't ride,» he said. «None of the Sarumi can. Our bones-«
«Can be left behind if you don't ride,» said Gribbon. «Either come with us and live, or stay here and be part of the soil. We aren't leaving any Bloodskin spies.»
Khraishamo's breath hissed between his teeth. «You're speaking strongly, Gribbon.»
«Yes, and you don't deserve it. I've really no time to speak at all.» He started to turn away. «If you're not ready to ride when your friends are, be ready to tell them farewell.»
«Wait,» said the Maghri chief. His Goharan was so heavily accented that without the computer's work on his brain Blade might not have understood him. The chief looked at Khraishamo, then at Rhodina, then at Gribbon.
«The fishman cannot ride,» he said. «But we have litters, for the sick and the hurt and the old women. I give him one, if he gives me this woman while he is with us.»
Khraishamo and Rhodina started, and Gribbon looked confused. «Yes,» said the Maghri chief. «Fishman-you have good woman. If you are no good to ride, you are not good for her. She needs a man, not-«
That was as far as the chief got. With a scream, Khraishamo lunged at the chief.
«No!» Rhodina's scream was even louder.
Either some last bit of sense or Rhodina's scream held Khraishamo back from killing the chief. Instead his fists smashed into the man's face like twin battering rams. The chief sprawled on the mud and dung-covered bricks, blood running from his nose and mouth.