He had no time to see more before the Death-Vowed leaped high into the air, screaming again. They rose so high that for a moment Blade wondered if they were going to take off into the sky like real bats. Then with yet more screams they thudded down on the Lugsa's deck.
If Blade had not seen the approaching boat and if the captain had not alerted his fighters, the Death-Vowed would have swept the Lugsa's decks in seconds. The men came down in fighter's crouches, then sprang toward Blade, swords and knives flashing in their white-gloved hands. More chilling screams poured from the mouths of the hideous white masks.
Blade and the captain surged forward to meet the Death-Vowed. Blade's axe split open a mask and the head behind it. Then the Death-Vowed gave a scream of a very different kind as Blade's sword chopped off his arm. But a cloven skull and a missing arm could not stop the Death-Vowed at once. Legs moving by pure reflex drove him forward still. Blade had to back away to keep from going down under the man's dying lunge. A gap opened between him and the captain.
Two of the Death-Vowed charged into it, and the captain howled in agony as their knives drove into him. One eye gone and a knife sticking in his belly, he reeled back. But sheer courage kept him on his feet. As one of the Death-Vowed closed in, knife raised to carve the sign of Ayocan on the captain's flesh, the captain's teeth closed on the attacker's wrist. The Death-Vowed screamed and jerked his arm back and forth, trying to shake off the dying man's jaws. Then he screamed again as Blade's axe chopped off the arm at the shoulder.
Two of the Death-Vowed down, four to go. But four against one was more than Blade wanted to face, particularly when the four were men with no care for their own lives. Blade knew such were the deadliest possible opponents, willing to die to take you down with them-sworn to do so, in fact. He backed up again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw other figures appearing at the railing. Not Death-Vowed this time, but the regular Holy Warriors of Ayocan. They were going to leap down behind him. .
They did. But at the same time the armed fighters of the Lugsa's guard swarmed out of the cabin, brandishing their own axes and swords and screaming vengeance for their captain. They hurled themselves at the Holy Warriors so fiercely that the enemy were hurled backward onto the advancing Death-Vowed. Blade was caught in the middle. For a moment he stood there, jammed so tightly among his enemies that he could not strike at them nor they at him.
By sheer strength he pushed the men away, punching and kicking and shoving. A space opened around him, a space large enough for him to use his weapons. A Death-Vowed caught off balance died with Blade's sword chopping his spine in two. He fell to the deck, writhing like a broken-backed snake, stabbing at Blade's legs still, until Blade slammed a foot down on his ribs. There was a crunch and a gasp and a sudden silence.
A Holy Warrior faced Blade next, but not for long. Axes rang against each other's blows. But Blade's sword crashed through the other's guard by brute force and deep into the man's shoulder. The man's sword fell to the deck, the clang lost in the battle roar all around. But he screamed very audibly as Blade ran him through the stomach. Blood spurted, flowing down onto the deck, making the planks slick. For a moment Blade's feet did a frantic dance on the planks as he fought for balance. A dying Death-Vowed blundered against him, and they both went down.
Blade heard the dying enemy's breath hiss inside his mask, felt claw-gloved hands tearing at his own skin. He got a full nelson on the other's neck and heaved. The spine went with a crack, and the thrashing legs and clawing hands went still. Blade started to rise and another body crashed into him. He went back to his knees and twisted about, hands reaching for the new attacker's throat. But the man-a Holy Warrior-was already dead, face split open and an axe embedded in the mass of bloody bone splinters.
Finally Blade did stand up, as he realized that most of the men around him were also dead. Blood, discarded weapons, and splintered bat-masks lay thick on the deck. Alongside the Lugsa the sails of the Ayocan boat still loomed. Without thinking, Blade snatched up an axe and a sword and hurled himself over the railing. He landed on the enemy's deck so hard that for a moment he went to his knees again, and pain stabbed through one ankle.
A Holy Warrior saw Blade, hesitated for a moment, then rushed in. The hesitation was fatal. Blade was ready to meet the attack, and both axe blow and sword swing clanged off his guard. Blade's riposte met no such resistance, and the Warrior's thigh gaped and spurted.
Blade rose, and feet clattered on the deck as the boat's crew and priests ran hastily aft. He saw them clustered near the stern. And he also saw the dim glow of a brazier by the railing amidships.
Three strides forward, and his sword licked out. The brazier went over, and hot coals went flying. The tinder-dry matting covering the deck blazed in an instant. By the glow of the fire Blade saw the cluster of men aft cringe and stare. One of them moved forward, cautiously holding out a bucket. Blade snatched up an axe from the deck and threw it with deadly accuracy. The man bent over, staring down at the axe embedded in his stomach. The bucket clattered to the deck and emptied itself uselessly around the man's feet. The flames blazed higher, reaching up for the sails. Then the sails themselves burst into orange flame, and Blade knew the enemy ship was doomed.
He turned, and realized with a cold shock that he would be too in a few more seconds. The survivors of the Lugsa's crew were chopping loose the grappling hooks that held the temple boat alongside. A gap was already widening between the two craft. Blade sprang up onto the railing, and stared down at the water below. It was black in the light of the fire, but he could see dartings and splashings as the scent of blood drove the fish wild. Then he tensed his legs and leaped out into space.
For a chilling moment in midair he thought he was going to fall short, to fall into the jaws of the fish. But two of the Lugsa's crewmen saw him coming, and practically snatched him out of the air. All three of them crashed down on the blood-slick deck with a jar that knocked the wind out of Blade. When he got his breath back and stood up, the enemy boat was drifting away into the darkness, a pyramid of fire almost from end to end. The priests and crewmen were still clustered, aft but as Blade watched, he saw a white splash by the steering oar. Someone had decided to accept death from the fishes, rather than from the flames. A moment later a gurgling scream floated across the dark water as the fish tore into the man. The screams did not last long-it would be only a matter of seconds before the man had no lungs or throat to scream with.
Blade turned to the men who had caught him. «Thanks. Without you I'd be on the fishes' menu tonight along with those over there.»
A man Blade recognized as the Lugsa's mate nodded. «We could not do less for you. You saved us. Ayocan priests not use Death-Vowed on river before this. I do not understand.»
«Neither do I,» said Blade. «That was why I wanted to destroy the whole boat and its crew, not just beat off the attack. If their first try at river piracy costs them the boat and the crew, they may think twice before making it a habit.»
There was another reason, one he could not mention. The attack by the cult boat suggested that someone high in the cult knew of Blade's presence aboard the Lugsa. Perhaps he knew of Blade's mission also, and was sending a warning downriver to the temple mounds of Gonsara. If so, destroying the cult boat and every man aboard it might make sure that the Lugsa reached Gonsara before the warning.