Champions Of The Gods

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Gardens of Stam were as dark as the belly of Chaos, thought Jormin. He could barely see his own men following him toward the outer wall. That darkness was a favor from the gods, though. It would be just as hard for anyone to see him and the men.

The soldiers were no more alert than usual tonight, either. They'd challenged the little party only once. Even then the forged pass got it through without any delay or awkward questions.

The party left the graveled path and slipped across smooth, damp grass toward the base of the wall. Jormin sighted the large kaso tree that was the most important marker. He paced off twenty steps on a line with the tree, then turned toward the wall. He could see it now-a faint discoloration in the great earth mound where the tunnel had once bored through it. He nodded to the workmen. They scurried forward with their picks and shovels and pry bars and went to work. The Jade Masters' guards spread out in a half-circle, hands on swords. They all had muskets as well, but Jormin's orders were strict-no shooting until the Raufi joined them.

Katerina came up to stand beside Jormin. She wore a plain white robe belted in at the waist, and Jormin knew she wore nothing under it. The thought made him grin.

He noticed that she was wearing a short sword slung on her belt. «You are armed,» he whispered. «Why?»

«I could not be sure that you would meet me on time. I had to be ready to protect myself if some drunken soldier came along.»

«Ah. I understand.» She could not be planning treachery, or even thinking of it. He was certain of that. She was too hungry for what he and he alone could give, what he had already given her. She would do her best to see that nothing went wrong. He could rely on her now and for always, even when they sat together in the High Chamber of the House of the Consecrated and ordered out the victims for public execution!

The workmen were making entirely too much noise for Jormin's peace of mind. He winced at every thud of a falling brick or clink of a tool. The inner end of the tunnel was open now, wide enough for a man to pass through. Jormin saw the workers dropping down into the ditch one by one and squeezing through the hole in the brickwork. Several of the guards followed them. The men could work faster at the outer end of the tunnel. They would be well underground and in less danger of being overheard, thank the gods for that! Jormin licked dry lips and squeezed Katerina's hand, his nails digging into her palms until he heard a little whimper of satisfied pain.

How long he and the remaining guards waited, Jormin couldn't even guess. He only knew that no one came by, no one challenged them, no one seemed to notice that anything unusual was going on. He also knew that the waiting eventually came to an end. First the workmen came scurrying out of the hole, fast enough to scrape skin and tear clothing on jagged edges of brick. Then the guards followed, moving just as fast, their swords sheathed. Jormin stepped forward, ready to rebuke them for their nervousness and wondering what was bothering them.

Then the answer to his question climbed out of the hole, with the first of the Raufi behind him. Like the rest of his men the leader wore a black robe and black sandals. Even his weapons were blackened so that they reflected no light. His hood was shoved back on his head, revealing a high forehead and a hard, bony face, with restless, seeking eyes and an aggressively hooked nose. The chin was concealed behind an unmistakable spade beard.

It was Dahrad Bin Saffar, supreme war chief of the Raufi, come to personally lead his men in the stroke that would destroy Kano forever.

In the room at the top of the western tower of the Eighth Gate Blade paced restlessly back and forth. He could not pace very far. The room was packed with more than forty armed men and all their weapons, as well as a mass of ropes and rope ladders. The room was dark and stifling, because all the shutters were closed and locked to keep any light or sound from escaping. The air was heavy with the smells of leather, oiled metal, and human sweat.

Eventually Blade forced himself to sit down. It was his plan, and he ought to at least look as if he had complete confidence in it! Otherwise, he would end up making all the men following him nervous, from Mirdon on down. He mentally ran over the trap they were setting for Jormin again. He couldn't think of anything he'd left out, or anything the Raufi could do he didn't have some way to meet. Now if they could only go into action at the right time-

Footsteps sounded on the spiral stairs in one corner of the tower. A helmeted head popped up into the room. «Just got the word. They're inside and coming this way.»

«Good,» said Blade. «How many?»

«Oh, sixty, they guess, lord.»

Blade nodded and the head disappeared. Men began tightening sword belts, loading muskets and pistols, tying extra knots in their climbing ropes.

Sixty men. That would be Jormin's crew, plus the Raufi. There were forty men in the top room of each of the gate towers. That should be enough.

Dahrad Bin Saffar had a high reputation for courtliness and poetic skill with words. These were gifts the Raufi valued, and they honored him more highly because of them.

Tonight, though, he was neither courtly nor poetic. He sharply gestured the kneeling Jormin to rise.

«Are your men all here?»

«Yes, Noble B-«

«Any sign of extra guards?»

«None.»

«Good. We will do what we have planned. Take the lead, Jormin.»

They headed toward the Eighth Gate at a swift, silent trot. Jormin kept wanting to break into a run, but each time his feet quickened, he heard a voice behind him.

«Slower, man, slower. Hurry, hurry has no blessing from Jannah, and the noise hurry causes still less.» They covered the two hundred yards to the Eighth Gate in only a few minutes, although to Jormin it seemed more like a few hours.

The Raufi went swiftly into action. Dahrad must have rehearsed each man over and over again until he could do his part blindfolded. Some fanned out into the Gardens of Stam, to lie in wait with pistols and swords for anyone who might come to interrupt the party. Others began climbing the vines that grew up the inside of the wall, knives in their teeth, to deal with the men mounting guard on top. Still others waited under cover, ready to storm into the towers themselves as soon as the alarm was given. Then they would open the gates, and that would be the signal for the waiting Raufi to come thundering in.

Jormin hoped everything would go well. He badly wanted those two thousand Raufi around him, between him and the vengeance of the Kanoans. He looked at Katerina. She was nervously trying to look in all directions at once and fingering the hilt of her sword. She had even more reason than he did for wanting protection. She was not only betraying Kano, she was betraying the Champion of the Gods. The penalty for that would be horrible.

A faint, choked cry sounded high above. Then something sailed through the air and landed with a thud almost at Jormin's feet. It was the body of a soldier from the walls, throat slit from ear to ear. Jormin noticed, with an uneasiness in his stomach, that the man had also been castrated. He looked upward and saw the heads of three Raufi appearing over the railing on top of the wall.

Then from the very top of the western tower, orange flame stabbed out as a light cannon went off. Two of the Raufi on the wall flew high into the air, shredded into bloody rags by a blast of grapeshot. The third lurched, toppled over the railing, and struck the ground almost beside Jormin. His head wasn't human any more, it was a smashed mess of bone and brains.

Jormin went on looking upward because he couldn't do anything else. Sheer terror was freezing every one of his muscles and joints. So he saw clearly the shutters in the windows high in the two towers of the Eighth Gate fly open. He saw ropes and ladders snake out of those windows and men come scrambling down those ropes and ladders. Finally he saw the Champion of the Gods himself come sliding down one of those ropes. It seemed to him that the Champion's eyes glowed fiercely red in the darkness, and that a golden light played about his hair. That was the sight that unfroze Jormin's joints and muscles. With a scream of terror he turned to run.

Blade hit the ground as lightly as a cat, then dropped flat, rolling to confuse anybody aiming at him. A bullet whistled over his head and spannnnggged off the wall. The Rauf who'd fired dashed in, throwing his useless pistol aside and raising his sword for a slash at Blade.

Blade leaped to his feet, parried the slash with his own sword, then thrust up under the Rauf's jaw with his dagger. The Rauf stiffened as the dagger's point drove upward into his brain. He collapsed.

As Blade jerked his dagger free more cannon shots roared out from the top of the towers. The soldiers left up there were firing light swivel guns at the Raufi lurking in the bushes farther inside the Gardens of Stam.

Grapeshot whistling about their ears would keep those Raufi busy.

In the glare from the cannon fire Blade saw Katerina clearly. She stood alone in her white robe, a startling contrast to all the dark-clad figures dashing madly about. Her sword was drawn. As Blade watched, one of the Jade Masters' guards passed too close to her. She shifted to the right and reached out, fingers closing in the man's long hair to drag him to a stop. Before he could move or shout, Katerina's sword sank into his back. One, two, three quick thrusts, then she was pulling the sword free as the man collapsed and lay twitching.

Blade plunged toward Katerina, sheathing his dagger and drawing a pistol as he ran. He dashed up to her and had a moment to throw an arm around her. Then she turned, pulled away from him, and broke into a run, pulling up the skirts of her robe as she ran. Blade saw that she was heading off after Jormin, raised his pistol, and sighted in on the Second Consecrated.

Katerina saw him aiming and screamed out, «No-don't kill him for me! He's mine!»

Katerina's cry made Blade hesitate for a second. That gave Jormin time to stop, snatch a pistol from under his robe, and fire at the white-robed figure rapidly catching up with him.

Blade saw Katerina reel as the bullet struck her. His own pistol crashed out. The Second Consecrated threw up his arms and fell backward onto the ground, a gaping dark hole in his forehead and another in the back of his bald skull.

Blade wouldn't have noticed or cared if the Second Consecrated had turned into a dragon and flown away into the night. All his attention was for Katerina. He ran to her as she sagged forward onto her knees, one hand clamped to the wound under her right breast. As he reached her, she collapsed, rolling onto her side and then onto her back as her strength faded.

«Kat.» His throat was suddenly too tight to say anything more.

Katerina tried to speak but could only cough. Blood bubbled up on her lips and trickled out of the corner of her mouth onto the ground. The white robe was stained dark now, from breast on down. Her sword was still in her hand, also dark from point to hilt with the guard's blood.

At least she'd put down one enemy, Blade thought. Then he realized that she was trying to speak again. More blood came out, but this time so did words. Blade strained to hear them.

«I-wanted-to-love you,» she said. «I-«

«I wanted to love you too,» said Blade. He bent down to kiss her as her lips curved into a smile. The smile slowly froze as he kissed her. By the time Blade stood up, it was frozen forever.

Someone screamed shrilly, seemingly almost in his ear. «Behind you, Champion! It-«The words ended in another scream and the chug of a Raufii sword hacking flesh.

Blade whirled, in time to see a tall bareheaded Rauf charging at him whirling a blood-dripping sword around his head. Blade had heard enough descriptions of Dahrad Bin Saffar to recognize the man he faced. He gave a terrible shout. Here was a miracle indeed! Dahrad Bin Saffar, chief and guiding genius of all the Raufi, delivered into the hands of his enemies for the slaughter!

A moment later Blade wasn't quite sure who was going to be slaughtering whom. Dahrad's sword whistled down at him. He had to jump back to avoid being split down the middle before he could even draw his own sword. Blade drew the sword with one hand and his second pistol with the other. He parried another whistling slash as he raised the pistol. This wasn't the time or place for meeting Dahrad Bin Saffar chivalrously or gallantly, sword against sword. This was the time and place for killing him.

Dahrad saw Blade's raised pistol and shifted his next slash. It missed Blade entirely but smashed across the pistol's barrel with a tremendous clang. Blade's arm flew up as his finger closed on the trigger. The pistol went off with a crash, but the bullet whistled off harmlessly into the darkness. Blade dropped the pistol and went to work with his sword.

Blade was taller than the chief of the Raufi and had a longer reach. But Dahrad Bin Saffar was just as good a fighter and he was wielding a longer and heavier sword.

After the first few slashes and parries Blade knew that he had a first-class opponent on his hands.

Around him Raufi, Jade Masters, and the soldiers of Kano under Mirdon's command were engaged in a wild, swirling, totally chaotic fight, without plan or pattern. Blade heard muskets and pistols going off in ones and twos and ragged volleys, the raspings and clangs of swords on armor, men shouting and screaming. He hadn't heard the sound of the Eighth Gate going up, and that could be either good or bad news. It was good that the Raufi hadn't taken the towers and opened the gate. It was bad that Mirdon hadn't beaten back the Raufi enough to open the gate himself and let the enemy's riders into the trap prepared for them.

Dahrad's sword whistled over Blade's head close enough to scrape his helmet. Blade got home a thrust of his own, but it didn't push through the coat of fine mail Dahrad wore under his robe. It wouldn't matter whether the gate opened or not if Dahrad Bin Saffar cut him in two first! Blade settled down to concentrate grimly on the opponent at hand.

The duel went on as the two men stamped around and around each other, slashing and thrusting, sparks flying as their swords met and sweat pouring off both of them. Blade kept looking for something to give him an edge. He couldn't spend all night fighting with the Raufi chief! But every time he thought he'd found an opening, Dahrad was blocking him or fading out of reach. Fortunately, Blade was able to do the same.

The duel went on, and Blade began to wonder if it would go on all night, whether he could afford this or not. Dahrad Bin Saffar was striking harder and faster now. It seemed that being able to hold on so well against Blade was filling him with more confidence, more aggressiveness. His sword smashed down against Blade's until each impact jarred Blade from head to foot and made his sword vibrate like an iron rod hammered on by a blacksmith.

Dahrad launched an overhead slash, the strongest attack yet. Blade's sword leaped up to block it. Dahrad's sword smashed down against Blade's, hard up against the crossbar of the hilt. With a sharp metallic crannnng, Blade's sword broke off at the hilt.

Dahrad's furious slash sent his heavy sword whistling on down until its edge sank deep into the ground. Blade dropped his useless sword hilt and closed in. His booted foot came down on Dahrad's sword faster than the man could raise it. For a moment the sword was immobilized Blade pivoted and kicked out hard with his other foot. Dahrad Bin Saffar sprang back, just in time to keep Blade's foot from smashing his jaw to a ruin. As he sprang back, he let go of his sword.

Blade swung down out of his pivot and snatched the fallen sword from the ground. He swung it three times about his head, so fast that it hissed and whistled. Then he charged in at Dahrad Bin Saffar. The Rauf stood as if he had one foot caught in a trap. He seemed paralyzed by the spectacle of his own sword coming at him in the hands of an enemy.

Blade swung the sword three more times. Dahrad Bin Saffar drew a dagger, but the first swing of Blade's sword knocked the dagger out of the man's hand and sent it flying. The second swing chopped deeply into his thigh, and his lips curled back from his white teeth in a defiant snarl. The third swing slashed clear through Dahrad's neck, and his head flew ten feet and rolled along the ground. The spouting body collapsed backward as Blade dashed to retrieve the head before any of Dahrad's tribesmen could rescue it. When he picked it up by the beard, the snarl was still frozen there on the lifeless face.

As Blade stood there, holding Dahrad Bin Saffar's head, he heard the rumble and squeal of the gate opening. He whirled as someone shouted his name and saw Mirdon running toward him.

«Champion! Champion! We have the edge on them, and I have ordered the gate opened. We must get back into the tower, or-«He broke off and stopped abruptly as Blade held out his grisly trophy.

«Gods above!» exploded Mirdon. «Him!» He shook his head in a daze. «A second miracle has come indeed! You-you killed him?»

Blade nodded. «I also killed Jormin, after he killed Katerina.»

«Ka-«began Mirdon, even more dazed and bewildered. Blade didn't wait for the Commander to organize his thoughts. He tossed Dahrad's bleeding head to Mirdon, saw him catch it, then turned and ran toward where Katerina's body lay. He knew the kind of battle that would be sweeping through this area in a few minutes. He didn't want to leave Katerina's body lying in the middle of that battle, where it would be trampled and mangled.

As he reached Katerina, the roar of Raufi drums and the blare of their trumpets sounded outside the walls. The two thousand mounted men were on their way toward the open gate. Blade lifted the body in his arms and ran back the way he'd come, toward the door of the stairs in the western tower of the Eighth Gate. As he started to run, he heard the rumble of wheels and the pounding of hooves from the direction of the Garden of Stam. The mobile reserve was moving into position. The trap for the oncoming riders was being set, and in a few minutes more it would be sprung.

Blade ran as he'd seldom run in his life, leaping over fallen weapons, skirting fallen bodies. Most of the fallen lay still. Some were still writhing feebly. He couldn't stop for any of them, friend or foe. He could only plunge forward, arms locked tightly around Katerina, holding her body as tightly as he'd ever held the live, warm, loving woman.

He plunged forward until the door gaped dark before him. Two of the soldiers were still on guard with muskets held ready. They let him through, then dashed in after him, slamming and barring the ironbound door behind them. Just as the door cut off the outside world, Blade heard the swelling rumble of the Raufi as they began moving in toward the wall.

Blade ran up the winding stairs of the tower even faster than he'd run across the level ground. His chest was heaving as he burst out into the open air on top of the tower. He laid Katerina gently on the stones, then turned to the nearest soldier.

«Do you have-«

A volley of shots sounded from outside the walls, rising above the swelling sound of the approaching riders. Bullets whistled overhead and spattered on the stones. Soldiers all around Blade threw themselves flat on their stomachs. Only Blade continued to stand, looking out over the desert as the Raufi charged in toward the wall.

They fired more shots as they came in, without shooting at anyone or anything in particular. They seemed to be shooting for the fun of it, out of high spirits, as they rode in toward the open gate that marked the way into Kano and certain victory.

Well outside the walls the Raufi slowed down. Drums roared again and trumpets called out as the two thousand riders sorted themselves into a column narrow enough to pass through the gate. Then they were on the move again, at a trot, a canter, a gallop. They pounded up to the wall, vanished into the gate, and emerged on the other side in the Gardens of Stam. Blade rushed to the inner side of the tower. All around him the soldiers sprang to their feet and followed him, desperately reloading their muskets and pistols, winding up their crossbows, shouting and cheering. They shouldn't be making so much noise, Blade thought. But the Raufi were making so much more noise that ten times as many soldiers couldn't have made themselves heard.

Then came a sound that drowned out soldiers, Raufi, and everything else. The trap closed. Twelve heavy cannon crammed to the muzzle with grapeshot let fly at the Raufi. Three hundred iron balls swept down the column. Blade saw human heads and arms fly high into the air, saw bodies drop from the saddle cut completely in half, saw camels fall to the ground with all four legs blown off in a single moment. The echoing roar of the cannon died away, and a pandemonium of human and animal screams replaced it.

The soldiers around Blade stopped cheering long enough to lean over the wall and fire their muskets and crossbows. Then they drew back to reload. The twelve cannon fired again.

The Raufi were still coming. Some of them were simply pushed on through the gate by the pressure of their comrades behind them. Others seemed to have hopes of riding down the guns and seeping out into the Gardens of Stam. They were waving their swords and firing off pistols as they rode in through the gate.

A dozen more guns roared out on the right flank, lighter guns firing loads of musket balls. The new line of Raufi did not die as spectacularly as the first, but they died just as fast. Riderless camels charged about wildly, swerving as they trod on writhing bodies, screaming with the pain of wounds.

Both batteries of guns fired again. Then Kanoan trumpets sounded for the first time that night, and five hundred horsemen swept in from the left. They wasted no time firing, but charged home with sword and lance. A good many of them couldn't stay in their saddles and fell, to be trampled to death under the hooves of their comrades' horses. A good many more missed their blows. A solid mass remained to crash into the Raufi at a full gallop, taking them in the rear, cutting their column in two.

As the surviving Raufi tried to rally and fight their way back through to the gate and out of Kano, musketeers came running out from behind trees. They dashed into accurate range, fired, then dropped their muskets and set to with swords. Behind them ran the gunners from the artillery, waving axes, rammers, handspikes, and the other tools of their trade.

Nobody could hope to sort out who was doing what to whom in that shambles. Even the soldiers around Blade stopped firing, afraid of hitting friend instead of enemy. Nobody could hope to know how long it went on, either.

Eventually it all came to an end, and that was enough for Blade. The battle was over. Jormin, Dahrad Bin Saffar, and most of the two thousand Raufi would never trouble Kano or the Kanoans again. He spread a cloth over Katerina's face, then left her lying where he'd put her and went down the tower stairs to the ground.

A wide area around the Eighth Gate was a ploughed-up, hoof-marked shambles. Dying men and animals, bodies, parts of bodies, pools of blood, and smashed or discarded weapons were everywhere. A continuous low moaning rose from the maimed and dying, and the equally inescapable reek of death rose from the rest. In the Gardens all around the battlefield, large trees stood stripped of leaves, smaller trees lay chopped completely through, bushes and flowerbeds lay where they had been violently uprooted or trampled flat.

Silence had almost returned when Blade saw Mirdon riding toward him on a borrowed cavalry horse. The Commander carried nothing but a bare sword and a bloodstained cloth bag, and in his eyes was a look Blade didn't like very much. He remembered the night he and Mirdon had first met, when the Commander had spurred his horse up an impossibly steep slope to get at Blade. That night Mirdon had had the face of a man determined to do the impossible or die trying. Now the same look was there, even stronger.

«Ho, Champion!» shouted Mirdon. «Will you ride with me?»

«Where to?»

«I ride to throw Dahrad's head-«he held up the sack «-in the faces of the whole of the Raufi. We have already accomplished tonight most of the miracle we needed. But our work will not be finished until we have made the Raufi storm the walls in the face of our guns and our courage.»

«Won't what we've done already be enough?» said Blade.

«Perhaps it could be,» said Mirdon. «But the hope of Kano must not rely on a 'perhaps.' It must rely on what is certain. Not unless I hurl Dahrad Bin Saffar's head into the very camp of the Raufi will it be certain they will come against our walls. Then they will come; and we will have our victory and our vengeance.»

Blade found he did not care as much as he perhaps ought to for the vengeance of the Kanoans. But he knew one thing for certain. If Mirdon was going to ride out on this mad mission, it was his place as the Champion of the Gods to ride along with the Commander. He certainly had no hope of persuading Mirdon not to ride.

«Very well, Mirdon,» he said. «Find me a horse. Let us ride out.»

It took a few minutes to find a horse able to carry Blade's two hundred and some pounds without strain. Then Blade and Mirdon rode out of the Eighth Gate at a canter. The soldiers lined the wall and the tops of the towers to watch them go. Doubtless they thought both men were riding to certain death. But mortals do not question a Champion of the Gods, and the soldiers of Kano had long since given up trying to argue with Mirdon when he had his mind made up.

They cantered past a few stray Raufi wandering about on foot, too stunned by their defeat to pay any attention to the riders or even find their way back to their own lines. They cantered past more bodies of men and camels. Then they were out into the open and the city was receding into the darkness behind them.

Here there had been miles of trees, bushes, and gardens before the Raufi came. Now everything living had been trampled out of existence, shot to splinters, or chopped up to feed the Raufi campfires. The ground was bare and hard, and it stretched for two open, level miles to the Raufi lines. Mirdon dug in his spurs, and his horse bounded forward at a gallop. Blade followed.

A full moon was up by now. It gave the ground underfoot and the dust the horses kicked up a luminous quality. It seemed to Blade that they weren't riding so much as flying effortlessly over a great expanse of pure, glowing light. He began to have the feeling that there were no Raufi ahead, that this flight would go on forever, to the end of the world and whatever might lie beyond it. The pounding of the horses' hooves on the hard ground faded out of Blade's senses, the ruined and splintered trees faded, Mirdon himself faded.

A volley of bullets whistling past snapped Blade abruptly back to reality. Three hundred yards off to the right, more than a hundred mounted Raufi were angling in toward the two riders. Blade looked ahead and saw a line of campfires stretching clear across their path in a wide arc. Mirdon did not pull rein or show any sign he'd seen anything. The two riders plunged on toward the campfires. More bullets whistled past, closer this time.

Blade was just about to shout to Mirdon when the Commander himself seemed to wake from his daze. His sword flashed in the moonlight as he whirled it high over his head. He swung his horse around toward the mounted Raufi.

Blade also pulled his horse around, considerably relieved. He would have followed Mirdon wherever the Commander had led him taking any risks involved. As Champion of the Gods, he had no choice. But he could hardly regret not having to commit suicide!

Somehow, Mirdon was managing to get still more speed out of his horse as they charged toward the Raufi. Blade found it hard not to fall behind. The thunder of hooves and the rank sweat of the laboring horses rose to fill the night and shut out the rest of the world. Now it seemed that they weren't just flying across the ground. It seemed to Blade that they might fly up and away into the sky.

They came up to the Raufi with bullets whistling about their ears, kicking up dust all around their horses, but not hitting them. The darkness and the battle and the strangeness of everything seemed to be unnerving the enemy and throwing off their aim.

The two rode straight in until Blade felt that he could practically reach out and touch the leading Rauf. He saw Mirdon drop the reins and reach down for the canvas bag that swung from his saddle. He saw Mirdon's arm whip out and over, hurling the bag out at the Raufi. He saw the Raufi scatter, spurring their camels frantically in all directions, some of them falling out of their saddles. Mirdon gave a great whooping roar of laughter at the spectacle the Raufi were making of themselves. Then a musket crashed out, and he reeled in the saddle as the bullet took him under his raised sword arm.

Mirdon's horse felt the rider's hand slacken on the reins, and it began to slow. Blade knew that in another moment it might panic and bolt, or hurl Mirdon helplessly to the ground. He frantically urged his own horse forward until he was riding alongside Mirdon. The Commander's face had gone as white as flour. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and pumped steadily from his wound.

Mirdon's arm drooped and his sword fell to the ground. Blade dropped his reins and guided his horse with his knees as he reached out for Mirdon. The Commander lurched and practically fell into Blade's outstretched arms. Blade gave one tremendous heave and Mirdon seemed to fly out of his saddle. He nearly flew right over Blade's horse and pulled Blade to the ground with him, but somehow Blade caught him. With the last of his strength Mirdon twisted himself into a sitting position in front of Blade. Then his head lolled back against Blade's shoulder, and his mouth opened in a gush of blood. Blade hauled his horse's head around toward the walls of Kano and dug in his spurs again.

The horse had less than half its strength left, and it was carrying nearly twice as much weight as before. Somehow Blade's spurs and curses pushed the horse along at a lumbering trot until they were out of range of the enemy. Then the horse slowed to a walk, and nothing Blade could do would push it along any faster. It didn't matter now, though. A squadron of cavalry and a couple of light guns came out from the Eighth Gate and escorted them in.

As they rode in through the gate, Blade heard the First Consecrated's trumpeters sound a long blast. So he was not surprised to see Tyan himself waiting just inside the gate. His sedan chair with its slave bearers stood behind him. Beside it stood two blue-draped litters. Blue, Blade recalled, was the color of mourning in Kano.

There were plenty of hands to lift Mirdon's body down off the horse. That was all anybody could do for him now. Without any orders, half a dozen soldiers carried the body over to one of the litters. Tyan himself bent over it, closed Mirdon's eyes, and drew one end of the draperies over his face.

The tension was draining out of Blade now. He saw a white-robed form stretched out on the other litter-Katerina. Slowly he walked over to stand beside Tyan. Their eyes met for a moment, in a wordless understanding that somehow said a great deal without saying anything Blade could grasp clearly. Blade noticed that there were tears in Tyan's eyes. Then, side by side, they followed the litters as the soldiers bore them off.