Dimension Of Dreams

Chapter Sixteen

In spite of the punishment she had taken, Narlena healed more quickly than Blade would have believed possible or had dared hope. This was thoroughly good news, for it meant they could make their escape sooner.

It had to be «their» escape now. Blade's original idea had been to get Narlena out and then stay behind long enough to cover her tracks before making his own escape. That was no longer in the cards. Blade didn't know exactly how suspicious Krog was, and he certainly didn't want to find out the hard way. He and Narlena would have to succeed or fail together.

Besides, time was becoming more important than Blade had expected. The former slaves were coming along well in their training; so well in fact that Krog's ambitions were coming to the fore again. The week after Narlena's torture Krog called Blade aside during a training session and asked him if he thought the People of the Blue Eye were ready to take the offensive again.

Blade had expected this question, but it was still a disagreeable one to answer. If he urged Krog to wait, he might once more be arousing the man's suspicions. If Krog placed him under guard again, it would be more difficult to manage an escape. But if he assured Krog that the people were fit for combat and ready to hurl themselves once more against their enemies, Krog might take this as a signal to launch his long-awaited attack on the Dreamers. And the Dreamers needed time badly.

«Well, Krog,» Blade said slowly, «some of the new fighters are ready for anything. But most of them will need more time before they will be as good as the original people. Remember, they were starved and weak many of them, before they joined us. It takes a long time to make a half-starved man strong enough to swing a sword for hours on end or tramp all right through the streets of Pura. We do not want to wear them out and use them up the way their former masters did.»

Krog nodded, but Blade did not like the skeptical look in the man's eyes. «So. If we should take the offensive in the next few weeks, it would be mostly with the old fighters-you might call them my fighters?»

Blade nodded reluctantly. He suspected a trap lying somewhere in Krog's words. But he had no idea where it might be found.

«While your fighters go right on training, getting better, stronger, more loyal to you. Certainly, certainly.» Krog nodded again, and this time there was no mistaking the glint of ironic amusement in the man's eyes. «Blade, I think what you want is to play a very old game. I learned to recognize it when I was only so high.» He held his hand about three feet off the ground. «If I play with you, soon your fighters will outnumber mine. Then you can pick up the leadership of the People of the Blue Eye as easily as a child picking up a stone lying in the street. No, Blade, I will not play. And I think you had better be very careful if you want to go on being my War Master. I cannot find anyone as able as you are. But I can find people who will not play games with me.»

And that was that. For a moment Blade was almost tempted to throw caution to the winds and rely on his own speed and strength to enable him to kill Krog, snatch Narlena from the slave quarters, and make a run for it. Then the moment of madness passed. He realized that Krog had told him no more than the truth: he was going to have to be very careful. If he lost his post as war master, he would lose his freedom of movement and almost all chance of escape. But if he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open, sooner or later a chance would appear and he could at least snatch at it. There could no longer be an escape carefully planned for weeks in advance. But one improvised on the spur of the moment might work just as well. And even if it didn't, he had no other choice.

So he apologized to Krog and agreed that if the leader thought it was proper, the new fighters could certainly be included in the next offensive. The ironic amusement disappeared from Krog's face, and he returned to a straightforward discussion of plans. Among those plans was the attack on the Dreamers. Krog mentioned no specific time for it-a small consolation. Then he dismissed Blade, who went back to his work.

The next morning when Blade began his rounds he found that Krog had assigned no less than four guards to «escort» him-two from Krog's faction and two from Halda's. Apparently father and daughter could at least cooperate in keeping an eye on Blade. Blade was not worried, though. He mentally noted the four guards as yet another obstacle in the path of making a fast getaway when the time came. Then he went about his business as if they had been invisible and inaudible, except when he chose to snap orders at them. He would be damned ten times over before he would give Krog or Halda the satisfaction of even thinking that they had cowed or intimidated him.

The days settled back down into a routine of training, inspecting fighters and weapons, discussions with Krog and Halda, and patrols of the area around the tower with mixed squads of new and old fighters. On those patrols Blade was particularly alert. He had seen Narlena go out on working parties even before all her cuts and bruises were healed. If he should meet her somewhere out there in the maze of streets surrounding the tower. . well, he still went armed.

Finally a summer afternoon came without a cloud in the sky. There was even a brisk wind blowing over the city and blowing away the normal mugginess of its summer climate. Up on top of a ten-story building the wind was even brisker than it had been down on the street level. Blade stepped cautiously up to the crumbling parapet and looked out over the city. The wind blew away the sweat he had worked up in the climb from the street below. Behind him stood the four guards, expressionless and silent. After many days of alternately ignoring and browbeating them, they had given up trying to do anything except stay with Blade or at least in sight of him. That was exactly the way Blade wanted it. The more apathetic the guards, the better for him when the time came to move.

His eyes drifted downward-and he started violently. His hand clenched the parapet so hard that a piece of the rotten stone jerked loose and toppled over the edge. He watched it plunge down a hundred feet and more to land in the street with a faint distant crash. It missed the working party of slaves winding past below by only a few feet. There were about twenty of the slaves, guarded by a half-dozen fighters. Among the slaves, hobbling along halfway down the line, was Narlena.

Trying to keep his excitement from showing either on his face or in his voice, Blade turned around and said to the guards, «Let's go back down. I want to talk to the guards of that working party.» He led the way to the stairs without another word, and the guards followed him in equal silence.

Going down the murky, dust-clogged stairs, it was hard enough to keep from breaking into a run. He reached the street and broke out into the sunlight again to see Narlena less than a hundred feet away. There was nothing between them now except the guards of the working party. He forced his feet to stay at a walk. A fast walk, though, one that soon brought him up with the rear of the working party. Now Narlena was only twenty feet away.

His own four watchdogs were behind him. Two guards were at the rear of the party, and two more were in the middle just ahead of Narlena. Ten of the twelve fighters on hand were in a position to move against him quickly. Long odds, but surprise would be on his side. The, problem would come once they had broken free-if enough guards were still on their feet, they might wolf-pack him and Narlena, making it extremely difficult for them to make a run for it. And they could not hide and wait for dark-not when Krog would turn out every man and woman to find them. Only one hope-get out, fast!

They were approaching an intersection. The street running off to the left would take them west, to the edge of the city. Once out in the country, there would be more room to run, hide, eventually circle back across the river, and come into Dreamer territory from the south. The intersection moved closer-fifty feet away, now twenty, now-

Blade lunged forward, sword flashing free of its scabbard, into the back of the guard in front of him in a single sweeping motion. Blade was halfway to Narlena before the falling guard hit the ground, before any of the four guards behind him could do anything more than stare and gape.

Narlena turned toward him as he dashed up to her. He slapped her hard on the rear and pointed down the street. «Run!» he yelled, and swung his sword at the guard on his right as the man rushed at him with spear held high and ready. The sword clanged down off the spear shaft and laid open the man's stomach. He screamed and reeled back, clutching at his blood-spurting midriff. Blade sprang through the line of slaves, dragging Narlena behind him. He chopped down the left-hand guard before the stunned and bemused man could raise his sword. Then he shouted again, this time to all the slaves. «Run! Flee! The People of the Blue Eye are doomed. I go to bring vengeance on them. Vengeance!»

The roaring voice jotted the slaves into action. Blade saw the four at the head of the line lunge at the two lead guards, clawing at the spears as they rose to stab downward. A slave screamed as one spear ran through his stomach, but both guards went down under the clawing hands and kicking feet. A second later Blade heard screaming. He waited no longer; the street lay open before him and Narlena. He pointed west and broke into a run.

A spear whistled past him as they ran. Another skipped off the rocks many feet to one side of them. Then there was nothing but the wind in their ears and the pounding of their own feet on the rubble-strewn streets. The sounds of a savage little battle faded behind them-the slaves and the guards were fighting each other to the death. They would delay the pursuit.

On they ran. Now there was silence behind them and only the empty city lying before them, its buildings steadily dwindling as they moved west. Narlena was keeping up far better than Blade had expected. The hope of freedom and revenge seemed to be pumping super-human strength into her thin, battered limbs. Only the tightness in her face revealed the effort she was making.

Blade's memories of maps and patrols told him that they had about three miles to cover before reaching open country. They were nearing the end of the second mile before Narlena started to flag and slow. Her breath was coming in tortured gasps as she thrashed her arms about wildly. Blade led her off the street and into a building that offered shade from the sun. She collapsed in the dust and lay still. Without the convulsive heaving of her chest Blade would have thought her dead or dying. After a few minutes she sat up and gasped, «Is there any water?»

Blade shook his head. «I couldn't bring any with me. That would have made the guards suspicious.»

She nodded wearily. «At least those guards won't bother anybody any more. I kept telling the slaves that they could drag the guards down by sheer weight of numbers any time they wanted to do it. They finally believed me.»

«You were responsible for that?» Blade let his surprise show openly in his voice.

«Why not?» she said matter-of-factly. «I have learned much while I was a slave. I am a Dreamer no longer. I will never be one again, even when we go back to the other Dreamers and lead them to kill every Waker in Pura.» Her jaw tightened as she said that. Blade reached out and took her hand.

He sat there holding it silently until Narlena shook herself and said, «Blade, I think I can run again.» He helped her to her feet. They went out into the street again, looking cautiously about them for signs of approaching pursuers. For a moment Blade considered climbing to the top of the nearest tall building to get a better view to the east. Then he decided against it. The time it would take might give the pursuit a chance to organize, even to catch up. Getting caught in a building would be the end of them.

They set off to the west again. Now they moved at a steady lope that Blade knew he could keep up for hours and Narlena could manage as far as the edge of the city. Among the buildings were occasional patches of rank grass that had once been parks. Scarecrow trees stood tossing their branches in the stiffening breeze.

Soon they reached the streets where the purple thistles were growing in hedgelike masses from cracks where slabs of pavement many feet square had been heaved upward. The gutters were thick with mud, debris, and dead leaves. Some of the more ruined buildings were completely overgrown by moss, grass, thistles, and even small trees until there was practically nothing to show that a building had once stood there. Finally, there were no more buildings on either side: They slowed their pace to a walk as they passed through the five-century-old arch that marked the western edge of the city.

Beyond the arch lay the open country, green, rankly overgrown where it had once been tamed. The only signs that men had once lived there were the road running west and the occasional villas which dotted the hills and valleys. Stairs ran up to the top of the vine-sheathed arch. This time Blade climbed up it to take a long and careful look back toward the city. He did not expect to see any pursuers. He and Narlena would have a considerable head start on any force the People of the Blue Eye could send out. And the other Waker gangs still had little desire to move about in the daytime.

He saw nothing moving, nothing anywhere in all that wilderness of stone, although he strained his eyes to the limit. But from the top of a tower visible far to the east streamed a long coiling plume of dark blue smoke-the general alarm signal of the People of the Blue Eye. If the pursuit was not yet in sight, it was certainly being organized. Time to move on again.

Blade and Narlena scrambled down the dusty stairs of the arch and headed west along the main road for another half mile. Then they turned south, toward the river. Their path led along a private road leading up to one of the villas and beyond them across the wooded hills. They slipped through the shadows under the trees for half an hour, then reached a sunlit patch of long grass, completely concealed on all sides by tall trees. Best of all, a small, clear stream flowed out from under the roots of one of the trees. Blade climbed another tree and once more checked their rear. Once more he was relieved to neither see nor hear any signs of pursuit.

Here they were well out of sight, and except for the woodcutters and hunters, there were few among the Wakers with much tracking skill in open country. Before Krog could bring his hunters down from the north, Blade and Narlena could easily be safely back in Dreamer territory.

They drank. Blade felt the water pouring down his throat, sluicing away the caked dust from the long run, and restoring life to his aching limbs. Then with Narlena curled beside him, he lay down and slept.

When they awoke, twilight had drenched the forest. They drank deeply again, stretched their cramped, chilled limbs, and moved on again. After half an hour they came out of the forest into open rolling countryside, within a mile of the river.

Toward the east Pura was sinking quietly into shadow — silent, dark, and apparently lifeless. Above the towers the first stars were coming out in the purple sky. Blade handed Narlena one of his knives, drew his sword, and led the way to the river.

Although the country south to the river was almost treeless, their pace was far from easygoing. The hedges that the villa owners had cultivated and kept carefully pruned in the days of Pura's glory had run wild and grown almost to the height of the trees. Vines wound their way in all directions, heavy with overripe berries that poured a sickly sweet odor into the evening air and squashed to slippery, sticky pulp underfoot. Everywhere the purple thistle grew, rank and tangled, clawing at their bare legs with its multitude of thorns. Blade tried to avoid the thistle patches as much as possible, but sometimes there was no way around them, nothing to do but to hack a way through with his sword. By the time they were halfway to the river, both his legs and Narlena's looked and felt as if they had been lashed with barbed wire.

Their goal was a bridge that had once carried a high road running from north to south, a few miles west of the city. If the Wakers had blocked it off, however, Blade planned to swing still farther west until the walls of the gorge dropped down into level country. Then they could easily swim or ford the river. But he hoped they could use the bridge. The faster he got back to the Dreamers and warned them of Krog's plans, the, happier Blade would be.

They slipped down the last few hundred yards toward the riverbank as cautiously as if they had been stalking a Waker gang amid the ruins of Pura. In the gathering darkness Blade could see Narlena only as a shadowy form. But the sureness of her step as she moved along beside him was a vivid contrast to the cringing and trembling girl he had led out into the open country for the first time so many weeks ago.

A hundred yards from the entrance to the bridge Blade stopped and motioned Narlena down flat on the ground. Then, sword held ready, he stalked forward. He groped for a firm and silent footing at each step, senses on hair-trigger alert, suspicious of any sign of a hostile presence. If Krog's men were lying in ambush, he could at least give Narlena a chance to make her way into the safety of the darkness and then west and across the river. Step by step now, with longer and longer intervals between steps, the bridge twenty yards away. .

A sudden eye-searing glare of light as a dozen blue-white beams leaped out of the darkness and pinned him to the spot. Blade's sword leaped high in an instant, and he whirled around, his dazzled eyes trying to make out behind the glare what sort of enemy he faced. Who in Pura could turn night into day like this?

All but one of the lights died, and out of the suddenly returning darkness came a familiar voice. Unbelievable, perhaps, here and now, but unmistakable.

«Blade! Welcome back!»

«Yekran! Is that really you?»

The brawny figure of the Dreamer fighter loomed out of the darkness. Two thick solid arms reached up and clapped Blade on the back.

«Of course it's me, you idiot. Is Narlena-?»

«Still alive and well, and with me.»

Blade turned his head toward the darkness behind him and shouted, «Narlena, it's Yekran and some other Dreamer fighters. Come on!»

He turned back to Yekran on legs shaky with the release of tension and shook his head. «All right, Yekran, I believe you. But what the devil are you people doing out here?»

«That's a long story. Let's be on our way home, and I'll tell you on the way. We don't wait around out here even now.»