Dimension Of Dreams

Chapter Nineteen

Blade and Narlena turned into the street leading back to the center of the enclave and increased their pace to a trot. Suddenly Blade heard running feet approaching, and another messenger dashed up to him.

The man was panting so hard that at first he could not speak. Finally he gasped, «Captain Blade, the other two columns are both in sight but neither is attacking. Captain Yekran wants to know if he should lead the reserves out to attack them»

«No, damn it, tell that id-«Before he could get any further, the dull pain in his head suddenly flared into something savage and pounding. He winced and staggered and would have fallen if Narlena and the messenger had not grabbed him and held him upright.

After a moment the pain faded back to a dull ache, but he could feel the veins in his temples pulsing unnaturally. Lord Leighton was trying to bring him home. The computer had reached out across dimensions for him, for his brain. For the first time in several trips it had missed its first thrust. But it would be trying again, and sooner rather than later it would drag him back to Home Dimension. And damn it, he didn't want to go now! All his work in Pura had been leading up to this battle, and now he might be snatched away in the middle of it and have to leave the overconfident Yekran in command.

The messenger was still holding onto him, staring up into his face, with wide eyes. «Are you feeling all right, Captain Blade?»

«Well enough for the moment. Go to Yekran at once. Tell him that he should not take anybody outside the walls unless I tell him. Anybody.» He slapped the messenger lightly on the shoulder. «Run!» The messenger shot off into the darkness even faster than he had come. Blade and Narlena followed more slowly.

They came up through the center of the enclave where the reserves had already heard of the rout of the southern attack. The fighters swarmed around Blade, pounding him on the back, pumping his hand, cheering loud enough to make his head ache even more. Seeing the Dreamers cheering and capering about as if the battle had already been won didn't improve Blade's already short temper. He was on the verge of bursting out furiously at the people around him when suddenly the blue-white light of the marconite lamps poured down the street from the north. A moment later the unmistakable roar of another battle followed the light. Messengers came pelting down the street, yelling, «Attack! Attack! All along the northern side. They're on the wall!»

Before Blade could move or speak, the entire reserve force was on the move, pouring north like stampeding cattle. The rush nearly swept Blade and Narlena off their feet. Blade waved his arms, struck at people with the flat of his sword, shouted at them to halt, roared threats, and roared curses that would have blistered their ears as thoroughly as any fireball if they had ever been heard over the uproar. He might as well have saved his breath. Most of the reserves kept on at a dead run to the north side of the enclave. As they came pelting up, Blade grabbed Narlena by the arm and dragged her to one side. Then he sprang up on a pile of stones to get a view over the heads of the crowd.

Some of the Wakers here had bows. Arrows were whistling in both directions; Blade saw little swirls in the crowd of reserves as men went down. He sprang down from the pile and pushed his way forward, using his hands, elbows, and voice on the staring, milling crowd. Eventually he got through and up onto the wall.

There were more Wakers here than there had been in the southern attack, but they were not rushing in. Not now, at least. A litter of mangled and charred bodies in the street before the wall showed where they had tried it once. Now they were holding well back at the end of the street, too far for accurate shooting by the catapults, too spread out to make a good target for the fireballs. Blade frowned. Were the Wakers here too demoralized from a single repulse to make another attack? Or were they waiting. And if so, what for?

Yekran spoke from behind him, and Blade spun around. «What's going on here?»

«They came in once and lost about fifty men. We used the lights, and that was a great surprise for them. After that, they went back to the end of the street. They seem to be waiting there for something.»

So Yekran had noticed it, too.

His sober voice showed it was bothering him.

«You're right,» said Blade. «But we can't do anything about them now. Let's get those damned reserves back where they belong, now! They can't do a thing standing around here like that and gaping.»

Yekran nodded and sprang down into the crowd. Blade heard his voice rising loud and clear and profane. A moment later the reserves began to break up and drift back south.

And a moment after that, from the east, came a single great burst of sound. Hundreds of voices were all shouting the same name at once.

«Krog!»

The terrible cry seemed to paralyze every man and woman in sight. Except Blade. He bounded down the wall, ignoring the pains the violent motion sent shooting through his head. Yekran too was already on the move, heading toward the east-west street at a dead run. Blade bulled a path through the reserves and caught Yekran as they both turned into the street. Then they halted.

Streaming toward them came a mob of Dreamer fighters, fleeing in a mad panic from what was behind them. Blade recalled that Erlik had been in command here but could not see him in the confusion. The wall itself was alive with Wakers shouting «Krog!» and «Blue Eye!» at the top of their lungs and pouring forward. The Dreamers on the roofs continued to hurl down stones, fireballs, and arrows, but the People of the Blue Eye ignored them. And the wall was abandoned! With the wall abandoned, there was nothing to stop Krog's fighters from storming straight into the heart of the enclave.

Blade whirled on Yekran. «Back to the north side. Send all the trained fighters from the reserve down here. Then get ready for another attack from the north. They're trying to hit us from two directions at once.»

Yekran vanished at a run. Blade whirled around and faced the fleeing Dreamers, drawing his sword and whirling it high over his head. His voice roared out, louder than even the war cries of the oncoming Wakers.

«Stop and fight, you damned cowards! Do you want to be slaves? Do you want to see Pura in ruins forever? What kind of fools are you?»

Some of the Dreamers, ignored him and pelted right on past him as if he had not been there. But others jerked to a stop as if Blade had thrown a rope around their necks. They turned and stared at him.

«Yes, you!» he bellowed. «Stop and help me, you idiots. We can still win this battle. We can still win Pura!»

Whether they understood his words or only his tone, more of them stopped. Blade pointed back toward the oncoming Wakers and waved his sword again. «Come on, then!» He ran toward the enemy, and a dozen men followed him.

Blade had never been more certain in all his adventures that he was rushing to his death. But even a few minutes delay in the rush of Krog's fighters. . He stopped worrying about possibilities and fixed his attention on the oncoming Wakers. They had slowed from a run to a fast walk. But in the excitement of being inside the enclave with victory in sight, their discipline was going. They were coming on in a formation as ragged as that of any other Waker gang, fighting pairs scattering and breaking up. Blade saw Halda just behind the front rank, waving her arms and yelling at the fighters. Everyone seemed to be having trouble with discipline.

Blade pulled his little band to a stop just outside accurate spear-throwing range. At the sight of them the Wakers stopped and started pulling their formation into some sort of order. Good. That meant a little delay right there. Then Halda sprang out in front of the line, bloodstained and filthy but so magnificently alive that for a moment Blade almost found himself admiring her.

«Blade,» she shouted. «Why are you fighting for these stupid cowards? Come back to the People of the Blue Eye and help my father rule Pura!»

«Do you want that, Halda, or do you just want me to come back so you can stick a knife in my ribs while I sleep? Maybe you're afraid of fighting me here? You'd rather torture more helpless women?»

Halda screamed in raw, incoherent rage, and for a moment she could not say a word.

Blade stepped forward a few feet and shouted, «Let Krog himself come out and tell me this! Then maybe I'll believe it!»

Blade licked his dry lips. He had already delayed the Waker charge by several minutes. If Krog came out, exposed himself. .

A familiar slim figure pushed his way through the front rank of the Wakers and stood facing Blade, hands planted on his hips. He threw his head back and shouted, «Blade, my daughter speaks with my voice. Come over to us now, and live. Stay where you are, and die!»

Blade nodded. This was going to be delicate. If the Dreamers thought he was really betraying them, one of them might put a spear in his back as he walked toward Krog. But he didn't dare say anything to them.

Slowly he moved forward, a step at a time, arms spread wide, hands empty, sword well-sheathed. Behind him he heard the Dreamers mutter and swear and spit on the pavement. «Who's a coward now?» one of them snarled. He heard a rasp of metal and took another step. He expected to feel a spear tearing through him before he took the next one.

He didn't. There was less than a hundred feet between the Dreamers and the Wakers, but Blade had walked ten miles with less strain and tension. Soon Krog seemed close enough to touch. Meanwhile the thunder of the battle to the north continued. Blade licked his lips. Time, time. Where were those damned reserves he had told Yekran to bring? If this didn't work. .

Krog took a step forward until the two men were only a yard apart. Blade held himself completely motionless, giving no sign of his tension. Krog took another step forward-and Blade moved.

Flat-footed, with no build-up, he launched a kick at Krog's kneecap. The man reacted while the kick was in midair, but he jumped sideways, not backward. He was still in range when Blade launched himself forward. One arm beat down Krog's guard by sheer brute force and the other fist crunched into the side of the man's head. Krog would have gone flying into the air if Blade hadn't grabbed him by the collar of his tunic. Before Blade could make another move; Halda's voice shrieked, «Kill him!» and a building seemed to fall on Blade.

The Wakers did not dare use their weapons while Blade held Krog, for fear of slashing their own leader to pieces along with Blade. For a moment Blade held the unconscious man up as a shield, then half a dozen pair of hands clawed at both of them and snatched Krog away. Blade drew his own sword and had it up in time to ward off a whistling slash. A backhand cut opened one man's neck, a blow to the groin dropped another. Several more went down from wounds inflicted by their comrades. The Wakers were too closely packed to safely swing their weapons the way they were doing. That was all that kept Blade alive, that and his own lightning speed and tremendous strength.

He thrust and slashed and parried in a lethal sequence, constantly changing, murderously unpredictable. He forgot about Krog, forgot about the battle to the north. He forgot about the Dreamers standing by and watching him die; forgot about them so completely he didn't even resent their standing by. Gradually he cleared a space about himself; gradually the men he cut down piled up about his feet or crawled away. Gradually he backed toward the wall so that at least he could protect his back. He took minor wounds, and the blood oozed down over his body until he looked like some nightmarish monster.

The knowledge that he was going to die was stronger than before. He was running out of breath, running out of strength. He fought in deadly silence now. Halda joined his opponents, and her light sword was as quick as a snake's tongue, darting in and out and sometimes leaving red where it fell. Was she just playing with him?

A roar erupted from behind him, a solid thunder of running feet, battle cries, and cheers. The faces around him suddenly turned and stared. Blade bowled a man over by sheer impact and planted his back firmly against the wall. Then an arm lunged up from below and seized his kilt.

Even as he stamped downward with his foot, he knew that this was the end. He was off balance, and Halda was rushing in, sword poised. He twisted frantically. Her thrust at his chest missed, but he knew that his throat was wide open. Then a scream rose above the uproar. .

«She's mine!»

. and the meaty chunk of a spear sank into flesh. Blade twisted again, staring at Halda, watching the sword that had been ready to end his life drop to the pavement with a clang. Both Halda's hands went up to jerk futilely at the spear transfixing her body. Her eyes stayed open for a moment, staring at Blade, then drifted shut as she joined the other bodies on the ground.

Not quite sure if he was sane or not, Blade stood and stared as Narlena and Yekran charged past him, screaming wildly, while a hundred or more Dreamers ran behind them in a solid mass. The charge struck the Blue Eyes like a battering ram hitting a gate. Once again there was a crash that nearly deafened Blade. For a moment the two fighting masses surged back and forth, clawing at each other. The shock of seeing both Krog and Halda go down struck the Blue Eyes, and their discipline and training broke. One more surge forward by the Dreamers and the Blue Eyes were fleeing madly down the street. Arrows, jeers, and a few overly bold Dreamers followed them. Blade was relieved to see Yekran dash after them and bring them back. He also noticed that a good number of the Blue Eyes were surrendering-and recognized many of them as former slaves he had trained himself.

The numbness of battle was gone now. Instead Blade seemed to be feeling everything, sensing everything, more intensely than before. Narlena seemed more lovely than any woman he had ever known as she stepped toward him, looking down at Halda's body.

«I said I would live at least until I killed her,» Narlena said quietly. «And I-look, there's Krog!»

Blade's eyes followed her pointing hand. The Waker leader was groaning and struggling to sit up. Narlena drew her knife and looked inquiringly at Blade. Blade shook his head, walked over to the man, and knelt beside him. He felt neither fear nor hatred toward Krog. In fact, he felt as if he were above all human emotion.

Krog's eyes flickered open, looked up into Blade's, and found no expression there. «Do you hear me, Krog?''

«Yes.»

«Will you take your gang and all the other Wakers and go far to the north, away from Pura?»

Krog was silent.

«If you agree, I will take your people prisoner when I catch them. If not, they will all die, and then you will.»

«All right. We will leave Pura.» With a faint smile he said, «I do not know if the Dreamers deserve to have the city, Blade. But I know that you do.»

Blade rose. He had to fight to realize that he had actually not captured all the surviving Wakers and driven them out of Pura. He found himself facing Yekran, noticing a long bloody slash across the man's muscular chest and the quiet joy in his eyes.

«We should have come sooner,» Yekran said. «But on the north side they just kept coming and coming. I remembered what you once told me about splitting one's forces. So I kept everybody there until the attacks stopped. We used everything we had, and killed more than half of them.»

More than half. How many was that, exactly? Blade didn't know. But he knew as if he had seen it engraved on a wall in front of him that the power of the Wakers was broken. They would have to follow Krog north-follow him, or die in Pura. The Dreamers-no, the Purans-would see to that.

But there were still things to be done. His brain was working with unnatural clarity, and he knew it.

«Yekran, give me a light.»

«A light?»

«Yes, of course.» Why couldn't the idiot see as clearly as he what needed to be done? «Some of the Wakers may be hiding in the buildings. Patrols have to go in after them, bring them out. Give me a light and half a dozen men, and I'll start.»

Yekran handed him one of the marconite lights but shook his head as he did so. «Blade, you are wounded and tired. And you have already saved us three times this night. You should lie down and rest.»

The word seemed to echo in Blade's mind for a moment-rest, rest, REST-the last echo flaring sharp, agonizing pain in his head. He staggered but kept his face expressionless. Another near-miss by the computer.

«Afterwards, Yekran, afterwards.» Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked slowly toward the nearest building. The strength seemed to be draining from his legs, but perhaps if he walked very slowly-?

His path took him toward the wall and toward a body lying about fifty feet behind it. A familiar body, among all the strangers. Erlik. The little man who had doubted that Pura could be saved. And he had died helping to save it. His sword was still clutched in his hand, and three Waker bodies lying near him told how well he had learned what Blade had taught. Blade kept on walking, holding the light tightly in both hands.

The pain came again, pulsing harder and harder, increasing steadily as the computer's grasp on his brain tightened. The wall of the building ahead seemed to fade from purple to lavender to white. Then it was transparent, and then it was gone entirely. A great flood of golden light poured out. Blade kept walking past where the wall had been, feeling nothing now, seeing only the golden light. It grew brighter until it was almost blinding him. At the same time a hot wind seemed to be blowing on him from all directions. A strange heat. It did not burn, did not take his breath away. It matched the light though. The light itself was still getting brighter and brighter.

Blade closed his eyes and let the heat envelop him bit by bit until all sensation faded away.