Dragons Of Englor

Chapter 16

Blade could never forget that wild ride through the night and the fog along Rodzmania's National Highway 32, with a dead man in the seat beside him and a white-faced woman crouching behind him. Of the many experiences of his adventurous life, it was certainly one he would have been glad to forget if he could.

He kept the gas pedal flat to the floor. He knew he did not speak, and he could not be sure he even breathed as the armored car roared north. From time to time he blessed the lack of initiative of the Red Flames' armed forces, and also the ruggedness and reliable engines of their armored cars. This type of armored car had a rated top speed of sixty miles an hour, according to the manuals. Blade didn't drop below seventy for the first half hour of the ride. The road was smooth and traffic didn't exist; he would have hit a hundred if the car could have done it.

After that first half hour he slowed down to an almost leisurely fifty. That was still fast enough to make them a difficult target in the misty darkness and carry them easily through all but the stoutest of roadblocks.

Blade would have been happier if the radio antennas hadn't been shot away. Then they might have been able to listen to the enemy's command network and find out how the hunt for them was developing. But as it was, there was nothing to do but push on and hope speed and boldness would keep luck on their side through the night.

It did. By two in the morning they were well into the area where small fishing villages studded the coves and bays along the shore. They pulled off Highway 32 onto a side road leading to a cliff overlooking the sea. Blade drove up the winding road while Rilla stood in the turret, her hair tossing in the breeze from the sea. The fog eddied erratically, now thicker than ever, now thinning out to the faintest mist.

They reached the top of the cliff at a moment when the fog was so thin they could look across several miles of open sea. For the first time that night they could even look up and see the stars.

Blade walked along the cliff until he found a place where the rim sloped downward, steepening gradually until it reached a vertical drop of two hundred feet to the sea below. He stripped the armored car of everything he and Rilla could use and carry, then strapped Piedar Goron's body into the passenger seat.

Slowly Blade drove the car to the top of the sloping rim, turned it onto the slope, then flung the door open and sprang clear. He landed hard, rolled to break his fall, saw the swinging door flash over him. He sat up and watched as the car went rumbling down the slope, moving faster and faster, swaying wildly from side to side. Then it steadied, rolled the last few yards, and plunged out into empty air. Blade held his breath until the sound of the splash floated up from below. The maps showed water a hundred feet deep at the foot of the cliff. Their trail would be safely broken, and Piedar Goron would have a tomb safe from disturbance by the Red Flames.

When the last sounds of the splash died away, Blade walked down to where Rilla sat on a boulder and helped her to her feet. «It's time we went to find ourselves a boat,» he said.

She nodded. «Will you tell me where the island is, and how the submarine will pick me up?»

«I thought you couldn't handle a boat?»

«Perhaps not. But fear is not a bad teacher, and my luck might last even if yours does not.»

«And if yours doesn't last either?» said Blade quietly.

«Then I will find a clean death and a clean grave in the sea, like Piedar Goron's, not what the Red Flames will give me if they catch me.»

Blade took her hand, and side by side they walked down the hill. As they walked, the fog again grew thick around them.

It was still thick at dawn, but by that time they were twenty miles out to sea.

Rilla's advice helped Blade choose a boat. In the first village, he would have chosen a heavily timbered cruiser with a full rig to supplement the engine. Rilla shook her head at that.

«I think that no one but a Red Flame or a collaborator would have such a boat here. If it is stolen, the owner will make a great cry. The local police and the Russland patrols will have to listen to him.

«If we steal a fishing boat, it will be different. The fisherman will not be happy, but he will think his boat was stolen by another fisherman, by the Red Flames, or by the underground.

«He will try to find and kill the fisherman himself. He will know that it is useless to complain when the Red Flames take his property. If the underground has taken the boat, then he will be happy to have aided them with no real danger to himself. So if we take a fishing boat I do not think we will be pursued.»

«Let's look for a fishing boat, then,» he said. As long as the boat would get them safely to Englor if necessary, he didn't much care what kind it was.

They found their boat in the second village, a forty-foot ketch with the masts set unusually far apart and a rusty one-cylinder gasoline engine. Blade hoped they wouldn't have to use the engine much-it looked more useful for anchoring the boat than for moving it. But the rigging and sails were in good condition.

Working silently in the darkness Blade set the mainsail, and the boat crept slowly out across the little harbor and into the channel to the sea. It seemed to take forever to tack down the channel, with Blade at the helm and Rilla keeping a lookout forward.

Once they were clear of the channel Blade turned to the engine. Rather to his surprise, it started. It also made a pounding roar like a badly tuned racing car running without a muffler. Blade wasn't sure he shouldn't turn it right off again before it brought every fisherman for ten miles up and down the coast out on their trail. But it was either the engine or wait until the breeze rose. Blade chose the engine.

He also sent Rilla below to get some sleep in the tiny cabin aft. He practically had to push her, although she was reeling with fatigue. Before she went, she threw her arms around him and kissed him three times-once on each cheek, once on the lips. Under the warmth of those kisses Blade sensed Rilla's relief and gratitude, and also unmistakable desire. It was a desire kept carefully under control for the moment-Rilla was a woman who would know when to think of love and when to think only of survival. But when the right moment came, that control would crumble. Blade knew that the right moment would come before they said good-bye, and he was glad of that. There was much more he wanted to know about this woman, and the pleasure and excitement of that superb body of hers was part of it.

Meanwhile, there was a sea voyage to take-a hundred miles to the island of Steyra if they were lucky, a thousand miles to Englor if they were not. Blade settled himself as comfortably as he could manage on the cracked and moldy cushions of the seat and clamped his hand firmly on the wheel.

Dawn crept through the clouds and the fog two hours after sunrise. By ten there was a faint hint of breeze. By the time Rilla awoke the fog was vanishing from around them, and a brisk wind was filling the mainsail. Blade showed Rilla the basic art of steering a boat under sail, then lay down on the cushions where he would be within easy call. His eyes were closed two minutes after he put his head down.