Gladiators Of Hapanu

Chapter 19

Blade had been fighting on the Island of Death by day and in the bedrooms of Gerhaa by night for several weeks when one morning Skroga approached him.

«Blade, I will speak with you.»

«I am willing.»

«Where no other can hear us, please.»

Blade nodded and rose without another word. He followed Skroga past the mouth of the shaft to the surface, and on into the tunnels beyond. These were seldom visited, and the smell of mold, dampness, and decay was overpowering. Soon they were even beyond the lighted area. Skroga took a candle from his belt, lit it, and led the way on through the darkness.

Blade began to wonder why Skroga was leading him out here, alone and nearly unarmed. He had nothing but his eating knife, while the older man wore a broadsword and fighting dagger. Perhaps Blade would have the edge if he got the fight down to bare hands, but even that wasn't certain. Skroga's tribe had a system of unarmed combat similar to karate. As a young man, Skroga had been an adept, and what he'd lost since then in speed he'd gained in experience.

Finally they stopped at a place where Blade could hear water dripping and see a dark pool at the edge of the light cast by Skroga's candle. He could also see something else that made him rather wish Skroga had chosen another place to stop. At the very edge of the pool lay a white skeleton, the skull detached and crushed in by a terrible blow. Blade slowly shifted position, trying to face Skroga and at the same time keep his back to the solid rock wall.

Almost conversationally, the old gladiator said, «There are tales. Beyond this pool you find caves. Caves to give a way out to the world and freedom.»

«Do you believe that?»

Skroga shook his head. «I wish it, but no. We go out of here on the bridge to the Island, or down the dead men's holes.»

Now Blade could guess what Skroga might be suggesting. He decided to gamble on that guess being right. «There is also the tunnel between the barracks and the guardhouse. Such a tunnel goes two ways.»

«Yes, it does. But there is the guardhouse.»

Blade smiled. «And if there are no guards in the guardhouse?»

«How is this to be?»

«There are ways. I do not know any of them now, but I can look and listen for them.»

«You know you can do this?»

«Yes. I have already done it.» Blade laughed, sending harsh echoes rolling around the tunnel in the darkness. For a moment it sounded as if the earth itself was laughing. Skroga stiffened at the sound. Before the older man could recover, Blade went on in a businesslike tone.

«Skroga, I think it is time to stop playing with our words and speak like wise men. At least I know you are wise, and I hope you think I am. You want me to use my ability to move about in Gerhaa to help the fighters of the Games break out to freedom. You brought me here to ask me that, and to kill me if I refused.

«You will not have to kill me. There is nothing closer to my heart than freeing the men of the Games. I must add one thing, however. Without freeing all of Gerhaa from the Protector, the fighters cannot hope to stay free long. Once they are free of the barracks, will they go on fighting until the Protector is cast down?»

Skroga pulled at his beard with both hands, until Blade expected it to come away in handfuls. Finally he nodded. «Yes. Swine like the Protector are cursed by all the gods the fighters honor. I think the Ten Brothers will say-go on fighting. When they say this, most fighters will obey.»

«Good.» Blade suspected that in the simple process of breaking out of the barracks the gladiators might do so much damage the Protector would be finished. He was still glad that Skroga was willing to continue the fight until Gerhaa was free. Without his influence, it might be hard to persuade the gladiators to go on fighting for the benefit of the Forest People, let alone the people of Gerhaa who'd cheered their dying in the arena.

Blade saw that Skroga seemed to be expecting him to go on. «Obviously the best way to escape is to take the guardhouse by surprise, then open the doors in the tunnel. We can all get out quickly that way, faster than they can bring up soldiers to stop us.»

In answer to the implied question on the other's face, Blade shook his head. «No, I don't yet have a sure way to do this. I want a sure one, because we'll only get one chance. But I'll start looking harder now that I know I have the fighters behind me. I would have spoken of this before, but I could not be sure what would happen to me if I did.» Blade stopped as he realized Skroga was weeping silently out of sheer joy and sudden hope.

Blade waited for the old man to calm himself, then asked, «Skroga, you brought me out here to kill me if I didn't give the right answers. Have you had trouble with men like me before?»

Skroga nodded and spat savagely into the pool. «Yes. Before the Protector, there was one like you-had fun with the ladies. One of the Ten Brothers asked him the same as I asked you. He told soldiers that night. Fifteen fighters were taken and tortured to death.

«Then there was a second, three years ago. He loved men, not women. Soon he spent nights with the Protector. We are not fools, so we asked him nothing.»

«What happened to him?»

Skroga shrugged. «Only tales, nothing sure. They say he got into fight with Protector. The Protector hit him with the big staff. That was his end.» That was also a tale Blade could believe. The jeweled staff looked heavy enough to crush a man's skull like an eggshell.

«So I'm the third man to offer the fighters a way out?»

«Yes.»

«Let's hope it will be a case of 'Third time lucky'.»

Skroga seemed to recognize the saying. «Yes.»

They shook hands and turned back the way they'd come.

Blade was determined to do everything he could to break the fighters loose as soon as possible. Unfortunately, for a while it looked as if all his determination wasn't going to make much difference.

The best way to surprise the guardhouse and open the tunnel was easy to find. Directly above the mouth of the tunnel leading to the drawbridge and the island of Death was thirty feet of sheer cliff. At the top of that cliff was the end of a dark, twisting alley, closed only by a rough wooden railing. From the end of the alley, somebody could throw a rope down to the mouth of the tunnel. A few agile men could climb up that rope. After that they could slip through the back streets and alleys to the weakly-held guardhouse, surprise and kill the guards, hold the guardhouse, and unlock the doors in the tunnel. Then all hell, not to mention a thousand savage fighting men, would break loose in Gerhaa.

Given a dark night, a little luck, speed, and secrecy, it was a sound plan. The only problem was finding someone to stand at the end of the alley and throw the rope down!

Blade set out to find that someone, and took blood-chilling risks in his search. If there'd been anybody recording Blade's questions over the next few weeks, he would have been dead several times over. Fortunately, in this Dimension the age of electronic eavesdropping and scientific secret police was centuries away. So Blade survived, but he didn't succeed until one night when he found Ho-Marn in charge of the guardhouse.

The captain didn't speak as he gave Blade the Slave Pass, but he squeezed Blade's hand in a peculiar manner as he handed it over. As soon as Blade was out of sight of the guardhouse, he stopped and examined the pass. It looked like the usual sheet of leather, but on close examination Blade saw it was two pieces pasted together. Blade pried them apart and by the light of a street torch read the paper that fell out:

Blade,

You will soon go to the House of Chorma. The lady there likes women in her bed as well as men. When she asks where to find women, tell her that there are many fine women for her at the Twelve Serpents in the Street of the Happy Houses. Do as you think best after you have brought the lady to the house.

Blade wasn't surprised at the message. In fact, he was no longer surprised at anything Ho-Marn did. He was beginning to suspect that Ho-Marn was playing a deep game of his own, and didn't like not knowing what that game might be.

Blade was still surprised when he reached the House of the Twelve Serpents, asked for a woman of his own while Lady Chorma amused herself, and found himself facing Meera.

Like the other girls of the Happy Houses, Meera was naked except for wisps of silk around her neck and waist, a silver arm ring, and makeup applied with more enthusiasm than good taste. In spite of this, she seemed to have developed a certain dignity, and wore her nudity-with the same grace she might have shown with the most elaborate gown. The wound in her leg had healed, leaving only a faint scar.

She wasn't particularly happy in the House of the Twelve Serpents, but she was sane, alert, and determined. «It could be much worse,» she told Blade. «This is not one of the Houses where for a price a man can hurt a girl until she's dead or crippled for life. The mistress of the house is of the Forest People, and her steward and lover is a freedman with Forest People blood in him. They try to make it as easy as possible for new girls from the Forest.»

«Did Ho-Marn-the soldier who captured us-have anything to do with your coming here?»

Meera frowned. «He could have. I saw him in the crowd when I was sold, talking to the steward. He has also been here a few times since, though he has never taken me.» So Ho-Marn might have kept his promise to see that Meera went to a good house.

Meera smiled. «Blade, if we are going to talk of such matters-it is better if you do with me what men come here for.» She pointed to the walls and then to her ears. Blade understood-there might be eavesdroppers. He stood up, held out his arms, and drew Meera to him.

Very quickly he discovered that her months in a Happy House hadn't destroyed Meera's ability to respond to him. He also discovered that in spite of all the other women he'd had in Gerhaa she was still something special. It was a long time before they remembered or cared that they had more serious things to talk about. Then they talked with Meera lying in Blade's arms, their heads so close together that any eavesdropper would have needed a microphone to make out what they were saying.

Meera quickly understood what Blade was planning and what he needed. She wasn't completely sure she could provide it, but she was willing to try.

«The first man I must talk to is the steward. He had a tavern of his own when the Protector came. There was a fight and some of the Pets were hurt. The Protector took the tavern and wanted to send the steward to the galleys. He would have gone, if our mistress had not brought him here. He does not love the Protector.»

«Can he be trusted to keep his mouth shut?»

«If it will help bring down the Protector, yes.»

«The job will need more than one man, you know. Does he have friends who can be trusted?»

«He does. But-what happens after the Protector falls? We of the Forest can go home, but what of those with homes in Gerhaa?»

«I want to see Gerhaa free, a home for all who fought the Protector. So do my friends among the fighters of the Games.»

«Can they be trusted?»

«Some of them can. As for the rest-well, I will see that anyone who helps bring down the Protector ends his days in freedom, or die. I wish I could promise more, but I can't.»

«That should be enough for many, I think. They do not want to lie in the sun and drink honey the rest of their days, only to live without fear of the Protector.»

«I'll trust anyone who wants that, if they'll trust me.»

After this Blade and Meera made love again. Then Lady Chorma called for Blade to escort her home, so that was all Blade was able to do on his first visit.

By the time he came to the Twelve Serpents a second time, Meera had done her work and the steward was starting his. He and Blade talked, and the steward promised to try finding at least six reliable men.

The third time, the steward had five of the men and Blade met two of them. «They are none of them strong fighting men,» the steward said. «The swords must be in the hands of your fighters of the Games. For all else, you can trust me and mine.» He sighed and shook his head. «I think of what we hope to do, and sometimes I think I dream.»

«It won't be a dream much longer,» said Blade, mentally crossing his fingers as he spoke. They were now very nearly committed past all hope of survival if someone did turn traitor. He and Meera and all their allies would die horribly, the guardhouse watch would be reinforced, and possibly no fighter of the Games would ever be allowed out of the barracks again. Even worse, the Protector's power would be safe for many years to come, and his attack on the Forest People would continue. Then the Forest People might be doomed, unless Swebon could develop the laminated bows by himself. The gladiators' escape and the capture of Gerhaa would have to take place within a month or two at most.

Then on the fourth visit to Meera, Blade learned they would have to move even sooner than that.