Gladiators Of Hapanu

Chapter 22

Blade was standing by the railing of the balcony at the top of the central tower of the Protector's palace when the messenger came from Swebon. From the balcony he had an excellent view of Gerhaa in all directions, out to the farmlands to the north and the Great River to the south.

To the north the campfires of the besieging army were beginning to glow in the twilight. They were divided into two groups, a good mile apart. The one on the left held the Protector's men, the one to the right the regular Kylanan soldiers. He'd heard reports that men had been seen going into the Protector's camp all day. Certainly there seemed to be more campfires in it tonight than there'd been before.

To the south the Great River shone like dark bronze as the light faded. Lanterns twinkled in the rigging of the ships anchored in the harbor, some almost at the base of the cliff. As Blade watched, he saw something black rise into the air from between the masts of one large ship. It flew high over the riverside wall, then plunged down into the city. Blade heard the crash and could imagine the screams, the clouds of dust and splinters, and the soldiers running to help the victims.

The noose was tightening around Gerhaa, as it had been tightening for ten days. Everyone in the city felt as if the noose was around his own neck. Tempers were getting shorter as the last desperate battle seemed to be coming closer. It was almost impossible to get the men on the barricades to take prisoners now. Blade hadn't heard what was happening in the enemy's camp since four days ago.

Another stone flew from the anchored fleet and crashed into the city. Blade winced. In the first few days after the fleet's arrival, their siege engines knocked down many of the towers on the city's riverside wall and drove the defenders off the rest. The catapults no longer kept the Protector's ships at a distance. Even in the fading light Blade could recognize the four ships where wooden siege towers were rising on the decks. When those towers were finished and the ships filled with soldiers, they would be towed close under the cliffs. Then Gerhaa would be attacked from two directions at once.

What then? Blade was far from certain that the rebels could hold against a double attack. Even if they did hold, the battle would be savage and bloody. It might not leave enough people alive on either side to give anyone an advantage. That would be a victory of sorts, at least for the Forest People. But what about the people of Gerhaa, who deserved better after all they'd endured from the Protector and now from their struggle to overthrow him.

Crash, crunch, thud! Three more stones in rapid succession. This time Blade didn't have to imagine the clouds of dust rising. Something large must have collapsed. At least the rubble would make good barricades, and the besiegers hadn't used firepots yet. They probably wouldn't, either. The Protector's wealth and that of most of his supporters was still inside Gerhaa. The last thing he'd want to do was risk burning it.

Behind Blade someone coughed, to get his attention. He turned and saw Kuka. The man was red-eyed and even thinner than usual. One arm was crudely bandaged, and Blade knew that arm would become infected if Kuka wouldn't take time to have a doctor look at it. If there could only be the Shield of Life in Gerhaa. But there wasn't, so Kuka might very well lose his arm.

Then Blade noticed the man standing beside Kuka, and stared. It was one of the men he'd sent upriver with Meera. In fact, he had Meera's silver arm ring tied to his belt. He wore a crude shirt and trousers of soaking-wet rawhide, and all his exposed skin was caked and stinking with some sort of grease. Somehow Blade had the feeling the man's appearance meant good news. He smiled.

«Welcome back, my friend. What does Swebon say?»

Blade and Kuka both listened intently as the man described the army Swebon was bringing down the Great River and his plans for using it. As Blade expected, the plans were sound. Swebon did not have very much to learn about war in general or even about the use of the new bows. No doubt the men he'd sent ashore to make a diversion behind the Protector were the reason troops were going ashore from the ships.

When the man was finished, Blade asked him a question. «How did you get here, and what are you wearing?»

«I swam.»

«You swam in the Great River?» Blade couldn't hide his surprise.

«Yes. The idea came from a priest of the Kabi. He said that only the Horned Ones in the Great River touch dead meat, and they do not come out by day. So if I swam by day and smelled like a dead thing, I would be safe.»

That explained the skins and the smelly grease-no doubt hides and fat from well-decayed carcasses. «Is Swebon going to use this priest's trick with other men?»

«He did not tell me, and I did not ask.»

«Swebon is wise,» said Blade.

«Not as wise as you are, Blade,» said the man.

Blade shook his head. «That is for the Forest Spirit to decide, not us.» He turned to Kuka. «I think we'd better start getting ready to help Swebon when he comes.» He listed the things they'd need, including three hundred picked fighters with the best weapons and armor to climb down the cliffs and join in the attack on the ships. Blade would lead that force himself.

«Blade, you cannot risk-«began Kuka.

Blade shook his head. «I won't ask someone else to risk himself in this. Besides, the men of the city have a good leader in you.»

«Me?» Kuka seemed stunned.

«Yes, you. And that's why if you don't have the doctors look at that arm, I'll knock you down and drag you to them myself. You will be needed.»

Kuka laughed. «All right, Blade, I'll go, I'll go.»

The last of the light faded. Kuka went off to see the doctors and several messengers went off with Blade's orders. Blade ate stale bread and cheese with the mold scraped off, then settled down to spend the night up on the palace tower.

At the second hour of the night, a messenger returned. He reported that men were leaving the Protector's camp. Some appeared to be marching back toward the river. Others were marching inland.

At the third hour, another messenger came. The rope ladders for going down the cliff to the river were all ready. So were the new barricades built behind the old ones on the landward side of the city. Many women were asking to help man these barricades, or at least stand in the windows and throw stones and roof tiles down on the Protector's men.

Blade gave his permission. Fighting from behind solid barricades, fifty men could hold off five hundred, but a second line of defense never hurt. Even a handful of the Protector's men loose in the rebel rear could do a great deal of damage.

Shortly before the fifth hour, Blade saw movement among the ships in the harbor. One by one, about a dozen crept out from the eastern end of the harbor into the open river. There they stopped, apparently anchoring again. In the darkness Blade didn't know what ships they were. He did recall vaguely that most of the ships flying the Emperor's banner were at the southern end of the harbor, but he couldn't be sure. He decided he was getting too tired to think clearly. He'd have to get some sleep, or he'd be no good when and if things did start to happen.

When Kuka returned, he found Blade sound asleep on the floor of the balcony, wrapped up in his cloak and snoring like a small thunderstorm.

Swebon saw a hint of dawn in the darkness as he looked downriver. He could also begin to see the looming mass of the Stone Village and the ships near it. He didn't think the men on the ships could yet see him or all the canoes behind him. A faint mist lay over the river, and Swebon himself couldn't see most of the canoes when he looked astern.

He knew they were all there. No man would violate the oath he'd sworn, even if he could resist the idea of helping to bring down the Stone Village and the Sons of Hapanu. The courage of the warriors following him had survived even the knowledge that there would not be much of the Shield of Life. Only the worst wounds would have it at once. The others must wait until the People went upriver again. Perhaps Blade or the fighters of the Games had some knowledge that could help the wounded.

There were not as many men in the canoes now as when they started the journey. The Great River was still a dangerous place for the Forest People, even if they no longer needed to fear the Horned Ones so much. Too many warriors and weapons now lay at the bottom of the Great River.

Now the mist was beginning to lift. Soon the men on the enemy ships would be able to see the canoes. It was time to launch the attack. Swebon motioned to the man behind him to pass up the great horn. He raised it to his lips, took a deep breath, then blew. Behind him other horns replied, and so did the beat of drums. Paddles plunged into the water with splashes, and suddenly there was foam at the bow of the canoe.

Swebon blew the horn three more times, then sat down and picked up his own paddle.

Someone was shaking Blade. He grunted, sat up by sheer reflex, then came fully awake to see Kuka squatting beside him. The man's wounded arm showed a brand-new bandage.

«Swebon's canoes are coming down the river toward the ships,» Kuka said. He grinned, showing all the gaps in his teeth.

If Blade hadn't already been fully awake, he would have come alert now. He leaped up with a shout. Kuka started and the sentry at the head of the balcony stairs dropped his spear with a clatter.

Blade armed himself and followed Kuka down the stairs and through the gray streets of Gerhaa. The darkness hid most of the piled filth and the damaged buildings. It didn't hide the fear on the faces of the few people abroad at this hour. The battle they were facing today not only had to be won, it had to be won decisively enough to smash the Protector and end the siege. The people of Gerhaa had endured too much already. They might not be able to endure much more, and it would be no disgrace to them if they couldn't, merely a disaster.

As Blade and Kuka approached the riverside wall, the streets became so littered with wreckage that it was hard to get through. Some of the stones and timbers were being piled into barricades. In the shadows of these barricades the men of Blade's assault party were already waiting. As they saw their leader approaching, some cheered and were immediately cuffed or cursed into silence by Kuka. They fell in behind their leaders and headed for the wall.

Blade scrambled up the half-ruined stairs inside the Blue Bird's Tower and came out on the roof. Keeping low, he peered through a hole in the battlements that gave him a good view of the river.

At the west end of the harbor, the water seemed to be solid with the canoes of the Forest People. The small patches of open water were white with foam from prows and paddles. As Blade watched, one cluster of canoes swarmed around the western fort on the island, concentrating on the side closest to the water. The rest of the canoes came on steadily, like ants scenting something sweet. One ship was already surrounded, men were falling in the canoes around it, and other men were falling on the ship's deck. Blade strained his eyes and made out Swebon standing up in the bow of one canoe, with what could only be one of the new bows in his hands.

Some of the ships were beginning to move now. The smaller ones had sweeps out and looked like spiders crawling across the water. On the decks of the larger ships Blade saw men frantically swinging axes to cut anchor cables. Enough of the current of the Great River ran through the harbor so that a drifting ship would slowly creep down toward the eastern end. There they might find help-from the Protector's galleys, the Emperor's sailing ships, or simply through being able to flee downriver if the wind rose. At the moment there wasn't a breath of air stirring.

Blade looked back down the inner side of the wall at the men waiting there. The grappling hooks and rope ladders were all ready. Kuka looked up inquiringly. Blade shook his head and gave a thumbs-down signal. It wasn't time yet. Sooner or later the canoes would break through to the cliff and the assault party could climb down and join the fight. Even if the canoes didn't come, the current might push one of the drifting ships within range of the wall.

As Swebon's canoe passed the first of the stone houses on the island, he saw the attack on it begin. Men stood up in the bows of canoes, whirling ropes with iron hooks on the ends around their heads. Then they let go and the hooks shot up like arrows from bows, to grip the top of the stone house. As they gripped and held, men started to climb up the ropes.

The Sons of Hapanu had archers on top of the stone house, shooting down at the climbing men and the canoes. Swebon saw several men fall into the river. A canoe suddenly shook and broke in two as a stone landed in it.

Now the first man to reach the top of the stone house swung himself up and over the wall there and started fighting the Sons of Hapanu. From the fact that he was using two war clubs and no shield, Swebon knew the man was Tuk's oldest son. Four Sons of Hapanu went down in front of the swinging clubs, but a fifth drove his sword into Tuk's son from behind. The swordsman shouted in triumph and leaped on top of the wall. Swebon raised his bow, put an arrow in place, drew, and shot. The Son of Hapanu went down on his knees, dropping his sword, then bent forward and fell headfirst into the river.

Someone was pounding Swebon on the shoulder with one hand, shouting at him to «Look, look, chief!» and pointing with the other hand. Swebon looked, and joined in the shouting.

The current had drifted one of the enemy's ships up against the cliffs below Gerhaa's wall. It was a ship with a strange tall house of wood standing on it. A man was standing on the city's wall, looking toward the top of the wooden house on the ship. Then he leaped into the air like a great fish and came down on top of the wooden house.

The mist was almost gone now and though the day was going to be cloudy, there was plenty of light. Swebon recognized the man who'd made the leap from the wall as Blade.

The leap from the wall to the top of the ship's siege tower was a long one, even for Blade. He nearly went through the railing on the far side of the platform on top, and felt planks groan and creak under him. For a moment he was at a disadvantage if anyone attacked, but the one man on the platform was too surprised. Before the man could recover, Blade whipped out his sword, split the man's unhelmeted head, and pitched his body down on to the deck below.

The first two men to climb the stairs inside the tower died nearly as quickly. Blade knocked the first one on the head with a loose plank, then stabbed the second in the throat as he climbed over his stunned comrade. This gave a third man the chance to get up on to the platform beside Blade. He wore a scale-mail shirt and a helmet.

Blade stepped back, to give himself room to swing his sword hard against the man's armor. The moment he'd opened the gap, there was a wsssht-thuk and the man staggered to the railing, a crossbow bolt in his chest. He slumped to the platform, face showing a mixture of outraged indignation and pain, then died. Blade turned to see Kuka and half a dozen archers standing on top of the Blue Bird's Tower. All along the wall to either side of it, men were throwing rope ladders over the walls and grappling hooks into the rigging of the ship.

The archers on the ship's deck picked off a few of the assault party as they climbed down. A few more died in the fighting on the ship's deck. But the ship's defenders couldn't do a thing to cut the ladders or the grappling lines, so they were quickly overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Blade stayed on top of the siege tower until he'd seen everything he needed to see, then came down. By that time the ship was firmly in rebel hands.

By that time also Swebon's canoe was alongside. The chief came up the side of the ship with a broad grin on his face and blood all over chest and one arm. «It is not mine,» he said in reply to Blade's look.

«Good. There is much more work for you before this day is over.»

«I hope so. I do not care to let the Sons of Hapanu go easily, now that we have them in our grip.»

Blade nodded. «We shall not let the Protector's men go, but I do not know about the Emperor's.»

Swebon looked skeptical. «I know they are all our enemies, and that is enough for me.»

«I do not know that, Swebon, and I have seen more of what is happening in Gerhaa than you have.» Blade lowered his voice as he said this, not wanting to anger Swebon into a quarrel but desperately needing to make his point.

«What is happening in Gerhaa, then?» asked the chief.

I think I'm guessing right, but I'm still guessing, Blade reminded himself. If I'm wrong… If I'm wrong, I'm not likely to live long enough to feel guilty over it!

«The Emperor's men have kept themselves apart from the Protector's ever since the fleet came,» he said. «Last night the Emperor's ships dropped downriver, and they are now several miles away. What is more, they're staying there. They aren't joining the fight. If we leave them in peace, perhaps they won't.»

Swebon looked confused. «The Emperor is also a Son of Hapanu, Blade. Can any of them be our friends?»

Blade shrugged. «Friends? I don't know. But I'm almost sure that the Emperor is the enemy of our great enemy, the Protector of Gerhaa. We should do what we can to keep things that way.»

At last Swebon nodded, with a smile that turned into a grin. «Yes. It is said that a wise man does not make water in the cooking pot of the enemy of an enemy or the friend of a friend. So we will not make water in the Emperor's cooking pot.» The smile faded. «How shall we tell one cooking pot from another, Blade?»

Blade described the different banners of the two factions. «All ships flying the Protector's banner are fair game. The Emperor's ships are not to be attacked unless they attack us.»

Swebon sent messengers off in canoes with the new orders. Kuka climbed down from the walls to speak briefly with Blade, reporting that there was no sign of an attack in the city. Blade told him to get back and make sure there wouldn't be any, and Kuka reluctantly returned to the city. The rest of Blade's assault party climbed into the canoes of the Forest People and paddled off to take more of the Protector's ships. There was no sign of Meera, and Blade could only console himself with Swebon's word that she'd been all right the last time he saw her.

The last two canoes of Blade's assault party were getting ready to leave. Blade said farewell to Swebon, then scrambled up to the ship's maintop to take a final look at the battle.

He'd barely reached the top when he saw that the Protector's counterattack was starting.

There were five heavily-manned galleys in the counterattack. Two of them had catapults at bow and stern, and all of them had their decks crammed with crossbowmen. They crept up the harbor from the east, passing insolently close to the Emperor's quietly waiting sailing ships. Then the oars settled to a steady stroke and the galleys began to move.

As they moved, the canoes of the Forest People swarmed toward them. The galleys held their fire until the canoes were within crossbow range. Then they let fly with everything they had, eighty and a hundred bolts at a time.

The canoes might as well have run into machine-gun fire. In some every man was killed within a few seconds. In others the survivors leaped overboard, preferring to risk the creatures in the river to dying under the hail of archery. Dozens of canoes drifted empty except for bodies, in water rapidly turning red with blood and still lashed with crossbow bolts.

Then the catapults on the two lead galleys opened fire, hurling their six-foot spears as fast as their crews could reload and recock them. One of these spears could skewer three or four men at once, like barbecued chickens on a spit. It could split a canoe in two, capsize it, or drill a hole large enough to sink it within minutes. More bodies joined the ones already floating in the red water, and more warriors thrashed frantically toward the surviving canoes. Some of them reached safety. The Forest People with the new bows shot back and kept the battle from being completely one-sided, but not from being a disaster for the canoes.

Blade didn't know how many canoes and warriors were lost. He only knew that after a while the survivors were paddling away from the Protector's deadly galleys. They weren't fleeing in blind panic, however. They crossed the sand bars into the open river. Then they turned and paddled along parallel to the galleys, just out of crossbow range. The galleys picked off a few more canoes with their catapults, then ceased fire.

It was obvious that the canoe-borne warriors of the Forest People couldn't hope to engage the Protector's galleys when the galleys had room to maneuver. It was just as obvious to Blade that the galleys weren't going to have that room much longer. The harbor narrowed toward its western end, and Blade was at almost the narrowest point. If the galleys had to turn around here, they would be nearly immobile while they were doing it, and if they had a few other things on their minds as well-

Blade leaped into the rigging and slid down the shrouds to the deck. He was issuing orders as his feet hit the deck. Fortunately a good many of the river assault party were ex-sailors or at least boatmen, and the Forest People were at home on the water. His plan was going to need a lot of men who at least knew one end of a ship or boat from the other.

Messengers scrambled up ladders and paddled off in canoes. Kuka was to send every archer and every bolt or arrow in Gerhaa to the Blue Bird's Tower. They should climb onto the wall but stay down and hold their fire until Blade gave them the signal. As many of the assault party as Blade could reach were called back to his ship. Men climbed into canoes and paddled off to the other two ships lying closest to Blade's. Blade himself led a few men in cutting the shrouds of their own ship's mainmast. A lookout climbed into the foretop and called down the progress of the Protector's galleys.

The galleys were now coming on more slowly, stopping to send boarding parties aboard ships captured by the rebels and the Forest People. Some of the men caught aboard those ships fought with foolish courage and died for it. Others managed to scramble into their canoes and get clear. Most of these rallied at Blade's ship, Swebon among them. As the galleys slowly came on, Blade's strength grew, until he had more than four hundred men and sixty canoes within easy reach. More than two hundred of the men were archers with either crossbows or the new laminated bows of the People.

As the galleys came within catapult range, Blade and Swebon climbed to the top of the siege tower to make sure they could see everything. Blade saw the glint of metal on helmets on the wall and knew that Kuka's archers were getting into position. The decks of the three ships he was planning to use were nearly deserted-or at least they'd look that way from the galleys. Behind the three ships lay fifty canoes, in clear sight of the galleys but safely out of bowshot until the galleys had passed Blade's ships.

The galleys now seemed to be stopping and lying on their oars. Blade knew that someone aboard was sure to be considering the possibilities of a trap. After all, three ships lying across the harbor so that they'd force the galleys to pass through in single file and at a crawl?

Blade also doubted that common sense would prevail. Just beyond the three ships lay a solid mass of canoes, the last resistance in the harbor. If the galleys sank those, then they could break out into the open river, to engage the remaining canoes with all the maneuvering room they needed. The temptation to go on would be enormous, trap or not.

The risks of retreating would be even greater. The Emperor's general had to be watching by now. The last thing the Protector could afford was to appear cautious or even cowardly under the general's eyes. He'd already lost far too much; he had to gamble if he wanted to be allowed to keep what he had, let alone have any chance to win back what he'd lost.

The galleys rested on their oars so long that Blade was almost ready to signal the archers on the wall to open fire. If the galleys weren't coming on through, he'd have to hit them as hard as he could where they were. Some of them were within bowshot now, and-

The galley flying the Protector's personal standard was on the move again, foam curling away from her oars. She'd been third in line; now she was coming up to take the lead. One by one the other galleys started to move, falling in behind the flagship.

Blade slapped Swebon on the back and pointed. He felt like holding his breath, as if that could draw the galleys on faster. He didn't feel like cheering yet. Too many things could still go wrong.

The galleys came on as if they were running on rails. They were bearing off to port, toward the smallest of Blade's three ships, the one closest to the island and sand bars. When the Protector's galley was a hundred yards from that ship, Blade leaned over the railing of the siege tower and waved a red scarf on a long stick. He went on waving it until another red scarf waved from the bow of the third ship. A moment later red flames spurted up from her amidships.

Half the ship's hold was filled with barrels of oil for cooking and making firepots, so her catching fire was almost an explosion. Before the canoe carrying the fire party was safely away, flames were towering as high as the ship's mastheads. Sails vanished like dew in the morning, balls of fire danced up and down the tarred rigging, flames gushed out of every port and began to creep out from gaping seams.

The Protector's galley swung to starboard, away from the blazing ship, backing the oars on one side to turn faster than Blade had expected. She did turn, though. She had to. Between the burning ship and the next one, there wasn't enough room for the galley to pass. The only clear water now lay between the other two ships. The Protector's galley stopped turning and backed off another hundred yards. Then the drums started pounding out a fast stroke and the galley surged forward, straight at the gap between the two ships.

Blade let out a sigh of relief. Very little could go wrong now that could defeat his plan. The Protector's galley came on, the other four turning now to follow in her wake. Blade leaned over the railing and shouted to the men below, then axes cut the last shrouds of the mainmast. Wood cracked like gunshots and ropes flailed about wildly. A flying block clipped a bone ornament from Swebon's hair without making him blink. Then the ship's mainmast went over like a toppling pine, plunging into the water just ahead of the Protector's galley.

Blade would have liked to time the mast's fall to bring it right down on the galley's deck. But you couldn't always have everything so neat in a battle. The galley was still too close to the falling mast to stop, and plowed into it with a cracking of timbers and oars and a chorus of screams from the galley slaves below. A good many of the soldiers on the galley's deck were knocked off their feet, and the four galleys astern of the flagship had to back oars frantically to keep from ramming her or each other.

For the moment, the Protector's whole squadron was as immobilized as if it was aground, well within bowshot of all the waiting archers. Blade jumped up and waved a yellow scarf back and forth, as furiously as if the world would end the moment he stopped. Helmets sprouted all along the wall, and the men lying on the decks of Blade's two ships sprang to their feet. Then arrows and bolts poured down onto the decks of all five galleys.

Now it was the turn of the Sons of Hapanu to go down as if they were being machine-gunned. The crossbows could drill through any armor they wore, while the laminated bows could fire three times as fast as anything the Protector's men had ever faced. Before Blade scrambled down to the deck of his own ship, the decks of all five galleys were carpeted with dead and dying Guardsmen. Where the planks weren't covered with bodies, they shone a gruesome red. Blade leaped down into the first canoe to come alongside and ordered the paddlers to take him to the Protector's galley. He climbed up onto the deck just as the Protector himself burst out of the cabin under the fo'csle.

Before he saw the Protector coming at him, Blade hadn't felt the slightest interest in being chivalrous toward the man. He wouldn't have cared if the man died filled with arrows or fell overboard and was eaten by the Horned Ones. Now he saw the Protector advancing toward him, a sword in one hand, the great jeweled staff of office in the other, and tears streaming down his face. Blade wasn't sure what the Protector was weeping for-friends and comrades, lovers, or merely the disastrous end of both his power and his life. He did know that the Protector deserved a fighting man's death.

Blade was carrying a gladiator's shield and a broadsword, and wore only a gladiator's fighting outfit. The Protector came in so fast that his shorter sword left a red line across Blade's ribs and another on his shoulder before Blade could get his shield into position. That was almost the last time the Protector hit Blade, but Blade found he couldn't get through to the Protector either. In spite of his grief and the slippery deck underfoot, the man was as fast and deadly as a hungry leopard.

The two men went around and around, treading on the bodies and the bloody planks, so close together that Blade's archers couldn't risk shooting at the Protector. Blade began to wonder how long this fight could go on, knew that he could eventually wear the Protector down, but also knew that the man might get lucky before then. It wouldn't take much of an edge to let him put his sword into Blade, and he was desperate enough to take almost any risk. Blade decided that he'd better draw the Protector into taking that risk at a time of Blade's own choosing.

Suddenly Blade wheeled to the right, opening his normally shielded side to the Protector. The Protector thrust, Blade wheeled back, and the sharp edge of his shield caught the Protector's sword arm. The sword's point pricked Blade's ribs again, then it clattered to the deck as the Protector's arm dangled limp and streaming blood.

With incredible speed the Protector raised the staff and swung it, knocking Blade's sword out of his hand. Blade blocked the Protector's next swing with his shield, then closed and grabbed the staff. The Protector struggled to tear it loose, then tried to kick Blade in the groin. Blade brought his shield edge down on the Protector's leg and the man went down. Blade dropped the shield and hammered away with the staff until Swebon came up and pulled him to his feet. The great staff could indeed crack a man's skull.

Blade went over to the side and held onto the railing until he felt completely firm on his legs. The thought of the size of the gamble he'd taken chilled him. Yet there could be no doubt-he'd won. The five galleys drifted under an umbrella of smoke from the burning ship. All of them were surrounded by the canoes of the Forest People, and their decks swarmed with warriors and men of Gerhaa. On one, the surviving galley slaves were already being released and led up on deck.

Much more interesting to Blade was a small ship heading up the harbor as fast as her sweeps would take her. From her foremast flew the Emperor's standard, and above it a white flag.

Blade found his voice. He pointed to the ship with two flags. «Swebon, I'll kill any man who fires on that ship with my bare hands.»

«I see it comes from the Emperor.»

«Yes, and I think it brings some words we'd better hear.»

By the time the dead aboard the flagships were separated from the living and laid out on deck, the truce ship was closing in. As the burning ship sank in a cloud of steam, the truce ship came alongside the flagship. Somehow Blade wasn't at all surprised to see Ho-Marn standing at the ship's railing, with an embroidered blue robe over his armor.

«Greetings, Ho-Marn!» called Blade.

«Greetings, Blade,» replied the soldier.

Blade took a deep breath. «Ho-Marn, I think the time has come to ask you a few questions.»

Ho-Marn laughed. «Blade, I think the time has come to answer them. You have done all I hoped you would do and more.»

«And-if I hadn't done what you hoped?»

«Another tool, another time.»

«I understand. Come aboard, Ho-Marn.»