Ice Dragon

Chapter 8

Since the Unionists had been keeping Blade confined to bed to simplify his interrogation rather than because his health required it, they let him up the next day. The place to which the rescued prisoners had been taken was in appearance an expensive private health resort back in the hills nearly a hundred miles north of Treniga. Actually it was the largest Union facility. Doctor Leyndt's reputation for curing the Graduk elite of the consequences of their numerous vices was so great that it acted as a shield for any institution with which she chose to become associated. So the resort headquarters housed most of the Union's records (insofar as they dared to write anything down), laboratories for research into methods of dealing with the Ice Master and the glaciers, and a floating population of between forty and sixty Union people plus other transients such as Blade and his companions. The Union people were not complacent about their security; guards patrolled the roads and radar scanned the sky and the land from the top of a nearby hill. But for the first time since arriving in this dimension, Blade felt that he could sit still in one place, look around him, and decide what to do for these people and what to take from them.

He spent much time in the laboratories, and there further confirmed his beliefs that the Dragon wands were far beyond Graduk knowledge. In some things, such as the power charges that supplied the beamers, the Graduki had advanced well beyond Home Dimension science. In other respects (such as lacking atomic power, though not atomic theory) they were well behind it. Nowhere did he see any signs of the mastery of electronics needed to make the wands, nor indeed much of anything that Home Dimension could not have produced within a few years. The science of the Graduki, however impressive to the Treduki, offered little or nothing that might be worth taking home. What was worse, it offered little or nothing that might stand effectively against the aliens.

If there were any aliens. In the peace of the resort, Blade sometimes found it hard to accept even his own deeply believed theory as other than totally fantastic. There were hundreds of acres of grounds, some neatly kept lawn but mostly wooded, streams curling through to form little ponds, sudden patches of wildflowers blazing blue and red and yellow against the greenery, a continuous pulse of life in the sounds of the birds and insects and the sighing of the wind in the leaf-hung branches. He found that he thought best when wandering alone through these woods, although even the best thoughts that came to him there seemed unequal to the occasion.

It was during one of these wanderings, one morning earlier than usual, that Doctor Leyndt found him. In spite of the chill, Blade was barefoot and wearing only a pair of trousers. He was sitting on the damp grass, just about to rise because of the dew soaking through the seat of the trousers, when the bushes in front of him parted and Leyndt stepped out.

He had seldom seen her in anything except her medical tunic and trousers, and never in anything much less severe than these. Her grace and dignity and fine appearance were in spite of, rather than aided by, what she wore. Until today.

Today the woman who stepped toward him wore a flowing poncho-like garment, a single piece of material with a hole in the middle for her head and others for her arms. It could not have been simpler in design, but the material itself had an iridescent shimmer in which a hundred shades of cool colors-blue and green and purple and occasional flecks of silver-gray-swirled and chased each other like fish in a bowl as her movements caused the garment to swirl. It covered her from neck to ankles; the long-toed flexible feet peering out from under it were bare. Her loosened auburn hair now flowed halfway down her back in a cascade with its own kind of shimmer and movement, and the proud austere face was bare of the makeup she usually wore, it seemed, to heighten that austerity.

Blade rose as Leyndt approached. Her dress and manner were unusual and unexpected, but not in any way disturbing. In fact the sense he had always had before in her presence, that she was holding something back, had been much more disturbing. He moved toward her, and as he did so, she raised her hands, reached out, and took his.

They stood there in silence for a moment. Blade was not surprised or disturbed now, either. Her hands were muscular, the grip of the long fingers firm and without fumbling or shyness, as he would have expected a doctor's hands to be. But he was now closer to her than he had ever been before. He was very conscious of her scent-no perfume, just a woman fresh, clean, healthy. He was very conscious also that he had been a long time without a woman, except for that brief flurry of coupling with Rena outside the ruins of her village. And he was embarrassingly conscious that his mind was turning to wondering what she wore under that shimmering poncho, and the thought of her wearing nothing at all was arousing him. In his mind he firmly addressed that obstinate and self-willed rod of flesh, but as usual it remained deaf to the call of his allegedly higher faculties.

Leyndt's eyes roved downward with open approval, and Blade held his breath as they reached his swollen and upstanding manhood. This, he feared, might very easily strike a sour note and make the woman back off. Not only physically, but mentally.

Instead, her hands let go of his and followed the course of her eyes-gently combing his eyebrows, tracing a path down over nose and mouth and chin, on to his chest, across the chest with a gentle probing at each bulge of muscle, farther down across the flat, hard stomach, and farther down still until they stopped where the eyes had First a gentle prod, then a firmer squeeze, then she jerked open the clasp of his trousers. They fell to his ankles, and before he could move to step out of them her fingers had returned to their work.

It was the first time he had ever felt such a caressing totally balanced, like the woman doing it, with the delicacy and softness of a kitten and the sure strength and knowledge of a surgeon. Blade was not an iron statue, and knew very well that if he was expected to stand here like one much longer, Leyndt would find her expectations sorely disappointed. But on the other hand, neither would he make an abrupt move that might once again strike the wrong note.

Slowly he lifted his own hands and grasped her by the wrists, pulling her hands away from his now solid manhood. His hands moved up her arms to the holes in the poncho through which they emerged, and vanished into the holes. As he had imagined, she wore nothing under the poncho. The curves he felt all flowed smoothly into one another. His hands kept creeping around her body until they met at her back-petal-smooth skin over firm muscles and a spine straight as a sword blade. Then he gently drew her against him.

Now his lips dipped to meet hers, and her gasp at the pressure of body against body was instantly stifled. It remained stifled for a long time, but Blade's still-roving hands told him of the shivers and the quick breathing growing in her. His lips moved from her lips down to her throat, to nibble gently at the firm flesh of her neck. She moaned softly. He bent her head forward and licked an earlobe. She moaned louder.

His instincts told him she was now beyond hearing any «wrong notes» he might strike. He lifted the poncho, and without a word she raised her arms to let it slip freely over her head. He threw it aside and stared at her bare body gleaming in the morning sun.

Nothing of what he had seen, heard, or felt before had lied; her body was perfect to the limits of what he believed possible in a human woman. Slender, firm neck and arms, wide creamy shoulders faintly dusted with gold-brown freckles, full breasts forming perfect cones ending in large pink nipples, a flat belly, taut but full thighs flanking a triangle whose curling hair held more brown than the hair of her head, legs neither long nor short but flawlessly curved.

His fingers brushed the side of her neck, sprang lightly down past her shoulders to her breasts, played with the nipples. The pink circles seemed to warm to his touch; the centers thrust gently out, pushing at his roving hands. The hands dropped down farther, cupping the breasts and stroking the skin over her ribs; her mouth opened in an incoherent sound halfway between a moan and a choking. Her hands and arms stiffened as though an electric current had shot through them and seized his swollen manhood, pulling it hard against her groin. She moaned again, her knees relaxed, and she fell backward full length on the grass, pulling at his hands so hard that he nearly fell on top of her right there and then.

Then he did come down on top of her and drove into her, finding her already wet, open, welcoming him as he entered, writhing and gasping and raising her legs to clamp them behind his back and her hands to twine around his neck. She pulled him against her as though wanting to make him dissolve and be absorbed by her, then her first climax came and she screamed out loud. Blade continued his thrusts as her arms and legs relaxed for a moment, then again they went tight and she screamed again.

Four times she climaxed before the pressure in his own loins reached the bursting point. He poured himself into her with such force he was almost frightened; she screamed again, then went utterly limp beneath him.

As they lay there glued together by the sweat pouring over both of them and dripping onto the grass, Blade found himself a trifle bemused. He was, most of the time, a vigorous, even aggressive lover, always ready to take the initiative, giving his partner full pleasure but not backing off for one moment in pursuit of his own as well. But this time he had sensed a harmony that Leyndt seemed to radiate, a harmony almost as audible as a musical note, and he had been reluctant to disturb it. And he had been well rewarded for this reluctance. The look in Leyndt's eyes was unique-he would not have believed it possible to look utterly satiated in such a detached manner.

Presently she rose, kissed him again in a rather sisterly manner, then pulled on her poncho and was off. There was a look of uncertainty as she did so, as if she feared that the detachment so long and so stubbornly maintained under such unlikely circumstances would fall apart if she spoke to Blade.

This was, fortunately, not their last encounter, nor were the second and subsequent ones quite as improbable as the first. They learned to laugh in the midst of their loving, particularly when Blade discovered that Leyndt, the perfectly balanced Leyndt, was ticklish, and that a few strokes at the backs of her knees could make her as helpless as a child. They learned to talk, and exchanged memories of their lives and of how they had each arrived at this particular place at this particular time. Leyndt found nothing strange in Blade's being from another dimension, as long as he was at least fully human. In fact, she accepted him so much without question that he wondered if she might be prepared to believe in the existence of the aliens-or at least listen to his theory of their existence without considering him mad.

After about two weeks, Blade was called to a conference with Leyndt and Stramod. They were the only two members of the directing bodies of the Union permanently in residence at the resort, and thus the only two there qualified to speak on matters of high policy. But Blade gathered from what they had said that the plans for him were in fact the result of much debate among all the Union leaders, with messages flowing back and forth. That made Blade a little uneasy. His long experience as a secret agent had taught him that sending too many messages risked discovery and destruction. And he had no wish to become the victim of the Union's destruction through becoming the occasion for too many messages.

Stramod was brisker and more cheerful than usual. The thought of being able even indirectly to strike a hard blow at the Ice Master could hardly do anything but improve his spirits. He was positively beaming as he explained the plan.

«The wisest thing for you would seem to be a return to Treduk territory, along with Nilando. The two of you as a team can travel among their villages, teaching them what you have learned about the Dragons, their Masters, and the ways to deal with them. Every dead Dragon or Dragon Master is a blow to the Ice Master's strength. We can whittle it away little by little, without risking exposing ourselves by giving the Treduki modern weapons. That would only lead the Conciliators to turn all the fliers and flier-troops against the Treduki at once. In addition, I cannot be altogether sure that some at least of the Treduki would not turn our own weapons against us. But this way, many Ice Dragons will die with the Conciliators being none the wiser. And however many supplies the Ice Master receives from his allies, he can make only so many Dragons and train so many slaves as Masters. In the end-«and Stramod made a neck-wringing gesture with his huge hands.

Blade nodded, somewhat wearily. The strain on him was considerable. He was having to continuously bite his tongue to keep it from throwing his theory about the aliens out into the open. And also in having to listen to long considerations of Graduk internal politics. Not that these people should not be concerned about them, but he had no need to be, and at the moment what he needed most of all was a chance to get back into action. Preferably fast, bloody action, destructive to the Ice Dragons, the Ice Master, and-? It was quite some time before Blade was able to turn the discussion to practical subjects, such as suitable weaponry for the Treduki to use against the Dragons.

He had considered teaching the Treduki to rifle their cannon to improve their accuracy, but that would involve months while he taught himself the technique, more months while he taught it to the Treduki, and many more months after that while the cannon were being cast and their gunners retrained. That was for the very long run.

But there were other possibilities. Various siege engines, similar to those of Home Dimension, not very accurate, but if the Ice Dragons could be induced to come through narrow passages-well, Blade doubted if either Master or Dragon could survive a quarter-ton boulder plummeting out of the skies.

And there were long poles with hooks or nooses on the end, lassos, bolas, and a host of other possible weapons for hauling Dragon Masters from their saddles, weapons that could be wielded or hurled from beyond the range of a Dragon's neck and snapping jaws or a Master's capture web. Together a Master and his Dragon were almost invulnerable and unstoppable; separated they were far easier to defeat.

Blade spent hours explaining proposed weaponry and tactics, with many sketches and much taking of notes on both sides. They debated materials, transportation, Treduk taboos (comparatively few among the leaders, as Blade had suspected from knowing Nilando, more numerous among the common people). In the end they agreed to give Blade a free hand to develop and try out in the field whatever he thought would work, and a blank check on the Union's resources in men and materials. They felt themselves under a great obligation to him-he was going back and all but thrusting himself into the Dragon's jaws-and this made them more willing to aid him.

It also made Leyndt more passionate than ever before, later in the afternoon at the secluded grove that had become their normal rendezvous. She demanded more and gave more in an endlessly spiraling cycle of raw, rutting passion that left them both spent and limp.

But she was in a talkative mood when she had recovered her strength. Bit by bit the conversation wandered around to the problems the Union faced in developing methods of fighting the Dragons and their Masters-and of course the supreme enemy, the Ice Master himself.

«What you have said about the more-primitive-weapons of your dimension makes me wonder. Have we Graduki perhaps grown as decadent as the Treduki, that we didn't think of these ourselves? I'm not a historian, but I'm sure that in our own history there must have been such weapons. And I wonder whether, if we can overlook something like this, we aren't perhaps overlooking other important things in our fight against the Ice Master. I think perhaps the greatest thing you're going to do for us is to be continuously making us see new ways of coping with the problem, even though you aren't a scientist.»

«You may be right,» he said without any particular emphasis-his voice as measured as hers usually was. But he was thinking furiously. Was this a good time to mention his theory? She might be as receptive in mind as she was in body, and of all the people in the Union she was certainly the one least likely to laugh at him or brand his judgment unsound. The bouts of love between them, in all their shades and variations, had given him more of a fink to her and her to him, although he doubted whether in the end he would turn out to have much of a hold on her. She did not seem to be that sort of woman.

«I think there's something you perhaps aren't considering,» he began. «Do you really believe that the Ice Master gets his resources from the villages he raids and from secret allies among the Conciliators?»

«That seems to be a reasonable theory. He can hardly raise cattle or grow grain, or breed slaves in the glacierland.»

It had occurred to Blade that the Ice Master might indeed be doing just that, back when he was reviewing the objections to his theory of aliens. But then he had rejected it. Large-scale agriculture on the ice cap would require far more power than could be generated without atomic energy, and he found it hard to believe that the Ice Master could have made all the engineering breakthroughs needed to go from atomic theory to a working atomic reactor-at least by himself. If the Ice Master was doing anything that needed vast amounts of power, it was yet another argument in favor of the presence of a superior and alien technology.

«But have you ever found the Ice Master's allies, or had any clues as to who they might be?»

«Not yet. But we assume they're among the Conciliators. After all, what better way could they find of living up to their name than by aiding the Ice Master, even in secret? I expect that when we can infiltrate the Conciliators as thoroughly as we would like to, we'll find the answer. And then we can take action.»

«That's all well and good. But I don't think the Conciliators are anywhere near the root of this problem.» He took a deep breath to cover the pause while he searched for the exact formula of words. «I think-«

He broke off as he noticed she was staring over his shoulder, her eyes wide and her mouth just beginning to open to speak-or scream. He turned his head in the same direction and saw two men in familiar blue uniforms slip out of a patch of shrubbery, beamers at the ready, looking cautiously about them. Without a sound he gestured toward a clump of bushes five feet off to their left. Flattening himself on the grass he crawled into them and lay motionless, Leyndt beside him, staring out at the two men. Even if they had not been wearing uniforms, Blade would have recognized their hard, ruthless manner as that of Conciliator thugs.

«They've come in, on the ground,» Leyndt began. «How-«but Blade cut her off with a hand over her mouth. He was furiously trying to work out a plan of action, worried but not entirely unhappy about the chance to settle a few more scores with the Conciliators' soldiery. After a moment he turned to Leyndt.

«Take off your poncho and step out in plain sight.»

Her mouth opened in surprise.

«Yes. If they're planning to capture us, they won't do anything. If they're planning to burn us down, they may still get different ideas when you step out there. Either way, it will surprise them enough to make them off-guard.»

She nodded and started struggling out of the poncho. Blade helped her. When she was nude, she grinned nervously at him, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and crawled out into the open. She stood up, hands at her sides, and stepped into view of the soldiers. Blade saw them stiffen, stare, then one stepped forward with his beamer held negligently in one hand, while the other covered him.

In the moment that the first soldier was blocking the other's line of fire, Blade moved. He came out of the bush in a single tigerish leap, head and shoulder slamming into the first soldier's ribcage. He heard the ribs smash and saw the man fly into the air like a mortar shell. Before he had hit the ground Blade had recovered his balance, dropped to the ground under a crackling blast from the second man's beamer, and pivoted around on his arms to smash his legs into the man's knees. He went down, and Blade chopped him across the throat with a flattened hand before he could rise. The first soldier was still writhing and gasping, but before Blade could do anything, Leyndt picked up one of the beamers and burned a hole in the man's skull. Then she dropped the beamer, sagged to the ground, and spent the next couple of minutes being very sick indeed.

When her stomach had heaved itself empty, she tottered to her feet and took Blade's arm. He smiled grimly at her. «Don't worry about that. The same thing happened to me the first time I had to kill somebody to get out of a tight spot. But I had to get used to it. I hope you won't have to.»

She nodded feebly. «What do we do now?»

«Head back to the main buildings and find out how far this has gone. If they're infiltrating through the grounds, we may be able to pick off more as we hit them from the rear. That way we can warn the people in the main buildings and they can deal with the rest as they come in.» That came very much under the heading of whistling in the dark, Blade thought. If the Conciliator goons had any sense, they would have hit the main buildings first and hardest, then started combing the grounds. He and Leyndt might be walking into a series of ready ambushes. But there was no point in being wildly pessimistic, particularly when all that could do was frighten Leyndt. She was going to have to go through this thing on her nerves as it was; Blade had seen too many amateurs like her suddenly pitchforked into a sticky situation.

They began their stalking approach to the main buildings. They had nearly half a mile to go, but even so Blade was surprised at the silence from ahead. No explosions, no shouting, not even the distance-muted crackle of a heatbeamer. Both of them held beamers ready, although Leyndt kept looking at hers as if she expected it to turn around and bite her. Blade, although he was less familiar with the beamers, held his with the same assurance as he would have a Home Dimension submachine gun. It was just another weapon. One learned how to use it and then used it.

They moved cautiously, slipping from one patch of cover to another. As they moved farther forward, they began to hear voices, soldiers calling to one another as though they were shouting across a noisy barroom. The Conciliator soldiery, it seemed, might not be as professional as they looked. Or perhaps they were just more nervous facing their own people, who might fight back, than when they were slaughtering Treduki with nothing better than arrows and muskets to fight with. Well, he was going to justify that nervousness.

As they rose from behind a line of flowering shrubs, Blade saw a soldier amble into the middle of the clearing they would have to cross to get to the next bit of cover. Leyndt raised her beamer, but Blade shook his head. They were getting close in, and the crackle of a beamer would alert the other soldiers certain to be within earshot. He watched the soldier closely, saw him wander over behind a tree, open the clasp of his trousers and pull down his fly.

Before the soldier could get any farther with his business, Blade covered the space between them in three strides, rammed his fist into the man's stomach, and finished him off as he toppled with the butt of the beamer across the back of the neck. A moment later Blade realized that he had made a nearly fatal mistake, for whether as a trap or merely as a precaution, another soldier on the far side of the clearing had been covering his victim.

He felt the air turn hot above his head and the beam-crackle tore at his ears. All that saved him was the other man's eagerness, which made him fire high. Blade felt his beamer buck in his hands as the other's second shot chopped it into two pieces like a butcher chopping sausage. Then Blade whipped both arms forward in quick throws, hurling the halves of his beamer at the soldier. They were clumsy missiles, but heavy enough, hard enough, and moving fast enough when they hit to do the job. The other man's beamer spun out of his disabled arm, and as he bent to retrieve it Blade's hurtling foot took him under the chin so hard it seemed to Blade the man's head would fly from his shoulders and soar through the air like a football.

Blade snatched up the weapon and motioned Leyndt forward into cover. She came at a run, and they both huddled flat on their stomachs under the bushes while shouts and running footsteps showed that the cordon around the main buildings had finally taken notice of the attack from their rear. Blade hoped they would be too excited to search thoroughly-or, if they did, that this would give him and Leyndt a chance to break through to the main buildings. The absence of explosions suggested that the main buildings could still be holding out. Stramod had done a thorough job of modifying them for defense, and they had been robust and well built to begin with. Without explosives or gas, the soldiers would have a rather futile time trying to stamp out resistance quickly.

In a lull in the shouting Blade and Leyndt shifted their hiding place to another grove farther from the bodies of their latest victims and hit the ground again as the uproar redoubled. Apart from their lack of skill, Blade also doubted if the Conciliator soldiers were sufficiently numerous to conduct a bush-by-bush search of the rear while still maintaining their cordon.

But to his surprise he suddenly heard the soldiers' shouting pick up again, each man relaying a call on to his neighbor. Unmistakably, undeniably, the shouts traveled around a large circle. He and Leyndt were inside that circle. His military background was quite enough to fill in the details of what would happen next. With a defined area to search, the soldiers could look under every bush and up into every tree, burning anything suspicious. If the men in the circle were sufficiently far apart, he and Leyndt might have a reasonable chance of breaking through to safety. But no matter how tight the circle was, he knew their chances of breaking through it were bound to be better than their chances of survival inside it.

He and Leyndt began to move slowly toward the shouting. The shrubbery they were hidden in stretched some thirty feet in the right direction, providing good cover that far. But closely packed branches had to be wriggled around and through, with crackings, gruntings, and tearing of skin and clothing. Outside, the circle of shouting continued. Was it contracting? Blade heard the unmistakable and unwelcome crackle of a beamer, then saw ahead the daylight at the end of the shrubbery. He crawled forward the last yards and carefully peered out. Two soldiers stood on either side of a tree, so close it seemed they could look him in the eye if he raised his head a little more. Beyond the tree they flanked the woods thickened again. But between Blade and the men was twenty feet of completely open space. And as the shouts went around the circle again, Blade heard them respond to a call from close off to the right, and pass it on to be answered from close to their left.

He and Leyndt might use the distraction trick again. But even if they could take out the two soldiers facing them, as many as four more might have clear fields of fire. Unless he could get to such close quarters that the others might not be willing to risk hitting their own comrades by firing. Blade had seen the beamers in action enough to know that they were questionably accurate beyond about forty yards.

He turned and prodded Leyndt gently in the shoulder to get her attention and told her the situation and plan. Again she nodded, but this time her grin was almost impish. She was beginning to enjoy the adventure, its reduction of life to uncomplicated struggles for survival. Her fear was gone, or perhaps merely being contained now by exhilaration. Blade was glad she was no longer frightened but hoped she would not become overconfident and careless. He had seen two agents die that way.

There was no room for Leyndt to wriggle out of her poncho, but it was by now so badly torn by the bushes that she was able to simply rip it off. Then she licked her lips and pushed herself forward and out. Blade saw the soldiers gape as she appeared, without loosening their grip on their beamers. But for a moment their eyes were entirely on Leyndt, and in that moment Blade hurled himself forward.

The soldiers did not gape at him, however. The one closest to Leyndt grabbed her by the hair and jerked her down on the ground after him; she screamed and fell with a thud, sprawled across the soldier. The other one ducked behind the tree before Blade was halfway across the open space.

Then the air crackled over his head and beside his feet as the two flanking guard teams fired, missing him by so little that he felt the heated air sear his skin. He cut hard to the right to throw their aim off, ducked low to avoid the beam of the soldier behind the tree-then heard another scream from Leyndt.

The soldier holding her was now kneeling over her, both his knees slammed down hard on her arms, immobilizing them and grinding them painfully into the ground. On her bare shoulder was now a small charred patch-still smoking. The soldier glared with a combination of anger, hatred, fear, and lust in his eyes that revolted Blade, and snarled, «All right, you bastard! Next time I take off her ear. Time after that-«he gestured rather than speaking. Blade stopped and stood motionless as the soldier from behind the tree stepped into view and ordered him to raise his hands over his head, then called out to his companions.

They came running up from both flanks, four more of them, with four more beyond them crashing through the bushes behind the first two pairs. Again the shouts went around the circle, and Blade heard the cheers and the swelling sound of running feet as the whole circle broke up.

The soldiers stripped Blade, tied him to the tree, slapped him around enough to open a cut in his lower lip and make his face feel like a bad case of sunburn. They then turned to Leyndt, still pinned to the ground by the soldier. The look in their eyes showed what they were planning to do with her as clearly as if it had been inscribed in letters of fire in the air. And the trapped-animal expression in Leyndt's eyes showed what she thought of the idea; her expression, and the low moaning noise from her throat, broken by an occasional sob. Blade flexed arms and legs, trying to find some play in the ropes that bound him, or if he couldn't find some, make some. But the knots, crude as they were, seemed for the moment too tight. He had not much hope of survival, but he did hope for a chance to take a few more Conciliator soldiers with him.

There were nearly thirty of the soldiers gathered in the clearing around Leyndt and Blade now, and footsteps audible even over their undisciplined chatter told of more coming. Blade knew that if he could somehow get loose, there would be enough soldiers to get in each other's way, and if he could only get hold of a beamer, he would leave a sizable hole in the Conciliator force before they brought him down. And he could give Leyndt a quick, merciful death instead of watching her die by inches. But how to get loose!

Again he strained until the bindings cut into his flesh and the cords of his muscles stood out as though sculptured, using all his strength. And this time he felt the tautness of the bonds relax. A trifle, but enough to give him hope. The soldiers were still milling about, too intent on looking at Leyndt and contemplating what they were going to do to that lovely, helpless, bare body. They now had Leyndt spread-eagled in the traditional fashion, one man holding each limb. A fifth stepped forward, and even from the rear Blade could see the man was unfastening his trousers.

Then the man fell forward onto Leyndt, but with his pants still fastened and a blood-rimmed bone-dotted hole in the lower part of his back. He let out a gurgling scream and began kicking wildly. The four men holding Leyndt bounced to their feet, the anticipation and lust in their eyes changing in split seconds into fear. The other soldiers stared in all directions, waving their beamers.

Then three things happened at once. Three more soldiers toppled, two with holes in their chests and the third with half his skull blown away. Leyndt scrambled to her feet and sprinted for cover, the soldiers too surprised and distracted to grab her. And Blade surged forward, straining against his bonds until they creaked-and, snapped.

His arms were numb but his legs drove him forward, pumping like pistons. He crashed into the press of the soldiers before a single one of them could lift a beamer, moving so fast and hitting so hard that the sheer impact of his body sent half a dozen of them sprawling off their feet. He dropped onto the chest of one with both knees, crushing in his ribs, butted a second in the head. His arms were working again now; he grabbed two more soldiers by the backs of their collars and smashed their heads together like a housewife cracking eggs, then threw them away. The others could perhaps have burned him down where he stood, but they were afraid of hitting their comrades, or perhaps just afraid. The invisible snipers were still picking off soldiers; Blade felt more than once the wheet of a bullet sailing past his ear. As the soldiers scattered, Blade picked up a beamer and sprinted for the same bushes that he had seen Leyndt dive into. A soldier heading for the same goal did not move fast enough, and Blade used the beamer to chop him squarely in half.

As he dove under cover, a bullet seared across his thigh, the pain making him grit his teeth, and he heard the crackle of beamers rise more loudly than ever before behind him, toward the main buildings, and sudden, chopped-off screams as the beamers tore men apart. The fighting there had suddenly flared up also; were the same people that were picking off the soldiers out here also at work there?

For a moment Blade was wild with frustration. Wounded or not, he wished he could do something useful in this battle besides keep his head down to avoid having it drilled by his own side, something that would account for another half-dozen Conciliator soldiers. But the snipers were shooting so furiously into the area that moving around would have been suicide.

Leyndt had finally fainted; Blade felt to make sure her heart was still beating. Since she was not seriously hurt he stopped worrying about her and concentrated on scanning the area visible to him, beamer ready to pick off any Conciliator troops that might drift into view.

One did; Blade dropped him with his second charge-for a moment he had forgotten that a beam weapon has no recoil, and overcompensated enough to throw his first shot off target. He thought of going out and retrieving the man's beamer as a spare for himself or a weapon for Leyndt, but too many wildly aimed bullets were still slapping through the branches and into tree trunks and whipping up clumps of turf. He didn't know who the attacking marksmen were, but he was certainly prepared to greet them as friends. He found it hard to believe they could be Union people, unless-

There was an explosion of half a dozen rifles going off all at once, making echoes bounce from tree to tree, and a silence following that broken only by a single groaning voice. Then a figure darted out into the clearing, a beamer in one oversized hand and a large conventional-looking rifle slung over his bowed back. Blade grinned as he saw the blue face, and he was already rising from his cover when Stramod shouted:

«Blade, the battle is over. Come out!»