Master Of The Hashomi

Chapter 11

Blade marched north for two days before turning east toward the desert. This would still further confuse his trail. It would also bring him out of the mountains as close as possible to the oasis of Habin D'er. The Hashomi maps he'd seen showed it no more than an easy day's march from the foot of the mountains. At the oasis he could wait until one of the trade caravans came by, then join it for the journey across the desert.

Three more days marching eastward brought Blade out of the mountains. If the Hashomi were on his trail, he saw and heard no sign of it. The mountains were vast and the Hashomi hardly numerous enough to comb them boulder by boulder for a single man skilled in both evading and fighting. As long as they didn't guess how many of their most vital secrets Blade was carrying off, they might not even think it worthwhile pursuing him.

Of course, the word would sooner or later be out, and the Hashomi in Dahaura would be on the lookout for him. He'd have to disguise himself and perhaps lie low, until he'd gained power and influence or the protection of someone who had them. That should not be impossible. Even if there were as many as a thousand Hashomi in Dahaura, there were also a million other people in the city, and Blade was an expert at being invisible to his enemies.

On the morning of the fourth day he came through the last narrow canyon on the fringes of the mountains and looked out across the desert. Here the peaks came down almost to the sand, with only a mile or so of boulder-strewn ground separating them. The sun blazed down so that even the reflected light from the sand half-dazzled Blade. He still could not miss a patch of lush greenness far out on the eastern horizon. He took careful bearings on the patch, filled his water bottles from a last feeble stream, and settled down to wait until dark.

At last the chill darkness of a desert night came down on the land. Blade crossed the boulders and struck out into the desert. His sense of direction kept him on course as his legs carried him steadily up and down one dune after another. Every hour or so he stopped briefly to rest and look back at the mountains. Slowly they were fading away in the darkness. Blade made up his mind that if he ever entered those mountains again, it would be as an armed enemy of the Hashomi.

If that time ever came, it would help to have Mirna and her women on his side. He hoped she could keep her plans secret and her women alive until then.

Shortly after dawn Blade climbed a dune and from its crest saw a spot of green on the horizon. Two more dunes, and the spot was still there. Two more dunes after that, and he could make out individual trees. Now the ground leveled out, and Blade's pace increased almost to a trot as he covered the last mile to the fringes of the oasis.

As he passed the first trees, he heard from the opposite side of the oasis the bubbling cries of camels, the thud of many feet, and the rattle and jangle of harness. Blade stopped in mid-stride and swerved to the left, where a stand of squat trees with palm-like leaves and purple berries offered some cover. Before he could get out of sight, a dozen bearded men in white robes burst through the trees. Most of them had single-handed curved swords and those who didn't carried thick double-curved bows and filled quivers.

Again Blade stopped. He spread his arms and raised his empty hands. «I come in peace, my friends,» he said. «Are you of Dahaura?»

The answer was an arrow that missed Blade's ear by less than a foot and thunked into a tree well behind him. Blade darted to the left, trying for the cover of the trees. A second arrow whistled past his nose and plunged into the middle of the trees, while a third sank into the hard sand at his feet.

The precision with which those arrows were landing showed Blade that the men were missing him deliberately. If he tried to run or fight, they could easily make him look like a pincushion before he could give one of them a single scratch.

What wretched luck! If he'd waited until nightfall to approach the oasis, these people might have already come and gone. If they'd made camp, there would have been sentries and perhaps campfires to warn him. Even in the daylight, if they'd approached the oasis from any other direction but the exact opposite side-!

Blade swore mentally, as several of the men rushed forward to surround him and strip him of his weapons and gear. They also took his boots, leaving him standing barefoot on the uncomfortably hot sand.

The men examined the weapons they took from Blade, and a rapid babble of conversation rose as they recognized the handr flower of the Hashomi on the sword and the knife. One of the men jerked a thumb at Blade.

«Think he's one of them? This is damned close to their mountains. Maybe we should-«as he made the universal throat-slitting gesture.

The man who seemed to be in command pulled at his beard, then slowly shook his head. «No. A Hashom wouldn't have surrendered. His mistake, and our gain. He's got the look of a fighting man, and I'm not going to give up a hundred mahari because he might be a Hashom.»

«A hundred?» The first man sounded skeptical.

«At least. I've seen smaller men bring a hundred and twenty. Of course they might have to trim him, to keep him in hand, but that's not our problem.»

«All right, Shman. But if he tries to escape-«Again the throat-slitting gesture.

«Of course.»

The conversation died, as the men bound Blade's hands behind his back and led him after them. They came out on the other side of the trees, on the bank of a large pond of blue-green water. More than thirty camels were lined up on the other bank, their muzzles dipping into the water as they drank with furious gulping noises. A few of them carried heavy packs, but most of them bore riding saddles and harness.

More white-robed men were moving about among the camels, carrying waterskins and coarse woolen sacks. All of them were armed like the ones who'd taken Blade. There was also a ten-foot lance slung in a leather bucket on the flank of each camel.

Blade's feet were bound, and he was left in the shade of a tree by the pond. He spent the afternoon there, while the men watered their camels, filled their waterskins, ate, and trimmed their beards. Blade noted that four or five mounted men were always patrolling the fringes of the oasis, and the dismounted men always kept their weapons to hand. These were good soldiers. Blade would have thought twice about trying to escape from them, even if he hadn't known they would kill him if he tried.

Blade listened carefully to the conversation of the men, and was able to sort out most of what had happened to him. His captors were indeed soldiers of Dahaura, a patrol of the Baranate's elite Desert Riders. Under other circumstances Blade would probably not have encountered them until he reached the other side of the main desert.

Unfortunately, once more his luck had been bad. The Baran himself had issued a new edict that the Desert Riders were to send their patrols to the very foot of the mountains of the Hashomi. They were also to arrest any man found wandering alone, or any party without proper identification. Such people were to be enslaved if they surrendered peacefully, killed on the spot if they resisted or attempted to escape after capture.

Apparently the Baran was not yet ready to make open war on the Hashomi. He was quite happy to set his soldiers to making it more difficult for the Hashomi to wage war against him.

The edict must have been very recent indeed, thought Blade, or the Hashomi would have heard of it and I would have been expecting something like this. Either that, or the network of spies the Hashomi claimed to have in Dahaura had let them down.

It was almost pleasant to think of the arrogant, fanatical Hashomi making such a mistake. Unfortunately it was Blade who was going to have to pay for that mistake. He would reach Dahaura as a bound slave, destined for sale in the market and perhaps worse. He didn't like the word «trimming» which he had heard mentioned by several of his captors. He suspected it referred to making a male slave into a eunuch. Slavery itself he could survive, but losing his manhood was another matter. They'd have to kill him first, and they wouldn't do it without a few casualties of their own!

Once Blade was sure he'd been captured by men of Dahaura, he tried to speak to them. He tried three times. The first two times he was slapped, hard enough to split his lip. The third time one of the men drew a knife and flourished it in a way that hinted Blade would lose an eye if he opened his mouth again.

«The Law of Silence for slaves is made of iron, and you would do well to remember that!»

Toward sunset they brought Blade water and food-raisins, flat bread, a small piece of dried meat. Then they lifted him onto the back of one of the pack camels, tying his hands to the reins and his feet to the stirrups. The others mounted up, and the whole patrol moved off into the desert night.

The patrol quartered the desert for three more days, from oasis to oasis. Apart from feeding him, the Baran's men ignored Blade completely. He had nothing to do but listen to the conversations around him and watch the desert scenery. The conversations told him little that was new and the scenery quickly lost its appeal.

At last the patrol reached an oasis that seemed to be a base for the Desert Riders. There was a whitewashed stone fort that would have looked at home in any of a dozen movies about the French Foreign Legion.

There was also a caravan heading eastward, out of the desert. The patrol captain turned Blade over to the caravan, with depressingly strict instructions to kill him if he tried escaping. That same evening the caravan rode out of the fort and turned east.

Five days later they were out of the desert, and six days after that they came to Dahaura.

The name Dahaura! meant «Jewel of the Da,» the mile-wide river on whose banks the city was built. The city covered all the land inside a wide bend of the Da. At the river end the ground rose into a gigantic rocky hill. Successive Barans had leveled and terraced the hill bit by bit, surrounding it with walls and building their palaces on top of it. With those walls defended by a loyal garrison, the Barans had a formidable citadel that could hold out even against an enemy who'd entered the city itself.

That would not be easy. The landward side of Dahaura was protected by a wall eight miles long and fifty feet high, with nine towered gates. On the river sides the city was defended by a strong fleet of galleys and the mile-wide river itself. A single floating bridge crossed the Da, entering the city directly below the walls of the Baran's citadel.

Dahaura could stand against almost any attack from the outside. That was the problem. The attack the Master of the Hashomi was readying would be one from within. How well could the city and the Baranate cope with that?

The caravan turned onto a brick road that approached the walls of Dahaura through several miles of cultivated land. Blade saw fruit orchards, vegetable patches, and vineyards with fat bunches of purple and green grapes. Small humped bridges carried the road over a network of irrigation canals.

Closer to the city the road grew wider and the traffic on it grew heavier. More caravans, with camels, horses, and mules all lurching or trotting along with a great clatter and clinking. Ox-carts piled high with barrels and sacks rumbled along, their drivers cracking long whips. Several times parties of soldiers passed, usually riding at a canter on graceful horses.

Still closer to the city, the side of the road began to be lined with white stone walls surmounted with gilded iron spikes. Beyond the walls Blade could make out treetops and the tiled roofs of sprawling houses. Once they passed a square white block of a building set in the middle of a neatly manicured lawn. Beside the building rose a five-sided tower, on each side a mosaic showing the red spiral that was the symbol of Junah, the One and Universal. A platform on top of the tower supported a circular brass gong as tall as a man.

Then at last they came up to the outer gate. Four guards came out, bare to the waist except for blue necklaces and their bows and quivers. They examined the caravan leader's pass, ran quickly along the line of men and animals, then signaled to their comrades on top of the wall. Ahead, double gates of iron-bound timber twenty feet on a side creaked open. The caravan trotted forward. A moment of darkness and coolness, then the sun was blazing down on the caravan again. Richard Blade had come to Dahaura.