Sung In Blood

XXV

All through the night assassins moved. They were not many, but their ways were stealthy and cunning. Never were they so direct or crude as to employ frontal attack with steel.

They struck in six places in addition to making the attempt on Procopio. Rider guessed well enough to have sent men to four of the slated victims. Not one man died who had the wit to accept protection from one of Rider's men. Both men who refused it perished.

Rider himself reached the City too late to participate in anything but the mourning.

"Four men dead." For the first time since the affair began his anger threatened to betray him.

He had driven himself to the limit of his astonishing physical resources. "One more imposition, Su- Cha. One more change. Patrol above the river. High up. See if Shai Khe's boat returns to that hulk."

Weariness and reaction to the murders had sapped the imp's spirit. He voiced none of his customary complaints. He simply nodded.

Rider said, "I'll be waiting at the airship yards."

Su-Cha went up into the night. Rider gathered his men and led them to the yards, where they boarded his favorite fast airship. They all collapsed into exhausted sleep.

Su-Cha arrived as Rider wakened, alerted by the imp's tug on the web. "He's there," Su-Cha gasped, and collapsed.

Rider wakened his men. They gaped at the imp, for this was the first time they had seen him sleep.

"Take your stations," Rider said. He alerted the airship's motive demon. Then he described what he and Su-Cha had discovered while the others were, for the most part, trying to save the lives of men who refused to believe themselves endangered.

"We could be seen lifting off," Greystone cautioned.

"I intend operating on the assumption that we will be," Rider replied. "But we'll feint to the east, up the Bridge. In any event, the ship can outrun any messenger."

The airship came out of the east, with the rising sun. It hurtled over the marshes so low the belly of the gondola whispered to the touch of tall reeds. Below, waterbears squeaked in sudden fright. Yawning marsh crocodiles bellowed in amazement and slithered into the safety of their deep pools.

Startled Emerald-like sentries gawked, then shouted warnings that were far too late.

The hulk loomed ahead. Rider lifted the airship a dozen feet and slowed it. His men sent cannisters tumbling down ...

A noxious violet miasma enveloped the decaying ship.

Su-Cha, who had wakened only moments before, put into words what only Rider had noticed. "The boat. It's gone."

Sullen grumbles greeted the news.

Rider backed and lowered the airship, dropped Chaz and Preacher. The purple fog had dissipated already.

The two were back in minutes. "Nobody there," Chaz reported as he clambered aboard.

Rider nodded as he began making altitude, looking for a boat. The stones Su-Cha had planted were still alive. And still aboard the hulk. Shai Khe had detected their emanations and had known his hideout stood betrayed.

No suspicious boat plied the river. Shai Khe could not have gone far, for he hadn't had time.

Rider doubted he could have reached the hulk long before the airship's arrival.

The eastern sorcerer had a sixth sense for peril, that was certain. He hadn't bothered wasting time setting booby traps. He had gotten while a chance to get remained.

"Back to square one again," Greystone said.

"Hardly," Preacher countered. "Hardly at all." He handed Rider a sheet of paper.

Rider moved nearer a window and stared at the sheet a long time. Finally, he handed it to Greystone.

The scholar grunted. "Il Diavolo. From the nether shore."

Chaz looked over Greystone's shoulder. "Looks like Shroud's Head to me. Pretty good drawing, for charcoal."

"It is Shroud's Head. But when King Shroud had it sculpted, the slaves who did the work called it II Diavolo. The Devil. The island sea peoples, they gave Shroud that name after he beat them off Klotus, then made them commemorate the defeat by carving the cliff into a face that would watch them forever."

Chaz said, "That means that fishing boat was going somewhere after all."

Rider nodded. "That's possible."

Shroud's Head had been carved from a two-hundred-foot-high promontory just miles down the Bridge from where Rider had had the guardship intercept the boat that had carried away Soup and Spud.

"The Devil's Eyes," Spud mused. "One of them is a cave, isn't it?"

Rider nodded. "Big enough to conceal a small airship."

"What're we waiting for?" Chaz demanded. "Let's go get them."

"Haste is not indicated," Greystone scolded.

"He's right," Rider said. "A clue like this is almost too sweet a find. For the moment we'd better assume it was left deliberately. Instead of rushing into a trap, let's see if we can't entangle Shai Khe in his own snare. In any event, we can close that door when we want. For now we'll concentrate on thwarting his assassins."

Rider started the airship down river in a not very hopeful search, leaving the hulk burning behind. After a few minutes, he said, "We've won one victory, of sorts. We've forced him to abandon his designs on the City. To lower himself to the spiteful murder of fancied enemies."

"Kind of understating there," Greystone observed.

"Possibly. Our job now is to take away his killing game. To compel him to come at us head to head."

"Wonderful," Chaz said. "That's what I've been waiting for all my life. A chance to go one on one with a guy so bad he scares himself when he walks past a mirror."

"We can handle him," Rider promised. "And while he's preoccupied with us he won't have time for anybody else."

Chaz grumbled a lot.

As Rider expected, they found no sign of Shai Khe's boat.