The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 21

The royal party arrived shortly after breakfast the next morning. There were at least a hundred people in it, but Blade had eyes for only four: King Embor, Queen Sanaya, Princess Neena, and the High Kaireen.

Clean and well dressed, Blade advanced down the path toward Embor. Kulo walked behind him and the other three assistants followed Kulo. Blade carried a bottle of the sleeping water, and Kulo carried a sprayer.

King Embor halted the party as Blade approached. Then he motioned for the warriors on the flanks to close in around Blade and his assistants. Blade had the uncomfortable feeling that they were watching for him to make some suspicious move.

The king bore himself with even more dignity than usual, standing so straight that he seemed to tower even over Blade. Queen Sanaya was smiling, but the expression on Neena's face was unmistakable. Anger, suspicion, fear-and jealousy-all fought each other for control. Blade tried to meet her eyes, but she turned her face away from him, until her father noticed what she was doing and glared at her. Slowly Neena looked back toward Blade and stared at him defiantly.

Then the king spoke. «Prince Blade, you have had much time to work upon what you promised to make for us. Have you done what you promised?»

The king's tone was almost completely expressionless, which was more of a surprise to Blade than outright hostility. He decided that whatever was going on here wasn't going to fit into any category.

«That is for you to judge, my Lord King,» he replied. «I have worked hard and done my best. Kulo here has also worked well, and I pray you will see fit to reward him.» Regardless of what happened to himself, Blade was determined to see that Kulo got credit for what he'd done. The young man deserved it.

«I have come to judge your work, Blade,» said the king. The same neutral voice. «What you have done will be properly tested, and soon.» He turned away from Blade and raised his voice to a commanding shout.

«Ho, guards. Forward, to make camp. Then begin the testing arena for Prince Blade.»

What King Embor meant by «the testing arena» was soon obvious. A party of about forty warriors and servants marched a short distance downhill. Then they began cutting down every tree in a circle about fifty feet across. As the trees crashed down, they were hauled to the edge of the circle and piled up to form a high, thick wall around it.

This took most of the day. Before darkness fell, the men moved still farther downhill. They chopped down more trees and began building rough log enclosures.

The king explained. «Tomorrow the hunting parties will go out. They will catch wild animals of every kind they can find, and put them in those cages. When we have enough animals, you will go into the arena.» He pointed at the large circular walled area. «Then the wild animals will be thrown into it, one by one, and we shall see-how well you have done what you promised.»

Blade frowned. So he was going to have to play Roman gladiator, with his sprayer and sleeping water against whatever beasts the hunters might bring in. The water worked on insects and very small animals. That he already knew.

But a black stalker or one of the seventy-foot snakes would be another matter.

Certainly it would be as rigorous a test as anyone could wish. If he failed-well, failure in this case would carry its own swift and drastic penalties. That was probably exactly what King Embor had in mind, and perhaps Neena as well.

There was a problem, though.

«Do you think it is wise to show everyone what-what we may have done-so soon? The clan chiefs will be looking on, won't they?»

Embor nodded and looked around, to see if anyone was within earshot. Then he spoke quickly, in a low, voice. «Blade, it is absolutely necessary that what you have done be shown to everyone, especially the clan chiefs. Believe me when I say that this is the only way.»

For the first time since he'd arrived, Embor's voice had not been carefully neutral. The king was in deadly earnest about something exceedingly important. Blade still despaired of making any sense of what was going on, but decided to play along the way the king wanted it.

The mystery deepened for Blade during the days it took to catch and bring in all the test animals. Neena was obviously avoiding him. She would look at him or speak to him only when there were other people around. Then both her face and her voice would be cold and expressionless, and she would talk about nothing more personal than the weather or the progress of the hunting. Obviously she wouldn't have even said that much if King Embor hadn't been pushing her to keep up appearances.

There was also Queen Sanaya. She had no chance for a private word with Blade and apparently wasn't looking for any. But she spoke to him freely enough in public, politely and even graciously. She gave no sign that she had anything at all unusual on her mind. She seemed to be perpetually smiling, laughing, taking the king's arm. She seemed to be treating this unexpected stay in the Mountains of Hoga as a sort of picnic.

Blade found relief from wondering what plots were waiting to spring out at him in watching the hunters bringing in the animals he would have to overcome. They made an impressive array, and the huts and enclosures were quickly filled. The camp was already a noisy place, with the crackle of campfires, the drums and flutes of King Embor's musicians, and the drunken singing of the warriors at night driving away the normal brooding quiet of the forests. Now the animals added to the noise, with a continuous chorus of hissings, screechings, growls, howls, twitterings, and other less describable sounds. The uproar must have been audible for miles. No one in this part of the forest could have any doubt that something unusual was going on.

That would include raiders from Trawn, if there were any around. Blade almost hoped there were. He would be happier if he knew how the sleeping water worked on actual live stolofs before risking a fullscale battle. The hunters of Draad couldn't very well go out and bring him back a batch of the creatures. But if the warriors of Trawn attacked and dumped some into his lap?

Meanwhile, he had various kinds of flightless birds. He had things like three-foot-long chipmunks, he had gray and black spotted deer with a single horn curving backward between the ears. He had a snake fourteen feet long with poison fangs as long as his fingers and alarmingly swift movements. He also had black stalkers.

The hunters brought in four of them, and they lost three men dead and two more crippled for life while doing so. That was something else Blade knew would be held against him if his inventions were unsuccessful.

The black stalkers had the heavy-bodied build of home dimension wildcats. But they were the size of small tigers-three hundred pounds or more. They were swift and sure in their movements, and their mouths were a foot wide and set with an array of teeth that would have done credit to a shark. Their large yellow eyes followed Blade grimly and unwaveringly as he walked around the stout huts where they were confined. He looked back at them just as carefully. All the other animals would just be warming-up exercises, even the snake. The black stalkers would be the real test.

He wished he could be as sure who were his real human enemies.