The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 5

A week's journey through the jungle followed. Lord Desgo was careful to keep both Blade and Neena not necessarily healthy, but alive. He made sure that they got enough food and water to keep them on their feet, and made even more sure that they had no chance to escape. Blade stayed alert, but it didn't do him much good.

He might have had a chance of escaping if he'd moved during the first three days. But Princess Neena seemed too stunned and apathetic to be able to make the escape with him. Blade wondered if the princess might be pretending to be more shaken than she really was, to lull her captors into relaxing. She'd been fierce and defiant right up to the end of the battle.

But Blade couldn't be sure. Kubona's ghastly death and her own captivity might have really unnerved the princess. He could not attempt his own escape if that would mean leaving her helpless in Lord Desgo's hands.

On the morning of the fourth day, Blade awoke to find that reinforcements had joined the party. Four more warriors and another stolof had come in during the night, to place themselves under Lord Desgo's command. The soldiers were not particularly happy about his orders to leave Neena alone, however. Blade caught them throwing numerous longing looks at her.

He could understand those looks. Battered, bruised, and dirty as she was, Princess Neena was a strikingly beautiful woman. She was long-limbed and slender, with little spare flesh anywhere, but beautifully muscled and graceful in all her movements. Her small breasts were perfectly molded, and so were all her other curves. Her hair was a gleaming black, so dark that it showed blue tints in the sunlight. Under the dirt her skin was an exquisite copper-gold. Blade could understand those lustful looks of the warriors, and why Lord Desgo expected great favor from King Furzun for giving him Neena.

The four newcomers appeared to accept Lord Desgo's authority without question, but Desgo did not trust to appearances. He was careful that the newcomers took the lead on the march. He never let any of the four get behind him, or turned his back on them. Desgo and his men always slept in a tight circle around the prisoners, one man awake and on guard at all times. Lord Desgo was obviously a warrior who thought as well as fought, and a leader his own men at least would obey and follow.

This went on for three days as they marched through the jungle. The ground underfoot was always level, and spongy with moisture and decay. Around them was always the solid mass of the jungle's vegetation. Most of it was a hundred different shades of green, relieved only by the black or brown of tree trunks, the white of fungi, and the occasional color-splashes of flowers.

Listening to the men talk, Blade discovered that this jungle-grown land was called Gleor. The city toward which they were marching, the capital of the Kingdom of Trawn, was called Trawnom-Driba — «Great City of Trawn.» There lived King Furzun, most of his warrior nobles such as Desgo, the wise men who bred the stolofs for Trawn's hunts and wars, and a great many other people.

Two days' march from the city, Lord Desgo held a drinking party to celebrate the capture of Blade and Neena. The four newcomers went out into the jungle to gather kabo nuts, shaped and colored like watermelons but with a hard shell and a yellowish milk inside like coconut milk.

While the four were out of sight, Blade saw Desgo stick a dagger into the neck of his stolof and draw out a small cup full of yellowish fluid. When the four came back, Blade saw the nobleman slip the fluid into the drinking cup that was passed around. He saw the four newcomers drink deeply from the cup, while Desgo and his men skillfully pretended to drink without letting a drop of the kabo milk down their throats.

The thick darkness of the tropical night came down quickly on the jungle, and Blade fell asleep without seeing or hearing anything more. In the morning, though, he saw the results of the party. All four of the newcomers lay stretched out dead on the ground, their faces twisted with pain and turned a dark blue.

Blade wasn't particularly surprised at that. He was slightly surprised at the cool, quiet skill Lord Desgo had shown in planning and carrying out the murder. Very definitely Lord Desgo was more than simply a sadistic thug. It was not at all pleasant to think about being in his power, and what that might lead to.

Lord Desgo's warriors showed no emotion at all over the four bodies. If hope of reward wouldn't keep them quiet now and forever about the murder, fear of Lord Desgo's vengeance certainly would. Blade saw no chance of persuading the warriors to betray their master, particularly when he had nothing whatever to offer them.

With only three men again, Desgo was even more careful with his prisoners. Before starting out that morning, he hobbled both of them, tying their ankles with wire from the dead men's packs. He also tied a rope around Neena's neck, so that she could be led along like a dog. Blade realized that his chances of escaping had now become slim indeed. His chances of escaping with Neena were even smaller. He could undoubtedly force Desgo to kill him, but he wasn't that desperate yet.

So Blade settled down to pretending to be a submissive, quiet prisoner. He didn't enjoy it, and he couldn't be sure if it was fooling Desgo or not. But he also knew that he was a fairly good actor. Several times he'd been good enough to save his own life. Perhaps he could do it again.

The hobbled prisoners slowed the march. It took three days and part of a fourth to cover the remaining miles to Trawnom-Driba. By noon on the fourth day, they were marching up to the city's walls.

Trawnom-Driba sprawled along the bank of a medium-sized river in a rough oval a good four miles long and half that wide. It must have held well over a hundred thousand people.

How «great» the place was, Blade was less sure. Only a handful of the largest buildings were stone or brick. The rest were wood-some of them heavily ornamented, but others only rough planks or rougher logs. Even the wall surrounding the city was made of logs peeled and driven into the earth.

Around the wall ran a narrow, water-filled ditch. It was narrow enough so that a strong man could have jumped across-if the smell rising from the scummy brown water below didn't strike him dead in midair. The wall itself sagged in many places, and was overgrown almost everywhere with tangles of creepers and flowering vines. The wall and ditch together looked just about able to keep wild animals out and keep house-pets in, and that was all. Blade was certain that a hundred well-armed and well-led men could get over or through the wall any time they wanted to.

Dozens of his fellow warriors and hundreds of ordinary citizens came out to welcome Lord Desgo and his prisoners. When they learned who the woman was, they cheered raucously and waved everything from swords and spears to sandals and headcloths.

Blade could understand why. Trawn and Draad had fought each other, up and down and back and forth across the forests of Gleor, for the better part of five centuries. Now Desgo was home, bringing with him the daughter of Draad's own king. It wasn't at all surprising that Lord Desgo suddenly found himself the man of the hour.

The crowd drew aside to give Desgo's party a clear path across one of the wooden drawbridges that crossed the ditch to gates in the walls. Several boys and youths scrambled up the vines growing on the logs. They started plucking flowers and throwing them down onto the planks of the bridge, to make a scented path for Lord Desgo's entry into the city.

One of the boys reached out too far toward a particularly gorgeous blossom and lost his balance. For a moment he hung on with one hand, then the vine he was holding snapped. He plunged twenty feet straight down with a wild scream, bounced off the narrow muddy bank under the wall, and dropped into the ditch. A wave of stench even more ghastly than before welled up from the ditch.

Blade heard the boy gasping and choking as he thrashed about wildly in the filthy water. Quite a number of people turned to watch. None of them made any move to help the boy. Blade felt a chill sensation inside as he looked at the people's faces. He remembered the faces of the men as they raped and tortured Kubona. The people watching the drowning boy wore the same expressions of unholy joy in someone else's agony.

«Ho, people!» shouted Desgo. «We can spare little time for this now. I must pass within and put my prizes in safety.» He looked around. «Has the boy a family or a master?»

Several shouts came in reply.

«Nobody, I think.»

«He's an orphan.»

«Nobody's ever claimed him that I know.»

«So be it,» said Desgo. «I invoke Noble's Right against the Lone.» He took a spear from one of his warriors and raised it, sighting on the boy. As the boy turned on his back, Desgo hurled the spear. It drove squarely into the boy's stomach. He gave a horrible bubbling scream, then thrashed wildly for a few more seconds and sank out of sight as the water around him slowly turned red. Another few seconds, and the spreading patch of red water was all that was left of him. Even then the people went on watching, their expressions unchanged, until the red faded away. Then slowly they made way for Lord Desgo as he led his prisoners into the city.

Inside the walls Blade had even more doubts about whether Trawnom-Driba could really be called «great.» The streets were mostly rutted paths, except where standing water had turned them into stinking mud. Wretched huts, shops of all sorts, larger houses with their own walls, and what looked like temples of palaces were all jammed together without logic or pattern. Pigs wandered about, rooting in the middens and garbage heaps. Occasionally they roamed over to snatch vegetables or fruit from the food shops. Blade found it rather hard to tell where the food shops left off and the garbage heaps began. He didn't blame the pigs for having the same trouble.

The more he saw of the people and what they did, the less Blade liked them. There was a small boy, about seven years old, who came out of a door holding some small animal by the tail. The animal looked like a cross between an otter and a kitten. It was writhing and twisting and squeaking frantically. Beside the shop was a small fire of twigs, burning in a brick hearth. The boy swung the animal three times around his head, then let it fly. It was a good throw-the animal landed squarely in the fire. Its squeaking turned to shrill screams that slowly faded away as Blade moved on down the street.

Blade had never before in his life felt like kicking a small boy the length of a street, like a soccer ball. But he knew that if he had been free and unguarded, he would have been extremely tempted to do just that. As it was, he couldn't even clench his fists or clamp his teeth tight shut. He kept his face expressionless and his breathing regular, walked on quietly, and wondered what he would see next.

The street ended in a rough muddy square that seemed to be some sort of public assembly place. On a wooden platform in the middle of the square two men were being publicly flogged. Blade was not surprised to see that a large and cheerful crowd had gathered around to watch the sight. On the fringes of the crowd several men had set up small stands or carts, selling cakes and fruit.

The crowd broke up as people streamed over to watch Desgo pass. Blade got a clearer view of the flogging. The executioner was a barrel-chested six-footer in a loincloth. His whip had five long plaited strands, and as he swung it Blade could see the glint of metal at the end of each strand.

One of the men was dead or dying. His back was one raw gaping mass of pulped and hacked flesh. Insects swarmed over it and in several places the white of the man's spine showed through.

The other victim was hardly more than a boy. His back was less grisly to look at, and he still had the strength to scream as the whip struck him. Blade wondered what the boy had done to deserve being flogged to death. If he'd spent his childhood throwing live animals into fires, there might be a sort of rough justice in what was happening to him. Blade doubted if he was being punished for anything like that, however. Sadistic cruelty seemed to be as popular in Trawnom-Driba as beer was in London, and just as easy to come by.

The street now wound snake-like through a tangle of close-set huts. Blade couldn't help wondering how many serious fires Trawnom-Driba had each year. In a city mostly wood, a single badly tended cooking fire could burn down half of it.

They came out of the huddled buildings into another square. On the far side was the largest building Blade had seen in the city. It had its own brick wall twenty feet high, with armed warriors walking back and forth on top of it. Beyond the wall Blade could see highpeaked roofs painted in a dozen garish colors, with beam ends carved into dozens of hideously distorted human and animal masks. Even in their art the people of Trawn seemed to cultivate pain and torment.

Desgo stopped and addressed Blade and Neena.

«I bring you to your new home, slaves. Before you lies the palace of King Furzun. What welcome you will find in that home depends much on you. King Furzun has no time to waste with unruly slaves. If you displease him, he will punish you and return you to me.

«On the other hand, if you please him in all the ways King Furzun enjoys being pleased, you will live as well as a slave may until he tires of you: Then I shall take you from him and you may continue to live with me for as long as it is given for slaves to live.» Blade suspected that was not very long. Life in Lord Desgo's power would hardly be worth living, in any case. But for the time being Blade knew he would continue to be as well behaved a slave as possible. Live slaves had more opportunities to escape than dead ones.

He wasn't sure Neena would see things the same way. She'd continued to be apathetic and numb all the way to the city, not even speaking when Desgo slapped her, drinking her water and eating her food in silence. She'd watched the ghastly scenes at the walls and in the streets with a face that might have been a bronze mask. Now she looked at the palace with the same bleak, resigned expression. Was anything going to register, or had her mind broken under the shock of captivity?

The massive gates of the palace squealed and rumbled open. A score of guards in blue leather tunics and codpieces scurried out, with drawn swords. Desgo spoke briefly to their leader, then stepped back and let them surround his prisoners. Blade and Neena found themselves being herded in through the gates. In the darkness beneath the gate towers, Blade heard more squealing and rumbling as the gates shut behind him.

Inside the walls, the palace seemed to be a labyrinth of twisting alleys and low doors that seemed to neither come from anywhere nor lead to anywhere. The only difference between the palace and the poorer neighborhoods of the city seemed to be that the palace didn't smell as bad.

Eventually the guards led Blade and Neena up to a door of solid square beams set in a featureless brick wall. To Blade's surprise it opened at a shove from the guard captain. Total blackness yawned beyond the doorway, blackness and an almost solid stench of too many things too long dead.

Before Blade could move, four of the guards grabbed him by the arms. The leader drew his sword and in two quick slashes cut through the bonds around Blade's wrists and the hobbles on his ankles. Then all four of the men holding him gave a mighty heave. Blade felt his feet leave the ground, then he was flying forward and plunging down into the darkness beyond the doorway.