The Ruins Of Kaldac

Chapter 13

After a while Blade and Kareena felt like moving again. They took a bath, using up most of the spray soap and making a happy mess on the floor. At the finish Kareena was kneeling in front of Blade, sponging off his thighs and groin. At last she threw the sponge away, ran her hands up between Blade's thighs, and followed with her mouth. They quickly wound up on the couch for a second time. Kareena seemed willing to make up for what she lacked in experience, with her enthusiasm and willingness to try anything.

Both of them would have enjoyed a third time, but Blade couldn't forget the long shaft leading to the surface. He was sure the Doimari knew of the defeat of their waldo, and would react to it sooner or later. He didn't want to find them waiting at the mouth of the tunnel, a dozen laser rifles or another waldo ready to fry anyone who came out.

He kissed Kareena, then swung his legs off the couch, and patted her gently on the rump. «It's time we were on our way out of here,» he said. «If we stay much longer, we'll be sacrificing the good of Kaldak to our own pleasure.» He walked over to the packs and started rummaging through them. «Now if I can just find something to use for a booby trap-«

Kareena sat up. «A what?»

«A booby trap.» Although he knew that every minute might count, Blade took the time to explain what he meant. He might be killed, and if he wasn't he would sooner or later be returning to Home Dimension. The more of his knowledge of the fine points of handling Oltec he passed along to Kareena, the better for Kaldak and the Land.

«Watch what I do very carefully,» he finished. «That way you can teach the Kaldakans to do it, if I am not around. You can also warn the Kaldakans who come to this place, so they will not fall into the traps I set for the Doimari. If I can set any traps, that is,» he added. So far he hadn't found anything he could use in the packs. They couldn't afford the time for another complete search of the whole complex, but he hated leaving this wealth of Oltec for the Doimari.

Toward the bottom of Kareena's pack Blade found a ridged metal ball with a ring on top. It looked remarkably like an old-fashioned hand grenade. It exploded like one, too, when Blade tested it by pulling the pin and dropping it down the shaft. The Tower Builders hadn't abandoned reliable older weapons while developing new ones. Blade pointed this out as an example of their wisdom.

«So we should not give up bows even when rifles are as common as bows are now?» asked Kareena.

«No. The bows will still be good for hunting. Every animal you kill with an arrow saves power cells for killing Doimari.»

Kareena remembered where she'd found the grenade and led Blade to the room. He picked up all the grenades he could carry. Then he booby trapped the entrance to the shaft with four grenades wired to the door. Any unsuspecting visitor opening the door would stretch an almost invisible wire, pulling the pin out of one grenade and setting off the rest. Then Blade and Kareena slung their packs and started climbing.

Halfway up the shaft Blade burned off ten rungs of the ladder, leaving a fifteen-foot gap. At intervals from there to the top he cut halfway through a rung. Each rung still looked sound, but under a man's weight it would break and drop an incautious climber several hundred feet to the bottom of the shaft. Kareena watched carefully, asking questions whenever she didn't understand what Blade was doing. Sometimes he laughed grimly at the thought of the fate awaiting unsuspecting Doimari.

They saw no sign of any unwanted visitors in the store room. Blade and Kareena left some of the items they'd collected below, then filled up the space in their packs with power cells. As far as Blade was concerned, they couldn't have too much power for their rifles. Then they started up the tunnel. Halfway up, Blade used all but two of the remaining hand grenades to set another booby trap.

«Won't that bring down the whole tunnel?» asked Kareena.

«I hope it will,» said Blade. «It's better that no one have the Oltec here than that the Doimari use it in the war.»

Kareena looked stunned for a moment, then nodded slowly. «Yes, I suppose it is so. With ten thousand men armed with that Oltec, the Doimari would not even need the war machines.»

Blade would have liked to kiss her for such clear thinking, but the tunnel was too narrow. Instead he simply squeezed her hand, then started climbing again. As they approached the mouth of the tunnel, Blade found himself stopping every few yards and holding his breath. He heard nothing except his own heartbeat and a faint distant sighing which might have been the wind in the street.

They'd stayed underground longer than he thought. When they finally crawled out of the tunnel, it was so dark outside that Blade could barely find the hole in the wall made by the waldo. «Oh, good,» whispered Kareena. «It will be easier to escape in the darkness.»

«Perhaps,» said Blade. «But there is Oltec which lets a man see in the dark almost as well as in the light.» He explained infrared searchlights and gunsights in language he hoped Kareena could understand. Relying on his own excellent night vision, Blade studied the room. He saw no signs anyone had entered it since the Kaldakans left. There didn't seem to be anything to be gained by waiting longer.

«Come on, Kareena.»

They'd taken no more than a dozen steps beyond the door when the trap closed. Two laser beams blazed down from a window across the street, striking just above the hole made by the waldo. A dry patch of climbing vine caught fire. The flames were almost as good as a flare for lighting up the street. Kareena screamed, started to run back toward the building, then pulled herself to a stop.

«Come on! They've got that way covered!» Blade shouted. Then another laser fired from their left, the beam going so wide that it was either a bad shot or a deliberate miss. Blade didn't care. Charging at even a bad marksman armed with a laser was simply committing suicide. He jerked Kareena around to the right, then pushed her toward the far side of the street. If she got close enough to the buildings, the snipers in the window couldn't see her.

Blade raised his own rifle, waited until the next shot from the left, and saw it go even wider than the first one. This was puzzling but it also gave him a target. A quick shot from Blade brought a scream and the clatter of a falling weapon. The remaining snipers in the window fired again, but now they seemed unsure whether they should aim at Blade or at Kareena. They missed both, then Kareena was close under the window. Blade came up behind her, pulled the pin out of a grenade, and got ready to heave it up into the window. If the Doimari were relying too much on their weapons and were too thin on the ground to meet a determined effort to break out-

Something went whump in the darkness behind Blade, and something else went wsssshhhhhh in the darkness overhead. «Get down!» he yelled, and dove for the ground as the pavement around them erupted in flame and flying debris. Kareena was still on her feet when the blast caught her and dashed her to the ground like a doll. A second explosion went off, then a third and a fourth beside the building over the tunnel. Five, six, seven-Blade lost count and hugged the pavement, hands over his ears, not sure that his last moments hadn't come and only hoping the Doimari would wipe out half their own men with all the explosives they were throwing.

Dust was still settling around Blade when he saw dark-clad men converge on Kareena. She tried to get to her feet, one leg buckled under her, and she fell again with a throat-tearing scream of agony. She still had her sword and the courage to use it. A man who moved in too close screamed even louder than Kareena when her sword's point went into his groin. Then one man stamped down on Kareena's sword hand, another kicked her in the stomach, and several more fell on her.

As they did, Blade rose to his feet. He was an ice-cold killing machine now, mind and body united to serve only one goal: killing as many Doimari was possible before he went down himself. Firing from the hip, he swept the beam of his rifle back and forth. Doimari howled and fell on top of Kareena. Blade shut his ears against the cries, waiting for a return laser blast in his guts or a grenade explosion tearing him apart, vaguely surprised when neither happened.

Too late he heard footsteps behind him. He was turning, rifle still firing, when the net fell over his head and shoulders. He held onto the rifle with one hand and tried to lift the net clear with the other. A sudden jerk on the net pulled him over backward. He struck his head so hard that for a moment comets and fireworks blazed in the darkness. He felt utterly disgusted with himself at falling into a trap so quickly that he couldn't even give Kareena a clean death.

Then clubs smashed down at every exposed part of his body, and Richard Blade no longer felt anything at all.

«My name is Nungor,» said a wavering, distorted voice in the distance. Blade could barely make out the words over the roaring and hissing in his ears. «Are you the man called Blade of England?» More roaring and hissing. «Are you?» Then silence, and suddenly a deluge of cold water descending from nowhere onto Blade's head. The roaring and hissing faded away, although they left behind aches and pains in a good many parts of Blade's body. He also discovered that his hands were bound behind his back with wire. Then he found himself staring up at a brown face with a dirty black beard and a dirty green patch over one eye.

«I am Nungor,» the face said again. «Are you Blade of England?»

«Since you already know my name-«began Blade, then gritted his teeth as someone clubbed him across the shin. Nungor spun around and yelled at a man Blade couldn't see.

«No, you rat's bastard! The woman, the woman only! Feragga wants this one!» Then Nungor bent over and jerked Blade up into a sitting position. Blade saw that the man was no more than five feet four inches tall, but nearly as wide, and all of it was solid muscle with scars on every inch of exposed skin.

«You are Blade of England, aren't you?» said Nungor, an edge in his voice. Then he shook his head. «It won't be you paying the price for not talking. It will be Peython's daughter.» He pointed. Blade saw Kareena spread-eagled on the ground, wrists and ankles tied to heavy stones with wire. Blood oozed from around the wires. She looked as if she'd been run over by a truck, with face and thighs horribly bruised, a dozen cuts crusted over with dried blood, and a crude bandage on her left leg. Half a dozen men were standing around her, holding a variety of weapons and tools.

Nungor took Blade's hesitation for resistance and signaled to one of his men. A spear butt thumped down hard on Kareena's bandaged leg. Unfortunately she was conscious. Blade saw her arch her body and bite her already blood-caked lips. The spear butt came down again, and she gasped. It was coming down a third time when Blade said sharply, «I am Blade of England. What else do you want to know?»

He hoped he hadn't given in too easily, but he would rather let Nungor think he was weak than let Kareena be tortured anymore. It looked as if she'd already been through the mill to the point where she couldn't take much more punishment. As long as there was any hope, Blade intended to get both himself and Kareena out of the hands of the Doimari. That meant doing whatever might be needed to keep her alive.

Nungor jerked his head at the men around Kareena, and the spear butt thumped harmlessly on the ground. «Very wise, Blade. Very wise. We may yet be able to talk.»

«That is not yet certain, Nungor. You know you have Peython's daughter. Don't you also know that she's worth more as a live hostage than as a mangled corpse?» Normally Blade would have tried to deny that this was Kareena, but if Nungor knew who he was he would doubtless know who she was as well. Doimar's spies had done better work in Kaldak than Peython would be happy to hear.

«I know she is worth more alive than dead. But compared to you she is worth nothing at all. You have knowledge not only from Kaldak but from your land of England. Do not waste my time with arguing, either.» He signaled to his men and they formed a circle around Kareena, hiding her. What happened inside that circle Blade never knew, but he never forgot Kareena's scream either.

Whatever else happens, I am not going to leave this Dimension without killing Nungor, even if it means my own death. That resolution calmed Blade, so that he was able to tell Nungor enough to save Kareena from further torture without revealing too much about the Kaldakan expedition. He would have liked to be able to lie about the discovery of the complex at the bottom of the shaft but decided not to risk putting Kareena in danger. There was also the matter of the booby traps he'd left below, which Blade had no intention of revealing. Nungor seemed to have no more than twenty men with him. If half of them went down from the booby traps and didn't come back up, it might be worth trying to wipe out the rest and escape.

«Did Bairam leave any traps in the tunnel?» asked Nungor at last.

Blade frowned, trying to look uncertain. «I heard some of his men speaking of doing this. I do not know if there are any, or where there are. They would not trust me with the knowledge.»

«That is more wisdom than I would expect of Bairam,» said Nungor. «Blade, I think you are lying.» He raised a hand to the men around Kareena. Before they could move, Blade was on his feet. Nungor jumped back and drew his sword, obviously impressed at Blade's size and his feat of jumping up with his hands still tied behind his back.

«Nungor, hear me,» said Blade. «You can chop Kareena into small pieces if you wish. I cannot stop you. I can keep you from gaining anything by it, however.

«I know the fighting arts of England. I can make you choose between killing me or dying yourself. When I am dead, all my knowledge of Kaldak and England will be dead with me. Even if I do not kill you, I wonder if you will live long after your mistress Feragga hears our tale. You will have done a foolish thing. I have not heard that Feragga of Doimar is gentle with fools, or keeps them long in her service.»

That was only a guess, based on what Blade had heard of the ruling lady of Doimar. Apparently it was a good one. Nungor took another step backward, and Blade thought he saw the man swallow. Then the Doimari shrugged.

«Very well, Blade. It seems that you know how to put yourself in a strong position even when a prisoner.»

«I have traveled in many lands, Nungor. If I had feared death, it would long since have taken me. As a warrior, I am sure you know this as well as I do.»

Nungor jerked his head, acknowledging the praise. Then he pointed to one of the men around Kareena. «Yabo. Take three men and go down. Take bags and bring up as many fire boxes as you can carry.»

«Yes, Shro Nungor.»

Blade mentally erased the idea of trying to escape while Yabo and his squad were down the tunnel. Four down left sixteen on the surface-too many, unless matters got so desperate that it was simply a question of finding a clean death.

Yabo and his men marched out briskly and disappeared into the basement. Blade sat down and leaned back against the nearest wall, working his concealed hands back and forth steadily. The wire was tight, but it felt brittle enough to break if he worked at it long enough. Maybe the Doimari wouldn't spring the trap in the tunnel. In that case by the time they got to the one in the shaft, they'd have more men down below and Kareena would have recovered a little strength. It wasn't completely impossible that

Whrrrrummmmppppp!

A cloud of dust, smoke, and fragments shot out of the basement like the blast from a cannon. One of the booby traps had been sprung! Nungor's men jumped up with shouts and curses. One had his mouth open when a flying fragment hit him in the stomach and smashed him against the wall. Then a second explosion came, with a long hissing sound. A wavering blue light shone in the heart of the smoke cloud. Some of the power cells had been affected by the grenade explosions and were burning themselves out. Blade tried to take shallow breaths as the smoke and fumes filled the street. All around him, half-invisible in the murk, he heard Nungor's men coughing and choking. Then above that sound he heard a long drawn-out rumble, growing steadily until it seemed as if the earth itself would start shaking any minute.

Blade knew it was no earthquake. Through gaps in the murk he saw the walls of the building swaying and cracking, then shedding pieces themselves the size of a small house. Shaken by the waldo's attack the explosions last night, the booby trap, and finally the power cells, the building was collapsing.

Then the roar increased until Blade had to open his mouth to equalize the pressure on his ears. The dust billowed so thickly that he could barely see Nungor's men around Kareena. Then he saw them break and run, as fear of the unknown overcame their fear of Nungor. Nungor vanished on their heels, shouting curses and waving his sword, and Blade was alone with Kareena.

He made one last furious effort against the wire on his wrists, felt metal gouge skin and flesh, then felt the wires snap. His hands were free.

Blade reached Kareena in three long steps and bent down to shout in her ear. «Kareena! Can you hear me?» He thought he saw her nod, even though her eyes were closed. «I'm going to cut you loose, and we'll try-«

Kareena's eyes opened, and she licked dust-caked lips. «Blade, you've got to run! I can't come with you. My leg-it's broken. Don't-«

Blade swore under his breath. He should have thought of this possibility, but he'd been too concerned with keeping the girl from being tortured to death. «Then I'll stay with you.»

«Blade, you can't-«

«Kareena, I will. Now close your eyes and pretend to be unconscious again.» He wanted to add, «And say your prayers,» because he wasn't at all sure what mood Nungor would be in when he returned.

Slowly the crash and roar of the falling building died away. The breeze thinned the fog of dust until Blade could see nearly fifty feet. At the limit of his vision was Nungor, holding a laser rifle aimed at Blade.

Blade slowly stood up, shifting his footing as he did so that he was in position to strike down at Kareena's ribs with one heel. That would give her a merciful death, before Nungor could kill him with the rifle. Nungor could either kill them both or spare them both. Blade refused to consider giving the man any other choices.

His unspoken message seemed to reach the Doimari leader. Slowly Nungor lowered his rifle. «It seems your honor binds you to Peython's daughter, England-man.»

«It seems so.»

«Well, then I shall do nothing to you for now. Whether Feragga will be so gentle, I do not know.»

«That is for Feragga to say.»

«True.»

Blade looked at Kareena and winked. He thought he saw her wink back. Then he turned to look at what was left of the building. A short stretch of wall about three stories high was the only thing still standing from a building eight stories high and a block square. It would take a Home Dimension engineering crew months to dig anything out from under that hill of rubble. In this Dimension it would take years. Whoever won the war might someday dig out the treasure below, but it would play no part in the war itself.

That wasn't a bad day's work, for two nearly helpless captives. Blade sat down and watched Nungor's men trickling back, under the lash of their chief's curses. None of them came anywhere near either of the prisoners.