The Torian Pearls

Chapter 12

Blade rode out with the scouts that afternoon. They spread in a line five miles wide, stretching across the front of all the wagons. Blade rode within sight of the water.

The scouts beside him rode with one eye on the land and the other uneasily turned toward the water, waiting for whatever might come out of it. Fortunately the sea reptiles, like the bat-birds, seemed to be creatures of the night. Once Blade saw a dark head and back rise from the waves a few hundred yards off shore, then sink down again after a minute or two. Otherwise the water shone in the sun, kicked up into whitecaps by a brisk wind. It rolled in peacefully on the shore, with no sign that it had ever spawned last night's horrors. Yet the reptiles were still out there, and so were their masters. They would come again, Blade was certain.

Once they'd made the new camp, Blade planned to ride back to the dead reptiles. He wanted to study them, learn more about what they could do, what could be done to them while they lived, and perhaps what could be done with them after they were dead. He might also find some clues about who their masters might be. At the moment this was such a total mystery that Blade refused even to guess.

The Kargoi made camp late that day, under the glaring sunset sky with the shadows already stretching far across the beaten-down grass. They made a camp huddled close against the foot of the hills and as far from the water as possible. The wagons of all three Peoples were drawn into an immense triple circle and all the warriors took up positions between them and the water. Except for the warriors no one left the wagons. No tents were pitched, no fires were lit.

No one in the whole camp slept that night except out of sheer exhaustion. All the wakefulness was unnecessary. Nothing came out of the sea or down from the sky.

At dawn Blade rode back to the battlefield. He would have preferred to ride alone, but that wasn't possible. The moment he mentioned he was going to ride back, Paor insisted on coming with him. Then Naula swore she also would come and share his danger. Several other warriors immediately decided that they would be shamed if a woman went where they would not. They insisted on joining the party. In the end Blade rode back at the head of fifty warriors.

That was far too many witnesses for much of what Blade wanted to do. So far no one among the Kargoi had the faintest notion that the attacks of the bat-birds and the sea reptiles were anything but more monstrous freaks of nature, like the volcanoes or the rising sea. Blade desperately wanted them to stay ignorant as long as possible. He suspected that not even the courage of the Kargoi would survive the knowledge that the bat-birds and reptiles were being directed by some unknown intelligence greater than theirs. He also suspected that if warriors like Paor watched all he did on the battlefield, they would begin to wonder what he was looking for and then ask questions to which he could give no safe answers.

He might have done better to ride back by himself in the night, secretly, risking the bat-birds and reptiles and anything else that might be tempted to attack a lone rider. He would far rather risk his own neck ten times over than risk a panic among the Kargoi that could leave them helpless in the face of their enemies.

Blade was able to get some use out of his unwanted escort by making the warriors help him butcher the dead reptiles. At first the warriors drew back at the idea of cutting up two thousand tons of rapidly-decaying corpses in the hot sun. The smell alone already lay across the shore like a fog.

Blade ignored their protests and hesitations. He and Paor and Naula and a few other willing spirits stripped off their clothes, drew their swords, and went to work. After a little further hesitation, the rest of the warriors joined in, except the few on guard duty. They could not refuse to follow the lead of the hero Blade, or refuse to go where even Blade's woman went.

The work was every bit as gruesome as Blade expected. He was glad he hadn't eaten any breakfast. Most of the warriors didn't have stomachs as strong as his. Blade felt sorry for them, but he wasn't too unhappy to see them dropping out one by one. There were plenty of hands left to do the necessary work, and fewer eyes to watch him.

It was soon clear that the reptiles could be put to all sorts of uses. Their scaly hides made excellent body armor, shields, and helmets-heavy, smelly, and hot, but tougher than boiled leather and almost as tough as mail. Their bones came in all shapes and sizes, from tiny ones that could be carved into buttons, through larger ones that would make good axe handles, to the ribs that were as tall as a man and would make good roofbeams for fair-sized huts if the Kargoi ever had a chance to build any.

The claws and teeth would make excellent arrowheads and speartips-not as hard as metal, but more easily replaced and hard enough to deal with most human opponents. The internal organs were too far gone in decay to be much use. Taken from a freshly-killed beast, on the other hand, thoroughly cleaned, and cured in the sun, they would make large, sturdy bags and bottles.

Blade hacked and slashed, pried and pulled, splattering himself from head to foot with blood and filth until he looked like something found on the floor of a hutcher's shop. Even if the other men had been watching him every minute, they wouldn't have seen anything suspicious. He carved his way deeper and deeper into the decaying bodies without finding anything that shouldn't have been there in a normal beast.

At last Blade asked everyone to stand back and leave him alone for a short time. It was the custom among the English, he said, to offer the brain of a slain animal as a sacrifice to the Earth Wisdom. It was improper for anyone but a warrior of England to witness the sacrifice.

The few warriors still on their feet were more than happy to leave him alone, out of respect for his customs and out of a great desire to get away from the acres of reeking carrion. No curious eyes were around when Blade went to work on the skull of the most intact of the reptiles. That was the most likely place left to find some trace of whatever intelligence might lie behind the beasts' attacks.

Blade closely examined the hide stretched over the huge skull. Any scar, any unnatural bulge might give him a clue. He looked until his eyes were watering and his fingers raw from prodding the scaly hide. All he could find was one strip about a foot long and a couple of inches wide, where the hide seemed a little smoother than elsewhere. It could be the scar of an operation to implant something in or near the brain. It could also be a scar left by a battle against another reptile or by running into a submerged boulder!

Blade began cutting, slowly and methodically, keeping well clear of the scar. He cut through the hide and into the skull, then began working his way around the scar. At last a circle of hide about a foot in diameter was loose. Blade gripped it by one side and thrust his sword gently in under it, to pry it free.

As he thrust, the point of his sword struck something solid. Blade poked gently and heard a sound that could only have been made by his sword striking metal or plastic. He drew his sword out, put it down, and began carefully stripping the hide off by hand.

At last a bloody circle of skull lay exposed. A little to one side of the center was a disk of translucent glass or plastic, about six inches in diameter. Several wires crisscrossed the surface. Blade could make out the faint patterns of what was unmistakably advanced microcircuitry.

There it was-complete and undeniable evidence that someone was implanting something, probably a control device, in the brains of the sea reptiles.

Who? The device itself gave no real clues. Microcircuitry obeyed certain basic laws that were the same for any people or race. All that was implied was a certain level of technology-and the existence somewhere in this Dimension of somebody with that level of technology.

That meant the Kargoi and anybody else who managed to survive the rising waters were in more danger than they could know. No matter how much Blade taught them, they could still be doomed.

Blade swore, first mentally, then out loud. He didn't feel helpless-he never did-but for once he did feel that the opposition might be a trifle overpowering!

He put the flap of hide back in place, stood up, and signaled to the others to gather around him. They came slowly, Paor leading them.

Blade laid his sword across the beast's skull and spoke loudly.

«The brains of these creatures are not fit for sacrifice. They have been attacked by an evil growth, that makes them mad.»

Paor nodded. «So that is why they were attacking us?»

«Yes «

It was not the best possible lie, but it should last until the Kargoi were ready to learn the truth-if that time ever came.