The Torian Pearls

Chapter 7

«That is good,» said Blade. «Indeed, the baudzi of the Kargoi are men of honor. They will not make even a stranger wait for his testing.»

Paor nodded, but there was a look of doubt on his face that provoked Blade. «Or do I have too much faith in the baudzi of the Kargoi? I would not doubt them unless I have to, but-«

Paor raised a hand to stop Blade. «You must know that two of the baudzi had no wish to see you tested. One would have had you cast out of our camp, with food and water, while the other would have had you slain in the night. The decision went against them, so there is nothing they can do against you by law or custom. Still, there will be danger to you from their anger. Rehod, the one who would have had you slain, will be standing against you in the testing tomorrow.»

«Then I will see to it that Rehod can do nothing against me without danger to himself. If I can do that, I think it will be enough. I know the ways of men like Rehod. They seldom strike at those who can strike back.»

«I hope you are right, Blade,» said Paor. «We can do nothing against Rehod ourselves, not without risking a blood feud with his kin. That we cannot have, when we need all our warriors standing together. But I would not rejoice to see you slain by treachery and the honor of the Kargoi stained with your blood.»

«You will not see that,» said Blade. «Not while I have eyes in my head, breath in my body, and arms to strike at my enemies.» He made a contemptuous gesture. «Now, enough of this Rehod. What is the testing?»

It was much as Blade expected. He would be tested as an archer, both mounted and on foot. He would be tested as a rider of the drend, a runner, and a wrestler. Last of all he would be tested as a swordsman.

«You shall fight twice with the sword, once mounted and once on foot. There will be no great danger to either you or your opponents, for the swords will be blunted.» Paor drew a longsword from a scabbard across his back and held it out to Blade.

Blade examined the sword carefully. A long heavy strip of boiled leather reinforced with drend bone was tied along the edge and around the point. A strong blow with this sword would bruise painfully and possibly break bones, but it would not leave gaping, deadly wounds.

Blade stepped back and begin swinging the sword. He went through every movement that could be made with such a sword, then repeated the whole sequence twice more, faster each time. The padding made the sword considerably heavier and less well balanced, but not unwieldy. Blade was quite sure he could handle it well enough to prove himself a first-class warrior. For once his life didn't depend on the outcome of the fight.

At last Blade handed the sword back to Paor and raised a hand in farewell salute. «Until tomorrow, then?»

Paor raised his own hand and pressed his wrist against Blade's in the Kargoi's gesture of honorable friendship. «Until tomorrow.» A moment later he was gone.

Blade sat down cross-legged on the ground, considering what he'd learned and making his plans for tomorrow. The testing seemed simple and straightforward, but there was always a wide range of possible surprises in something like this.

Fortunately, Blade could always draw on an equally wide range of talents plus the ability to think on his feet. The surprises tomorrow would not be all on one side.

Gradually the camp settled down for the night. The sounds of tools and crying children faded, the cook fires died down, the mounted sentries took up their stations. Blade took a last drink of water, wrapped himself in the leather cloak, and lay down in the grass.

The testing began the next morning as soon as the colors of the sunrise faded into daylight. The testing place was on the open plain several miles west of the camp. Only a handful of baudzi and warriors were on hand, and mounted sentries rode about to make sure no one else approached. Fortunately Paor himself was on hand, so Blade knew that his back was as well-guarded as he could expect under the circumstances.

The first test was an easy one, a test of Blade's ability to handle a drend. The riding drends were not exactly docile, but they were too slow in their wits and on their feet to be able to do anything dangerous to an experienced rider. Blade had no trouble starting, stopping, or guiding a drend at a walk and a trot.

Then came the test in archery. The Kargoi bow was about four feet long, built up of layers of drend bone and hide and strung with drend sinews. It could easily send its short, thick arrows two hundred yards. It was not a bow to bring down large animals or armored opponents, but the Kargoi didn't need it for that. They'd never faced armored human enemies and didn't expect to. As for hunting, their method of killing even wild drends was to run up to them on foot, stun them with clubs, then cut their throats. So why a larger bow?

Blade could have given the Kargoi a long lecture on why. He also realized that until he passed all the tests it would be a waste of breath to say anything to the Kargoi about weapons or warfare.

So he kept his mouth shut and picked up his bow and arrows for the testing of his archery. The mark was the skull of a drend, mounted on a pole. Blade shot at it both sitting and standing, from fifty, a hundred, and a hundred and fifty yards. Then he mounted a drend and shot while it was standing still, while it was walking slowly, and while it was moving at full speed. Each time he fired six arrows, and five of the six times he was able to put all six into the target. From the looks on the faces of the baudzi watching him, thus was obviously more than good enough.

Then he decided it was time to put on a show. He turned to Paor and said quietly, «Have them take the skull off the pole. I will shoot again, using the pole alone as my mark.»

Blade shot six arrows at the bare pole. All six of them were sticking out of the pole by the time he'd finished. Then he mounted a drend and rode at a walk past the pole, firing six more arrows as he passed. Five of those six arrows also hit the pole, which began to look like a porcupine.

When Blade dismounted, everyone who'd watched was wide eyed with surprise and admiration. Everyone, that is, except Rehod and the warriors who stood on either side of him. Rehod's eyes were narrowed and about as admiring as the muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun.

For the test in running, Blade had to run three times around the testing area. Two strong warriors would run after him, and if they caught him, they could prod him in the buttocks with the points of their swords. Paor was asked to be one of the warriors, but refused.

«It is known well enough how much I favor your being accepted among the Kargoi. There are those who might doubt I could give you a true testing, and therefore doubt your fitness.»

The substitute for Paor turned out to be one of Rehod's friends, a long-legged, rangy man who looked like a natural runner. Blade was quite certain he would not be easy for anyone to run down. Three times around the testing area was no more than three miles. Blade had kept pace with a party of Zungan hunters across fifty miles of open veldt.

Blade and his two pursuers started off at an easy pace, hardly more than a brisk jog. The other two ran level with him for a few hundred yards. Then step by step they began to fall back. After another hundred yards Blade looked behind him. The others were now holding their position, and the look on their faces was easy to read. He was not outrunning them at all. They were deliberately dropping back, to lull him into slowing his own pace. Nice try, he thought, but it won't work.

Instead of slowing his pace, Blade began to increase it. He did this so carefully that the gap between him and the men behind him nearly doubled before they realized what was happening. Blade saw the face of Rehod's friend harden. Then his long legs seemed to blur as he dashed forward after Blade.

Blade was plunging forward before the other man covered half a dozen steps. Blade's legs flew, devouring the ground in great leaping strides. His long arms pumped up and down like pistons, pushing air into the lungs in his massive chest. He raced along, working steadily up to the pace that had once taken him a mile in three seconds less than four minutes.

In moments of stress like this Blade had the ability to almost sense what lay behind him without seeing it. He knew that both men were making a desperate effort to close, that both had their swords reaching out for him, and that neither was anywhere near him. He ran on, still faster.

They finished the first lap with Blade still well out in front. Now Blade was able to look back. The sun glinted on the polished steel of the swords and also on the sweat pouring down the men's bodies. Rehod's friend looked as if he could run all day, but the second man's movements were becoming clumsy and his eyes stared blindly ahead.

Halfway through the second lap, the second man began to drop back. His face was twisted in frustration and pain, and he flailed away at the air with his sword as if he was hacking into the flesh of a hated enemy. Rehod's friend flashed a brief loop of contempt at his weaker comrade, then returned to his grim pursuit of Blade. His face was now set into a mask like the temple image of some particularly bad-tempered god. Blade suspected that if the man caught him he would do far more with that sword than merely prick Blade's buttocks. It would be an «accident;«of course.

The two men finished the second lap and charged into the third. The man behind still looked as if he could run all day, in spite of the sweat pouring down him. Blade felt exactly the same way. The spectators had been shouting, in excitement or in support of one side or the other. Now they stopped, watching the runners' duel in silence.

Halfway through the final lap Rehod's friend made his great effort. He raced after Blade at a pace good for breaking records in the hundred-yard dash, but no good for a long-distance run. Blade still knew he had no choice but to speed up. Otherwise the man would almost certainly catch him, and he'd run too far and too well to let himself be caught now.

Blade's own feet seemed to barely touch the ground as he poured all his strength into a pace to match the other man's. Once more his extra sense told him where his opponent might be. The man was gaining, but only a step at a time, and there was still a large gap between the two men. Would that gap last longer than the other's strength?

Blade ran now with total concentration, nothing on his mind but taking each step a little faster than the one before, making each breath a little deeper than the one before. His concentration was so complete that the man behind him could probably have caught up and stabbed deeply without Blade's feeling it at all.

Then suddenly Blade's sensation of someone behind him began to fade. He didn't look back until the sensation was completely gone. Then he saw his pursuer staggering like a drunk as he ran, stumbling and weaving from side to side. The gap between the two men was widening at every step.

Blade didn't slow down until he was near the end of the third lap. As they reached the end of it Rehod's friend fell to the ground and lay there, writhing feebly and gasping like a dying fish. Blade ran on, completing half of a fourth lap at a run, then finishing it at a jog. As he came in from the fourth lap, everyone except Rehod and his friends was cheering.

Blade drank some water and took a short rest before the test in wrestling. «In fact,» said Paor, «if you do not take the rest, I will knock you down and sit on you until you are strong enough to be fit for the testing. Show some of the wisdom you showed facing me and my comrades, and the day will be yours.»

Blade really needed no such urging. The four-mile run in the hot sun on an empty stomach had taken a good deal out of him. He was happy to sit for a few minutes, drinking water, breathing deeply, and working the kinks and knots out of his muscles. Then he rose to be tested in wrestling.

Neither of Blade's opponents in the wrestling test was a friend of Rehod, so Blade did not worry about painful or fatal «accidents.» He was able to relax and do his best.

The Kargoi's style of wrestling turned out to be highly formal, almost ritualistic. There were only a few standard moves. When Blade learned those, he had no more problems. In fact, he had to take care not to win so easily that he would humiliate the two warriors facing him. He flattened both opponents in less than ten minutes apiece, then drank some more water and got ready for the test of swordsmanship.

This would be the last test, and possibly the most important. Certainly it would be the most dangerous. The weapons lent themselves to «accidents» if anybody wanted to arrange one.

Somebody probably would. Blade's first opponent in the test of swords was Rehod, and open anger showed in the warrior's face every time he looked at the Englishman.