Wizard Of Rentoro

Chapter 5

On the evening of the sixth day Blade reached a farm lying at the foot of a range of wooded hills. Over dinner in the farmer's hut Blade learned that beyond the hills lay a walled town called Dodini. There was no good wagon road over the hills, so the farmers on this side did little trading with the town. But a strong man on his own two feet could easily pass through the forest up to the crest of the range.

«Then ye be seein' town for yeself, and a good mornin's walk'll take ye there.»

A town large enough to need walls and impress these peasants might have only a few thousand people. It still sounded more like civilization than anything Blade had seen so far in Rentoro. It was time to bring his vacation to an end.

Blade left the farm well before dawn the next morning, not sure exactly how far he had to travel but hoping to reach Dodini before dark. He plunged into the forest as the sky turned light. Fortunately it was a clear day, and the canopy of branches overhead was thin enough so he could guide himself by the sun. Within an hour the trees were growing thinner, and an hour later he was striding across open moorland. The grass was long enough to ripple pleasantly in the stiff breeze, and bushes studded with pale red flowers seemed to be everywhere.

Shortly before noon he reached the crest of the range and saw the country beyond spread out before him. Through it ran a large river, so blue that it seemed to glow in the sunlight, and on the banks of the river squatted a walled town. Both walls and town seemed to sprout towers everywhere and smoke curled up from many chimneys. Blade measured the distance and heaved a sigh of relief. The town was less than ten miles away. He shifted the ax to the other shoulder and started downhill.

Blade reached level ground in an hour and in two more he was halfway to Dodini. A few hundred yards ahead the path he was following joined a wide road, roughly paved with stone slabs. To the right of the path rose a rock hill, its slopes too bare and steep to support even grass. Blade headed for this hill. It would give him a final chance to examine the town from a safely concealed perch, before entering it.

He reached the hill and scrambled up the near side. The bare rock reflected the heat of the sun until the slope was like a griddle. Blade's clothes were dark with sweat and torn in several places long before he reached the top of the hill.

He was only a few yards below the top when he heard a sudden soft thump that seemed to come from the other side of the hill. It sounded like an enormous feather mattress falling. Blade froze, then heard a more familiar sound-iron-shod hooves, moving fast across a hard surface. Blade flung himself toward the hilltop. As he reached it, the sound of human shouts joined the clatter of hooves. He threw himself flat and stared down the far slope of the hill.

The Wolves had come to Dodini. At least forty of them were heading down the hill, their heudas kicking up clouds of dust and gravel. Blade counted seven of the fully armored leaders with their shields and pennoned lances, with a cluster of men-at-arms following each one.

At least half the men-at-arms were leading pack heudas with large leather sacks or wicker baskets slung on either side. The heudas were ungraceful, almost grotesque in their movements, but they covered ground at a pace no horse could have matched on that slope.

Blade's eyes followed the trail of dust across the hillside to a pair of large boulders, each twice as high as a man. With a sudden shock he realized that the trail ended there. All the Wolves seemed to be riding out of the gap between the boulders-but none of them rode into a gap from the other side. The rising cloud of dust did not conceal the hillside beyond the boulders. It lay bare, empty, and undisturbed.

Blade looked again, more carefully, and saw the same thing he'd seen the first time. He forced himself to consider what it meant. He might be hallucinating. His eyes might be playing perfectly normal tricks on him-overlooking some natural feature which hid the Wolves until they appeared between the boulders.

Or he might be seeing what was actually happening-the Wolves appearing out of thin air and riding off toward Dodini.

Blade refused to use the word «impossible.» It was always foolish, and in Dimension X it was dangerous. Still, a force of heavy cavalry riding out of thin air wasn't something he met every day, even in Dimension X.

Suddenly the mystery behind the Wolves was much greater than before. The secret behind the Wolves was no longer just the identity of their master. It was much more how much more Blade didn't even want to try guessing for now. For now that would be a waste of time.

The vacation was definitely over, though.

Blade lay on his stomach until the last of the Wolves appeared and rode off down the hill. Among the men-at-arms behind the last leader Blade recognized the huge red-bearded man who'd wielded the ax in Frinda.

There were more than a hundred Wolves in sight by the time they stopped coming. As the last ones thundered off down the hill, the first ones were already reaching level ground. They spurred their mounts toward the road that led to Dodini. Farmers in the fields scampered out of the Wolves' path or threw themselves to the ground.

The Wolves struck the road, swung to the left, and pounded off toward Dodini. A thin column of red smoke seemed to be curling up from one of the towers. Otherwise the town lay quiet in the sunlight, as if the Wolves charging at its walls were no more than a thunderstorm which would come and go regardless of what men did.

As the last Wolf struck the road, Blade sprang up and scrambled down the hillside as fast as he could. On level ground he broke into a run. He headed straight for the town, cutting across fields and through woods, feet pounding, long legs eating up the ground. He could hardly have run faster if the Wolves had been behind him rather than ahead of him.

If he could get his hands on one of the Wolves, things would be a great deal simpler. But to do that safely he had to reach Dodini hard on the Wolves' heels. In the uproar of their arrival, no one would be paying attention to a ragged stranger with an ax over his shoulder.

There were many things that could go wrong with this rough plan. There always were, when one man decided to challenge a hundred. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but run. Blade ran, and ahead of him the towers of Dodim rose higher and higher above the trees.

A final patch of woods gave Blade cover almost up to the walls. The trees grew so close that Blade wondered if the people of Dodini had ever heard of enemies creeping up to their walls under this ready cover. Had Dodini been at peace, except for the Wolves, since before these trees were planted? That was a long time. The trees were solid gray-barked things two feet thick at the base. They might have been here for a century or more.

This suggested not just one tyrant, keeping the peace in this Dimension by sending out the Wolves to collect his taxes and crush his enemies. It suggested a whole dynasty of tyrants, extending back a century or more, tightening their rule, picking and training their troops, getting people to accept their authority as something inevitable and inescapable, ruthlessly enforcing peace. Now Richard Blade faced that dynasty single-handed, ready to challenge its picked troops and try to dig out its secret-or die trying.

It was not going to be the easiest challenge he'd ever met. However, he'd faced longer odds in other Dimensions. He was still alive and most of the people who'd tried to kill him were dead. He'd just have to go ahead once more, do his best, and trust to luck for what he couldn't control. So far luck had been with him, and his best had been very good indeed.

It might even be good enough to keep him alive against a hundred Wolves.