Part 7 (1/2)

”They signal. This is only the first outpost of the Api. There are others, many more, guarding the pa.s.s leading into the mountains. But they are not important. It is here, Blade, that we will live or die.”

Blade had been watching the door of the hut. He counted them as they emerged and lined up in military fas.h.i.+on. Ten of them. Nine in the single rank and one leader. All wearing the horned helmets and the swordbelts. Blade's lips quirked in dour amus.e.m.e.nt as he watched the leader dress and order his men like any squadleader back in Home Dimension. The commands came drifting across the plain, borne on the wind, and Blade perked his ears. The voice was that of a woman or, at best, an emasculate! High-pitched, shrill, a near falsetto. He looked askance at the girl.

”Are they women, these Api?” She had mentioned nothing of this.

Ooma, who had gone a bit pale, shook her head. ”No. How I wish they were. Or that they had females of their own. But they do not, all Api are males, which is why they are so few now, and all children born of women taken by them are always males. And always Api. Oh, Blade, I begin to be much afraid. If I spoke bravely before it was a lie. They will slay you and make me their group wh.o.r.e, for I will not have the courage to kill myself.”

She s.n.a.t.c.hed at his hand. ”Come. We can still escape back into the forest. They will not pursue us. Their duty is only to guard this plain.”

Blade pushed her away. ”Too late for that now. Trust me and obey me. Exactly. Stay back and keep silent. Not one word. You understand?”

Her voice quavered. ”Yes, Blade.”

”See that you do. And trust me. I will deal with these Api.”

The leader of the Api gave a high-pitched command. The line wheeled and began to march toward Blade. The maneuver was executed with grace and precision, the leader marching four paces in front. Blade leaned on his spear and, with a coolness he did not really feel, watched them come. He curled his mouth into a sneer, a grimace of disdain, as if the Api were sc.u.m and he the lord and master. How else to play it? Bluff it must be. Bluff and bra.s.s. Cold nerve. And when the time for killing came?

He must wait and see.

Chapter Eleven.

The leader of the Api halted his men twenty paces from Blade. He ignored the big man leaning so indolently on his spear and sneering, and addressed the rank again. On his command, the Api drew their swords and presented them in salute. Faint hope stirred in Blade, they were so correct and formal. Maybe he would not have to fight for his life, and the girl's, after all. Of this notion he was soon disabused.

The leader Api barked a last command at his troops. ”Rest. Remain as you are until further orders from me. It should not take long to settle this little matter. And remember, all of you, that as the ranking officer, and in command here, I will have the woman first.”

After four trips through the computer Blade had thought his capacity for amazement exhausted. Now he found that this was not so, it way amazing to find gorillas with baboon faces speaking, making sense, executing fairly intricate military maneuvers. As the leader swaggered toward him Blade found himself thinking of an American word, goon. A word that had its genesis in gorilla and baboon. From that moment he began to think of these strange creatures as goons. Intelligent goons.

The leader stopped five paces from Blade. He had drawn his sword, but let it dangle carelessly at his side. Just as careless was his first glance at Blade. He hardly deigned to notice the man. He was looking instead at Ooma, who had retreated to the mouth of the ravine and was crouching behind a boulder. Now, too late, she thought it better to conceal her nakedness.

Blade, always bold, said: ”Your business is with me. Not with the woman. She is my woman. I will have that understood at once.”

A look of surprise flashed across the baboon face. The deep-set eyes studied Blade again, this time with more care. Strong man that he was, inured to travail and danger, Blade felt a shock of apprehension as the little eyes studied him intently. Pale. Colorless. Albino eyes without the pinkish tint. Intelligent eyes lacking any hint of emotion. As cold as death itself.

Still the goon did not speak. The white eyes swept Blade up and down. The fang-like teeth flashed in a snarling laugh as the long baboon muzzle crinkled in amus.e.m.e.nt. Finally it spoke. The voice, though still high-pitched, a treble, had nothing feminine about it. It was loaded with menace.

”What manner of thing are you? Whence come you? What do you want and where do you go?”

Blade left off leaning on his spear. His eyes were as cold as the goon's when he replied: ”I am called Blade. I am a man. That is enough for you to know of me. I want nothing of you except to pa.s.s by in peace. I go to the mountains yonder and I take the woman with me. That, I think, answers all your questions. If so, and by your leave, we will be on our way. It was most courteous of you to turn out a guard of honor for us.”

And Richard Blade, cradling his spear in the crook of his elbow, standing tall with legs apart, put his hands on his hips and laughed at the leader of the goons.

For a moment doubt flickered in the pale, feral eyes. The goon put a paw to its hairy muzzle and stroked it. Slowly the sword came up until it was pointed straight at Blade. The weapon was long and pointed, double-edged, of wood cunningly inset with jagged flints to make a cruel edge. A terrible weapon, given the five to six hundred pounds of gorilla muscle behind it. Blade stood little chance against it. This he had known from the outset. Bluff was his best weapon.

Bluff was not going to work.

The goon leader was in no hurry. He gave Blade a deadly smile, the incisors were dog-like, and said, ”You tell me your name is Blade, but what is that to me? My name is Porrex and what is that to you? You say you go to the mountain people, and yet I have had no word from the Jedds that they expect you. What of this, Blade?”

Blade scowled. ”Nothing at all of it. The Jedds do not expect me. They know nothing of me. How could they? I come as a stranger from a far-off land. Yet it is to the Jedds that I will go, and nothing will stop me.”

Once again doubt showed in the colorless eyes and the goon hesitated before answering. Blade remembered what Ooma had told him, the Api were mercenaries, though vastly independent ones and not to be trusted, and their normal duty was to guard the Jedd borders against raids by the beastmen. Often they did not attend to duty, but went off hunting and searching for women. The Api never had enough women to go around. It had been on just such an occasion, when the Api were lax in duty, that the beastmen, the lake people, had slipped through on a raid and captured Ooma and many other Jedds.

This Porrex was now deep in thought, but he did not think long. The pale eyes stared at Blade and he said, ”You may be right. I, Porrex, will not try to stop you. What my superiors do at the pa.s.s station is another matter, but it does not concern me. You who call yourself Blade may pa.s.s. But you must leave the woman to us. The Jedds have been very stingy of late, and we in the outposts are always last when it comes to women.”

Ooma had also explained that, now and then the Jedds gave women to the Api. Old women, or young women who had been condemned to die for some crime. Most of the latter, Ooma said, managed to kill themselves before they could be turned over to the goons.

Porrex was watching him narrowly. Blade smiled coldly and shook his head. ”That I cannot do. I have told you, the woman is mine. She goes where I go.”

The baboon snout tightened. The wooden sword flashed in an arc. ”Then she goes no further. Nor do you, Blade. I offered you your life and you refused. So be it. I will kill you and take the woman anyway. Wherever you come from, Blade, they must breed fools.”

Blade backed off slowly, his spear poised. There was sickness in his gut and a vile, hot fluid in his mouth. His heart was racing. The spear was nothing but a fire-sharpened stick of brittle wood, his arrows crooked and untrustworthy, the bow a poor thing meant for the smallest game. Against six hundred pounds of gorilla-baboon they were useless. As he backed away, circling, the spear poised bravely enough, he doubted if the spear or arrows would even pierce that ma.s.sive furred body.

And yet maybe, the eyes?

Something sharp jabbed him in the back. There was pain and he felt blood trickle on his flesh. Blade glanced around. He was ringed by the other nine goons. They made a small, tight circle, their swords out-thrust to pen him in, nine pairs of eyes glittering in malefic glee. Life was dull at a dreary outpost like this, a little bloodshed would be a change of pace. Plainly they would enjoy seeing Blade gutted. And there was, of course, the woman.

The goon that had jabbed Blade spoke harshly. ”Next time, stranger, I will put my sword through you. There is no escape this way. Fight Porrex and die, but do it quickly. We have not had a woman for months.”

The other Api guards laughed at that. One said, ”Yes, get it over with. Kill him, Captain Porrex, and have done.”

Another goon muttered, ”And then let Porrex have done as quickly with the woman! I am content to cast lots for my place, but it had better not be like last time when the captain kept the woman to himself for two days and a night.”

A third goon said, ”Hah, I remember. And when finally she got to us she was no good, too near dead to move. It was like making love to a corpse.”

With a high, chattering giggle, another of them said, ”Fool! She was a corpse by that time. I told you so, remember? But you, ”

Porrex let out a roar of outraged command. ”Be quiet, you sc.u.m. Mind your duty and your discipline and keep your mouths shut. The next man who speaks without permission gets no chance at the woman. Now, tighten the circle a bit. This is an agile fool, and a brave one, and I have no desire to chase him over half of Jedd before I kill him. Move in, I say!”

The circle tightened. Porrex, calm and unconcerned, kept his distance from Blade, of whom he seemed scarcely aware. The leader Api's att.i.tude was that of a man who had a not too distasteful, but very boring, task to perform. Blade contemplated making a rush at the huge Api, pressing the fight, trying to catch his opponent by surprise and blind him before the battle was really joined.

He decided against it. He must let Porrex come to him. He must retreat constantly, slipping and avoiding, feinting and counterfeinting, judging and studying his foe and waiting for him to make a mistake. Blade, who knew his own prowess and could kill most men with his bare hands, was not at all sure he was going to get out of this. He was, after all, fighting a gorilla. A baboon-gorilla with an intelligence nearly as great as his own. Porrex weighed six hundred pounds and stood eight feet tall. Blade weighed two hundred-odd and was a little over six feet. His sweat ran cold and, deep within himself, Blade admitted that maybe this was it! His time to die.

Porrex leaped without warning and swung his sword at Blade's head. The Api was nimble for all his bulk, and Blade ducked just in time. The flint-edged sword missed him by inches. Porrex looked disappointed. Blade thrust with his spear at the ma.s.sive hairy chest. Porrex grunted in surprise, his little eyes glaring down at the stick that had dared to puncture him. There was a faint trickle of blood. Porrex slapped at the spear with an enormous paw. The spearpoint snapped off, still embedded in Porrex's chest fur. He fumbled at it, pulled it out, snarled and flung the point at Blade.

Blade did not toss away the broken spear. He poked with it, trying to keep the giant off balance as he retreated and circled and retreated again. Whenever he got too close to the watching circle of Api he was jabbed in the back. The wounds were only superficial, but they bled copiously and Blade realized that in time the blood loss would weaken him. Already his lower trunk and his legs were covered with his own blood.

The area in which he had to maneuver was about the size of a boxing ring in Home Dimension. Blade, who was a superb boxer, now called on all his skill. He ducked and slipped and evaded and back-pedaled. He was constantly on the run, around and around the narrow circle. He began to breathe hard and now his streaming sweat was hot and stinging in the wounds. Still Porrex could not get in a killing blow. His sword had not yet touched Blade. It swooshed and swished and darted, hungrily seeking flesh, and Blade was never there. He was as evanescent as a shadow, always vacating a spot just before the sword arrived. Not by much, but enough. Once the flas.h.i.+ng sword clipped hair from his head, and still Blade lived. And by now he had a plan.

There was no question of Porrex's tiring. The Api could fight all day at this pace. It was Blade who was tiring, who was sobbing for breath, whose legs were weary. The time was fast arriving when he must stop running and take the fight to Porrex, dare everything, put matters to the final test. Soon now. He had a plan and it might work, but even if it did work it might still be the death of him.

Blade began to let Porrex see how weary he was, how he was gasping for breath, how his legs were stiffening and turning to lead. Porrex grinned his baboon grin and shuffled after Blade, plodding and serene, confident of victory and only mildly puzzled as to why it was taking so long.

Blade wanted to lull the Api still further. He skipped away from a lunge of that terrible sword and notched one of his poorly made arrows to the bow. He aimed the arrow at Porrex and drew it back until the vine string was taut.

Several of the watching goons laughed. Porrex stopped his pursuit and c.o.c.ked his head, his sword lowered, one paw akimbo. He also laughed.