Part 4 (1/2)

Blade didn't wake up until well after dawn. By then Geyrna was gone, and his head was throbbing with a ferocious hangover. By the time he'd washed and shaved, he felt ready to face Peython and the others.

Either Peython had stayed awake all night or got up very early. Even more annoying, he still showed no signs of all his drinking. That was more than could be said of his son, Geyrna, or Kareena, who wobbled in last of all, obviously nursing a hangover even worse than Blade's.

They quickly unrolled a map of the Land and made their plans. Saorm would lead them to where the fire jewels were hidden, and Kareena, Bairam, and Blade would take fifty fighting men and women and twenty munfans to Gilmarg. That was all Kaldak could spare at the moment, although there might be enough fire jewels and other valuable Oltec to load every munfan the city had.

”Gilmarg is also, in land claimed by Doimar,” said Peython. ”The last time we sent men to Gilmarg, the Doimari killed many of them. The same thing could happen again. I would not be sending either of you or Blade if I had a choice, but-”

”You have no choice,” said Bairam, with unexpected dignity. ”And we have the duty of proving ourselves worthy children of Peython of Kaldak.”

Bairam and Kareena would in theory be leaders of the expedition, with Blade serving them. In fact, Blade would be a third leader.

”And you will both swear to listen to his advice,” said Peython sharply.

”Yes, Father,” his children chorused.

Blade would teach them all he knew about Oltec, then let them do all the actual work with it. ”Under the Law, Blade, you cannot touch Oltec-or carry any weapon until the Gathering gives its judgment. Even I could not set the Law aside without making many tongues wag. Then we might lose all we have gained.”

The ”cover story” for the expedition was mostly the truth. In Gilmarg there was a great h.o.a.rd of fire jewels. If enough could be brought home to Kaldak, Peython would ask the Gathering to allow wise men to study the fire jewels: This would prepare everyone for a possible change in the Law, without giving away the secret of Blade's discovery.

Kareena looked at the map and traced the march from Kaldak to Gilmarg with her forefinger. ”This should be easy enough. It is a short journey.”

”It is the longest journey ever made by men of Kaldak, daughter,” said Peython. ”It is a journey from the past of the Land into its future.”

Chapter 9.

From the top of the tree where Blade was perched, the city of Gilmarg looked like a smaller, more battered edition of Mossev. Two of its eighteen towers were only piles of rubble, and the rest had lost most of their color and ornament. Tall trees grew up through the paving of some streets, and vines choked many of the doors and lower-floor windows. There was no sign of human life. Although the Doimari claimed Gilmarg, it was far enough from Doimar so they didn't keep a permanent garrison in it.

Blade sat up, straddled the branch, and shouted down to the people on the ground eighty feet below. ”No sign of the Doimari!”

A voice floated up through the needles. ”Would Blade recognize a Doimari if he saw one? Best that I go forward and see.”

That could only be Hota. He couldn't be denied a place on the expedition. He was a leading warrior of Kaldak, who'd been to Gilmarg several times before. This honor hadn't improved his manners. He considered being obliged to a.s.sociate with Blade an insult, and being obliged to take Bairam's and Kareena's orders was almost as bad. He said whatever he pleased whenever he pleased and seemed to be hoping to provoke Blade or Bairam into a quarrel. Sooner or later, he was going to succeed with Bairam.

Blade scrambled down the tree too late to hear what anyone said to Hota. Hota and four other fighters were already on their way toward the edge of the forest and Gilmarg. Blade was relieved to hear that one of them was Sidas. He at least would keep his eyes open enough to keep Hota from returning and talking nonsense. For a while there was nothing for Blade to do except join the men who were cutting ferns for the munfans. As a man outside the Law, he wasn't allowed to carry a weapon, so he couldn't even sit down and sharpen his sword.

Blade was feeding the last munfans when Bairam came up behind him. The boy carried two swords, to mark his rank as Peython's son even though he was also a man under judgment for breaking the Law. ”Hota will push himself forward every time he can,” Bairam said. ”He wants to be the hero of this journey, so he can ask our father for Kareena.”

”Would Peython give her to him?”

”Hota's courage has won him many friends. If they spoke for him, Peython would have to listen, or fear them becoming his enemies.”

”Kareena would not be happy with Hota, I think.”

”No. I have heard her say she would rather marry an ox, or live without a man all her life.”

Blade smiled, remembering Kareena's lips hot against him and her graceful red-brown body naked in the firelight. He doubted she would be happy with a celibate life, or would need to accept one, although he hoped she would not have to accept Hota just to keep peace in Kaldak. She would never be happy with a man who had more courage than sense, even if he wasn't a loudmouthed boor as well.

It was well past noon before Hota and the other scouts returned. ”There cannot be enough Doimari in Gilmarg to fight us,” said Hota.

”Not unless they can hide themselves better than usual,” added Sidas.

”The warriors of a city without the Law cannot have such skill,” said Hota crus.h.i.+ngly. Sidas was about to reply, but a black look from Kareena silenced him. Blade was glad. Sidas was too intelligent to believe much of Hota's superst.i.tious nonsense about the Law, and much too likely to blurt out his heretical opinions in Hota's presence.

It was mid-afternoon before they got all the munfans untethered and on the move. They seemed more skittish than usual, and several broke their hobbles and tried to bolt. Even the most experienced hunters and munfan-leaders couldn't say what was bothering the animals.

The light was failing by the time they reached a safe refuge among the towers of Gilmarg, with a cracked roof overhead and crumbling vine-grown walls on three sides. Kareena decided against making any fires, and they ate a cold dinner of bread and meat. Then the sentries took up their posts for the night, and everyone else fell asleep.

Blade took the first watch with the sentries, then rolled up in his blanket. He managed to sleep in spite of the chill and the sharp rocks digging into all the more vulnerable portions of his anatomy. Sometime in the darkest hours of the night he awoke to find Kareena curled up against him, one arm across his chest. He tried to move her, but she only pressed herself closer without waking up and made a noise like a contented kitten. He gave up, wrapped his blanket around both of them, and went back to sleep with her firm warmth resting against him. Hota might be jealous, but Blade's patience with Hota was just about gone. If the warrior said one more word out of turn, Blade was going to find it hard not to take him apart, Law or no Law!

It didn't take them long the next morning to find Saorm's tunnel. Either the merchant had a naturally good memory, or knowing the number of swords pointed at his back gave him one. Before the sun was well up he'd led them through a maze of ruined side streets to a crumbling building with a half-exposed bas.e.m.e.nt. In one corner of the bas.e.m.e.nt stood a slab of concrete taller and thicker than a man.

”There,” said Saorm. ”Under the lower end of that stone. The tunnel is narrow, though. I did not get through it easily then. I do not think I could get through it at all, now.”

Hota poked the merchant in his stomach. ”Too fat, eh? We should have marched you harder, made you skinny. Well, there will always be men to go where you cannot.”

At first Blade doubted that Saorm was telling the truth about pus.h.i.+ng the slab into place single-handed. Then he noticed several other slabs balanced more or less precariously around the bas.e.m.e.nt. One of them fell over as he watched, nearly crus.h.i.+ng Sidas. When the dust settled, Kareena had the men go around and push the rest of the slabs over, so they could go to work on the tunnel without looking over their shoulders every minute.

One man might have pushed the slab into place, but it took the sweat of at least a dozen before it was clear. With Blade and Hota working together for once, the slab was then dragged to one side. Everyone stood around the gaping black maw now exposed, peering down the rubble-strewn slope until it vanished in the darkness. Blade noticed that while everyone wanted to look, no one seemed particularly eager to linger on the edge of the darkness.

To his credit, Saorm volunteered to be the first man down the tunnel. He stripped himself naked, tied a rope around his waist, then on hands and knees scrambled down into the darkness. A lot of cursing and grunting and the clatter of falling stones floated up from the darkness, followed by a cloud of dust. Then Saorm himself reappeared, panting, sweaty, bleeding slightly in several places, and shaking his head grimly.

”The tunnel is not as it was when I found it. The stones have moved, so that there is much less room. Even if I was the man I was then, I could not get through.”

Kareena gave him the kiss of honor. ”Do not grieve, Saorm. You have done well. Someone else will have to finish your work, that is all.”

Kareena's words touched off a ferocious argument over who should have the honor of finis.h.i.+ng Saorm's work. Blade was the first to volunteer to go down the tunnel. Inevitably, Hota objected. ”This man is outside the Law and facing the judgment of the Gathering. It will bring a curse upon Kaldak if he is the first to enter the hole and see this great wealth of Oltec. Let me go.” He looked ready to draw his sword against anyone who argued.

Saorm saw his chance to get back at Hota for his earlier insults. ”You are larger than I, and the Law will not make you smaller. If I cannot get down, how can you?”

”Then Blade cannot go either, because he is bigger still.”

”I am smaller than either of you,” put in Sidas. ”And I-”

”I am the smallest of the men,” began Bairam. ”I-”

”You may be Peython's son, but you are not in the Law's favor either,” said Hota sharply. ”You are not so much better than Blade.”

”I am-yah!” said Bairam, breaking off as his sister kicked him hard in the s.h.i.+n. Kareena glared at everyone, then started taking off her trousers.

”I am the smallest of all. I am of Peython's blood. And no one can say that I am at fault before the Law. So I am the best one to go down, and no one will stop me.”

When Kareena was naked, she bound her hair up, then let Blade tie the rope around her waist. When he'd done that, she picked up a rifle and vanished down the tunnel like a rabbit. They heard more curses and clatters and saw more clouds of dust. They also saw the rope vanis.h.i.+ng steadily into the darkness. Then they heard Kareena's voice, distorted by the tunnel and by a spasm of coughing.

”I'm all the way-down. The fire jewels-by the Law, there must be thousands of them! Big stone in the tunnel, though. No one bigger than I-can get through. I'll try to move it.”