Liberator Of Jedd Part 7

"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 fashion. 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 flashing 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.

"What sort of toy weapon is that, stranger? You intend to fight me, Porrex, with it? To kill me, perhaps, with a piece of wood and a string?"

Blade stalled desperately. He needed every precious second he could get to catch his breath and regain his strength. If Porrex charged him now and that terrible sword flickered, Blade knew he must die. He must have time.

"I will show you," he panted. He let the arrow fly at Porrex.

The shaft lodged in the huge paw that the Api raised to fend it off. Porrex snarled in annoyance and dropped his sword to pluck out the thing that was pin-p.r.i.c.king him. He placed a great splayed foot on the sword. His obvious contempt for Blade did not make him careless.

Blade moved in with every bit of speed, strength and concentration he possessed. Now or never. Live or die. In Home Dimension he had attended harsh schools and learned cruel tricks. He used one now.

Swift as a heartbeat Blade was within the circle of those ma.s.sive furred arms. Porrex, though caught off guard, surprised, embraced him with a triumphant growl. His fangs probed for Blade's throat.

Blade counted on three seconds before he was crushed to death, squeezed and stamped out of shape like matter in a hydraulic press. He used his three seconds. He kept his forearms and elbows free and rammed his thumbs into the inner corners of the Api leader's eyes. Blade's nails had grown long and sharp. His thumbs were like steel meathooks gouging into the tender tissue. At just the proper instant Blade rolled his thumbs, hooking and pulling up and outward. Porrex screamed in agony and rage. He forgot Blade and tore at his bleeding sockets with his paws. Blade skipped nimbly back and held both his hands aloft for the other goons to see, the pulped, b.l.o.o.d.y, grape-like mess that had been Porrex's eyes. The Api stared, shocked and unbelieving, and Blade counted on this lapse in comprehension.

Time was everything. Blade scooped up Porrex's sword, jabbed him with it and shouted insults. Porrex, his paws still fumbling at his b.l.o.o.d.y empty sockets, let out a roar and shambled toward the sound of Blade's voice. Blade retreated a step or two, taunting the goon leader, luring him on. He risked one glance at the other Api, they were still in shock, still not quite believing that this thing had really happened, still undecided what to do. He had, Blade reckoned, another few seconds.

He called mockingly to the groping Porrex. "Over here. This way, Porrex. Who is the fool now? Who is blind now? Come and kill me, Porrex, if you can."

Porrex let out a horrendous shriek of rage and pain and bafflement. He left off clawing at his eye sockets, raised his great arms in the air, two p.r.o.ngs of a terrible vise, and rushed at the sound of Blade's voice. Blade stood his ground. He shifted his feet deftly and extended the sword. Porrex ran squarely on it with all the driving force of his six hundred pounds. The Api stopped and reared back, ripping at the embedded sword with his paws, his screams stifled by the blood gushing from his throat. Blade lunged then, with all his might, and drove the sword on through the thick body and out the back.

Dying, Porrex still refused to topple. He very nearly wrenched the sword away from Blade. But he was weakening fast as the blood spurted in arterial fountains. Blade put a foot against the creature's chest and tugged the sword out. Porrex swayed, roared again, then toppled with a crash. Blade watched the ring of Api. They began to move in.

Fast now. Each minisecond that ticked away lessened his chances of bringing off the gamble. Blade put one foot on the still-twitching Porrex and brandished the bloodstained sword aloft. In a stentorian voice of authority he roared: "Stop! I, Blade, command it. There will be no more fighting, no more bloodshed. I have slain your leader and so I am now leader. And as your new leader I promise you this, women for all! Women and easier and more pleasant duty. I, Blade, promise you this. Take it and be content. Or fight me and die like Porrex."

So saying, calmly ignoring them, Blade turned his attention to the corpse of Porrex. The die was cast now. He either won or lost his gamble and the next few seconds would tell which it was to be. He began to hack off the head of the dead leader, apparently intent on his task, not deigning to cast a glance at the goons who crept closer and closer. But he heard them well enough, heard them muttering among themselves.

"Rush him. Kill him. He has killed our leader."

"No. Wait. Who are you to command? We are all equal now. And you heard what he said, women for all!"

"I do not believe. Where would he get women? He has only one woman, which he claims for himself. Are we fools, then? Take his woman. Kill him. Then we will share her equally."

"Hah. Yes! At least he has done us the favor of slaying Porrex, who would have kept her for himself until she was useless."

"I say no. Let us hear from him how he intends to get us women. And how he will make our duty more pleasant. We would be fools not to listen, and we can always kill him later."

"I am not so sure. You all saw what happened. He is bound to kill some of us before we can kill him. And if we are to have women I do not want to die yet. Let us talk."

Blade breathed easier. His bet had been that there was no natural leader among them. They were all followers, not leaders, and the dead Porrex had not been loved. Now he had a chance.

He severed the head from the body. He impaled it on his sword and held it aloft. The huge baboon head was heavy, the sword long and also heavy, and the muscles of Blade's biceps corded and writhed as he waved it back and forth.

"You make a wise choice," Blade told them. If he treated it as a fait accompli it might in fact become one, though hazards enough remained. "I will take this," he said, indicating the head, "as a pa.s.sport into the land of the Jedds. You will send a signal to the next Api station, explaining everything and promising, in my name, that all shall have women and better living and working conditions. For, as I am leader here now, I shall also be leader among the Jedds. What I promise will come to pa.s.s. I swear it."

If you were going to lie and bluff, Blade had long ago learned, it was better to do it big, without stint. The big lie, the colossal bluff, had the better chance of succeeding.

Still they hesitated, snarling and muttering, unable to come to agreement. Blade plunged into a more elaborate and cunning lie, waxing sweetly reasonable and attempting to gauge the degree of their intelligence and attune the lie exactly to it.

He lowered the head, disengaged it from the swordpoint and moved it with his foot toward one of the Api. "Take that and find a bag for it. Wrap it carefully. Quickly now. Move!"

The goon hesitated, glanced at his companions, then picked up the head and carried it away toward the stone hut. The others watched him go in silence. Blade felt his heartbeat slow. He was going to make it. Yet he needed a clincher.

He began to clean the sword, jabbing it into the ground and talking all the while. "Think of it this way, Api. If you kill me you gain nothing. I will kill some of you. This you know. But if I go in peace, with the woman and without trouble, and come to Jedd and become leader there and keep my promise, then see how much you will have gained. Women for all! Is that not worth a chance? What can you lose even if I prove to be a liar?" Which he most a.s.suredly was, a whopping great one. Blade had no intention, should he ever reach the Jedds and gain leadership, of sending women to these Api. He knew this. The Api did not. Blade kept at them, talking, using again and again the key word, women, women, women.

It worked. The goons consulted among themselves. Blade, from a distance, saw them take some sort of a vote using a helmet and colored stones for box and ballots. While they were about this he made a furtive sign to Ooma, who had ventured a little way from her rocky cover. She hesitated to obey, plainly bored with hiding and curious about the turn of events, forgetting both her fear and her nakedness, and Blade cursed her softly. He mouthed at her, get back! Stay under cover.

d.a.m.n her! She was an intelligent child, but still a child. And she could very well get him killed yet, and herself well raped.

He let out a sigh of relief as she disappeared again behind her boulder. And breathed still easier when two of the Api guards came and told him: "Pa.s.s, Blade. Quickly. Six of us favor you, three do not. We will all stay in the hut until you are gone. And see that you keep your word, Blade. Send us women. Young women who have not been overmuch used."

It was, Blade realized, the universal plaint of soldiers. Even in this X-Dimension as in Home D. Send us women.

When the Api disappeared into the hut Blade went to Ooma and, in silence and pulling her along not too gently, made a wide circle around the hut and began to run toward the glistening mountains. He would not answer her questions and soon she was too much out of breath to ask them. Blade did not slacken his pace, nor allow her to rest, until they were over the horizon and out of sight of the guard hut.

He scooped a shallow hole with his broken spear and buried the head of Porrex. Ooma sulked because he would not let her unwrap the grisly object and have a look. Blade, as his anger faded, considered this new facet of her character and judged her leniently. She did not appear bloodthirsty or vindictive, only curious, and he supposed that captivity among the lake people had brutalized her.

Ooma did not sulk long. She tried to ease his displeasure in the only way she knew, but Blade would have none of it. He hustled her on, saying there was no time for dalliance. Which was true. Too true. They were not out of danger yet. Blade had no thought of trying to talk, or fight, his way through another Api station. It had been a very near thing and he still could hardly believe his luck. He would not tempt Fate again.

As they rested he said, "We will keep along this course until dark, then we will leave it and swing wide and into the mountains. Do you know a path, a way through, that will bypa.s.s the Api guard stations?"

Ooma shook her head. "I know of none. There is only one pa.s.s leading into the valley of the Jedds. We must take it."

"No," said Blade. "We will not take it. I have a feeling about the Api, next time they will kill me and take you for their use. We were lucky this time. Next time there will be more of them and more intelligent and higher-ranking officers. I have a sense for these things and I smell death if we are again taken by the Api. We go around them."

A pale vestige of moon was hanging in the late afternoon sky. He pointed to it. "For a few hours we will have moonlight. It will give us a chance. There must be a way around the pa.s.s."

Ooma nestled against him and stroked his cheek. She nodded. "As you say, Blade master. You go and I will follow."

He gave her a sharp look. "You are not to call me master. We agreed on that. Call me Blade."

Her look was demure, her eyes tilted with suppressed laughter, her lips quirking at the corners. "That was when you were not angry with me, Blade. Now you are and I must call you master. Unless, "

Blade could not repress his own smile. "Unless what, you minx?"

She laughed and threw her arms about him and kissed him for a long time. "Unless you prove that you are no longer angry, Blade. Prove it now."

Blade wondered, as he set about proving it, if he would have the strength to climb mountains that night.

Chapter Twelve.

Ooraa had been right. There was no way around the pa.s.s. So Blade made one. Made it with his strength and his guts and his skills as a mountaineer, he had climbed every major peak in Europe, and by lashing his superb body to an effort beyond anything even he had attained before. More than once he was on the verge of defeat but would not surrender. His nerves frayed and his temper went and he shouted obscenities and defiance at the mountain G.o.ds; he staggered through snow and sleet and wind and clawed his way over countless glaciers. He scaled crags that could not be scaled and took chances that a mountain goat would have disdained. This latter was no particular credit to Blade, he had nothing to lose. He could not go back. He could not stay in the mountains. It was forward or die.