Damn 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: «Pass, 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 bypass the Api guard stations?»
Ooma shook her head. «I know of none. There is only one pass 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 pass.»
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 pass. 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 gods; 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.
After the first few hours he had to carry Ooma most of the way. The girl, near to death from cold, soon ceased to care if she lived or died. When the moonlight petered out and he could not see to climb farther, Blade cast about for a spot where they might have at least a chance of surviving until morning. He spotted two huge, black, uprearing rocks that formed a crude cave and carried the girl toward them. It was a decision that eventually saved them both.
The animal, whatever it was, had scented them long before and was in hiding. But when Blade approached its lair it charged with a high bellow. Blade barely had time to drop Ooma and step aside. As it was, the creature caught him a glancing blow with one of its great horns, a blow that stunned Blade and sent him reeling near the edge of the precipice. He recovered his footing in time, plucked the little stone knife from his belt and cagily moved away from the edge of the fallaway. He could not see the animal well, but it was food and it had fur or wool of some sort. He did not want it charging him again and going over the edge. For already Blade knew that this beast, whatever it might be, spelled the difference between life and death. Blade charged it. The animal came to meet him, snorting and stamping its front hooves in fury and fear.
The last of the moon had gone and Blade had to kill it in the dark. He met the charge with his own great shoulders, was knocked back, kept his footing and clung to one of the curved horns with one hand as he daggered with the stone knife. He got a terrible leverage and bent the horn over and flung the animal on its side. Then Blade, a berserk animal himself, making mindless sounds, leaped on it and used the stone knife with both hands. His hands were red and hot and steaming with blood and still he attacked. Again and again, over and over, he stabbed and ripped and tore with the stone knife. When his senses came back the animal had been dead for minutes. Blade stood over it, his legs trembling, gouts of blood congealing on him, and knew that for a moment he had been very near to madness. Fatigue, fear, nervous strain, constant alertness, the great hazards he had already faced — they were all beginning to take a deadly toll.
Blade let out a great shuddering breath and slumped in relaxation. He laughed into the black wind. It was like this in Dimension X. Always.
He groped his way back to where he had dropped Ooma. She lay huddled, knees up, shivering convulsively. «I am so cold, Blade. So c-c-cold. We are going to die here, I know. It would have been b-b-better to take our chances with the Api in the pass.»
He laughed as he picked her up. «You are wrong, Ooma. We are not going to die and we would not be better off with the Api. I will have you warm in a few minutes.»
She mistook his meaning and shook her head. «N-no,
Blade. Not even that can save me now. I am too cold. I will die. Jedds do not stand cold well.»
Blade chuckled and carried her into the shallow cave that offered little but some shelter from the wind. He put her down and went back for the thing he had killed. It was totally dark now with no sign of stars or moon. The sky was a dark canopy pressing down on the mountain peaks, the wind a dank, cold sword seeking them out.
Blade, working by touch, gutted the huge woolly animal. He pulled the hot, steaming guts out and dumped them nearby, then picked up the shivering girl. «This is going to be bloody and messy,» he told her, «but you will be warm.»
By now Ooma was too cold, too near death, to care or to answer. She tried to cling to him, but her arms would not function. Blade put her into the hot cavern of the gutted animal and, wedging her as deeply into the carcass as he could, closed it about her. He fumbled for the entrails, found them, strung them out and used them to bind the two sides of the carcass together by looping the gut around the front and back legs. Ooma, at least, would be warm for tonight. He spoke to her down through the bloody slitted belly of the dead animal.