It was dark and wind came cold off the channel. Stars glittered like the diamonds Blade hoped to find. He walked around and around the tent to warm himself and stay awake. There was no moon and he could not see the battlefield and thought it just as well. Ever and anon there came a cry or moan from the dark. Otherwise it was quiet but for a few fires and some drunken song. The worst was over.

At that moment he felt the tingle in his brain. The crystal was alive and receiving impulses from the computer. Blade walked and walked, concentrating, feeling the electronic field spread and usurp his cortex. The impulses were stronger than ever before.

Lord Leighton had been working hard. Certain changes had been made. The computer read Blade's brain well and the encephalographic coding was near perfect; there were lacunae, but they could be filled in or guessed at. Blade's situation was known and understood and approved. Continue progress toward diamonds.

Teleportation was now a crash program. There had been some successes and some failures, but they were pushing on. When the chances of success were improved, Blade would be instructed. Meantime push on for the diamonds. The crystal went dead.

Blade rubbed his temples, there always being some small pain, and glanced at the sky. Dawn was not far off. When it lightened enough he sought out some sleeping men and kicked them awake and sent them with tubs to the beach. Cold sea water would awaken Thane. Hot broth and walking, perhaps even a swordpoint, would keep him awake.

Chapter 12

Blade was a royal prisoner and treated as such. For near a month he had been a captive of the Hitts, and he still did not know their intentions toward him. He knew his own intentions-escape as soon as possible. If possible. And it might be. He glanced at the pile of sewn-together skins in a corner of his hut and smiled. Just possible-if his crude balloon worked and the Hitts did not kill him first.

Thane was dead. Poor Thane. He had been right all along, as had Ogier. Ogier had taken the army and retreated across the narrow water after laying waste to as much of the coastal area as time permitted. He had destroyed both pontoons.

Blade left the hut and wandered across the stone plateau to the edge of the escarpment. In effect, the hut was a penthouse and he marooned in it. They kept him prisoner atop a tower of sandstone five hundred feet high and falling sheer on every side. There were higher cliffs around and he was watched from them. Now and then a leather-man glided across the plateau, checked on him and dropped to a lower peak. It was a most efficient prison.

He went to a jumble of rocks near the precipice and seated himself on a boulder. The air was clear and cold and he could see for miles. He gazed south and held up a wetted finger to test the air. And smiled a little. The wind was to the south again today and that made eighteen days out of twenty-five that it had been so. He had been counting them.

Before him rolled line after line of jagged peaks, stone fangs with snow in their jaws overlooking dark and twisting valleys. Nearby, below him and spreading all around the plateau were the caves and houses of the Hitts, carven from the soft sandstone. Thousands of chambers and apartments dug out of the living rock and reached by a complicated system of wooden ladders. Scattered throughout the valleys were bee-hive huts carved from the same soft rock.

There came a faint hissing overhead. Blade glanced up in time to see a leather-man glide over, the hostile blue eyes staring down at him. Odd, he thought, that they can make gliders and put men into them, and yet do not conceive of a balloon. For they did not, else they would not have permitted him the skins and the needles and sinew and rawhide. They did not guess at what he was up to-or did they? Were the Hitts playing games with him?

As he gazed at the far horizon the thoughts came unbidden. Blade groaned softly and knotted his forehead in anguish. He tried not to think it, but the haunting would not be denied. The thoughts came when they would and it was always painful. He had been a fool and he was paying for it. But poor Thane had paid for it too, and therein lay the greater suffering.

They had found the tunnel leading from the beach, and Thane, suffering direly from wine, had tried a last time to beg off the venture, to dissuade Blade.

«There are other and safer ways to come at Bloodax and the diamonds,» he said. They stood in a vast cavern into which the first tunnel had led them. The party was of Blade and Thane, the girl Sariah and twenty men found sober enough to understand and obey. They all carried torches.

Thane waved his torch toward a dozen dark passages leading from the cavern. «How are we to know which one Bloodax used? Or where he lies now? It is my guess that he will not linger, but will escape into his mountains and form a new army. But that is only a guess. He and his warriors may be lying in wait for us around any bend. This is too chancy, Blade.»

Blade was stubborn, perhaps wrong. He knew it and yet would not be deterred. If he did not take Loth Bloodax speedily he would not take him at all. If he waged an orthodox campaign he would soon be ensnared in the treacherous terrain, in the valleys and mountains, and might never come up with the Hitt chief, might never reach the treasure he sought. Thane was right. It was chancy. But Blade deemed it the only way.

«We will push on, he said. «We will split into small, separate parties and scout carefully in these tunnels. Use the line we brought from the ships to guide us back to this place. There must be no fighting, no engagement, if the enemy is sighted. He who does so will return here at once and warn the others. When we have found Bloodax, if he is here, I will determine a plan to take him.»

Thane groaned. «I wish I had wine. I would not mind this foolishness so much if I had wine.»

The girl Sariah spoke then. «I have been through this place once when I was small and played with my brother on the beach. There is one tunnel that goes for miles and comes into a valley that in turn leads into the mountains.»

«That would be it,» Blade said. «I'll wager it. Which tunnel, Sariah?»

She pointed it out and they entered. A hundred yards into the tunnel they found a Hitt dead of wounds. Thane moved the body with his foot. «They came this way, right enough. But what of it-we have but twenty men and they not at their best. Nor am I. That leaves you and a girl.» He glowered at Sariah. «And I am not sure I would trust her.»

The girl stared at them and shrugged. «I cannot force trust on you. I care not.»

Blade studied her and could read nothing in her eyes or on her face. Thane was probably in the right of it, but it was a chance that must be taken.

«I have told the truth,» Sariah said. «This tunnel leads into a valley, and that valley leads into the mountains and to the place of the Hitt kings. I saw it as a child and I have never forgotten. Do as you will.»

« You are no more than a child now,» growled Thane, «and since you have gotten your belly full and are safe from rape you are a snotty child!» He raised his hand.

«Forego that,» ordered Blade. «We will push on. Sariah will go first, as far as possible ahead of us and still in sight.» He gave a command to a bowman. «Keep her well in view. If she seeks to escape, to run, kill her.»

Sariah smiled.

It was very cold on the plateau. Blade's fingers and lips were numb and blue. He went back to his hut and huddled by the fire.

He was still not positive that Sariah had led them into the trap. There was no proof and how could she have known that Loth Bloodax and his men were lying in wait?

They had pushed on for half an hour before entering another cavern. The floor was littered and jumbled with stone pillars and there were ledges all about the cavern. Sariah, carrying a torch, advanced beyond the center and pointed to another tunnel leading away. «This one.»