Her flesh was all shimmering flame, the marvelous breasts rising and falling with her slow breath. Her features, in repose, appeared to have shrunken, to have pinched together, and the facial flesh had taken on such a translucence that Blade could have sworn he saw the skull. Slowly Blade raised the sword.
The drug was strong in him, enforcing his will rather than sapping it, giving him a slow and blurred determination. He must do everything exactly right, exactly as he had been instructed. There was no tremor of his hand as he lifted her left breast to place the point of the sword exactly. Her flesh was cold, yet seared his hand, and it was all he could do to keep from snatching it way. He positioned the sword point, then leaped onto the~catafalque and stood astride her.
At that moment the golden eyes flickered open and stared up at him and Blade stared down into a volcano where amber sparks swirled. He grasped the sword hilt firmly in both hands and bore down with all his strength.
Izmia arched and screamed once. Her body writhed, embracing the sword as though it were a steel phallus and she smitten with death desire. Blade, made impassive by the drug, drove the sword through her and into the catafalque beneath. His face contorted and sweat streamed from him and he was unknowing of this. He bent to his task. His massive biceps bulged and quivered as he forced the sword lower and lower, driving it deeper into the catafalque, until the hilt rested on her breast.
His face was close to hers and he saw the beginning of it. Her eyes closed and he saw peace, calmness and tranquility, invade her features like a conquering angel. Her lips fell away from her teeth in a rietus that was more smile than grin and then a kind of ecdysis began and her flesh ceased to shimmer and turned a dull gray. Blade tugged out the sword and leaped from the catafalque to stand beside her. He was only dimly aware of his own sobbing breath.
He watched, bound fast by the web of drug, as Izmia's flesh aged before his eyes. She had been-so she had whispered-an old, old woman and now her flesh, freed from whatever necromancy had held it in thrall, spoke the truth at last. It did not take long.
When the body that had been Izmia became a eronething, a bag of wrinkles and bones, Blade picked it up and left the cavern. He found a door she had said would be there and followed the path laid out for him. He stalked along, not hurrying nor lagging, clutching the thing to his breast, and in a few minutes came out on the stone platform overlooking the maw of the volcano. Had it been light he could have seen the tower room where he and Edyrn had plotted their battle, and from which he had first spied this very platform. He approached the edge and stared down into the reeking mouth. A thin sulfuric mist drifted up to choke and half blind him. In the far depths a tongue of flame leaped up and outward from the walls, as though in signal, then retreated.
Blade lifted the body, as light as a feather pillow now, and hurled it out and down. Again flame licked and smoke roiled and Blade raised his hand in farewell. He stalked back,the way he had come. As he left the Cavern of Music ais head began to clear, the drug faded, and though he had perfect recall of everything he felt no pain, nor regret, but rather the sense of a thing well and rightly done.
He went to his own cavern and threw himself on the bed and slept like a babe. When Nob woke him, half an hour short of dawn; Blade felt refreshed and confident and ready for whatever the day might bring. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and grinned at the one-eyed rascal.
Nob handed him a cup of steaming broth and reported that the counter-raid had gone well.
«A dozen horses taken, master, and some fifty Samostans slain. We lost but twenty of the Guard. We took more than a hundred prisoners, but I gave them your message and released them as you ordered. They will make their way back to the beaches and spread the word. I am sure of it.»
Blade finished the broth and beckoned for his armor. «That is good, so far. But it is not enough-all the Samostan army must know of my challenge. You have put your beggars and thieves to work?»
«Aye, I have, sire. I have made loud hailers, of paper as you instructed, and my knaves are all up and down the beaches, on the cliffs, everywhere, shouting your words to those who may come ashore.»
Nob scratched his jaw. «I was not of your mind at first, master, for I have never seen a battle won with words, but now I begin to think it might work. Certainly it is clever enough-as a soldier myself I know that a soldier does not want to die unless he must. He will take an easy and painless victory every time or, lacking that, he will even choose defeat with honor. Either is better than dying. Yes, master, it just might work. You prey on their weaknessone we all have-a desire to live.»
Blade nodded slowly. «We will see,» he said gravely. «If Hectoris is as vain, and as proud and,brave as he is said to be, then it will work. But there is an irony here, Nob-if Hectoris is a coward we are lost.»
CHAPTER 11
Dawn broke as Blade rode northward. A bloody sun, wrapped in mist, was a harbinger of weather to come. Nob, riding on Blade's left-Edyrn rode on his right side-cocked his good eye at the eastern horizon and opined, «A sky like that means but one thing, master-a gale before dark. And gales are fearsome things in Patmos. I have lived through one or two and I know.»
Edyrn looked at Blade and nodded in agreement. «It may be that a gale, if it comes, will do our work for us. If the Samostan fleet is broken up and driven ashore piecemeal the Guard will be able to handle them.»
Blade.said nothing to this. He was prepared to welcome a storm, but only after he had confronted Hectoris. Not much good in killing the little serpents if you let the big one escape.
He was riding a fine black stallion shod with bronze and bearing scarlet equipage. Nob himself had slain the officer who rode it, and had marked the horse for Blade at once. Edym rode a mettlesome gray and Nob a brown hack of enormous size. The other captured horses had been distributed among the Guard officers.
Two miles south of the harbor the land began to slope down to the sea. There were no cliffs or natural obstacles here, the terrain forming a shallow bowl that ended in long wide beaches of powdery sand. It was a natural spot for invasion and Blade had carefully left it undefended, gambling that the positioning of his other defenses, both real and faked, would exert pressure enough to channel the attack to North Harbor. The harbor, with its superb beaches, was the funnel through which he wished the Samostans to attack. It was true that he had not foreseen a gale, and that the harbor would give the Samostan fleet more protection than he cared to extend, but you could not have everything. In any case it did not really matter. If he could not bring Hectoris to private combat, no gale, nor indbed anything, was going to save Patmos.
Nob's one eye was sharp. He pointed to a moving cloud of dust on the horizon. «Cavalry, master. They've put another scouting party ashore.»
Blade held up a hand and the column halted. He had taken a third of his reserves from the volcanic area camp and they were strung out behind for a half mile in a column of fours. Blade stared at the oncoming war party.
«How many do you make their, Nob?»
But it was Edyrn who answered. «Some hundred horse, sire. And they have seen us.»
Blade nodded and gave orders. Four of the mounted officers went galloping back along the column. The other mounted officers, with Nob and Edym, grouped around Blade. The black, sensing combat, began to curvet nervously. Blade gentled the animal by pressure of knees and hands and said to Nob; «They are going to attack. Fair enough, for we face a test sooner or later. If we give a good account of ourselves it will win respect. But do you slip off, Nob, and bring me word of affairs at the harbor beaches. See how our word war is progressing, for if we are to have a chance we must be at the beaches before Hectoris is ashore in strength. Go at once.»