Chapter 5

Some forty men and women got safely away from Irdna in the boats; whether there were any other survivors of the town, neither Blade nor Nilando had any idea. It seemed possible, for Irdna was a far larger community than East Pass Town and far harder for the Ice Dragons to completely surround. That the Dragon Masters had in fact been unable to do so, that only the one Dragon had been posted to guard the entire south and river sides of the town, suggested as much. The Dragons, it seemed, might be neither terribly numerous nor completely invulnerable-or if they were numerous, then their Masters were such wretchedly poor generals that they failed to use those numbers properly.

But all these weaknesses of the Dragons were too subtle for any of the party except Nilando and Blade to be aware of, and even the two leaders knew that taking advantage of the weaknesses was a matter for the future. Most of the survivors were too glad to be alive, and too fearful of yet being overtaken by the rampaging hordes of Dragons, to think of anything but putting as many miles between them and the enemy as possible. Nilando would rather have taken them up a tributary of the river, to another large village some miles up that tributary, but they insisted on pressing on to Tengran. They preferred cramped, exhausting days of travel in the boats to the comforts of any town that might be within range of the Dragons.

So sails, oars, and the current took the five boats steadily southward for three full days. There were fish in the river and nuts, roots, and game to eat, the water of the river ran clear, and the sun vanished only once behind a flurry of rain clouds. It was not an unpleasant trip, and during the nights, with the boats drawn up on shore and all the people except the posted sentries sleeping around campfires, Blade and Nilando had time to examine the body of the Dragon Master and his gear.

Afterward, Blade could understand how the Dragon Masters had seemed to possess an invulnerability that could hardly fail to arouse a superstitious dread in their victims. Under the silver outer layer, itself a tough plastic-like material impossible to cut, tear, or burn, the Master wore a complete head-to-toe covering of tiny discs fastened to a heavily padded backing. It was like a medieval knight's chain mail, except that the material of the discs was tougher and more flexible than steel, and the padding behind it both softer and stronger than the leather and wool undergarments of the knights. Neither sword blades nor axes nor arrows and musket balls fired even at pointblank range would drive through into the Master's body. The helmet was equally invulnerable, being of the same material as the discs, with a nearly opaque faceplate. A pouch on his belt carried what appeared to be concentrated energy rations, and he wore a sabre-like sword and a long dagger as well.

Blade realized after the examination that he had accidentally hit on just the right method of dealing with the Dragon Masters-assuming that Treduk fighters could be trained to the speed and agility required. Knock the Master out of his saddle with a strong blow, then immobilize him while one pounded on him with the heaviest weapons possible. Inside that superb protection was only a human being-a strong and fit one, to be sure-and sooner or later internal injuries would take their toll. If the Treduk cannon had been accurate enough to pick Masters off the backs of their Dragons, the Treduki could have decimated the ranks of their enemies years ago. As it was, they had no weapon that could strike down a Dragon Master from a distance. Only a close-in grapple would do the job.

The wands were interesting to Blade in another way. They represented a technology possibly as far beyond that of the suits as the suits were beyond the medieval armor they resembled. The wands were cylinders of the same tough material as the discs, about two feet long and two inches in diameter. Inside was a mass of electronic microcircuitry that Blade could not remotely understand; he did recognize that it was far beyond even what the far-seeing genius of Lord Leighton recognized as theoretically possible. Here was certainly something worth getting back to Home Dimension. If Lord Leighton were turned loose on one of the wands, he might find a way to duplicate its circuitry and put England at one bound fifty years ahead of the rest of the world in electronics.

Blade's respect for Nilando still further increased during those nights when they sat over the suit, the body, and the wands. Although he was quite incapable of understanding the technology involved, his knowledge of Graduk science had made him aware that such things were perfectly natural, with nothing of magic about them. This was more than could be said of some of his followers, whom Blade several times had to drive away with threats when they wanted to throw body and gear into the river, rather than risk the curses that might fall on them for carrying these things with them. Only Nilando's authority, strained to the limit, and the awe in which Blade himself was held for having slain the Dragon and its Master, prevented ugly and perhaps violent scenes.

Nor did Nilando show concern that Blade seemed far more familiar with advanced learning than he himself. He was no Graduk, that was for certain-who had ever heard of one such treating Treduki as equals, or even as human beings, and risking his life for them as Blade had done? They were all arrogant cowards. Although, Nilando admitted, there were rumors that some among the Graduki favored aiding the Treduki to resist the Dragons and the glaciers. But these were rumors only. The Graduki sat in their luxurious towns, enslaved or killed the odd Treduk, flew their patrols over Treduk territory, and did nothing else.

They saw such patrols flying over twice during the voyage downstream, but both times the patrolling craft was too high for Blade to make out any details of the silent racing silver shape. That was yet another thing that would have to wait until he had moved into Graduk territories.

The morning of the fourth day arrived. The campfires were doused with leather buckets of water from the river and the wet ashes dug under, the blankets rolled and tied, the cooking pots scoured with sand and stacked. The whole party chattered and even laughed as they climbed aboard the boats. At last they were nearing Tengran, a town that, short of the very laws of nature being suspended, would be yet safe from the Dragons. The town lived from river traffic and fishing, and stood on an island several miles out in the middle of a vast lake formed where the river was backed up by a mountain range. Unable to break through, the river had turned its course west for many days' travel before finding a weak spot in the mountains and pouring through them in a series of rapids that only light boats with expert crews could navigate. These rapids divided the Treduki into two groups by dividing the river that was their main link. Nilando emphasized, however, that in spite of their relative immunity to the attacks of the Ice Dragons, who seldom made their way through the mountain passes, the southern Treduki were generous with aid to their more afflicted and exposed northern brothers. They themselves had suffered far more from Graduk slave raids and attacks when those were at their height.

The mountains were barely visible pushing up over the horizon as the boats moved into midstream and set sail to a following breeze. But over the next hours Blade saw the peaks rise steadily higher and higher until they made a wall against the southern sky, a wall of blue-gray separated from the blue sky by a line of white-sparkling snow caps, with their craggy sides seamed by the silver threads of streams fed by the melting snows. The mountains loomed tall at the southern end of the vast lake when finally the boats reached it shortly after noon, rearing up almost straight from the placid waters. The breeze had died away to a feeble whisper, and the people were breaking out the oars and preparing to row the last miles to Tengran, now clearly visible in the center of the lake, when Nilando suddenly caught Blade by the arm and pointed toward the sky above the mountain peaks.