Here were their best fighters, the men who would not run, who would die where they stood. And die they did, although there were moments when Blade was not sure that he wouldn't die with them. A spear thrust at his face gashed his cheek and missed his eye by a fraction of an inch, and the shock as his down-plunging sword met the metal spear shaft sent a jolt up his arm. But the arm gave first, and the spear dropped down. Blade ran his own spear in through the opening into the man's throat.
Another opponent sprang into the place of the fallen man. This was a fighter nearly as large as Blade himself, armed with a two-handed sword that flashed and whirled like a berserk windmill. It chopped clean through Blade's spear shaft and missed Blade's arm by a hair. But in that split second Blade lunged in under the reach of the huge sword. The swordsman could not shorten his reach enough, and so he died with Blade's knife rammed up under his ribs into his heart.
As the man fell away to one side, a spear flashed so closely past Blade's head that he felt the whuff of disturbed air in his hair. He looked along the line of flight and saw Halda, her arm dropping down from throwing position. On her face was a look of disgust. Quickly Blade swung aside so she would not know that he had seen her. That spear had been aimed at him. If it had hit him, Halda would have told her father that she had been aiming at the swordsman and only hit Blade by accident. Whether or not Krog would have believed his daughter would have meant nothing to a dead man. Was Halda moving toward open hostility? He would have to walk carefully after the battle. A bold or foolhardy Green Tower broke from the enemy line to challenge Blade. His mind and body snapped back to the business at hand, and soon the man went down.
Eventually the battle came to an end. The Green Tower fighters who had not dashed off into the darkness or knelt and been bound as prisoners lay dead or dying on the ground. Counting those who lay dead in the courtyard with those who lay dead outside the walls, the Green Towers had lost more than two-thirds of their fighting men. By death or by desertion they had also lost many more than a hundred slaves. But there had been far too many Blue Eye losses as well.
«We must put off moving against the other gangs for a time,» said Krog, shaking a head made hideous by the caked blood from a cut scalp. The fight over, some of his normal eloquence was coming back. «The Green Towers are no longer a menace. But some of the other gangs may think they have done us so much damage that we can now safely be attacked and defeated. We have many weeks of work ahead of us before we can take the offensive again.»
Blade nodded wearily. He wanted only to sit or lie down, wash the sweat, blood, and filth from his body, and sleep for as many hours as possible. He did not care whether Halda shared his bed or not, Obviously she would now be looking for any possible opportunity to put him out of the way without her father's knowledge. There would be a great risk in associating with her. But there would be a greater danger to both himself and Narlena in rejecting her. He would have to plod on as before, seeking to take advantage of this delay in Krog's plans. He only hoped the Dreamers would do the same.
At least this battle had been a good night's work for the Dreamers. Blade doubted that Krog would have appreciated being told that. The battle had cost the Wakers close to two hundred fighting men. Not one Dreamer had raised a finger to bring this about, let alone a sword. Yet as he looked at the crumpled bodies and silently counted them, he had to force himself to call this slaughter a victory for anybody. He shook his head. Was it just that he was tired, or was he beginning to get tired of the endless fighting that seemed to be the rule in Dimension X?
Chapter Fifteen
Blade had no time to wish that he was in a dimension of pacifists and philosophers. After a good night's sleep and a good meal he found that there was too much to do to get the People of the Blue Eye back on their feet and ready for the next round. There was several days' work alone in disposing of the dead of both sides, caring for the wounded, repairing the damaged gates, making and storing new weapons for future battles. Patrols went out to scour the streets and keep an eye on the enemy. If the Green Towers were too busy licking their wounds to keep a proper watch, Krog had plans for leading a surprise attack on their camp some night. Other patrols roamed other parts of the city, watching for activity by other gangs-and by the Dreamers.
By casually questioning men who returned from patrols into Dreamer territory, Blade heard that Dreamer fighters seemed to be more numerous than ever before. Some parts of Dreamer territory where Waker gangs had previously been able to roam unmolested were no longer safe by day or night. There were even reports of the Dreamers building a fort in the southern part of the city. The Dreamers were apparently aware of the shortage of time, in spite of the recent self-inflicted slaughter among the Wakers. Were they still working hard to make themselves strong? Were they working hard enough? Could they work hard enough? Blade did not know. He also knew that he could do nothing to make the Dreamers work faster and harder. Besides, he had other worries.
Krog had considered at length the problem of what was to be done with the hundred-odd Green Tower slaves who had fled from their masters during the battle. Four days after the battle he announced that all Green Tower slaves who had come to the Blue Eyes of their own free will would become free men and women of the people. The men would be trained as fighters. The women would learn the arts and skills of free women. War Master Blade was, to have special charge of the exslaves to see that their instruction was proper and their treatment good.
Blade admired the humanity of Krog's decision. But he felt that the Blue Eye leader had not thought through his decision well enough before announcing it. Most of the slaves were broken in body and spirit by years of brutality from their former masters. It would be many more years before they could learn either the skills or the pride of freemen. So it would be a long time before they would add to the Blue Eyes' depleted strength. The Blue Eyes' fighters and free women, who had dreamed of the pleasure and labor that could be wrung from this horde of new slaves, were disappointed. Disappointed and angry. Blade did not expect that it would be an easy job to keep the ex-slaves from being mistreated. Nor did he expect to be a popular figure for doing so. A week after Krog had led the People of the Blue Eye to the greatest victory in all their history, there was greater and more bitter muttering against his leadership than there had been in the past five years.
Blade liked even less the fact that Halda was at the heart of much of this muttering. And at the heart of her reasons was her distrust of him. She saw him elevated to the position of protector of a hundred new members of the gang. For her that was seeing him elevated in power and influence to her own level, or even above it. If he won the loyalty of that hundred, he would be an invincible rival for Krog's successor if battle or disease should carry her father off. Blade knew that Halda was quite right. But he had no intention of slacking off in the job which Krog had given him. Now he not only had responsibilities to Narlena but responsibilities to the hundred poor wretches who had fled to the Blue Eyes for safety.
Those new responsibilities brought him an immense amount of new work. More often than not he returned to his chamber at night too exhausted to do anything but drop down beside Halda and fall directly to sleep. Whether she resented this or not, he was not sure. He suspected she did, but between fatigue and his growing revulsion for her, he could not have done anything else.