CHAPTER TWELVE

It did not come to that. Nayung, King Afuno, and several of the Great Mors who were thoroughly out of sympathy with the On'ror's plans pitched in and kept Blade's job from being completely impossible. It was merely fantastically difficult.

Blade chose his ten trainees carefully, with the advice of King Afuno. Among them were two Great Mors, five Mors, and three other fighters of known wisdom as well as skill. They were of the anti-Ulunga faction. Blade was able to be entirely frank with them the first time he gathered them together for a training session.

«The On'ror and some of the War Council want to play the game of the Ulungas. I don't know what that game is, but I have seen things like it in my travels. It is a game dangerous to the Zungans. The only people who will gain from it are the Ulungas themselves sand perhaps the slave raiders of Rulam and Kanda. But you do not want to let the Ulungas lead you by the hand like little children. That is good. You are wise men as well as great warriors. And by your wisdom as well as by your war skills you may save the people of Zunga.» That was a prospect he deliberately and carefully held out to them-that they would be the saviors of Zunga. He thought it wiser not to push himself too far forward, regardless of what plans Princess Aumara had for him.

After that there was no difficulty in whipping up his students' enthusiasm. They were all grown men, trained warriors, in top physical and mental condition, and more than willing to learn. Training them was a pleasure, even if an exhausting one. Blade soon learned that they were insatiable in their curiosity about the ways of the English, not only in fighting but in all other things. He had to keep mentally very much on his toes to answer their questions. And he had to keep even more on his toes physically. Not only were they willing to train from dawn to dark and even at night, but they learned fast. Within ten days half of them were already dangerous opponents.

Almost as great a pleasure to Blade were the various tricks he and King Afuno were playing on the Ulungas and the On'ror. The matter of the new balanced spears, for example. King Afuno's household included a large contingent of smiths. He had them make up the twenty practice spears for Blade's students.

After they had made these, the smiths waited for a few days while Blade tested the spears. Then he sent back the five best, and the smiths went right back to work making more. Soon they were turning out fifty to a hundred of the new spears a week. In obscure corners of the cellars of King Afuno's palace, piles of long hide-wrapped bundles began to grow. Each bundle contained ten of the new spears.

«And the Ulungas can say nothing about it,» said Afuno with a triumphant grin. «They said only that you could not train more than a certain number of fighters. They said nothing about not making the weapons for any number.»

There were even ways devised for getting around the training restrictions. All the training sessions were held in the open field, where anybody who wanted to stop and watch could do so. Many warriors did. Afterward, some of them went off and tried out privately what they had seen in the sessions. They soon discovered that the standard Zungan spear was not nearly as good as the new balanced ones for the new, fighting style. They came to Blade, asking for new spears. He sent them to Nayung, who asked each one a few questions, intended to reveal if the warrior was a sympathizer with the Ulungas or not. If Nayung approved of him, the warrior was then taken down into the cellars of the palace and given two of the new spears.

By the time Nayung was back on his feet, Blade had trained his hard core of ten about as much as he could without their going stale or getting bored. At least fifty more warriors had watched and practiced enough so that they also were now giving lessons. About five hundred warriors in all were now learning the new fighting techniques, and more than a thousand of the new spears were in circulation.

King Afuno was openly delighted at this neat outflanking of the Ulungas. So was Blade. He had heard J tell many tales of the years when intelligence service budgets had been slashed to the bone. The younger men, the field agents in particular, had performed miracles of improvisation and judicious deception. In some of those stories there had been a note of mild scorn for the postwar intelligence operatives, who had never known a real starvation budget, or learned how to outwit Whitehall. Well, when he got back from this trip, Blade knew he could tell J at least one good story of making do and outwitting higher authorities.

But as well as things were going, and as much fun as he was having, Blade knew the horizon was still far from clear. Neither he nor Afuno nor Nayung believed that the Ulungas would overlook the tricks and evasions of their decision indefinitely. Even if the Ulungas were not sufficiently familiar with things military to recognize what was happening, the On'ror certainly was and would pass the word to his masters. And then the fat would be, in the fire-Blade's fat, Afuno's, and Nayung's.

Meanwhile, the On'ror was also pushing his suit for Aumara. The princess would neither encourage nor discourage him. As long as he kept coming around on visits and talking to her, she would be able to learn at least some of what he was thinking and planning. And what she learned, she passed on to Blade each time she slipped into his room at night.

For many weeks there was nothing in the On'ror's words to cause Blade much alarm. In fact, Aumara's mocking recitals of the man's constant boasting became something he looked forward to almost as much as to their lovemaking. Aumara had a savage gift for mimicry. But he listened closely to those recitals while laughing at them. A boastful man who may drop hints of his plans while boasting is an easier enemy.

Finally the day came when he gathered his ten students together and told them that tomorrow they would go north to hunt slave raiders. If he had just offered each of them a ton of gold or half a dozen beautiful women, they could not have been happier. When the cheering died, he reminded them to bring three spears and two water bottles each. He warned them not to expect that the slave raiders would lie down and die when the new spears were waved in their faces. He made it clear that this was very much a trial run, and they were not going to fight a pitched battle if the Sky Father made it possible. And he was quite sure that they had not heard half a word of all his warnings and advice. Hoping that the Zungans' luck would hold until they got their overconfidence out of their systems, he went off to his chamber.

Aumara came to him that night. As she slipped into his bed and flowed up against him, he felt her trembling. Not with desire this time, but with fear. He held her gently and murmured in her ear as though he were comforting a child, but the trembling went on. Finally he pulled her tight against him and whispered in her ear, «What is it, my princess?»

She swallowed. «The On'ror knows that you are taking your men out tomorrow.»

«So? That's not a secret. Why should it be? The slave raiders aren't going to find out about it. And what good would it do if they did?»

«Are you sure, Blade? Are you sure the slave raiders don't know?»

It was Blade's turn to stiffen. «What have you heard? Has the On'ror been saying something?»

«Yes. He came to my chamber this evening and drank more beer than usual. He seemed happier than I had ever seen him. I gave him more beer, and… «she paused, «I even let him make love to me. You are not angry?»

«Of course not,» said Blade. «Go on.»

«When we were in bed together, he kept muttering something about 'The English warrior's time is coming. He has had his run. Now he thinks he will go out and get so famous he can have you. He won't. He won't even come back alive.' And then he laughed. He laughed for a long time, then he fell asleep.»