Those seconds were all Blade needed. His left hand chopped down even harder than before against the vulnerable neck. His right lashed out sideways, against the wing thrust hard against the frame. The wing-bone was large, but like that of any flying creature, it was fragile. In both neck and wing Blade felt bone shatter under his blows.
The orank gave its most terrible scream yet, and dropped away, head twisting feebly on its crippled neck, the broken wing trailing as it frantically struggled to stay in the air with the good wing. It kept on dropping, with Blade watching to see if by some miracle it would recover again and return to the attack. It did not. It kept dropping, until it vanished in the mist that was beginning to gather below.
Blade was sitting back in the basket, gasping for breath, when he heard a sudden, unmistakable, crack of breaking wood. Moving very gently and cautiously, he turned to look at the frame.
«Damn,» he said.
Both of the poles of the frame were cracked where the orank's wing had struck them. In the fast-vanishing light Blade could not see how bad the breaks were, but he knew one thing. His life and Pterin's depended on their remaining motionless.
«Pterin,» he called across to the man in the other basket.
«Yes, warrior-indeed you are a strong spirit, and-«
«Never mind the compliments. The frame poles are cracked. Don't move. Don't even breathe deeply. How much farther down is it?»
There was a long silence from the other basket, as if Blade's words had struck Pterin dumb. Then the answer came softly, as if the priest were afraid speaking aloud might worsen the creaks. «We must be over halfway.»
Much good that will do us if the frames break now, thought Blade. When you are falling, a height of two thousand feet is no better than a height of a mile. He took a very shallow breath and gently shifted to a more comfortable position in the cramped basket. Then he settled down to wait. There was nothing else to do.
They were plunging downward at more than two hundred feet a minute. At that rate it would take another ten minutes or more for them to reach the bottom. Would the frame hold together that long? On the other hand, would going down faster increase the swinging motion, increase the strain, increase the risk of that final fatal break? Blade wished he knew. He also wished there was some way to get word up to the crew of the windlass now so far above.
Now they seemed to be going down faster. Had the windlass crew seen another orank, or were they just afraid of one? Well, so was Blade. Another attack was the last thing the battered frame could stand. And falling down through many hundreds of feet of damp twilight to go splat on the floor of a forest in some strange dimension seemed a silly way to go.
Less than a thousand feet to go now. They were definitely sinking faster. But the frame was swinging back and forth like a pendulum now, and the more rope above it the wider the swing. Blade found himself having to hold on to the frame to keep from being pitched out, listening to the ominous creakings, listening for the one final crack that would hurl him out into space and down.
It did not come. They passed five hundred feet, and Blade saw color returning to the priest's face. The pendulum motion was easing too. The sheer weight of the rope now payed out was beginning to hold them steady, perhaps. Blade hoped so. But his ears were still listening for that sound that would quite literally be the crack of doom.
Four hundred feet, three hundred, two hundred. Blade found he could breathe normally, and unclench hands that had been clamped to the frame like steel claws. Another minute or so, and they would be safe. The descent was slowing now as the windlass crew eased off in paying out the rope. Blade took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
Cr-r-raaaak!
Blade felt the basket lurch and sag. He did not need to look at the frame to know what had happened. Instead he looked down. In the darkness it was hard to be sure-but did he see water glimmering faintly below? He had barely time for a flash of hope, when the frames parted entirely and his basket plunged downward.
As it did so, it turned over, throwing Blade out. For a moment he was head down and certain he was going to fall into water. But would it be deep enough to break his fall from nearly two hundred feet up? As these thoughts flashed through his mind, his body was straightening itself. His only hope was to enter the water with his body absolutely straight. Legs went down, head went up, arms went still farther up until they were above his head. Now he was looking up at the sky as the air rushed past, the approaching water below, just enough time to wonder if the cloudy dark sky above would be the last sight in his life
He hit the water with an impact that seemed to break every bone in his body, dislocate every joint, and flay the skin off the dismantled skeleton. The water closed over him. As he sensed its chill, he realized that he was still alive. His body was still straight when it arrowed into the muddy bottom.
He went into the mud up to his knees and felt a terrible suction like an enormous mouth trying to draw him in deeper. He kicked with his feet, churned with his arms, felt foul-smelling debris float up past him from the muck below. Then he broke free. He had one moment of utter certainty that his lungs were going to burst before he reached the air-then his head broke surface.
His lungs filled in one convulsive gasp, and his vision slowly cleared. As it did so, the surface of the water suddenly lit up, as a dozen men with yellow-orange torches stepped out onto the bank of the pond. One of them shouted, and his arm shot out. Unmistakably, he was pointing at Blade. The others waved their swords and joined their shouts to the first man's.
Blade said «Damn!» a third time. If the banks of the pond had been unguarded, and the road into the forest clear. . Well, there was nothing to do now but once more await a better opportunity. Taking his own good time, he began to swim slowly toward the bank.
Chapter 7
The warriors on guard around the pond promptly bustled Blade off to a small camp in the forest. There he was joined by Pterin, whose basket had not broken free and who had landed safely, if white-knuckled. Both men were examined by a doctor-priest, Blade with particular care. The doctor did not try to hide his surprise and delight that Blade had fallen from a height of nearly two hundred feet and remained unharmed.
«Such a strong spirit,» he kept saying. «A spirit such as we have not seen in many, many years. Such a spirit will be pleasing beyond measure to mighty Ayocan. And Ayocan shall be pleased.» Blade was getting more than slightly tired of the ritual phrases about pleasing and displeasing Ayocan.
He was found to be in excellent health. So, rather to Blade's regret, was Pterin. After a night in the camp they returned through the forest, back to the bank of the great river. The clouds hung low, hiding the river's mile-high leap down the cliff. Only a patch of mist low down against the blue-gray cliff showed where it lay.
About a mile downriver from the falls the forest path came out onto the river bank. A boat waited, not a canoe this time, but a massive barge with high sides and an even higher cabin in the stern. A tall, stout mast amidships carried a single square blue sail, and from ports in the sides jutted twelve long sweeps. A fearful reek rose from below decks, suggesting a crew of seldom-washed slaves down there manning the sweeps. The hull, decks, and cabin were all painted and well-scrubbed white. On the bluff bow a massive white carving of the man-bat figure of Ayocan jutted out over the water. Here below the falls, in the damp, semitropical forest, the water of the river flowed sluggishly, a dull and dirty brownish-green.