They did. But at the same time the armed fighters of the Lugsa's guard swarmed out of the cabin, brandishing their own axes and swords and screaming vengeance for their captain. They hurled themselves at the Holy Warriors so fiercely that the enemy were hurled backward onto the advancing Death-Vowed. Blade was caught in the middle. For a moment he stood there, jammed so tightly among his enemies that he could not strike at them nor they at him.
By sheer strength he pushed the men away, punching and kicking and shoving. A space opened around him, a space large enough for him to use his weapons. A Death-Vowed caught off balance died with Blade's sword chopping his spine in two. He fell to the deck, writhing like a broken-backed snake, stabbing at Blade's legs still, until Blade slammed a foot down on his ribs. There was a crunch and a gasp and a sudden silence.
A Holy Warrior faced Blade next, but not for long. Axes rang against each other's blows. But Blade's sword crashed through the other's guard by brute force and deep into the man's shoulder. The man's sword fell to the deck, the clang lost in the battle roar all around. But he screamed very audibly as Blade ran him through the stomach. Blood spurted, flowing down onto the deck, making the planks slick. For a moment Blade's feet did a frantic dance on the planks as he fought for balance. A dying Death-Vowed blundered against him, and they both went down.
Blade heard the dying enemy's breath hiss inside his mask, felt claw-gloved hands tearing at his own skin. He got a full nelson on the other's neck and heaved. The spine went with a crack, and the thrashing legs and clawing hands went still. Blade started to rise and another body crashed into him. He went back to his knees and twisted about, hands reaching for the new attacker's throat. But the man-a Holy Warrior-was already dead, face split open and an axe embedded in the mass of bloody bone splinters.
Finally Blade did stand up, as he realized that most of the men around him were also dead. Blood, discarded weapons, and splintered bat-masks lay thick on the deck. Alongside the Lugsa the sails of the Ayocan boat still loomed. Without thinking, Blade snatched up an axe and a sword and hurled himself over the railing. He landed on the enemy's deck so hard that for a moment he went to his knees again, and pain stabbed through one ankle.
A Holy Warrior saw Blade, hesitated for a moment, then rushed in. The hesitation was fatal. Blade was ready to meet the attack, and both axe blow and sword swing clanged off his guard. Blade's riposte met no such resistance, and the Warrior's thigh gaped and spurted.
Blade rose, and feet clattered on the deck as the boat's crew and priests ran hastily aft. He saw them clustered near the stern. And he also saw the dim glow of a brazier by the railing amidships.
Three strides forward, and his sword licked out. The brazier went over, and hot coals went flying. The tinder-dry matting covering the deck blazed in an instant. By the glow of the fire Blade saw the cluster of men aft cringe and stare. One of them moved forward, cautiously holding out a bucket. Blade snatched up an axe from the deck and threw it with deadly accuracy. The man bent over, staring down at the axe embedded in his stomach. The bucket clattered to the deck and emptied itself uselessly around the man's feet. The flames blazed higher, reaching up for the sails. Then the sails themselves burst into orange flame, and Blade knew the enemy ship was doomed.
He turned, and realized with a cold shock that he would be too in a few more seconds. The survivors of the Lugsa's crew were chopping loose the grappling hooks that held the temple boat alongside. A gap was already widening between the two craft. Blade sprang up onto the railing, and stared down at the water below. It was black in the light of the fire, but he could see dartings and splashings as the scent of blood drove the fish wild. Then he tensed his legs and leaped out into space.
For a chilling moment in midair he thought he was going to fall short, to fall into the jaws of the fish. But two of the Lugsa's crewmen saw him coming, and practically snatched him out of the air. All three of them crashed down on the blood-slick deck with a jar that knocked the wind out of Blade. When he got his breath back and stood up, the enemy boat was drifting away into the darkness, a pyramid of fire almost from end to end. The priests and crewmen were still clustered, aft but as Blade watched, he saw a white splash by the steering oar. Someone had decided to accept death from the fishes, rather than from the flames. A moment later a gurgling scream floated across the dark water as the fish tore into the man. The screams did not last long-it would be only a matter of seconds before the man had no lungs or throat to scream with.
Blade turned to the men who had caught him. «Thanks. Without you I'd be on the fishes' menu tonight along with those over there.»
A man Blade recognized as the Lugsa's mate nodded. «We could not do less for you. You saved us. Ayocan priests not use Death-Vowed on river before this. I do not understand.»
«Neither do I,» said Blade. «That was why I wanted to destroy the whole boat and its crew, not just beat off the attack. If their first try at river piracy costs them the boat and the crew, they may think twice before making it a habit.»
There was another reason, one he could not mention. The attack by the cult boat suggested that someone high in the cult knew of Blade's presence aboard the Lugsa. Perhaps he knew of Blade's mission also, and was sending a warning downriver to the temple mounds of Gonsara. If so, destroying the cult boat and every man aboard it might make sure that the Lugsa reached Gonsara before the warning.
Chapter 13
Of the Lugsa's crew of fourteen sailors and six fighters, five sailors, including the captain, and three of the fighters were dead. Virtually all the others had been wounded, two of them so severely they died the day after the battle. Shorthanded as she was, the Lugsa was in no danger from the river itself. It flowed broad and straight and deep all the way to Gonsara, and even in bad weather it had no winds or waves high enough to endanger a well-built craft like the Lugsa. What Blade feared was another attack by men-either ordinary pirates or another boatload of Warriors and Death-Vowed sent by the cult of Ayocan. With half her crew dead or disabled, the Lugsa could never fight off such an assault.
As it happened, the rest of the voyage down the river was uneventful, unmolested, and more than a little boring. Gradually they passed out of the belt of tropical forest and into a broad river plain. The trees there grew in clusters well back from the river bank, with cultivated fields and white-painted houses spreading along the bank. The air there was even hotter than it had been in the forest belt, but less humid.
On the sixth day they passed into Gonsara itself. For all the peace between the two countries, both sides had forts marking the border on both sides of the river. And the river itself swarmed with the swift-moving patrol craft of both kingdoms. These stopped and inspected ships bound in either direction.
Two Gonsaran officials boarded the Lugsa and listened to the mate's tale of the battle that had decimated the ship's crew. It was a carefully edited tale, that made no mention of the cult of Ayocan. Blade had thought of giving a full account, to sound out Gonsaran opinions of the cult. But he had decided against it. Even if the officials were against the cult, they might talk about what they heard-and others might listen. The less said about the fate of the cult boat until Blade reached his destination, the better.
The Gonsarans were little shorter than Blade himself, but considerably thinner. Their bony faces were largely hidden behind bushy coal-black beards. How they wore their hair Blade could not tell, since they wore high tightwound white turbans. They wore black slippers, white pantaloons, and black sashes. A curved short sword and a curved dagger, both in silver sheaths, were stuck into the sashes. The men who rowed their boat were naked except for breechclouts, but carried six-foot spears with barbed bronze points. Altogether the Gonsarans looked to Blade very much like the warrior race they were supposed to be.