But Blade was not caught by surprise. He shouted «Treason! Blasphemy!» over his shoulder. Then he grabbed one of the staring temple guards and shoved him hard into the path of the oncoming Holy Warriors. The wretched man screamed as three swords chopped into him. But his dying strength kept him on his feet, so that he plunged among the Holy Warriors. He and they went down with shouts and clatters of falling weapons and waving arms and legs. Blade leaped high, sailing clear over the tangle of bodies. He cut at an exposed head as he went, and landed outside in the cool darkness.
There were other Holy Warriors still on guard outside, but Blade caught these by surprise. Before they could recover from that surprise, Blade had chopped down the only one who stood in his path. Before the others could close around Blade, he was out on the slope of the mound. The moon rode high over Dafar, brightly illuminating the slope. The stone was dry, and the footing was good. Blade thrust his sword into its scabbard, hung his axe on his belt, and settled down to run.
As he hit his stride, Holy Warriors from inside the mound began pouring out. They were shouting and waving their arms. In the bright moonlight Blade could see blood on some of them. There had been a fight down below, that was obvious. But more and more Holy Warriors kept pouring out into the open. A few, braver or angrier than the rest, started down the mound after Blade. For the moment, he had a safe lead. But he went down the side of the slope at a dead run, the wind whistling in his ears and his feet thudding on the stone.
He looked back again when he reached ground level. The Holy Warriors were coming after him now as fast as they could run. One at least came down the mound too fast. Blade saw him stumble and go rolling down the stone, arms and legs flying doll-like. But some of the others were coming down just as fast and staying on their feet. And now Blade saw that some of his pursuers were carrying spears. He would have to keep a longer lead than he had expected. One lucky hit or even a bad graze could slow him down enough to finish him.
Where should he run? He wished now that he had spent more time exploring Dafar before entering the temple mound. But at least there had been maps in the temple mound. He knew that he was less than a mile from the edge of the built-up area of Dafar, where it spread out into the open country beyond. He did not know that country, but neither would Pterin's goon squads. With reasonable luck he would also find the people on his side, and against his pursuers. He turned toward the east, toward the open countryside, and once more settled down to run.
As Blade and his pursuers raced up the moonlit streets, he was able to keep a good twenty yards between him and them without effort. He would have liked to widen the gap still more. Twenty yards was too easy a spearcast, even for men perhaps not used to the weapon. But for the moment there were more than twenty of the Holy Warriors tearing along after him, too many to risk fighting when they could see him coming and get ready to face him. When some of them started dropping out, however. .
The chase continued in deadly silence. The Holy Warriors had no wish to arouse a hostile people from their sleep. And Blade had even less wish to involve innocent people in a fight with the Holy Warriors of Ayocan. But, on the other hand, if they met a troop of King Thambral's soldiers. .
They met none, and the chase continued in lonely silence. Only the thud of feet on the dirty stones of the street and the heaving breathing of hard-running men broke that silence. Blade risked another look behind him. A few of the Holy Warriors had dropped out or back, but a good fifteen were still coming on hard. Pterin must indeed have picked the very best of all the Holy Warriors of Chiribu's temples to follow him on his mission.
What would happen to the Gonsaran temple mounds, now that Pterin was dead? In particular, what would happen to Isgon and Natrila for sheltering Blade? With Pterin dead, there might be no one of rank superior to Isgon. The Gonsaran Elder Brother would then once more be ruler in his own House. On the other hand, there might be another Elder Brother among Pterin's followers, ready to deal with Isgon and Natrila. How he would deal with them was not a pleasant thought.
But there was another equally unpleasant thought, one that Blade could not shake off. If Isgon survived and regained control of the Gonsaran temples, he would not be out of danger. Another Elder Brother could always descend on him, with an even larger force of disguised Holy Warriors and perhaps Death-Vowed. Isgon's only hope for survival would be to launch his Death-Vowed against the rulers of Gonsara as soon as he could. With Gonsara thrown into chaos by his efforts, he would have a strong card to play if any protests or threats came down on his head.
And if Isgon fell? Whoever succeeded him would have an equal need for a swift success. He would have to knit the shaken and divided Gonsaran temple mounds together again into a fighting unit. Such a man would be just as likely as Isgon to order out the Death-Vowed.
Blade had planned to flee into the country and remain there for a time. Within a week or two the hunt for him would die out, and he could safely return to Dafar and find means of passing what he had learned on to King Thambral. But now he would have no time. He would have to get to King Thambral as fast as possible and warn him.
All this ran through Blade's mind in a few seconds, without slowing down his pounding feet. Now he once more tried to recall the maps of Dafar. The High Palace of the Kings lay not far from the river, on the northern edge of the city. For the moment, Blade was running almost directly away from it. Could he turn about and cut back across Dafar toward the palace? Not without a fight with the dozen-odd men who were still on his trail.
As he looked back toward them, the moonlight sparked on a raised spearhead. Then the spear flashed through the air toward Blade. He cut sharply to the right. The spear sailed past him. Blade heard the wsssh it made cutting through the air and the clank its bronze point made on the stones. A moment later another spear sailed toward him, and again he had to shift sideways. Again the spear missed, but this time bits of stone gouged up by its point hit Blade in the leg. If he turned back toward the river, he would be giving his enemies a chance to cut him off, more than a chance to put at least one spear through him. And one would be enough.
But not far from the edge of the city the map had shown a second royal palace. The Summer Palace of the Queen, the map had called it. Blade remembered that, and he also remembered what King Hurakun had said about the current Queen of Gonsara. Young, Hurakun had told him, and susceptible to being influenced. A good person for Blade to start with, now that he had a tale to tell. Even if the queen herself were not at the Summer Palace, certainly he could find a sanctuary there, and an opportunity to quickly get word to King Thambral.
The Summer Palace was barely half a mile away, almost due south from where Blade was now. He would still have to turn and risk being cut off. He threw another look backward. There were still ten or eleven men after him, at least half a dozen of them with spears.
Blade took the first corner he came to at a dead run, swinging to the right without missing a step. The new street sloped upward slightly. Blade hoped that would slow his pursuers more than it would him. But he could not help realizing that his own breath was beginning to come short, his legs starting to ache, and his eyes to sting from the sweat pouring down into them.
His pursuers made the turn and flung themselves after him. One of them also flung a spear, and this time Blade felt the disturbed air of its passage on his skin. An inch closer, and the spear would have hit him. He forced his legs to move faster, and saw the gap between him and his pursuers open up a little. Not much, but enough so that the next two spearcasts came nowhere near him.