Blade held back nothing about his mission in Gonsara nor about what he had done the night of the cult's attack. He felt he could trust the old king to judge wisely. But he still had tense moments when he finished his story and stood with Thambral gazing silently at him.

Then Thambral's wrinkled lips creased in a brief smile. «Well, Richard Blade. That is a considerable story you have told me.»

«It is only the truth, your Majesty.»

«I know that,» said Thambral testily. «I am not doubting your word. You appear honest, and much of what you have said I have also heard from others. But it is still most impressively full of adventures survived and perils escaped. Your wits seem to work as fast as your sword.»

«I hope so, your Majesty.»

«So do I. You are not through with your service to the House of the Red Ox. You will give me good service for some time yet, whether King Hurakun says yea or nay. Otherwise. .» Thambral brought his hands together and made a neck-twisting gesture. Blade nodded.

Thambral went on. «I do not see King Hurakun saying nay, though. You need only help with the final destruction of the cult of Ayocan. When they are gone from the earth, you may return to Hurakun's service. You may even return to your own people, for all that I care.»

Blade was surprised by the fierceness in Thambral's voice as he spoke of the cult. The surprise must have shown on his face. Thambral smiled again and said, «You wonder that I speak so against the Ayocani? I did not, once. I wanted to live at peace for the few years remaining to me, at peace even with the Ayocani. But peace is something that both must seek for both to have it. The cult certainly seeks no peace. And therefore they shall not have it.»

He sighed. «I grieve somewhat that you slew that Elder Brother, Pterin. He would have been most informative about the plans of the cult, I imagine. Of course he would doubtless have had to have been encouraged a trifle before he spoke. But I have those in my service who can encourage a stone statue to speak if they are given enough time.»

Blade shrugged. «At the time I could hardly spare him, your Majesty. I needed his silence, not his speech.»

«To be sure,» said Thambral. «I am not going to pass judgment on you. We will have enough to lay before Hurakun to persuade him as it is.»

«And if he is difficult to persuade?» Blade ventured. «The cult has enough true members in Chiribu to somewhat tie Hurakun's hands.»

«Somewhat, indeed,» said Thambral. «But he had best untie his own hands, or face war with Gonsara. Yes, I know that could play directly into the hands of the Ayocani. But there are none of those left in Gonsara. None to rule it or even to strike at it from the rear. And as for Hurakun-«Thambral shrugged. «You know him as well as I do. Would you say he would really rejoice in fighting Gonsara to aid only the Ayocani?»

Blade had to laugh at the idea. «Hardly, your Majesty. He would march to such a war with all the eagerness of a boy on his way to school. And he would be glad of any reasonable excuse not to march at all.»

Thambral smiled. «I thought as much. Then we shall give him such an excuse. The orders to mobilize my army have already gone out, and likewise the orders to my River Fleet. We shall put one army marching over land, and another aboard the fleet to sail up the river. Thus we can carry war into the very heart of Chiribu if we choose. But I do not think we will have to do so. Tell me, Blade. How many of Hurakun's subjects are so devoted to Ayocan that they will see their homes and crops burned and their families slaughtered to avenge the offended honor of the bat-god?»

Blade's face gave his answer. «Exactly,» went on Thambral. «Hurakun can say to his people, 'Is it truly your wish that I lead you by the tens of thousands to your deaths in battle merely for the sake of Ayocan?' I wonder how many of them will say yes?»

Blade had to laugh out loud. «Your Majesty, I am beginning to think King Hurakun had no need to send me to your lands. The true gods know the Ayocani had no need for another enemy in Gonsara. Not with you sitting on the throne.»

Thambral laughed also. «For that compliment you deserve some reward above what I was already planning to give you.»

«Your Majesty?»

Thambral made no reply, but instead rang a bell. A servant ran in and prostrated himself before Thambral. The king murmured a few words, inaudible to Blade, into the man's ear, and dismissed him.

The servant was back within a few minutes. Behind him were four soldiers carrying a curtained litter. Thambral smiled at the bewilderment on Blade's face. «Go on, Blade. Open the king's gift.» Blade stepped up to the litter, jerked open the curtain-and Natrila wriggled out and into his arms. When he had untangled himself from her and could turn to face the king, Thambral was grinning still more broadly. «She should not have said that she was Isgon's daughter. When she said that, my soldiers very nearly slew her on the spot. But when she mentioned your name, she was saved.» Thambral stood up and made a gesture of dismissal. Blade bowed and started to lead Natrila out of the chamber.

He was just passing out the door when Thambral called after him. «Don't use up all your strength on her, Blade. Save some of it for the march north. We will be on our way within a week, perhaps two at the most. And you will be with me.»

Chapter 20

Twenty thousand of Thambral's soldiers were on the march north from Dafar within a week. Meanwhile ships and barges and war galleys came into the docks of Dafar from all along the river. Five thousand armed soldiers and ten thousand more soldiers climbed aboard them, and two weeks later they sailed north. Toward the middle of the third week, a messenger came to Blade in the gray dawn as he lay beside Natrila. Before she had drifted off to sleep, she had said she was carrying his child.

«Warrior Blade, King Thambral commands you.»

«How?»

«That you be aboard his flagship at noon today. He sails to join his fleet and army on the borders of Gonsara.»

«I will be there.»

It cost him more pain than he had expected, to say goodbye to Natrila. She was as worried about him as if he had been going into a full-scale war. And he also knew- that it was long odds against his being able to return to her. He had been in this dimension a good while now. Sooner or later Lord Leighton's computer would reach out across the dimensions and grasp his brain, plucking him home like a ripe fruit from a branch.

But after all the goodbyes, he was aboard Thambral's flagship when it sailed that noon. And he was on board it ten days later when it caught up with the rest of the Gonsaran forces. The fleet almost blocked the river, and the tents and horse-lines of the soldiers covered the land for a mile along either bank. The clear sky was hazed gray with smoke from the campfires on the land and the cookfires in the brick furnaces aboard the hundreds of ships.

Thambral's plan had worked-so far. The Gonsarans outnumbered the Chiribuan forces on the spot five or six to one. More important, the Chiribuans freely admitted they had orders to avoid a fight at almost all costs. If the Gonsarans did not cross the frontier, there would be no fighting.

The Gonsarans were more than willing to sit where they were, and so there was no fighting. But there was a constant exchange of messages between the two kings. Toward the end of the second week of the staring contest, a message arrived from King Hurakun. King Thambral promptly called Blade to his cabin.

«King Hurakun suggests that he and I meet on a barge in mid-river, to come to an agreement for dealing with the cult of Ayocan. He says he is willing to move forcibly against them as long as I keep my army and fleet on his borders. The danger from Gonsara, he says, has most people unwilling to fight or die for the cult. In fact, he says his army and fleet would quite possibly mutiny if he asked them to fight.» Thambral leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. «You have heard Hurakun in person on this matter more recently than I. What do you say? Can I trust him?»