He lay down on the bed beside her. His hands could roam freely all over her body, and they did so. He spent a long time on her breasts, and before that time passed those breasts were rising and falling with the frantic speed of her breathing. Then his hands darted swiftly down over the flat stomach, to burrow between her thighs. Those thighs spread apart slowly but surely as his hands reached the crucial point, and a long slow shudder racked her body. Not a climax-not yet. Just the reaction to new and uncontrollable sensations, beyond what her mind had conceived or her body had felt until now.

The hair between Ye-Jaza's thighs was a small mat of silky strands, already beginning to go limp with the wetness of her arousal. But Blade did not take that first wetness as his cue to enter. Instead he let his fingers work up and down her body again, both on the front and the back, gradually peeling away the threads of the gown until she was as naked as he was. Once her eyes flickered down at her bare body, widening in surprise. But she did not stiffen or stop or speak. Instead she shook her head and gave a little whimper that might have been delight, might have been protest. Her pubic hair was so black it was almost blue, Blade noted. And those now outrageously swollen nipples were solid cones of chocolate brown.

Eventually Blade noticed that her gasps and moans were coming almost continuously, and her eyes were riveted on his erection. It was as if she wanted to draw him inside her by the sheer power of her glance. He did not wait any longer. Swinging up on his arms, he positioned himself precisely, knowing that she neither could nor would give him much help. Then as her thighs spread apart again by another reflex, he slid down and into her.

There was a short tugging, then a sudden easing as he broke through. She gave a short, sharp cry, then her tight wetness closed around him, so suddenly that it was his turn to gasp. He knew he had to hold back particularly long with Ye-Jaza, for bringing her to climax would be harder than usual. But knowing this and doing it were two different things. Very different, when she was writhing under him, clutching him with her arms and the more intimate parts of her body.

It seemed forever before that body's reaction came. And when it came, it was with an almost terrifying violence. Ye-Jaza sobbed and howled and clawed at Blade's back until blood ran from the gouges her nails made, thrashing and heaving and jerking under him. With the final shudder of her tormented pelvic muscles her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fainted. It was as if thirty years of virginity had built up a monstrous accumulation of energy, all ready to be discharged in that one moment.

But if Ye-Jaza released all her energy then, she regained it soon enough. And she found more than Blade had imagined she-or any woman-could. It was three entire days before she left Blade's chambers. By that time both she and Blade were a little unsteady on their feet. It had not taken Ye-Jaza more than her first experience of love for her to become an addict. Specifically, an addict to Blade.

Now this was all well and good up to a point, for it gave Blade all the influence over her that he had ever dreamed of having. But she insisted that he promise to return to the Tower of the Leopard after the liberation of the Tower of the Serpent. She wanted him always around her, beside her-and in her.

Again, this was all very well and good, for the moment. But Blade strongly suspected that Mir-Kasa, if she survived the war, would make the same request. He could perhaps look forward to being caught in a tug-of-war between two strong-minded, able, and jealous women.

But that would be after the war. In the meantime that war had to be fought and won. And Blade had accomplished the crucial part of his mission, whatever difficulties he might have landed himself in during the process. Ye-Jaza remained as stubborn and proud toward everybody else as she had ever been. But she was putty in Blade's hands. And she gave her consent to the war against the Tower of the Serpent.

Chapter EIGHTEEN

It was just after dawn, the same time of day that Blade had arrived in Melnon. And the weather was almost the same also-a glowing blue sky overhead, promising a clear day-but the towers themselves were still veiled in mist. The towers-and the Waste Lands of the Tower of the Serpent, where five hundred picked fighting men crouched, waiting.

They had not been picked as carefully as Blade would have liked. But he could hardly argue that the refugees from the Tower of the Serpent should not be allowed to help liberate their home. And three hundred or more of the best fighting men of the Tower of the Leopard should balance any weaknesses among the exiles. There were also the two hundred «underground» fighters already inside the Tower of the Serpent. Blade and Bryg-Noz were hurling against Nris-Pol the strongest fighting force seen in Melnon in better than two hundred years. And it would get stronger still, the moment the pikes that each man was carrying got into the hands of the Low People. The attackers were carrying enough of those pikes to arm nearly every able-bodied Low Person in the Tower of the Serpent.

So they had strength and courage and determination. But skill, and the subtle battle sense that tells you when to strike and when to wait for a better time-did they have these also? Blade looked up at the sun. He would find out in a few minutes.

Blade looked at the Waste Land around him. No one looking casually down from the balcony at it would have dreamed that five hundred men lay hidden there, ready to strike. In fact, even someone looking for the men would have had trouble finding them. All their weapons and faces were smeared with brown-gray paste, and everyone wore faded green. The exiles from the Tower of the Serpent, of course, wore green by right. But it had been a struggle to get the Leopard warriors to wear something other than their own proud-and highly visible-yellow orange. Some of their commanders had even tried to invoke the War Wisdom in protest, until the Council of Leaders squelched them.

Blade could hardly think of a more pointless objection than the War Wisdom. After today's battle the War Wisdom and the Peace Wisdom alike would be shattered into small pieces, regardless of who won the battle. The old mold which had held Melnon in frozen suspension for centuries was about to come apart. Neither queens nor councils nor commanders would be able to put it back together again.

The mist was beginning to burn off under the heat of the fast-rising sun. Blade risked a look upward, to see if any signs of the war party's moving out showed on the balcony high above. He hoped they would hurry. He wanted the hundred warriors well on their way toward the Plain of War before people inside the tower launched their attack. The war party would certainly fight, otherwise. And to start off the day with a pitched battle against a hundred of Nris-Pol's opponents was not his choice.

The figures of men were beginning to appear along the railing of the balcony now. Not very many of them, though, at least not yet. The sacred routine set by the War Wisdom would prevail even today-at least for a few more minutes.

Blade was wearing the usual two swords in their scabbards and a stout club hanging on his belt. He also carried a great wand, wrapped in cloth and slung on his back. That was strictly for the worst sort of life-or-death emergency. Bryg-Noz and Blade alike felt that it would be far better to get through the entire day's fighting without revealing the great wands any more than necessary. Their existence would be enough of a shock to the people of the tower if it was announced peacefully, after the fighting was over. Unleashing them in the middle of the battle could also unleash utter chaos.