Chapter TWENTY

Blade stepped back from the dead warrior and made the formal hand gestures of respect for one of the honored dead. He sighed. If Bryg-Noz in fact came to rule in the Tower of the Serpent, he would rule as a very lonely man. His brother, Mir-Kasa, Kun-Rala-they were all dead. Blade took another step back from the body, and turned back toward his men, to watch them dragging the prisoners to their feet and piling the bodies out of the way.

That extra step saved Blade's life. As he took it, there was a sudden hiss and crackle of disturbed air behind him. He spun around, in time to see one of the men farther down the corridor vanish in a cloud of red mist that stained the floor where he had been standing. Instantly Blade leaped into the alcove where Kir-Noz's body was and flattened himself against the wall. As he did that, the air crackled again, and another man became a red cloud in the heavy air of the corridor.

As he struggled to get his own great wand out of its bag and into action, Blade's mind was working furiously. How many men with great wands had Nris-Pol brought up into action? And was Nris-Pol himself among them? Blade very much hoped so.

A third crackle, and a third stain on the floor. And then the men in the corridor broke, abandoning the prisoners, abandoning Blade, abandoning the ground they had won, to vanish in a mad panicky flight. They could face three times their own number of enemy warriors with courage, but not the great wands.

As his men clattered off down the corridor, Blade could take comfort from at least two things. There seemed to be only one man with a great wand, and the great wand could fire only in a straight line. Blade's opponent could not fire at him without giving Blade some chance to return the fire. With luck, Blade had only to stay where he was, and wait for curiosity or blood-lust to tempt his enemy out into view. He let his breath out slowly, trying to relax as much as possible without losing any of his alertness.

A minute went by. Then two minutes, then three. The corridor-in fact, the whole level-seemed as silent as a tomb. As far as Blade's ears could tell, there was no other living thing on the level or in the corridor with him.

It must have been close to ten minutes before he heard the unmistakable sound of a footstep-a single slow, cautious footstep. After an interval that seemed like hours, it was followed by a second. Now they came in more rapid succession, approaching down the corridor. Blade could not keep from holding his breath. Then he let it out in a soundless gasp, as Nris-Pol himself came into view around the bend of the corridor.

Blade stepped out into the open, his great wand rising into position as he did so. Before Nris-Pol's widening eyes could meet his, his finger squeezed down on the firing bar. And it squeezed in vain, as the bar jammed fast.

Before Nris-Pol could even realize Blade's situation, let alone gloat over it, Blade had reacted. It was his habit to learn every possible way of using any weapon he might be given, however unlikely he might be to need it. He had practiced throwing the great wands-and also using them butt-first. They weighed fifteen pound, and coming down hard, butt-end first, they could do their share of damage.

So as Nris-Pol's wand rose to aim at Blade and Nris-Pol's finger tightened on his own firing bar, Blade sprang at the other man. He lifted his wand, then brought it down. By pure reflex Nris-Pol jerked his wand up enough to spoil Blade's stroke at his head. The two wands met with a clang of metal and ajar that nearly knocked Blade's out of his hands. But it did knock Nris-Pol's wand out of his. The wand crashed to the floor, and Blade closed, raising his own wand for a finishing stroke to cave Nris-Pol's skull in.

That stroke came down on empty air. Nris-Pol's skull was no longer where Blade had expected it to be. Fast on his feet, the warrior sprang away from Blade, turned, and ran. Blade followed him. He had little doubt where Nris-Pol was headed. He had even less doubt that thousands of lives might depend on stopping him. If the man had brought out the great wands, had he noticed Kun-Rala's little trap? Perhaps. And perhaps he was now heading that way, determined that if he could not rule in the Tower of the Serpent, no one should.

Blade ran fast, but he had been fighting since early morning. Nris-Pol ran faster. Blade saw the warrior's fleeting shape dart through the door of one of the shafts, then he saw the light go on as the shaft car plunged downward. Without stopping or even swearing, Blade continued on around the corridor to the next shaft car. By miraculous good fortune the car was only a few levels above; a push of the button brought it down to him within seconds. He sprang in, and another push of the button sent it plunging downward. But he was almost a minute behind Nris-Pol, and a few seconds would be more than enough for the desperate warrior.

Blade found it hard to keep from holding his breath as the car shot downward. He found it even harder to worry about there being hostile warriors in or around the work chambers. He would fight his way through them, or around them-somehow. He would get to Nris-Pol — somehow. He realized that he was not thinking quite rationally, and took deep breaths to calm himself. He had just managed to do so when the car stopped and the shaft door opened.

Blade knew the way to the work chambers, so he had no need to look around him. He came out of the shaft car at a dead run, bowling over two masters armed with administering wands as though he were an avalanche. They sprawled on the floor, staring after him as he pounded down the corridor.

Blade had dropped his useless great wand on the floor of the shaft car so that he could run unhampered. But Nris-Pol still managed to keep ahead of him. Blade could hear the pounding feet ahead, and could hear them slowly getting louder as he carved away Nris-Pol's lead. But he could not come up with Nris-Pol before the man ducked into the chamber where the store of great wands lay. And he did not dare charge straight into the chamber on Nris-Pol's heels. The man could easily get himself another great wand and be ready to blast Blade into a red mist if he came charging in. So once more Blade flattened himself against a wall, then peered cautiously around the edge of the doorway into the chamber.

The door in the wall gaped blackly open, and Nris-Pol was on his knees on the floor. He was holding the bunch of power tubes in one hand, and doing something to the wires with the other. Or trying to do something, at least. Blade could hear Nris-Pol's frustrated, half-hysterical cursing, and let his own breath out in a sigh of relief. Somehow something had gone wrong with the wiring of Kun-Rala's boobytrap. At any other time that might have been a disaster, but now it was salvation for the Tower of the Serpent. Nris-Pol had found the great wands too late, and been too afraid of handing them out to his men. Now he was going to pay for both mistakes. Blade stepped out into the middle of the doorway and launched himself into the chamber.

He had made a mistake of his own, however. Only a small one, but still a mistake. He had thought Nris-Pol a hysterical, half-helpless madman. But as Blade charged, Nris-Pol spun around, snatched up a heavy metal tool from the floor, and hurled it straight at Blade. Blade leaped high, but the tool smashed into the side of his right knee. Pain knifed through his leg, and he nearly fell to the floor as he came down. He raised both swords, though, and took an agonized, lurching step forward.

Nris-Pol could have killed Blade in that moment. But the sight of Blade coming at him was too much for his overstrained nerves. This time they did snap, and he gave a wild animal's scream. Then he dashed for the door, brushing past Blade and under Blade's sword-slashes, and out of the chamber.