Blade and Truja set the doubts more or less at rest by walking into the house side by side and then out again half an hour later. They were dusty but unharmed. Assembling everyone in the gloom of the ground floor, Truja handed over her leadership to Blade. The cheers that rose into the darkness made it obvious that Blade was a more than acceptable choice.

That was well and good, but there was much more that needed to be done before the old War House was a fit refuge. A certain number of rooms had to be cleared of dust, mold, spider webs, bird's nests, and the remains of long-dead animals. A nearby spring had to be found. A regular roster of guards had to be set, and much else.

The house was a good ten miles from the nearest farm, so they could do much of this by daylight. Before darkness fell again, the scouts were as settled in as they could be. Blade and Truja went out into the twilight and sat down to plan the next move.

«The women who are going to the city must leave soon,» said Truja. «There is no time to waste in getting them out of the way of Rilgon. He may march any day.»

Blade nodded. «The rest of us will keep our heads down until the women start coming out from the city. It won't help if the patrols find out that we're here.»

Truja laughed. «That's putting it mildly. But there is one thing you can do. I don't know if there's any game in this forest, so it might be wise to take a look at the local farms. I know some of them around here have fishponds and poultry runs, where a few people could snatch a good bit of meat.»

Blade nodded. «But what about guards?»

«The farms this close to the city are seldom well guarded. What do they have to fear? Or at least-what did they have to fear?»

The idea of a little quiet chicken stealing was a good one. Or at least it might have been a good one, if Truja had been right about the guards at the farms. But there were supposed to be a number of escaped slaves roaming the area, so the farmers had taken precautions. And when Blade and Nugun came slipping up to a farm in the darkness, they ran into those precautions.

When dawn broke the next day, neither Blade nor Nugun had returned to the camp in the War House, Truja paced up and down, face grim, wondering what could have happened to them, fearing the worst.

She was almost right. Blade and Nugun were both lying on the bottom of a deadfall pit at the edge of the nearest farm. There were no stakes in the bottom of the pit, so neither had impaled himself like a fowl on a spit. But both were bruised, battered, and in no shape at all to fight the score or so of armed women who ringed the edges of the pit. The women stared down and occasionally brandished their scythes, hoes, and clubs. Blade stared back up at them and occasionally made a rude gesture.

He felt rather disgusted with himself.

Chapter 13

Blade felt even more disgusted with the women than he did with himself. But he kept his mouth shut.

Nugun didn't, however. He beat his chest and jumped up and down. He bellowed and roared and cursed and screamed. He even snatched up clods of earth from the sides of the pit and hurled them up at the women standing around the edge. One clod hit hard. The woman clapped a hand to her arm and swore back at Nugun. The women on either side of her raised their scythes and glared down.

Blade realized that Nugun's rage was likely to get both of them killed outright.

«Nugun!»

The Senar spun around, with another clod raised in one massive hand.

«Blade?»

«Nugun, stop that at once!»

«But women, they-«

«I said stop it!»

Nugun grunted a reluctant agreement and let the clod drop. Blade could see the women above relax.

A thick rope snaked down over the edge of the pit. Blade walked over to it and found that it would hold his weight. Slowly he began to climb, hand over hand, looking up occasionally. If the women above were just a little careless when he reached the top…

But as he crawled out on the edge of the pit, the women stepped back, holding their tools in front of them. As Blade rose to his feet, three of them ran forward, carrying a tight-meshed net of heavy rope, with stones tied around its edges. The net soared into the air and came down on top of him, weighing him down until he could barely lift his arms.

A bellow from below told of another burst of rage from Nugun. Blade turned and saw the Senar swarming up the rope like a maddened ape. As his massive head burst over the edge of the pit, one of the women stepped close to Blade and thrust a knife against his ribs. Then she shouted over her shoulder to Nugun:

«You fight-he dies.»

The knife pricked Blade's ribs. He felt blood ooze out and trickle down. He held his breath, half mad with rage and helpless frustration. He wasn't quite sure that he wanted Nugun to stop.

But again Nugun grunted agreement, climbed out onto the edge of the pit, and stood up, arms at his sides. He stood there tamely as another net was thrown over him. His expression did not change even when one of the women stepped behind him with a stout club and brought it down full force on his head. Blade let out a roar of fury, but Nugun simply sagged down, dragging the three women off their feet. Blade could not help laughing at their struggles to untangle themselves from the net. He was still laughing when the other women led him away.

As the women marched Blade to the farmhouse, it was obvious that they weren't quite sure what to make of him. He could not possibly be an escaped Senar slave-he wasn't hairy or brawny enough. Breeding Males never left the House of Fertility-the guardians saw to that. And Blade couldn't possibly be female. So what was he?

When they reached the house, the women led Blade around to a shed out in back and locked him in. The last words he heard from his captors as they drifted away was a suggestion to ask the patrol the next time it came by.

Alone in the smelly and bug-ridden darkness, Blade considered his situation. There was a piece of good news in the women's words. They had no idea that people from the mountains might be prowling in the plains. So Blade wouldn't have to answer questions on the subject-or undergo torture for refusing to answer them.

But where was Nugun, and what had they done with him? Had they killed the Senar outright, or were they going to make him another farm slave? Blade suspected that Nugun would rather die than be a woman's slave. And left to himself, Nugun would certainly be able to goad the women into killing him sooner or later. Blade knew that the only thing he could do for the Senar was to escape before the patrol arrived and release Nugun.

But there was no hope of escaping during the remaining daylight hours. Blade went over to the door and tested the lock. The rattle made the woman on guard outside turn and glower at him through the narrow slit in the heavy wood. He thumbed his nose at her and stepped back. The lock couldn't be broken, but the guard might be persuaded to open it. When darkness fell…

In the meantime, get some sleep. Blade lay down on the floor and made himself as comfortable as the hard dirt permitted. The lowing of cattle in a nearby corral was the last thing he heard as he drifted off to sleep.

Blade awoke to see that it was night outside, but not dark. Several torches sent flickering light through the cracks in the walls and the slit in the door. Blade could hear the sound of footsteps all around the hut and numerous voices, chattering like a whole cageful of birds.

Blade's eyes wandered across the floor of the hut. He started as he saw Nugun lying there, feet bound and hands tied behind his back. A massive crust of blood marred one side of his huge head.

Blade rose to his feet and was starting toward the Senar when the door of the hut opened with a rattle of chains and bolts. Blade spun around with a momentary notion of jumping the first woman who came through the door and snatching her weapons. Then he realized that even if he escaped now, he could only do so by abandoning Nugun. He would not do that. There would be other times.