A moment later a stolof-whistle sounded, and a moment after that came the chittering, clattering, and hissing of one of the monsters. Blade darted toward Neena, ready to pull her out of the way. If he could then grab Lord Desgo and use him as a shield.
Before Blade took three steps not one but two stolofs loomed up in the doorway. Both stood more than six feet high, and both were a deep, rich gold all over, instead of green. King Furzun stepped clear as the two stolofs shoved their heads forward and fired their sticky ribbons at Blade.
As before, they were excellent shots. One ribbon caught Blade by the left leg, the other caught him by the right arm. The stolofs reared back, and Blade was unceremoniously heaved forward onto his nose in the filthy mud. Cursing, he clawed and heaved at the ribbons as the two monsters reared back again. Blade was dragged forward toward the wall.
The stolofs heaved again, pulling Blade hard up against the wall, then once more. With the last heave, Blade rose completely clear of the ground and hung grotesquely against the wall. Neena leaped back from the sprawled Lord Desgo. Her face was twisted now with fear for Blade as well as hatred of the warrior noble.
The stolofs heaved one more time, and Blade rose until he hung just below the edge of the doorway. A vast hairy face peered over the edge at him. It was King Furzun.
«Look upon this man, princess,» he snapped. «Look upon him well, where he is, and how he is at the mercy of the royal stolofs and the royal guards. For this attack of yours upon our servant Lord Desgo, he will hang head down for a day before the people of this city. The next time you lose your temper, the royal executioners will have a chance to practice upon him. Consider whether you wish this, or whether you wish to control your temper.»
Neena said nothing, but her eyes were murderous. Blade found himself looking up at Furzun's grotesque face with more interest than before. Furzun had hit on by far the best way to keep Neena in line without threatening or hurting her directly. Lurking inside the mass of fat was a fairly shrewd mind.
The ribbons tightened again, jerking Blade up over the edge of the doorway, to sprawl on his back at King Furzun's feet. King Furzun smiled triumphantly. Then a club smashed down on Blade's head, and he didn't see or hear or feel anything for quite a while.
Chapter 9
King Furzun kept his promise. When Blade awoke, he was hanging head down, in a public place.
Four thick strands of stolof ribbon were tied to a heavy wooden beam that jutted out from a tower on the wall around the royal palace. Two strands were looped around each of Blade's ankles, so that he swung gently back and forth in the breeze like a hanging lantern. His head was throbbing painfully, but as far as he could tell he was otherwise unhurt. That wouldn't last long, of course. The people of Trawn were far too fond of tormenting helpless victims to pass up this opportunity.
Much less happened than Blade expected. People stopped to look at him, and hurled curses and clods of mud and manure up at him. But he hung too high-nearly fifty feet above the ground-to be easily hit, and no one ever seemed to stay around long enough to aim accurately.
Being fifty feet up also gave Blade a good view of the royal palace and the area around it. His throbbing head, dripping sweat, and stinging insects all blurred his vision, but what he saw he remembered.
The palace sprawled over about five acres in the southern end of Trawnom-Driba, only a few hundred yards from the city wall and ditch. On three sides lay a tangle of huts, sheds, and warehouses. On the fourth side was the broadest street Blade had seen in the city, lined with large buildings built of stone or gaudily painted wood.
At the foot of the wide street, just outside the palace wall, stood a massive square of smoke-blackened stone, forty feet on a side and ten feet high. It looked like nothing so much as a gigantic barbecue pit. The interior was half-filled with ashes and charcoal, sloping down to a dark hole in the exact center.
Blade paid no further attention to the stone square until afternoon. Then four guards led a dozen naked slaves up the steps on one side. The slaves carried large wooden scoops and wooden buckets. Half of them scrambled down into the pit and began shoveling the ashes and charcoal into the buckets. The other half began emptying the buckets into the hole in the center. Gray clouds of ashes swirled up, until the slaves were coughing so loudly that Blade could hear them from where he hung. The pit looked as if it were erupting like a small volcano.
Finally two slaves tied long heavy ropes around their waists. Three of their comrades took hold of each rope, the two slaves each picked up a scoop, and they were lowered down into the central hole and out of sight. They were down there for nearly an hour, and more clouds of ashes rose from the hole as they worked away.
During that hour Blade's mind went to work, arranging what he saw into a pattern. The pattern was extremely interesting.
The square of blackened stone was obviously for ceremonial fires. It was not far outside one wall of the palace. The unmistakable square bulk of the prison loomed not far inside that same stretch of wall.
Blade did a mental calculation of distance. If a straight line were drawn from the prison to the fire pit, it might cover about the same distance as the tunnel, from the grating to where the light came down from above. If, the hole in the center of the pit was the hole at the far end of the tunnel, that could account for the orange glow he and Neena had seen. When the pit was heaped with blazing wood, light and heat would be pouring down the hole in the center, into the tunnel.
The tunnel might lead out to the hole in the center of the pit. The hole itself was large enough to let a man pass. That meant- No, there was still a maddening lot of unanswered questions. Unanswerable, too-at least for the moment. But that could change in time. Blade deliberately put any further thoughts of escape through the tunnel out of his mind, and let himself drift off into a half-doze. That was as close to sleep as he could manage while hanging head down like a bat in a cave.
The glow of sunset in his eyes and the clattering of wood on wood awoke Blade. The whole western horizon was a sheet of color, with a few clouds glimmering high above in the pale evening sky. A score of slaves were unloading logs from three carts and piling them up in the stone pit. Guards watched the slaves, and several noble warriors watched the guards. Blade recognized Lord Desgo among the nobles.
The logs were piled several layers thick. Then two more slaves poured a bucket of something thick and black into the pit. Lord Desgo climbed the steps, stood on the rim, then struck a light with flint and tinder. A quick flick of his arm, and the little flame arched down into the pit. Flames roared up thirty feet high. Lord Desgo scrambled down the steps and stood watching the flames as they settled down to a steady blaze.
Blade was sure of one thing, now. The tunnel from the prison did lead under the fire pit. The flames crackling and flaring up from the wood had the same orange color he and Neena had seen the week before. It was unmistakable.
Blade felt a shiver in the beam from which he was hanging. He twisted his head around to look toward the tower. Two of the blue-clad royal guards were turning a crank, slowly swinging the beam in toward the tower. As Blade came within their reach, the two guards grabbed Blade by the arms. Two more reached up and grabbed him around the knees, while a fifth drew his sword and slashed through the stolof ribbons. With a mighty heave all five hauled Blade up over the railing. The rough wood scraped and bruised his skin, and he fell with a painful crash on the floor of the tower room.