With his staff in one hand, Blade walked down to the bank of the river. He looked around carefully, with the wariness of a prowling animal. There was nothing that looked dangerous anywhere in sight.
Holding onto a root with one hand, Blade lowered himself slowly down the yard-high embankment into the water. It cooled and refreshed, washing away sweat and the last of his headache. He cupped his free hand, then drank and drank until his throat was no longer dry. Then he gripped the root with both hands, heaved himself up the embankment, and stood on the grass again. Water dripped down off him as he bent to pick up his staff.
As he straightened up, staff in hand, he heard a shrill, sharp scream from among the bushes that lay between him and the forest. It was a woman's scream-no, two women. The screams weren't fear, though. They held surprise and anger, but no fear. Blade held his staff crosswise in both hands, then stalked toward the source of the noise.
The screams came and went quickly. Other noises followed-grunts, heavy breathing, a war cry unmistakably from a man's throat, the sound of heavy footfalls and cracking branches as a small battle exploded into action.
The battle was going on well in toward the forest. Blade slowed his advance. Somebody might need help, but he wouldn't be much good if he barged in blindly, taking out the wrong side or even getting taken out himself.
A sudden whick of something slicing fast through the air was followed by the thunk of something else smashing solidly into bone. The whick-thunk came again. This time a man screamed in pain. Blade heard the sound of heavy, lurching footsteps, two sets of them. They moved rapidly toward him, branches rustling and twigs crunching as the people staggered along.
Two men in short leather tunics and sandals burst out of the bushes. One of them hobbled and limped, favoring his left leg. The left kneecap was a smashed, bloody mess. As he emerged into the open the leg gave way entirely, and the man sat down on the grass with a whimper. A short sword dropped from his hand.
The other man staggered on, his eyes staring blindly about him. One side of his skull was cracked wide open, and blood trickled from his ears and his mouth. He clutched a short throwing spear in one hand.
The man staggered toward Blade, passing within a yard of him without showing that he knew Blade existed. Blade turned to see the man stagger on toward the river, his dying brain sending its last impulses to his legs. He reached the edge, toppled over the embankment, and vanished from sight with a splash and a gurgle.
A howl behind Blade made him spin around. The man with the smashed knee had lurched to his feet and was coming at Blade, sword raised. Blade shifted to the right and saw the man do the same, but not fast enough. One end of Blade's staff whipped out and slashed down across the back of the man's sword hand. His sword dropped to the ground again. The man didn't stop or even shake his smashed hand in pain. With his other hand he drew a knife from a sheath in his belt and raised it to throw. Again Blade shifted position faster than his opponent could and launched his own attack. The heavy end of the staff whipped over and crashed down just above the bridge of the man's nose. The thin bone smashed inward.
The man staggered, lurched, then went forward onto his face. By the time Blade reached him he'd stopped kicking.
Blade bent down, and with one eye on the bushes and one eye on his job stripped off the dead man's belt. Then he retrieved both the knife and the sword and stuck them in the belt.
Before Blade could take another step toward the battle, the battle came to him. Bushes crackled and crashed as though an elephant were charging through them. Seven people exploded out into the open.
Two were women, both dressed in short green leather tunics, caps, and calf-length boots. Each had a sack on her back and wielded a quarterstaff with knobbed ends in both hands. One had a spear with a red point and red feathers on the butt slung across her back. The other had a short bow.
Four of the five men were dressed and armed like the two Blade had already seen. The fifth wore an elaborate helmet of leather studded with copper plates and a leather tunic reinforced with copper bands. He carried a long two-handed sword with a slightly curved blade and a jeweled hilt, and a bow was slung- across his back. At his belt swung an elaborately carved wooden baton about a foot long.
Blade had time to see all this before anyone noticed him. When they did, the battle froze for a moment. Then the helmeted man gave a sharp, wordless command, like a dog's bark. The four soldiers swung toward the women, moving in on them in a body. The leader whirled to face Blade, then charged straight at him, sword raised. Light sparked and flared from the polished metal.
Blade stood his ground. It was obvious that the leader wanted to put the new arrival down fast, then turn back to the women. Blade had to put the leader down just as fast if he wanted to help the women.
Blade didn't try a straight block with his staff. The green wood would hardly survive a slash from that heavy sword. Instead he shifted his hands toward one end of the staff and held it with the other end downward. The sword slashed down from straight overhead, struck the staff a glancing blow, and was deflected farther downward. As the man whirled his sword back up into position, Blade snapped the lower end of his staff forward. It smashed into the swordsman's unprotected groin, hard enough to make the man wince. He was a little slow with his next slash. Blade shifted his grip on his staff and drove a second thrust into the man's groin. This time the man gasped, dropped his sword, sat down on empty air, and toppled over backward onto the grass. He lay there writhing and gasping, clutching his groin with one hand and reaching for the carved baton on his belt with the other. Blade turned toward the women.
He was moments too late to save the woman with the bow. Panicking as the four men closed in on her, she dropped her staff, unslung the bow, and launched an arrow. She didn't take enough time to aim. The arrow flew low, drilling one of the attackers through the thigh. He staggered on, grappled her about the waist as she tried to draw a knife, and heaved upward. She shot up and back, coming down with her enemy on top of her, his head butting into her stomach and his hands clawing at her bare thighs under her tunic. She screamed and the other woman came running in, whirling her staff. One knobbed end smashed down on the back of the attacker's neck, crushing spine and skull. The man jerked wildly, arching and twisting, then went limp with a convulsive shudder. The other three men backed off as they saw the woman standing over her comrade, staff ready to strike if they moved any closer.
At that moment Blade heard a series of high-pitched flutings and whistlings. He turned and saw that the leader was holding the «baton» to his lips with one hand and blowing it. The «baton» was a whistle or flute of some sort.
The standing woman grimaced, with a tigerish flickering of white teeth. «He has a stolof within call,» she snapped. «Quickly, stranger-finish him off while I hold these pigs away from Kubona. Then we must flee, even though I am Neena.»
The woman who called herself Neena seemed to know what was happening around her. That was more than Blade did. He decided to follow her advice. He didn't know what a stolof was, but he did know that he didn't want the fallen leader summoning help of any kind. He dropped his staff, drew sword and knife, and stepped toward the man on the ground.
As Blade approached, the man lurched to his feet, teeth clamped tightly on the whistle and still blowing it for all he was worth. His sword rose, ready to slash at Blade. Blade raised his own weapons and held them to make an X. The leader's sword whistled down and drove into the upper half of the X with a clang and a bone-jarring shock. Blade held his arms as steady as iron bars and twisted sharply, twisting the leader's sword out of his hands. Blade kicked it out of the man's reach with one foot, then pivoted and drove the other foot into the man's chest. If he hadn't been wearing the copper and leather vest, the kick would have crushed in his chest. He went down again, the whistle flying from his lips. Blade stood over him, sword and knife raised and ready to drive down into throat and groin to finish the man for good.