He never had a chance to drive home the final thrusts. The leader's whistling had done its work, and the stolof he had been calling answered the call.
Blade was suddenly conscious of a loud chittering noise in the bushes to his left, the sound of bushes being trampled, and another sound he couldn't really describe. It sounded like several large baskets being slowly crushed under the foot of some monstrous animal.
Then the bushes parted and the stolof came into view. Blade knew that this must be a stolof, and he knew that it existed. He found this hard to believe, but he had no choice when it was coming at him.
The stolof looked like a spider, but a spider four feet high and eight feet long, with a head the size of a basketball and eight legs as thick as small trees that ended in clawed feet. Three red eyes glared out of the head, and a great hideous slime-oozing grayish white sack bobbed under the monster's throat. It was covered all over with scales or sheets of something that looked like green plastic, and it chittered and crunched as it stamped toward Blade.
It was real, it was there, and however much Blade might wish it or himself elsewhere, he could do nothing abut it. Nothing, except to fight it as best he could and kill it if possible.
Chapter 4
Blade promptly dove to snatch up his staff again. He was going to need something longer than the sword to help keep the stolof at a safe distance while he figured out the best way to kill it. That green armor looked tough. Attacking the joints of the legs wouldn't help much, either, not with eight legs. The eyes looked vulnerable. He would go straight in, keeping the forelegs and mandibles busy with the staff, then thrust at the eyes. Blade shifted his staff to his left hand, drew his sword again, and moved in.
As he did, the enemy leader blew three sharp notes on his whistle. The stolof reared back on its four rear legs, thrusting out with the others toward Blade. The grayish-white sack under its throat swelled and pulsed. Then out of its mouth shot a long ribbon of something white. The ribbon arched out thirty feet and fell soggily on Blade's sword arm. He felt the stuff sticking to his skin, dropped his staff, and drew his knife to slash the ribbon apart. Before he could draw, the creature twisted sideways. The ribbon tightened so violently that Blade was jerked forward to sprawl in the grass on his face.
Blade held onto his weapons, though. As he struck the ground he slashed out at the ribbon. His knife hacked halfway through it at one stroke. But the stuff was tough. It stuck to the knife and to Blade's hand. He shook the knife furiously, then scraped it hard on the grass, trying to get rid of the clinging ribbon. It clung like glue.
Meanwhile the stolof was slowly backing away, pulling Blade along on his stomach as it moved. Blade felt as though the hair on his arm was being pulled out by the roots and the skin pulled off the flesh.
The ribbon snapped, and he heard a cry of delight from Neena. He also heard an angry shout and more whistling from the stolof's master. Blade sprang to his feet. Before he could take a step, another ribbon shot out, this one slapping itself across his legs. The creature heaved again, and Blade went over backward.
This time the creature did not try to keep the ribbon tight. It lumbered forward, chattering and clattering and hissing like a small steam engine. Blade found that his staff was just within reach. He snatched it up and swung it one-handed at the stolof as the beast loomed over him. He aimed for one of the eyes. The staff wasn't quite long enough, and the heavy mandibles closed on it. The creature jerked back, and the staff was jerked out of Blade's hand. A moment later came the crunching of wood being pulped as the mandibles closed, chopping the staff in two.
The stolof hissed again and came on.
Blade still had his sword and a grim determination to go down fighting, but not much else. He tried to rise to his feet, but the creature twisted to one side, tightening the ribbon. Blade toppled again. Once more he slashed at the ribbon, but he was jerked to one side, and the ribbon wound itself around his legs. His blow thudded down into the grass.
Before Blade could move again, the stolof deliberately bit off the ribbon and launched another one. This one fell with grisly accuracy squarely across Blade's face. His bellow of rage was stifled as the gray-white, slimy stickiness covered his mouth and nose. It felt as loathesome against his skin as the flesh of a decayed corpse, and it smelled like a combination of a poorly tended pigsty and long-overripe cheese. Blade fought down an urge to vomit. He slashed furiously but blindly at where he thought the ribbon ought to be. His sword whistled through empty air and struck one of the stolof's massive legs. It was like hitting a solid column of hard rubber. His sword struck with a dull thunk and bounced off. He struck again, harder. This time the creature kicked out as Blade slashed. The shock was so great that Blade's sword flew out of his hands. He rolled over, clutching at the ribbon across his face with both hands, desperately trying to tear it loose before the creature was on him.
He knew he'd never make it. The stolof's hissing and chittering sounded almost overhead, and he could smell its sour, acrid odor. He could hear the clicking of the mandibles, the ones that had pulped the wood of his staff. Those mandibles would shear through his bones as if they were made of balsa wood. He heaved on the ribbon, felt it pull free-along with skin and eyelashes-felt the mandibles touch the back of his neck, and heard a sudden shout and burst of whistling behind him.
Instantly the stolof backed away from its victim. Before Blade could take advantage of that, the leader ran over to him and laid the point of his sword gently to the back of Blade's neck.
«It would be wiser not to move,» said the man coldly. Blade had to agree.
The man bound Blade's hands behind his back with a length of wire twisted painfully tight, then added a thin cord. The cord seemed to be studded with tiny metal spikes that slashed and gouged Blade's skin. He could feel the blood oozing from his wrists.
Blade's ankles were already wrapped up in the stolof's ribbon. The leader left the ribbon on, but added another length of wire as a precaution. When he'd finished that, the leader jerked Blade up into a sitting position, stripped the ruby ring off his hand, and left him.
Sweat and the slime from the ribbon were oozing into Blade's eyes and blurring his vision, but he could see clearly enough what had happened to the women. The first one, Kubona, lay unconscious on the ground, her face a bloody mask. The second one, Neena, also lay on the ground. She lay face down, with two of the men kneeling on her arms and a third sitting on her legs. She must have been in considerable pain, but her face showed nothing except furious rage. She was cursing her captors quietly but continuously and in startling detail.
The leader went over to Neena and his men. They rose as he approached. Before Neena could move, the leader kicked her smartly in the stomach. As she doubled up, gasping and obviously trying not to vomit, the leader grabbed her by her long black hair and jerked her to her feet. Then he held her by the hair with one hand, gripped the collar of her tunic with the other, and jerked downward with all his strength. The tunic ripped apart from neck to hem and fell to the ground. Neena stood there, wearing nothing but a look of agony and grim determination. She seemed to catch her breath. then her face twisted and she spat squarely into the leader's eyes.
His face darkened and his fingers tightened in her hair. Then his other hand came up and across her face, five, ten, fifteen times in rapid succession. Each time he struck hard enough to snap her head back. Without his grip on her hair she would have fallen. When he'd finished, her face was as red as if it had been burned, and blood trickled from a split lip. Yet somehow she managed to stand, still glaring at the leader. He slapped her again, she went down, and as she sprawled on the ground he kicked her in the stomach again.