Chapter 11

Blade had no idea how Dzhai had wound up aboard Kukon. Was it pure coincidence, or had someone-possibly Duke Boros-been behind it? It didn't really matter. The important thing was that Dzhai was aboard Kukon, free, and with a weapon in his hand.

Also one in his belt. Blade's second look at Dzhai told him the man still wore Blade's commando knife. That meant Blade had a chance of getting it back and returning it to Home Dimension. He'd resigned himself until now to having seen the last of it.

Nothing would come of this if Dzhai didn't recognize Blade, or if he recognized him and showed it too openly. That would be a disaster, ending with Blade and Dzhai both going overboard to make a dinner for the sharks. Blade knew he could keep his own face straight. He only hoped Dzhai could do the same.

The arrival of Dzhai and the other new sailors seemed to be a signal for an even heavier training schedule. Kukon and the other galleys spent nearly every daylight hour of the next week at sea. Then they went out and stayed for three solid days, lying-to on their oars at night.

Dzhai gave no sign of recognizing Blade, but Blade had plenty of chances to watch the man in action. His right arm was clearly crippled for life, and apparently still caused him considerable pain. But that didn't stop him from doing a full day's work with his left arm. He could balance a log of firewood on end, then split it squarely down the middle with a single one-handed axe blow. He could empty a forty-pound sack of grain into a boiling pot of porridge, then stir it steadily for half an hour. He could swing a cleaver and chop ten-pound chunks out of a log of salted pork.

A day finally came when the galleys returned to harbor and the slaves were unchained and led up to the barracks. The Emperor was coming to Garis, or so the rumors said. All the galleys would be cleaned for his inspection. When he had finished the inspection, the fleet would at last sail in search of the pirates of Nongai.

The next morning the slaves were marched back aboard their galleys and once more chained in place. The benches now smelled of salt, soap, and the ashes of things burned to kill the odors of human filth. On some of the benches oil and paint still glistened wetly and stuck to the skins of the slaves as they took their positions.

The excitement among the soldiers and sailors was so thick Blade could almost see it hanging over the harbor like a fog. The slaves were more silent than usual, but otherwise seemed indifferent. A visit from the Emperor was just another part of a fate most of them no longer hoped to change. They would row as well as they had to, live as long as they could, and die when they must.

An hour after dawn the galleys cast off and rowed out of the harbor. A mile offshore they formed a long line, then dropped anchor. When the last galley took her place, the line stretched for nearly four miles down the coast.

The day wore on, the breeze dropped, and the sun began to strike down uncomfortably, even on Blade's tough and tanned skin. It was well after noon when a distant murmur of many people on the move drifted out from shore. Then the faint but unmistakable sound of trumpets and drums joined in.

The sailors and soldiers all had their weapons and gear polished until it gleamed, and they wore their cleanest clothes. Orders began crackling up and down Kukon's deck. The sailors and slavemasters lined up on either side of the guns at bow and stern. The officers assembled in a cluster amidships.

The sound of drums beating out a slow rowing stroke grew louder. From the galley off to port three trumpets sounded three long notes apiece, and a cannon went off with a great thudding roar. Someone was shouting words that Blade could not quite catch.

The drumbeat grew louder. Blade saw a stir on Kukon's foc'sle as the men there took off their hats and bowed their heads. Then the bo'sun's voice roared out, audible from one end of the galley to the other.

«Slaves of Kukon-rise and look upon the Emperor's justice. Look upon it and learn obedience!»

Chains rattled, benches creaked, and calloused bare feet scuffed and scraped on planks as three hundred slaves lurched raggedly to their feet and turned to look where the bo'sun was pointing. The sound drowned out the blast of trumpets from forward and nearly obliterated the boom of the great gun. A cloud of greasy, gray-white powder smoke blew back along the galley's deck, sweeping over Blade and making his eyes water for a moment. When they cleared, he could see clearly what the bo'sun meant by «the Emperor's justice.»

A gorgeously decorated barge with twelve oars on each side was passing along the line of galleys. It flew the Imperial banner-black eagle on a red field-from a gilded and carved mast amidships. Under a black and silver canopy on the stern sat the unmistakable squat figure of His Magnificence Kul-Nam. He wore gilded armor from head to toe, and the scabbard of the sword resting across his knees glowed with jewels.

Behind the Imperial barge moved half a dozen smaller vessels, all flying the banners of various noble houses. Blade saw one flying the banner of the House of Kudai.

Then a man's ghastly scream made Blade start and drew his eyes to another part of the passing show. The Emperor's barge was pushing ahead of it another, smaller barge, undecorated, oarless, painted dull red. On its deck stood eight sharpened stakes. Chained beside seven of the stakes were naked men. At the bow stood six more huge men, apparently eunuchs, naked except for black loincloths and long swords.

On top of the eighth stake a man writhed and twisted, his face contorted in appalling agony, his mouth opening and closing frantically like that of a dying fish. His eyes were bulging out of his head, staring but sightless.

The scream was still sounding in Blade's ears when the six eunuchs moved. They passed the dying man on the first stake and stopped by the man chained to the second. Six pairs of huge hands gripped the man, raised him high in the air in spite of his struggles, poised him over the point of the stake, then slammed him down on it.

The man screamed, drowning out the trumpets and the cannon on the next galley in the line beyond Kukon. He went on screaming, writhing from side to side in futile efforts to ease his pain.

Suddenly Blade felt a cold prickling at the back of his neck. He recognized the man impaled on the second stake, in spite of the agony distorting his features. It was Tzimon, Duke Boros' other fighting man, whom he'd fought and defeated that night in the woods.

Tzimon must have been one of the fifty fighting men the House of Kudai had given up to the Emperor's service, which in itself was not particularly surprising or sinister. It was much more sinister that Tzimon had been picked out of thousands of soldiers in the Emperor's service to be among the eight men used for this ghastly demonstration of «justice.» Doubtless, the Emperor had done it deliberately, to remind a watching Duke Boros that the House of Kudai was not in the Imperial favor at the moment.

The barges were moving out of Blade's line of sight now. Tzimon was still screaming. Blade recalled a book he'd read once, in which impalement was called «one of the most savage and gruesome methods of execution ever devised by human ingenuity.»

After today's spectacle, Blade had to agree.

Blade looked toward the place where Dzhai stood on the port gangway, as straight as one of the masts. His good arm held his axe over one shoulder. Blade knew he was risking attracting at least the attention and the whip of one of the slavemasters, but he felt he had to see how Dzhai was taking the spectacle of his former comrade's ghastly death.

Luck drew Blade's eyes to Dzhai at the exact moment when Dzhai swung his own gaze inboard. The two men's eyes met. Dzhai's face did not change, but he swung the axe off his shoulder for a moment, letting the head thump on the deck. The motion was so swift that the bo'sun had no chance even to notice it, let alone yell at Dzhai for breaking formation.