Somehow, though, the eel didn't seem to be paying any attention to Blade. Somehow he'd failed to register in its tiny, hunger-filled mind as either a possible prey or a possible enemy. He had a few seconds at least to act.
Blade started to pick up one of the crossbows. As he did, the eel's head sank down and vanished under the raft. Blade swore. Now he couldn't get a killing shot in before the eel noticed Fudan. There was only one thing to do. Catching up a knife in one hand and a spear in the other, Blade rolled over the side of the canoe and into the water. Before the eel could react, he was gripping the slimy body with both legs. As the body began to twist, Blade reached forward with his knife and his spear and drove the points of both deep into the eel's head.
He'd hoped to reach the brain with one weapon or the other. Instead he drove the eel into a sudden fury. Its body arched from nose to tail; and its head plunged down into the depths. Blade barely had a chance to gulp a breath of air before he was dragged under. At least he'd drawn its attention away from Fudan.
If Blade hadn't had his knife gripped firmly and driven in deeply, he would have been torn loose from the eel. As it was, the force of the water tore the spear point out of the eel's head and the spear shaft out of Blade's hand. The spear vanished, and Blade drew his belt dagger.
The eel chose that moment to shake its head from side to side in a desperate effort to get rid of its tormentor. Blade felt his left arm nearly dragged out of its socket, but he held on. As long as he held on where he was, the eel could not twist around and reach him. The moment he let go, it would be looping around and those tooth-studded jaws would be reaching out for him, perhaps closing on him.
Blade thrust his dagger into the black flesh. Blood flowed, pale green in the underwater light. The eel twisted convulsively, but showed no sign of weakening. It continued its plunge toward the bottom.
Blade realized that it must be planning to try scraping him off against the rocks on the bottom. He also realized that even if it didn't do that and even if his knives held, the breath in his lungs was almost gone. He might already be so far down that he could never hope to reach the surface alive. But he could not and would not let go, as long as there was any chance that Fudan hadn't made it to safety.
Blade knew that he was only moments away from death, either by drowning or in the jaws of the eel. None of his life passed before his eyes-his mind was still working too furiously, trying to think how to strike a lethal blow against the eel. It would go on working like that until the last brain cell winked out from lack of oxygen.
Then the eel was twisting more furiously than ever. Blade held on to both knives, but the eel's twisting tore them free. Blade found himself floating upward as the eel curved around underneath him, the head rising toward him, the jaws opening, the teeth ready to tear his flesh and a crossbow bolt suddenly standing out from the black head, squarely between the golden eyes.
That was the last thing Blade knew until he awoke, facedown in the bottom of the canoe, with Fudan pounding his back and heaving his arms up and down. It was a crude form of artificial respiration, but it worked. Blade gulped in air until his head stopped swimming, then slowly sat up. Once more he looked into the eyes of the death-eel alongside the canoe, but now the eyes were closed and the thirty feet of sinister black body floated limply in death.
Blade went on catching his breath, until he felt like speaking again. Even then he looked at Fudan for quite a while before he said a word. The Hauri chief matched him stare for stare.
«You saved my life,» said Blade at last.
Fudan shook his head. «Perhaps. Certainly you saved mine first. I would not have been alive to shoot the eel if you had not fought it as you did. You would probably have killed it even without my help.»
Blade had his doubts on that point, but there was no use in arguing. Fudan went on.
«Certainly we have this day fought a death-eel and slain it, and one of us has just as certainly saved the other.» He smiled. «By the customs of the Hauri this makes us brothers in the spirit. Each may ask of the other the same that a brother in the flesh could. Each must grant what is asked if there is no dishonor in it.»
«Well,» said Blade. «In that case I will promise you my voice in the councils of the Kargoi, to speak for making the peace with the Hauri last forever.»
«I also will give my voice for peace between our peoples, among the headmen of the Hauri. I will also consent that you take as wife my sister Loya.»
Blade frowned. «I am honored. But I would not take her against-«
Fudan threw back his head and laughed. «Blade, Blade, Loya has already given her consent ten times over. It is her dearest wish to be your wife, to bear you sons and daughters who will be living proof that there is peace between the Hauri and the Kargoi. Do you find her displeasing?»
It was Blade's turn to laugh. «Hardly. It is merely that I have given no thought to taking a wife.» He did not add that this was partly out of a reluctance to involve Loya in all the battles he knew he still had to fight in this Dimension. Women who became involved in his battles had a way of getting killed, and he wanted to avoid that fate for Loya. «If it is now proper that I take a wife, certainly I could find none better than Loya. She is beautiful, strong, and wise.»
«She is. I am glad you think of her as she thinks of you.» Fudan turned and began heaving on the anchor rope. «If you feel able to put away our weapons and the bags of shells, I think it is time to see about beginning our voyage home.»
Chapter 22
They headed for home under full sail in order to beat the approaching storm and succeeded with a few hours to spare. From a hilltop beside a sheltered cove, Blade watched the sea and sky both turn dark and twenty-foot waves churn against the shore.
That night Blade and Fudan sat in a hut lit by a flickering candle. Fudan squatted, opening the shellfish with his knife and carefully probing the dark flesh inside for the precious black pearls. Just as carefully Blade examined the salvaged Menel equipment.
Some of it was impossible to even identify. Much of it was impossible to study without a fully equipped laboratory. Frustrating, but inevitable. Blade saved the black book in its waterproof bag until the last.
It was indeed some sort of diary or log, with a map, photographs, and handwritten entries. At least Blade assumed they were handwritten. The «handwriting» of the Menel looked more like the marks made by a cockroach dipped in ink and sent crawling across the pages of the diary. After a moment Blade turned to the map and photographs.
It would have been hard to find the Menel's island base purely from the map-their cartographers did not work to human standards, and Blade was totally unable to guess the scale of the map. Fortunately the Hauri had seen the ship of the Menel fall out of the sky and knew where the island lay. With the map from the diary, it would be possible to land on the island and march straight to where the spaceship of the Menel lay hidden.
The crashed spaceship. The photographs made that clear. Judging from the size of the Menel standing beside it, the ship was at least five hundred feet long. It was also broken completely in two, with one end crushed into the ground as well. Blade counted forty-eight Menel in the group photograph. At least twenty of them were wearing what could have been bandages, and only twelve of them were carrying the long cylindrical beamers.
Perhaps the Menel had come to this world with a plan of conquest. Perhaps in the crushed part of the ship lay hundreds of dead Menel, a dozen more submarines and a dozen more flying machines, and an array of weapons that would have given them control of this Dimension in a few weeks. Certainly what they had now was this battered, poorly armed band of survivors of a devastating crash-a band which had in the past few weeks lost still more people and equipment to Blade's efforts and bad luck.