She stiffened as if he'd jabbed her with a needle and one hand clenched until the nails drew blood from the palm. «We'll have to go straight on to the cave,» she said. «I notice you've been staying where the rocks hide us. Well, there aren't any rocks like that around the foot of the mountain. It's all smooth and open there. The climb up to the cave is even worse.»

Blade nodded, realizing what Riyannah was trying to say. They couldn't risk crossing a wide stretch of open ground in daylight, not now. If they kept moving all night, though, they'd be crossing the open ground under cover of darkness. They'd be much harder to see.

Except-

«What about you, Riyannah? The cold's already getting to you, isn't it? Can you survive a night march?»

«If we get to the ship, I'll be all right. The cabin is warm, and there will be food and hot drinks.»

«We may not have time to prepare any food. With that troop carrier around-«

«There are some drugs too. They'll do everything that's needed.» She lurched to her feet, and they were off again.

Afterward, Blade would have given a good deal to be able to forget that night's march across the mountainside. Unfortunately most of the details stuck in his memory and would not leave.

The slow gnawing of the cold at his fingers and toes, turning them first into burning twigs, then taking away all feeling.

Riyannah's face turning paler and more pinched with each passing mile, until there was nothing alive in her face except the great eyes staring ahead.

His own breath freezing on his dirt-caked beard, until he could see a layer of silver-white frost over the dark hair. The frost seemed to be exactly the same color as Riyannah's hair.

Riyannah's stumbling and falling, and his holding her feet against his stomach until enough warmth crept back into them for her to move on.

The chill light of the stars and the crescent moon, and the warm orange glow of the lights of the Targan camp. There were moments when Blade could almost imagine those lights were distant campfires where he and Riyannah could find warmth and comfort. Then the effort of taking another step would snap his mind out of the fantasy.

In the end that was what kept him and Riyannah going-taking that one more step, another after that, then still another. Blade knew that if they didn't keep moving, it would all be over within a few minutes. They were staggering along in summer clothes through temperatures that couldn't be far above zero.

They were still on their feet and still moving when the eastern sky began to turn pale. By the time the dawn was pink and the camp's lights went out, they were within sight of the streak of black rock.

The mountain dawn was beautiful, but there wasn't much warmth in it and Blade was too cold to appreciate beauty. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt his fingers or toes, and vaguely wondered if the ship's medicine chest had any remedies for frostbite. Then he felt Riyannah's hand clutch his shoulder, and turned to see her raise the other hand and point upward.

«There it is.» Blade saw a faint line of shadow in the dark rock.

«It looks too small. You're sure?»

«Yes. The cave-makes a bend inside the mouth-gets wider.» Riyannah shaped each word slowly and painfully, as if she was carving them out of the ice. Then she turned toward the cave and stepped ahead of Blade. He put out a hand to steady her. As he did, the silent dawn was shattered by the swelling roar of jets.

There were three of the flying disks, and they swung out from between the peaks of Mount Grolin in a slow turn. They had plenty of time to scan the slopes below them-and see the two figures silhouetted against the snow.

Blade's hopes that the planes hadn't seen them vanished as one of them peeled off from the formation and swept down toward them. Flame winked under its nose and snow spurted up a hundred yards downslope from them. As the plane pulled out of its dive, Blade saw the undersides of the wings. The weapons racks were empty. As the other two planes came in, he saw the same was true with them.

As the roar of the guns died away, Blade raised his head and shouted to Riyannah, «Run! Get into the cave and start up the ship. I'll stay out here and give them a target.»

«Richard-«

«Damn it, get moving! If you're on the black rock before they come in again, they may not see you!»

Riyannah stared at him for a moment that to Blade's distorted senses seemed to last an hour. Then she kissed him, two pairs of half-frozen lips meeting numbly. She turned, unharnessed her pack, tossed Blade her rifle, and scrambled furiously toward the black rock.

Blade watched her reach it. Then he saw the planes coming in and turned to face them-one man with two rifles and a handful of grenades against three jet fighters.

Chapter 11

On their second pass the planes laid down three lines of fire, parallel like the tines of a fork. Smoke and snow, rock fragments and ricocheting pieces of metal sprayed in all directions. Blade couldn't have seen to aim at the planes, even if he'd dared stand up.

As the planes banked away, Blade looked up the black rock toward the mouth of the cave. He could barely make out a small figure scuttling upward, now less than a hundred feet from the cave mouth. If he could barely see Riyannah, the pilots could hardly spot her as they flew past at four hundred miles an hour.

Blade quickly pulled Riyannah's ammunition out of her pack and stuffed it into his own. Then he slung her rifle across his back and rammed a fresh magazine into his own. The five grenades were in a pouch on his hip.

The howl of jets swelled again. Two of the planes were coming at him while a third seemed to be hanging back, aiming off to one side. Blade's breath caught in his throat as he saw the line of flying snow leap toward the black rock. Then he breathed again as it crossed the rock a hundred yards above the cave mouth. He looked for Riyannah, saw her crawling up the last few yards of steep rock just below the cave, and a warmth he hadn't felt in many hours flowed through him. Before the planes could come in again she'd be safe inside the cave.

The burst of fire from the other two planes was shorter this time but also closer. Blade felt rock dust and driven snow blast his exposed skin, while something larger drilled through his trousers into his thigh. It felt like a dozen wasps stinging him at once, and as he rolled over he saw blood soaking through torn cloth.

As Blade rolled, he saw that one of the planes would pass directly over him only a couple of hundred feet up.

He continued to roll until the rifle was pointing at the sky, then squeezed down on the trigger. Jet planes were full of fragile moving parts in this or any other Dimension. Rifle fire could bring them down and often had.

Blade couldn't have aimed better if he'd been using a radar-directed antiaircraft gun. The plane flew straight into the burst of heavy slugs. Suddenly the smoke coming from one engine was heavy and black. It flew away without trying to turn, and now smoke was coming from the belly as well as the engine. It started to turn, leaving a black smoke trail like an immense question mark scrawled across the blue sky. The other two planes banked, trying to stay with it.

Then suddenly one whole wing and the belly were blotted out by greasy black smoke. A torch of orange flame licked through the smoke. Then the plane pulled up, the sun glinted on the canopy as it flew off, and white smoke gushed out of the cockpit. Two dark shapes soared out of the smoke, the pilots in rocket-boosted ejection seats. Then the plane's nose rose still higher, it stalled, whipped into a tight spiral, and plunged down toward the mountainside.

Snow, smoke, flame, and flying wreckage erupted where it struck. A gray-black fog spread half a mile wide, cutting off Blade's view of the camp. Above the smoke the white canopies of two parachutes blossomed, as the pilots pulled their ripcords and started their drift down to safety. One plane down should throw a scare into the others and gain some precious time.