Chapter 2

The dream-like falling sensation went on until Blade got used to it. It began to remind him of the days he'd been weightless in Riyannah's spaceship on the way to Kanan, during perhaps the strangest and certainly the most far-traveling of his adventures. That time, he'd traveled not only some unmeasurable distance across the Dimensions, but at least a hundred light-years across interstellar space as well.

Blade was just beginning to recall pleasant memories of making love to Riyannah in weightlessness, when suddenly the fall came to an end. Something solid slammed up under his feet so hard that his knees buckled, and he fought for balance as the normal world started to take shape around him.

At first, all he could see were blurred forms, which might have been anything, and he could hear only a muffled whispering like wind or waves. He was clearly aware of his own body, and was relieved to discover that it seemed to be in working condition. He had no trace of a headache, no pains in his joints or muscles, only a slight shortness of breath. It began to look as if Lord Leighton was right about the KALI capsule. It did drastically reduce the stresses of a transition into Dimension X.

Then the world around Blade took shape. He saw that the reduced stress of the KALI capsule was probably going to save his life. He'd joked many times about how one day he might have to fight the moment he landed in a new Dimension. This time it was no joke.

He stood on the foc'sle of a fairly large sailing ship well out to sea. He could see an endless blue horizon all around him, and other ships close on either side. Then matters and people even closer at hand brought themselves forcibly to his attention.

Two men were standing even farther forward than Blade. Apparently he'd taken solid shape before them as they did the same before him. One man turned the color of a dirty bedsheet, and his eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets. Then his brain pushed his body into motion. With a wild yell he leaped into the air, clearing the railing like a high-jumper and vanishing over the side.

When the other man leaped, he leaped down off the foc'sle onto the main deck. As he came down, he flattened several of his shipmates, who were crowding forward to stare at Blade. Blade used the delay to study the opposition and realize that he had a good fighting chance. He was as naked as usual and totally unarmed, but he couldn't see any guns or bows. Against anything else his unarmed-combat skills should keep him in action long enough to borrow someone else's weapon. Of course it would be even better not to have to fight at all, but-

At this point four sailors started scrambling up the ladder from the main deck. The foc'sle was raised just enough so that the sailors had to use the ladder. Since it was only wide enough for two men at once, this gave Blade an extra advantage.

One sailor of the first pair was totally unarmed, but was nearly as big as Blade. The other carried a short club and had a sheathed knife hanging from his belt. He was obviously the more dangerous of the two.

Blade moved in against the man, who apparently had no idea of what he was facing. He raised his club for a roundhouse swing, which could only have worked against a complete novice or a drunk. Blade had black belts in three different martial arts, plus a knack for plain old-fashioned brawling. He ducked under the swing of the club, grabbed the man's wrist, and punched him hard in the stomach. After that the man was too busy trying to throw up everything he'd eaten or drunk recently to care how the fight went.

The other man now came at Blade, in a bare-handed crouch rather like a gorilla's. He had to come around the first man, giving Blade plenty of time to choose his attack. Blade leaped to the side, pivoted on one foot, and drove the other into the big man's ribs. The man went clear over the edge of the foc'sle, knocking one of his shipmates off the ladder as he did so. Both men landed with a crash, but after a moment of listening to their cursing Blade knew they couldn't be seriously hurt.

Either luck or foresight had made the last man snatch up a short sword with a curved single-edged blade, rather like a machete but with a heavily weighted pommel. The sailor held his sword low and to one side, and waved a length of red cloth in the other hand.

Does he think I'm a bull? thought Blade. Then the man was coming in, much too fast to be a joking matter. Blade dodged, and saw that one end of the red cloth was wound around the man's wrist. As he closed again, Blade snatched up the club dropped by the first man, and with his other hand grabbed the end of the red cloth. A tremendous jerk with all Blade's weight and strength behind it yanked the sailor off-balance. Then Blade brought the club down across the sword arm. He heard bone crack and the sailor scream, knew he'd struck harder than he intended, and snatched the sword from the sailor's limp fingers.

As Blade raised both the sword and the club, the disarmed sailor decided he was too much to tackle now, and went back down the ladder as fast as he could. Blade let him go. He'd driven off the first attack without killing or apparently even seriously hurting any of his four opponents. Now perhaps the ship's crew would realize they couldn't easily stamp him into the deck. Then they might be willing to talk peace.

Blade saw that the ladder up to the foc'sle was only tied in place. Two quick slashes cut the ropes, and a push sent it clattering down onto the main deck. Now it would be even harder for the crew to get to close quarters over Blade's objections. Then he laid down the sword, slowly and carefully so that everyone on deck could see him do it, and raised his right hand in a gesture of peace.

The suddenly widening eyes of the men closest to Blade gave him part of the warning, and the sound of metal on wood behind him gave the rest. Blade whirled, bending to snatch up the sword as he did so, and saw two sailors scrambling over the railing. They must have climbed along the hull outboard of the railing and below Blade's angle of vision. He didn't have time to admire their agility, but he did have the sword. This was lucky, because one of the sailors had a sword of his own and the other held a six-foot spear with a barbed head.

Blade chopped down with the sword as hard as he could, taking off the spear's head and two feet of the shaft. With the club he blocked a sword cut. The spearman dropped the stump of the shaft and started to draw a knife from his belt. Before he could complete the movement Blade closed with the swordsman, immobilized his weapon, grabbed the man, and swung him around. Blade got his living shield into position just as the other sailor thrust hard with his knife. Fortunately he only stabbed his shipmate in the buttocks. The first man let out a yell, struggled wildly, and cursed fluently. Blade couldn't tell if he was cursing his enemy or his shipmate.

Blade put an end to the curses by squeezing the man's right wrist until he dropped his sword, then picking him up like a sack of flour and heaving him off the foc'sle. The second sailor had the courage to try facing Blade armed only with his knife, but this didn't do him any good. Blade cracked the man hard across one knee with the back of his sword. Then he twisted the knife free and sent the knifeman flying after his shipmate. He landed squarely on top of the swordsman, but once again the amount of noise floating up from the main deck told Blade that both men were more or less in one piece.

Less reassuring was the fact that the main deck of the ship was now filling with armed sailors. At least a dozen of them held spears, and two of them had bows and quivers of arrows. None of them were armored and none of them were saying anything, but none of them looked particularly friendly either. Blade realized he might have rather overdone the job of showing them he wasn't an easy victim. Now he'd better start talking before one of those archers let fly, and hope they wouldn't consider his trying to talk peace a sign of weakness.