Two of the riders were men, wearing boiled-leather jackets and helmets and carrying long knives and twelve-foot lances. The other two were women, wearing soft leather shirts and knee-length leather trousers that admirably displayed excellent figures. They carried shorter lances and bows slung across their backs. One of the women was a short, snub-nosed blonde; the other was tall and brown-haired with a vaguely Oriental look.

The brunette whistled sharply to the three cats, and they sprang away from Blade. The blonde spurred her mount forward, swinging her lance down so that when she reined in its point was only a foot from Blade's chest.

«I hadn't expected such good hunting here,» she said. She was smiling, but Blade didn't find the smile reassuring with the steel point so close. «How long have you been here, and who among the Elstani sent you?»

Her language was high-pitched and full of sibilants but reached Blade's mind as fluent English. He knew his reply would come out in the woman's language. The transformation of his brain so that he could understand and be understood by the people of each new Dimension was still one of the mysteries of Project Dimension X. Blade was willing to live with the mystery, considering how often it had saved his life.

«I have been here since dawn, and I call none among the Elstani master. I am a warrior from a distant land called England.» A good cover story in this or any other Dimension was always as true as possible, but he decided to say that he'd left his heavier gear behind in the ruined city, then lost his clothes while bathing in the river.

One of the men cursed, and his cursing was echoed by a snort from his mount. He rode up to Blade and drew his silver-mounted sword. Blade saw elaborate engraving on the blued steel.

«Lying to Tressana of Jaghd is not wise for anyone, man. For spies from Elstan, it is very foolish. Do you want a good death, or-?» The sword twitched.

The blonde woman-Tressana? — held up a hand. «A moment, Curim. You are not of Elstan, you say?»

«No.»

Well-groomed blonde eyebrows rose skeptically. Then the tall, brown-haired woman rode up and looked down at Blade. «Your Grace,» she said to the other woman, «it could be so. Certainly few men of Elstan are so tall, and I have never seen one with a beard like that.»

«Looking for some new toy for your bed, Jollya?» said the swordsman, with a coarse laugh. The brown-haired woman glared at him, and Tressana held up her hand again.

«Silence, both of you. Whatever he is, this man is no fit audience for your quarrel.» She turned to the second man. «Fayod!»

«Yes, your Grace?»

«Ride and bring the others.» She pulled a ring out of a pouch at her belt and tossed it to the man. As he rode off she turned back to Blade.

«Man of Elstan or stranger, I hope you have some notions of honor. Will you swear not to try escaping until my hunters come?»

«I swear it,» said Blade, spreading both hands in a peaceful gesture. He grinned. «I doubt if I'd have much hope of escaping anyway.» He pointed at the three cats now sitting quietly to one side. One was washing a paw in the self-absorbed fashion of cats of every size in every Dimension, but the other two still had their eyes on Blade. «Even if I could hope to kill the three of you, they wouldn't leave much of me.»

Jollya smiled. «You are no fool, whatever else you are.» She'd looked rather forbidding, but the smile transformed her. Unlike Tressana's smiles, Jollya's reached her eyes.

Blade sat down, keeping his hands carefully in sight. After a moment Tressana thrust her lance point-first into the ground, dismounted, and tied her mount's reins to the lance. Jollya and Curim remained mounted.

Blade did his best to relax. He'd be under the women's protection unless he did something stupid, and he wasn't going to take any chances. The Jaghdi appeared to be at least half civilized, and they might be interesting. In any case, he'd rather trust himself to almost any human beings than to the killer plants of the jungle behind him.

Chapter 5

Blade resisted the temptation to try making polite conversation. These people suspected him of at least one serious crime: being a spy for Elstan, whatever and wherever that might be. Silence might teach him nothing, but it would be far less likely to provoke Curim or her Grace, Tressana of Jaghd. In spite of her small escort and casual manner, Tressana behaved like someone who expected to be obeyed. If she wasn't the local monarch, she was certainly someone of sufficiently high rank to be a good friend and a dangerous enemy.

At Tressana's order Curim dismounted, but he didn't sheathe his sword or take his eyes off Blade. Tressana sat down cross-legged in the grass and unhooked the top of her shirt. Blade approved the view. He also noticed that the short trousers left bare two tanned, dimpled knees, with an ugly scar running across the right one. She pulled a knife out of one boot and a whetstone from her belt pouch, then started sharpening the knife. She whistled tunelessly as she worked.

Jollya was the busiest of the three. She went to each of the mounts and unbuckled their muzzles. Then she pulled three large hams out of the saddlebags and threw one down on the grass in front of each animal. They had chewed the hams down nearly to the bare bones when the rest of the Jaghdi hunting party arrived.

There were at least a hundred mounted men and women, a dozen large wagons, a string of at least fifty spare mounts, and more of the hunting cats. Blade was glad he hadn't tried to escape from his first captors. A band this size could quickly have run him down.

About twenty of the riders were women, dressed and armed like Jollya and apparently taking their orders from her. Another twenty men seemed to obey Curim. The other riders were probably huntsmen or servants. The wagons were elaborately painted, and each was pulled by four hairy, slab-sided animals that reminded Blade of a cross between a dairy cow and a goat.

All the wagons had leather canopies except the one in the lead. Its canopy seemed to be yellow silk, and at the rear a tall pole supported a green banner showing a winged black helmet. Tressana and Jollya mounted again and urged him toward this wagon with precise flourishes of their lances. Blade suspected they were both showing off their skill at his expense, but the skill was real. Both rode as if they and their mounts had one mind and one body, and handled their lances as deftly as if they'd been knitting needles.

In the back of the silk-canopied wagon a man was sitting. At first he seemed to be almost as old as Lord Leighton, with stiff white hair fringing a nearly bald skull and bushy white eyebrows shading deep-set eyes. At a second look, Blade saw that the man could hardly be more than forty, and his body was sound and whole, although softened by too much food and too little exercise. The eyes were black, and instead of Lord Leighton's sharpness they had a cloudy, vacant look.

«My dear one,» Tressana said. «Look what I have here.»

«Eh?» The dark eyes focused slowly on Blade. «Oh. A man, with no clothes on.»

«Yes. I found him.»

«Good for you.»

«Thank you, Manro.»

«Is he of Elstan? Is he?» Manro's voice had the eagerness of a child wanting to know if there will be ice cream for dessert.

«Oh, I think he might be. I found him like this, where our people don't go.»

«They don't go-?» Manro seemed to be trying to grasp an idea just beyond the reach of his wits.

«No. They don't. Do you remember? You gave the order yourself last year.»

«Ah, yes. It was a good order. I remember now.» Blade wondered if Manro could remember as much as his own name.

«Yes,» Tressana continued, «and the Jaghdi love you and obey that order. So a man who comes where we found this one may be of Elstan.»