«Come on, Kareena.»

They'd taken no more than a dozen steps beyond the door when the trap closed. Two laser beams blazed down from a window across the street, striking just above the hole made by the waldo. A dry patch of climbing vine caught fire. The flames were almost as good as a flare for lighting up the street. Kareena screamed, started to run back toward the building, then pulled herself to a stop.

«Come on! They've got that way covered!» Blade shouted. Then another laser fired from their left, the beam going so wide that it was either a bad shot or a deliberate miss. Blade didn't care. Charging at even a bad marksman armed with a laser was simply committing suicide. He jerked Kareena around to the right, then pushed her toward the far side of the street. If she got close enough to the buildings, the snipers in the window couldn't see her.

Blade raised his own rifle, waited until the next shot from the left, and saw it go even wider than the first one. This was puzzling but it also gave him a target. A quick shot from Blade brought a scream and the clatter of a falling weapon. The remaining snipers in the window fired again, but now they seemed unsure whether they should aim at Blade or at Kareena. They missed both, then Kareena was close under the window. Blade came up behind her, pulled the pin out of a grenade, and got ready to heave it up into the window. If the Doimari were relying too much on their weapons and were too thin on the ground to meet a determined effort to break out-

Something went whump in the darkness behind Blade, and something else went wsssshhhhhh in the darkness overhead. «Get down!» he yelled, and dove for the ground as the pavement around them erupted in flame and flying debris. Kareena was still on her feet when the blast caught her and dashed her to the ground like a doll. A second explosion went off, then a third and a fourth beside the building over the tunnel. Five, six, seven-Blade lost count and hugged the pavement, hands over his ears, not sure that his last moments hadn't come and only hoping the Doimari would wipe out half their own men with all the explosives they were throwing.

Dust was still settling around Blade when he saw dark-clad men converge on Kareena. She tried to get to her feet, one leg buckled under her, and she fell again with a throat-tearing scream of agony. She still had her sword and the courage to use it. A man who moved in too close screamed even louder than Kareena when her sword's point went into his groin. Then one man stamped down on Kareena's sword hand, another kicked her in the stomach, and several more fell on her.

As they did, Blade rose to his feet. He was an ice-cold killing machine now, mind and body united to serve only one goal: killing as many Doimari was possible before he went down himself. Firing from the hip, he swept the beam of his rifle back and forth. Doimari howled and fell on top of Kareena. Blade shut his ears against the cries, waiting for a return laser blast in his guts or a grenade explosion tearing him apart, vaguely surprised when neither happened.

Too late he heard footsteps behind him. He was turning, rifle still firing, when the net fell over his head and shoulders. He held onto the rifle with one hand and tried to lift the net clear with the other. A sudden jerk on the net pulled him over backward. He struck his head so hard that for a moment comets and fireworks blazed in the darkness. He felt utterly disgusted with himself at falling into a trap so quickly that he couldn't even give Kareena a clean death.

Then clubs smashed down at every exposed part of his body, and Richard Blade no longer felt anything at all.

«My name is Nungor,» said a wavering, distorted voice in the distance. Blade could barely make out the words over the roaring and hissing in his ears. «Are you the man called Blade of England?» More roaring and hissing. «Are you?» Then silence, and suddenly a deluge of cold water descending from nowhere onto Blade's head. The roaring and hissing faded away, although they left behind aches and pains in a good many parts of Blade's body. He also discovered that his hands were bound behind his back with wire. Then he found himself staring up at a brown face with a dirty black beard and a dirty green patch over one eye.

«I am Nungor,» the face said again. «Are you Blade of England?»

«Since you already know my name-«began Blade, then gritted his teeth as someone clubbed him across the shin. Nungor spun around and yelled at a man Blade couldn't see.

«No, you rat's bastard! The woman, the woman only! Feragga wants this one!» Then Nungor bent over and jerked Blade up into a sitting position. Blade saw that the man was no more than five feet four inches tall, but nearly as wide, and all of it was solid muscle with scars on every inch of exposed skin.

«You are Blade of England, aren't you?» said Nungor, an edge in his voice. Then he shook his head. «It won't be you paying the price for not talking. It will be Peython's daughter.» He pointed. Blade saw Kareena spread-eagled on the ground, wrists and ankles tied to heavy stones with wire. Blood oozed from around the wires. She looked as if she'd been run over by a truck, with face and thighs horribly bruised, a dozen cuts crusted over with dried blood, and a crude bandage on her left leg. Half a dozen men were standing around her, holding a variety of weapons and tools.

Nungor took Blade's hesitation for resistance and signaled to one of his men. A spear butt thumped down hard on Kareena's bandaged leg. Unfortunately she was conscious. Blade saw her arch her body and bite her already blood-caked lips. The spear butt came down again, and she gasped. It was coming down a third time when Blade said sharply, «I am Blade of England. What else do you want to know?»

He hoped he hadn't given in too easily, but he would rather let Nungor think he was weak than let Kareena be tortured anymore. It looked as if she'd already been through the mill to the point where she couldn't take much more punishment. As long as there was any hope, Blade intended to get both himself and Kareena out of the hands of the Doimari. That meant doing whatever might be needed to keep her alive.

Nungor jerked his head at the men around Kareena, and the spear butt thumped harmlessly on the ground. «Very wise, Blade. Very wise. We may yet be able to talk.»

«That is not yet certain, Nungor. You know you have Peython's daughter. Don't you also know that she's worth more as a live hostage than as a mangled corpse?» Normally Blade would have tried to deny that this was Kareena, but if Nungor knew who he was he would doubtless know who she was as well. Doimar's spies had done better work in Kaldak than Peython would be happy to hear.

«I know she is worth more alive than dead. But compared to you she is worth nothing at all. You have knowledge not only from Kaldak but from your land of England. Do not waste my time with arguing, either.» He signaled to his men and they formed a circle around Kareena, hiding her. What happened inside that circle Blade never knew, but he never forgot Kareena's scream either.

Whatever else happens, I am not going to leave this Dimension without killing Nungor, even if it means my own death. That resolution calmed Blade, so that he was able to tell Nungor enough to save Kareena from further torture without revealing too much about the Kaldakan expedition. He would have liked to be able to lie about the discovery of the complex at the bottom of the shaft but decided not to risk putting Kareena in danger. There was also the matter of the booby traps he'd left below, which Blade had no intention of revealing. Nungor seemed to have no more than twenty men with him. If half of them went down from the booby traps and didn't come back up, it might be worth trying to wipe out the rest and escape.

«Did Bairam leave any traps in the tunnel?» asked Nungor at last.