«He saved my life, Kareena,» said Bairam. «Why do you speak to him that way?»
Kareena glared at her brother again. «I know who you are.» Then she smiled, making her thin face almost beautiful for a moment, and punched her brother lightly in the shoulder. «I know who you are and what you are. I do not know anything about this man.»
«I am Richard Blade of England, a land beyond the ocean.»
«What ocean?» said Kareena abruptly. The point of her sword hovered within inches of Blade's bare stomach.
«You have not heard of the Gray Ocean?» said Blade, trying to look surprised as he improvised his story. «Then I have come even farther than I imagined. When I fled after killing seven men to avenge my sister's honor, I knew I would have to go far. I did not know I would come to a land where they did not know of the Ocean.»
«Your sister must have been a poor creature, if she could not avenge her own honor,» said Kareena. But the sword point wavered.
«Against seven men?» said Bairam. «Kareena, be serious. Even you would find those odds too much!»
«You're an odd one to tell me about-«Kareena began sharply, then caught herself as she realized she was about to start another quarrel in front of the stranger. She shrugged, then smiled politely at Blade. «Certainly you are not from Kaldak. From your pale skin I would say you are from no city in all the Land. The Sky Masters were said to have skins like yours, but they are all dead. So your story will be interesting, even if it is not as you have told it. Also, you did save Bairam. That puts me in your debt under the Law, and also our father Peython.
«However, you are not yet within the Law and cannot be until we return to Kaldak. Therefore you cannot bear an Oltec weapon. Will a sword or a spear satisfy your honor as a warrior of England?»
From that, Blade concluded that «Oltec weapon» must mean one of the laser rifles. He really would have preferred to carry one of them, but the rifles were probably rare. Certainly one of them wouldn't save him if these people turned violently hostile. He could help keep them friendly by following their customs.
Ceremoniously Blade picked up his empty laser rifle and handed it to Kareena. «A sword or a spear is enough. I have seen many lands, lived with many peoples, and obeyed the Law of each one. That is honor and also wisdom.»
Bairam smiled. «Kareena, how can you doubt a man who speaks such words?»
«Because they are no more than words,» said Hota bluntly. «When we know if they are more-«He would have probably started another quarrel, but Kareena was looking ready to strangle both Hota and her brother with her bare hands. She laid the rifle down and turned.
«Sidas! Bring a spear for the pale man Blade. Then everybody be ready to move. There will be no camping here tonight!»
That got a murmur of agreement from the rest of the band, who'd finished off the wounded rats and gathered along the edge of the ditch. Blade counted fourteen, five of them women. Under the dirt their skins were all various shades of reddish brown, but only a few of them had the green eyes and bluish hair of Kareena and her brother. Some of them were sorting through bulging leather packs, while others squatted by heavy bags slung below long poles.
Bairam wanted to march as he was, but Kareena insisted that he sit down and let her bandage his wounds. Blade noticed that she poured some liquid from a leather bottle onto the bandage, then avoided touching the wound with her bare hands. It was always a relief to find a Dimension where the people had some notion about the causes of infection. Otherwise, if you let the local doctors treat you, you risked dying of blood poisoning. If you tried to treat yourself, you risked being burned for sorcery. Either way was an unpleasant and undignified end.
No one made a move to offer Blade any clothes, so he adjusted his loinguard and sat cross-legged with the spear across his knees until Kareena finished with her brother. Then she pulled out a bone whistle and blew hard. The people with packs strapped them on, those with poles lifted them, and the party moved out. Blade kept toward the front, looking back occasionally for any more signs of the rats. He saw nothing moving, and the hillside soon faded out of sight in the gathering twilight.
Chapter 4
The band of warriors kept going until long after nightfall. They moved surely and swiftly, like people who knew exactly where they were going. After darkness hid the city behind them, they started talking more freely. Blade listened as he marched along.
The warriors were from the city of Kaldak, and Kareena and Bairam were the children of Peython, Kaldak's leader in war and Keeper of the Law. They'd come to Mossev, the city of the towers, to find «Oltec,» and found more than they'd expected. Their enemies, the people called the Doimari, didn't claim Mossev, so hadn't taken much from it.
The Kaldakans were satisfied, and were getting ready to make camp among the ruined suburbs when the rats attacked. Apparently the rats had never before attacked in such numbers outside the heart of a city.
Eventually they marched down a steep hillside to the bank of a small stream and made camp. They built an enormous bonfire for warmth and a smaller fire for cooking. Small animals, birds, and even snakes came out of packs, were cut up, then roasted. Someone handed Blade a half-charred bird's wing and a piece of flat hard bread. The bird was gamey and needed salt, and the bread was as hard and tasteless as wood, but Blade was much too hungry to care.
After eating, the Kaldakans tended each other's wounds. Both the men and the women stripped off their clothes to do this, so casually that Blade assumed the Kaldakans had no nudity taboo. Even Kareena stripped, dressed only in boots and her sword belt, and tended her bother's leg. She was much better looking naked than clothed. Her legs were long and powerful, her breasts high, firm, and large-nippled, and all her movements as graceful as a cat's. The triangle of curly hair between her thighs was even bluer than the hair on her head, and the light of the fire brought out the red tinge in her skin. As she moved around the camp, she looked like the bronze statue of a war goddess miraculously brought to life.
Blade felt a tingle of desire as he watched Kareena, but controlled it firmly. Obviously nudity wasn't a sexual invitation in this Dimension. He wondered what was, suspected he'd find out sooner or later, but doubted he'd find out from Kareena. She was the local equivalent of a princess and not the sort of woman to tumble into a man's bed just because he'd saved her baby brother. If she ever came to him, she would come when she wanted to, for her own reasons.
Blade found that he was getting sleepy and decided not to fight it. He had food, warmth, weapons, and a place among people who weren't exactly friends yet but certainly weren't enemies. In some Dimensions he'd started off in prison, as a slave, or wandering in a wilderness filled with dangerous animals. If his travels hadn't taught him anything else, they'd taught him to know when he was well off.
It was a good thing Blade went to sleep early, because Kareena's whistle woke the camp well before dawn. Bairam dug some clothes for Blade out of a pack, and after much trying Blade was able to get into everything except the boots. By the time there was light in the sky, the party was on the move again.
They marched all morning without a pause, with scouts carrying laser rifles well out in front. They'd been confident enough last night to build fires and relax, but now they seemed like a patrol moving through enemy territory. Blade wondered if the enemy they feared was human or animal.
The scouts' rifles didn't go into action that morning. Just before noon they reached a camp of leather tents. There were also more than twenty baggage animals, the munfans, tethered to stakes driven into the ground. The munfans looked like a horse-sized cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, with long ears and tails and shaggy brown coats with white patches. Their immensely powerful hind legs were armed with long claws, but they seemed docile enough. Each wore a complicated bridle with a long leading rein and a carrying harness dripping with hooks and straps.