When Blade was naked he put his clothes in his rucksack and walked three times backward around the pile, reciting the words of «Rule, Britannia» in pig latin. This seemed to impress Teindo and the other hunters as a proper spell. So did Blade's explanation.
«I have changed the magic of my weapons and other things so that it will not reach out against the Rutari. However, the magic is still there, ready for anyone who touches anything without my leave. I do not doubt the honor of the Rutari, but once a people whose honor I did not doubt stole my weapons. I nearly died, and since then I trust more to my own magic than to anything else.»
Teindo looked at Blade's collection of scars. «No man who has fought as many battles as you have can offend me by being careful.»
Blade picked up his Kabar knife in one hand, and whistled Cheeky up onto his other shoulder. Then he led the young hunter off toward the dead Red-Horn.
Chapter 4
Cutting up an animal the size of one of the Red-Horns with only two knives was as long and bloody a job as Blade had expected. Cheeky kept a safe distance from the whole thing. He was a rigid vegetarian, barely able to tolerate even the sight and smell of so much meat.
By the time he'd finished, it was nearly dark, and the Great Hunters had long since gorged themselves and fallen asleep. So had some of the hunters, including the one who'd flinched aside from the charging Red-Horn. He was sleeping a little apart from the rest of the hunting party, Blade noticed. His spear was thrust into the ground near his head, and the tuft of feathers had been removed from the butt.
Blade made a separate bed after going through an improvised ritual over his clothes and equipment. Once you got started on a reputation as a wizard, you had to keep up the act until somebody allowed you to abandon it. Blade wondered if the Wise One would grant him that freedom before he ran out of things he could use for incantations and spells!
Apart from this, his stay in this Dimension seemed to be off to a good start. The hunters of the Rutari didn't seem ready to stab him while he slept, Cheeky was with him, and he had food, water, and the promise of an introduction to a local potentate. Best of all, nobody appeared to know the Dimension X secret from a sack of fertilizer or care about finding out! After the return to the Dimension of Kaldak, he'd have slept soundly enough with nothing going for him but that!
A messenger with word of the great kill of Red-Horns had left for the Rutari village before dawn. A whole caravan of the lizard-horses returned by early afternoon, some of them ridden by women. The women wore as little as their men, and some of the younger ones were more than good-looking, if a trifle on the lean side.
Everyone turned out to sling the meat in nets of lizardhide thongs on either side of their mounts, wake up the Great Hunters (who were still sleeping off their meal of the night before), and clean up the campfire. By the time the caravan was ready to leave, there were no traces of the Rutari camp left except bloodstains.
«Seldom do our enemies, the Uchendi, come this far into our lands,» Teindo explained. «But Those Who Have Gone Before watch everywhere. They do not honor carelessness or other weakness-«with a glare at the young man who'd flinched. «If they thought we needed a lesson, then they might allow the Uchendi here.»
As they marched, the Bigfeet were again kept way in the back, in the care of several lizard-riders who prodded them from time to time and kept them moving and in line. Blade was marching in the rear of the line of hunters, along with the young hunter, whose name turned out to be Awgal. «You have done nothing to prove yourself weak like Awgal, Blade,» said Teindo. «But until we are sure of your strengths, you must march with him.»
«I should say that I have done much to prove myself strong,» snapped Blade. Among primitive peoples, letting yourself get pushed around wasn't just embarrassing; it could be fatal. You always had to tread a fine line between being polite and being self-deprecating.
«So you have-I think,» said Teindo. The conversation appeared to embarrass him. «But only the Wise One can be sure that you are strong in the ways that make you fit to be truly one of us.»
«I do not like this,» said Blade coolly. «The Cheeky does not like it either. But it is not worth fighting over. Do you swear that no harm will come to me, from Awgal's presence, if the Wise One judges me strong?»
Teindo swore this so earnestly that it was hard for Blade to keep a straight face. At last Blade said, «Very well. But I warn you. If there is any curse on me from marching with Awgal, I will not just turn it away from myself and the Cheeky. I will send it on to you, and you can tell the Wise One why you need her help to take it off!»
Teindo gulped but nodded. «So be it, Blade.»
With the lizard-horses heavily loaded and most of the people on foot, it took until evening of the next day to reach the main village of the Rutari. Blade had hoped that Awgal would talk freely to him on the way; outcasts and criminals frequently were his best sources.
However, Awgal apparently feared that if he talked to Blade, either the Wise One's magic or Blade's would make his already bad situation worse. Or perhaps it was just that he didn't feel kindly toward the wizard who'd slain the Red-Horn he let escape. Blade got about six words out of Awgal during the whole march.
They reached the village at sunset, passing along a river valley sown with grain and vegetables. Apparently the Rutari weren't completely dependent on hunting: however, Blade noticed the soil was quite stony.
The Bigfeet were led away to the lair where they were kept when not on hunting expeditions. Then the meat was unloaded and hauled to a cave that exhaled clouds of mineral-smelling steam. The Rutari preserved their meats by salting and boiling it over natural hot springs deep in the cave. That made sense to Blade. Hauling loads of firewood on lizard-back over rough mountain trails was something anyone would gladly avoid. After unloading the meat, most of the hunting party scattered to the welcome awaiting them in the huts, which were set on the sides of the valley, clear of the cultivated land. Teindo and six other hunters led Blade and Awgal uphill to the most remote hut of all, to meet the Wise One.
If the Wise One was more than forty, she was very well preserved in spite of her gray-white hair. She wore an embroidered leather skirt, boots with leather tassels around the top, and a complicated headdress of something that reminded Blade of porcupine quills. She was bare to the waist, and Blade could see two long scars on her smooth brown skin, one across her stomach and the other down her left breast.
Perhaps it was the scars that gave her such a forbidding appearance. Or maybe the total lack of expression in her wide gray eyes. Either way, Blade was sure from the moment he entered the hut that the Wise One deserved her name. Keeping up his cover story with her was going to be a challenge, one he'd better be able to meet. She looked quite willing to have him thrown to the Great Hunters if she thought he was lying.
Blade was so intent on studying the Wise One that he didn't notice her pet until Cheeky went «Mreeep!» and pointed toward the gravel floor of the hut. Sitting beside the Wise One was a creature that seemed to have a monkey's body and a cat's head. The fur was brown and long enough to curl, the eyes nocturnal, and the delicate paws busy playing with a strip of leather. When it saw Cheeky, the animal made a faint hissing noise, then dropped the leather and scurried behind its mistress. She reached down to stroke it until it was silent, then looked back to Blade.