King Of Zunga

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The High Priest was correct in his prediction. Blade never saw Kanda or the Ivory Tower. After his taste of Kandan habits, he didn't feel that he was missing anything. If he ever saw Kanda, he hoped it would be at the head of a Zungan army. And if he was snatched back to Home Dimension before he could lead a march on Kanda, he hoped the Zungans would take care of the matter themselves.

Where Blade had been confined turned out to be a sort of trading post. There the Rulami exchanged the rubies from their mines and the ivory their hunters had collected for slaves taken by the Kandan raiders. The slaves were chained into coffles and marched north.

Blade was not put into a coffle. Apparently he was considered too high-quality merchandise to be forced to tramp along the road to Rulam with chains at his neck and ankles. He was chained, to be sure, with chains even heavier than the ones in the hut. But instead of being put into the coffle, he was loaded feet first into a canvas bag. Then they tied heavy ropes around the bag. Finally, they slung Blade, bag and all, onto the back of one of the Ivory People, like a saddlebag on a horse.

Blade rode trussed this way in the bag for six full days, as the caravan tramped north. There were about a dozen of the tame Ivory People, nearly two hundred slaves, a guard of fifty-odd soldiers, and an assortment of wagons. The trip would have taken less than half the time if the Ivory People had been traveling alone; Blade knew from the Zungans that the strange beasts could cover sixty to seventy miles a day without strain. Clumsy as they looked, they were surprisingly fast, and their endurance was enormous. Each night they stopped in clearings by the side of the road. Blade was always taken out of the sack and given water, food, and exercise. He did not need to be forced to take any of these. He was as determined as any of the Rulami that he would be in top condition when he reached the city. Once they even offered him a slave girl from the coffle and a tent in which to enjoy her in privacy. Blade turned down that offer. The brief episode with Sarnila and her fate afterward had left an ugly taste in his mouth.

On the morning of the seventh day the sun was only just clearing the treetops when shouts went up from the head of the caravan. Rulam was in sight, and within an hour even Blade in his sack could see its towers and walls crowning the ridge a few miles ahead. The road was becoming more crowded now. Farmers' carts and occasional patrols of soldiers rumbled and tramped along in the dust, giving way as the caravan ploughed through. The bridges over the occasional streams were no longer rickety collections of old timber, but solid works of dressed and mortared stone, as wide as the road.

The officer leaned down from his saddle far enough to be able to talk to Blade without shouting. The officer's name was Horan, and in the past six days Blade had developed a thorough distaste for the man. Horun was a supercilious palace soldier, alternately brutal and condescending toward slaves-especially Zungan ones.

«We'll be home in a couple hours, Blade,» said Horun.

«I haven't heard any orders on it yet, but if custom is any guide, the queen will be wanting to look you over.»

«Queen Roxala?»

Horun nodded. «Indeed. She's a collector of things rare and fine. Animals, birds, jewels-she's got enough firestones to fill a river barge. And men. Arena men particularly. She picks the best fighters from each new lot of slaves for her personal arena teams. And you'll be coming in with a reputation running ahead of you. If I were as sure of making general as you ought to be of getting picked for the queen's team, I'd be a happy man.»

«Are her teams treated well?»

«Oh, nothing but the best for them. Slaves they may be, but they live better than nine out of ten freemen in Rulam. The best meat and wine, girls any time they want them, baths and doctors waiting for them when they come in from the arena. And some of them get a real extra bonus.»

«What kind?» From what Blade had heard of Roxala and from what he could see in Horun's face, Blade had a fairly good idea. But he wanted to be certain.

Horun practically simpered, and dropped his voice to just above a whisper. «Oh, Roxala has a roving eye, and picks out the best of the stable for her bed. As long as they aren't Zungans, anyway. She'd die before she bedded with one of those smelly black savages. But the others, like you.» Horun licked his lips. «They say she's worth it just as a woman.»

«What does the king say about this?»

Horun dropped his voice still further. «King Meptor doesn't like it a bit. If the laws of Rulam allowed it, he'd have put Roxala away years ago. As it is, all he can do is poison or murder one of her favorites every so often. These days he doesn't even have much time for that. War preparations.» Horun's eyes showed that he suddenly realized he was saying too much to a mere slave. He swung back up to his formal pose, and was silent as the caravan began climbing the hill toward the city.

Meanwhile, Blade was turning what Horun had said over in his mind. So Queen Roxala had a taste for gladiators-including a bedroom taste? That was something he had put to good use in the past. Risky, but so far he had always come out on top. Anything within reason that could keep him alive and give him freedom of movement was worth grabbing.

And war preparations? War with whom, and for what? Rulam and Kanda were on bad terms, but that bad? He hoped so. Or was King Kleptor perhaps thinking of an all-out war against the Zungans? That was something to watch out for. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He turned his head as far as he could and stared at the approaching city.

The walls stretched for miles along the top of the ridge, forty and fifty feet high, built of massive blocks of stone and crowned with square towers every hundred yards or so. Behind the wall, more towers rose black and gray against the blue sky. So did columns of smoke from dozens of chimneys, as bakeries, forges, and tanneries settled down to the day's work. The breeze blowing from the city carried the smell of all of these and much more to Blade's nose. Dorkalu was a village compared to Rulam. Whatever the Zungans might someday do to Kanda and its priests, they would be hard put to do anything to Rulam inside its walls.

As the caravan approached a massively towered gate, someone hailed them from the gatehouse.

«Horun! Do you bear the prisoner Richard Blade of the English?»

Horun shouted back. «Yes, I do.»

«The queen has left orders that he be brought to the Summer Palace at once.» Horun looked down at Blade, with a lewd grin on his face.

Then Horun rapped his mount sharply on the right side of its head with his goad. The animal swung ponderously to the left, turning away from the gate, and lumbered along the wall. The rest of the caravan vanished through the gate, while Horun goaded the animal to a lumbering trot that kicked up a cloud of dust behind it. They kept on at that pace for a good two miles, until they came to a sprawling gray-brown palace, and rode into its fore courtyard. Horun brought his mount to a stop just inside the gate. A dozen slaves ran out to help him dismount and unload Blade.

After carrying Blade like a piece of furniture into the cellar of a nearby building, the men unwrapped him. They left the chains on, however. Word about Blade's qualities indeed had run on ahead. Chains and all, they bathed him, shaved him, oiled and perfumed and pumiced and scraped him, massaged him-the process went on for what seemed like hours. Blade began to feel like a prize bull being groomed for a cattle show.

Horun watched the process with a continuous grin flickering across his thin face, openly amused at Blade's mounting annoyance. «Don't fight it, Blade. If you aren't looking your best, the queen may turn you down. And if she turns you down for her team, you can be damned sure she won't let anybody else grab you for theirs. You'll be on your way to the firestone mines before you can turn around. They say a man is lucky to live a year there-and usually wishes he could die after a single day.»

Horun ran on. Indicating the slaves scurrying around the chamber, he grinned. «Look at those poor bastards. Practically wetting their pants for fear you'll have one hair out of place or one bit of skin not oiled up sleek. They're right, too. Roxala'd have their backs striped if you did. You, boy!» He shouted at the nearest slave, who stopped as if he had run into a brick wall. «Turn around!» The slave turned his back toward Blade, who started counting the welts and scars criss-crossing it. He got up to fifty before another barked word from Horun sent the slave back to his business. Blade decided that it would be a pleasure to kill Horun, if the time ever came.

Eventually the slaves finished their work. Blade was dressed in a tight-fitting loin-guard and given an empty sheath to hook over it. «There'll be a sword in that sheath soon enough,» said Horun. Then, with a bawdy chuckle, he added, «And your other sword may be in another sheath even before that. Lucky man.»

Now a squad of soldiers tramped in, and Horun unlocked Blade's chains. The soldiers surrounded him with drawn swords, and he was marched out of the cellar. They went along a damp, twisting corridor, each section seeming gloomier than the last, for what seemed like hours. Finally their journey came to an end as they mounted a flight of stairs and Horun pushed open a massive door. Sunlight poured in, for a moment dazzling Blade's eyes. The soldiers paid no attention to his stumblings, but shoved him into the open.

Slowly his eyes readjusted to the daylight, and he saw that he was standing in the center of another large courtyard-no, garden would be a better description. It was nearly as large as a football field. Where it was not covered with lush green grass manicured to almost billiard-table smoothness, white gravel walks led through rainbow-colored masses of flowers. Their scents filled the air, striking Blade hard enough to almost make his head swim. After the austere plains and the foul smells of his journey, such an overpowering mass of perfumes seemed unhealthy. He felt almost ill.

«The queen's private garden,» said Horun. «I wonder if you'll be the only thing on show today-no, I see somebody else coming.»

Out from the shadows of one of the porticos around the garden came a line of slaves. They were struggling with something immensely long and thick, done up in a version of the canvas sack that had carried Blade. Whatever it was, they were sweating with the effort of carrying it, and wide-eyed with fear. They kept on coming, until there were nearly two score of them. The thing they carried seemed to nearly sixty feet long. After the slaves came yet another squad of the ubiquitous soldiers, carrying a thick iron collar, a massive chain, and an iron post pointed at one end. By the time all this hardware was gathered together, Blade hardly needed to hear the explosive hiss that sounded from inside the bag to know what the slaves were carrying.

Then Horun jabbed Blade sharply in the ribs and pointed up toward a second-story balcony half-screened by the tops of a quartet of small trees. A woman had stepped out onto the balcony, and even in the shadows she made an impressive sight. Tall-nearly six feet-with a great foaming mane of blue-black hair pouring down her back. She wore a golden gown that above the waist might have been sprayed on, so tightly did it cling to her luxuriantly curved figure. In her hair sparkled a thin tiara of rubies.

«The queen?» whispered Blade.

«Yes. But don't pay any attention to her until the trumpeters blow. That's the sign that she's officially present. Until then we treat her as just part of the scenery. A very nice part of the scenery,» added Horun.

Blade kept his eyes fixed on the woman nonetheless. A moment later two men in yellow tunics and green tabards joined the queen on the balcony, each carrying a yard-long brass trumpet. They raised these to their lips, and blew a long raw blast.

Blade winced at the sound. Then from behind him the hiss exploded again. This time it did not die away. And then he heard the clank and clash of iron, scrapings, thumpings-and a chorus of mad screams of panic.

Blade whirled around. His eyes flicked from the queen, frozen motionless on her balcony, to the great snake rearing up in the middle of the scattering slaves. Horun shouted an order, and several of the soldiers ran forward, drawing their swords. But instead of attacking the snake, they waded into the ranks of the slaves, slashing and thrusting. The slaves were screaming in agony now, falling and writhing on the ground. Some of them abruptly stopped screaming as the snake writhed over them, its tons of scaled mass crushing the last bits of life out of them.

Blade could not contain himself. «You idiot!» he roared at Horun. «Get that snake and let the slaves alone!»

Horun whirled and backhanded Blade across the face. «Keep your mouth shut, boy. This is just another slave trick. I don't need you to tell me how to handle it.»

Four soldiers were holding onto Blade, so he did not lunge forward, pick up Horun, and break the officer in two with his bare hands. He watched the snake slowly coiling and uncoiling itself, as the fact penetrated to its tiny brain that it was free. Its head bobbed up and down like a yoyo, sometimes rising twenty feet above the ground, sometimes lying flat on the grass.

Now the head rose again, and swiveled toward the balcony. The snake's blank green eyes flickered open as they caught sight of Roxala, still frozen by the railing. Blade's mind was yelling at the queen, «Get back inside, you stupid woman! Don't just stand there gaping like an idiot!» He knew that in another second he was going to shout it out loud.

Then the snake moved. Perhaps it was cunning, perhaps it was blind rage. But the huge head shot forward and then up, rising under the balcony, smashing into it with a tremendous clang. The queen staggered and went sprawling. The head rose again with another clang. Blade heard the screech of metal twisting. A third time the snake drove its head like a battering ram into the balcony. This time the whole balcony pulled free of the wall. Balcony, queen, and trumpeters plunged down fifteen feet to land with a thundering crash on the stone walk. The snake reared up and back, then swung forward again. Now its jaws opened, revealing foot-long teeth and a tongue the thickness of a fire hose. The tongue flicked in and out, the eyes stared down at the victims below. The queen lay sprawled on the walk, motionless, her gown half ripped off by the fall.

Horun seemed as stunned as his queen. The officer stood motionless. His mouth kept opening and closing, but no sound came out.

«Do something, you useless little palace pimp!» roared Blade. «Don't just stand there.» But Horun still did not move, nor did he give any orders to his soldiers. Both soldiers and slaves had scattered in panic. Some had hidden under the bushes, others had vanished into the porticoes and peeped nervously out from behind the pillars. The four soldiers holding Blade had not fled, however. Either they had their orders, or like Horun they were too paralyzed with fear to move an inch.

Suddenly Blade slumped backward, catching the four men holding him by surprise. He let himself fall to the grass, feeling himself slide through the soldiers' hands. He felt the last set of hands let go-and suddenly jackknifed at the waist and shot to his feet, bowling over the nearest soldier. Before the others could reach for him or draw their swords, he leaped high over a line of bushes. Ignoring Horun, he ran for the iron stake lying on the grass. He saw the snake's head swaying still, but dipping lower and lower toward the sprawled bodies on the walk. Blade knew he would first have to draw the snake away from the queen. To fight it where it was might kill the queen just as surely as letting the snake close those foot-long teeth on her.

Blade reached the stake. He lifted it, feeling his muscles strain under the weight, then jerked. Chain and collar flew off the ground, into the air, and nearly caught in the branches of a tree. Before they came down, Blade spread his legs wide for balance and began whirling the stake around his head. The chain and collar swung through the air like a whip. The massive collar sailed straight at the snake's back and slammed into it with a crunching thud.

Instantly the snake forgot all about the victims almost in its jaws. It reared up with a savage hiss until almost half its length was off the ground. Its head and neck twisted and lashed about, searching for the attacker. Again Blade swung his iron whip. Again the collar cracked into the snake's neck, ten feet below the head. The head dipped, and Blade saw the huge eyes focus on him, glaring at him.

He had its attention. Now he had to fight it. He swung the collar a third time, aiming straight at the vast flat head. The jaws snapped shut and the collar smashed into the scaled nose, just above the nostrils. The jaws opened again, dripping foam, as the snake shook its head back and forth. Blade reversed the stake in a quick shift of hands. Now the chain and collar lay on the grass and he held the stake out with its point toward the snake. A clumsier spear he could perhaps imagine, but he hoped he'd never have to fight with it. Certainly not against a monster like this.

The snake lunged, jaws open, hissing like a leaky boiler. Blade danced to one side, jabbing downward as the head flashed past, aiming for the eyes. The point slammed into the scales with a jar that half-numbed Blade's arms. The snake quivered all over, but its recovery was as fast as ever. A second stroke, a second thrust with the post, and a second recovery. The snake was as fast as before. The massive head showed only a few broken scales to mark where Blade had struck.

Perhaps the throat would be a better target. This time Blade crouched low as the snake came in, thrusting upward. The scaly flank tore along his legs, rasping the skin off like a file. But he felt scales crunch and skin part under the thrusting post. The snake jerked its head back, rearing high. This time there was a trickle of blood flowing down the gleaming scales of its neck.

Blade crouched again, shifted aside again, stabbed again. More blood flowed across the scales. He reversed the post, holding it as a club. The snake came in again, aiming low, seeing Blade crouching before it as he had already done twice. This time it would finish off this annoying interference with its meal!

As the snake came in, Blade leaped to his feet and swung the post down at the full stretch of his arms, with all his strength. Again the jar was rumbling, but the snake jerked and heaved throughout its full sixty-plus feet. For a moment it was motionless. Blade reversed the post again, whipping the hundred and more pounds of iron through a complete circle. Then he stabbed point-down at one of the eyes. This time the thrust went home. The eye burst apart in a spurting of blood and greenish slime.

The hiss that came out of the gaping mouth now had a rasp that set Blade's teeth on edge. Then the snake lashed its head and twenty feet of its body sideways. Blade jerked the post up and held it out, but the whiplash smashed the iron back against his chest and knocked him sprawling. The scales flayed more skin off his arms and chest and stomach, and he felt as though all of his ribs had been smashed.

Blade lay on his back, fighting for breath, while the snake reared up again, swaying back and forth. It was half-blinded and from its slow motions more than half-stunned. It had taken punishment. But so had Blade. He wondered if he could outlast the monster, in what had now become a contest of endurance.

As the snake twisted its head this way and that, Blade lurched to his feet. With a desperate heave of his arms, he lifted the post, point forward. The snake's head loomed in front of him like a mottled brown and black wall now slimy with blood. He lifted the post high over his head. Then he thrust it home with all the strength left in his arms. Again he felt scales crack and flesh tear, and this time a great gout of blood spurted out and all over him. The snake toppled sideways and thudded down onto the grass. Then it gave a final, convulsive jerk, sweeping Blade to the ground again, and lay still.

Gradually Blade felt his strength returning. He relaxed his death grip on the post and sat up. Seeing that all the soldiers were still frozen with surprise and terror, he stood up and walked over to where Queen Roxala lay on the walk. Looking down at her, he found his original impressions of a ripe and mature beauty confirmed. More than confirmed, for in the fall the queen's tight gown had burst from the neck down to the waist. A bruise extended in a purple line across her ribs where the railing of the balcony had caught her. And her magnificent breasts were fully bared.

As Blade stood looking down at the queen, the courtyard gradually came back to life. Horun barked orders, and the soldiers began to rout the slaves out of their refuges, kicking, cursing, and occasionally sword-whipping them. Horun himself drew the sword that had stayed in its scabbard all during Blade's death struggle with the snake, then came over to Blade.

«All right, Blade. Quit staring at the queen. If she saw you doing it now, she'd have your balls cut off.» He jerked his thumb at the center of the courtyard. «Get back where you belong.»

The harsh sound of Horun's voice made Roxala's eyes flicker open. Then they widened as she saw the two men standing over her. She looked down at herself, nodded, but made no effort to close her gaping gown. Then she looked at Blade and said, «This is the Richard Blade of the English I asked to have brought?»

«Yes,» said Horun quickly. «An unruly and bad-tempered slave my queen. He tried to escape while I was killing the snake. I had him beaten by the soldiers. I can have him beaten again if you wish.»

But Roxala was not listening to Horun. Her eyes roamed up and down Blade's body, noting his muscles, other parts of him, and his bloody and battered appearance. Then they moved away from him to the body of the snake lying beyond in the grass. And then she burst out laughing, pointing first at Horun, then at the snake, then at Blade.

«You killed that monster, little captain? You killed it? You couldn't kill a kitten if you had a whole squad of soldiers at your back. No, you could kill a kitten. It's little and helpless and weak, and you like stamping on the little and the helpless and the weak. But that snake wasn't any of these things. You killed it? Richard Blade of the English killed it. The signs are all over him. Smell them, Horun, if you can smell anything through that perfume you bathe in.»

«But-«and then Horun stopped. His brains weren't the best, but apparently they were good enough to keep him from the folly of arguing with Queen Roxala.

The queen grinned. «That's better, Horun. Keep your mouth shut, and then you won't have a chance to put your foot in it. You'd look even sillier than you do now, standing around on one foot.» She turned her gaze onto Blade. «Well, Richard Blade of the English. I wanted to see what kind of fighting man you were. But I think you have already proved that you are a good one. I wish very much I could have seen you kill that snake. Now you are going to come with me. I will see that you get bathed and cared for.»

«Your Majesty,» exploded Horun, «this is a fresh-caught slave and a terrible warrior. He's not safe yet! Are you-?»

«Are you going to teach me my business, Horun? If you are, perhaps you have some lessons coming also. And Blade is not a slave. Not for long, at any rate. He is a warrior. I will have him entered in the Caste of Warriors. I have never had a free warrior to head my team of arena men because there were none of mine worthy to be more than slaves. But now I have a man.» Roxala said the last word as though it were a title of honor. The way she looked at him left Blade in no doubt that it had a good many other implications as well.

«Ho, slaves!» Roxala's voice carried all over the courtyard like the blast of a trumpet. A dozen slaves practically tumbled over each other running to answer her call. She pointed at Blade and said, «Take this warrior Richard Blade of the English and have him bathed. I will send the surgeon to him later.» She spun about and strode away, still without bothering to fasten her gown. Obviously in her eyes the slaves were not human enough to require any modesty before them.

As the slaves gathered around Blade, Horun pushed through their ranks and shoved his glaring face into Blade's. «The queen is going to do well by you, it seems. A warrior, yet. But remember, warriors can die just like slaves. I hope I get a chance to remind you of that, boy. How I hope so!»

Blade smiled blandly into Horun's flushed face. «Don't hope too much, little captain. But don't worry. If I ever want a few minutes' easy amusement for myself and the queen, I'll look you up.» He turned his back on Horun and let the slaves escort him away.