Slave of Sarma

Chapter Nine

It was a trap. Blade had feared this, yet when Mokanna provided him with a real sword and shield, and a short stabbing knife, instead of the dummy weapons he had been using, Blade decided to go through with it. If Equebus was such an enemy as his plotting indicated, if he would spend so much money and time to get rid of Blade, then the sooner he was taken care of the better. There was always danger in Dimension X. Blade lived with it. Every threat known and dispatched was so much gain for Blade, and increased his chances of survival by just that much.

Now, under a blood red Sarmaian moon, he stalked the little ravine where Equebus was supposed to be hiding, a mere crease in the brown plain, and he found nothing. Far off he could see the moon shadows of the T gallows and the stone image of Bek-Tor.

Mokanna had explained: "Equebus will ride to the ravine and wait. His slave patrol will hang back. My spies will start the slave uprising and one of them will force a sword and shield on you. When there is uproar and confusion enough I will make a torch signal and Equebus will pass it on to his men. They will move in and the rising will be crushed and you, Blade, will be taken in arms. Equebus will say that he only chanced to be riding past, or had camped nearby, and came to my aid when I signaled. You will be executed at once and Equebus can dream again of becoming the first husband of Princess Zeena. But you, Blade, must kill him first. Then come to me at once. With Equebus dead I will be able to command the Slave Patrol, for in this region I am next in rank to Equebus."

The ravine was empty. Blade made sure of that, then lay in the shadow of a great rock and scanned the plain roundabout. Nothing. He had been duped. But why? By whom? Was Mokanna more crafty than he seemed?

Blade studied the grim encampment of stone huts called Barracid. Only one light showed, in the largest of the huts where Mokanna lived and had his headquarters. The other huts were dark. In one of them, Blade knew, Pelops was awake and crying in the dark. Timid Pelops. Poor little cowardly man. Blade shook his head. Pelops had warned him against this thing.

"It is a snare," Pelops cried when Blade told him of the plan. "I know it. You forget, Blade, sire, that once I lived and taught in the palace. I heard much. I saw much of intrigue. Equebus is an ambitious man, too ambitious, which is why he was sent to the dreary work of slave patrolling, and he is determined to go as far as a man can go in Sarma. He is far from a fool - and he and Mokanna have been enemies for a long time. I think they plot against each other, Blade, and are using you. Do not go tonight."

The light in Mokanna's hut went out. Barracid lay in total darkness but for the bloody moonlight. Blade, straining his eyes and ears, thought he saw shadows move across the drill grounds, thought he heard a faint clang of steel on steel. He could not be sure.

Mokanna's light came on again.

Mokanna had agreed not to send the torch signal to the waiting Equebus until he was sure Blade had failed and was dead. Then, to protect himself, he was to send a belated signal and swear that Blade had escaped beforehand, deserting the uprising he had inspired, and had come on Equebus in the ravine by accident.

There was no signal. The solitary light glowed in Mokanna's quarters. Barracid waited for Blade to return, brooding in the dark night under a red moon, and Blade was now convinced that it was another trap. Something had gone badly wrong.

Blade left the shadows, sword in hand, and began to walk back toward the encampment. There was nothing else to do, nowhere for him to go. If he struck out alone, on his own, he would be classed as a deserter, a runaway, and so forfeit the protection of Zeena and, through Zeena, the Queen Mother Pphira. Blade needed all the protection he could get.

And he could not leave Pelops to the not so tender mercies of Mokanna. With Blade labeled a runaway and deserter the little man would have no protection at all. It was only Blade, and through Blade, Zeena, who kept the teacher alive and with some degree of freedom as Blade's servant.

Blade entered the first ring of stone huts. He heard men snoring, men crying out in their sleep, men awake and cursing and whispering. The battlemen, at least some of them, knew that something strange and dangerous was afoot tonight.

He went wide of the hut corners, his sword ready. Nothing moved on the broad drill fields. Blade stopped with his back against a stone wall and peered at the big hut of Mokanna. The light still glowed through an open window.

Something lay in the dirt near the door of Mokanna's hut. A body. A headless body.

He took a few steps toward the thing. Not headless. The head was there. Neatly perched atop the leather clad buttocks. Mokanna's head.

Blade stopped. Nothing moved. No sound. Yet the hut of Mokanna waited for him, waited as though it were a living, breathing thing. A chill traced down Blade's spine. He did not like this.

He stopped a foot short of the body and stared down at it. It was Mokanna right enough. The big hairy shoulders, the powerful bowed legs. Moonlight glinted on the head. The mouth was open, the teeth showing, the eyes staring. Something shiny sparkled and Blade saw that it was the chain of office. Someone had draped it over the head and around what had been a neck.

A shadow at the window. A voice said, "You who are called Richard Blade! Come into the hut. You will not be harmed. But drop your sword first. At once. Drop it!"

Blade hesitated. The window was empty again, the shadow gone. The hut waited.

"Obey, Blade! I, Equebus, give the order in the name of Queen Pphira. You will not be harmed. You are under the Queen's protection now."

Relief surged through Blade. Zeena! She had worked fast in Sarmacid, had seen her mother and told her of Blade and the marriage. The Queen, then, had not been so difficult as Pelops had warned. Blade nearly laughed. Pelops was an old woman in the guise of a man. It was all right. He tossed his sword down near the body and stalked toward the hut Mokanna's dead eyes seemed to follow him.

A dozen torches flared as Blade kicked open the hut door. A little arrogance now, he thought. A time for showing absolute confidence.

Blade went down before the rush of a dozen men. He let out a bellow of rage and struggled to his knees, smashing heads together in his fury. He caught a glimpse of Pelops lying in chains in a corner.

Blade fought like a demon gone mad. He broke an arm, cracked a neck, drove awesome punches into guts and faces. He went down time and again and kept getting up. More men rushed at him. Lance butts shattered over his head and broad back. Blade winced and bled and planted his legs like stone columns and fought back.

Equebus, scarlet cloaked in a far corner of the big room, looked on with a sneer.

"Are you children?" he asked his men scathingly, "that one man can defeat you all? Take him. Now! At once. Use your lances on his head - but do not kill him. The man who kills him dies!"

Blade used a judo hold and flung a man at Equebus. The Captain of the Slave Patrol skipped nimbly to one side, his mouth a thin line of contempt beneath the feral hooked nose. "Beat him," screamed Equebus. "Beat him down! Beat him bloody! Only keep him alive and break no bones."

More men leaped into the fight. They were Sarmaians and small men compared to Blade, but well muscled and wiry. They were slave catchers and they knew their trade. Blade at last went down and could not rise again. Lance butts smashed him into oblivion.

Blade was not out long. When he regained consciousness he was face down on the dirt floor and he was in chains. Massive iron manacles on his wrists and ankles were linked with chains and fastened to another great chain around his waist. The mere weight of the chains told Blade that he was well caught. He could not break these bonds.

The hut was silent. Where was everybody? Blade groaned, his bones ached and he bled from a dozen minor wounds, and rolled over and tried to get to his feet. A foot caught him from behind and kicked him off balance. Blade went sprawling into the dirt again. Pain lanced his beknobbed skull. He cursed and rolled over again to stare upward.

The tall man who stood wide legged, his thumbs hooked into a sword belt, was the same man Blade had seen on the beach that day with Zeena. Equebus. Captain of the Slave Patrol. Thickset, sturdy and as tall nearly as Blade himself, he was a giant among the Sarmaians. What had Pelops called this man - Equebus the Cruel? Blade could believe it.

The swarthy face was axe-like, the nose a hooking scimitar over a thin bloodless mouth. The beard was black, bushy and tinged with gray here and there. The narrow eyes were a Sarmaian dark. But Blade knew that this was no true Sarmaian - too much hair, too rounded a head, much too tall. Blade put a hand to feel his mouth - he seemed to have all his teeth.

At last the man spoke. "I am Equebus. Now that Mokanna is dead I am in sole command here. You know of me?"

Blade rubbed his sore mouth. He glared back. "I know of you. You are said to be cruel - you are also a liar!"

Equebus raised his foot. Blade brought his manacled hand up into a defensive position. "Kick me and I will tear your leg off."

The Captain moved away to one side. He nodded and his teeth glinted pale behind the black beard. "I think perhaps you would. So I will not kick you again - because if you touch my person I would have to kill you and that would be contrary to my Queen's orders."

Blade glowered. "I say again that you are a liar. You promised that I would not be harmed - yet I am beaten near to death. If this is the Queen's protection I can do without it."

Chains clanked in a corner. Pelops was staring at Blade, his eyes wide with terror. Blade winked at him.

Torches flared in wall and ceiling sconces. Equebus pulled up a three legged stool and straddled it, leaning to study Blade in the wavering yellow glare. He took off his silver helmet, bejeweled and spiked, and cradled it on his knees. In his glance there was some puzzlement.

"I was angered," he said at last, "at the ease with which you handled my men. They are sturdy enough rascals and I have never seen them so beaten before. I did not admire, for I admire none, but I was impressed. You are a battleman such as has never been seen in Sarma. Is it true that you are also proficient in weapons?"

Blade, who worked out with battle axe and mace and lance in London, where most men chose tennis or handball, nodded sullenly. "I am that. I would like to show you now if you will take off these chains."

The cold dark eyes studied him. The thin mouth did not smile. "That is not possible. I take you to Sarmacid on the orders of the Queen. She is quite anxious to see you, for a reason you will know soon enough. And in Sarmacid you will be given a chance to show off your skill and strength. You are to fight in the games when Otto the Black comes to the city. If it were not for that, and her Majesty's wish, you would now be as dead as Mokanna."

Blade glanced at the cowering Pelops. The little man shook his head at Blade. Blade winked again and stared back at Equebus.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Equebus took a narrow scroll of parchment from his pocket and began to read the chicken tracks that passed for writing in Sarma. Pelops had begun to teach Blade to read and write in Sarmaian, but they had not made much progress yet.

Equebus read the scroll in a formal voice of authority. The gist of it was that one Richard Blade, known to be a stranger cast ashore by storm, and now training as a battleman at Barracid, be brought to Sarmacid at once to be held for the pleasure of the Queen.

Equebus smiled at that phrase. Smiled and cast a sly glance at Blade in his chains on the floor. "There is more in that sentence than meets the eye," he said. "Which you will come to know for yourself."

Blade hardly heard him. Zeena had done her work well. Perhaps she had even begun to spread Blade's lie about his twin brother. It would help. Thousands of eyes were better than just two - he might find the Russian agent, his double, if the agent was in this particular Dimension X.

Equebus was still reading. "... said Blade to be handed over on presentation of this scroll by Mokanna, Captain of Barracid."

Blade allowed himself an evil grin, even though it hurt his bruised mouth. "That is not the way Mokanna told it, Captain. I remember something about a slave rising, a frameup, and I was to be killed. Whatever happened to that little plan?"

In the corner Pelops groaned and his chains jangled as he made the T sign. Blade smiled at him. "Stop worrying, little man. It's going to be all right. You heard the Captain - we're under the Queen's protection."

Equebus tossed the scroll away. "You are right, Blade. There was another plan. Before the rider brought this message in the Queen's own name. Until that time I had only received flag signals to find you. Which I did."

Blade had figured it out long ago. "So you cooked up a little scheme with Mokanna? Only he double-crossed you. And you triple-crossed him!"

Equebus stood up and kicked away the stool. His smile was superior. "Mokanna was always a fool. I have known him since we were boys together in cadet school. He was twice a fool to match wits with me. I did not know his plan, nor did it matter. I distrusted him just because he was Mokanna. And I have spies here in Barracid just as he had spies in my fortress. This time my spies were best. Mokanna is dead. And you, Blade, live only because the Queen wishes it." Again the odd sly smile. "In the end, Blade, you may yet regret that I did not kill you along with Mokanna."

Equebus clapped his hands. Armed men came into the hut to hustle Blade and Pelops away.

Blade pointed to the little man. "What of Pelops? He is servant to me, and also friend. I would have him well treated."

The Captain's shoulders moved in a contemptuous shrug. "I care nothing for servants and slaves, even school teachers. He will be well treated - as well treated as you are."

There was, Blade thought, something ominous about those last words.