The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 23

Neena's spear whistled down from the wall. Normally she had a deadly eye and arm, but these creatures were moving too fast even for her. The spear sank into a stump. The second stalker leaped clear over it, knocking it to the ground, and charged on.

The two creatures seemed to come at Blade like shots from a gun. One moment they were leaping in through the gate. The next moment they were leaping at his throat.

As fast as they were, Blade was faster. In the hope of confusing them he leaped forward, passing between them. A heavy black-furred hind leg brushed against his shoulder. The stalker felt the touch and tried to lash out at Blade's head while still in midair. Blade ducked in time, and the claws missed his cheek by an impossibly thin margin. The stalker landed off balance and could not turn and spring at once. As the creature turned, so did Blade. He drove the end of his sprayer into its face, then slapped the plunger with his other hand.

The spray came out with a pitiful little wheeze. For all the effect it had on the black stalker, it might as well have been milk. The creature gave a tremendous scream and leaped again. Blade threw himself to his knees as the stalker rose into the air, and it sailed over his head to land on a stump behind him.

This time he had a few seconds before the creature leaped again. He risked taking his eyes off it to look around. The three assistants were all swarming up the ladder as fast as they could. As the last one scrambled to safety, the ladder gave a sharp crack and split in the middle. The two halves thudded down onto the floor of the arena.

Kulo was standing his ground, torn trousers and all. Blade wouldn't have blamed the young man if he'd led the flight of the assistants. Once more Kulo seemed determined to show a warrior's courage. Blade wasn't sure whether this was showing good sense or not, but it was too late now to do anything else.

A hideous scream rose from outside the wall, and Neena threw her other spear. Blade saw her leap up and down, shaking her fists at her own poor marksmanship. The screams went on, mixed with the furious growls of a black stalker.

«Kulo!» he roared. «Don't try to spray them! They're drugged or mad!» For all their ferocity, Blade had never heard of black stalkers attacking in this frenzied way. There was something unnatural and horrible about it, as well as deadly dangerous. Did the madness of the stalkers have anything to do with Queen Sanaya's «illness»?

Then Blade forgot about Queen Sanaya, Neena, Kulo, the poor wretch dying in agony outside the wall, everything else except the three hundred pounds of black-furred death hurling itself at him.

He held the sprayer crosswise at arm's length in front of him. It met the black stalker in midleap, slamming hard into the creature's broad chest. The tough, resin-bound wood held, but the shock was enough to knock Blade backward off his feet. He landed on his back with the creature on top of him.

Both wits and muscles worked even faster than before. Blade slammed the threebo up and forward, into the stalker's gaping, drooling jaws as they opened above him. The jaws clamped shut like a hydraulic press. That was too much even for the threebo, and the sprayer snapped. All the sleeping water gushed out into the black stalker's mouth. As Blade struggled to draw his sword and thrust upward into the creature's throat, it gave one tremendous gasp and went limp. A moment later its eyes closed and Blade was able to roll out from under the dead body.

As he staggered to his feet he heard Kulo give a horrible scream. Blade whirled to see the young man go down under the leap of the other black stalker. Kulo screamed a second time as the claws tore at his shoulders and chest. By some miracle he was able to clamp his hands around the creature's throat, pushing its head back far enough to keep the teeth away from his own throat. The teeth snapped together inches from his nose, and the stalker growled and snarled in raw fury.

Blade drew his sword, sprang onto a stump, then down from the stump onto the stalker's back. His two hundred pounds drove his heavy boots down on the creature's back. It sprawled flat on Kulo, momentarily stunned. Then Blade slashed downward. The sharpened edge of his sword sliced through fur, skin, and flesh, biting into the spine. The black stalker howled in agony, gave one convulsive twist that threw Blade sprawling, and died.

Blade leaped to his feet and dragged the dead stalker off Kulo. Mercifully, the young man was unconscious. His shoulders and chest were a mass of shredded, blood-soaked leather and torn flesh. But he still breathed, and there was no blood bubbling out of his mouth to indicate internal injuries. Luck and the care of the Kaireens might pull him through.

As Blade stood up from his examination of Kulo, he heard someone call his name. As he turned around, Neena dashed toward him, tears streaking the dust on her face. She threw herself into his arms, her lips pressing warmly and hungrily against his. Her hands stroked his hair, and after a moment his arms seemed to rise of their own accord and tighten around her.

Then King Embor stepped up to them and coughed softly to get their attention. Slowly they stepped apart and faced him, still holding hands.

Blade's heart still pounded, his breath still came in gasps, and sweat still poured down off him in streams. His mind was working clearly again.

«Neena, my Lord King. Tell me-what the bloody hell is going on around here?»

Neena spoke before King Embor could even open his mouth. «Blade, I have done you a terrible wrong. I have been jealous of you and Queen Sanaya, and yet I see now that-«

King Embor coughed again. «Blade, it were better that I spoke of this. If my foolish, jealous, loving daughter who is your wife tries to speak of it, the sun will be down before you understand what happened. I think you do not wish to wait that long. Is that not so?»

Blade nodded. «Indeed it is. I gather that Queen Sanaya has had something to do with all this?»

«You are correct. Some weeks ago, mountain hunters found one of the queen's personal guards where he should not have been. By custom they would have killed him on the spot. But they thought it wiser to send him down into the valley and on to me.

«He was brought to me, and when he would not explain what he had done, he was tortured. Then he told a story of how you raped Queen Sanaya and held a long bout of love with her in a hut in the forest.»

Blade nodded. «She did-let us say, she did bring me to her bed in such a place. She threatened to tell just that story if I refused her.»

King Embor laughed bitterly. «That is what I thought, and what Neena should have realized.» The princess nodded silently and squeezed Blade's hand more tightly. «Had Sanaya herself come to me with such a story, I would have laughed in her face. I did not know all of her qualities when I took her to wife, but I am not so old that I cannot see what goes on around me and learn from it. I know how much to believe of what she tells me.»

«Nothing,» put in Neena.

Embor nodded. «But the guard's tale was another matter. It seemed to me that he just might be telling the truth.»

«I was sure he was,» said Neena, with a catch in her voice. «Yet-«

Once more King Embor held up a hand for silence. «So perhaps you had indeed done me and Neena a considerable wrong. At the same time you were working hard for Draad, and your work might give us some hope of victory over Trawn. I could not set that hope aside, even for so great an offense. Yet if the secret of your crime were known, the jealousy of the clan chiefs would mean your death, and sooner rather than later.

«So Neena and I did what seemed the wisest thing. We told no one of what we thought you had done, except some of my oldest and most trusted guards. We also gave the order that your work was to be tested at once.

«If you had worked well, you would be too valuable to punish, whether or not you were guilty. Then the secret would die with us. If you had not done what you promised, it would make no difference to our people whether you lived or died. Then we would have risen to denounce you before all the chiefs of Draad, and your death would have followed swiftly.»

Blade frowned. His escape had been even narrower than he'd suspected. «And now-?»

«Now you have shown us all the power of the new sleeping water. I have listened to the chiefs talking. Most of them have already realized what your invention could do to stolofs. Also, you have shown enormous skill and courage before them all.» Embor laughed. «I think they would all fight to keep anything from happening to you, regardless of what you'd done.»

Blade nodded. It seemed clear enough, so far. «What of the black stalkers, and all they did?» He pointed to where Kulo lay on the ground, still unconscious. The High Kaireen himself and two assistants were at work on him. They'd already cut away the leather tunic and were at work cleaning the wounds.

«We are not certain, now,» said Neena. Her face was still very pale. «But somehow Sanaya learned-here, today-that we knew of her game. It was doubtless a shock to her, so perhaps she was really ill. In any case she was certainly in a panic.»

At this point the High Kaireen joined them and took up the tale. «The Kaireen she called to attend her was most foully in her pay. She told him to use certain drubs he had with him to drive the black stalkers into a mad frenzy. Then certain of her guards were to release them. This was done, and the rest you have seen.» He faced the king, his deeply lined face grim. «Lord, have I your permission to take upon myself the punishment of the Kaireen who did this thing? He has dishonored and shamed all of us, and I assure you that he will trouble Draad no more.»

«I see no reason why you should not do this,» said the king. «But perhaps Prince Blade would care to speak. He was put in the greatest danger and a comrade of his lies desperately wounded.»

«The Kaireens certainly have every right to punish their own traitors,» said Blade. «What happened to the other stalkers?»

«Both are dead,» said Embor. «But so are four of my guards. Six more will bear scars to the end of their lives.»

«And Queen Sanaya?»

«She has fled into the forest,» said Neena. «It hardly seems worth the trouble to hunt her down. She has no skill or swiftness in the woods, and death will overtake her without our help.»

Blade frowned. «I am not so sure of that. Terror can give skill and speed to anyone. Even if she does die, she may live long enough to reach those who ought not to hear of what she has seen today.»

He looked at King Embor, the High Kaireen, and Neena. All three of them nodded.