The Jade Warrior

Chapter Seven

Blade awoke in darkness. He was naked except for breeches. His wrists and ankles were weighted with heavy chains and manacles. His head pained him and above his right eye was a great mass of spongy congealed blood. There was a dull ache in his left leg where Cossa's arrow had taken him.

He lay staring at a ceiling he could not see. He was in a tent, for he could hear the slither of wind and sense the rippling of the thick feltlike material. A black tent. A Mong tent.

Richard Blade was not a man for self-recrimination. So he had played the fool and walked, or cantered, into the trap. Now to get himself out of it - if that were possible. If not - but he would face that when it came. He was still alive.

He tested his chains and knew he was not going to break them. He lay quiet again and stared into the darkness and listened to the sounds of the camp around him. He began to adjust and react, all his senses attuned now, and he realized that he was deep in the Mong encampment. He heard song and the complaint of harsh voices: yells, screams, children in uproar as they played at some savage game. Horsemen went thundering past not far away.

He was lying on something soft - soft but scratchy. Blade put his face to it. Woven horsehair.

There was movement near him and for a moment moonlight shafted into the tent. Then darkness again. Someone had entered the tent. Someone who stood there in the dark and breathed softly and watched him.

Blade sat up, his chains jangling. "Who is it?"

There was a scratching in the gloom, and a light flared. A twist of wick burning in oil in a handled bowl. The shadow behind the flame was grotesquely small. The dwarf.

Blade managed to summon a wry grin. "Hello, little man. You see I did not heed your warning. Next time do not speak in riddles, I..."

A mistake. The dwarf moved close to him, one finger to his grinning mouth, a look of panic in the dark eyes. Blade hushed. He was a fool.

The dwarf put the lamp down and scuttled away into the shadows again. Blade heard the tent opening rustle. The dwarf came back and squatted a discreet distance from Blade. He spoke in a harsh whisper.

"No harm this time, Sir Blade, but guard your tongue. No more mention of that or I will share your fate and I would not like that. I come from Sadda, who trusts me as much as she trusts anyone, and I would keep it that way. I cannot help you, Sir Blade, even if I would. But you can help me, who did give you warning, by forgetting I ever gave it."

Blade nodded. "It is forgotten."

For a long minute the dwarf was silent as he studied Blade from head to toe. Blade returned the scrutiny.

Here was no warrior. The dwarf wore a little pointed cap with a bell on the peak. Around his neck was a small iron collar. Below that he wore a jerkin of leather, with yellow stripes, and tight-fitting leather breeches. On his tiny feet were shoes of some sort of skin, with the fur inward and the toes very long and curled up and held in place by stiffeners.

Blade got it then. A fool. The Khad's fool! But he had sounded like Sadda's man—

He badly needed a friend. Blade whispered, "Does the Khad know you're here? Or his sister, the one called Sadda?"

The dwarf, without apparent effort, turned a backward flip and landed in exactly the same position. From the darkness behind Blade a mocking voice spoke. "No to the first, yes to the last. And who are you, Sir Blade, to question me? I am sent to question you.

For a moment Blade was startled. He had forgotten the dwarf was a ventriloquist. And better at it than Blade had known. The grinning mouth had not twitched a muscle.

"To question me? Who sent you to do that? What is your name, little man?"

The grin was fixed. "They call me Morpho. That is enough for you. And it was Sadda who sent me to look at you, to question you, and to report back to her."

Blade stretched his huge body and the chains jingled. He smiled at the dwarf. There was much here he did not understand. He sensed that beyond all this mystery there might be a chance for his life.

"Then look," said Blade, "and question. And take back a report that will keep me alive. I will reward you for it one day."

Morpho put a finger to his mouth and shook his head. Behind Blade the voice spoke again. "Not all fools dress like fools."

Blade accepted the rebuke. He waited.

The dwarf walked on his hands around the tent, always careful to stay out of Blade's reach. Even upside down the grin was there. The silence got on Blade's nerves.

"Must you always grin, little man? Always? This is not a time for grinning."

Morpho dropped to his feet and came back to squat. "I must always grin, Sir Blade. I am a fool, from a family of fools. When I was a baby the doctors cut my mouth - look near and you can see the scars - so that I must wear a fool's grin from birth to death."

The dwarf leaned closer in the smoking lamplight. Blade saw the faint scars at the corners of the grinning lips. He kept silent. The man would get on with it when he was ready.

Morpho put a finger alongside his nose in thought, frowned, then began to whisper.

"I am honest with you, Sir Blade. What else with a man who is so near to torture and death? You are not a Cath and you are not a Mong. Just what you are I do not know. Our spies behind the wall could not find out, other than you pleasured the Empress Mei greatly. It is said that you are an envoy from Pukka, come with great powers. This may be. It is strange all the same that the Emperor Mei Saka has disappeared and the Empress, instead of putting on the yellow cloth of mourning, welcomes you. You would speak, Sir Blade?"

He might as well carry the lie through, for what it was worth. Blade was thinking fast now, and he had heard that the Khad was a greedy man. He was grateful for all he had learned in his three weeks behind the wall.

"The Emperor Mei Saka is dead, eaten by carrion apes and his bones forgotten. It is true that I come from Pukka, sent as special envoy by the High Emperor of all the Caths, to replace the Low Emperor, Mei Saka, and find out why you Mongs cannot be defeated. They are very impatient in Pukka and do not understand why this fighting must go on year after year."

Morpho grinned and watched Blade with alert dark eyes in which there was no belief. But he nodded and said, "As you say it, Sir Blade. I will tell" Sadda all these things."

The dwarf's eyes roamed up and down Blade's powerful frame. "I will also tell her what she most wants to know - that you will make a magnificent slave in more ways than one. It may be that she will save you from the Khad yet."

Blade was getting out of his depth again. "How can Sadda save me, little man? Our spies reported that she was a prisoner and was to be bound and turned over to me if I won. How can Sadda do anything for me? Or for herself? There must be much hate between the Khad and she."

"Hate?" Morpho's head nodded vigorously. "There is. There was. There will be. Yet they are still brother and sister and, until one of them is dead, they must rule the Mongs together. Each has his faction and the spies are thicker than flies on pony dung. They quarrel constantly and makeup constantly. Each always on guard against the other. And now that you have lost, after having won and thrown the victory away, the Khad has released Sadda from her tent and they are friends again and tonight that will be celebrated. You will be judged and disposed of, Sir Blade. That is why I am here on Sadda's errand - to see if you are worth saving as a slave.

"She is subtle, is Sadda, and knows that for just now she has the. advantage over the Khad. He would have handed her over to the Caths, I think, if things had gone otherwise today. So he would have been rid of her and no real blame to him. But things did not go otherwise, because you are something of a arrogant fool, Sir Blade, if a brave one, and now the Khad must put a good face on it. Sadda knows this. She knows that if she asks him for something soon, before his temper changes, that she is likely to get it."

Blade nodded. "And she will ask him for me? As a slave?"

Morpho turned one of his amazing flips and stared at Blade, his mouth grotesque in the wavering light of the lamp.

"If you are fortunate she will, Sir Blade. If not you will die at dawn on the plain before the wall. Plans are made. All the Caths to be summoned to watch. A parley in which the Khad will ask once again for the giant cannon. Which, of course, the Caths will not part with. Not even for you."

Blade had to agree. They would not part with the great cannon. Lali would be distressed, but Lali would have to let him die on the plain.

"The Khad," said Morpho, watching Blade's face closely, "has planned a special death for you. Would you know of it?"

Blade shrugged. "Why not? Words do not hurt me." He was suddenly aware that this was some sort of test and had nothing to do with Sadda or the dwarf's errand. Morpho was trying to find out something for himself.

"You will be tied to a stake and your guts cut out," said Morpho. "Then you will be strangled. You see what a genius the Khad is?"

No mistaking the hate and scorn in those last words. Blade knew that if he had not found a friend he had at least found an enemy of the Khad. It was not much, yet more than he had had a few minutes before.

A vast shiny black face poked itself into the tent. Blade stared in surprise. He had not known there was anyone on guard outside.

The black wore a tall peaked turban and a colored sash wound about his loins. He waved a heavy sword at the dwarf in a peculiar motion. Morpho signed back and the black disappeared. Blade blinked and watched the tent entrance. Had he really seen it? Or had a genie swirled like dark smoke in and out of the tent?

Morpho saw his expression and chuckled. "Eunuchs. Sadda's men. The Khad gave leave that they might guard you, instead of his own men, which is a reason to believe that you may live a time yet, Sir Blade. But that will be as the black sands write it. And my time is up."

He turned a double back flip back toward the entrance. "I will do my best for you, Sir Blade. I promise nothing. But I will extol your virtues as a slave. You understand me, Sir Blade?"

Blade nodded sourly. "If what I have heard of Sadda is true I understand you. You mean bed slave?"

The mouth moved in the bad light. "That is what I mean. Now I go, after one last warning. Do not show fear. Be bold, but not too bold. I would have you live, Sir Blade."

The dwarf was gone.

Soon afterward they came for him. The blacks first, three of them with flaring torches, and he saw why Morpho had not feared their eavesdropping. They made throaty animal sounds. Their tongues had been torn out and he guessed they had also been deafened by the way they stared and motioned with the thick-bladed swords.

The larger of the blacks hauled Blade to his feet and examined his chains. They threw a twist of cloth at him and signed that he wrap it around him. His chains were enormously heavy and cumbersome, and Blade had barely completed the task when the tent entrance parted and a warrior came in. He approached Blade and gave him a fierce stare.

"I am Rahstum," he announced proudly. "Chief Captain of all the Mongs and high servant to Khad Tambur, Scourge of the World and Shaker of the Universe. You are wanted in audience, stranger, by the Khad and his sister, the Most Magnificent Sadda. Are you ready, stranger?"

Blade did not doubt that he was of high rank. His leather armor was new and burnished to a high luster and there was a silver chain about his neck. From each of his shoulders dangled a horsetail. His high peaked cap was worked with silver. He was taller than any Mong Blade had seen before, and his eyes were a piercing light gray instead of the usual dark brown and did not have the Mong slant about them. They stared at Blade now, above a thick sprouting beard, with a mingle of curiosity and contempt.

It was time, Blade thought, to assert himself a bit. It could do no harm. He glared back at the splendid Captain.

"You will not call me stranger," he said coldly. "I am Sir Blade, come from Pukka, great city of all the Caths, and there will be a great ransom paid for me."

Blade plunged on. "You will treat me with respect, Captain..." He let more ice creep into his voice - "with the respect due my rank, or you will be sorry for it."

The gray eyes widened and for a moment there was doubt in them. Then white teeth flashed through the beard in a derisive smile. The man made a mocking little bow.

"I am sorry, Sir Blade. But I am also curious. I have roamed the world much and I have never before heard a title such as this Sir. You would enlighten me, perhaps?" His tone was that of an intelligent and educated man, and Blade did not think he was a Mong.

With great dignity, considering that he was in chains and loin cloth, Blade explained: "Sir is a high rank in a great secret society in the south of Cath. Few have heard of it, but I am next to the High Emperor in rank. I am not a Cath, as you can see, and it is part of the society's mystery that I cannot tell any man who and what I am - except that I come from a far-off place beyond the edge of the world. Where the waters of life fall away in a great stream to the place of death. Thence I come. Thence I will return when the black sands have written it."

His voice was deep and bell toned. Blade was rather proud of himself. It was a nice bit of mumbo-jumbo.

It had no effect on the Captain, but the file of Mong soldiers behind him muttered and looked uneasy. The man called Rahstum laughed curtly and said, "Tell that to the Khad, Sir Blade. He may believe you."

He gestured to his men. "Bring him along, you stupid animals. And do not talk to him, nor let him talk to you.

He might cast a spell on you." He spun on his heel and stalked from the tent.

As he was conducted through the tent village, Blade kept his eyes and ears open. He was flanked on either side by the Mong guards and there was no hope of escape, though the great wall lay less than a mile away to the south. It was as tight a spot as he had ever been in, in any dimension, and what he saw was not encouraging.

They crossed an open space where a long gallows stood. A dozen naked Mongs dangled from it, some by the heels, some by the neck;. All were dead. Nearby another Mong had been impaled on a sharpened pole.

Rahstum glanced back at Blade with a cold smile. "The Khad's justice. Thieves, deserters, murderers, and some who spoke against the Khad. How great a ransom will your friends pay for you, Sir Blade?" And the man Rahstum laughed.

The laugh, and the gallows, sent a grating chill along Blade's spine. For the first time he felt real fear. He knew the symptoms and took immediate steps to banish them. Fear was a progressive and corrosive weakness and could not be tolerated. Blade took a deep breath and began the fierce concentration of which he was capable. Survival. Think only of survival.

They plunged into another maze of tents from which came cooking smells and the sounds of women and children. They were skirting the edge of the village now, and on the bleak plain Blade saw thousands of horses and ponies grazing, or sleeping, or moving restlessly about. Horsemen were patrolling the herd on all sides.

They passed a long row of wagons, high sided and with felt-covered tops, with huge wooden wheels. Several of the wagons were off to one side and were guarded by mounted warriors. These wagons had slatted sides and were dimly lit and a sound of voices came from them - groans, curses, screams, a snatch of song.

Rahstum had drawn his sword and now he pointed with it to the wagons. "Slave wagons, Sir Blade. You may come to know the inside of them - if you are fortunate."

The huge black tent of Khad Tambur was set well away from the village itself. It blazed with light, and as they approached Blade heard a weird and plangent music that raised gooseflesh on him. Strident deep horn tones mixed with plucked strings and a high jangle of bells and muted, irregular tympany.

They halted at the tent entrance. Two Mongs stood guard, flanking a fascia of lances thrust into the earth. Horsetails fluttered from the lances. On the tallest lance was a skull. It grinned at Blade.

The Captain sent one of his Mongs into the tent. As the tent flap parted Blade caught a glimpse of a girl dancing in a cleared space before a dais. But for a loin cloth she was naked, sweating and whirling and undulating in pale yellow light while the wild music swirled behind her. Her belly was like a thing apart from her, with a life of its own, shimmering and shaking, the sleek muscles writhing like a basketful of snakes. The tent flap closed.

One of the guards spoke to Rahstum. "Minga dances well tonight."

Another guard laughed. "That is not all she does well."

"I know, I know. I'm saving my pay. One of these days I will be able to afford her."

There was general laughter among the other guards. "Fool! Afford Minga on your pay? You will be an old man first, and then what good will it do you? Or Minga!"

There was a roar of harsh laughter. Rahstum broke it up with a gruff command. The tent opened again and a man beckoned.

The Captain took Blade's arm and thrust him roughly forward through the tent entrance. They took six paces forward, Blade's chains clanking and galling his wrists and ankles. Rahstum loosed his arm and fell back. Blade gazed about him, his face impassive, his spine straight and his massive shoulders squared back. They all stared. Blade gave back look for look.

The music ceased, trembling away in a dying fall. For the space of several breaths there was a silence in the great tent, a silence filled by garish yellow light and an oppressive heat of close-packed bodies. Every flat Mong face swiveled toward Blade, judging him, hating him.

Blade, in that sibilance of breathing, impaled by those hostile eyes, had never felt so alone.

From his throne Khad Tambur spoke: "Bring him forward. I would know what manner of man can kill a champion of mine."

Rahstum the Captain gave Blade a little push. His voice was not unkind as he muttered: "Go to the throne and fall on your knees. Keep silent and keep your head down."

Blade was silent but he did not keep his head down. He walked as proudly as though he wore silks and a crown instead of chains. As he approached the throne he saw Morpho, the dwarf, seated on a pillow to one side. Their eyes met. The dwarf's glance was dark and blank, speaking only idle curiosity.

Blade halted three paces from the throne and gazed at Khad Tambur. The Khad, thin and narrow shouldered, was bent forward at an absurd and painful angle. Arthritis of the spine, thought Blade. He stared back at the single dark eye that fixed him so malevolently. Only the right eye functioned. The left was covered by a drooping lid.

The Khad twisted on his throne and there was mingled rage and amazement in his tone. "You dare to stand before me?"

Blade now was playing it by intuition. "I stand," he said calmly. "Sir Blade bows to no man."

A whimpering sigh blew through the big tent like a minor chord. Someone laughed nervously. Then silence again.

The Khad's single eye blinked and he twisted his racked back once more to look at the woman at his side. She also sat on a throne, but lower on the dais.

"Well, sister? You thought to have this one as a slave? What of it now? This is no slave."

Two brown eyes studied Blade over a veil. He met the glance squarely and did not look away. So this was Sadda, sister of Khad Tambur. Sadda of the sinister reputation. Sadda for whom Lali, whose hatred was as pure as black crystal, had prepared a cage.

The woman did not speak. The Khad nodded and motioned to the guards nearby. "Very well, sister. I think we must teach this Sir Blade some manners." To the guards he said: "Beat him to his knees."

The guards leaped in with reversed lances to club Blade down. He tensed for the blows.

The woman held up a hand. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails painted a blood red.

"Hold," she commanded. "An ox is beaten, or a slave, and that is good for them. But this man is not an ox, and not yet a slave - though he may be. I say hold. Do not touch him."

The Khad was scowling. The woman leaned to whisper to him. The Khad shook his head, still scowling. She tapped his arm and whispered on, intent and serious, her mouth moving rapidly beneath the veil. Blade stood calmly, watching the woman from the corner of his eye, giving no hint of his inner turmoil. The heavy chains jangled as he crossed his superbly muscled arms across his chest.

He could tell little about her face beneath the veil. Her hair was dark and lustrous, well oiled and piled in a heavy coronet atop a well-shaped head. She wore a little jacket that left her breasts bare, as was the custom with some Mong women. Her breasts were small, taut and compact and firm, with large reddish-pink aureoles surrounding small nipples. Her waist was tiny, flaring into well-developed hips and legs that appeared slim beneath filmy pantaloons. Her feet were bare, the nails painted the same bloody red as her fingernails, and she wore a golden bangle on each ankle.

The Khad was still shaking his head. Sadda argued on. The tension expanded like gas in a balloon. Blade risked a glance at Morpho. The dwarf did not meet his eye. He was idly juggling four small balls, his carven grin fixed on his task.

The Khad twisted away from his sister. "So be it," he said in loud disgust. "He is yours until the ransom comes - if there be a ransom."

He fixed his good eye on Blade. "You heard the word, you who call yourself Sir Blade? Your friends in Cath, in Pukka, will go ransom for you?"

Blade began to hope. He nodded gravely. "They will pay ransom, Khad Tambur. But you must send a messenger to Pukka for it - they of Serendip, behind the wall here, will not have enough of treasure." It would take a horseman a long time to get to Pukka and back, even under safe conduct. He wondered if Lali had already been approached.

Khad Tambur answered that in the next breath. "I know all of that. After you were taken I parleyed with the Empress Mei. To no avail. She would not surrender the gun for you. And if I cannot have the cannon I will have half the wealth of Cath!"

He sounded like a small boy cheated of his favorite toy and demanding the world to placate him.

There was bustle and murmur in the tent now and the Khad held up a hand for silence. "Hear this, all of you. I, Khad Tambur, give this man Sir Blade to my sister as her slave. To do with as she desires - so long as he is kept alive for ransom." He moved painfully on the throne to glare at Sadda. "See that you do keep him alive, sister! I care not how, nor what else you do to him, but he must be breathing when the ransom comes. I will not be cheated of everything!"

He made a washing gesture with his hands and raised a finger to Morpho the dwarf. The little man plucked a large round melon from a box filled with melting snow, cut it in half, and hastened to the throne. The Khad munched on his melon and glared at Blade. Through a mouthful of melon, without turning, he snapped at Sadda.

"Well - get on with it then! You have your wish. See if he is slave or not - or if you can make him one. Only be sure he does not bleed to death!"

Blade understood then that while he might be out of the frying pan he was still very much in the fire.

The brown eyes were watching Blade over the veil again. The scrutiny was long and deliberate and missed not an inch of his lean, brawny, hard-muscled frame. Somewhere back in those brown eyes a cold spark glowed.

When she spoke to him her voice was husky and soft. She crooked a finger. "Come stand before me, slave. You are no longer Sir Blade. You are slave. Later, if you please me, I will think of a new name for you."

Blade moved toward her. Their glances met and locked and she was the first to look away. She pointed a finger at the thick rug before her throne.

"You who would not kneel to the Khad must kneel to me. You were not slave then. You are now. Kneel!"

Blade was tempted. His nerves were raw, screaming, and for the first time he admitted that now, just now, would be an excellent time for Lord L to pluck him back to H-Dimension. If that was cowardly, then he was a coward.

Yet he dared not be cowardly! These Mongs worshiped and understood only courage. Instinct warned him that at the first sign of weakness on his part he was lost. They would forget the ransom and tear him to bits. Cruelty was a way of life with these Mongs.

Blade said: "If I will not kneel to a man is it likely that I will kneel to a woman?" He smiled at her. It was his very best smile and it took every ounce of guts he had. The Khad was dangerous. Sadda carried murder in those brown eyes.

Khad Tambur, laughing, choked on the melon he was eating. To his sister he said: "You do not make a good beginning, sister. This is going to be amusing after all - making a slave of this one."

Blade saw her lips move beneath the veil. She too was smiling. She pointed to the rug again. "Kneel. I give you one last chance."

Blade shook his head. "I will not kneel." He hoped she could not hear the thudding of his heart. He had chosen his way and now he must stick to it.

Sadda made a sign and a minute later an enormous black entered the tent from a side entrance. He carried a wooden block, rather tall and narrow and with a peculiar notch scalloped into one side. He was followed by another black who carried what looked to Blade to be a long butcher knife.

Sadda gestured to the blacks. "Arrange it."

They set the block on end near Blade. He saw, with sickness growing in him, that the notch was so contrived that a man stepping into it would have his genitals just level with the top of the block.

Sadda watched him over the veil. "You will not kneel?"

"I will not."

She turned to one of the blacks. "Show him what he will be if he does not kneel."

The black unwound a cloth from around his waist and groin and in a moment stood naked before Blade. It was the first time he had seen an eunuch and he did not like the sight.

The Khad said: "Be only sure that he does not bleed to death. I warn you, sister!"

"He will not bleed to death." She pointed to a fire pan that a third slave had brought in and placed on a tripod. A cauterizing iron glowed white hot in the pan.

Sadda pointed to the eunuch who displayed himself, then at Blade. "You would be like that one?"

He was sweating heavily now. It ran into his eyes and he blinked against the salty sting. He was frightened, as. badly frightened as he had ever been in a lifetime of adventure and danger. He could face death well enough - but this!

And yet he must gamble. He had come too far to turn back. Turn coward now and he lost everything. He knew that. He felt it. He must gamble.

He stared back at Sadda. "I would not be like that one. I admit it. But I will not kneel."

Sadda snapped her fingers. Guards rushed forward and seized Blade and pushed him to the block. One of the blacks, his muddy eyes gleaming, tore away Blade's loin cloth and seized his genitals and stretched them on the block. Another black moved forward with the long knife and raised it, poised, over the block.

Blade stared straight ahead. At all costs he must not weaken. The next few seconds would decide whether he had won or lost his gamble.

The silence in the tent was like a living thing. The knife gleamed cruel and keen in the tawny light.

Sadda spoke so softly that it was almost a whisper. "You will not kneel to me?"

Somehow Blade managed to get the words out. Firm, controlled, without a quaver in his voice. "I will not."

The moment stretched into eternity. Sadda made a sign with her upraised hand.