Blade shot a third arrow into the men as they kicked themselves free of their blankets. Then he dropped the bow and drew both sword and knife.
"Get the animals," he called to Twana and ran forward. He knew without hearing or seeing her that she was running forward with him, knife in hand. Now it would be all close-quarters fighting, where Blade"s strength and speed would be deadly and the enemy"s bows and muskets useless.
A soldier came at Blade, trying to cut between him and the animals. The man wore only boots and breechclout but carried sword and shield. His sword whistled at Blade"s head. Blade savagely parried the cut with his knife. Sparks sprayed down, and the man was a little slow in drawing back his arm. Blade thrust his knife deep into the flesh of that arm, then swung his sword. The man"s throat gaped wide as though he"d suddenly opened a second, blood-gushing mouth.
One of the druns screamed, in pain this time. Twana was at work with her knife. Another man came at Blade, this one carrying shield and a single-handed axe. He used both of them skillfully, forcing Blade to give ground. Blade would have liked to close and kill the man, but he knew he couldn"t afford to let himself be held in any one place for long. That would give the others time to surround him and put their superior numbers to work.
Blade kept backing, until he realized be was in danger of being backed right out of the camp, leaving Twana alone. He charged, swinging around to the left of the axeman, faster than the other could turn, then closing in. He stabbed the man in the groin with his knife and hacked his weapons arm nearly free of the shoulder. The man reeled back, dropping his axe. Blade s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, looked for Twana"s slim figure darting about among the animals, saw her. He raised the axe, shouted "Get this!", and threw it. The axe would be a good weapon for killing the sniffers.
Now Twana had released one of the druns and prodded it into a panic-stricken flight. It charged through the camp, nearly knocking Blade flat. He leaped clear in time, got his feet tangled in someone"s discarded blankets, went down, rolled with expert skill, and came up still armed and ready.
His opponent"s weren"t quite so fortunate. The maddened drun knocked two of them flat and brought the rest to a standstill. Before they could recover, Blade charged.
He leaped over one of the fallen men and came down on the chest of the other in an explosive crackling of shattered ribs. He leaped down to the ground as the man went into a final blood-spraying convulsion. His sword cut the air in a flat arc and took a head off its shoulders. The corpse toppled almost at Blade"s feet. He stepped behind it, keeping two more men at a distance great enough to spoil their attack. Their swords lashed out. Blade parried one with his knife, immobilizing it. He lopped off the hand that held the other sword, then turned back to the first man.
As he did, Twana screamed in raw terror. Blade smashed the shield of the man facing him with a brutal downcut, laid open his chest with a second cut, and backed away as the man fell. Now he could clearly see Twana and why she"d screamed.
One of the sniffers was loose. Twana was backed against the wagon, shaking with fear as she stared wildly at the creature in front of her. Every time she moved so much as a finger, the deadly spine-studded tail waved toward her. Every time the poisoned tips stopped inches from her skin. At other times the sniffer opened its mouth and hissed angrily. The mouth was full of teeth, chisel-shaped like a beaver"s-long and sharp enough to do plenty of damage if they sank into human flesh. Twana"s axe lay on the ground at her feet, its head dark with blood.
Blade"s sword chopped into the base of the sniffer"s spine. The poisoned tail lashed wildly back toward him, so hard that some of the spines raked across his boots. They left dark, oozing lines across the leather but didn"t penetrate to the skin. Then the tail flopped limply to the ground as the sniffer lost control of it. Half mad with pain, it turned to face Blade, and Blade"s sword came down across the back of its neck. The sniffer dropped nose first to the ground and lay there, quivering all over. It made noises so much like the cries of a kitten that Blade was relieved when Twana picked up the axe and brought it down hard, ending the sniffer"s death agony.
Then she was dropping the axe and clinging desperately to his left arm. Gently he shook her loose and turned to face his remaining human enemies. After a long moment"s staring into the darkness around him, he realized there weren"t any in sight.
Instantly Blade"s mind conjured up a picture of the Shoba"s men backing away until they could fill him and Twana with arrows, with little danger to themselves. He grabbed Twana by the wrist and dragged her with him under the sniffer"s wagon. They lay flat, eyes searching the darkness for any sign of the enemy, ears listening for the whistle of descending arrows.
He heard and saw nothing. He whispered to Twana, "What about the other sniffer?"
"I killed it with the axe before the other one came at me." He could feel her shivering. The generations-old terror of the Shoba"s sniffers was still in her.
Blade waited, but gradually he began to suspect there was nothing to wait for. With both their sniffers dead, the rest of the Shoba"s men might have decided they had no chance anymore of carrying out their mission. The best course would be to clear out, try to run down their scattered druns, and then ride to rejoin their comrades.
Blade wondered, in spite of this. The Shoba"s men could still have made a good try at killing him while he was busy with the sniffer. As far as he knew, they hadn"t lifted a finger. They"d just vanished into the night. It wasn"t what he would have expected from soldiers who"d shown themselves so tough and determined.
Slowly Blade crawled out from under the wagon. When this drew no shouts or arrows, he called softly to Twana. She scrambled out with frantic haste, and together they searched the camp. Blade gathered up two more knives, a sword, and a spare bow. He packed his quiver full of arrows, but decided against picking up a musket. It would be far too heavy in proportion to its range and striking power, and useless when its powder ran out.
Meanwhile, Twana had been collecting pouches of dried meat and hard biscuit scattered among the blankets. They were a welcome find, one that promised better eating on the way north. But why had the soldiers abandoned them? And it made no sense for them to abandon the food . . . ?
Oh well. Blade decided to put the matter of the strange behavior of the Shoba"s soldiers out of his mind. He knew he was only guessing-always a waste of time when he knew so little for certain.
At last Blade led Twana out of the camp. He wanted to get well away from it and then under cover, in case one or two of the soldiers might have the courage to return. A night"s sleep, a quick climb up the hill to make sure the enemy was really gone, and they could start back toward h.o.r.es. Once there, he could leave Twana and get about his real business in this Dimension, which was now the Wall and whatever might lie beyond it.
They slept behind some squat trees, so close to the foot of the hills that the ground already sloped upward. Blade and Twana had to brace themselves against gnarled roots, and against each other, to keep from rolling down the slope into a pond.
At dawn they rose, filled their water bottles, and climbed the hill together. Blade was happy that Twana had found the courage to climb up with him. If she returned to her village with some of the terror of the Wall shaken out of her mind, it might be a good thing for her people.
They had to climb farther than usual to get above the morning mist. At last they climbed into clear air and looked to the north. Blade looked for a long time-then his angry words echoed around the rocky hillside, until Twana stared at him as if he"d gone mad. Then he started to laugh, and she stared even more. She was beginning to look frightened, when Blade threw out one arm and pointed to the north.
"Look again, Twana!"
She did so and saw what Blade had seen. Moving steadily south on their trail was another party of the Shoba"s soldiers. In this one there were at least thirty men, as many druns, and no less than five sniffers.
Blade stopped laughing. "I can see what they must have done. They must have been sending the men we fought on ahead by day. The others stayed well behind and probably moved only by night, when we couldn"t have seen them even if we"d been looking for them. That"s why the soldiers ran away last night. They knew they had some place to run to. Now they"re back on our trail again." He didn"t add that this seemed to be the second time he"d badly underestimated the Shoba"s men.
Aloud, he went on. "There are too many of them for us to fight, I"m afraid. We either stay down here and die, or climb up to the Wall and let the Watchers do their worst."
Twana shivered, but her voice was steady as she replied, "The Wall. I do not know for certain what the Watchers can do. I know the Shoba"s men."
They began their climb to the Wall.
Chapter 8.
They climbed in as nearly a straight line as they could manage. Blade wanted to get high above the plain and well out of bowshot before the second party of pursuers caught up with them.
This stretch of hillside was steeper than most and also b.o.o.by trapped with loose slabs of rock. In spite of the occasional falls and sc.r.a.ped skin, Blade was happy about the difficult slope. The Shoba"s heavily equipped soldiers would have a slow and painful time tackling the hillside. In the process, they would make fine targets of themselves for a man waiting above with a bow and a large supply of arrows.
This hill was also higher than usual-in fact, it almost deserved the name of mountain. The base of the Wall was nearly half a mile above the plain. Long before Blade and Twana reached it, the Shoba"s men had ridden up to the foot of the hill. After they"d proved to their own satisfaction that they were out of range, with a few useless musket shots and arrows, they settled down to wait. Blade felt a moment"s temptation to thumb his nose at the enemy. They would have a long wait for him and Twana to come down. The temptation vanished swiftly as he looked upward to the endless grim Wall that loomed steadily closer with each step they took.
At last there was no more upward slope in front of them. Far below the Shoba"s men looked like ants crawling about on the plain. Directly above them rose the Wall, so close that Blade could reach out and touch it. The blue-gray material was cold, as hard as metal, and faintly rough to the touch, like fine sandpaper. Here and there in the blue-grayness, Blade could see faint swirling patterns, but he could see no seams or cracks. The technology that had built the Wall was certainly far ahead of Home Dimension. More than ever, Blade was curious to see what lay beyond the Wall. What would the builders have considered so valuable that they would build this Wall along a hundred or more miles of hill crest to protect it? Or what danger was so great that the Wall was needed to guard against it?
All along the base of the Wall, shrubs and vines crept upward in thick, tangled clumps, as if the presence of the Wall made the soil at its base more fertile than elsewhere on the hills. Blade and Twana started north, while Blade looked for a vine or tree strong enough and tall enough to carry him to the top of the Wall. Twana kept an eye out for the Watchers. She was pale and moved with little jerky steps, as though she expected the Watchers to rise out of the ground in front of her at any moment. But she was also alert and kept up well.
In an hour they"d left the Shoba"s men out of sight in the haze and mist to the south. Twana was beginning to mutter, "Where are the Watchers?" Blade would have liked an answer to the same question. Here they are, marching steadily along the very base of the Wall, without the faintest sign that the Watchers even existed. If the legends were entirely true, they should have been dead by now.
Somebody else had risked the Watchers, a long time in the past. Blade saw a place where at least a ton of gunpowder must have been set off against the base of the Wall. The rock was split and shattered, and a blackened hole revealed several feet of the Wall"s foundations. The Wall itself showed a faint discoloration and some barely visible pitting, but otherwise the explosion had left it completely unaffected.
Another hour"s walking brought Blade and Twana to a stretch of Wall three hundred yards long and completely overgrown with ma.s.sive vines from ground level all the way to the top. A six-year-old child could have scrambled up those vines, let alone a trained athlete like Blade, who had climbed the face of the Eiger.
He went up carefully though. He weighted a good deal more than any six-year-old child. If the vines did break under him, he might be dropped forty or fifty feet onto hard rock.
A broken leg here and now could be a good deal more fatal than the Watchers.
Foot by foot, Blade clambered upward. In places his fingers pushed through the tangle of vines and touched the Wall itself. When he did that, he could feel a faint, irregular vibration within the blue-gray material. It was like putting his fingers on the head of an enormous drum being gently tapped by an invisible drummer. Once he was able to put his ear against the Wall and hear a distant humming that came and went in irregular pulses. The Wall was not as dead as it seemed, or perhaps even as solid.
The last few feet were particularly tricky. The vines were growing thinner, the twice strands broke as Blade gripped them. Both times he hung there with a death clutch on the broken strands, barely breathing, toes curling for a better foothold.
At last there was no more Wall to climb, only a flat surface like a blue-gray tabletop stretching out of sight. The golden shimmering in the air above the Wall was clearly visible now. It seemed to start three or four feet above the top and then curve upward and away toward the inner side of the Wall. It was soundless, odorless, unchanging, and totally unlike anything Blade had ever seen or imagined. It reminded him that, as he explored the Wall, he might be in the position of a caveman trying to examine and understand a jet bomber -or an atomic reactor.
Blade scrambled out onto the top of the Wall. On hands and knees he crawled forward. He held his sword in one hand, probing the featureless surface ahead of him as he moved.
He covered forty feet, and then suddenly he could no longer see. It was as if he"d stuck his head into a black sack. He drew back, startled, and vision instantly returned. He looked ahead, at both the Wall and the air above it. High above he caught hints of the golden shimmering. Directly in front of him, he could see nothing at all except the top of the Wall. He crawled forward-and again the world vanished around him.
He tried three more times, until his head was beginning to spin with the repeated coming and going of his vision. By that time he realized what had to be wrong. The Wall was generating some sort of field that completely deprived him of vision. That field started at a point only a yard or so in front of him and continued until . . .
That was a question he"d have to answer, sooner or later. Not now though. Not when he had Twana to get back home and the Shoba"s men were still close enough to take advantage of any mistakes he might make. He crawled back to the edge of the Wall and stood up slowly. As his head rose into the golden shimmering, he had a moment"s sensation of being jabbed with thousands of tiny blunt needles. Then the sensation faded. Whatever the shimmering meant, it did not appear to be dangerous.
Blade tied a loop in the end of the rope and threw the loop down to Twana. She caught it and drew it around her body. Then Blade began to back slowly away from the edge of the Wall, pulling Twana up as he did.
He was also keeping watch on either side of him, along the top of the Wall. It rose and fell in long, slow curves, like waves far out at sea. It was totally bare. In a few places it looked as though it had even been sc.r.a.ped or sandblasted clean.
That thought reminded Blade of the Watchers. He was beginning to wonder if they had ever existed, except in the legends of the village people. Here he was on top of the Wall, and he still seemed to be completely invisible to whomever or whatever might be on guard. He was also perfectly happy with this situation.
As Twana"s head appeared over the edge, Blade caught another flash of the sun on polished metal. This one was far to the south and came and went so quickly that he wasn"t completely sure he hadn"t imagined it. He reached down and helped Twana up onto the level surface. She lay gasping for a moment, then rose to her knees and reached for her water bottle. As she drank, Blade again scanned the top of the Wall in both directions, as far as he could see.
Whatever had made the flash was now invisible again. A Watcher? A large metal machine such as Twana had described could make the kind of flashes he"d seen when the sun caught it at the right angle. If the Watchers existed, that is-and if they existed, then where were they?
Blade and Twana moved swiftly north along the smooth top of the Wall. They went barefoot to reduce noise and leave no visible traces. They kept just far enough away from the edge of the Wall to be invisible from the ground without wandering into the blindness field. If the Watchers no longer mounted a reliable guard on the Wall, the Shoba"s men might also discover this. Then they might be willing to climb the hills, and the chase would be on again.
Blade decided that he and Twana would stay up on the Wall for two days, moving as far as they could in that time. That should leave the Shoba"s men far behind. With the enemy off their trail, they could return directly to h.o.r.es. Blade was no longer quite sure what he"d be doing after that. This Dimension was developing more than the usual quota of mysteries. The Wall seemed to be only a starting point.
They"d been walking for two hours when Blade saw metal flash again, three times in five minutes. The flashes were a good ten miles away, but this time they were to the north. He stopped and desperately strained his eyes to see what might be waiting for them but saw nothing-not even a hint of movement.
After a few minutes they moved on. Blade no longer felt quite so willing to believe that the Watchers were a myth. It occurred to him that they might be playing games with him, like a cat with a mouse, waiting for their chosen moment to strike.
They walked along the Wall all through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Every hour or so Blade went down on his belly and crept to the edge of the Wall to examine the plain below. The Shoba"s men were nowhere in sight.
Blade decided that, if their pursuers were still out of sight the next morning, he and Twana would climb down from the Wall and take to the ground again. It would be a gamble, but he was beginning to feel it would be less of a gamble than staying on the Wall. Blade had almost a wild animal"s instinct for detecting danger, and that instinct was now sending him a clear message. They told him that the Wall was protected by Watchers or by something that was waiting, invisible for the moment, but able to turn deadly dangerous in the blink of an eye.
Midafternoon now, and the sky was growing cloudy. There would be no more reflected sunlight to give warning of whatever might be lying in wait for them, at least not today. Before long the sky had turned gray, and a premature twilight began to spread across the land. Blade and Twana stopped, drank without eating, and went on. Fatigue and strain had bleached Twana"s face to the color of bone, and her feet were swollen and blistered. Yet she still seemed quite ready to follow Blade to the end of the Wall, or even farther.
Suddenly Blade heard a faint hooting, like the sound of a distant owl. It came from ahead, but a moment later it was echoed from behind them. Blade stopped and drew his sword. Twana pressed herself against him for a moment, then stepped back, drawing her own sword and standing to guard his back.
The hooting came again, from both in front and behind. It was either louder or closer or both. Then it came a third time. The cat had finished watching the mouse. Now it was stalking. In another moment it would leap. Blade was not sure exactly what the cat would be, but he suspected it would be something against which a sword would be as useless as a feather duster.
The hooting came again, still louder, with a distinct metallic note in it. No living throat could be making that sound. Blade sidestepped toward the edge of the Wall. With only a minute or two more, he could let down the rope to make an escape route for Twana. He himself would probably have to ....
Then the hooting was echoed from close at hand, so loudly that the Wall seemed to quiver from the sound. There was a rushing and roaring of violently disturbed air from beyond the blindness field. A blast of wind hit Blade and Twana, hard enough to force the girl to her knees. Something that seemed to be the size of a small house shot high into the air from inside the Wall. It hung in the air above Blade, long enough to give him a grisly moment"s antic.i.p.ation of being crushed flat under it. Then, with another hurricane blast of air and a ringing metallic crash, it came down on top of the Wall.
Twana"s mouth fell open, and she gave a gurgling scream of sheer terror. "A Watcher!" she cried. Her sword was shaking in her hand, but somehow she held her ground.
Blade"s mouth was open in surprise rather than fear, although he didn"t blame Twana. He stared at the Watcher, and from what he had to call its head, two yellowish eyes stared back at him.
The rest of the Watcher-well, start with a rectangular metal box the size of a small truck, set on end. Put the dome-shaped head on top of that, with the eyes, half a dozen antennae, and the twin gla.s.sy-blue muzzles of what looked very much like lasers or guns. On each side of the box, stick two arms-the upper one a pair of long, jointed rods ending in ma.s.sive steel claws, the lower one an eight-foot steel tentacle. Mount the whole thing on a circular base ten feet in diameter. Color it a dirty bronze-tinted blue all over, and add a few dents, patches, and scars.
That was a Watcher, as Richard Blade faced one for the first time on top of the Wall.
He could hear Twana"s breath coming in quick gasps, and he didn"t blame her. Even if one hadn"t gone in fear of the Watchers all one"s life, they weren"t a pleasant thing to meet. Particularly when there wasn"t much hope of either fighting or running.
Those weren"t the only choices, fortunately. This machine had to be the creation of an advanced civilization. If its masters were watching through its eyes and listening through its ears, perhaps there was a way to communicate with them. Certainly it was worth trying.
Carefully Blade laid down his sword. Then he straightened up, holding his empty hands well out from his sides, fingers spread wide. If the Watcher"s masters were humanoid, the gesture should have its almost universal meaning of "Peace." Then he whispered sharply to Twana, "Do the same as I"ve done."
"Blade, I-"
"Do it!"
He heard Twana suck in her breath with a hiss. Then at last her courage deserted her, and she turned and ran. Before she"d taken two steps, the Watcher let out another ear-splitting hoot, rose a foot off the ground with a whine and a blast of air, and started after her. All four arms were raised, and both eyes were blinking rapidly.
Blade threw himself to one side, just in time to save his life. A beam of dazzling white light flared from one of the blue muzzles in the Watcher"s head. It played across Blade"s sword, and when it pa.s.sed on, it left the metal blackened and warped.
As Blade sprang to his feet, the Watcher"s arms on the side toward him lashed out. The tentacle whipped around his knees, while the claw on the upper arm unfolded until it could span his waist. Blade was jerked off his feet and into the air, as the Watcher swept by in pursuit of Twana.
The girl screamed as she saw the Watcher gaining on her. Then she stumbled and went down, the sword flying out of her hand. Blade"s arms were free. He reached down to the jointed arm that held him by the waist, grabbed the elbow with both hands, and heaved with all his strength.
It should have been impossible, flesh matched against metal in this way, but Blade"s strength somehow made it possible. The arm gave with a screech of twisted and torn metal and went limp, pouring out smoke and sticky bluish fluid. Blade found himself dangling in midair, held only by the tentacle around his knees. He tried to swing himself toward the body of the Watcher. If he could get a firm grip there and then start on the joints with the knife from his belt- He never made it. The head turned toward him, and Blade had a moment of staring into the mouth of one of the blue tubes-a moment just long enough for him to know that he was about to die.
Then Twana screamed again, and the world dissolved around Blade in white fire and terrible pain.
Chapter 9.
Blade awoke in a comfortable bed. He was surprised not only at the bed, but at still being alive to wake up at all. Apparently the Watcher had merely knocked him unconscious, rather than frying him like a piece of bacon. It had left a few traces behind-his head ached, and his skin p.r.i.c.kled as if he"d been slightly sunburned all over. He started to sit up, felt a wave of nausea rising in him, and lay down again with his eyes closed until it pa.s.sed.
At last he sat up and looked around the room. It was impressively large-it would have held all five rooms of his London flat with plenty of s.p.a.ce left over. A ceiling of metal hexagons was at least thirty feet above his head. The bed under him was large enough for three or four people and almost too soft for comfort. Red and gray-checked blankets of some musty-smelling synthetic material were piled thickly on it. Blade threw off the blankets and climbed out of the bed.
The floor underfoot was soft and springy, except in a few places where bare stone showed through. The floor covering seemed to grow out of the stone, like pale blue gra.s.s, rather than lying on it like a rug.
Apart from the bed, there was nothing in the room but three chairs around a low table in one corner and a large double wardrobe standing in another corner. Blade somehow had the feeling that this austerity was the result of neglect rather than a deliberate decorating scheme.
Except for the wardrobe, the room and everything in it were well-worn, almost shabby. It was absolutely immaculate, as though it were dusted several times a day. But the metal of the ceiling was tarnished, the walls were stained and patched in several places, and the furniture was threadbare and faded. It reminded Blade of the kind of room he"d seen in old houses owned by families who could no longer really afford them, filled with slowly decaying family heirlooms. He wasn"t quite sure what he"d expected to find beyond the Wall, but this room certainly wasn"t it. If he were supposed to be a prisoner, it was about the oddest cell he"d ever seen!
Blade walked over to the wardrobe. It looked brand-new and was made of something like pale gray plastic with a pebbled finish. When he was three feet away, the front of the wardrobe quietly folded itself up. Inside he saw his clothing and gear, all of it cleaned and hung on hooks as neatly as a trained valet could have done. A quick examination told Blade that nothing was missing except his bow and arrows. Even the knife and the spare sword he"d tied to his pack were there.
He began to wonder if he were a prisoner at all, or some sort of guest. He decided the only way to find out was to search out his captors-or hosts. He also wanted to find Twana. If the Wall-people hadn"t killed him, they probably hadn"t killed her, but she might be half out of her wits with fear over actually being in the hands of the Watchers. He wanted to calm her, and when he"d calmed her, they could start planning what to do next-including escaping, if that turned out to be necessary.
On the opposite side of the room from the bed was a pointed archway fifteen feet high and ten feet wide. Blade could see a lighted corridor beyond it. He pulled on his clothes and hid the knife in one boot, but left his sword behind. The sword was more likely to offend the Wall-people than protect him from their weapons.
Blade was almost to the archway when there was a sudden metallic rattling and squealing, and another robot entered the room. This one was about the same shape as the Watcher, but lay on its side instead of standing erect. It had eight wheels instead of an air-cushion fan and no visible arms or weapons. Instead, it had large hatches at either end, and in the middle, what looked like a control panel, with k.n.o.bs, dials, and winking tights. The robot seemed to detect Blade the moment it entered the room. It rolled rapidly toward him, then stopped with a last squeal of wheels, so close that he could reach out and touch it. Like the Watcher, this robot showed tarnishing, pitting, and dents that suggested hard use and poor maintenance over many years.
As the robot stopped, the hatch at one end sprang open, and a platform rose up out of the robot"s interior. On the platform was a tray holding two metal bottles, several covered dishes, tableware, and a pile of napkins. Room service had arrived without even being called!
The logical thing to do with this free meal was to eat it. Blade did so. The bottles contained water and something tasting vaguely like stale beer. He didn"t drink much of it. The food was a vegetable soup, cutlets grained like meat but tasting more like tuna fish, more vegetables so heavily salted they all tasted the same, and a sort of custard pie. Blade had eaten better meals, but not usually in prison. He could eat this food for months if he had to.
He finished the meal and was putting the tray back on the platform when the robot suddenly spoke.
"Was it pleasing to the Master?"
The words came out in a dull, heavy, metallic tone. There was so much crackling and buzzing along with it that it was like listening to a radio during a thunderstorm.