Then suddenly Blade felt the ground dropping away under him. He barely had time to take a deep breath before he and the Wolf plunged into the sc.u.m-coated water of the ditch along the wall.
Blade had his lungs filled and his mouth closed as he went under. The Wolf didn"t. He sucked in a great lungful of filthy water and exploded to the surface, coughing and choking horribly, clawing at his throat. Blade rose up beside him and slammed the heel of one hand up under the man"s jaw. The Wolf sprawled backward against the bank with his head and shoulders out of the water. Before he could clear his lungs, Blade gripped his throat with both hands and squeezed hard. The Wolf"s windpipe collapsed and his eyes rolled wildly. He wriggled and twisted like a worm on a hook for a moment, then finally lay still.
Blade scrambled up on to the bank and looked around. The heuda was snorting, honking, pawing the ground, and weaving its head from side to side. Blade picked up one of the Wolves" helmets and walked toward the animal, making soothing noises. The thunder overhead was growing louder and more frequent, but in the intervals between the crashes and rumbles Blade could hear horns and drums sounding inside Dodini. The alarm was up.
The woman was standing beside the heuda. Her garment showed several new stains and rips. Her face showed fear, relief, surprise, and disbelief all at once. She was shaking slightly, but the long-fingered hands she held out in front of her were steady. Good. If she hadn"t panicked yet, she probably wouldn"t.
Blade reached the heuda, stroked its neck, and patted its muzzle, until the animal stood quietly. Then he tied the ax to the saddle and swung himself up into it. He reached a hand down toward the woman.
"Come with me," he said. "We must leave Dodini, or the Wolves will be upon us." He hoped she"d trust him enough to come with him. The three Wolves were all dead, so he"d have no prisoner to tell him about "the Wizard." The woman might not know as much as the Wolves, but she"d know more than he did at the moment.
The woman stared at Blade, eyes wide and nose wrinkling up. He didn"t blame her for either. He must be an appalling sight, a giant of a man in a dented helmet and clothes that looked like a rag-picker"s, armed to the teeth, coated with blood and the foul-smelling muck of the ditch.
The woman stared for a moment longer, then gripped Blade"s hand and let him swing her up into the saddle behind him. Blade dug his heels into the heuda"s side and pulled its head around. It reared, then leaped forward and galloped away down the road. The gate and the sprawled bodies disappeared around the curve of the wall of Dodini. From high above a crossbow sent a bolt whistling past them. Then the thunder exploded overhead with a sound like the heavens falling and the world was blotted out by a gray curtain of rain.
Chapter 7.
Blade didn"t know how far a heuda could carry two people at a full gallop. He did know he was probably going to find out before this day was over.
At least they had the storm and that was a blessing. As long as it lasted, they would be nearly invisible and their trail would be wiped out almost as fast as they left it. Besides, the Wolves might be good fighters, but Blade wondered if they"d be good at tracking across country. They might have little need for the skill and less chance to practice, if all their victims waited quietly for them like turkeys in a pen.
For a few minutes the rain was coming down so hard that Blade had to slow the heuda to a walk. It was impossible to see the road more than ten feet ahead and he didn"t want to ride straight into a ditch or a storm-swollen stream. Even at a walk it took all Blade"s attention to keep the heuda on the road.
Once or twice he had a chance to look more closely at the woman behind him. She rode in silence, her arms locked about his waist, her long graceful legs gripping the heuda tightly. Her sodden hair hung down in strings over shoulders and face and her shift was molded to her body. She was slim, but by no means unattractive. Her face was now a blank mask, the mask of someone shutting out the world while she tried to understand what was happening to her.
After twenty minutes the rain slackened off enough so that Blade could safely urge the heuda to a gallop. They pounded down the stone-paved road leading out of Dodini, splashing through puddles in a cloud of spray. Fields and pastures and an occasional hut showed on either side of the road. There was no one to see them pa.s.s, not with the Wolves out and the storm overhead.
They thundered across a wooden bridge over a small river turned swollen and ugly by the storm. A mile beyond the bridge the paved road ended. Now Blade began to wonder if the storm was such a complete blessing, The dirt road ahead was rapidly turning into mud and in places into a pond. He kept the heuda moving as fast as it could go, and the mud splashed up to coat both mount and riders until they looked like statues.
Gradually the land rose under them. The road began to swing back and forth as it climbed a long hillside, the earth underfoot turned from black to sandy brown, and the going became easier. At the same time the rain slackened still more. In spite of his superb senses of direction, Blade now had only a very vague idea of which way they"d come from Dodini. He hoped the Wolves had even less idea of which way their prey had gone.
On the crest of the hill Blade turned the heuda off the road and reined in under cover of the trees. Then he dismounted and examined the animal. It was breathing heavily, but looked good for quite a few more miles. The gear he"d captured with the heuda, on the other hand, was disappointing.
There was a spare dagger and a sharpening stone. There was a rusty awl and some leather thongs for repairing harness. There was enough food for a light meal-dried fruit, strong-smelling cheese, salt meat the color and toughness of wood. A leather bottle on the saddle held about a quart of sour wine. The only real surprise was a package, wrapped in dark red silk, that Blade found lurking in the very bottom of the sack. Unwrapped, it turned out to be a necklace of heavy metal bars linked by enameled silver hooks. Judging from the weight of the necklace, the metal bars were solid gold.
Over the next few days, that necklace might be quite useful, but not right now. They needed more food and also some dry clothing for the woman, who had nothing but her sodden shift between her and the weather. Blade could feel her shivering.
They"d have to raid a farm or a village for what they needed. That would mean revealing themselves to people who could remember them and tell tales to pursuing Wolves. It was a risk, but one they"d have to take. It was also one that could be greatly reduced with a little careful planning. Blade climbed into the saddle again and started the heuda off at a walk. Then he turned back to look at the woman. Her eyes met his and she managed a faint smile.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Lorya," she replied.
"Lorya, we need to get some food and clothing. So when we see another village, we will leave the road and ride around it through the fields and forests. That way no one will see us. Then I will leave you in the forest on the far side of the village and ride back to get the food and clothing from the people."
Fear showed in Lorya"s eyes at the idea of being left alone in unknown country so far from Dodini. Blade gently patted her shoulder. She stiffened, then slowly relaxed and again smiled faintly.
"Do not worry. I will not abandon you. I will return as quickly as I can, and I will leave you the other knife and the food in case something happens to me. I do not think it will, though. How often do the people in the villages try to fight his Wolves, even one of them riding alone?"
Lorya"s smile vanished and she said in a level voice, "They do not do it. Not if they are wise." Her tone suggested that she took no pleasure in the Wizard"s rule, but had no idea it could ever be challenged or resisted. For the twentieth time, Blade wondered what the Wizard had beside the Wolves to make people regard him as invincible.
Blade turned his attention back to the road. Showers of rain came and went, but the sky remained thickly overcast. Where trees shaded the road, they left it in a murky twilight. Blade rode out of one of those stretches of twilight to find himself on the rim of a wooded valley. At the bottom of the valley a village sprawled among a tangle of fields and orchards.
Blade swung wide of the village, picking his way down the side of the valley to the stream that flowed along the bottom. He crossed the stream a mile below the village, the foaming brown water rising as high as his stirrups. Then he rode up the other side of the valley, keeping under cover of the trees as much as possible.
At last he reached a good hiding place on the trail that led down the hill toward the village. He reined in, and without a word Lorya slipped out of the saddle. He handed her the food, the dagger, and the ax. After a moment"s thought he also gave her the necklace. He"d considered taking at least a couple of the bars down to the village and leaving them, but that would not be wise. The dead Wolf"s comrades might recognize the gold, and besides, the Wolves never seemed to pay for anything. If he wanted to be taken for a Wolf, he would have to be as greedy and brutal as one, as uncomfortable as the idea was.
Lorya gaped at the necklace and tried to hand it back. Blade shook his head. "Keep it. I won"t need it in the village. If I don"t come back, you will. You can sell the bars one at a time. I imagine you can find buyers?"
"Yes."
Blade wasn"t surprised. The people of Rentoro might be peaceful under the rule of the Wizard and his Wolves, but they were men, not angels. There would be thieves and there would be receivers for what the thieves stole. There was enough gold in that necklace to take Lorya a long way.
She reached up, squeezed Blade"s hand in farewell, and disappeared into the trees. Blade tied the red silk over his face, hiding everything but his eyes. Then he urged the heuda down the trail toward the village at a brisk trot.
His plan was simple. The Wolves might have no idea of who or what they were looking for, since the only three who"d got a good look at him were dead. If by some chance they did know, they would be looking for a man with an ax and a woman, riding double on a war heuda.
Either way, they would not get much help from the people of the village. The villagers would see only a single man, face masked, without an ax, riding a heuda so splashed with mud that no markings would be visible. They could describe this man until they were blue in the face, without making the hunt for Blade and Lorya much easier.
It was not a perfect plan, but it was by far the best Blade could manage with what he had. It would have to do.
The trail grew steadily wider, although it still sloped sharply downward. Blade urged the heuda up to a canter. Not for the first time, he was glad to be riding a heuda instead of a horse. A heuda could trot or canter on slopes where a horse would have to walk or risk breaking a leg.
As Blade rode out of the trees, the ground leveled out. Five hundred yards straight ahead lay the village. Blade urged the heuda up to a gallop and he was in the main street of the village, shouting war cries from half a dozen different Dimensions, before anyone there could react. He jerked the heuda to a stop so violently that it reared up on its hind legs in a spatter of mud.
"Ho!" he shouted. The silk mask over his face distorted his voice, but the sheer volume made everyone whirl to stare at him. He drew his sword and pointed it at the nearest grown man.
"You! I pa.s.s on the business of the Wizard!" The man started and swallowed hard at the mention of the forbidden name. "I need food, wine, and dry clothing. Bring it, and make haste or face the Wizard"s wrath!"
The dozen people in the street scattered. They could not have run much faster if Blade had opened up on them with a machine gun., They were back within minutes, carrying armfuls of bread, cheese, and dried meat, skins of wine and beer, and enough clothing for a dozen men. Blade ordered them to put what they"d brought into sacks and tie the sacks to his saddle. He sat on his heuda as they worked, arms crossed on his chest, playing as well as he could the role of a master being waited on by his servants. His eyes never stopped scanning the street, though, and his hand never went far from the hilt of his sword. One Wolf, riding alone, might be too much of a temptation for some brave fool. That would be a disaster for everybody, starting with Blade himself.
Eventually sacks hung from Blade"s saddle like ripe grapes. He brandished his sword in the air and the people scattered from around the heuda. Blade turned his mount and cantered back up the street, wishing he had eyes in the back of his head and half-expecting every moment to hear the whistle of an arrow. d.a.m.n it, there must be something these people would not endure from the Wizard or his Wolves!
He was clear of the village within minutes. He let the heuda climb the trail at a walk, for it was panting and sweat was making trails in the mud on its flanks. Finally he reached the place where he"d left Lorya. As silently as a forest spirit she came out of the trees and climbed up behind him, holding the ax across her lap.
They rode on for the rest of the afternoon and finally stopped deep in a stretch of virgin forest as it began to grow dark. Blade guessed they must have come a good twenty miles from Dodini and were about as safe as they could hope to be. Until the Wolves in Dodini knew which way the fugitives had gone, they"d be facing the job of searching an area the size of an English county. A hundred men couldn"t do it. A thousand might, but it would take time to gather a thousand Wolves. In that time Blade and Lorya would be traveling on as fast as they could. Meanwhile, the Wolves gathering to search for them could not collect taxes and slaves or rape women elsewhere in Rentoro. By simply staying alive and on the move, Blade and Lorya would be interfering with the Wizard"s ability to rule the land of Rentoro.
Unless the Wizard decided to ignore them completely? That didn"t seem likely. The Wizard"s power depended on the Wolves, and the Wolves" power depended on their ability to crush any rebellion the moment it reared its head. If those who"d slain three Wolves were allowed to go unpunished, who knew what might happen? One unpunished rebellion could inspire a dozen others-and there could be only so many of the Wolves.
No, he and Lorya would have the Wizard and the Wolves on their trail for a long time-perhaps as long as he was in this Dimension. Learning more about the Wizard was no longer just a matter of discovering his secrets-it was a matter of life and death.
With dry pith from the heart of a dead tree and flint and steel from the village, Blade was able to start a small fire. He dried kindling, then step by step built up the fire until it was blazing merrily. He pulled off his own clothes and hung them over branches stuck in the ground by the fire. Lorya took some of the clothes from the village and modestly retired behind a tree to pull them on. Then she hung her sodden shift over the branch and huddled as close to the fire as she dared while Blade prepared dinner.
They ate smoked meat, cheese, loaves of flat dark bread, and washed it all down with wine. The wine was raw, but it warmed them from inside as the fire warmed them from outside. When they"d eaten all they could, Blade wrapped a blanket around Lorya and put an arm across her shoulders in a brotherly fashion.
"Now, Lorya," he said. "I have traveled to Rentoro from a distant land. I have been here for more than a week, and I still do not understand much of what I have seen. Indeed, I have seen nothing like the Wolves in any of the lands I have visited. Tell me about the Wolves and about the Wizard who is their master."
Lorya shivered at hearing the name of the Wizard from Blade"s lips. He tightened his arm around her and gently drew her head down on to his shoulder. "No, Lorya. I will not believe that the Wizard can punish us for saying his name."
"You must believe it," she said. "You must. He can. I know it."
"You will have to tell me more," said Blade. "How can the Wizard do this?"
"It is easy, when you are-" she hesitated.
"The Wizard," said Blade firmly. "Get used to calling him by his proper name, and perhaps he will not seem so terrible."
"That cannot be," said Lorya. "He always has been terrible and always will be. By magic he sees all that happens in Rentoro, and by magic he sends the Wolves to punish his enemies. It has been so since my great-grandfather"s time, and it will always be so."
"Now it is my turn to say "That cannot be,"" said Blade with a smile. "The Wizard of Rentoro sounds even stranger than his Wolves. Tell me about him." His voice was low, but he used the brisk, firm tone of a man who would not argue any further.
So Lorya told him about the Wizard of Rentoro.
Chapter 8.
The Wizard came to Rentoro a century ago, she told him. No one knew where he came from, then or now. For all that anyone could tell, he might have fallen from the sky, and indeed there were some in Rentoro who believed that he had done so. Certainly it was hard to believe that any man born of woman on this earth could do all the things the Wizard of Rentoro had done in his hundred years of rule.
The first thing he did was call all the men and women of the nearest town to come forth to him. Some came of their own free will, because they were curious. Others at first refused to come, out of fear of a man they believed to be an evil sorcerer. Those who refused to come heard a voice in their minds-a voice that spoke without any words, but one which commanded them to come forth and meet the Wizard. At last even the bravest and strongest could no longer resist the commands in their minds.
So a whole town came forth and the Wizard put them to work. They built him a castle like none ever seen before in Rentoro, with four round towers as tall as great trees and walls so thick men could ride on heudas along their tops. They built houses all around the castle, and then another wall outside the houses. They built still more walls, running in all directions and meeting each other at odd angles. This caused some to say that the Wizard was mad. Finally they built another wall outside everything else, with huge gates in it.
Most of the children of the town died of hunger while their parents worked to build the Wizard"s castle. Many of the men also died. Some died from too much work. Others were simply found dead in their tents in the morning. It was said that men who talked of escaping were particularly likely to be found dead in this way. Some of the women also died, and many were called to serve the l.u.s.t of the Wizard or of those men he had found to serve him.
Not everyone hated the Wizard or saw him as an enemy. There were those who saw him as a powerful friend, whose magical powers might do much for those who served him freely. Most of these were men without masters, trades, or homes, rough strong men with little but their swords, the clothes they wore, and the heudas they rode. Many of these came to offer their services to the Wizard. He accepted them and made them into his Wolves.
He taught them to use weapons never seen before in Rentoro, such as the crossbows that could shoot bolts through oak doors. He taught them to make and wear the armor of steel plates and steel rings that few weapons in Rentoro could pierce, He divided them into bands of seven, each with a leader who wore armor all over and six who followed him, all seven mounted on fine, strong heudas.
The Wolves served the Wizard faithfully. He spoke to the leaders in the voice that had no words, giving them their orders. They in turn pa.s.sed on the orders to those who followed them. The bands of Wolves swept all before them.
It took a generation and a few years more, but at the end of that time the Wizard ruled in Rentoro. Many fought against his rule and most of them died. They outnumbered the Wolves, to be sure, and after the first ten years they had weapons as good as the Wolves". In a fair fight, the men of Rentoro might have beaten the Wolves.
But there had never been a fair fight, and there never would be, not against the Wizard"s Wolves. The Wizard"s magic fought on their side, and so no man could beat them.
"How does the Wizard"s magic fight for them?" was Blade"s question at this point.
Lorya could only tell Blade what she"d heard, and even about that she was vague. It took some time for Blade to understand what the Wizard"s magic did-or at least seemed to do.
First, the Wizard saw everything that happened in Rentoro. At least he saw everything that went on in any city or town. Sooner or later, he also learned everything that happened in any village or farm that might be the smallest danger to his rule.
Whenever there was any such danger, the Wolves struck with their swift swords and bows. Men, women, and children died, many of them in particularly horrible ways. No one who survived could ever forget what he"d seen happen to those who defied the Wizard.
The Wolves rode into battle on their fine heudas, but they did not ride about Rentoro on them. The Wizard"s magic sent them from place to place, faster even than a bird could fly through the air. This was certain, for the same Wolves had been seen fighting on the same day, in two towns more than a week"s ride apart. This had happened not just once but many times.
So no army could a.s.semble to fight the Wizard without his quickly learning of it. Indeed, it was dangerous to even talk of a.s.sembling such an army. Long before the rebels could be ready, the Wolves always came down upon them. No matter how many men the rebels might hope to have, when the battle was joined the Wolves always had more. So the Wolves always won, and then the survivors of the rebel army were burned or impaled or flogged to death, saw their wives raped, heard their children scream as they were thrown off walls.
It did not take many such battles and the butchery that came after them to drive home the lesson. Soon the Wizard had few enemies, and many men and women in the cities and towns who served him. Some served him out of fear, some out of hope of reward, some to be avenged on enemies. A few saw his rule as a good thing for Rentoro. In time the Wizard had so many servants he hardly needed his magic to tell him what was happening in Rentoro. In any city or town he had a hundred pairs of eyes to watch his enemies and a hundred pairs of lips to tell him what they might be planning. Sometimes he even had men willing to take up their own swords for him, so that the Wolves were not needed.
Although rebels were now few, the Wolves still had plenty of work. The Wizard"s castle had as many people in it as a small city. It needed food and wine, firewood and iron, wagons and harness, heudas and draft animals, and much else. The Wolves regularly gathered all these things throughout Rentoro.
They also gathered an annual tax, paid in gold, silver, and jewels, silk and fine weapons, young women and young men.
The young women were always beautiful and everyone understood why the Wizard wanted them. The men were always the strongest and healthiest to be found, and it was less certain why the Wizard needed them. Certainly even his vast castle could not need so many servants and laborers? In any case, neither the men nor the women were ever seen again after the Wolves took them away.
This was the life the people of Rentoro had now led for three generations, since the last rebels were crushed outside the walls of the city of Morina. It was not the best life imaginable, but it was far from unbearable. The Wizard"s taxes were never more than a man or a town could easily pay, and the Wolves seldom stole anything or hurt anyone without the Wizard"s orders. Of course, if one was a strong young man or a beautiful young woman, an unknown fate was always hanging over one"s head. Even that was something people could come to endure, given time.
Lorya herself was twenty, the daughter of a stablekeeper. She"d made a good marriage at eighteen, to the son and heir of a master harness maker. At nineteen she was a widow, for the Wolves came and took her husband away, leaving her with a child three months old. Four months after that, the child was dead of a fever. So being raped by the Wolves did not seem to her a great deal worse than what had already happened to her. She"d been quite ready to endure it as best she could when Blade came on the scene, as unexpected and as deadly as a thunderbolt. Now she found herself safe from some dangers, but in other ways even worse off, for she was a rebel against the Wizard.
"If so much had not already happened to me, I think I might want to throw myself into the nearest river. That would be a quicker, cleaner death than what the Wolves will give me when they catch me. Yet even the Wolves cannot frighten me that much now. It is also good that you are with me. I do not know what you can do, one man, a traveler who is not even from Rentoro. Yet you have slain three of the Wizard"s Wolves. A man who can do that may do many other things."
"Do not hope for too much from me," Blade said. "Certainly I can kill Wolves and I will go on killing them as long as I can. This will certainly do us no harm and the Wizard no good. But it will not keep us alive forever, not with all the Wolves and all the Wizard"s friends against us. We must find other answers."
What the answers would be, Blade could still only guess. At least it would be a more intelligent guess than he"d been making before. Lorya had told him a great deal.
She"d implied that the Wizard was one man, but that was no doubt merely a tale. The terror-filled legends of a century had combined the deeds of three or four men into the single-handed achievement of one immortal superman. So Blade would use "the Wizard" as a sort of mental shorthand, but he"d really mean "the Wizard and his descendants down to the present ruler of Rentoro." He"d been right about the dynasty of tyrants.
Clearly there was something like mental telepathy at work in Rentoro, The "voice that spoke without words" could hardly be anything else. The Wizard controlled workers, commanded the leaders of the Wolves, and perhaps detected rebellion by reading and controlling minds.
Blade did not find it easy to accept the idea or comfortable to live with it. In Home Dimension telepathy was still something for science-fiction stories. A good many experiments had been made, but only the boldest parapsychologists dared claim they"d proved anything positive. Yet here in Rentoro, there was no escaping the evidence. So much fell into place now, even the way the leaders of the Wolves sat on their heudas, looking up at the sky. They were waiting, their minds a blank, to receive their master"s telepathic commands!
So much for part of the Wizard"s "magic." The other part was a little harder to a.n.a.lyze, at least from what Lorya had told him. Blade was quite willing to believe that the Wolves were comparatively few in number and had won their victories by concentrating with supernatural speed. Nothing else made sense. An army outnumbering the combined forces of all the cities and towns of Rentoro would be impossible for the Wizard. In this medieval economy he could never support it. The Wolves would eat the country bare, until the last man in Rentoro died of starvation and left the Wizard in his castle to rule over a desert that he"d made himself. The Wizard had done many strange and evil things in Rentoro, but he obviously hadn"t turned it into a desert.
So a small army of picked troops who moved like the wind was the only answer. How did they move?
The most obvious notion was that the Wizard had some sort of mechanical transport, perhaps airborne, A few large helicopters or transport planes could move a hundred Wolves from one end of Rentoro to the other between dusk and dawn. If no one saw the machines, the swift movement would seem magical.
The notion was obvious, but it had too many holes for Blade to be happy with it. It would not be easy to conceal the existence of something as large and noisy as a transport plane or a helicopter for a single year, let alone a whole century.
Also, if the Wizard had airplanes, why did he insist on using medieval weapons against the people of Rentoro? He could easily have given the Wolves machine guns, artillery, and rockets. With modern firepower a few hundred Wolves would be enough to rule Rentoro, able to blow apart any city whose people weren"t already too scared to lift a finger. They would also be much cheaper than the force of Wolves and heudas the Wizard used now.
So the Wizard did not have airplanes or any other modern method of transport for his army. What did he have? Something, certainly. But what Richard Blade had was an unsolved, and for the time being unsolvable, mystery.
Except-what about those Wolves who"d come to Dodini, apparently riding out of thin air? Blade was now reasonably certain that his brain and eyes had both been working properly. So perhaps he"d actually seen what he thought he"d seen-the Wizard"s Wolves suddenly emerging from nowhere and charging down the hill toward Dodini.
Unfortunately, that left things nearly as confusing as before. There was such a thing as teleportation-moving oneself through s.p.a.ce by pure mental effort. There was also such a thing as telekinesis-moving other objects or people the same way.
Blade mentally corrected himself. These things existed in the theories of some parapsychologists.