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voice, "Come with us.
Rilgon would see you."
"Oh." Blade crossed his arms on his chest. "Indeed." His tone was very cool.
He wanted to start off his relations with the local Blenar by refusing to be
pushed around. "Who is Rilgon and why would he see me?"
The Blenar leader took a backward step, his face working in surprise.
Apparently he was used to having prisoners cringe submissively before his
drawn sword and loud, arrogant manner. There was a long silence, during which
Blade continued to stare at the Blenar. He stared so effectively that the
other three began to fidget nervously. Finally the leader, lowering his voice,
said, "Rilgon is the War Leader of the Blenar. He has come from a great
distance to see you, because he has heard that you are a warrior beyond
anything dreamed of before in Brega. He would ask you to march with us against
the city."
"Very well," said Blade. "Now that you have answered my questions, I will come
with you. But I
must have some clothes first. A warrior of my people does not appear before
his future leader naked."
Both the request and the remark about "future leader" seemed to further
confuse the Blenar. There was a long pause before the leader barked an order.
One of the other Blenar scuttled out and returned a few minutes later with a
tunic and sandals. Blade considered asking for weapons, but decided not to
push his luck too far. He had already gained as much of a psychological edge
as he was likely to get.
The four Blenar formed a square around Blade and marched him out of the hut.
Outside, he found himself in the muddy main street of a Senar village of log
huts. In front of each hut was a rough hearth of soot-blackened stones. Senar
women were tending cooking pots bubbling on these hearths, while Senar men
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tramped up and down the "street" bearing massive loads of fish and wood. Senar
children, stark naked and even filthier than their parents, ran in and out of
the huts. Some of them stopped to stare at
Blade and his escort tramping through the village.
The path sloped down, and Blade could see the waters of the river gleaming
through the trees ahead.
Just beyond the last hut was a small clearing on the edge of the trees. Blade
looked at it casually and stopped abruptly as he saw what was there.
A large square frame of logs had been erected in the middle of the clearing. A
nude woman was spread-eagled on that frame, wrists and ankles tied to the logs
with heavy vines. Even at a distance Blade could see that the woman's hands
and feet had already turned white and bloodless from the tight knots.
He looked more carefully and realized that the woman was tall and slender, and
that her filthy hair and skin had both once been fair.
"A woman of the city?" Blade asked the leader.
"Indeed," said Blenar. "She was taken all of two years ago, so she should have
learned the ways of the mountains by now. But she rebelled against her Senar
master. The ways of the mountains shall
prevail."
"What will happen to her?"
"She has been tied up there for two days and nights already, without food or
water. Tomorrow night she will receive two hundred lashes. If she survives
that, she will be turned out into the forest, to live or die as the will of
the mountains may have it."
"Probably die," Blade was keeping his voice tightly under control. Also his
stomach.
"Yes. Most of them do. But what would you have us do with rebels?"
"I will make no suggestions, friend. The ways of your people are not the ways
of mine." That was a polite statement that could hardly get him in trouble for
the moment. Matters might well be different when he faced Rilgon.
Rilgon was living in considerable state aboard the barge in which he had come
down the river to meet
Blade. It was a large, slab-sided craft with no pretense at grace or
sea-worthiness. It was moved by twelve long sweeps pulled by Senar oarsmen and
a single large square sail. A number of armed Blenar were lounging on the
grimy deck when Blade's escort marched him up to the foot of the gangplank.
They promptly took charge of Blade and led him aboard the barge.
Rilgon met Blade in the cabin on the stern of the barge. It was a
low-windowed, low-ceilinged affair, dark and obviously none too clean. Rilgon
himself was lying on a pile of roughly sewn cushions. A long pipe drooped from
his thick, bearded lips and a jeweled sword lay on the floor within easy reach
of one thick-fingered hand. In fact, everything about the man was thick and
gross. He was almost as physically massive as a Senar, and with only a little
more hair on his heavy belly he could have passed for one.
Blade carefully kept any expression of distaste off his face and gave Rilgon
his standard story about being a traveling warrior from a far-distant land.
The story had served him well among a variety of people in a variety of
dimensions, and Blade saw no need to change it here. It explained his
undeniable skills as a fighter, but did not promise too much. This was
particularly important here and now. The last thing Blade wanted to do was to
make any definite promises to Rilgon.
Rilgon seemed to find the story acceptable. "Well, Blade," he said. "So you
are a warrior."
"That is what I said."
"In fact, you are a warrior of quite marvelous skill. The tales of the fight
by the river are traveling all over the mountains. When they came to my ears,
I knew that I had to come and see you for myself."
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