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 Hores. 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 booby trapped with loose slabs of rock. In spite of the occasional falls and scraped 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?