There was nothing more for Blade to do here except leave his three companions to reinforce the elevator guard, then head for the stairway as fast as he could go. Leyndt would be safer here with nine men around her than anywhere else for the time being, and he would be unencumbered.
Two raiders lifted their swords in greeting as Blade ran up to the stairway door and plunged in and down. His pounding feet raised echoes that boomed up and down the metal-walled tube as he raced downward, weapons at the ready, ears listening for signs of activity behind or ahead. He passed doors with the locks thrown from the stair side; it would take the guards and a battering ram to get through those doors and into the stairway now. At two of those doors Blade saw blood trickling from under the door's edge, and at one of them two bodies-one a raider, one a guard-had been dragged to one side and piled on top of each other.
From the elevator chamber to the bottom of the stronghold was some five hundred vertical feet, but down the endlessly spiraling staircase it seemed far longer. Blade's legs began to feel rubbery as he approached the bottom, and the sweat was sluicing off him like water off a melting glacier. He estimated he was less than fifty feet from the bottom when he heard the sound of footsteps below him on the stairs-many sets of feet, climbing fast but irregularly. He tightened his grip on both sword and knife, wished briefly for a spear, then flattened himself against the wall, waiting for the climbers to heave into view around the bend.
The footsteps rose to a tumult, with little whimpering cries and sobbing gasps mixed in, then Lora and another of the Girls trotted around the bend, each one carrying a guard's spear in her right hand and a guard's truncheon in her left. Behind them came a long straggling line of slaves and Girls, singly or in twos and threes, panting and struggling upward, urged on by the two Girls leading them. As Lora caught sight of Blade, her face split apart in a broad grin, but she was in too much of a hurry or perhaps too short of breath to say anything. The procession flowed on up past Blade; he counted seventy or more of them before the last Girl (another of the ones to whom he had given Pleasure, also armed) was out of sight. He continued downward, feeling better in the knowledge that at least a few of those whom the Ice Master had condemned to a living death in the stronghold might win freedom.
Now sounds made their way up the staircase-people running, voices shouting, and occasionally short bursts of combat. Footsteps climbing upward sounded again below him, and again he plastered himself against the wall as another procession of slaves and Girls flowed upward and out of sight, this one escorted by three or four wounded raiders and moving faster than the first. Blade resumed his course downward, bounded down the last three steps at one leap, and stalked out onto the slave floor.
He had barely time to notice the four raiders standing guard in a broad arc around the stairway door and the dozen or more bodies-one of them a Girl with a spear in her hand and another through her body-when he became aware of the odor that was drifting down the corridor that led to the central chamber of the floor. The central chamber-where the shaft that led down to the Menel began. And the odor was the musky, sour-bitter reek of the Menel themselves. He pushed his legs on, faster and faster, racing down the corridor to meet what he knew was coming. More than the odor now came down the corridor-uneasy mutterings, half-stifled cries of fear, inarticulate growls that he guessed might be from the Menel's guards. He stepped up his pace again, saw the chamber's lights glowing ahead at the end of the corridor, and reached his goal just as the first of the Menel rose out of the shaft and spread its four limbs over the heads of the guards surrounding the shaft.
A wild cry burst from the throats of all the people in the huge chamber-triumph from the Menel-conditioned guards, amazement and some fear from the raiders hovering around the fringes of the cordon of guards, stark raw terror from the slaves and Girls lined up ready to be led off to the stairs. This time the Menel had come up without even triggering the conditioning; this time they were desperate, and would be twice as dangerous as before.
No, even worse than that, said Blade to himself as he noticed that each Menel was carrying in one arm a long blue tube with a red lens at one end and several smaller black tubes on a mesh belt around their «waists.» This was obviously a weapon, probably one that made even the Graduk beamers look like a child's rubber knife, and the only good thing about it was that it suggested where the Menel might be going. They would most likely be on their way up to the Main Control, to shut off the Pi-field and then turn their advanced weapons loose, to make a clean sweep of everything within the stronghold that opposed them.
The Menel guards paid no attention to him as he dashed across the chamber; neither did the Menel. Both no doubt were too confident that they had victory almost within their grasp to worry about fighting the raiders now, with the crude weapons necessary as long as the Pi-field was active. Blade ran up to Stramod, who was busily sending off another mass of slaves and Girls. He reached out for the sack of bombs on Stramod's back.
«Quick! I need those.»
Stramod nodded and handed the bag to Blade. As Blade had expected, the mutant's cool head had not deserted him even in the uproar of battle and the shock of encountering the Menel. Blade quickly ran through his plan; Stramod nodded and grinned wolfishly.
«I'll throw in some men as a diversion while you make your move. Will you need anybody with you?»
Blade shook his head. «I can move faster alone.»
«Good.» The mutant's huge hand came out and clasped Blade's, then Blade turned around and began edging in toward the guards, the bulging bomb sack over his shoulder. Behind him Stramod was talking to Nilando, and Nilando was massing twenty men, to draw their swords and level their spears at the Menel guards. Then Nilando shouted, the twenty charged forward, and a second later so did Blade.
There were better than a dozen Menel visible now, the lead ones already approaching the foot of the stairs, the cordon of guards altering shape now to make a protected passage from the shaft to the stairs. Blade ran in toward the end of the stairway, keeping outside the range of the Menel's terrible crane-like arms, saw the end of the cordon near the stairway thinning out as the guards ran toward the shaft to meet Nilando's charge, and lunged straight at the widening gap between the last two men.
These at least did not ignore the huge and terrifyingly blood-spattered figure bearing down on them as harmless; their swords flashed up into a guard position-and then one fell from limp fingers as Blade kicked one man in the stomach and the other flew through the air and clanged off the wall as Blade smashed it out of the other man's hand. He didn't bother finishing off either man; he had to get up those stairs. He thrust the knife in his belt and drew the truncheon, for use against the Menel.
The first of these was just within reach of the foot of the stairs as Blade leaped past the two fallen guards. Two arms darted out, the pincers snapping with a sound like chains clanking together. Blade struck savagely at the nearest pincer with his truncheon, hitting it so hard the blow jarred his arm half to numbness, then plunged up the stairs two at a time. As he reached the top, he heard the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs as the guards came after him, and the slopping sucking sound of climbing Menel.