It was an hour before sunset when he first knew he was being followed.
Had it not been for the eternal brooding silence he would have missed it. He paused for a breather or, as he admitted, a loafing period, for he had by now fully recovered his strength and replaced the blood drained by the leeches. But it was his habit, while in Dimension X, to pause every now and then and conceal himself to watch and listen.
The sound came from somewhere behind him, on the deer trace, and it was very faint and did not come again. Whoever had made the sound was nearly as expert as Blade himself at moving through the forest. Yet a stone had been dislodged. It rolled and struck another stone. That was all Blade needed.
Whether or not he was in view of the follower he had no way of knowing. He presumed that he was and feigned ignorance. He continued on his way, halting now and then to study the deer tracks while listening and studying his back trail without appearing to. Nothing. The sound did not come again. Yet he was still being followed. The watcher was still there.
As night fell he built his fire. He made snares of vines and saplings and placed them up and down the path with great ostentation, wanting the spy to see them. As full darkness closed down, Blade left his fire and, vanishing like a shadow into the shadows, constructed two larger snares on either side of the path. He put himself in the watcher's place and knew that he would not approach along the path; he would circle out into the forest and come in from the side.
He cooked his meat longer than usual that night, holding it out of the fire so the faint breeze would carry the savory smell to the unknown lurker. He built two more smaller fires, each at a point where the trace led into the clearing and left it. He kept his weapons with him and was careful not to sit with his back to the forest. And he waited.
Hours passed. Blade pretended to doze between his fires, his hands never far from his weapons. Then it came.
First the snapping crackle of the bent young tree he had used as a spring, a whistling sibilance as it was triggered. A muffled scream. Blade snatched a torch from the edge of the fire and ran toward the sound, spear under his arm and stone knife in his hand. He had caught something.
She was well and fairly caught. The thick vine clutched her by shapely ankles as she dangled five feet off the ground, head down. Naked. It was the female slave whom he had watched escape from the apemen. Blade held the torch high and moved in for a closer inspection. She screamed at him, spat and, as helpless as she was, tried to claw his face with her nails. Blade moved back a pace or two. The girl was as wild as any animal. And terrified out of her wits. Now that Blade had her he did not know exactly what to do with her.
For the moment he did nothing. He stared at her, neither smiling nor scowling, feigning more bewilderment than he actually felt. She had escaped, she was traveling — ergo, she must be going someplace, must have a destination. She was of this Dimension X, as poor Ogar had been, so perhaps she could take his place as a guide and mentor. If he could tame her and gain her trust.
He continued to stare, saying nothing. The girl stopped her struggles and stared back at him. In her wild disheveled way, upside down and stark naked — a fact of which she did not seem aware — she was beautiful. Her teeth were white and even, lovely even when she snarled at him, and he could visualize what her mass of thick, dark hair might be like when it was clean and free of burrs and leaves. She was young, certainly in her teens, and here again he could see beauty beneath the matted grime that now caked her regular features. Her eyes, narrowed at him and glittering green in the torchlight, were well spaced under luxuriant dark brows. Her superb breasts, even as she dangled in this undignified position, did not droop or flop. They were as round and firm and plump as partridges on the wing, with only the tiny red nipples flaccid and inert. Her body, deep-tanned by constant exposure to the sun, was smooth and hairless.
At that moment the breeze backed around a point or so. Blade stepped back a pace and sniffed at it — her odor was that of musky female secretions, natural, not subject to the lavage of H-Dimension antiseptics. He sniffed again and felt desire rise in him. And knew that he was, at last, fully adapted to this particular X-Dimension.
The caught girl said, «Who are you? Why did you trap me like this? You are not one of them.»
Blade gave her a tentative smile. «I'm not? Who is them?
She frowned and stabbed her finger in the direction they had come from that day. «Them. The hairy people. The beastmen. You are certainly not one of them. And you are not one of us.»
He smiled again and advanced a pace. She showed her teeth but did not attempt to claw him with her nails.
«Who,» said Elade, «is us? Who are you?»
For a long moment, she studied him. Her snarl faded and became a half smile, a cautious smile. «You really do not know?»
He was patient. «If I knew I would not have to ask.»
Her smile grew. «Cut me down then and I will tell you. But I find it very strange that you do not know a Jedd when you see one. We have lived in this country as long as the world has been. Now you come, a stranger such as I have never seen before, and say that you have never heard of us. But cut me down first. Your snare is hurting my legs.»
Blade pondered it. She was only a girl, a naked girl without a weapon. There was no possible danger. He severed the vine and let her fall to the ground, all the while conscious that beneath his scanty loincloth of animal skin he was excited. He had adapted, all right! He was surging with want of her, with raw animal lust for her body. In a cooler moment he would have known and admitted the cause — Lord L's megavitamin therapy — but now he only wanted to penetrate her, then and there, and send his seed bursting into her.
He might have fallen atop her then and there, forced her, willing or not, had she not been too quick for him. She broke her fall with her hands, did a swift somersault, and had the caught vine nearly off her feet before he divined her intentions and sprang. She had one foot out of the loop and was running when he caught the end of the trailing vine and tripped her up. She fell with a crash into matted undergrowth and twisted to meet him, once again spitting and fighting like a wildcat. He hauled her rudely back by the leg. She raked his big chest with nails like talons. Blade, his ardor blunted for the time being, lost patience and clouted her alongside the head. Not too hard.
While she was unconscious he bound her with vines, then carried her back to the fires and dumped her on the ground. She was still out cold. Blade went back to roasting his supper, seemingly indifferent but watching her from a corner of his eye. When her eyes flickered open he gave her a few moments to recover, then he began to speak without looking directly at her.
«I will speak first,» he told her. «Then you will speak. I am master here and so it shall be while we remain together. That is understood?»
She nodded sulkily. «That is understood. You are master.»
«Good. What is your name?»
«I am called Ooma.»
«I see. Ooma. You said you were a Jedd — what is a Jedd? What does the word mean?»
She stared at the meat he was roasting. She licked her lips and dribble ran from the corners of her well-shaped mouth. «I starve. I will not talk until I am fed. You have meat. Give me some. I have not had meat in all the year I was a captive of the beastmen.»
Blade gave her a hard look. He dangled a piece of meat before her, then ate it slowly while she watched and drooled. Her eyes hated him.
«You will talk first, Ooma. Then you will have meat. Or you will not talk and shall have nothing at all.» Blade shrugged his big shoulders and smiled at her. «I do not care if you eat. It is nothing to me. I have plenty.»