Ooma poked Blade with the stick. «Are you asleep, then?»
He kissed her. «No. I was listening. It was all very interesting. But what of the Books of Birkbegn?»
Ooma pouted a bit. «All I have told you was written in the Books of Birkbegn. Birkbegn was the first man, he who evolved from the egg, the father of all the Jedd tribe. All this way written in the Books, by Birkbegn and his sons, and once it was read. But now it must be told, because the writing has faded and been forgotten. No Jedd can read the Books now. The tale is told at night around the fires, along with the stories, all true, of how great the Jedds were and of how they alone ruled the egg of the World.»
Blade yawned. «What happened?»
Ooma stroked his face as she prepared for sleep. «Who can know all the answers — except that the Jedds did not live by the Books of Birkbegn and suffered, were punished for their evil ways. More than that I do not know for, to tell the truth, I did not always listen closely when the old men spoke. I had other and more interesting things to do and I did them. I would creep away from the fire and do them.»
«I'll bet,» murmured Blade. Jedd females, he thought, must come to puberty very young by HD standards. Possibly nine or ten years old.
Ooma wormed her tongue into his ear. «I have decided that I do not wish to sleep right now. First we will—»
«You are insatiable,» said Blade. «In fact, I am beginning to think you are a nympho.»
She crashed her mouth against his and began to stroke his more sensitive parts. As dead beat as he was, Blade responded instantly. She squealed softly in delight and began the usual oral foreplay, talking all the while.
«This,» said she, «is a proper time and place. It is dark and we have eaten and soon we will sleep.»
«I hope,» he said feebly. «And I also hope you leave me some strength to fight the Api, if I must fight them.»
«Tomorrow we will worry about the Api,» said the practical Ooma. «For now it is no sin and I will have it. Be still. Do not move. I, Ooma, will do everything.»
Which she did.
In the morning, after a plunge in the brook and breakfast, they continued on their way. Blade, as he listened to Ooma's chatter, grew somber and looked to his weapons. He did not like what she told him of the Api.
For one thing, he did not know just how much credence to place in her reporting — for Ooma was a feckless little creature. This he had to acknowledge despite his growing fondness for her. So, as they finally left the forest behind and plunged into a narrow falling and winding defile — once again descending, the significance of which did not escape Blade — he listened and made mental notes and took nothing for granted. He became aware of a coldness along his spine. The Api sounded formidable in the extreme — Blade might very well reach the end of his trek long before he reached the mountains and the Jedds. But then death was always a possibility in any Dimension X.
If Ooma was frightened she did not show it. She was matter-of-fact.
«If the Api slay you,» she explained, «they will take me captive and use me as a common woman for all of them. Unless you kill me first, or I can kill myself.»
He shot her a glance. «Do you want to die? Are the Api so bad that death would be better than being taken and used by them?»
For a moment she pondered this, frowning. «I do not really know. I am very young and the Jedds live long. I am fond of life and all it offers, and now that you have come to me, Blade, it will be even harder to die. But the Api! They are hairy monsters, though very intelligent, and their ways are not those of the Jedds. I suppose I would be better off dead.»
Surely a strange child. Blade eyed her. «But you are not really sure?»
Again a fatalistic little shrug. «It does not really make much difference, Blade. If you lose and if I am taken prisoner and used by them, I will not live long anyway. They are brutes, much too large for a Jedd woman — which is exactly why they take so much pleasure in Jedd women — and I would be ripped apart after a little time. I would not like to die that way — no, Blade, I think that if I see you are losing I will manage to kill myself. If you would give me your little stone knife it would be easier. It is hard to kill yourself without a weapon.»
Blade gave her the stone knife, thinking that in any case it would be of little use against the Api. Ooma fashioned a sheath of bark and bound it to her thigh with vines. At Blade's suggestion that she make a kilt and a bra of the same material — he thinking that if her breasts and pubic area were covered the Api might not be so aroused — she only stared at him and said with disdain that out here clothing was of no importance. Only in the land of the Jedds, her own people, did covering oneself matter. Among the primitives, beastmen and the Api, clothes had no significance.
Blade let it go.
The defile ended and widened onto a plain. Far across the plain, shining in the sun, reared the serrate tips of a vast mountain range. The wind sweeping toward them over the plain bore the chill tang of ice and snow.
Ooma gave a little cry of joyous recognition. She pointed toward the far-off mountains. «That is where my people dwell. Once past the first mountains there is a valley where they have lived all the years since being driven from this land in the time before knowing. Oh, Blade, you must win today! I want to see my home again.»
He hardly heard her. He was examining a large stone hut that stood on the plain some three hundred yards from the mouth of the ravine. It was flat-topped, with a mortared wall around all four sides that he guessed had been built to catch and hold rain. Water must be scarce on this plain.
At the moment Blade was more interested in the lookout on the roof. It was his first view of an Api and he did not like it. He let out his breath in a slow whistle of dismay. The thing was about eight feet tall and appeared to be a cross between a gorilla and a baboon. The face was snouty, dog-like, and the body a massive and hairy block of bulging muscle. Blade blinked and stared again. The lookout was wearing a horned helmet and a swordbelt — nothing else. And it was peering over the plain at Blade, studying him under a raised forepaw. Just as intently as Blade was studying it.
The Api vanished suddenly through a trap in the roof. The stone hut brooded on the plain. Blade looked at the girl.
«So that is an Api?» He kept his voice calm and steady, making no outward sign of the trepidation he felt. What a brute! And he with only a spear and makeshift bow and arrows. He was on the verge of asking for his knife back, then decided against it. Ooma might very well need the knife to kill herself.
A coil of dark, greasy smoke was rising from the hut now. Ooma pointed to it.
«They signal. This is only the first outpost of the Api. There are others, many more, guarding the pass leading into the mountains. But they are not important. It is here, Blade, that we will live or die.»
Blade had been watching the door of the hut. He counted them as they emerged and lined up in military fashion. Ten of them. Nine in the single rank and one leader. All wearing the horned helmets and the swordbelts. Blade's lips quirked in dour amusement as he watched the leader dress and order his men like any squadleader back in Home Dimension. The commands came drifting across the plain, borne on the wind, and Blade perked his ears. The voice was that of a woman or, at best, an emasculate! High-pitched, shrill, a near falsetto. He looked askance at the girl.
«Are they women, these Api?» She had mentioned nothing of this.
Ooma, who had gone a bit pale, shook her head. «No. How I wish they were. Or that they had females of their own. But they do not — all Api are males, which is why they are so few now, and all children born of women taken by them are always males. And always Api. Oh, Blade, I begin to be much afraid. If I spoke bravely before it was a lie. They will slay you and make me their group whore — for I will not have the courage to kill myself.»