"It is a simple plan," Mokanna was saying. "There's to be a slave uprising tonight in the huts. A conspiracy of the battlemen to kill me and escape. I myself have arranged it, for I have many spies among the slaves, and you are to be the leader, Blade."
"Me?"
"Of course. At least you will be accused of it. I have already paid my spies, with Equebus' money, to swear that it is true - that you are the ring leader. Equebus and his slave patrol will be waiting nearby. You will be taken, the uprising will fail, and you will be executed immediately. It is a good plan, yes?"
Blade agreed. "It was. Until you told me."
"Yes," said Mokanna. "Now it is a better one. I will tell you where Equebus waits and all you have to do is kill him. Be sure you kill him, Blade. I do not want him for an enemy."
Blade thought a moment. "One thing I do not understand, Mokanna. How came Equebus by this knowledge of me, and of the Princess Zeena? How did he know that I am here in Barracid, training as a battleman?"
Mokanna looked at him in surprise. "The flags, man. All Sarma knows. When the Princess disappeared a signal was sent to Sarmacid at once. Queen Pphira herself sent a signal back. Equebus relayed it to me. I sent another signal to Sarmacid to relieve the Queen's mind about the Princess. And Equebus has been signaling me every day to know of you. Simple? What was not so simple was to drive a bargain with Equebus."
Simple. Blade supposed it was. Zeena, when she arrived in Sarmacid, would find her mother the Queen in full possession of the facts. Possibly mixed with a few lies and some gossip. Well, Zeena would just have to handle it as best she could.
Flags. Poles. A primitive form of communication - and so effective. Blade felt a little stunned. For a people, a culture who had not yet guessed the secret of the wheel, the Sarmaians were pretty crafty.
He felt uneasy. Matters were beginning to slip out of his hands. He was being forced into doing things he did not really want to do.
"Of course," said Kokanna, "if Equebus kills you tonight I will have to swear that you did lead a slave uprising."
Chapter Nine
It was a trap. Blade had feared this, yet when Mokanna provided him with a real sword and shield, and a short stabbing knife, instead of the dummy weapons he had been using, Blade decided to go through with it. If Equebus was such an enemy as his plotting indicated, if he would spend so much money and time to get rid of Blade, then the sooner he was taken care of the better. There was always danger in Dimension X. Blade lived with it. Every threat known and dispatched was so much gain for Blade, and increased his chances of survival by just that much.
Now, under a blood red Sarmaian moon, he stalked the little ravine where Equebus was supposed to be hiding, a mere crease in the brown plain, and he found nothing. Far off he could see the moon shadows of the T gallows and the stone image of Bek-Tor.
Mokanna had explained: "Equebus will ride to the ravine and wait. His slave patrol will hang back. My spies will start the slave uprising and one of them will force a sword and shield on you. When there is uproar and confusion enough I will make a torch signal and Equebus will pass it on to his men. They will move in and the rising will be crushed and you, Blade, will be taken in arms. Equebus will say that he only chanced to be riding past, or had camped nearby, and came to my aid when I signaled. You will be executed at once and Equebus can dream again of becoming the first husband of Princess Zeena. But you, Blade, must kill him first. Then come to me at once. With Equebus dead I will be able to command the Slave Patrol, for in this region I am next in rank to Equebus."
The ravine was empty. Blade made sure of that, then lay in the shadow of a great rock and scanned the plain roundabout. Nothing. He had been duped. But why? By whom? Was Mokanna more crafty than he seemed?
Blade studied the grim encampment of stone huts called Barracid. Only one light showed, in the largest of the huts where Mokanna lived and had his headquarters. The other huts were dark. In one of them, Blade knew, Pelops was awake and crying in the dark. Timid Pelops. Poor little cowardly man. Blade shook his head. Pelops had warned him against this thing.
"It is a snare," Pelops cried when Blade told him of the plan. "I know it. You forget, Blade, sire, that once I lived and taught in the palace. I heard much. I saw much of intrigue. Equebus is an ambitious man, too ambitious, which is why he was sent to the dreary work of slave patrolling, and he is determined to go as far as a man can go in Sarma. He is far from a fool - and he and Mokanna have been enemies for a long time. I think they plot against each other, Blade, and are using you. Do not go tonight."
The light in Mokanna's hut went out. Barracid lay in total darkness but for the bloody moonlight. Blade, straining his eyes and ears, thought he saw shadows move across the drill grounds, thought he heard a faint clang of steel on steel. He could not be sure.
Mokanna's light came on again.
Mokanna had agreed not to send the torch signal to the waiting Equebus until he was sure Blade had failed and was dead. Then, to protect himself, he was to send a belated signal and swear that Blade had escaped beforehand, deserting the uprising he had inspired, and had come on Equebus in the ravine by accident.
There was no signal. The solitary light glowed in Mokanna's quarters. Barracid waited for Blade to return, brooding in the dark night under a red moon, and Blade was now convinced that it was another trap. Something had gone badly wrong.
Blade left the shadows, sword in hand, and began to walk back toward the encampment. There was nothing else to do, nowhere for him to go. If he struck out alone, on his own, he would be classed as a deserter, a runaway, and so forfeit the protection of Zeena and, through Zeena, the Queen Mother Pphira. Blade needed all the protection he could get.
And he could not leave Pelops to the not so tender mercies of Mokanna. With Blade labeled a runaway and deserter the little man would have no protection at all. It was only Blade, and through Blade, Zeena, who kept the teacher alive and with some degree of freedom as Blade's servant.
Blade entered the first ring of stone huts. He heard men snoring, men crying out in their sleep, men awake and cursing and whispering. The battlemen, at least some of them, knew that something strange and dangerous was afoot tonight.
He went wide of the hut corners, his sword ready. Nothing moved on the broad drill fields. Blade stopped with his back against a stone wall and peered at the big hut of Mokanna. The light still glowed through an open window.
Something lay in the dirt near the door of Mokanna's hut. A body. A headless body.
He took a few steps toward the thing. Not headless. The head was there. Neatly perched atop the leather clad buttocks. Mokanna's head.
Blade stopped. Nothing moved. No sound. Yet the hut of Mokanna waited for him, waited as though it were a living, breathing thing. A chill traced down Blade's spine. He did not like this.
He stopped a foot short of the body and stared down at it. It was Mokanna right enough. The big hairy shoulders, the powerful bowed legs. Moonlight glinted on the head. The mouth was open, the teeth showing, the eyes staring. Something shiny sparkled and Blade saw that it was the chain of office. Someone had draped it over the head and around what had been a neck.
A shadow at the window. A voice said, "You who are called Richard Blade! Come into the hut. You will not be harmed. But drop your sword first. At once. Drop it!"
Blade hesitated. The window was empty again, the shadow gone. The hut waited.
"Obey, Blade! I, Equebus, give the order in the name of Queen Pphira. You will not be harmed. You are under the Queen's protection now."