Blade swung the mace and advanced on the Mong. They were down to the bone of it now.
Cossa waited until Blade was within twenty feet before he shot his first arrow. The aim was deadly - at the man's throat just above the armor. Zzzzz - thuck.
Blade pulled the arrow from his shield and tossed it to one side. "Two arrows left, Cossa."
"One will be enough, Sir Blade."
Blade moved in cautiously, lightly, the shield held ready for sudden defense, the cruel mace swinging at his side.
"At least you are a man," said Cossa the Mong. "You give up your advantage and fight me on foot. No true Cath would have done that." Blade moved closer.
"You do not look like a Cath," said the Mong. "You are dark and you have a beard. What are you doing with those overcivilized fools? You should be with us, stranger.
With the Mongs! You even have the look of a Mong about you, though I have never seen one so huge."
The bow movement was so rapid that Blade could not follow it. There was a streak in the air, a keening twang. The arrow took Blade in the fleshy part of his left leg just above the knee. It was painful. Blade did not so much as glance down.
"One arrow, Cossa."
The Mong spat again and laughed wildly. "Who knows, Sir Blade? One may be enough - or it may be my time to follow the black sand to my destiny."
Ten feet separated them now. Cossa ran at Blade, at the same time releasing his last arrow straight at Blade's groin where the armor joined. Blade got his shield down just in time.
Cossa came in screaming. Blade dropped the shield, leaped sideways to avoid the first rush, and drew his sword. He held it in his left hand, the mace in the right, and moved in on the man.
The Mong rushed to meet him, his curved sword flaming in the brilliant sunlight. Blade fended the first blow with his own sword and swung the mace. Cossa ducked under the deadly iron ball and danced away.
Blade waited. He had seen how the captured Mongs died beneath the executioner's sword and he knew that Cossa would not run. The man had to die or win, as did Blade himself.
The Mong came in again, slashing furiously, so furiously that Blade had to fall back a few steps. He had no chance to swing the mace as he fended off the clanging blows. Sparks whirled and hissed and sweat ran into his eyes. For a moment it was cut and slash and parry and hack. Blade was on the defensive. Their swords locked and their faces were so close Blade could smell the Mong's sour breath.
Blade put a foot in the man's chest and kicked him away. Cossa nearly went sprawling, and Blade spun the mace and sprang forward for the kill. But the Mong kept his feet and, ducking under the blow, aimed a blow at Blade's head which he barely parried in time.
Cossa was gasping for breath now and Blade himself was tiring. The mace was beginning to feel twice its weight. Blade let it drop to his side and made a long lunge with his sword. The Mong danced away.
Blade recovered and stood his ground. He twirled the mace again. Cossa could hardly breathe now, yet he found wind to laugh and taunt.
"You are a giant, Sir Blade, but I have slain bigger men in the high lands where the snow apes live. Now!"
Cossa came in to the attack again, silent now. The curved sword hummed in the air. The Mong's flat, bearded face gleamed with sweat. Blade sensed that it was the man's last effort, that the Mong would gladly die if he could take Blade with him. As Cossa charged he plucked a short dagger from his belt with his left hand. If he could get close enough he could dagger Blade even as the bigger man was killing him.
Blade hurled the mace with all his force. It struck the Mong at the knees, a bone crushing blow, and the chain whipped around the shattered knees. Cossa went down with a strangled cry of pain and rage. Blade leaped forward.
Cossa, on his back, both legs broken, still tried to defend himself. He slashed up at Blade with his sword. Blade brushed it aside and put his own steel through the man's throat, just at the collarbone, a terrible downward thrust that carried through flesh and bone and arteries and embedded the point six inches in the earth.
The Mong screamed once, a sound drowned in the burble of gushing blood. He arched and clutched at the sword transfixing him and looked up at Blade with a baleful dying stare. He tried to speak but only blood came from his gaping mouth.
Blare whistled at the gray, which was cropping grass nearby. He was mindful of Queko's advice that, should he win, he must take every advantage of his triumph. As he swung into the saddle he glanced at the Mong lines. Closer than he had thought. He was less than a hundred yards from the throne where Khad Tambur sat, surrounded by his banners and his guard, glowering over the plain at his dead champion.
Blade coaxed the gray around. He had recovered his mace and sheathed his sword. There was no sign of overt hostility from the Mongs, only silence and dark looks. Perhaps Queko was right. The Mongs worshiped courage and prowess in battle. Force was the only thing they understood. There was a chance, if he displayed enough contempt, enough confidence and courage, that he could browbeat the Khad into keeping his bargain. Blade put the gray into an arrogant canter and headed straight for the Mong lines and the waiting Khad. As he went, he swung the mace around his head so the cruel jade spikes made a sparkling blur.
He prepared his speech. It had best be short, and he away in a hurry. No sense in pressing things too far. The words formed in his mind.
"Now, Khad Tambur, O Shaker of the Universe! I am victor. I demand my rightful spoils. I will have your sister, Sadda, as my captive. And you, and all your Mongs, had best be gone before another day or..."
In that moment, flushed with battle and victory, Richard Blade was an arrogant man. Too late, just a minisecond too late, he saw the trap. The big gray never saw it.
The rawhide cords had been cunningly laid in trenches and covered over. Tensioned sticks of bow wood awaited a releasing trigger. Somewhere in the crowd of sullen Mongs a man pulled a cord. The web of trip lines sprung into view.
The gray was caught at the knees and went down in a long plunging fall. It whinnied high in distress. Blade went over the gray's head, headlong and helpless, and even as he saw the rock and knew he would strike it, he saw again the grinning dwarf and heard the words:
"Beware the ground, Sir Blade."
He had discarded his helmet. He sought to shield his head with his arm but the heavy mace encumbered him. His head struck the rock, and the plain and the silent Mongs vanished in a scarlet flash.
Chapter Seven
Blade awoke in darkness. He was naked except for breeches. His wrists and ankles were weighted with heavy chains and manacles. His head pained him and above his right eye was a great mass of spongy congealed blood. There was a dull ache in his left leg where Cossa's arrow had taken him.
He lay staring at a ceiling he could not see. He was in a tent, for he could hear the slither of wind and sense the rippling of the thick feltlike material. A black tent. A Mong tent.
Richard Blade was not a man for self-recrimination. So he had played the fool and walked, or cantered, into the trap. Now to get himself out of it - if that were possible. If not - but he would face that when it came. He was still alive.
He tested his chains and knew he was not going to break them. He lay quiet again and stared into the darkness and listened to the sounds of the camp around him. He began to adjust and react, all his senses attuned now, and he realized that he was deep in the Mong encampment. He heard song and the complaint of harsh voices: yells, screams, children in uproar as they played at some savage game. Horsemen went thundering past not far away.
He was lying on something soft - soft but scratchy. Blade put his face to it. Woven horsehair.