The ten women and nine men of the scouting party moved out the next morning. Himgar saw them off, with more breathless exhortations and good wishes, and a deep regret that he could not go with them.
«Never mind,» said Truja. «The fighters who will be coming after us need your leadership more than we do. The future of Brega depends more on them than on us.»
There might have been more men in the scouting party. But the women, and only the women, could move freely about the city and the lands near it. The five women who came originally from the city itself would be the ones who actually slipped into it, to contact the friendly leaders.
Ten women, nine men-and one Senar. Nugun was desperately frightened for his master when he learned that Blade was going down among the women of the city. He flew into a fearsome rage when Truja tried to tell him that he could not go with Blade. And he was the happiest being in all of Brega when Blade finally persuaded Truja to let him go.
The trip through the forest and down into the plains was fast and uneventful. All of the scouts could cover twenty miles a day without even breathing hard, and there was plenty of food and water. Nor did they meet any enemies. Both roaming Senar and hunting parties from the city seemed to have abandoned the woods. As this became clear, Truja forced the pace to twenty-five and even thirty miles a day. They rose before dawn and seldom made camp much before darkness fell. It was as though everything depended on their pounding east as fast as their legs would carry them.
Perhaps it did.
They were through the forest in two days less than they had expected. On the western edge of the plains they stopped for a day and a night, waiting and watching. If the normal patrols from the city were roaming the plains, they would have to move slowly and carefully from here on. But if the feuds in the city actually made both factions unwilling to send their fighting women out of the city, the scouts might have an easy march.
Truja was a cheerful cynic about this, as she was about many things. «I'm quite sure the patrols won't be out,» she said. «But we're certain to run into something else. A herd of stampeding cattle, a flash flood, a forest fire, a search for escaped males-our luck's bound to run out sooner or later.»
But the patrols were thinner on the ground than usual, and there were no accidents. On the second morning they moved out onto the plains. More than a hundred miles farther east lay the city of Brega.
Moving by night and hiding to sleep by day, they covered more than two-thirds of that distance in less than four days. Blade was pleased to see Nugun earn the respect and trust of the other scouts during the night marches. The Senar's abnormally keen night vision guided the party through the darkness as fast as it could have moved by day. And more than once Nugun gave warning of the approach of night-prowling women in time to permit the scouts to go to ground.
None of these women were part of regular patrols or hunting parties. They were mostly small parties of two to six, flitting across the country as swiftly and quietly as birds, intent on some private errand. Intrigue, assassination-who knew? None among the scouts did, and all were becoming increasingly curious, Blade most of all. Only Nugun was indifferent to the «higher» issues involved. His world was intensely physical and concrete-food, sex, war, marching, sleeping. The only abstract concept he could grasp was loyalty to Blade. The Englishman knew that the Senar would die slowly rather than betray him. He only hoped he could meet the same high standard if the matter came to a test.
For five days they crossed a land covered with patches of forest, small streams, pastures where single-horned blue-gray cattle grazed-and small farms. Blade crept close to one of those farms before the dew was off the grass one morning. The farm seemed to contain a dozen or so sturdy women, bare-legged in their short tunics and as brown as the rough cloth of those tunics. Much to Blade's surprise, the farm also held two men-captured Senar, judging from their hair and massive muscles. They seemed to be serving as domestic animals-hoisting water from the well, turning the grindstones, carrying huge loads of firewood.
Blade asked Truja about that when he returned to the scout camp. She shrugged. «Out here in the westlands the Laws of Mother Kina are not always followed strictly. There is much hard work in running a farm, and for much of it a man is stronger and cheaper than a draught animal. So not all of the Senar taken by the hunting parties end up on spits. Some end up on westland farms, and good coin or perhaps wine ends up in the hands of the huntresses.»
After the fifth day, the farms became larger and there was less unused land between them. That meant more care was necessary in traveling, even by night, and much more care in choosing and concealing campsites. Here, barely forty miles from the city, the patrols still roamed fairly often. At least once a day the guards watching the nearest road would see a cloud of dust approaching. Shortly there would materialize under that dust cloud a score or so of heavily armed women, tramping along with dust-caked faces set and grim.
«There still aren't nearly as many as there would be if things were normal,» said Truja. «The city is pulling in its horns. Rilgon will be able to take his men to within three days of the city with nothing but rumors running ahead of him.» She looked grim.
To take Truja's mind off her forebodings of disaster, Blade changed the subject. «Shall we start looking for a point where the women fleeing from the city can meet? We ought to pick somewhere large enough to hold all the women but small enough to defend against attack. We'll have to deal with the women of the city and perhaps some of Rilgon's Senar if we can't get clear before they arrive.»
Truja nodded wearily. «I know. But you're asking a lot. A plantation house would be the best. But even the abandoned ones are too close to the city to be very safe. And most of them are still in use. I doubt if we can find what you're looking for. We may have to find some forest and camp in the open.»
But Truja's pessimism proved a poor guide. Blade and Nugun went out on patrol, and three days later they returned with broad smiles and a report of their find.
«It's a big, tall, sprawling thing, with five wings, built out of shiny black stone. Or at least it must have been shiny once,» Blade added. «It's badly weathered and overgrown, but still sound inside.»
«You went-inside?» said Truja, her mouth falling open so wide that Blade could barely understand her last word.
«Yes. Why not?»
«Black stone-that is-a War House of the people before the disaster. It is full of violence, evil, disease.» She shuddered and sat down abruptly. «No. We will not use it.»
«We shall indeed use it,» said Blade. «I don't care what your city superstitions say. I know from my own land that the worst evil of such a war would have passed away many generations ago. That War House will be perfectly safe. It-«
«But the violence left a curse, the men's-«
«Damn the violence and damn the curses and damn you for a superstitious idiot if you believe in either one!» Blade snapped. Some of the other scouts turned and stared at him. He reached down, seized Truja by the wrist, dragged her to her feet, then dragged her stumbling and protesting out of earshot of the rest of the scouts. He sat her down in the ferns and stood over her. There was an edge in his voice as he continued.
«The disaster was at least a thousand years ago. There is no way that War House can possibly still be dangerous. No diseases, nothing can survive that long. I know. I have seen such lingering deaths fade away in a single generation.»