«You fight-he dies.»
The knife pricked Blade's ribs. He felt blood ooze out and trickle down. He held his breath, half mad with rage and helpless frustration. He wasn't quite sure that he wanted Nugun to stop.
But again Nugun grunted agreement, climbed out onto the edge of the pit, and stood up, arms at his sides. He stood there tamely as another net was thrown over him. His expression did not change even when one of the women stepped behind him with a stout club and brought it down full force on his head. Blade let out a roar of fury, but Nugun simply sagged down, dragging the three women off their feet. Blade could not help laughing at their struggles to untangle themselves from the net. He was still laughing when the other women led him away.
As the women marched Blade to the farmhouse, it was obvious that they weren't quite sure what to make of him. He could not possibly be an escaped Senar slave-he wasn't hairy or brawny enough. Breeding Males never left the House of Fertility-the guardians saw to that. And Blade couldn't possibly be female. So what was he?
When they reached the house, the women led Blade around to a shed out in back and locked him in. The last words he heard from his captors as they drifted away was a suggestion to ask the patrol the next time it came by.
Alone in the smelly and bug-ridden darkness, Blade considered his situation. There was a piece of good news in the women's words. They had no idea that people from the mountains might be prowling in the plains. So Blade wouldn't have to answer questions on the subject-or undergo torture for refusing to answer them.
But where was Nugun, and what had they done with him? Had they killed the Senar outright, or were they going to make him another farm slave? Blade suspected that Nugun would rather die than be a woman's slave. And left to himself, Nugun would certainly be able to goad the women into killing him sooner or later. Blade knew that the only thing he could do for the Senar was to escape before the patrol arrived and release Nugun.
But there was no hope of escaping during the remaining daylight hours. Blade went over to the door and tested the lock. The rattle made the woman on guard outside turn and glower at him through the narrow slit in the heavy wood. He thumbed his nose at her and stepped back. The lock couldn't be broken, but the guard might be persuaded to open it. When darkness fell…
In the meantime, get some sleep. Blade lay down on the floor and made himself as comfortable as the hard dirt permitted. The lowing of cattle in a nearby corral was the last thing he heard as he drifted off to sleep.
Blade awoke to see that it was night outside, but not dark. Several torches sent flickering light through the cracks in the walls and the slit in the door. Blade could hear the sound of footsteps all around the hut and numerous voices, chattering like a whole cageful of birds.
Blade's eyes wandered across the floor of the hut. He started as he saw Nugun lying there, feet bound and hands tied behind his back. A massive crust of blood marred one side of his huge head.
Blade rose to his feet and was starting toward the Senar when the door of the hut opened with a rattle of chains and bolts. Blade spun around with a momentary notion of jumping the first woman who came through the door and snatching her weapons. Then he realized that even if he escaped now, he could only do so by abandoning Nugun. He would not do that. There would be other times.
The first four women to step through the door were all warriors in patrol uniforms. Two had drawn swords thrust out in front of them; the others carried strung bows with arrows nocked to them. The archers moved into opposite corners of the hunt, their arrows pointed at Blade. The swordswomen took positions on either side of the door. Then the patrol leader stepped into the hut.
Blade could not keep his jaw from falling open for a second in sheer astonishment. The patrol leader was the leader of the hunting party Blade had attacked in the forest! He got his mouth closed as soon as she recognized him, and her mouth opened in turn.
After a moment she grinned, white teeth snapping together. «Ah, the strange man of the forest. I have been wondering who you were and where you might have gone. Well, there is only one place you are going now. The arena of the city will have such a spectacle as never before, when you die there.» Then she turned on her heel, walked outside, and began shouting orders to the rest of the patrol and cursing the farm women for their slowness.
Lashed on by the tall woman's orders, the farm women pushed and shoved Blade out of the hut. They tied his hands and forced him into the back of a heavy wagon drawn by six of the blue-gray cattle. Then they brought Nugun out, still unconscious. They carried him up to the wagon and threw him into the straw in the bottom like a sack of grain. Blade glared down at the women, but they merely glared back and made obscene gestures at him.
The patrol leader climbed up on the seat of the wagon beside the driver and snapped out an order. With whip-crackings and shouts from the driver, the cart began to move, and the patrol fell in on either side of it. Sitting beside Nugun, helpless to do anything for him, Blade watched the farm recede into the darkness.
The wagon and its escort kept moving until the sky began to turn gray. Then the tall woman ordered a halt and let her fighters scatter into the fields. Some simply sagged down onto the ground and took off their boots and helmets; others broke out cheese and coarse bread and nibbled at that. The tall leader climbed down from the wagon and walked around and around it. She neither ate nor drank, and her dust-caked face was as set and expressionless as if it had been made of iron.
Half an hour later the leader lined up her women, and the squeal and grind of the wagon wheels began again. This time it kept on all day. By the time the sun was low in the sky, all the women looked like dusty ghosts as they plodded along, putting one aching foot painfully in front of the other. Their eyes were sullen as they stared at their leader, riding almost in comfort beside the wagon driver. But Blade could see the leader's face better than the others. Something was twisting it from within, something even beyond fatigue. Blade did not like being in the power of such a driven woman.
Before the sun dropped completely below the horizon, the wagon turned aside into a flat, hard field rimmed by a line of squat, bushy trees. There was not a breath of wind to move a leaf on the trees or a blade of the long brown-green grass. With the sweat drying on his body, Blade watched the women pitch heavy leather tents and dig fire pits.
Beside Blade, Nugun also watched the women bustling about. The Senar had regained consciousness just before noon. But he had said nothing, either to Blade or to the women. Blade hoped Nugun was simply pretending to submit, following his master's apparent lead.
After making camp, the women turned to Blade and Nugun. They dragged the Senar out, cut the ropes at his wrists and ankles, and spread-eagled him between four posts driven into the ground. Blade watched the spectacle with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Were they going to abuse Nugun and eat him, the way they had dealt with his comrades in the forest?
Apparently not. After staking Nugun out, most of the women wandered off toward the trees. Some of them pulled off their tunics as they walked, and their bare breasts swayed gently, gleaming in the fading light. Two who remained by the cart drew their swords and motioned Blade to dismount. He unstretched cramped legs and let the women urge him toward a tent smaller than the others and well apart from them. The women led him up to the front of the tent and motioned for him to enter. Then they cut the cords binding his hands.