Blade sat up, straddled the branch, and shouted down to the people on the ground eighty feet below. «No sign of the Doimari!»
A voice floated up through the needles. «Would Blade recognize a Doimari if he saw one? Best that I go forward and see.»
That could only be Hota. He couldn't be denied a place on the expedition. He was a leading warrior of Kaldak, who'd been to Gilmarg several times before. This honor hadn't improved his manners. He considered being obliged to associate with Blade an insult, and being obliged to take Bairam's and Kareena's orders was almost as bad. He said whatever he pleased whenever he pleased and seemed to be hoping to provoke Blade or Bairam into a quarrel. Sooner or later, he was going to succeed with Bairam.
Blade scrambled down the tree too late to hear what anyone said to Hota. Hota and four other fighters were already on their way toward the edge of the forest and Gilmarg. Blade was relieved to hear that one of them was Sidas. He at least would keep his eyes open enough to keep Hota from returning and talking nonsense. For a while there was nothing for Blade to do except join the men who were cutting ferns for the munfans. As a man outside the Law, he wasn't allowed to carry a weapon, so he couldn't even sit down and sharpen his sword.
Blade was feeding the last munfans when Bairam came up behind him. The boy carried two swords, to mark his rank as Peython's son even though he was also a man under judgment for breaking the Law. «Hota will push himself forward every time he can,» Bairam said. «He wants to be the hero of this journey, so he can ask our father for Kareena.»
«Would Peython give her to him?»
«Hota's courage has won him many friends. If they spoke for him, Peython would have to listen, or fear them becoming his enemies.»
«Kareena would not be happy with Hota, I think.»
«No. I have heard her say she would rather marry an ox, or live without a man all her life.»
Blade smiled, remembering Kareena's lips hot against him and her graceful red-brown body naked in the firelight. He doubted she would be happy with a celibate life, or would need to accept one, although he hoped she would not have to accept Hota just to keep peace in Kaldak. She would never be happy with a man who had more courage than sense, even if he wasn't a loudmouthed boor as well.
It was well past noon before Hota and the other scouts returned. «There cannot be enough Doimari in Gilmarg to fight us,» said Hota.
«Not unless they can hide themselves better than usual,» added Sidas.
«The warriors of a city without the Law cannot have such skill,» said Hota crushingly. Sidas was about to reply, but a black look from Kareena silenced him. Blade was glad. Sidas was too intelligent to believe much of Hota's superstitious nonsense about the Law, and much too likely to blurt out his heretical opinions in Hota's presence.
It was mid-afternoon before they got all the munfans untethered and on the move. They seemed more skittish than usual, and several broke their hobbles and tried to bolt. Even the most experienced hunters and munfan-leaders couldn't say what was bothering the animals.
The light was failing by the time they reached a safe refuge among the towers of Gilmarg, with a cracked roof overhead and crumbling vine-grown walls on three sides. Kareena decided against making any fires, and they ate a cold dinner of bread and meat. Then the sentries took up their posts for the night, and everyone else fell asleep.
Blade took the first watch with the sentries, then rolled up in his blanket. He managed to sleep in spite of the chill and the sharp rocks digging into all the more vulnerable portions of his anatomy. Sometime in the darkest hours of the night he awoke to find Kareena curled up against him, one arm across his chest. He tried to move her, but she only pressed herself closer without waking up and made a noise like a contented kitten. He gave up, wrapped his blanket around both of them, and went back to sleep with her firm warmth resting against him. Hota might be jealous, but Blade's patience with Hota was just about gone. If the warrior said one more word out of turn, Blade was going to find it hard not to take him apart, Law or no Law!
It didn't take them long the next morning to find Saorm's tunnel. Either the merchant had a naturally good memory, or knowing the number of swords pointed at his back gave him one. Before the sun was well up he'd led them through a maze of ruined side streets to a crumbling building with a half-exposed basement. In one corner of the basement stood a slab of concrete taller and thicker than a man.
«There,» said Saorm. «Under the lower end of that stone. The tunnel is narrow, though. I did not get through it easily then. I do not think I could get through it at all, now.»
Hota poked the merchant in his stomach. «Too fat, eh? We should have marched you harder, made you skinny. Well, there will always be men to go where you cannot.»
At first Blade doubted that Saorm was telling the truth about pushing the slab into place single-handed. Then he noticed several other slabs balanced more or less precariously around the basement. One of them fell over as he watched, nearly crushing Sidas. When the dust settled, Kareena had the men go around and push the rest of the slabs over, so they could go to work on the tunnel without looking over their shoulders every minute.
One man might have pushed the slab into place, but it took the sweat of at least a dozen before it was clear. With Blade and Hota working together for once, the slab was then dragged to one side. Everyone stood around the gaping black maw now exposed, peering down the rubble-strewn slope until it vanished in the darkness. Blade noticed that while everyone wanted to look, no one seemed particularly eager to linger on the edge of the darkness.
To his credit, Saorm volunteered to be the first man down the tunnel. He stripped himself naked, tied a rope around his waist, then on hands and knees scrambled down into the darkness. A lot of cursing and grunting and the clatter of falling stones floated up from the darkness, followed by a cloud of dust. Then Saorm himself reappeared, panting, sweaty, bleeding slightly in several places, and shaking his head grimly.
«The tunnel is not as it was when I found it. The stones have moved, so that there is much less room. Even if I was the man I was then, I could not get through.»
Kareena gave him the kiss of honor. «Do not grieve, Saorm. You have done well. Someone else will have to finish your work, that is all.»
Kareena's words touched off a ferocious argument over who should have the honor of finishing Saorm's work. Blade was the first to volunteer to go down the tunnel. Inevitably, Hota objected. «This man is outside the Law and facing the judgment of the Gathering. It will bring a curse upon Kaldak if he is the first to enter the hole and see this great wealth of Oltec. Let me go.» He looked ready to draw his sword against anyone who argued.
Saorm saw his chance to get back at Hota for his earlier insults. «You are larger than I, and the Law will not make you smaller. If I cannot get down, how can you?»
«Then Blade cannot go either, because he is bigger still.»
«I am smaller than either of you,» put in Sidas. «And I-«
«I am the smallest of the men,» began Bairam. «I-«
«You may be Peython's son, but you are not in the Law's favor either,» said Hota sharply. «You are not so much better than Blade.»
«I am-yah!» said Bairam, breaking off as his sister kicked him hard in the shin. Kareena glared at everyone, then started taking off her trousers.