The exchange of peace gestures was the last bit of clear communication for several minutes. It wasn't that Blade didn't understand the language of the Tribesmen. It was a recognizable dialect of the universal language of the Land. The problem was that they hardly used the language to communicate, preferring an elaborate code of grunts, gestures, and headshakes which they seemed to expect Blade to, understand. Perhaps the Doimari or other city traders did, but as far as he was concerned the Tribesmen might have been speaking some South American Indian language he'd never even heard of, let alone learned! The computer's work on his brain was no help at all.
After a while the leader seemed to understand that what they had here was a failure to communicate. He waved his followers back and stepped close to Blade. Blade felt like gagging at the chief's smell.
«Your woman?» he said, pointing at Kareena.
«My woman.»
«You are in land of Hoirccchhh.» Or at least the name of the tribe sounded like that to Blade.
«I have heard of the Hoirccchhh,» said Blade, hoping he'd pronounced it right. «They are a strong and brave people.»
The chief smiled. «Yes. Strong and brave. We take a price to come on our land. You pay with this woman for us, for tonight.»
Blade saw Kareena stiffen and had to fight not to do so himself. The chief was asking for the right to gang-rape Kareena as the price of peace between him and Blade. Blade wondered if he hadn't wasted everybody's time trying to be diplomatic.
«My woman is not strong,» he said in a level voice.
«Then why you keep her?» said the chief. «You are strong warrior, need strong woman to give you sons.»
«She is strong enough for me,» said Blade. He noticed that the seven men were now forming a circle around him. The man with the laser rifle was in plain sight, though. Also, the men were now all out of easy reach of Kareena.
«She strong enough for you, strong enough for us,» said the chief bluntly. «You pay for coming on our land with her, or some other way.»
Blade was tempted to play for time by seeming to agree, then Kareena raised her head. The trapped look in her eyes drove the temptation out of Blade. He wasn't going to add anything to Kareena's burden, even if it meant greater danger for him.
Unfortunately the chief seemed to take Blade's look as a sign of agreement. One of his men stepped toward Kareena, gripped her jacket with both hands, and tore it down to her waist. She hissed like a snake and closed her eyes. Then the man reached inside her shirt and started to fondle her breast, and she screamed.
Blade had never heard a scream like that from a living throat. He hoped he would never hear one like it again. His hand dropped toward the grenade pocket. Even without pulling the pin, he could throw one like a stone and take out the rifleman.
Then Kareena screamed again, and Blade stopped thinking of grenades or any other modern weapons. He wanted blood, preferably shed with his own hands. His control snapped completely but his skills didn't desert him. In the next minute the Tribesmen paid a grisly price for all that Blade and Kareena had endured in Doimar.
Blade leaped completely over the campfire to close with the rifleman. He tore the weapon out of the man's hands and drove the butt into his face so hard it not only crushed his nose but also blinded him. The rifle broke in two under the impact but Blade hung on to the barrel and used it as a short spear. A swordsman screamed as the jagged end of the barrel destroyed his manhood, then fell over backward into the fire and screamed again. A man coming at Blade with a spear tripped over the fallen man and went down almost at Blade's feet. Blade jumped on his back and stamped down with both feet, cracking the spine like a twig. Then he drew his own sword and engaged two men at once.
That took him only a little longer. He slashed through a spear and one of the arms holding it. Then he closed with the man, grabbed him, and spun him around so that he took in his own stomach a sword thrust his comrade had meant for Blade.
Finally Blade dropped the dying man and broke the swordsman's neck with a karate blow. Five down, two to go.
The other two weren't standing to fight. They were running toward the crest of the hill, to get away or perhaps bring reinforcements. Blade snatched a grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin, and threw. The grenade exploded just as it hit one man in the back of the neck, and his head and shoulders vanished in a bloody spray. Fragments and concussion knocked the last man off his feet. He was still struggling to rise when Blade caught up with him and pounded his head against the rocks until he lay still.
When Blade came back down the hill, he found that Kareena had fainted. He cut her loose with his sword, and was lifting her in his arms when a bolt of lightning hit the crest of the hill. The light half-dazzled him, the thunder left his ears ringing, and sulphur stank in his nostrils. Then the rain poured down, washing away the sulphur smell but soaking them both to the skin in moments.
The journey back to the Hovercraft was a nightmare in the storm. Fear that other Tribesmen might have found it didn't ease Blade's mind. But it was intact and unharmed when they reached it, although the rising wind was shaking it. He didn't dare try moving to another place in this storm-they'd be blown out onto the lake the moment they lifted clear of the ground.
Instead he turned the cabin heat up as high as it would go, then stripped off Kareena's clothes and wrapped her in everything dry he could find. She woke up while he was heating some soup.
«Blade, are we-where are we?»
«In the Oltec machine, on the shore of Lake Mison, a long way from Doimar. Right where we were a few hours ago.»
«Then-it was a dream, those Tribesmen and-your fight?»
«It wasn't a dream, Kareena. They'd captured you. I fought them and killed them.»
«Yes. I remember now. But-Blade, you didn't need to fight. They weren't going to kill you. They were only-only…» She shuddered.
Blade desperately wanted to hold her but restrained himself. «Yes. I would not allow that. I wouldn't have allowed anything that happened in Doimar, if there'd been any other way to learn the city's secrets. I had no choice. Believe me, I had none.»
«Blade-you really-didn't-betray Kaldak?» Her words were getting slurred.
«No. They haven't learned anything about us, and we've learned everything about them. Not only that, but everything about where Kaldak's Oltec can be found. Kareena, you went through hell, but now we can fight Doimar and win!»
«Fight,» she said. «Fight-like you fought for-me.» Her hand crept out from under the blankets and reached for Blade's. Before their fingers touched her eyes drifted shut, and she was asleep. She was also smiling.
Blade sat there, looking at the smile. He supposed he ought to feel dirty, even animallike. He'd certainly slaughtered those seven Tribesmen more like an animal than like a man. Yet he could hardly feel that gang of would-be rapists was much of a loss to any Dimension, and Kareena's smile was worth a lot.
Chapter 20
Kareena was still smiling when she woke up after the storm. In the evening twilight Blade moved the Hovercraft a few miles down the shore, out of reach of anyone searching for the missing Tribesmen. Then he and Kareena both got their first really good night's sleep since leaving Kaldak on the way to Gilmarg.