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his friends might not see another sunrise.
Neither would some of the men facing him.
"All right," said Gribbon. "I give the orders here now. You come on in, both
of you, and we'll see what's what."
"We've got a third one back in the woods," said Blade. "A woman, a friend of
Riddart's. Can I bring her in?"
The man nodded and pointed to three of his riders. "Go with him. Shoot if he
gives you a wrong look or isn't telling the truth." The three men rode toward
Blade, who turned and started plodding back toward the forest without waiting
for them. He found that it was as hard to lift his feet as if they'd been
encased in lead boots.
Blade felt considerably better a few hours later. The hospitality Gribbon
showed even to strangers was respectable, almost generous. It was far ahead of
anything Blade, Khraishamo, or Rhodina had enjoyed since reaching Shell
Island.
They were given stew, bread, dried fruit, and ale all they could eat and
drink. It took more than storms or wars to make a Goharan forget his
hospitality to guests. Then they had baths, with hot water and strong-smelling
gritty soap, and put on clean clothing.
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After that they were separated. Two of the servant girls led Rhodina off to a
bed in their quarters, while armed men led Blade and Khraishamo to a store
room. The room was more than half filled with sacks of grain and sides of
smoked meat. Blade also recalled that he'd seen other well-filled store rooms
and sheds around the farm. Gribbon's people had laid in far more food than
they could ever use themselves, probably far more than they'd produced
themselves.
He pointed at the sacks. "Harvest good?"
The men looked at him sharply, and one nodded. "Best in years," he said.
Another added: "Lucky, too. We got it all in before the storm."
Then the men left, locking and barring the door from the outside. Blade and
Khraishamo had a candle, a jug of water, a bucket, and nothing to do but wait
for their host to make up his mind who they were and what should be done with
them.
Blade leaned back against the piled sacks. "Where do we go from here, I
wonder?" he said, half to himself.
"To sleep, if you've got the brains of a fish," said Khraishamo wearily. The
pirate was not only tired, the ale he'd taken with dinner had affected him
more than Blade. The Sarumi seldom used alcohol.
"If I had the brains of a fish here, I'd eat them," said Blade. "I was just
asking myself, are we among friends or enemies?"
Khraishamo looked up at the ceiling. "I wouldn't shut a friend up in a room
like this, myself." Blade had to agree. There was no window, and the door was
made of solid planks several inches thick. The walls were stone, and the
ceiling was more planks held up by beams as thick as Blade's body. Short of
using dynamite, the only way out of this room was through the locked door.
"On the other hand," Khraishamo went on, "I wouldn't feed and bathe an enemy
like he did." He shrugged. "Maybe he can't be sure what we are. So he's
holding us until somebody comes along to tell him."
"Either that, or he thinks we're lying but can't do enough harm to be worth
worrying about." Blade rather hoped his guess was the correct one. If
Khraishamo was right, the three of them would be well treated but carefully
guarded. If they were considered harmless and more or less ignored, they might
find a chance to slip away. It would be dangerous here if the Maghri in
Kloret's pay did come storming down on the farm. The filled store rooms hinted
that the rebels were gathering in force, but they could hardly be strong
enough yet to meet the force of Maghri Blade had seen.
If the worst happened, Blade knew he himself could plunge into the wilderness
and survive there until it was time to return to Home Dimension. But that
would mean leaving Khraishamo and Rhodina behind so forget that, he told
himself. The Three Musketeers of Shell Island would stand together, win, lose,
or die. That was one certainty in all the confusion spreading across this
Dimension.
Now that he'd settled this in his mind, the best thing was to go to sleep. In
one corner of the room was a pile of empty sacks. Blade divided the pile in
two and gave half to Khraishamo. Before Blade could spread out his own sacks,
the pirate was sprawled on his, snoring like a distant thunderstorm.
When Blade awoke, he thought at first that a real thunderstorm had come to
join Khraishamo's snores. Certainly there was a tremendous din from outside,
loud enough to penetrate even the solid stone walls. Then he started picking
out individual noises. In the next moment he was completely awake and on his
feet.
Outside, horses were neighing, fists pounded on doors, feet thudded on the
ground, and men and women were shouting, both in Goharan and in another
language Blade couldn't make out. A distant rumble growing rapidly louder told
of more horsemen riding up at a gallop. Blade found himself listening for the
crackle of flames, then realized he'd heard enough already.
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The Maghri were attacking the farm, he and Khraishamo might die like trapped
rats, and Rhodina was probably already dead. She might be able to convince the
Maghri that she'd be worth more as a slave than a corpse, if she got the
chance. She probably wouldn't. If the Maghri were in Kloret's pay their orders
might be to simply kill everyone who might be a rebel.
Then someone started lifting the bar outside the door. By now Khraishamo was
awake. They looked at each other, then picked up a handful of sacks apiece.
The sacks wouldn't do much as weapons, but they might serve as shields long
enough for them to snatch weapons from the Maghri. After that it would be a
short fight, but Blade was determined to make it a bloody one. He saw the same
determination in
Khraishamo's eyes. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]