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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
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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.
The next morning they left the shore of Lake Mison and headed out across the
plains. Blade took his time, now that they were beyond the reach of both the
Doimari and the Tribes. They were more than halfway home, but it would still
be a long walk for Blade and probably an impossible one for Kareena.
After some arguing, Kareena took off her trousers and let Blade examine her
injured leg. As he'd suspected, the fracture was setting slightly crooked. In
Home Dimension it would have been a simple matter to rebreak the leg and set
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it properly. In this Dimension there'd be no point in putting Kareena through
another painful ordeal with not much chance of success. So she would always
have a slight limp as a souvenir of her captivity in Doimar.
She shrugged when Blade gave her the bad news. "I'm still too happy just to be
alive to worry about being crippled. Perhaps in time we'll find Oltec which
can finish healing the leg. Meanwhile, we've already found Oltec which will
let me fight the Doimari sitting down."
It took them several days to cross the plains and reach the hills which marked
the boundary of the lands claimed by Kaldak. Blade stopped once to shoot and
butcher a wild munfan, to give them a change from
the wholesome but dull emergency rations in the Hovercraft. That night they
had a feast of munfan steaks broiled over a brushwood fire. Kareena sat across
the fire from Blade, eating with the first real appetite he'd seen her show,
happily smearing her face and her bare arms with grease. She looked like the
warrior-queen she'd been when Blade first saw her.
By the time they reached the hills, Kareena was willing to be naked in front
of Blade and have him naked in front of her. She still didn't care to have him
touch her, but she was willing to touch him. Her fingers hadn't lost their
skill in massaging kinks out of muscles, and after hours hunched over the
controls Blade welcomed those massages.
They met a Kaldakan patrol the morning after they crossed the hills and nearly
fought a battle with it.
The Hovercraft had Doimar's insignia on the hull, which confused the
Kaldakans. The Kaldakans were entirely armed and equipped with Oltec, which
confused Blade. Fortunately someone in the patrol knew
Blade, and several knew Kareena, so the confusion was settled before any shots
were fired.
Blade climbed down from the Hovercraft, and the Kaldakans gathered around him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]