Blade sideslipped and flicked the plait of hair into Redbeard's eyes. He make a karate axe of his right hand and chopped viciously at the man's neck as he stormed past. Nothing. Redbeard shook off the blow, wheeled and came bellowing back at Blade. Blade tripped him again and this time Redbeard fell in a long sprawl, so heavily that the hall shook on its foundations. Redbeard's massive head slammed into a large wine tub that stood nearby and for a moment he lay stunned.
It was a chance that might not come again. Blade leaped.
He was on Redbeard's back, with the plait of beard around the man's throat and twisted into a thugee cord. Redbeard, choking now, came rearing up and Blade rode him like a horse, clinging with his knees and locked legs while he used both hands to twist the plait deeper and deeper into that thick neck. Redbeard, using his hands to claw away the thing that was throttling him, could not dislodge Blade. He fought to pull the now deeply embedded hair cord from his flesh. He shook and pranced and leaped and still Blade rode him. Redbeard's mouth opened wide, his tongue lolled out, and still he clawed at the plait of har. Blade, using his last bit of strength, pulled it tighter.
His face was turning black now. Redbeard fell crashing to his knees, pawing at the strangling cord of hair, his head swaying in agony as he fought for one gasp of precious air. He remained on his knees, rocking back and forth, refusing to die, the death vibrations of his great body fully transmitted to the desperately clinging Blade.
When it was too late Redbeard used his brain. He stopped trying to wrench away the noose and his huge hands fumbled behind him for some portion of Blade that was vulnerable. His hands found Blade's ankles, one in each hand, and with a final tremendous effort the man tried to tear Blade into two pieces. Blade, convulsed with pain, fought back by tensing his muscles, resisting the unnatural strain with every bit of his own waning strength. His hands, ever twisting the hair noose deeper into Redbeard's neck, were numb and long beyond pain or feeling of any sort.
It was over. The great carcass slumped, the hands fell away from Blade, as a final tremor ran through the man Getorix, called Redbeard. He slumped out at full length near the wine tub, dead.
Richard Blade, near dead himself, left the plait coiled around the throat and staggered to his feet. Every nerve and muscle screamed for rest, for the merciful oblivion of sleep. Or death? Blade, in those frenetic last moments, was not quite sure who had won, who lived and who had died. He knew only an enormous longing to close his eyes and have done with it.
Yet the matter must be carried out to a fitting and proper conclusion. As his senses filtered back he began to understand, through the roaring in his head, that he was now king of the Sea Raiders. Redbeard was dead! He, Blade, now ruled.
He swayed over the huge corpse. Silence had fallen over the vast hall.
Blade raised a hand and in a voice that was surprisingly strong— he was amazed himself— said: 'I rule now. I make Jarl my First Captain. You will obey him as you would me.'
Blade looked down at the corpse of Redbeard, still not quite believing that he had killed such a man.
'Let this man be given a proper burial, as befits such a warrior. Jarl will see to it. As for all of you, who now serve me, get on with your feasting. As soon as the body has been taken to a place of honor. I— '
Blade never saw his attacker. The man, who had been sitting at a table near the wine tub, leaped at him with a high scream of hate and mourning. A long dirk flashed in the smoky light and Blade felt exquisite white agony as the metal ripped his flesh. He staggered away, blood streaming from his back, and cast frantically around for a weapon as the man came at him again.
Blade stumbled into a table and fell half across it. He turned, trying again to face his attacker, blood drenching him, as Jarl leaped into action.
Blade saw what followed through a curtain of pain and blood. Jarl, a long sword in his hand, shouting in anger, sprang at the man who had daggered Blade. The sword came around in a level, glistening circle and bit into flesh with a loud chunk.
Blade's attacker, headless, stood for an instant and spurted blood from the dying trunk high into the air. The dagger, stained with Blade's blood, clung to the fingers.
The head fell into the tub of wine and floated there, eyes staring, crimsoning the wine.
Blade felt himself falling into sleep. Now that he could achieve oblivion, so longed for just an instant ago, he did not want it. He was suddenly afraid of it. This was not a natural sleep that stalked him, this numbness that pervaded his feet and legs and arms and was fast working toward his brain. He sought to speak and heard only a strangled cry. He was falling and felt himself caught and supported by brawny arms.
Jarl, bloody sword still in his hand, was peering at Blade. His lips moved and Blade heard the words from a great distance. They sparked a final bitterness and rebellion in him— to have come so far, to have done so much, to have defied circumstance so valiantly— and to have it end here, like this.
Jarl's voice was a muted trumpet sounding on a vagrant and fading breeze. Blade could barely hear, but what he heard told him he was dying.
'Oleg— natural son of Redbeard— his dagger poisoned— we know of no antidote, Lord Blade. But we will try— there is a Dru, she you spoke of, and it is said, it is possible that— '
Jarl's voice was gone. His face was fading. Blade smiled up at the ring of faces and wondered why he was smiling. He was an idiot! He had always hated death— and feared it in his secret soul— and why should he smile now that it was here at last? What would happen to Taleen and poor Sylvo?— Then everything went black.
Chapter Thirteen
For ten days the wind blew from the northeast, stubborn and unrelenting, and scattered the ships like autumn leaves over the Western Sea.
Richard Blade, in waking dream and nightmare sleep, fancied himself in a cradle rocked by a giant's hand. His wound festered and the poison was insidious, seeking his life, held in check only by the bitter draughts given him by the silver-haired Dru, she who in his dream he had called Drusilla.
Her real name was Canace. This she told him in one of his rare lucid moments, before she administered the black cool liquid, so bitter to his tongue, that brought on the drowsy inertia, the waking dream state, that sapped his will
