was the same day after day. They did not understand Blade, nor did they question. Lali was an absolute ruler - compared to her Catherine the Great had been a democrat - and if their Empress wanted Blade, who was to question it?
Lali touched his knee with her whip. 'You left me early this morning, Sir Blade. I awoke to an empty bed. I do not like that.' The deep green eyes were narrowed on him.
Blade did not apologize. He knew better, and in any case apology was foreign to his nature.
'I had business,' he said brusquely. 'I made an early tour of inspection. I am trying to think of a plan to rid us of these Mongs, Lali. I cannot do it in bed.'
Lali expected love-making every morning before rising. She explained it in direct speech. 'Mei Saka, may he rot in the bellies of the carrion apes, had not touched me for two years before you came, Blade. I am a woman of great passion and demand.'
They came now to the great cannon and dismounted. 'I will forgive you this time,' she said. 'Not again.'
The silken leash.
Blade inspected the huge gun with his usual awe and amusement. Lali could never understand why he was so fascinated by it. It had always been there, ever since she was a child, and the explosions frightened her almost as much as they did the Mongs.
She watched, a trifle impatiently, as Blade walked around the cannon. He had been very nearly right in his first estimates. The muzzle was five feet across, not six, but the gun was sixty feet long. The wheels of its eight- wheeled carriage were twelve feet high. It took ten barrels of crude powder to charge it and five hundred men to move it up and down the ramp. What puzzled Blade was why the damned thing had never blown up. The barrel was of wood, thick and ornately carven, and reinforced with wide steel rings. Steel was hard to come by in this province of Cath. It all had to come from the south, from the Imperial City of Pukka.
Blade shrugged, as he always did, and went back to Lali. Those old gunsmiths must have known something about wood, something that had been lost with the years.
Together they watched the Mongs moving about out on the plain. The sturdy little horses, long haired and with bushy manes and tails, wheeled and swooped amid the blowing clouds of Hack sand. Soon the attacks would begin. Day after day.
Year after year, as Lali explained later that night.
'Khad Tambur, the Lord of the Mongs, wants the big gun. If we let him have it he will make peace and go away.'
They had been in Lali's bed. Blade, yawning, said: 'Then why not give him the gun? What use is it? You never kill any Mongs with it - you just scare them and then they come right back.'
For the first time he saw her horrified - and angry. The lovely eyes darted green sparks at him.
'Give them the gun? Give Khad Tambur our gun! You are mad, Blade. No! Not mad. I forget you are a stranger. But the gun is the symbol of Cath. There is a legend. When the gun is captured Cath is doomed. He who possesses the cannon rules the world. That is why Khad Tambur is so determined to have it. For the power it brings. Why he keeps trying year after year, and why he sacrifices so many hundreds of thousands of his men. Give up the gun! Never breathe that again, Blade. Even I could not save you. The people would tear you apart.'
Blade had pressed her back on the bed and forgotten it.
This morning there was a sense of something different in the air. The Mongs did not attack as usual. There was the usual scurry and bustle in the great, village of black tents and the cooking fire smoke hung in clouds above the plain and mingled with the blowing black sand. But the usual forays did not come. The milling horsemen stayed out of range, making no effort to entice the defenders out for a battle, and the foot soldiers did not come forward with their scaling ladders.
Blade wondered if the Khad Tambur had suddenly found wisdom? Until now he had been a singularly obtuse commander, wasting men against the wall day after day.
Lali, shielding her eyes with a hand, stared over at the Mong camp. She wrinkled her beautiful nose. 'Something is wrong, Sir Blade. They do not come to fight as usual.'
Blade smiled. 'Maybe the Khad is getting smart at last. He is going to fold his tents and steal away. I know I would have, long ago. He can't win this way.'
Lali chewed her lip with small perfect teeth. 'That is not good, Sir Blade. We must kill Mongs. Every day we must kill more and more Mongs. How can we do that if they go away?'
Blade pointed. 'Look! Maybe your answer is coming now. He's not very big, is he?'
A single horseman had left the Mong camp and was riding toward the wall. As he drew near Blade could not repress a smile. The rider was a dwarf, or midget, dressed as a Mong warrior. Over his head, on a small lance, he waved a single horse tail.
Blade looked at the girl. 'He wants a parley. But why send a dwarf, a stunted man? He can't really be a warrior.'
Her face was pale, the emerald eyes blazing with rage. 'It is Khad Tambur's idea of a joke. An insulting joke. No - it must be the idea of that bitch whore! Sadda, Khad's sister. It is like her to think of an insult like this.'
The little man, riding a little pony, stopped near a postern in the great wall. He waved his horse tail all the while he shouted in a voice that was amazingly gruff and deep. The Cath soldiers, obedient to orders, did not fire. Blade quickly mounted and rode up the wall road until he was directly over the tiny rider. Queko was there, a tolerant smile on his handsome face, along with a little group of Cath officers.
The little warrior was sturdily built in perfect proportion. Off the pony, Blade judged, the man would be less than three feet tall. Yet his legs were heavily muscled and his biceps bulged.
The Mongs used no stirrups. The messenger sprang lightly to stand on the saddle, perfectly balanced, and cupped his hands as he shouted up at the towering wall.
'Caths! Soldiers of the province of Serendip, of the land of Cath, and most especially to the Empress Mei and all her high officers - the Khad Tambur sends you this offer. Listen well, for it is Khad Tambur who speaks through
