Blade stroked her hair and kissed her ear. He whispered, 'And what had the Khad to say?'
Sadda scowled, looking more like her old self. 'He is very pious these days. He goes to consult Obi each morning before we march. Obi bids him march eastward. Always eastward until the wall ends. Then he is to turn behind the wall and march to the west again, so coming in behind the Cath. Obi has promised him victory if he does this.'
Very likely, Blade thought. He had seen the Mong cavalry at work. In open fighting the Caths were no match for them. Without their wall they would be quickly defeated. It might be Lali, after all, who ended in the cage.
But he shrugged and said, 'This idol only tells your brother what he should know for himself, and commands him to do what he should have done long ago. The Khad, when he is not mad, is no fool. Why has he not done this before?'
She laughed and pulled him down on her again. 'You are the one who does not know, Blade! The march will be terrible. Thousands will die before we reach the end of the wall. If we ever do. I have heard that there is no end, that the wall goes on forever!'
She was ready for love again and would not talk. She whispered as he left the wagon before the sun could shoot up, 'Keep a close mouth and watch Rahstum. Our chance will come again. The madness will return, as it always does, and he will grow careless and fall to drinking too much bross and lusting after virgin children. Then leave it to me. I will arrange a celebration on some excuse and we will go through with the plan. Go, Blade.'
Before many days Blade came to see that she was right about the trek. The days grew colder and the nights bitter. He was given a cape of thickly braided horsehair with a dogskin lining, and a pointed dogskin cap with thick earflaps. All the Mongs now dressed in this manner.
The wall was no longer in sight. The land began to slant upward, barren desert at first where the only moving thing, other than the trekkers, was black sand that blasted them constantly. The wind never stopped blowing. For three days a sandstorm buffeted them, three days of black hell when Blade, in spite of the cloth worn over his mouth and nose, spat out black sand constantly. Still the Mongs marched, on and on. Children began to die, and women, and even some of the older warriors. They were left for the carrion apes that dogged the caravan relentlessly. The apes were growing bolder and sometimes at night would rush the herds and tear at the horses' throats before they could be driven off.
By the time the sandstorm blew itself out, they were into a narrow pass that climbed abruptly toward distant mountains where snow glimmered. It grew increasingly colder. The Khad no longer rode Thunderer, but retreated to his wagon. Sadda sent for Blade nearly every night and they managed to keep each other warm, making love under heaps of horsehair blankets.
They got into a belt of trees, just beneath the snowline, and halted for a week while the Mongs cut precious wood and stacked it in wagons. They never used wood for fuel, it being so rare, but not a bit of pony dung was wasted. The dung gatherers, lowest in the order of Mong society, followed along after the herds and collected each precious dropping. It was flattened and dried on racks in the moving wagons, and used for fuel.
They left the forest behind and climbed above the snowline. The pass narrowed and grew precipitous, only wide enough for one wagon to pass at a time. Glaciers hung over them like mammoth glistening swords and beyond the trail there was only empty space layered with gray wet clouds. And always the wind blew, merciless and interminable. Cold became a way of life.
Each day they lost horses and men, and sometimes wagons, that slipped into the chasm bounding the trail. They went down in a welter of threshing bodies and hooves, screaming away into the silence beneath the clouds. The Mong officers barked harsh orders and the caravan closed up and kept on going.
The bodies of those who died from the cold were tossed into the chasm as well, the carrion apes having turned back at the snowline. When night came each wagon stopped where it was and the occupants fended as best they could. Dung fire smoked in the snow.
Blade, even with his awesome physique and endurance, suffered from the cold. He gulped down warm bross and gnawed on half-frozen horsemeat and was thankful that Sadda, far ahead in the column, could not call on his services at the moment. He had not seen his guards for two days, which was sensible of them. No need to worry about Blade. To the right was the chasm, apparently bottomless. To the left the monstrous glaciers climbed away into infinity. Now and again, during the day, Blade would glance at the vast sheets of snow and ice poised overhead and shiver. If they ever broke away and started sliding!
Baber's wagon, since the old man was now Blade's slave, was just behind his on the trail. On this night, when the breath froze instantly on his beard, Blade did not fear spies. He was in Baber's wagon, both of them huddled in straw and wearing their heavy capes, when a tapping came on the rear of the wagon.
They looked at each other. Baber put a finger to his mouth and whispered. 'Not even she would seek you out on a night like this. Who can it be?'
'I know a way,' said Blade through his icy beard, 'of finding out.' He loosened his sword in the scabbard and opened the door. The wind howled like a wolf and tried to invade the little wagon. Blade laughed and reached out to pluck the little figure inside.
Baber said: 'You pick a fine night for visiting, Morpho. It must be urgent. Good news? Has the Khad fallen into the chasm in a fit of madness?'
The dwarf, more gnomelike than ever in his heavy coat and peaked cap, brushed snow from himself and looked at Blade with his perpetual grin. He looked weary and there was entreaty in his dark eyes as he touched Blade's arm.
'I went to your wagon and had no answer, Blade, so I thought to try here. I must have your help. I am desperate, Blade. Help me.'
Blade, still reserving judgment, had never mentioned his doubts to Baber. There would be time enough for that when he was sure. Now he placed a big hand on Morpho's shoulder. 'I will help if I can. What is it? You are in danger?'
Baber, supporting himself on his arms, kept silent.
'I am not in danger,' Morpho said. 'But another is - someone very dear to me. You will come, Blade, and see what you can do?'
Blade glanced at Baber. The old man hunched his shoulders to indicate ignorance. Blade wondered if it could possibly be a trap of some kind.
