missed him by inches, a long glittering sword of green that would have decapitated him.
It was over. Blade reached for one of the small bits that had landed near him. He stared in utter disbelief. Jade! Jade such as he had never seen in his life, and he knew much of jade. His father had had a fabulous collection.
But this jade was beyond belief. A stone that was so transparent he could see his hand beyond it, a green that outshone all the seas, that could not be imagined and must be seen.
Jade cannon balls? It was dark!
Just like that it was dark. As though someone had switched off a light.
Of all things, Blade had not been prepared for this. He had noticed the graying of the day, the pearling, without giving it much thought. There would be twilight and then darkness and then he meant to venture out onto the plain and find himself some clothes and a weapon.
So it was dark. Blade shrugged and stood erect. He dropped the bit of jade. It couldn't be very valuable if they used it to make cannon balls. But this was X-Dimension where the sun just dropped out of sight and—
And the moon came up! Just as speedily. Someone had turned on the light again.
It was a half moon lying on its back high over the black tents of the attackers. Fires, hundreds of them, were springing into life on the plain now. Dark silhouettes moved to and fro before the fires and he heard a faint sound of singing. He glanced toward the wall. Torches were moving along the broad roadway atop it.
No need to ponder. It was all going into the memory tank for Lord L to siphon out when he wished. When - or if - Blade got back.
That was the prime objective. Explore, observe, survive. Become a habitue of this particular X-Dimension, wherever and whatever, and wait until Lord L snatched him back. That was his duty. His job. And he might as well get on with it.
Richard Blade, as naked as the day he came wailing from the womb, cautiously stepped from his sheltering rocks and began to descend to the battlefield below him. He made his way in the direction of the great wall, allowing instinct to guide him. Something in his brain whispered that his best chance for survival lay beyond that wall.
Chapter Three
As Blade drew near the wall he began to encounter the corpses of men and horses. Here they were piled thick atop each other, there scattered thinly, and one thing he noted above all. There were no wounded. They were all dead. If the defenders had left wounded behind them when they withdrew behind their wall the attackers had killed them before being scattered by the giant cannon. Already a sickly stench was beginning to rise from the hundreds of corpses, a nostril-wrinkling miasma rising like mist.
Yet life other than himself moved among the dead. He heard them at first, a stealthy retreat before him, and the gobbling sound of feeding. Jackals? Hyenas?
The moon shone out of cloud rack and he saw they were neither. Eyes flashed red at him and white fangs snarled and there was a scampering. Apes! Small flesh-eating apes.
He was looking for clothes, and armor and a weapon, and he may as well have the best. He began to examine the dead in the intervals of bright moonlight, keeping low and skulking like one of the strange apes. He saw at once that the enemies were of two contrasting physical types. Two of them, a little apart from the others, made a perfect paradigm. They lay close in death, each with a sword in the other's heart, each grinning at the moon they could not see. Blade bent to inspect them closely.
One, of the party that had sallied from the wall, was tail and well formed and even in death had a certain dignity. His skin, as best Blade could see in the uncertain light, was a light yellow. Lemon colored. His armor glinted in the moonlight, and Blade thought it bronze until he touched it. Wood! Very hard and finely carved wood.
He scraped it with a nail. It was paint that made it appear bronze.
The companion in death was a swarthy man with thick dark hair, very coarse in texture. He was short and bowlegged and powerfully muscled. He wore leather chest armor and on his head was a pointed leather cap. His breeches were of skin, and he wore knee-high boots fashioned from the same animal hide. Blade stared down at him for a moment. The legs told the story. Bowed and powerful. Horseman.
One of the carrion apes, bolder than the others, glowered at Blade and began to feed on a body not ten feet away. An arrow lay nearby. Blade picked it up and flung it at the beast, which retreated with a snarl and a flash of defiant fangs. As Blade stared after it, a glint of gold caught his eye. Something about the corpse the ape had been about to devour. Blade went to see.
This man, one of the wall defenders, was wearing gold-painted armor. On his chest plate was painted a golden orb of some sort, possibly a moon, and on his shoulders he wore what Blade recognized as epaulets. But it was the thick golden chain around the dead man's throat that convinced Blade. He tugged at it, found a catch, and loosened it. It was of woven gold, many plaited, and of exquisite workmanship. This had been a man of consequence.
Why not? Blade smiled grimly as he began to strip the body. As long as he was going to be a ghoul he might as well travel first-class. The dead man had obviously been one of rank and prestige - and that same rank just might help Blade get behind the wall.
The man was wearing a short silken tunic beneath his armor. Blade covered his own nakedness and began to don the armor. Here he ran into trouble. The dead man was as tall as Blade, but with none of his brawn. Blade could not get the corselet to fasten around his massive chest. To hell with it then. He found a helmet nearby, also with the golden orb painted on it, and placed it on his head. It fitted well enough and reminded him of ancient Greek helmets. There were nasal and ear plates and a high arching panache of the same silken stuff as the underrobe. Blade nodded. His face was well enough concealed. As an afterthought he scooped blood from a gaping wound in the dead man's chest and smeared it on the visible part of his face.
He was searching for a weapon to match the splendor of the armor when he saw the lights bobbing toward him. Blade sank to the ground with a muttered curse at his own carelessness. He had been so intent on his new guise that he had been caught off guard. And yet - they had come very silently!
He turned on his face and reduced his breathing to the barest minimum. Play dead and they would soon pass him by.
