The Second Neuter did not even have time to scream.
Richard Blade, whipping the chariot horses to their limit, did not see the first explosion. His back was toward Urcit and he was following the faint moving dots across the wide plain; it could only be Honcho and Zulekia. Here and there, on his flanks, were scattered little groups of stragglers, sullen and unheeding, Pethcine warriors intent only on getting back to the Gorge.
His first intimation of the holocaust was the terrible slamming wind at his back, a fierce draft across the plain, as though giants had opened their doors to all the winds of the cosmos. It flattened the mani fields on both sides of the faint track and pushed the galloping horses and chariot into a crazy stagger that sent them reeling sideways and smashed a wheel to splinters. Blade was pitched from the chariot, but landed on his back and shoulders and rolled to his feet unhurt He stared back at Urcit.
There were no flames. Only smoke. Thick, black, roiling columns of greasy smoke already building amorphous turrets and castles where Urcit had been. Blade, in the instant, could not fathom what had happened. One thing he knew. The Power was gone forever. Everyone near the blast must have been destroyed. But there would be survivors. There always were. And it was with the survivors that Blade must reckon, and work.
He began to trudge rapidly across the plain, the great sword ready in his hand now. A man in a war chariot was one thing, a man on foot another. Some of the Pethcine stragglers might be looking for revenge.
But nobody paid him any attention. They stayed away from him and his terrible sword. Blade kept walking, at times running, toward the now motionless chariot and horses of Honcho. Something was awry with the neuter. His forward progress had ceased, as had Blade's for the moment, with the devastation of Urcit. Now, as Blade moved on, Honcho made no move to escape. Honcho, in fact, made no move at all.
Blade drew close enough to distinguish details. The chariot was undamaged, the horses quietly pulling at mani roots. Honcho was slumped in the chariot, lolling, his legs trailing off onto the ground. The Maiduke girl, Zulekia, stood motionless off to one side and watched Blade's approach. She had been naked. Now she had a wisp of teksin fabric twisted around her loins.
Blade knew at once that Honcho was dead. How, or why, did not matter to him. That threat was past. He drew near to Zulekia, thinking that she was even more lovely than when he had first seen her on the terrace at the Gorge Tower.
Her long hair now, as then, cascaded in bronze-gold over her shoulders and covered her naked breasts. She stood erect, proudly, and waited for him. Blade wondered if she would make slaveface, and was pleased when she did not.
He halted six paces from her. 'Zulekia! It is good that you are safe and well.' Pale words for a lover. But that would follow. He was sure of it now. This was not a time for passion, or for telling of love.
Her gentian eyes, as huge and luminous as he remembered them, were grave. She did not smile. 'Yes, Lord Blade. But I am not surprised. I knew you would come for me.'
'You knew?'
'I knew, Lord Blade.'
It must be true, he thought Even as he had known, somehow from the very first, that he wanted this woman above all in Tharn. This was no time to seek explanations. There might never be such a time. The fact was enough.
With the long sword Blade pointed to the dead Honcho. 'How did this come about?'
'When he saw the explosion he took something. A very little pellet. Of a golden color.'
'What did he say?'
Her smooth, tawny shoulders moved in a shrug of negation. Muscles rippled beneath the golden flesh.
'He said: 'Blade has won. My Thara and my Urcit are dead. Perhaps Blade is a God after all.''
'That is all he said?'
'All, my Lord. Then he smiled and looked at me with those green eyes of his and died. We are well rid of him, my Lord. He would have made trouble for us still.'
Blade moved the sword in an arc. 'Not for long. But it is as well. Zulekia...'
'Yes, Lord?'
'You will not call me Lord in future. You will call me Richard.'
'Richard?' The name came hesitantly from her ripe mouth. A hint of a smile as she said it again. 'Richard - what does it mean?'
He went to her and put an arm about her smooth shoulders and smiled down into violet eyes that were full of glints and shadows. She nestled close to him.
'It means kiss, perhaps? I like kiss.'
He kissed her for a long time. She clung to him.
Blade, still with his arm around her, turned to stare at the smoke hanging like a grim canopy over Urcit.
After a moment the girl said: 'Urcit has been destroyed forever?'
'Not forever, Zulekia. We will build it again. A better Urcit.'
She watched him with puzzlement. 'But who will rule Tharn now?'
Blade held up the sword. At that moment a ray of sun struck through the black pall and glinted along the steel.
'I will rule Tharn,' said Richard Blade.
Zulekia nodded. It was complete acceptance. A natural thing. Blade, aware of his own doubts and fears, felt his spirits lifting. It could be done! It must be done.
