Jeffrey Lord - The Bronze Axe

"I know," said Blade, "and it is an inheritance I do not greatly care for. But we will speak of this again order the march to begin!"

He had not seen or spoken with Taleen again; she kept well out of sight. When Sylvo would have gossiped Blade bade him keep his ugly mouth shut. Sylvo, valuing his crooked bones, squinted and said nothing. He had never seen his master in such a dour mood.

It was three days march from Bourne to Voth and the trail they followed was plain, marked by hanged men and women, raped children, butchered cattle and smoldering villages. The complaints and grumbling among the men grew louder and more ominous. There was nothing left for them, they said. Not a slave, nor a woman, not even food that was fit for men. Fjordar was picking the bones clean as he went.

On the evening of the third day the next morning they would see Voth Blade called Jarl to his tent for conference. They had taken a straggler that day, one of Fjordar's men who was a coward and had deserted to loot. It took but little torture to make the man tell all he knew. Blade, watching until he was sickened, bade them end it by striking off the man's head. This brought him more dark looks and new muttering not only were they deprived of loot, but also of their pleasure.

Blade had drawn a crude map on an ox hide, based on the intelligence gasped out by the straggler when the hot pincers tore his flesh. He and Jarl studied it now as Blade pointed with a finger.

"If that fellow spoke truth," said Blade, "this Fjordar has hidden his ships in this cove, marked so, a few kils to the north of Bourne. If he is well beaten at Voth which you tell me is certain he should try to regain his ships by the most direct route. You agree?"

Jarl leaned close to study the map, and Blade noticed what he had never noted before an odor of chypre about the man. .

"I agree," said Jarl. He traced a path with his finger. "When he has had his fill of Voth, a city that had never been taken, nor its wall even breached, he will run for his ships leaving his dead and wounded behind, for such is his custom. I told you he is more fiend than man."

Blade, in the feeble light of a smoking fish oil lamp, drew a small cross on the map near the Western Sea, using a Dru's dye and brush that Jarl had somehow come by.

"It is my thought," said Blade, "that if you were to take the men your men now, for I will them freely to you and start tonight, you could be waiting snug in ambush for Fjordar when he returns to his ships. He will be fresh from a beating, weary, and his men exhausted, and it should be an easy prize. What say you, Jarl? It solves many problems your rascals will come by easy loot, that Fjordar has already won for them, and there will be the ships as well. No doubt stored with more treasure. I think it an opportunity not to be missed."

Jarl was not looking at the map now, but at Blade direct. A smile crinkled his lips. "You are right about one thing, Lord Blade. It solves many problems. Voth will never admit my men to his city, and I doubt I could control them in sight of so much loot and so many women. And there is the account with Fjordar to put right. Yes, I think your plan is a good one. It is best we part tonight, you to go your way and I to go mine. I will send a trumpet to wake the men at which there will be more whining. But they'll march fast enough when I promise them Fjordar's head and all his treasure."

For a moment they watched each other in the feeble light. Blade put out his hand. "You have been a good friend to me, Jarl. I thank you for it."

Jarl's hand was sweaty, and again Blade caught a whiff of chypre. Jarl said: "I did what my heart said do, Lord Blade. I am sorry for none of it. But there is one other thing I would have you know of me "

"And that is?" Blade waited.

Jarl snatched away his hand and wheeled to go. "No! It is of no importance now, and would serve no purpose. Fare you well, Lord Blade. You were a stranger and you are a stranger still yet until I go to Thunor, whom I do not believe in, I will remember you."

So Blade came to Voth alone with Sylvo and the Princess Taleen, Taleen riding on a gray horse found in one of the looted villages and somehow spared. Taleen rode in aloof silence, without complaint, and would not speak to Blade. Poor Sylvo was harried into being an intermediary, an additional burden to him because he had by now acquired a wife. And, Blade was surprised to note, something of a pot belly. The kyrie he had chosen was feeding him well.

The woman was a buxom lass, near twice the size of Sylvo, and with a great mass of yellow hair that cascaded over massive white breasts. She walked well behind the small party, carrying Sylvo's few possessions, yet the princess found cause to complain. To Sylvo, for she would not so much as glance at Blade, except when his back was turned.

"Bid her cover those vast teats," Taleen snapped. "She looks like a sow in farrow. We enter the city soon and I will not be seen with such as her."

Sylvo fidgeted and squinted at the ground. "You do not understand, my princess. It is the custom of the kyries, the war maidens, to go about so. It means nothing it will cause no trouble, I assure and "

Taleen glared at him. "Do as I bid you, you low fellow! And at once. Do not tell me what I do not understand else you want to hang with your master when we come to Voth."

Blade, striding along a few paces ahead, had trouble concealing his grin. Now that the spires of Voth were in sight he was in a better mood. The pains in his head came more frequently, and were more severe, but now he understood them and was not anxious. It could only mean that Lord Leighton was reaching for him with the computer, trying to recall him, sending out electronic feelers, seeking to change the molecular structure of Blade's brain back to the original state and snatch Richard Blade back to his own dimension.

Princess Taleen was rasping at Sylvo once again. "Ask your master, the great Lord Blade, if he prefers to be hanged with a golden rope before he is flayed. His rank entitles him to this honor."

Blade, trying not to laugh, swung the bronze axe in a great circle. "Tell Princess Taleen that a common rope will do. As for the flaying of me I ask only that my poor hide be placed in her bed chamber, before the fire, and that she tread on me nightly with her dainty feet."

Sylvo stared from one to the other, scratching himself and squinting horribly, and wisely said nothing. There was an explosive sound from Taleen that could have only been choked laughter, but she would not look at Blade.

They were admitted to the city by a postern gate, after some brief parley, and soon separated. Blade and Sylvo were shown to a suite of sumptuous rooms in the great wooden palace, an enormous structure that was painted a vivid gold and scarlet and was more bespired and turreted than Craghead had been.

Sylvo's chief concern was at being separated from his kyrie. He patted his newly plump belly as he was attending to Blade's bath.

"She is a cook of cooks, master. Ar, I have never eaten so well. By Thunor, I swear it! And she has other talents, too! But it is a puzzle to me, master. She had a fine sea robber for a man, a big bastard, too, and she gave him up for me! I, who am admittedly a trifle ill formed and lacking in couth and education. How do you think of this, master?"

Blade considered his man through a foam of suds. The bronze tub was too small for him, but he was enjoying his first real bath in many a day. He kept a straight face.

"It is a puzzle to me also, Sylvo. The greatest puzzle being why did this warrior let you take her. What happened to him?"

Sylvo busied himself scrubbing Blade's back. "There was some sort of accident, master. He was found dead. His heart had stopped."

"I'll wager that! What stopped it? Out with it, man!"