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«When I sought to have your child without love between us-that was one thing. But then you spoke of love and I gave love and thought you did. You lied, Blade. You gave no love. You lied to me and made a fool of me, thus causing me to make a fool of my father. I want no child from that. Goodbye, Blade. Use the knife.»
She was gone. Blade sat in thought for some minutes before he used the knife. Not as she had suggested.
He found a long pole, taken from the cot frame, and bound the dagger to it with some of his rawhide. It made a crude spear.
He began to build up his fire. When it blazed well he covered it with green wood, for smoke, and went out on the plateau of stone. The wind was brisk, from the north as usual, and it lacked but an hour to sunset. He went to the rampart of boulders and gazed southward. A leatherman glided nearby and scrutinized him with hard eyes, then disappeared under the far rim.
Beyond those peaks lay the thalassic coast, the cha
He would have to do it in the dark. He did not like the idea, even with a moon already visible in the east, but it must be done. He dared not wait for another dawn. He would have to take his chances. The balloon was going up-he smiled grimly at the Home-Dimension slang-and he with it, and he had no way of knowing how it would end. He glanced again at the peaks, flaming gold in the crepuscular light, and turned back to the hut. Looking would not solve anything. It was murderous terrain and he would need all his luck.
As the sun slid from view the trapdoor opened. Blade felt a tightness in his chest and held his breath. Were they coming for him now? He reached for the crude spear. If they came, he would fight it out here, for once bound and helpless he would be vulture bait.
A hand appeared and shoved a bowl of food and a can of water onto the roof, then disappeared. The trapdoor closed. Blade breathed again. He drank the water and wolfed down the food, not knowing when he would eat or drink again. The moon was gibbous, scratching its hump on a far peak, and he must go before it grew too light. He had never known the leather-men to fly at night, but did not preclude it.
He began to work. The balloon was complete, sewn as tightly as he could get it, and, though there would be leaks, he thought it would work. It had better. This pillar, this sandstone phallus on which he now stood, fell away sheer for five hundred feet. A long way to fall.
Thus far he had proceeded on theory, not daring to run a test. When it was full dark, but for the moon, he hauled his bag of skins out on the rock and spread it ready for inflating. He fitted a rawhide tube into the bottom opening and ran it to the hut chimney. Over the chimney top he fitted a leather apron and pushed the tube into a hole left for it. The smoke, thick and greasy, began to filter through the tube and into the balloon. There were many leaks and about this he could do nothing.
Blade had been short of rawhide and, not daring to ask for more lest he arouse suspicion, could not rig a full net over the balloon. He settled for straps tied into the skins near the fringe, knotting them together to give him a handhold. He had no way of making grommets, and if the straps pulled loose, or if the skins tore away. . he did not like to think of it.
By the time the moon was an hour high the balloon was swelling, a puffed and lopsided monstrosity that moved with the wind and tugged at its tethering strip of rawhide. Blade regarded it askance and for a moment even his stout heart quailed. Could this poor thing even get him off the stone tower? Would it not be better to wait, to take his chances and await a better time to escape?
He went into the hut and heaped more wood on the fire. He had come this far with the plan and he would finish with it. He took his homemade spear and went back to the balloon. It was in the air now, tugging ever more fiercely at its halter. Smoke leaped from a score of seams. Blade punched it with his big fist. Solid, crammed with hot air longing to rise. It would not be long now.
A leather-man came over. Blade cursed. He had guessed wrong. They did fly at night, and with the moon so bright they could not fail to see the balloon. See, yes, but would they understand?
The leather-man glided past with the usual hissing sound, not twenty feet above the balloon. For a moment Blade thought the Hitt was going to land on the tower, and he snatched at his spear and stood ready. The leather-man barely cleared the far precipice-they were skilled at that-and drifted down into the valley. How much had he seen or understood? Blade ran to the rampart and peered anxiously down.
Nothing yet. A few fires down there, a few moving torches. Blade ran to the trapdoor. It was light, of wood, and there was no way to secure it from above. He moved the trapdoor a few inches and flung himself on his belly, listening. Voices. Far below. Voices bellowing orders and a tramp of feet and clatter of arms. They were coming. The leather-men had wasted no time.
Torches began to flare in the mountains around him. From the nearest peak, higher than his tower, he saw four lights appear and move in signal. The alarm was out. Go, Blade!
He ran back to the balloon. It was straining at the rawhide leash. Blade disengaged the tube from the chimney and thrust an arm through his knotted holding straps. The spear was in his right hand. He reached and began to saw the restraining line apart just as the trapdoor was flung aside and armed men burst onto the pillar top with a vast hoarse shouting. The line snapped. The balloon leaped upward with a jerk that nearly tore Blade's arm from its socket. The wind caught it and sucked it away to the south. A flung spear missed Blade by a foot and an arrow hissed into the balloon and hung there.
Blade gained altitude fast, but not fast enough. As he was swept away to the south on a freshening wind, a jagged snow-capped peak loomed just ahead. He was below it. His left arm was cramped, painful, and as he was about to shift the spear and use his right arm for support, he saw the familiar silhouette of a leather-man leave the peak and come gliding straight at the balloon. Blade tensed, the spear still in his right hand and ready for thrusting.
The leather-man must have meant to fly into the grotesque smoke-leaking bag that hurtled toward him. He did not understand a balloon and he was afraid, but the torch signals had bid him to stop this thing. To fight it. He tried to obey.
He could not control his crude, bat-winged frame of wood. He missed the bag and flew into Blade. The shock nearly dislodged Blade, and for a moment his feet became entangled in the armature. The leather-man, his arms helplessly pinioned into the wingstraps, glared at him, then shrieked as Blade put the spear-dagger into his throat. Blade kicked free of the contraption and watched it fold and break and spiral down to crash.
He was past the last high peak now and the balloon was still rising. He traveled in the absolute silence that only a balloonist knows. He tucked the spear under his arm and hung on grimly. His arms were already weary, cramping, painful. It became very cold. He wore only his leather battle kilt and a crude woven shirt given him by Lisma. The pain in his hands and arms continued to grow, and for the first time the thought came that perhaps he did not have the strength to see it through. He flexed his fingers and changed grips constantly. If his hands went numb, if his great biceps cramped too badly. .
The moon slid behind a solid bulwark of dark cloud. Blade skimmed along in darkness, a weird and frightening sensation. He might at any moment dash his brains out against a cliff, or any jutting fang of rock could tear the balloon to shreds.