Pearl Of Patmos

Blade pondered that. He was by now convinced that Hectoris was playing a straight game. Why not? He had all the advantage. And Blade had pressured him into a corner that had no exit. Hectoris had to fight, and fight fairly, or be disgraced before his watching army.

Hectoris was looking at Nob, astride his hack fifty yards off. He looked back at Blade. «That is your only man?»

Blade nodded and gazed beyond Hectoris at the tent. The other man smiled at that and raised a hand. The Samostan orderly left the horse for a moment and pulled a rope on the tent. It came fluttering down, flattened to the sand, and then was lifted and filled and rumpled by the wind: There was no one inside. Hectoris gave Blade a sly look.

«You feared a trap?»

«It had entered my mind.»

Hectoris smiled again. His teeth were long and stained brown. «And mine, too. But you were too clever-trapping you would have stained my honor as much as ignoring your challange. You have outwitted me, Blade, and I admit it. I am a great leader and you put your finger on my one weakness, for a leader must lead! So, since you will not listen to reason and join me, I shall take pleasure in killing you.»

Blade smiled in his turn. «Shall we have at it, then? Your man, and mine, will keep the girl with them. If I live she comes with me, if you live she remains with you. Both men, yours and mine, to be unharmed no matter the outcome?»

«Agreed, Blade. Where will you fight?»

Blade gazed around him, shielding his eyes against the wind-whipped, sand. The beach here sloped gently to the sea and was some hundreds of yards deep and on either side stretched to distant headlands.

«There is space enough,» said Blade. «I ca

Fifty feet in from the surf and the sand wet from the ebbing tide. It might slow the war horse a bit.

«As you will,» said Hectoris. «Make ready then, Blade, and expect no mercy. You ask for this death.»

He made a signal to the Samostan soldier. Blade signed to Nob. His eyes met those of Juna for a moment and he saw, or thought he saw, tears. Why would a temple whore cry for him?

Juna was led away between the two retainers. Blade drew his sword and adjusted his shield and walked down the gentle slope of the beach until he was within fifty feet of the water. As he retreated, as he must at first, he would have the water to his back. That left only three sides from which Hectoris could attack him.

CHAPTER 13

Blade watched as Hectoris was aided into the saddle by his man, adjusted the serpent shield on his left arm and took a lance from the rack, loosened his sword in the scabbard and secured mace to saddle. Blade gri

It was a magnificent beast. Blade judged it to weigh a ton or more. Superbly trained for battle en masse, but he gambled that it would prove slow and ponderous against a single agile man. In that lay much of his hope. The horse wore head armor, with a. long spike between the eyes, and a quilted covering into which rings of mail were closely sewn. None of this disconcerted Blade: the bronze greaves, from fetlock to knee, did bother him. No use slashing at the shank or ca

Hectoris, as befitted a man. with supreme confidence in the outcome, was taking his time. He put his mount through its paces, letting it rear and paw the air and slash down with shod hooves. The waiting Blade got the point, but he sneered and made a derisive gesture and halloed into the wind: «I grow impatient, Hectoris. What ails the master of Thyme and Samosta? Cold heart?»

Hectoris reined in his mount and couched his lance. Blade glanced back at the sea behind him. A ten foot wave curled in and broke with a roar on the damp sand,

sending salt spray around him in a haze. Blade retreated ten steps and took his stand for the first attack.

The massive horse gained momentum slowly on the sand. The loose stuff shifted under the great hooves and clung to them. Blade had counted on this when he elected to fight on the beach.

Hectoris bore the lance to his right. Blade moved to offer the target of his — shield, kite shaped and with its secret well-grooved and varnished over. He stood his ground as the horse and rider thundered down on him, Hectoris low in the saddle, the lance steady on the target. The beach shuddered beneath Blade as the animal came on and on and the lance point gleamed pale in the dull light.

Blade leaped to his right, his timing perfect, his movement that of a heartbeat, and Hectoris rushed past. Blade smote the rump of the horse as it brushed him. And laughed loud enough for Hectoris to hear even above the whine of the wind; if he could anger the man so much the better.

The war horse ran nearly into the angry sea before it could stop. It reared, dancing on its back legs, and for a moment Blade thought Hectoris would be thrown. He tensed and started forward, but the Samostan regained his seat and fought the mount into a sideways canter out of the creaming waves that licked at its feet and frightened it. Blade ran quickly to his right, closer to the water, and took up position again. Hectoris would learn from that mistake and would not make it again.

Nor did he. Hectoris rode off a little way and wheeled his horse about; this time he would attack along the beach line. Some gain and some loss for Blade. The damp sand would cling and slow the horse even more, but he no longer had the sea at his back. Hectoris couched his lance again and came on, slowly at first, then faster and faster. He still carried his lance to the right, but in his left hand now he swung the mace.

Again Blade executed the same maneuver, leaping away from the lance point, but this time he took a mighty blow from the mace on his shield. That weapon, a spiked iron ball attached to a short handle by a length of chain, put a dint in his shield and nearly wrenched it from his hand. Hectoris wolf-gri

This time Blade did not leap away from the lance. He took the point on his shield, near the boss, and deflected it, but his left side was numbed by the impact. Nonetheless he thrust and drew blood from the horse as it passed him. A superficial wound, of no advantage to Blade, yet it cheered him.

Hectoris did not come again at the moment. He inspected his lance point and went to the rack for a new lance. His ma

Hectoris couched his new lance and swung the mace a few times over his head. Blade gave attention to his own shield. Time to bring out his trick.

A hole had been bored near the boss of the shield and another near the rim. A groove had been cut so that the thin chain would lie flat and, covered with a heavy coat of varnish, unseen. It was taut nova! and seemed a part of the shield. Blade loosed it on the inside, near the hand grip, and tugged it out of the groove and it fell into a loop. A loop of chain that might catch and hold a lance head.

Blade moved closer to the sea. Hectoris — could not charge him down the slant of the beach, lest his mount run into the sea and founder in the harsh waves, so he moved again to the side. Blade shifted to face him. The war horse began to gain speed, mane waving, teeth and red mouth showing in froth, screaming in shrill rage as it had been schooled. The wind caught the sound and flung it over the beaches like a demon's cry.