Ice Dragon

Nilando strode off to inspect the sentries, while Leyndt and Blade moved a little apart, as far from the others as the limits of the campsite permitted, and sat down close together. Leyndt was grimy, her auburn hair snarled like a thornbush, her eyes red with fatigue, and when she sat down it was as though her legs had collapsed under her. But the long-fingered hands she held out to Blade, the hands whose fingers gently caressed and pressed his own aching muscles and changed the dressings on his thigh, were as strong and steady as they had ever been. And those redrimmed eyes did not look away from him as she spoke.

«You had something to tell me just before the attack struck, didn't you? I could tell that it was there, and that it was something desperately important. Were you pla

Blade could not have said anything for a moment, even if there had been any need to speak. Then he recovered himself enough to grin at the two-minds-with-a-single thought coincidence.

«I was. When did you begin to support it?»

«As long as two years ago. I don't know all the facts, and perhaps I don't interpret the ones I do know well enough. But from what I know and from what I conclude from that, I feel very much that you are right. The Ice Master himself has masters-or at least allies.»

«Did you say anything about this to anybody else?»

«Only Stramod. He knows the Ice Master well, of course, and would have perhaps been able to learn more to throw light on the idea. And he is a man with the courage to face such a fact, if he believes in it. The others, most of them, would despair and drift away. And of course the Treduki-«

She did not need to finish that. Blade could see how the Treduki, except for tough-minded specimens like Nilando and Rena, might be reduced to panic by the notion that some of their enemies were not even human. But their fears were a matter for later.

«What did Stramod say?»

«He laughed. Said I was underestimating the Ice Master, who could with only a little help do all that has been done.»

«Including the glaciers?»

«He did not mention those.»

Blade nodded. «So perhaps he is afraid to admit it after all?»

«Possibly. Or perhaps he thinks as I do. To let people come to believe in aliens might destroy the Union.»

Blade's temper flared. «The aliens will destroy a damned lot more than the Union if they exist and if they go on the way we think they have! Even if we find a way to fight the Ice Dragons, if aliens are helping the Ice Master they will give him something else to use against the Treduki to rake in slaves and sow terror. They are the real enemy, not the Conciliators, not even the Ice Master!»

«If they exist.»

Blade got his temper under control and looked grimly at her. His voice was deadly serious when he asked:

«Do you, deep inside, doubt they exist?»

«No.»

He reached out and stroked her cheek. «Thank God for small favors. Now all we need is a way of convincing the others. And then a way to destroy the aliens.» He chuckled, less grimly. «That's like saying that all we need is to find a way of turning all these trees-«he gestured upward and around «-into roast meat.»

She laughed, and he was glad to hear her do so. Then she sobered again and asked, «How are we ever going to get the facts we need?»

Blade shook his head. «That I don't know at this point. But we both have to start thinking about ways.»

Leyndt reached for the fastening of her tunic. «That is another thing we can put off for a day or two.» She shrugged the tunic up over her head, and her bare shoulders and breasts gleamed faintly in the light that crept through the trees from the campfires. Blade reached out almost by instinct and cupped the breasts, feeling the nipples stiffen.

Leyndt gave a little moan. «Yes. Yes. We may not have much time left. We have to live all we can in that time. Live.» The last word was a gasp, one that died as their lips met.

Chapter 10

Except for Blade, Stramod, Nilando, Leyndt, and the men on guard, the whole camp slept well and undisturbed through the night. It was chilly in the small hours of the morning, but the returning sun swiftly warmed the air and roused the sleeping camp to movement.

Whether the Conciliators had abandoned the search for the refugees from the resort, or whether they were simply waiting like a cat at a mousehole for their quarry to make its own way out into easier terrain, was not clear. But there was no sign of pursuit on the ground all during the day's march, and only twice did fliers whistle overhead, both times so high that Blade found it hard to believe they could be searching for anything in a forest certain to be only a green blur from their height and speed.

Blade and Nilando led a scouting party from the camp that night, on to where the forest cover of the valley gave way to more open terrain, much of it farmland. Neither returned optimistic about getting sixty people, few of them with much training or experience, across two days' march worth of such territory, let alone penetrating the base after the march. Even Stramod had to admit that it would be risky.

«But what else can we do? We have still received no reliable Union messages. What can that mean except that the Union has collapsed under a massive assault by the Conciliators? Every day's delay by us gives them more time to track down the other groups and release forces for pursuing us. As it is, we may find the land between us and the base at least comparatively unpatrolled by anything our own weapons ca

Blade accepted this only because he had no wish to try to usurp the command of the group from the man to whom it properly belonged. But he was tense and strained the remainder of the evening. He needed several hours of walking the rounds of the sentry posts and then another bout of love with Leyndt before he could sleep. His last thoughts before drifting off were of finding out from Leyndt the names of the Union people at the base, then making a cross-country trek on his own to get in touch with them in advance of the rest of his companions. Granted that he didn't know the country that well, it was vital to get some advance word to the people at the base …

. , except that when he awoke in the morning, he discovered that one of the people from the base had arrived at exactly the same conclusion. Leyndt woke him and called him aside to join a conference with Stramod, Nilando, and a swarthy little man in a grass- and mud-stained blue uniform who was squatting in the middle of the circle formed by the others, wolfing down stew and ration bread.

Stramod rose as Blade and Leyndt approached. «Meet Captain Pnarr, of the Flier Service. He has plans for aiding us.»

The captain nodded. «Right. The Union's pretty much smashed up all over the country, so my friends and I thought we'd make plans to get out ourselves. We were going to use some of the smaller fliers. But there won't be any big problem getting three of the big ones fueled and lined up on the ready moorings. How we're going to get you people aboard-another problem. A lot nastier.»

«Could you taxi the fliers over to an uninhabited part of the lake shore?» Stramod asked.

«Not a chance,» Pnarr grunted, and bit off another chunk of the flinty bread. «Only chance we'll have of getting away is to fire up and take off as soon as everybody's on board, before the shore-based beamers pick us off.»

Stramod looked reluctant to give up his idea, but realized that the pilot knew more than he did about such things. Blade decided to put in his idea.

«What we've been worried about most is getting into the base and through it to wherever the planes are. You said they're anchored offshore?»