Ice Dragon

Blade knew already this guard was a quicker thinker than usual; now he had a nasty surprise in the man's speed. The guard was at him and on him before he could bring up his sword for either a slash or a thrust, darted past the half-raised point, and struck with the knife at Blade's wide-open throat. Blade felt the knife whisper past the side of his neck as a lightning twisting of his whole body moved him clear just in time, then raised the sword with the point still aimed at the ceiling and brought the heavy metal guard down on his opponent's shoulder. The man gasped and his left arm-not his knife arm, unfortunately-sagged limply; Blade lowered the sword and thrust at his opponent's stomach, only to have the tip scrape along the man's metal-mesh belt and nick him only slightly. The guard sprang back out of Blade's immediate reach in a single bound, whirled, and took two steps toward Leyndt, knife raised. The knife was just coming down, and so was one raised foot, when Blade caught up with the man and rammed the sword through his back before he could turn. The point burst through his chest, and he toppled face down on top of Leyndt, his blood pouring over her.

Blade spent only enough time examining Leyndt to make sure that she was breathing and that none of her knife wounds were serious. When he had done this, he hoisted her limp body over his shoulder and rejoined his companions at the entrance. There were only three of them now; the two duelists had killed each other. Blade led the others back toward the elevator chamber.

As they approached it, the sound of a fight-shouts, screams, the clang of weapons-came battering down the corridor at them. Blade slowed his pace and motioned the others to a halt while he put Leyndt down and stalked forward, pressing as close as possible to the wall, until he could see clearly into the chamber.

The ten men left in the chamber were standing off a furious attack by at least three times that many guards. Two of the defenders were already down, others showed blood, but at least seven guards lay writhing or still on the floor, and as Blade watched he heard the crossbow among the squad twang, with the usual result of a guard clutching wildly at his chest and collapsing. But the crossbowmen could not fire quickly and the attackers were already pressing the defending raiders into a back-to-back formation for a last stand.

Blade looked behind him, nodded to the others. Three right arms hefted spears then snapped forward at the same instant, three spears flew down the corridor and into the massed ranks of the guards. The scream from one of them as he died paralyzed both sides for a moment, and in that moment Blade rushed out and charged the guards, sword in one hand, knife in the other, the three others with him ru

Blade's sword whistled out and down, slashing through a spear shaft and throwing the wielder enough off balance for Blade to thrust him through with the knife. Another man came at Blade with a sword in each hand; he gave back a step, sliced off the man's left arm with one slash, then sent the other sword flying in a savage metallic clash of weapons. The man reached out for Blade with his good arm, trying a desperate body-to-body grapple, but crumpled, thrust through by Blade's knife from in front and a raider's spear from behind.

Now two guards came at Blade together, so intent on him that they forgot the man protecting Blade's left, whose sword swished out and around in a flat arc like a scythe, passing through one man's neck as though it had been a cornstalk. Blade brought both sword and knife up to guard against the survivor's downswing, locked the other's plunging sword in the V formed by his own two weapons, twisted the sword out of the man's grasp, and as it flew through the air slashed the man in the body. A crossbow quarrel went into a nearby body with a meaty thunk, and the man facing Blade's right-hanker folded forward and went down on to a floor that was becoming slippery underfoot with the smeared pools of blood from the rapidly increasing number of bodies.

Then Blade stopped taking note of individual opponents, and was lost in a continuous frenzy of slash, thrust, parry, guard, give back, step forward, chop like a butcher, thrust like a matador, smell the sweat, smell the blood (none of it his own-yet)-until suddenly there were no more attackers staying to fight, and only a handful of them sprinting or staggering away down the corridor. Some left blood trails as they went. Blade saw the bowman pick off a final victim. Then again there was silence in the chamber, except for the heaving and rasping breath of Blade, his two companions, and the six Survivors of the defending squad.

There was nothing more for Blade to do here except leave his three companions to reinforce the elevator guard, then head for the stairway as fast as he could go. Leyndt would be safer here with nine men around her than anywhere else for the time being, and he would be unencumbered.

Two raiders lifted their swords in greeting as Blade ran up to the stairway door and plunged in and down. His pounding feet raised echoes that boomed up and down the metal-walled tube as he raced downward, weapons at the ready, ears listening for signs of activity behind or ahead. He passed doors with the locks thrown from the stair side; it would take the guards and a battering ram to get through those doors and into the stairway now. At two of those doors Blade saw blood trickling from under the door's edge, and at one of them two bodies-one a raider, one a guard-had been dragged to one side and piled on top of each other.

From the elevator chamber to the bottom of the stronghold was some five hundred vertical feet, but down the endlessly spiraling staircase it seemed far longer. Blade's legs began to feel rubbery as he approached the bottom, and the sweat was sluicing off him like water off a melting glacier. He estimated he was less than fifty feet from the bottom when he heard the sound of footsteps below him on the stairs-many sets of feet, climbing fast but irregularly. He tightened his grip on both sword and knife, wished briefly for a spear, then flattened himself against the wall, waiting for the climbers to heave into view around the bend.

The footsteps rose to a tumult, with little whimpering cries and sobbing gasps mixed in, then Lora and another of the Girls trotted around the bend, each one carrying a guard's spear in her right hand and a guard's truncheon in her left. Behind them came a long straggling line of slaves and Girls, singly or in twos and threes, panting and struggling upward, urged on by the two Girls leading them. As Lora caught sight of Blade, her face split apart in a broad grin, but she was in too much of a hurry or perhaps too short of breath to say anything. The procession flowed on up past Blade; he counted seventy or more of them before the last Girl (another of the ones to whom he had given Pleasure, also armed) was out of sight. He continued downward, feeling better in the knowledge that at least a few of those whom the Ice Master had condemned to a living death in the stronghold might win freedom.

Now sounds made their way up the staircase-people ru

He had barely time to notice the four raiders standing guard in a broad arc around the stairway door and the dozen or more bodies-one of them a Girl with a spear in her hand and another through her body-when he became aware of the odor that was drifting down the corridor that led to the central chamber of the floor. The central chamber-where the shaft that led down to the Menel began. And the odor was the musky, sour-bitter reek of the Menel themselves. He pushed his legs on, faster and faster, racing down the corridor to meet what he knew was coming. More than the odor now came down the corridor-uneasy mutterings, half-stifled cries of fear, inarticulate growls that he guessed might be from the Menel's guards. He stepped up his pace again, saw the chamber's lights glowing ahead at the end of the corridor, and reached his goal just as the first of the Menel rose out of the shaft and spread its four limbs over the heads of the guards surrounding the shaft.