King Of Zunga

They laid the dead Zungan on the ground and stood around him while four of his comrades chanted the Warrior's Death. Then they placed the ritual bunch of grass on his chest and marched on. Darkness finally came down on them a good ten miles beyond the battle-site. They munched cold dried meat and grubbed edible mushrooms from around the roots of trees. Then the sentries were posted, and sleep came.

Blade took the first watch because he was still too keyed-up to sleep. A victory. A small one, but even he had to be encouraged by the way the new fighting technique had showed up against the soldiers. Would a thousand Zungans properly trained be able to do as well against a thousand soldiers, also properly trained?

Perhaps. Assuming, that is, that the On'ror allowed him to train those thousand Zungans. Or, preferably, ten thousand. What was the On'ror's game? Knowing that the answer would most likely be found back in Dorkalu, not out here, Blade put the matter from his mind.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There were neither sights nor sounds of pursuit all night, and still none when dawn broke over the camp. The Zungans were ready to stop worrying about pursuit. They were cheerfully confident that they would outmarch or outrun as well as outfight any soldiers coming after them. Once more Blade did not try to argue with them, he merely gave his orders. In spite of their high spirits the Zungans obeyed him as well as ever.

Blade leaned against a tree and conjured up his mental map of the area. The best course for them seemed to be heading east. There lay the roads south from Kanda to its satellite towns. Along these roads passed slave raiders heading south, slave coffles heading north, and merchant caravans headed in both directions. The Kandans would not be expecting Zungan raiders to strike there. With surprise on their side, the Zungans might cause uproar, confusion, and destruction out of all proportion to their numbers.

Blade switched off his mental map and faced the warriors. «We go east,» he said. They spread out into their scouting line and followed him toward the faint glow behind the overcast that told of the rising sun.

With the sun almost invisible, it was hard to tell time. Blade guessed it was about noon when the most advanced scout suddenly halted and pointed at the ground in a clearing just ahead. Blade joined the man and frowned as he looked down. The ground was too hard to show goad footprints, but there was no mistaking the swath of crushed and flattened grass. It had not begun to lose color, either. The soldiers had passed this way only hours before.

Suddenly the gray day seemed gloomier than before, and the thin forest somehow denser and more menacing. Blade shook his head. They would have to go back. It would be stupid to plunge on toward the eastern roads if the Kandans were patrolling this far west. The roads still lay a day's march ahead, and now they would have the enemy at their backs for every foot of that march.

Blade gathered the Zungans around him and explained the situation. His own partner protested the loudest.

«But Blade, there is no honor for us in ru

«Where they passed once, they will pass again. And when they pass again, they will be behind you.»

«They will never pick up our trail.»

«Perhaps not. But they might. And then they would call up other soldiers and surround us. We ca

The Zungans still seemed unhappy. So Blade decided that now was perhaps a good time for a lecture he had been pla

Blade was no happier than the Zungans about abandoning the raid on the eastern roads. A victory there would have made him a man of mark, and proved the new fighting techniques beyond any doubt. It would have driven home a sharp thrust at the Ulungas and the On'ror. Now all of this would have to wait until the next raid north. And when that would be, not even the Sky Father knew. Blade did not like finding Kandan patrols this far west. It suggested special patrols, laid on to find or catch-what? Him and his men? He liked that idea even less.

They retraced their steps for more than an hour, with no more signs that they did not have the whole countryside to themselves. He drove the Zungans along at a mile-eating pace-not that any Zungan warrior ever needed to be driven to cover ground fast. By mid-afternoon the overcast was begi

Then a flash of light from the north struck his eyes. He stopped, turned, stared in that direction. Another flash came, then a series of them. With a chorus of squawks and a flurry of wings, a flock of large pink birds shot up into the air, also from the north.

Blade snapped to full alertness. The signs pointed unmistakably to a force of soldiers off to the north. His jaw set. There was only one way to find out. He motioned the Zungans to gather around him. Pointing to the north, he said, «I think there are more soldiers there. I am going to go and find out if there are too many to attack or not.» He pointed to his partner. «You come with me, but keep well behind me. If there are only a few soldiers, we will call the others forward and fight them. If there are many, we will run back and warn the others, and we will all run.» The Zungans' faces fell. Blade glared at them. «Remember what I said about warriors who must sometimes choose to go away and live for another day?»

«Yes,» several muttered. «But to run away from an enemy in plain sight?»

«If it is the only way to stay alive, you will do it. Or do you want the Ulungas to rule in Zunga forever?» He thought of adding his suspicions of the On'ror. But this was not the time or place for that. The warriors reluctantly fell into silence and drew back under cover. Blade nodded to his partner and led the way.

Blade guessed that the line of trees where he had seen the flashes was about a hundred yards north. The ground between was open and flat, with no cover large enough to hide a rabbit. Blade felt painfully exposed as he stepped out from behind the trees, even though he knew that neither the Kandans nor the Rulami used the bow.

Step by step he moved forward, with his partner keeping parallel to him about twenty feet behind. Every second he expected the bushes to crackle and crash and spew out armed men. Now he had covered half the distance. There was definitely something behind the trees; he could see more metallic glintings. He could hear nothing, nor see any movement. This suggested that the men ahead must be trained soldiers, the men of Rulam. He was close to simply turning about and retreating. The men of Rulam would not be as easy a proposition as the Kandans had been.

Then something finally moved in the woods. Not a mass of armed men pouring out into the open, but a long heavy rope with a weighted loop at the end. It soared high into the air, uncoiling as it flew, high over Blade's head, straight down onto the Zungan behind him and around the man's neck. As the noose descended, the rope went tight, and the Zungan was yanked off his feet.