The Temples Of Ayocan

«He's got men from the temples of Ayocan waiting ashore,» Blade shouted, pointing. «We've got to cut him off, get in front of him.»

The galley surged forward again as the oarmasters laid on their whips more frantically than ever. It took the lead. The gap of water between it and Piralu's galley began to narrow faster than the gap between Piralu's galley and the shore.

Blade shouted war cries and brandished his weapons as he saw that. He was at the thin edge of reason now, with no thought for anything except the galley that loomed ahead-higher-higher-higher.

Then in one instant it seemed to tower above Blade like a mountain wall as it ran violently aground. In the next instant Blade's own galley ploughed in among the enemy's oars. Wood snapped and cracked. From the enemy's hold came the screams of galley slaves mangled by the flailing oar-handles. Blade's galley kept surging forward, splintering more oars, until its bow rammed hard against the side of Piralu's ship.

The shock as it did so nearly sent Blade hurtling clear into the river. But he caught himself with one hand and one foot, and pulled himself back aboard. An axe whistled down past his head and went chunk into the deck while he was doing so. He pulled it free, then looked up at the deck of Piralu's galley. His arm whipped up, the axe sparked in the sun as it flew through the air, then sparked again as it split a Holy Warrior's head open. Before the man had fallen to the deck, Blade was swarming up the side of the enemy ship.

Without a trace of the «tree of death's» drug in him, he was very nearly as mad as one of the Death-Vowed. His mask was blood-most of it other people's-rather than a bat's head. But his war cries were as blood-curdling, and his weapons struck with greater force and far greater skill. He was as terrifying as any three Death-Vowed ever launched into battle by the cult. When he burst over the railing of the galley, his arrival alone cleared a space in front of him. Death-Vowed and Holy Warriors and Piralu's household fighters alike scattered in all directions. Some of them lost their heads so thoroughly that they leaped clean over the side, and their screams increased the uproar.

Blade did not wait for any more warriors from his galley to join him, but charged straight into the enemy. Now he had Piralu almost in his grasp, and he was damned if he was going to let the Second Prince get away!

The men facing Blade now did not give way before his charge, largely because they could not. He had to carve his way into their ranks with sword and axe. But few of the men he struck down struck back. The deck underfoot became slick with blood and littered with bodies. Foot by foot, Blade fought his way aft toward the cabin where Piralu's standard hung from the door. Behind him he could hear more shouts and the clash of more weapons as the warriors from the other galleys joined in the fight. From the sounds they were moving forward, pushing the enemy toward the bow.

Blade had just beaten a Holy Warrior to the deck with the flat of his sword when the cabin door burst open with a crash. Blade sprang back, raising sword and axe to meet Piralu's charge. But the figure that burst out into the daylight was not Piralu. It stood nearly seven feet high, its head was a white bat-mask set on a dark blue body, and great leathery wings swept back from its shoulders. Axes swung in both clawed hands. Screams of terror rose behind Blade, and the sounds of spreading panic.

Blade knew perfectly well that this was the Supreme Brother of the cult in his ceremonial garb. But he would have gone into the attack knowing that he faced the god himself. His sword blurred in the air as it whistled toward the man's head, then clanged off an axe that rose to meet it. Blade struck with his own axe, and again there was a crash of weapons meeting harmlessly in midair.

And again, and again. Blade doubted that the Supreme Brother would have been able to match him so well under normal circumstances. But the priest was coming to the battle fresh. Blade had already poured out buckets of sweat and a fair amount of blood.

After a dozen exchanges Blade knew that he was not going to be able to get through his opponent's guard. The Supreme Brother's mind seem to leap ahead, to discover Blade's moves almost before Blade's own mind had formed them. This realization touched off a moment of doubt in Blade's mind. But that passed, and its place was taken by memory. In this dimension no one seemed to know anything about unarmed combat.

Blade still felt no emotion, other than a sense of frustration that this fight with the priest was keeping him from reaching Piralu. He had been doing his best to keep the Supreme Brother with his back to the railing. Now he abandoned that, letting the priest take the initiative. Gradually the two men swung about on the blood-smeared deck, until Blade was backed almost against the railing.

Almost. He was careful to leave a space behind him, a space he measured in a quick glance. In the next glance, he saw that the Supreme Brother was going to try to drive him back, wipe out that space, push him over the railing. The timing of his own next move would have to be nearly perfect.

The Supreme Brother rocked back on his heels, then drove in at Blade. Blade pretended to slip, dropping down flat on his back on the boards, his head just clearing the railing. The Supreme Brother gave a shrill yell of triumph, and raised both axes high, leaning forward to strike down at Blade's head and chest. The axes began their descent.

In that moment Blade's feet shot up like a piston. They shot into the priest's stomach, scooping him up into the air, up, up, over Blade's head as Blade rolled back on his shoulders-up, and clear over the railing. Blade's head crashed into something solid. For a moment the world swirled around him. But the sounds he heard-or did not hear-told him what he wanted to know.

The Supreme Priest had no time to change his scream of triumph into one of terror before he struck the water. He did scream as he splashed into the river, and once more after that. Blade heard nothing more, because the splashings of the little fish were not loud enough to rise above the sounds of battle. Blood was pouring from his throbbing head as he staggered to his feet. He was in time to see the last of the air burble out of the Supreme Brother's bat-mask, and see it sink out of sight-dragged down by the weight of the now fleshless skull inside it.

Blade leaned over the railing, conscious that his last reserves of strength were gone, and that his head was throbbing agonizingly. He managed to pull himself straight and turn forward, toward the remainder of the battle.

As he did so, the pain in his head suddenly flared and spread until from crown to chin his head was one raw, tearing agony. The world dissolved. But he could still feel the deck under his feet, know that he was lurching toward the railing, up against it-and over it.

His mouth opened in a scream that died in a gurgle as he struck the water and the river poured into his mouth. He was in the river, bleeding, down among the deadly fish. The computer had him, but it might let him go, and then the fish would eat him and there would be no brain of his left for the computer to-

The computer did not let go. Blade felt a stab of pain in his leg as one of the fish took a bite. Then the pain in his head swelled further, the world's redness pulsed and quivered, then it was no longer red but black. And after that it was no longer anything.