Champions Of The Gods

In any case, it was hardly surprising that something had gone wrong. With the best of intentions, he had added a whole new factor to what was already a mass of unknowns by trying to help Arllona. What had that done to the computer's effect on him-or on both of them?

It was a waste of time thinking about it, he decided. He faced a mystery that even in Home Dimension would have been a monumental headache for Lord Leighton himself. It would just have to stay a mystery, for the time being.

The first thing to do here and now was find Arllona, if she was any place where she could be found. Blade didn't like the thought that he might have snatched her from the flames of the Mouth of the Gods to have her die miserably in this jungle. Looking for her, though, could end up like searching an entire field of haystacks for a needle that might not be in any of them.

Blade quickly sca

Apparently Arllona had landed some distance from Blade, recovered consciousness first, then wandered off into the forest. Why hadn't she found him and waited for him? There could be various possible reasons for this, none of them particularly pleasant to think about.

Blade broke off a dead branch and traced the outline of Kano's flame emblem several inches deep in the moss and mold of the ground. If Arllona somehow came back here, she might recognize the sign and realize she should stay. Then Blade broke off another stick, one long enough and heavy enough to be a decent club, and strode off into the forest on the woman's trail.

Her trail was easy enough for an experienced outdoorsman like Blade to follow. For the first few hundred yards the trail wandered aimlessly back and forth, as though Arllona hadn't been quite sure which way to turn. Then it straightened out and ran straight for nearly a mile.

At the end of the mile, something had frightened Arllona into a dead run. The footprints showed the long, stumbling strides of someone ru

Another half a mile, and a tangle of fallen branches. Someone or something had plunged blindly into them, hard enough to snap the brittle or rotten wood in a dozen places, hard enough to cut and gouge themselves. The jagged ends of several branches showed the reddish-brown of drying blood. A closer look told Blade that the blood was almost fresh. He was less than half an hour behind Arllona now.

He quickly circled the tangle of branches and picked up the woman's trail again. She was still ru

He was also alert for other sights and sounds. Arllona was bleeding and panic-striken. Every forest had animals that followed the scent of blood or were drawn by signs of panic and fear.

Blade had barely finished this thought when he heard a faint moan from ahead. He stopped and listened. The sound came again. It seemed to be coming from a human throat, but there was nothing human about it.

It came a third time. Now Blade could be sure that it came from a particularly dark patch of close-grown trees. Blade headed that way, skirting several fallen branches that thrust long thorns out in all directions. Jagged stubs and more red-brown stains showed that Arllona had plunged straight on through.

Just inside the trees her flight had ended. She lay sprawled facedown at the foot of a tree, covered with sweat, bruises, and still bleeding cuts. Torn earth under her fingers and toes showed where she had kicked and clawed desperately after falling.

Blade bent down, checked her for broken bones, then gently turned her over. Her breathing came in broken gasps, and her eyes were closed. Blade shifted her so that her feet were higher than her head, then began to clear the dirt and weeds from her mouth.

As he worked, he heard her breathing become deeper and more regular. Then her eyes flickered open. They would not meet his, though. They wandered aimlessly about, then closed again. Her mouth opened, and the same low animal's moan he'd heard before came out.

Blade grimaced. By some unknown miracle, Arllona had made the transition with him, from the Mouth of the Gods in Kano to wherever they were now. But it looked very much as though her mind was gone. Was he alone in this unknown jungle with an insane woman?

The next three days were an ordeal Blade wouldn't have wished on his worst enemy. At one time or another he was in danger of death from just about everything except boredom.

Arllona's mind was indeed gone. That was clear after the first day. She whimpered, she drooled, her eyes refused to focus. She could walk, but to keep her with him Blade had to tie a length of vine around her waist and lead her like a dog. She would eat and drink only if he put the food and water in her mouth.

Then there was the deadly windless heat of the forest, the endless twilight, the hunger, the thirst, and the insects. Especially the insects. They swarmed around Blade and Arllona. Some bit, some stung, some crawled over their scratches or into their eyes and noses and mouths, some just whined maddeningly in their ears. They tramped along in the middle of a whining, buzzing cloud. The insect bites spread across their skins until they both looked as if they had some repulsive rash and Arllona's eyes were swollen half-shut.

On the fourth day they came to a small stream, and the worst of the ordeal was over. The water was muddy and scummy, but they were too thirsty to care. Blade scooped several small fish out of the stream and gutted them with his bare hands. They ate the fish raw. He also scooped up mud from the bank and smeared it on the worst of the insect bites. They looked even worse as the mud slowly dried on their skins, but they itched and smarted less. Most important, the stream offered some sort of direction. Following it gave Blade real hope of getting out of the jungle.

Just before darkness fell that day, the jungle offered solid proof that this was not Home Dimension. In Home Dimension there was nothing like the forty-foot thing that came crashing and crunching through the trees along the stream. Its hide was scaled, its feet were clawed, its head sprouted a triangle of horns, its jaw opened wide enough to swallow Blade whole and displayed a double set of foot-long teeth. It growled, it hissed, it muttered to itself, it made the ground shake. Fortunately it did not notice Blade and Arllona as they ducked for cover.

If he had been alone, Blade would have climbed the nearest large tree. But there was Arllona, who had never climbed a tree in her life. Blade had to lead her to the nearest bush and crouch under it with her until the beast went snorting off into the twilight. She was too paralyzed with fear to move or speak until the forest was quiet again.

They slept under the bush that night. That wouldn't keep them from getting eaten if the creature came back and was feeling hungry. It would hopefully keep them from getting trampled on.

The night passed quietly. In the morning they awoke, drank again from the stream, and started off. The stream grew steadily wider during the next two days' march. By nightfall on the second day they could see a wide patch of sky overhead. Judging by the position of the sun, Blade thought that they seemed to be heading roughly northeast. Beyond the treetops, Blade caught a faint shadowy hint of mountains on the horizon.