Dragons Of Englor

«Any trouble?» he whispered.

She shook her head, licked dry lips, and swallowed several times. Then suddenly she raised her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek. «Thank you,» she said quietly.

Blade smiled. «Wait until you've got a little more to be thankful for. We've got a bit of a way to go yet.»

They moved out through the forest at a good pace, one neither of them would have any trouble keeping up for days on end. If they did end up having to walk for days, it would mean something had gone fatally wrong with Route Purple Two, and they would have very little chance of getting out of Rodzmania alive. Blade was also determined that even if things came to that they would still go down fighting, and that meant saving their strength.

They covered half the distance to the primary pickup before dawn. They could have gone farther, but ahead lay a stretch of farming country with fewer woods to provide cover. They found shelter in the cellar of an abandoned farmhouse and settled down for the day, taking alternate three-hour watches. The day passed without trouble and with few signs that there were any other human beings in all the world. Blade found he could easily imagine he and Rilla were Adam and Eve, alone in a world just created out of whatever had gone before it.

If this was Eden, though, it held far too many snakes, in the form of Russland soldiers.

At nightfall they moved on. They had to move more carefully during this night's march, giving the scattered farms a wide berth, staying off the roads, and twice ducking for cover as Russland patrols passed too close for comfort. One patrol was eight soldiers in two jeeplike vehicles, the other was a truck bristling with machine guns and searchlights, which fortunately weren't turned on.

Two patrols were nothing unusual. No doubt the Red Flames had discovered Rilla's disappearance by now. But they didn't seem to have launched an all-out manhunt. Even when they did, it might not be disastrous. They might indeed comb the land house by house, but that would take time-perhaps more than enough time for Blade and Rilla to make their way safely along Route Purple Two and home to Englor.

They were only four miles from the pickup at dawn. Again they found safe cover while the sky was still gray and settled down as comfortably as they could. This day's cover was under a bridge, a damp hiding place swarming with mosquitoes that kept both of them from getting any sleep. Rilla was bitten until her eyes were swollen half shut, but she did not protest.

«Mosquitoes are nothing,» she said, brushing some off her neck. «To get away from my masters, I think I would risk tigers or sharks. The Red Flames give a scientist much, so it was easy to do what they wanted for a long time. Too easy, and too long, I think. I was not as strong as I should have been, not soon enough.» She shook her head. «They asked what they should not have, and I gave them more than I should have. Now it is too late for me, but perhaps for others, there is still time.»

Blade didn't know what to make of these rather cryptic words, and didn't particularly care for their grim, almost fatalistic tone. He did not try to get anything more out of Rilla about her work.

Then the day ended and they started out across the last four miles. Blade would not have been at all surprised if the pickup point had been deserted, perhaps with some coded sign that it had been permanently abandoned. He was even prepared to find nothing at all, or even several bodies littering the grass and a Russland machine gun trained on them from the woods.

Instead he found four men who gave the proper recognition signals and understood his. That was exactly as he'd expected. What he hadn't expected was that one of the four men would be Piedar Goron. By now they were well outside Goron's normal area of operation, the area he knew as well as he might know the face of his wife. Blade had thought Goron was too good an underground man to take the risks involved in moving outside his own territory, except in an emergency.

Goron took Blade aside as soon as they'd moved a safe distance into the forest. «There is going to be a problem in getting you and Rilla out of here, one we had not anticipated.»

«Purple Two's blown?»

Goron shook his head. «I wish it were that simple. No, as far as we know, it is still secure. Or it would be, if we could use it.»

«Why can't we use it?»

«They will not let us.»

«Who won't let us?» Blade's irritation showed in his voice. Goron seemed to want to talk in riddles, and Blade was in no mood to put up with it. Or had something happened to shake Goron so badly that he couldn't speak clearly and concisely?

With a little prompting from Blade the story came out. It was quite simple. A Priority One message had come to the Rodzmanian underground from Englor. It had stated that no, repeat no, deviations from any of the standard routes were to be used in co

«A flat prohibition?» said Blade.

«Yes.»

«No reason given in the message?»

«None.» That didn't sound like R. Blade was almost certain enough of that to say it out loud, but not quite. Damn it, he wished he knew just a little bit more than he did about the ways and methods of the Special Operations Division, enough to know whether R ever sent messages like this one. He would have known that much if he'd really been a senior Special Operations man, with fifteen years' experience as an Independent. But he was Richard Blade, stranger from another Dimension. He knew enough about Special Operations to do a competent job for it in the field, but not enough to guess what might go on in the Division's bureaucracy at home.

Unfortunately, there was no reason why someone in Englor could not have given this half-witted order. An intelligence organization could easily commit all the errors, crimes, and follies of any other bureaucracy, and a few more besides.

«The message had the standard double confirmation?» said Blade, probing further.

«Yes, damn it!» exploded Goron. His anger burst out in a roar that made birds and small animals dart away in fright. It seemed loud enough to be heard beyond the edge of the forest, a good three miles away.

Blade decided to let the issue drop. Further questioning would not alter the facts or produce any essential or even useful information. It would simply add to the strain that Piedar Goron was already enduring, and Blade would do much to avoid that. He would do nothing to add to the burdens of Goron and his comrades in the Rodzmanian underground.

Goron seemed to sense this change in Blade. He took several deep breaths, and when he spoke again his voice was, level and calm. «We will still use Route Purple Two, but we will use the same exit as Purple One. That should keep them happy in Englor. There is no critical increase in risk. In fact, conditions are unusually favorable for the exit operation. Number 37's squadron is on a field-deployment exercise, so-«

The plan unfolded, Blade's mind worked along two parallel tracks, assessing the plan as he memorized it. It seemed entirely acceptable: It would certainly get Rilla and him back to Englor days or even weeks faster than any other plan, if it worked as Goron described it.

And if it didn't? Well, if it didn't, Blade and Rilla would at least be near the seacoast, and the sea still belonged to Englor. Once again there was a road home across the sea, if all else failed.