Master Of The Hashomi

The Master seemed to be aware of this. He started backing away, to make sure Blade wouldn't be able to deliver another kick like that at a standing target within easy range. So Blade wheeled on one foot and kicked out with the other, aiming low. The Master twisted so that the kick struck his outer thigh instead of his kneecap, but it still jarred him from head to foot.

Now the continuous deadly swirling exchange of attack and counterattack began again. This time it was Blade who was the aggressor, and the Master who had to follow at the pace he set. Four more times Blade drove his feet in, four times the kicks just failed to be lethal or crippling, and all four times the Master was badly jolted. He stayed on his feet and kept those feet moving, he struck back and sometimes forced Blade to give ground-but he was definitely no longer what he'd been at the begi

Blade realized that he now had to push the fight to a swift conclusion if he wanted to come out of it alive. The Master was doomed. He could no longer win-but his desperation, or the treachery of his followers, might still mean Blade's death as well. Certainly they could mean Mirna's death, and Blade was begi

Blade got in one more blow, carefully aimed at the Master's shoulder. He saw the Master wince as the blow went home, and knew that the man would be even slower than before with the staff, at least for a minute or two. Blade dropped into a crouch and came in again. This time he faced the Master squarely, exposing his whole chest and belly as a target.

The Master couldn't resist the temptation. The staff darted at Blade. Blade threw himself on his back, kicking out with both legs and shooting up both arms. The staff sailed over his head and his fingers clamped down on it. At the same moment his feet smashed into the Master's groin.

Blade felt as if he'd broken all the toes on both feet. The Master was wearing some sort of armored groin protector. That didn't save his balance, though, as Blade jerked on the staff. The Master flew forward, to meet another kick from Blade smashing up into his belly. He doubled up, mouth open and gasping for air, while one hand darted inside his trousers. A knife flashed out, but before it could strike, Blade was on his feet, the staff in his hands. Before the Master could react to this sudden turnabout, Blade reversed the staff and drove the wooden end straight into the Master's chest. He put all his strength and weight behind the thrust, and the wood drove through skin and muscle and ribs to stop the Master's heart.

Blade gripped the Master by one arm as he tottered, the life going out of his eyes while he was still on his feet. He gripped the staff with the other hand. Then he whirled around, and with every muscle in his body strained to the limit threw both the Master and the staff toward the tu

Before any of them could obey, Blade was on the move again. He covered the ten feet of the bridge to the Hashomi side in three long strides. The Hashomi stared at him approaching, then stepped aside. Their eyes were wide and fixed, their mouths working uncontrollably. For the moment they were no more than animal, incapable of rational thought or action.

In that moment Blade took three more steps, snatched up Mirna, and turned back to the bridge. A Hashom made the mistake of putting one hand to the hilt of his knife. Blade shifted Mirna to one arm and with the other drove a fist straight into the Hashom's jaw. The man went over backward and did not get up. Blade dashed back onto the bridge, and by the time any of the Hashomi raised a weapon, he was back safely on his own side.

Six of Blade's men were already well into the tu

«Some of you will join your Master if one of you so much as blinks an eye.»

Apparently none of the Hashomi were eager to join their Master. They stood in numb silence until Blade and Giraz were almost up to the barricade. Then arrows came whistling into the tu

Blade sat down and called for water. His throat seemed to be packed full of red-hot stones and his legs would barely support him. When he'd drunk, he staggered to his feet and turned to Giraz. The eunuch was smiling in grim triumph.

«So much for the Master,» he said. «I wonder how long the Hashomi will survive him.»

Chapter 26

In spite of Blade's victory, nobody in the hospital got much sleep that day or the following night. Nobody said it out loud, but the same question was in everybody's mind. Were the Hashomi going to launch a last desperate attack to avenge their fallen Master?

They didn't. At dawn the next day the sentries called Blade to the railing to show him the spectacle of an empty valley. The Hashomi were gone, leaving behind nothing but piles of ash and charcoal where their campfires had been. Nothing moved on the valley floor, except the scavenger birds digging bits of flesh out of the bodies of the assarani.

An hour later a messenger from the Baran scrambled down the cliff to the hospital ledge. The Baran's army had reached the mouth of the Valley of the Hashomi and hammered its way in. Now it was advancing down the valley, and the Hashomi were gathering to meet it. The Baran was sending food and reinforcements to Blade in a flying column that should reach the hospital tonight. Until that time Blade and his people had nothing to do.

Blade passed on the message, and when the cheering died down he ordered the last of the beer broken out to celebrate. By the time the flying column appeared, nearly everyone in the hospital was slightly drunk. The beer had worked rather powerfully on stomachs that were so nearly empty.

The next morning Blade led his own people and the flying column down the path to the floor of the valley, to join in the last battle against the Hashomi. It was bloody as long as it lasted, but it did not last long and most of the blood shed was Hashomi. They'd had their chance at close-quarters fighting when the Baran's army came into the valley. In that fighting they'd killed more than three thousand of the Baran's men. He wasn't about to give them a chance to do so a second time.

So the Hashomi were beaten down with archery and hurled spears. They faced bristling walls of pikes. Where they took cover in buildings or forests they were smoked and burned out. Those Hashomi who did get to close quarters usually killed two or three enemies before going down themselves, but not many got the chance. The Baran had promised that any commander who wasted men would be impaled on the walls of the palace in Dahaura, and the Baran was known to keep that sort of promise.

In a single day the Hashomi were broken. Most died, some fled, a few tried to surrender and a very few were allowed to do so. It took another tedious and bloody week to rout the fugitives out of the caves and isolated huts where they'd hidden, but that was a minor affair.

There were still a thousand or so fighting Hashomi unaccounted for. Most of them were probably in Dahaura's cities, lying low.