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The hut door opened inward. Blade found a position where he was hidden completely from the outside and still had a good view of the interior. At least it was as good a view as he could have in the darkness. He wished he had Lorma's night vision, even though his was abnormally good for a man. He also wished that the people outside would get on with their business, whoever they were. He hoped it was Curim and some of his friends, rather than traitors among his own party. That would make a good many things easier, including his own escape. He also suspected Tressana would not hold it against anyone if Curim was caught and killed trying to commit murder.
Then Blade stopped wishing and nearly stopped breathing, because the footsteps outside were coming on. Dry leaves crackled, the door creaked, and three shadowy forms stepped into Blade's view. He heard the unmistakable hiss of an all-steel sword being drawn, and gri
Then one of the three assassins uncovered a lantern, and it would have taken a high-speed motion picture camera to record what happened after that.
Lorma growled and sat up. Where Curim and his men had expected to see Richard Blade half-asleep and nearly helpless, they saw two vast green eyes which seemed to glow with their own light. They stopped, stared, and completely forgot about everything else for a vital second. At least it was vital to Blade.
He sprang out from his hiding place, one leap carrying him halfway across the hut. He slammed the door with a flying sidekick from midair and landed to Curim's left. The garrote was already in his left hand. He started to draw his sword with his right, saw Lorma getting ready to spring, and checked the draw. As Lorma sprang, Blade gripped both ends of his garrote, tossed it over Curim's head, drove his knee into the captain's back, and simultaneously jerked the wire tight. It was possible that Curim died without realizing that he was even being attacked. It is certain that he died without making a sound.
Meanwhile Lorma's man was down on the floor, the cat on top of him. This man died a little more noisily than his captain, with chokings and gurgles as Lorma tore out his throat. Lorma jumped back from the blood and turned to help with the third man, but by then her master didn't need any help.
The third man had seen his captain die to his left and his comrade go down under the cat's attack to his right, and he was still trying to figure out what to do with his shortened spear when a large hand descended on his collar. Blade jerked the man around to face him with one hand and with the other thrust the point of his sword up under the man's chin until it reached the brain. Blade had to pull the sword out quickly to keep the dead man from dragging it to the floor with him.
Blade and Lorma stepped back from the three bodies and stared at each other. In the flickering glow from the lantern, the bodies on the floor were distorted into something barely human. The still, hot air reeked of smoke, blood, and even less pleasant things.
At that moment Blade realized he'd killed all three men without a sound that could have been heard outside. What was more, he couldn't hear any voices or sounds of movement from beyond the door. Curim had probably brought more than two men with him, so the others must be waiting outside, to warn off or if necessary kill sentries from the camp. If they had orders to stay outside unless Curim ordered them in, it would be at least two or three minutes before they suspected that anything was wrong.
Blade's mind was now working at the speed of one of Lord Leighton's smaller computers. Suddenly he knew that those two or three minutes were giving him a golden opportunity not only to escape but to hide the escape completely. The Jaghdi would think he was dead, and not worry about where he might be going or what secrets he might be taking with him.
A moment later Blade's body was working as fast as his mind. Once again it would have taken a movie camera to record the action. Blade bent down and stripped off the armor and clothing of the man he'd killed with his sword. He was the largest of the three. Then he put on the man's armor and clothing, and piled all his own gear on top of the body except for his sword. Amulets or no amulets, he wasn't going to face the forest of Binaark again without a good sharp steel edge in his hand!
All three men had been wearing amulets, but Lorma's attack had smashed the one on her victim. The other two were intact. Curim's was an officer's model, made of gilded brass, heavily decorated, on a silvered chain. Blade had one very much like it. The other man had a soldier's model a plain wooden cylinder, perforated with holes and plugged at the top with a bone stopper, hanging from a length of cord.
Blade quickly exchanged his own metal amulet for the wooden one. Then he put the lantern on the end of the spear and thrust it upward into the thatching of the roof. The dry vegetation caught fire so furiously that it seemed to explode, and Blade had to shield his face with his arms for a moment. The intensity of the fire was encouraging. It made it far more likely that the bodies on the floor would be completely unrecognizable, as long as nobody got inside before the roof collapsed.
Over the crackle and hiss of the flames Blade could now hear voices outside. There were a good many of them, all angry. It sounded as if his own men were coming up from the camp. Time to be on his way. It would be embarrassing to be recognized by his own men while escaping. It would be still worse to be shot down by one of his own archers who'd mistaken him for one of Curim's assassins.
Blade threw open the shutter, looked out, saw nobody close enough to recognize him, then put his hands on the window sill and vaulted out. Lorma followed him and stayed close at his heels as they both headed off into the cover of the darkness as fast as they could run.
They slowed down after a hundred yards, deep inside the trees. Blade picked Lorma up in his arms and carried her as they circled around the camp toward the corral. There were a few killer plants around here, and Blade could protect Lorma more easily if he was carrying her. Although she was fairly cooperative once she understood what was going on, Blade was glad when he could put her down. Eighty-five pounds of cat wasn't the easiest thing for even the strongest man to carry in his arms through a pitch-black forest.
Blade and Lorma came out onto open ground near the rolgha corral. The rolghas were whi
The blazing hut was now lighting up its whole end of the camp, but it was still very dark by the corral and Blade would not be recognized, even if anyone saw him. Anyway, all the corral sentries and grooms seemed to have run off to fight the fire, and Blade was certain they wouldn't be of any assistance. The fire was going too well.
When the fire did burn itself out, there would be nothing but corpses burned beyond recognition lying in the ashes. Two of them would have the melted remains of officer's amulets. On or around one of them would be recognizable pieces of Lord Blade's armor and weapons. That was another advantage of being in a primitive Dimensions. Without scientific methods of detection, the Jaghdi wouldn't be able to tell that Blade's armor had merely been piled on top of the corpse.
So far Blade's plan to cover his escape was working perfectly. Now to finish the job. He ran toward the corral, keeping low, Lorma ru