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voices from below and see little eddies of movement in the crowd, but they
were all unarmed. There was nothing they could do to help him against the Holy
Warriors, even if they wanted to. At a single glance Blade counted nearly
thirty Holy Warriors climbing toward him, swords and axes drawn. They showed
no signs of panic, whatever might be the case behind him.
The last warrior Blade had killed was still holding his axe. Blade sprinted
across the slope to the body, snatched up the axe, and thrust it into his
belt. Then he ran straight down the slope at the climbing warriors. The
advancing line grew irregular and stopped. Obviously the warriors couldn't
make up their minds whether to spread out or bunch up. They might not be
panic-stricken, but neither did any of them want to wind up facing Blade
alone. Before they could decide, Blade was on them.
Thirty feet away he snatched the extra axe from his belt and threw it at the
nearest warrior. The man ducked, but not fast enough or low enough. The
hatchet smashed into his right shoulder, and his right hand opened and spilled
his sword to the stone with a clatter. But the warrior did not give way as
Blade had expected. Whether it was courage or paralyzing fear, he stood his
ground, his own axe raised. Blade could not charge in at full speed, and did
not. He came down on the man at a trot, his sword and axe raised.
As Blade did this, his opponent took two steps forward. Blade's descending
sword drove into the man's body, too deeply. He was dead in an instant, but
Blade's sword was fixed solidly in his body.
Blade barely held onto it as the man went down, tugging and jerking
desperately to free it. As he did so, the man's comrades took courage from his
sacrifice and rushed in on either side of Blade.
Blade leaped back just in time to keep from being sliced apart by two swords
coming in together.
But in leaping to save himself, he had to leave his sword behind. Now he faced
the warriors crowding around him with only an axe.
Not for long, however. Seeing Blade half-disarmed made some of his enemies
overconfident. They came at him in a solid mass, where no one had room to
swing a sword or strike with an axe properly.
Blade had all the room he needed, to dart forward and strike like a snake with
his axe. A man's arm cracked under the blow, a sword fell and Blade snatched
it up as it clattered on the stone. Blade slashed swiftly with his new sword
at the legs of one man who was crowding too close. The man screamed and hopped
back on one foot, the other a blood-spouting stump, then fell over backward.
Two of his comrades fell with him, one rolling away down the slope.
Now Blade was fully armed once more, and both sword and axe flickered and
struck out at his enemies. But while he was rearming himself, more of the Holy
Warriors had found the chance to close in around him. Now he found himself
completely surrounded by fresh opponents. He was more than a match for any one
of them, or even any five of them, but there were many more than that. He
chopped and slashed and parried, felt his strokes clang off sword blades or
chop deep into flesh and bone. But he
also felt the tightness in his chest, the sweat pouring in waterfalls down his
body, his legs growing rubbery. His arms seemed to be weighted down with
stones tied to them, and the sword and the axe seemed to weigh a hundred
pounds apiece. The sword was losing its edge as well. Bronze could take only
so much punishment, and he had given his sword that much and three times more
besides. Now its edge was saw-toothed. More often than not it would only
wound, not kill. As the Holy Warriors saw that, they regained still more of
their courage, and more and more of them crowded, closer, even those with
open, bleeding wounds.
Blade didn't know at what moment he realized that he wasn't going to get out
of this. All he knew was that in one moment he was still looking for a clear
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path through the warriors, one down the mound and into the crowd. The next
moment he was no longer concerned with that, only with killing as many
warriors as possible before they killed him. He had already done much to make
this a memorable High
Sacrifice for the cult of Ayocan. But he wanted to do a little more if he
could.
He no longer took so much care at guarding, preferring to strike even at the
risk of being struck. He started taking wounds, small ones mostly, for the
Holy Warriors' swords were getting almost as battered as his own. He grinned
as he felt the blood trickle down thighs and torso, felt the pouring sweat
sting his wounds. Now he was no longer whole and perfect. No matter how strong
his spirit might be, his body made him unfit for sacrifice to Ayocan. The
whole High Sacrifice would be spoiled. And whether or not
Ayocan was displeased, Pterin and the Supreme Brother certainly would
be. That was a large consolation.
A shrill noise began to rise around Blade, filling his ears so that he could
no longer hear the clang of bronze meeting bronze or his own panting breath.
Then with a shock he realized that the shrill noise was the sound of flutes,
loudly played and getting closer. With a still greater shock he realized that
the Holy
Warriors around him were no longer crowding in to strike. He no longer had to
raise his sagging arms to guard against their blows or deliver his own. The
Holy Warriors had drawn back, and he was standing by himself on the slope of
the temple mound. In a wide circle around him the stone was red and slick with
blood and littered with maimed or dead men.
He looked to where the flute music was sounding. A solid column of King
Hurakun's black-clad warriors was marching around the temple mound toward
him, their swords drawn, their musicians marching in the lead. Blade
suppressed a groan. So Hurakun's guard was intervening, to curry favor with
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