
Table of Contents
The Cyber Chronicles
T C Southwell
Published by T C Southwell at Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by T C Southwell
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents
When the King of Arlin died, Tassin, inherited the largest and wealthiest of the five kingdoms in the western Life Zone of Omega Five. The post-holocaust world, which has been abandoned to its fate and regressed to a medieval society, is divided by a radioactive desert called the Badlands.
King Torrian, ruler of a neighbouring kingdom, proposed marriage to annex Tassin's realm, but she refused. With the support of two other kings, Torrian declared war, and Tassin was on the brink of defeat when the strange wizard who had agreed to help her father destroy the Death Zone offered her a weapon. Monsters from the Death Zone ravaged Arlin, and the wizard assured her that his weapon, intended for the Death Zone, would also save her from the kings. The man who stepped out of the strange casket did not impress her, however. She mistook 'cyber' for 'sabre', and thus he gained a name. Filled with the foolish bravado of the very young, she resolved to die when her castle fell, but her senior advisor ordered Sabre to save her.
The cyber-bio combat unit is the ultimate hi-tech fighting machine. Sabre is a cyborg with metal-plated bones and internal body armour, controlled by a micro-supercomputer embedded in a brow band attached to the skull plating under his scalp. A cyber's built-in equipment includes bio-scanners and ground-penetrating scanners, plus a cybernetic interface capable of controlling animals over a limited distance. In his natural environment, the advanced world that created him, he is able to interface with other AIs and break security codes and firewalls with ease.
A cyber is considered to be the most dangerous weapon ever created. His reactions are honed to split-second precision, and he is trained in every art of combat, able to use any weapon, speak every language and operate any craft, plus the data stored in his brain, intended for the supercomputer's use, is updated at regular intervals. He is so dangerous, in fact, that his creators have ensured that no cyber will ever gain a sense of self, with all the ramifications that stem from it.
The cyber saved Tassin, who, while she disliked his blank stares and clipped tones, enjoyed his utter obedience. He helped her to flee her kingdom, but, during the pursuit over the mountains, he was attacked and fell several hundred metres, damaging the brow band. The host, enslaved almost since birth, gained his freedom, and Tassin met a gentle, unassuming man. The damaged control unit was unable to regain control, and Sabre agreed to help Tassin escape her pursuers, whereupon host and cyber reached an uneasy truce.
Now two intellects share a body, one a cold, analytical AI, the other a kind-hearted man who hates what he is and longs to be free of the supercomputer. The cyber is still able to cause him pain, and denies him access to its scanners and data. Sabre has suffered all his life as a spectator, unable even to focus his eyes, enduring terrible pain and abuse. He knows, however, that his freedom is only temporary, for his owner will return for him one day. Cybers are extremely expensive.
In the Kingdom of Olgara, King Xavier betrayed Tassin, but Sabre rescued her again. When she ordered him to kill the soldiers that recaptured them, however, he refused, and entered into a monumental mental battle with the cyber. The supercomputer succeeded in robbing Sabre of all motor control, and he was certain he would die a slow and painful death.
The cyber's mission is to obey Tassin and keep her safe, and it offered Sabre a bargain, its help in return for his co-operation. Sabre agreed, freed Tassin from Torrian, and forced her to flee with him into the desert, since, thanks to his actions, two angry monarchs wanted his head parted from his shoulders, impossible though that may be.
Tassin believes the Death Zone to be a deadly, accursed place, but Sabre is certain it is nothing more than an area of radioactive desert. Sabre's scanners allowed them to avoid the radioactivity in the Badlands, and they set off across the desert. Torrian, however, refused to admit defeat, and sent his mage after them. Gearn, with the aid of a magically enhanced ex-gladiator and an enchanted wolf, tracks them towards the most feared area on Omega Five: the Death Zone...
Sabre squinted across the burning wasteland that surrounded him, the sun's fierce light stabbing his eyes. The heat shimmer made the desert sand dance and filled the barren expanse with silver mirages. He had slept through the worst of the day's heat, and the sun sank towards the horizon. Beside him, Tassin roused and sat up, rubbing her eyes. She drank the last of the water, and Sabre knew they must get out of the desert within the next two or three days. The dried horse meat was tough and stringy, and they had lost a lot of weight, although Tassin had lost more. Another genetic enhancement, he reflected, which made a cyber less inclined to burn energy as long as he did not partake in strenuous activity. Walking did not qualify. Compared to the amount of exertion a cyber was capable of in full combat mode, it barely taxed him at all. On the other hand, in combat, a cyber burnt energy approximately twice as fast as an unaltered human, due to the speed and strength he employed.
Sabre knew, from a glance at the virtual dashboard in his mind, that the control unit had switched on several dormant genes to conserve his reserves, and had lowered his metabolic rate to a crawl. It meant he would have little energy, if called upon to fight without warning, but the advantages outweighed that drawback. It would take the micro-supercomputer about ten minutes to raise his metabolism back to normal, which was a good deal higher than a man's. Even he did not fully comprehend the intricacies of cyber design, Sabre mused. A mental barrier prevented him from delving too deeply into the classified data stored somewhere in his brain.
By the end of the second night after the chestnut's death, their thirteenth in the desert, Tassin could barely walk. They trudged onwards, but she clearly had little strength left, for she no longer complained or protested, even when he helped her. He gave her a pebble to suck to ease the dryness of her mouth, wishing he could do more. Dust filmed her ridiculous pink court dress and ink-black hair, and grubby marks smudged her delicately featured face. Her dishevelled state did not detract from her beauty, however, Sabre thought. If anything, she was lovelier than ever, with her new golden tan. His skin, already golden from the anti-radioactivity treatments he had undergone during cyber preparation in his youth, had darkened, and his dark blond hair had grown a bit since he had arrived on Omega Five. In Olgara, he had had his first clear look at his own face, in a mirror in the inn where they had stayed, and knew that he possessed silver-grey eyes, a strong chin and a well-shaped mouth. The thin, pale scars that ran along his high cheekbones and halfway down his narrow nose were a legacy of operations to implant barrinium reinforcing on his skull, and he had hated that glimpse of himself.
As the sky paled with the first blush of dawn, Sabre became aware of a strange phenomenon ahead. At first it looked like a low band of mist, faintly luminous in the weak light. The scanners showed nothing unusual, and he plodded towards it, wondering if he was hallucinating. As the light increased, the mist began to look more solid, and he realised that it rose into the sky in a weird, translucent wall that skirted on the edge of invisibility.
It played tricks on his eyes, and he could not see exactly what it was until he found himself standing only a few metres from it. The sun rose over the horizon, and its first golden rays shot across the sand to illuminate the misty barrier. A shimmering wall confronted him, gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the dawn light. Rainbows flickered within it, twisted by billowing water vapour. He tugged at Tassin's arm, rousing her from her stupor, and she raised glazed, dark blue eyes to the beautiful barrier. She stared at it blankly, then comprehension dawned, and her eyes widened.
"The Death Zone!"
Sabre caught her as she collapsed and lowered her to the ground, then turned to study the strange phenomenon. If this was the Death Zone, it was more than a stretch of radioactive desert. The iridescent mist looked moist and inviting, making him long to walk into its cool dampness. Mother Amy had called it evil magic, but he did not believe in magic, and it did not look evil, only cool and wet. Whatever it was, they had to cross it, and there must be water where there was mist.
Scooping Tassin up, he walked through the iridescent wall. The terrain changed as soon as he crossed into the Death Zone, and when he looked back, there was nothing behind him but misty whiteness, no sign of the desert outside, although it was only a few metres away. The sand was replaced by cool, damp grey rocks striated with bands of brown and white. Boulders loomed out of the mist ahead, forcing him to follow the narrow path between them, and stunted, gnarled bushes grew in the clefts of the rocks. He was too tired to try to figure out how this moist land could exist in the middle of a desert, but was glad it was there. The sun shone dimly through the haze, robbed of its fierce heat.
When the path widened, he stopped and put Tassin down, squatted beside her and patted her cheek until she opened her eyes. She glanced around at the weird landscape, then scowled at him.
"You brought me into the Death Zone."
"There's got to be water here."
She closed her eyes. "What is the use? We will die anyway."
"We'll get across it. Come on." He stood up and pulled her to her feet. "Can you walk?"
She nodded, peering into the mist with deep dread. "We must arm ourselves."
Sabre sighed and unstrapped the leather-bound bundle that contained the sword and dagger from his back, handing it to her. She staggered under its weight, shooting him a glare, then took out the dagger and handed back the sword.
"You take it, it is too heavy."
Sabre replaced the sword on his back while she buckled the sheathed dagger to her belt, then he led the way through the rocks, following the path that seemed to open before him. The thick mist caressed his skin with damp, silken skeins, beading his eyelashes with water.
Flickers of green and brown shot through the landscape as if coloured lights shone within the rocks, and the terrain changed. Sabre stopped and gazed around at an eerily silent jungle. Soft, lawn-like grass sank under his feet, and glimpses of movement flitted amongst the trees. Behind him, Tassin hissed. Sabre glanced back, but the jungle surrounded them, and there was no sign of the rocks they had just come through.
He frowned, lowering his gaze to her wary, amazed eyes. "Spooky."
"Magic." Her expression was that of a condemned woman standing on the gallows.
Sabre walked on, the grass cushioning his footfalls, and the silent jungle ignored them. He pushed past some bushes and gave a glad cry, striding forward. A deep, inviting pool nestled amongst lush tropical plants bearing bright crimson and yellow flowers. Falling to his knees, he scooped up the cool liquid and raised it to his parched lips. Tassin did the same, splashing it over her face with gay abandon and gulping it from her hands. The water was wrong somehow, though, for it did not quench his thirst, it seemed to only dampen it. He scooped up another handful with the same effect. Tassin splashed in the water, sucking up handfuls without any apparent relief.
Sabre sat back and gripped her arm, pulling her away. "Wait, there's something wrong here, leave it."
She stared at him with desolate eyes, her face set in lines of misery. "It is magic, not water at all, just an illusion to torture us. What could be worse than dying of thirst surrounded by water you cannot drink?"
He nodded. "This is a weird place."
Sabre's head jerked around at a purring chuckle close by. A strange creature sat atop a moss-covered rock less than a metre away. Tassin grabbed the hilt of her dagger, and Sabre looked inwards at the scanners. There was nothing on them. He double-checked, surprised. The jungle teemed with life, so why were the scanners not picking it up? He studied the creature, whose bright yellow eyes watched him from a black mask on a furry grey face. Pointed ears swivelled on top of its head, and a plump, fluffy grey body hunched forward, supported by monkey-like hands. The size of a cat, it bore a strong resemblance to a racoon.
"That water won't do you any good," it stated, its soft voice emanating from it without the aid of its mouth, which remained closed. It was not telepathy, for Sabre distinctly heard it speak aloud, but it seemed to throw its voice like a ventriloquist. He relaxed, perceiving no threat from such a small creature.
"What are you?"
The racoon-like animal sat up, clasping its hands. "I'm a mosscat. I live here."
"What's wrong with the water?"
The mosscat's ears flicked. "It's Flux-reality, and you're too close to the fringe for Flux-reality to be solid."
Sabre's parched throat burnt, overriding his curiosity. "Is there any real water around?"
"Sure." The mosscat's ears pricked.
"Will you take us there?"
"I guess so." It sprang down from the rock, glancing over its shoulder. "Follow me."
Sabre strode after it, his thirst driving all thoughts of danger from his mind, and Tassin was close behind him. The mosscat skirted the pool and dived into the undergrowth with Sabre crashing in pursuit. Soon it stopped by another, smaller pool that looked out of place in the scenery. It did not seem to belong, located, as it was, in the middle of a patch of moss-grass with no water weeds or rocks around it. Sabre scooped up the tepid liquid, which this time was truly wet, and slid down his throat like nectar. Tassin gulped it down as if afraid it would vanish before she had slaked her thirst, and Sabre pulled her away.
"Not too much, or you'll be sick."
"But I am thirsty!"
"Wait a little while, then have some more." He turned to the mosscat to distract himself from his thirst. "Why is this water real, when that other pool wasn't?"
"This is Real-reality; the other was Flux-reality."
Sabre sat back on his haunches and regarded the creature. "Can you explain that more clearly?"
"You're outsiders, aren't you?" Its lips drew back in a smile, revealing small, pointed white teeth.
"Yes. So what?"
The mosscat shrugged. "No matter." It settled more comfortably in the moss and scratched its chest. "Here in the Flux, things change all the time, you may have noticed." It waved a chubby hand. "This that you see is Flux-reality, and it will change again. Real-reality is hidden beneath it for the most part, but things like rocks and pools are often visible, if a little out of place, like that."
It pointed at a tree that appeared to have a grey rock growing out of its trunk. "The rock is Real-reality, the tree is Flux, you see. Now, we're on the fringe of Flux, so Flux-reality is a bit unreal here. You can see and feel it, but it's not entirely there. In the middle of the Flux, Flux-reality is as real as Real-reality."
The mosscat regarded them with large yellow eyes, awaiting a response, while Sabre tried to make sense of it.
"So... there are two types of reality here, one that's real, and another that's not so real?"
The mosscat nodded. "Correct."
"Which do you belong to?"
It gave a purring chuckle. "I'm real. If I was Flux, I would hardly be able to see you. You'd be like ghosts here, and you wouldn't be able to hear me."
Sabre glanced around at the silent jungle. No wonder the scanners did not detect the life forms, but then, why were they unable to detect the mosscat either? He scooped up another handful of water and drank it, glancing at Tassin. She had dampened her skirt, and wiped the grime from her face, her eyes resting doubtfully on the mosscat.
He turned back to it. "Is it dangerous here? Outside, they call this the Death Zone."
"Life here is always dangerous, especially further in. Things change with little warning, and there are odd beasts too. I choose to live here on the fringe, where Flux-reality is not a threat, but still there are Real-reality creatures that are almost as bad, though not as common."
Sabre pondered this. "We have to cross over to the other side."
The mosscat's eyes narrowed in its black bandit's mask. "You'll have to cross real Flux-reality, and that's really dangerous."
"Will you help us?"
"Well now, that's a big favour." Its ears twitched back, and it sat pondering this for several minutes. "I'll go with you for a while, and if you prove capable of dealing with the dangers I might continue with you, otherwise I'll leave. Of course, if you can't deal with the dangers you'll be dead anyway." It smirked.
Tassin scowled and yanked the dagger from her belt. "It is evil, I say kill it!"
Sabre turned to her in surprise, and the mosscat stepped back. She had been silent for so long that he had almost forgotten her views on the Death Zone.
He shook his head. "We need its help to get through the Zone; it knows the way."
"It will lead us into a trap!"
The mosscat made a spitting sound, like a miniature sneeze. "That's a hell of a conclusion to jump to, lady."
Sabre turned back to it and received a shock. It had changed; its nose seemed longer and its fangs more prominent, its chubby hands were more slender and now sported claws. A foxy aspect replaced its air of podgy amiability, and its yellow eyes glowered in its black mask.
He studied it. "She's just scared, mosscat. No need to get angry."
The mosscat looked mollified and relaxed, becoming chubby again. "She should be, in the Flux. But I won't lead you into any traps. And I'm not an it, I'm a he, and mosscat isn't my name, it's -" He made a purring sound.
Sabre tried to pronounce it, but the nearest he could get to it was 'Purr'. The mosscat looked disgusted, but shrugged philosophically. He was quite able to pronounce their names. Sabre turned to find Tassin glowering at him.
"I am not scared. I do not trust it," she said.
"Him."
"Whatever."
Flickers of green and brown shot through the landscape, and Sabre looked around. Purr stiffened, becoming alert. "Be ready for Change," he announced.
With a ripple, the terrain warped and transformed. A peculiar half-light replaced the jungle. Moist black earth now surrounded them, and bloated white fungi probed through it, raising ragged, rotten looking parasols of soft flesh to the dingy light. Tassin made a sound of disgust and moved away from a dirty grey mushroom that had appeared beside her, and Sabre stood up to study the new landscape. The pool was still at his feet, and the rock in the tree trunk that Purr had pointed out as Real-reality now sprouted from the side of a grotesque orange growth with frilly gill-like protrusions all over it. Sabre looked down at Purr as he gave a wistful sigh.
"I preferred the last one," the mosscat mourned.
Sabre scanned the terrain. A huge, armour-plated worm moved ponderously through the fungal growths in the distance, too far away and slow to be a threat. He hunkered down again to fill the water skins from the pool. There was no sound, as before, and no smell, for which he was grateful; the fungi looked distinctly rank.
"Is there somewhere we could rest, Purr?" he asked as he plugged the last water skin.
The mosscat nodded. "Sure." He turned and headed away, wending his way between the huge growths.
Sabre glanced at Tassin, who glared at the mosscat. "Come on." He beckoned to her, and she approached, holding her ragged skirts out of the slime.
"This place is disgusting," she muttered.
"Be glad that's all it is."
Shooting him a dark look, she preceded him after the mosscat, who waited ahead. Her stumbling steps revealed her fatigue; only pride and stubbornness fuelled her now.
The mosscat led them to a large, flat-topped grey rock, which he assured them was Real-reality. Sabre kicked it to test this, and found it solid. The fungi, by contrast, yielded to his finger when he poked them, allowing it to sink in as if into soft clay. When he pulled it out, his finger was clean and the fungi undamaged. Tassin wrinkled her nose at his experimentation and climbed onto the rock. Sabre unpacked the bedrolls and spread them out to soften the hard surface, and Purr groomed his grey fur with pudgy hands.
Tassin eyed him. "You changed back there, I saw you. What else can you change into?"
Purr sneezed, and his fangs grew longer. He glared at the Queen. "I don't change, I adapt. It depends on my mood, but I have various aspects, none of them monstrous, I assure you. I can't become bigger or sprout wings and fly. I merely shift to suit my mood, or the climate."
"So if you get angry you sprout teeth and claws?"
"Something like that."
"I do not trust you."
Purr sneezed again, becoming chubby, and gave a purring chuckle. "Fine, I'll leave, and you can manage alone."
"No!" Sabre glared at Tassin. "Leave him alone, he's agreed to help us."
"I do not need his help!"
"Do you think you can find your way through the Death Zone alone? Half the time you can't see the sun." He gestured at the mist above them. "And even when you can, you don't know whether it's the Real-reality sun, or Flux-reality."
Purr nodded. "That's true."
Tassin turned to him. "So how will you find your way?"
He shrugged. "I just know which way is which. I was born here."
Tassin scowled, bit her lip and shot Sabre a hard glance. Purr settled down, snuggling into his bushy, black and white-banded tail. She turned her back on him and lay down, clutching the hilt of her dagger. Sabre sighed and stretched out between them, exhausted. With the discovery of water and the possible danger of their new surroundings, the cyber had raised his metabolic rate back up to normal, which drained him. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that the cyber would alert him to any danger.
A soft scraping woke Sabre, and his eyes flicked open as he gripped his knife. He sat up and looked around. Tassin still slept, curled up like a baby, and Purr was flattened at the edge of the rock, watching something. Sabre crawled up behind him and lay down on his belly next to the mosscat. Purr started violently at his silent arrival, lifting several inches into the air as if yanked up by invisible strings. The hair along his spine stood up in stiff spikes, and his legs looked a lot longer than Sabre remembered them. Sabre smiled at Purr's comical reaction to his stealthy approach and peered over the edge of the rock. Below, a strange creature crawled past, its claws rasping on a nearby boulder. A shiny black carapace clad an almost spherical body, which crept along on six long, spiny legs. A ring of jet eyes circled the body, and a pair of slender, serrated pincers was tucked under its forepart.
"Real-reality monster," Purr whispered.
Sabre nodded, studying the beast as it crawled away, its spiny legs digging into the soft dark soil. It barged between two fungi, pushing through the Flux-reality. Purr relaxed as it disappeared amongst the fungi and returned to his roly-poly aspect with a soft sneeze. Sabre looked over at the sleeping Queen, glad she had not woken to see the horror. As he gazed at her, flashes of green and brown flickered through the rock.
"Change," Purr muttered.
The landscape warped, smearing like water colours running in the rain, and transformed into scintillating pillars of gemstone and crystal sprouting from a sheet of what looked like alabaster. Bright sunlight sparkled on facetted diamonds and coloured crystals, and emerald sand drifted against ruby rocks.
A blood-curdling scream jerked Sabre's attention from the priceless scenery. It came from the direction in which the Real-reality monster had vanished, and he looked at Purr, who resembled a fluff ball. He smoothed his fur self-consciously and groomed his tummy.
"The big monster caught a smaller one. That's what happens when you hide behind Flux-reality and a Change comes along."
Sabre shuddered, glancing at Tassin, who tossed and sighed. "What happens further in, when it's all solid?"
"That's what makes it dangerous. In a landscape like this, an ordinary rock stands out, but in a more normal Flux-reality you can't tell the difference. Also, it's very dangerous to be in Flux-reality when it Changes, you can get caught inside something nasty, like a rock or tree. Here, you can still pull free, but there, you're stuck until it Changes again."
"How can you avoid that?"
Purr shrugged. "Always camp on Real-reality when you can find it. If you're moving, you've got a few seconds to find some. Flux-reality tends to avoid Real-reality up to a point."
"How long between Changes?"
"It varies. Sometimes a few hours; sometimes only one or two. The last one was a long one, six hours you slept, and no Change."
Sabre gazed around. "What causes all this?"
"Magic, of course. These worlds that pass through here are all real somewhere. The Flux-core rotates, and the worlds spin past. The closer you go to the Core, the faster the Changes come. No one goes too close to the Core, where the Changes are mere minutes apart. That's very dangerous."
"Huh. I was supposed to destroy it."
Purr snorted. "That's impossible. You'd never get close enough."
"Monsters are leaving the Zone and attacking villages outside. The people want it destroyed."
Purr stopped grooming his tummy and gazed at Sabre. "Not everything that lives in the Flux is a monster."
"Wouldn't you be happier outside?"
"Would people accept me?"
Sabre sighed. "Probably not."
"Exactly."
"How long will it take to cross the Death Zone?"
"That depends on the terrain."
Sabre dug in a pack and pulled out some dried horse meat. Purr wrinkled his nose. "I can get some fish for you."
"Where the hell will you get fish?" Sabre gestured at the crystal countryside.
Purr gave a purring chuckle. "In a Real-reality stream, of course."
Sabre would have gone with him, but could not leave the Queen unguarded, so he settled down to wait as Purr vanished into the precious terrain. When the mosscat returned an hour later, he carried three fish, one in each hand and one in his mouth. His fur was as short and sleek as an otter's, adapted for swimming. Since there was no way to cook them, Sabre cleaned the fish and woke Tassin.
The Queen grumbled, rubbing swollen eyelids, then exclaimed in delighted wonder at the new scenery, smiling for the first time in days. When he offered her a raw fish, she took it with a grimace. A few days ago, he reflected, she would probably have thrown it in his face, but hunger had stripped away her inhibitions. While he ate, Sabre worried about the fact that the scanners remained blank. The cyber had not warned him of the monster; it seemed the scanners did not work in the Death Zone, and he wondered why. His bio-status information remained, and the flashing amber light had dimmed, indicating that his dehydration was lessening.
As soon as they had eaten, they set off into the crystal forest. Tassin gazed at the jewels with awe and stuffed some into her pockets while she walked. Sabre marvelled at her childlike ability to become distracted by new toys, and guessed that the gems would vanish with the next Change.
Gearn stared across the burning sand, mopping his forehead with a linen handkerchief. The wolf trotted ahead, nose to the ground, following the clear tracks of two horses. Gearn sat astride a fat bay gelding, prodding the lethargic horse often to keep it going. Behind him, Murdor plodded, too large now for even the biggest horse to carry. He stood over two metres tall, and his body had grown in proportion, magically enlarged and strengthened. The broadsword that hung in a scabbard from his belt looked like a toy. As he walked, he picked up rocks and crushed them, chuckling. Gearn glanced back at him, irritated by the constant chortling. Murdor met his eyes and grinned.
"I can't wait to meet this puling man and crush his flesh instead of stone. It'll feel good to make blood flow."
Gearn forced a weak smile, shuddering. They had no need to carry supplies, for whenever they needed food or water, Gearn conjured it, using the collection of potions and magical items in his pack. By following the warrior mage's trail, he was confident he would avoid the curse, although sometimes his skin crawled, his magical aura alert to danger.
After four hours of walking through sparkling gem trees, the tell-tale flickers of brown and green shot through the land.
Purr yelled, "Change!" and raced for a dull brown boulder ahead. Sabre grabbed Tassin, who yelped in surprise, and dashed after the mosscat. Leaping onto the rock, he hauled her after him, almost jostling Purr off. The boulder was barely large enough for the three of them, and Sabre was forced to hold Tassin close to him. Her eyes widened as the landscape warped and changed.
The swirling whiteness of a snowstorm engulfed them, fat flakes drifting from a bitter grey sky. Sabre helped Tassin off the rock, sinking knee deep into soft snow. There was still no sound or smell, but the cold was real enough. A shaggy creature approached, and for a moment he did not recognise Purr.
The mosscat padded over the snow on broad feet, perfectly adapted to his new environment. Tassin rubbed her bare arms and shivered, her teeth chattering. Warmth suffused Sabre as the cyber increased his metabolism, snow melting on his shoulders. He dug in the pack and pulled out the ragged petticoats they had used for shade cloth in the desert. These he wrapped around the Queen's shoulders, and she clutched them to her.
"Come on, keep walking, it will warm you," he advised.
Purr shook his head. "No. Too dangerous. We can't see the monsters coming."
Sabre glanced around and cursed. Visibility was reduced to less than a metre, and he had to agree with the mosscat. They seemed to be in the middle of a blizzard, and without the scanners he was as blind as everyone else. Sabre sat down on the boulder and pulled Tassin onto his lap, enfolded her in his arms and held her close. She snuggled up to him, warming her hands on his chest, her cheek nestled against his neck. He marvelled at how her fiery independence evaporated as soon as he was the only form of foot warmer available, then brushed the cynical thought aside. She was little more than a child, and needed his protection no matter how much she denied it. Purr curled up in the snow, and they settled down to wait.
Tassin clearly enjoyed the intimacy she had not shared with him since the mountain cave. He was ill at ease, however, and shifted, fidgeted and glanced around, trying to ignore her presence. Once he looked down at her suspiciously, but he could not accuse her of anything other than being cold. He found her proximity discomfiting, confused by the strange feelings it evoked.
Cybers were not supposed to have emotions, but with his freedom had come odd reactions to things that previously had not bothered him. He wondered if what he was experiencing was normal, or if his reaction to this, like so many of his other responses, had been changed by his training and the years of subjugation by a computer's cold control.
Even a damaged cyber could not afford to have emotional attachments, but was he still a cyber? He was still part man, part machine, but now that the human side was in charge, what did that make him? The mosscat gave a purring chuckle, his eyes gleaming, and Sabre schooled his features in an effort to hide the confusion Purr had obviously noticed, making the mosscat chuckle again. Sabre spent the next three hours acutely aware of the girl pressed against him, willing the next Change to come soon.
When at last the brown and green flickers came, he lifted Tassin onto the rock, ignoring her sleepy protests. Purr was already on it, but before Sabre could join them, the world warped and Changed. A shaggy tree trunk appeared centimetres from his nose, and he jerked back in surprise. As soon as he tried to move away, however, he became aware that his feet were stuck. His ankles vanished into the shaggy tree, swallowed to the calves. Quelling a spurt of panic, he reminded himself that the Flux-reality was not solid yet, and he could still get free. He leant back and pulled steadily on one leg. Purr noticed his predicament and offered encouraging, if unnecessary advice.
"That's it, just pull, it'll come out."
Tassin hopped down and gasped when she saw the reason for his immobility. "Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine," he said, "as soon as I get my feet out of this damned tree."
The wood clung to him like semi-set cement, and sweat popped out on his brow as he struggled. He glanced around at a warm forest of massive trees, some ten metres in diameter, towering over a floor of soft brown leaves. Purr had resumed a tropical garb of short fur, and Tassin shed the petticoats, stuffing them back into the pack. Sabre could not meet her eyes, embarrassed by their prior closeness, and scowled at the tree trunk as he pulled his feet from the Flux-reality wood. When at last he got free, he was hot and sweaty and rather cross.
The new Flux-reality seemed to be a pleasant one. Inviting pathways wound between banks of thick ferns and moss-covered tree trunks. Sunlight filtered down to pattern the lush forest floor with golden dapples. Tassin exclaimed in delight when they came to a sparkling blue lake, but Purr tested the water and declared it unreal. They skirted it and walked on, following the twisting paths that this world's creatures had made. The eerie stillness pressed in on them, only the soft sounds of their footfalls breaking it. Birds flitted amongst the trees, pausing to puff themselves up in silent song, unafraid of the strange intruders who trod the deep paths. When a shaggy brown creature shambled out of the trees and whiffled a long snout at them, Sabre stopped in alarm.
Purr chuckled. "Flux-reality. No sound."
Sabre detoured around the beast, and it watched them go, then shuffled away. After an hour of walking, Sabre became aware of a thudding sound, and looked at Purr. The mosscat's ears, which appeared to have doubled in size, swivelled. Heavy footfalls approached, and Purr nodded.
"Real-reality. Hide."
The mosscat dived behind a grey boulder, and Sabre bundled Tassin after him. He pushed her down behind the rock and peered over it. A three-metre tall, ape-like creature came into view, stomping between the trees. Tusks curled up from its undershot lower jaw, and its beady red eyes glared around. It radiated hostility, and its vast knuckles almost dragged on the ground. Sabre breathed a sigh of relief as it tramped past, sniffing the air. The brown and green flickers of Change shot through the landscape, and the world warped into rolling, open grassland, leaving the three of them huddled behind nothing.
Purr rasped, "Keep still!"
The monster roared and shook its fists at the Flux-reality, apparently angered by its fickleness, but luckily it did not look back. When it vanished over a distant hill, they stood up, and Sabre turned to Purr.
"That's what happens when you hide behind Flux-reality and a Change comes along."
Purr sneezed and shrugged, smoothing his bottle-brush fur. "There isn't always a convenient bit of Real-reality about when you need it, you know. You have to take your chances. I told you it would be dangerous here. What did you think I meant?"
Sabre could find no fault with his argument, and turned away with a snort. They walked on, the grassland stretching away around them like undulating green velvet, dotted with a few out of place rocks, which Purr said were Real-reality. After several hours, they came across a Real-reality stream, and Purr waded in to fish.
Sabre watched him. "How do you know this is Real-reality?"
"Have you ever seen a stream running through grassland before? You never get one that runs over hills like this, they're always in rocky gorges."
Sabre had to admit that he had a point, the stream looked quite odd, as if it had come into being just recently, flowing along a winding, bankless course that bore no relation to the contours of the visible land. He glanced at Tassin, who was stretched out on the grass, indulging in a much-needed rest. After a rather tasteless meal of raw fish, they discussed the problem of where to sleep.
"We know the stream is Real-reality, but we can't sleep in it," Sabre pointed out.
"We'll have to keep watch," Purr said. "When the Change comes, we stand in the stream."
Purr took first watch, and when he roused Sabre, the grasslands remained. Sabre stood guard for four hours, then woke Tassin. When he woke again, the grasslands persisted, and Purr did not think it wise to move on, since the next Change had to be imminent. They waited by the stream, and Sabre joined Purr in a bit of fish tickling, without much success. An hour or so later, the brown and green flickers shot through the terrain, and they all waded into the knee-deep water.
Flux-reality transformed into a scene from Hell. The stream wound through a burning landscape of black rock, recent lava flows congealed into weird patterns of flowing stone. In the distance, a volcano belched clouds of ash and noxious smoke into the dirty brown sky. The putrid stench of sulphur stung their noses, and Tassin coughed. Faint rumbles shuddered the ground, and faraway lava rivers oozed between melting rocks and plopped down banks in sluggish falls.
Sabre looked at Purr. "It's getting very real."
The mosscat nodded. "It will get more so."
Deciding to leave the safety of the stream and press on despite the daunting terrain, they picked their way through the tortured stone, tripping on the uneven ground. Sabre was forced to help Tassin through deep rifts and over steep ridges, in places as slippery as glass. The going was hard, and when they came across a normal-looking grey boulder in the sea of twisted, solidified lava, they sat on it and waited for Change.
It seemed like hours later that the flickers of brown and green heralded the Change. Flux-reality warped, and an alien landscape appeared around them. Leafless blue trees held cup-shaped branches up to the sun, and what looked like giant red asparaguses thrust from the stony ground. Vines of all colours festooned trees of amazing variety and obscure function. Smells of singular sweetness and putridity wafted by, and an astonishing cacophony of hoots, whistles, hisses, croaks, roars, booms, rattles and screams echoed forth. Tassin quailed from the strange sights and sudden uproar, which, although still muted, seemed loud after the eerie silence that had plagued them for so long. The previous world had only vented a few soft rumbles, but this one was noisy, and the din was a shock. Tassin drew her dagger and glared into the undergrowth.
"Oh dear," Purr murmured. "This is a nasty one."
"No worse than the one before." Sabre stood up and looked around. "Should we move or stay?"
Purr shrugged. "The next one could be worse. Not many are nice."
"But we have to get nasty ones just when things are getting really real," Tassin grumbled.
Sabre pulled the sword from his pack. "This might come in handy to hack through the vines."
Tassin scowled. "That is a good sword, not a bush knife."
Purr ambled away, and Sabre followed. "As long as it's sharp."
Small, unseen creatures rustled in the fleshy undergrowth, making the Queen hurry after them with her dagger at the ready. They had not gone far when a yellow vine snaked out and coiled around Tassin's ankles, bringing her down with an astonished grunt. Sabre whirled and slashed through it with the sword, and it spurted orange fluid as it coiled away into the undergrowth like an injured snake. When he tried to help her to her feet, she jerked away and glared at him.
"This is something I can deal with."
He bowed. "As you wish, Your Highness."
The next vine snagged Purr, but the mosscat changed his aspect with astounding speed, sprouting razor-sharp claws with which he shredded the vegetable predator. They skirted pot-shaped plants that emitted a putrid stench, and massive silken webs strung between the trees, whose owners doubtless hid close by. Purr avoided tangles of thorny vines that lay in wait for the unwary and barriers of thick roots that oozed sticky sap. After several hours, they emerged from the alien jungle onto the shore of a black lake.
Tassin gave a glad cry and trotted down the grey beach towards it, not heeding Purr's warning yell. Sabre sprang after the Queen and grabbed the back of her dress, yanking her away from the lake. A ripping sound rewarded his efforts as Tassin fell backwards with a yelp. He caught her before she hit the ground and helped her back to her feet. She glared up at him and wrenched free, her dagger pointed at him. He backed away, raising his hands, one of which, he found, held a hank of pink material.
"Just what the hell do you think you are doing?" she demanded.
"Purr doesn't like the lake."
"Well I want to wash! First the water was unreal, now Purr doesn't like it. Purr probably never takes a bath!"
"Yes I do." Purr emerged from the shrubbery. "But I wouldn't bathe in that if I was you. It's not water, it's acid."
She paled, turning to look at the lake. "How do you know?"
"Look at the shore."
Tassin studied the grey shore, obviously noting, as Sabre did, the wilted plants and pale gleam of bones. Sabre held out the scrap of pink material, and she snatched it from him, but her ire faded when he threw a stick into the lake and it dissolved with a vicious hiss. She looked ill, and they gave the black lake a wide berth.
Gearn stared at the huge corpse, holding his handkerchief over his nose to mask the nauseating stench of the rotting sand dragon. Murdor kicked it, then turned away in disgust when his boot sank into the putrid flesh, releasing a fresh wave of foetor. Gearn guided his horse up wind, circling the carcass. The wolf waited there, its sensitive nose clearly unable to stand the terrible stink.
Gearn had not been surprised to encounter the corpse of one of the two horses, but this was a shock. The enormous sand dragon had been a fearsome creature, yet the warrior mage had slain it. Murdor eyed the corpse.
"'E must be a great warrior, mage. I look forward even more to the encounter."
The mage wiped his mouth, queasy at the smell, then turned his horse away, eager to leave the horrible cadaver behind. Murdor's heavy footsteps followed him.
After an hour of slogging through the treacherous undergrowth, Purr found a clearing with a pool in it. A spring fed it, and silver fish lurked in its depths.
Purr licked his lips. "Real-reality."
Sabre collected Flux-reality wood and built a fire, over which they roasted the fish Purr caught. When Sabre had refilled the water skins, Tassin washed without removing her dress. Sabre bathed in his underwear, and scrubbed the dirt from his clothes as well. They rested for a while, then set off once more, keeping a wary eye on the carnivorous vegetation.
Trouble struck with unexpected ferocity. One of the annoying yellow vines snagged Tassin's ankles again, and they stopped while she hacked at it with the dagger. Two monstrous grey shapes erupted from the undergrowth with deep-throated roars, and Purr sprouted claws, fangs and spines with a huge sneeze. Sabre found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with a tusked, green-eyed monster. A massive arm tipped with dagger-like claws swung at him, and he ducked, slashing with the sword. The blade shaved off a clump of coarse hair, and the monster howled. It sprang at him, its tusks goring his chest as he flung himself backwards to avoid it.
Tassin yelled in alarm, hacking at the tough vine as Sabre vanished into the undergrowth with the monster on top of him. The second beast tried to pry Purr off its face, which he clung to with razor-sharp, five-centimetre claws. The beast encountered needle-sharp spines wherever it tried to grab him, and howled with pain as he slashed its face with long fangs. Bright red stripes streaked the mosscat's fur, and his yellow eyes blazed with fury. Tassin sawed at the vine, glancing at the bush where Sabre battled the other monster, the roaring and thrashing that came from it chilling her blood.
Severing the vine, Tassin jumped up and ran to the thrashing bushes, her dagger aimed at the beast's hairy back. The monster flew backwards out of the undergrowth, propelled by Sabre's powerful kick. It struck her a glancing blow that sent her spinning into the brush, then it turned and attacked her as she jumped up. Tassin raised the dagger and slammed it into the creature's chest. The monster roared and smashed her aside with a brawny arm.
Tassin flew backwards, the air leaving her lungs in a rush. The world darkened, then she drew in a whooping breath and everything sprang back into focus. The monster leapt after her, its foam-flecked jaws reaching for her throat. Gripping the dagger in both hands, she stabbed it into its belly. An arm snaked around the creature's throat, and it was lifted off her with a savage jerk that should have broken its neck. Blood splattered her as a blade emerged from its belly, driven through it from behind. Sabre flung the corpse aside and grasped Tassin's arm, hauling her upright.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded, staring at the blood that ran down his chest. He shifted his grip to her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled.
"Don't ever do that again!" he said. "Do you hear me? Never! You stay out of the way! Climb a tree, hide in a bush, anything. The next time you try to join in, I'll put you over my knee! Do you understand?"
Again she nodded, but frowned. "I stabbed it! Twice!"
"You bloody little idiot, it was a millimetre from killing you!"
"I am not some helpless cringing woman, I'm a -"
"Warrior queen!" he finished for her in an angry bellow. "I know! A pint-sized, pea-brained warrior bloody queen, and nearly a dead one!"
Sabre looked ready to deliver a scathing tirade that would blister her ears and dissuade her from any acts he disapproved of in the future, but a pig-like squealing distracted him. The second monster, still burdened with Purr, crashed through the brush in a blind, pain-crazed death dance. The mosscat had reduced its face to a bloody, eyeless ruin, and still carried on slashing. His spines had shredded the creature's paws, and it beat ineffectually at the clinging mosscat in a futile bid to dislodge its tormentor. Sabre stared at it in amazement, then released Tassin and picked up his sword. With a swift stab, he ended the monster's squealing agony, and it crashed into the brush as Purr leapt free. For a moment he remained a clawed, fanged, spiny horror, then he gave a huge sneeze and reverted to his chubby form.
Sabre gazed at him. "Why do you always sneeze?"
Purr snorted and washed his face with chubby paws, like a cat. "I'm allergic to shifting, it always makes me sneeze. The more the shift, the bigger the honk."
The tension drained away, leaving Tassin light-headed and slightly hysterical. Her knees turned to jelly, and she sank down in a giggling heap. Sabre eyed her as he wiped the sword on the monster's coarse hair.
"What's the matter with you?"
She wiped her eyes. "After all that, you... you ask him..." She relapsed into another fit of giggles, and Sabre traded a puzzled glance with the mosscat. Tassin struggled for control. "You ask him why... he sneezes!" She shrieked with laughter, and Sabre smiled.
"I always wondered."
Purr snorted again and went back to washing his face. Sabre sat on a log and mopped the blood off his chest with a torn petticoat while Tassin's giggles subsided. Taking a tube from his pouch, he smeared cream onto the shallow scratches, which had already stopped bleeding. By the time he was finished, Purr's face was clean, and they resumed their journey.
A short while later, the flickers of brown and green shot through the landscape, and Purr yelled, "Run!"
A grey boulder lay ahead, and they sprinted for it. A yellow vine caught Tassin's foot, and she smashed face first into the ground, momentarily stunned by the impact. Flux-reality Changed, and stunted woodland appeared around them as she struggled to rise. Something gripped her foot, and she turned, dagger ready, to face a tree. The gnarled trunk swallowed her foot to the ankle, toes down. Sabre leapt off the rock and crouched beside her.
"Shit!" He scowled at the tree. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Tassin groaned and probed her throbbing face. Blood oozed from her nose, and her lips had started to swell.
Sabre eased her onto her side, wary of twisting her leg too much. "Don't try to move."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Purr examined the tree trunk. "Solid. Flux-reality is as real as Real-reality here. We'll have to wait for the next Change."
Sabre said, "That could be hours."
"Perhaps you'd like to cut down the tree and carry it with you?"
Sabre dug in the pack and took out a petticoat, which he dampened and used to wipe the blood off Tassin's face. She lay curled on her side, and he wadded a dry petticoat and pushed it under her cheek.
"We'll just have to use this time to rest, and hope nothing nasty comes along."
Purr nodded, glancing around. "It looks like quite a safe world."
The landscape was rock-strewn and rough, dotted with stunted, twisted trees whose roots snaked across the hard ground in search of sustenance. Clumps of yellow, spiky grass sprouted between the stones. A creature flapped across the pale sky on webbed wings, giving a harsh croak.
Sabre examined Tassin's swollen nose and pronounced it unbroken, then settled down beside her to wait. Purr started another session of grooming, which he indulged in at every opportunity.
Hours dragged by, and the ground seemed to grow harder with every passing minute as the stones abused the Queen's bruised flesh. She shifted and squirmed to try to ease the discomfort, while Sabre was apparently determined to remain aloof. Purr watched him with eyes that twinkled whenever Sabre glanced at him. When the cyber lifted Tassin onto his lap and pillowed her cheek on his forearm, Purr chuckled and vanished into the scrubby trees.
Sabre's presence was a great comfort and source of security, albeit that he was clearly only trying to alleviate her discomfort, and had done so somewhat reluctantly. Tiredness overtook her, and, despite her painful face, she dozed off.
Sabre's movement woke her as he took a bunch of pink, grape-like fruit from Purr and examined it with a frown.
"They're quite nice," Purr informed them. "Flux-reality, but safe to eat."
"How do you know?" Sabre asked.
"I tried some. My stomach will immediately reject anything poisonous. It comes straight up again. These don't, so they're okay."
"But surely as soon as there's a Change it will vanish?"
"Yes, nutritionally they're useless, but they taste nice and it will help to pass the time. I couldn't find any Real-reality food, so this will have to do for now."
Tassin munched the sweet, tart fruit Sabre gave her, which left her mouth fresh and clean. After they had eaten, Purr curled up in a hollow and Sabre relaxed against the rock behind him, closing his eyes. The late afternoon sun warmed them, and the world seemed tranquil and balmy. A breeze stirred the air, and only an occasional, distant croak broke the hush.
The sun had almost reached the horizon when Tassin sensed someone watching her and raised her head to look at Sabre. He was already alert, as was Purr, who prowled about, peering into the trees. The watchers emerged and approached with hesitant steps. Sabre tensed, but the creatures that advanced on them appeared to be singularly innocuous.
They looked like chubby toddlers with plump bandy legs, enormous brown eyes, button noses and rosebud mouths set in alabaster skin. They were naked and apparently sexless, and wore angelic expressions of smiling friendliness. They chittered amongst themselves, and gave Purr a wide berth, but converged on Tassin and Sabre. Tassin wondered if they were in fact children, and whether adults would follow. Purr watched them with narrowed eyes.
About a dozen of them came within touching distance of Tassin, while more stood back and watched. Small, hot hands brushed her ankle, examining her contact with the tree. They chittered excitedly as they clustered around Sabre, reaching out to touch him with a remarkable lack of fear. The cyber scowled at them, but Tassin smiled, which caused them to draw back, twittering. Then she yelled as pain shot from her ankle, and turned to find that a toddler had sunk sharp fangs into her leg.
Sabre snatched up the little monster and pulled it free, hurling it into the trees as he dumped her onto the ground and jumped up. Purr sneezed explosively and sprouted fangs and claws, with which he attacked the nearest vampire children. They swarmed over Tassin, biting her, and she slashed at them with her dagger, sickened when it sank into soft flesh. Sabre laid about him with his fists and knife, striving to protect her and beat off the creatures that clung to his legs, biting ferociously. A mob of the things engulfed Purr, and blood sprayed as he fought them in a seething melee from which a vampire toddler was tossed every now and then, broken and bloody. Sabre stood over Tassin and smashed the monsters away as more and more of them poured out of the forest.
Brown and green shot through the ground, and the world Changed. Sabre scooped Tassin up as an eerie world of ruins replaced the trees and vampire children, striding through the Change. The mosscat sneezed and leapt onto a crumbling wall, looking bedraggled and cross. A ruined city surrounded them. Smashed marble tiles, mortar and fallen columns were mixed with the piles of rubble. Pot shards, broken china and rusted implements lay strewn on cracked paving stones.
Sabre placed her on a wall and gazed around, taking stock of the new world. Several painful bites throbbed on her legs, bottom and arms, and blood trickled from numerous puncture wounds in Sabre's legs and torso. Purr seemed unscathed, apart from his ruffled fur.
Sabre turned to her. "Are you okay?"
"My face hurts, and I have lots of bites, but otherwise I'm well enough."
He nodded, scanning the surroundings again. "We were lucky it Changed. I think those little fiends would have done a lot of damage if it hadn't."
Purr said, "Beasts. They were dangerous. Many foes, no matter how weak, are always more dangerous than one."
"At least this place looks uninhabited, and we can travel easily enough."
After tending to their wounds with Sabre's ointment, they set off across the ruined world, picking their way through the debris. Tassin hobbled, her buttocks smarting from the bites, and her stomach rumbled. The fruit she had eaten in the previous Flux-reality had remained in that realm. The new world appeared to be devoid of life; not even a blade of grass struggled amongst the ruins.
"If we see any creatures here, they must be Real-reality," Purr commented. "I don't think anything lives in this world."
Tassin limped beside Sabre for hours, finding no end to the ruins as they followed broad roads that ran in the direction in which they wished to travel. When they stopped to rest, Tassin fingered her throbbing nose, and Sabre smiled.
"You'll look like Purr soon."
"What do you mean?"
"You're going to have two lovely black eyes."
She glanced at the mosscat, who chuckled. Shrugging, she sipped some water. "Honourable war wounds."
The ruined world remained until its sun sank over the horizon, and they experienced night in Flux-reality for the first time. Tassin assumed that this could only occur when Flux-reality and Real-reality shared a night, then neither sun shone.
Finding a semi-intact building, they settled down to sleep, unable to locate any Real-reality. Purr took first watch, and sat in the doorway while Tassin and Sabre stretched out on the bedding. Sabre placed his bedroll well away from the Queen's, and she eyed him, wishing it was cold.
Ever since he had woken in the cave, and even before that, she had experienced an undeniable attraction to him, something that had annoyed and embarrassed her. At first, she had dismissed it as a passing fancy, especially since he clearly did not share her interest. It had continued to burgeon, however, and now was too strong to be denied or ignored. Their enforced intimacy during the snowstorm had reinforced it, and she longed to be close to him again. The fact that he kept rescuing and taking care of her made it worse, too.
Never had she been so attracted to a man, nor had a man ever been so impervious to her charms, and she wondered at the reason for his aloofness. It made her somewhat resentful, and she resolved to make him notice her.
A gentle shaking roused her, and she opened her eyes. Sabre leant over her, the brow band flashing in the darkness.
"Get up," he whispered. "Something's outside."
Purr crouched in the doorway, and from without came the faint rustling that had alarmed them. Tassin crept to the door with Sabre and peered out, her heart hammering. Two orange moons glared down like baleful eyes, bathing the ruins in dull light. They waited as the rustling grew louder, accompanied by scraping sounds, and all three craned to peer around the wall as a greenish glow appeared at the end of the street. A worm the size of four heavy trade wagons stacked two deep rounded the corner, moving with the humping gait of a caterpillar. Its armour-plated head was armed with scissor jaws of pale chitin, and dozens of stumpy legs dragged its bulk along.
"Flux-reality or Real-reality?" Sabre asked.
Purr shrugged. "Makes no difference anymore."
"It looks like the same one I saw in the mushroom world."
"Could be. Not many Real-reality monsters venture this deep into Flux-reality. It's dangerous for them too, especially something as big as that."
"That thing doesn't look like it's over-burdened with brains."
The monster drew nearer, its blind head seeking amongst the ruins, bumping into walls as it quested for a path. It moved past their hiding place, taking its green glow, and a terrible smell, with it. As they relaxed, the green and brown flashes shot through the floor, bright in the gloom. Tassin tensed, and the world warped.
Broad daylight made her squint, and a wave of noise washed over her. She stood on a crumbling bank, and stepped back from a muddy pool filled with sludge, reeds, small amphibians and floating green scum. A swamp surrounded them, thick with marsh weeds, tall reeds and bulrush-like plants, and inhabited by a plethora of croaking, squeaking, grunting creatures.
A splashing drew their attention to the green worm, which struggled as it sank into the morass, its clawed feet seeking purchase in the treacherous ground. Reeds protruded from its flanks, torn from their roots by the monster's struggles, and Tassin wondered how many small creatures were embedded in its flesh. The thought gave her goose bumps, and she inspected herself, but found no plants or animals in her legs, to her relief.
Sabre glanced at Purr. "So it's Real-reality."
"A foolish beast. It won't last long."
They picked their way through the swamp, searching out firm ground on which to walk.
"Surely we should be moving out of real Flux-reality soon?" Tassin asked the mosscat.
"Soon," he agreed, hopping over a murky pool.
They spent the next few hours slogging through the unsavoury swamp, swatting biting insects and wading scummy pools. They stumbled upon some Real-reality in the form of a sparkling clear lake, and Purr gave a cry of delight. He plunged in and emerged with a silver fish clamped in his jaws, looking like an otter. Sabre collected dead reeds and built a fire to cook it, and they relaxed for a while, watching bright birds and pretty insects make their living in the swamp. The climate was pleasant, and only the biting insects spoilt the idyll.
Gearn stared at the shimmering barrier, aware of Murdor at his side, eyeing him with raised brows. The wolf sat closer to the mist, tongue lolling. Gearn had not bargained on their quarry reaching the Death Zone, never mind entering it. He had expected the tracks to veer off as the fugitives tried to go around the Zone, but the trail went straight into it.
Murdor rumbled, "I ain't goin' in there, wizard. Our bargain said nothin' of goin' into the Death Zone."
"No, no, of course not." Gearn dismounted, pondering the problem. He was just as unwilling to enter the Zone as Murdor. Unstrapping his bag, he laid out the collection of pots and bottles in the sand. With a few gestures, he conjured a pile of wood and built a fire. Murdor watched him, scratching an armpit.
"What are you goin' to do?"
Gearn glanced up with a frown. "I shall cast a spell to take us past the Zone. It's complex and lengthy, so leave me alone. If they make it through, we will pick up their trail on the other side. If not, we return empty-handed, for even the King cannot blame me if she perishes in the Death Zone."
Murdor hawked and spat, then ambled off to sit in the sand while the wolf settled in the horse's shade, panting.
Many hours of trudging through the sucking swamp left Tassin tired, dirty and insect-bitten. Her hair hung in damp strings and her legs ached in unison with her throbbing buttocks and face. Sabre called a halt beside a cleaner pool, and they washed, clothes and all. Her skirt chafed her legs after that, drying slowly in the humid air. When they came across a dull grey boulder next to a dead tree, Purr decided to wait on this bit of Real-reality for the next Change.
His timing was good. Within half an hour, the brown and green flickers came, and the world Changed. A wave of heat swept over them, as if they had stepped into a blast furnace, and Tassin groaned. A desert stretched away in an endless tract of flat, wind-rippled sand. An occasional odd rock or dead tree broke the sand's monotony, and these, she assumed, were Real-reality. Sabre sighed and shielded his eyes from the white sand's glare as he scanned the horizon. Purr hopped off the rock and ambled away, looking unconcerned, but Tassin was sick of deserts.
"This is as bad as the reality outside."
Sabre turned to look at her with narrowed eyes.
Purr gave his purring chuckle. "This one's easy. No obstacles, monsters visible from afar and as many Real-reality pools as before. A little hot, that's all."
Tassin's damp dress soon dried as she followed Sabre and Purr. The mosscat was almost naked, his body leaner and his eyes shielded by a dark membrane that dulled their yellow to brown. Bat-like ears shed heat, and sweat soon beaded his skin. To Tassin, it seemed far hotter than the desert outside, and she glanced up at the two suns that blazed in the pale sky, white-hot and virulent. Sweat trickled down her, and she gulped from a water skin. Sabre dropped back to walk beside her after a while, and handed her a petticoat from the pack, which she draped over her burning head, receiving some relief from the heat in its shade.
The suns beat down mercilessly, and as Tassin grew hotter her head swam and her legs dragged as if they were made of lead. She poured water over her head, soaking the petticoat and her dress, but it made little difference. Sweat ran down Sabre's flanks, and she wondered how he could stand it. When she stumbled, and he put out a hand to steady her, she found his skin cool. The cyber regulated his temperature somehow, she remembered, and his skin did seem flushed. Hers was on fire. Her eyes ached and her face throbbed. She sank down in the sand, unable to take another step.
Sabre squatted beside her. "Are you tired?"
She shook her head. "I'm hot. I am cooking. I cannot take this heat."
"Rest a while. It is very hot, and you don't want to get heatstroke. We'll wait for a Change. Perhaps the next one will be better."
"We are always waiting for a Change, and it's never better, just different."
He glanced around. "Do you think you can make it to that rock? It's Real-reality. We don't want you stuck in a tree again."
Tassin stumbled over the baking sand to the shimmering boulder and collapsed beside it. Sabre stood over her to shade her, which helped a little. She was relieved when the green and brown flashes came, and clambered onto the rock beside Sabre and Purr as Flux-reality Changed. To her delight, another pleasant woodland appeared, with tall, silver-barked trees bearing yellow and orange leaves. Humus, verdant moss and orchid-like flowers carpeted the ground. A cool breeze drained the heat from her wet skin in a blissful tide.
Tassin jumped off the boulder and smiled up at Sabre, who studied the terrain. Purr reverted to his fluffy form with a gentle sneeze, wiping his whiskers. Sabre stepped down, apparently satisfied, and they set off again. Soon they came across a path and followed it, since it was going in the right direction. When the path joined a well-used wagon track, Sabre stopped.
"This world is inhabited by people."
"Some of them are," Purr agreed.
Sabre walked on. "I hope they're friendly."
The wagon track made the going easy, and they traversed it at a brisk pace, Purr lengthening his legs to keep up.
After two hours, Sabre spotted smoke rising above the trees ahead.
"Looks like there's a village ahead. I guess it would be better to skirt it?"
Purr nodded. "Their food would do you no good."
"But we could rest, sleep in a soft bed!" Tassin protested.
"It's not worth the risk. Anyway, they probably wouldn't understand a word you said, and misunderstandings can be fatal. Death in Flux-reality is just as real as it is in Real-reality."
Tassin glared at the mosscat, and Sabre cocked his head, listening. Faint screams came from the direction of the smoke, carried on the breeze. Purr's ears expanded as he too picked up the distant sounds. Sabre quickened his pace, and Tassin had to trot to keep up. Several hundred metres further on, the forest ended, and the wagon track continued into a grassy vale where a village nestled.
A monster ravaged one of the thatched stone houses, ripping away its roof to attack the people who fled from it. Dull brown scales partially armoured the creature, and curved yellow claws tipped its toes. A forked tongue flickered from its snake-like head, which topped a long spiked neck. A ridge of spines protruded from its back, and it dragged a club-like spiked tail. A swathe of flattened buildings and wrecked barns marked its progress through the collection of humble dwellings that surrounded a well-worn dirt square.
Sabre stopped and frowned at the scene. Tassin halted beside him with a gasp of horror. Great gouges were torn in the cultivated land around the village, and women and children fled the carnage along paths that radiated from it into the woods and to a river that ran beside it. Farmers harassed the monster with hoes and hay forks, beating it ineffectually with clubs and staves. It ignored their futile efforts and attacked the houses, slaughtering their fleeing occupants. Sabre cursed.
"A Real-reality monster?"
Purr nodded. "It will go down in their legends as a great dragon."
"If any live to tell the tale." Sabre shucked the pack and pulled out the sword. "I'm going to help." He strode away.
Tassin ran after him. "I'm coming with you!"
He stopped and swung around, frowning. "No you're not. You wait here with Purr."
"I can help! I have a dagger and I can fight!"
"Don't be bloody ridiculous! You'll just get in the way. Stay here with Purr."
She drew herself up. "You cannot order me around! I shall do as I please. I am a queen."
"So help me, Tassin, I'll tie you to a tree if I must. You're not coming with me, and that's final!" He loomed over her, his eyes glinting. "You're a damned annoying little girl, now do as you're told."
"Fine! Go and get killed! I hope you do!" She turned and flounced back to the trees. He shot her an exasperated look, then headed for the village.
Tassin leant against a tree and scowled at his retreating back, folding her arms. Purr became engrossed in grooming his fat belly. When she could keep silent no longer, she burst out, "He is an insufferable, arrogant, overbearing pig!"
The mosscat looked up. "Actually, he's a considerate, gentle, courageous man. You're lucky to have him, and even luckier that he feels so protective about you. He's a great warrior, and I think he'd lay down his life for you. But in this instance he's right, and he's only trying to keep you out of danger."
The rage drained out of her. "He hardly knows I am alive. He only pays attention to me when I'm being a nuisance or causing a problem."
"He cares about you a great deal; he just tries not to show it."
"Why?"
Purr shrugged. "I don't know; I'm not a human. But I can see the look in his eyes."
"Then why can't I?"
The mosscat chuckled. "Because it's never there when you look at him."
"So he does not want me to know? But why?"
"Perhaps he considers you to be too young."
"He's only ten years older than me."
Purr shook his head. "He must have his reasons. But he does care about you."
"Perhaps he's afraid I will reject him. After all, I am a queen." She gazed at Sabre's dwindling form, filled with dread that he would not come back, and regretting her outburst. "I'm going to help him."
"I wouldn't do that. He'll be angry."
"If he cares about me as you say, he will not," she called over her shoulder as she trotted away.
Purr snorted. "The more he cares, the angrier he'll be."
Sabre glanced around at the carnage as he neared the village. Dead men, women, children and farm animals lay in the ploughed fields, many with their heads crushed, some pounded into the mud or torn apart. A swathe of trampled crops and corpses led to the village, where the men had come out to try to chase the beast away. Terrified women hid amongst the trees at the edge of the forest, some clutching babies or belongings, soothing wailing toddlers. He broke into a lope, and the women stared at him as he passed.
Rounding a house, he entered the main square, where the men fought a losing battle with the creature. They waved blazing brands and leapt in to land blows with clubs and pitchforks. A man was caught by a scything foreleg and swept screaming into a wall with a sickening crunch. The monster hissed, spraying saliva as it weaved its head about, its large, metallic-green eyes searching for prey. He raised the sword and approached the creature's flank, where thick scales grated against each other as it moved. The beast stood three metres tall at the shoulder, and its head rose seven metres high when it lifted it. Some of the men shouted at him, but he could not understand their language.
Reaching the creature's side, he thrust the sword in to the hilt between two scales just behind its foreleg. The monster hissed and whipped around with remarkable speed, forcing him to dive aside. He rolled to his feet and slashed at a raking forefoot as he dodged it, drawing blood again. The beast lunged at him, its black tongue flicking and jaws agape to reveal rows of shark-like teeth. He sidestepped and slashed, inflicting another wound on the creature's head, but his next swing hit armour and bounced off with a clang. Diving aside to avoid the fast-moving animal again, he rolled and ran, keeping just out of reach of its claws.
The farmers redoubled their efforts and attacked it with their puny weapons, making it turn and hiss. Sabre moved closer with light, dancing steps and stabbed it in the neck. It whipped back towards him, spraying saliva in a stinging rain that burnt his skin. He dived aside and rolled to his feet with the elastic, apparently effortless grace of an acrobat, years of intense combat training making his moves instinctive. The beast snapped and lunged at him, and Sabre inflicted more wounds, which, although not fatal, cost the monster a lot of blood and caused it a great deal of pain. As he leapt away after a successful foray, he glimpsed a running figure in a faded pink dress.
"Tassin!" His gut froze with horror as the girl ran to the monster's flank, her dagger raised to strike. "No!"
The beast turned as her blade sank in, locking the dagger between two scales. She tried to yank it out, but it was jammed, and the animal's head swung towards her. As it focussed on its new, and, in Sabre's opinion, incredibly stupid target, he knew that he had to do that which his training forbade. To engage such a large and powerful alien creature in full contact combat was inadvisable at best and potential damaging at worst, even for a cyber. It took away the advantage of his speed and agility and pitted his strength, which, although massive when compared to a normal man's, was puny compared to this vast animal's, against its many tonnes of brawn.
Sabre ran to its side, grabbed a spine and pulled himself onto its sinuous neck, causing it to dip. His action distracted it, and Tassin released the dagger and ran. The beast, unable to reach him, went after her with a burst of speed that closed the gap in an alarming rush. Sabre almost dropped the sword in his haste as he hauled himself up the four-metre neck in a desperate bid to reach the monster's head in time. Hampered by the weapon, he paused, hanging on with one hand, and tucked the sword into his belt to free the other.
The creature tried to shake him off as Tassin darted behind a house. He clung to a spine, pain shooting up his arms from his abused joints. The monster flattened the house with the ease of a bulldozer, and Tassin reappeared ahead of it, sprinting for the forest. Sabre shinnied up the last stretch of slippery neck and arrived behind its head. The creature smashed through two more houses and a shed, gaining speed as it closed in on its chosen prey. Sabre cursed the idiotic girl afresh. If she swerved, the animal would be forced to slow in order to turn its massive bulk, and its momentum would hamper it, but she kept going straight. The village men chased it, waving their implements, but it ignored them.
Sabre yanked the sword from his belt, almost slicing his ribs in his haste. Raising the weapon, he plunged it into the soft area where the creature's neck joined its skull, directly into the monster's brain. It gave a whistling shriek and flung back its head with the violence of a whiplash. Sabre's hands were ripped from the sword hilt, and he flew through the air. He tried to get his feet under him, but there was not enough time, and he forced himself to go limp as he had been trained to do. The earth rose to strike him a hammer blow, and everything went black.
The monster's shriek made Tassin glance back as it tossed its head, sending Sabre sailing through the air, as limp as a rag doll. He hit the ground with a sickening thud, raising a small cloud of dust. The beast staggered forward for a few more strides and collapsed, ploughing into the ground. It flopped onto its side, its legs flailing. Filled with dread, she ran to Sabre, who lay on his back, the cyber band flashing erratically. She fell to her knees beside him and leant over to grip his shoulders.
"Sabre!" She shook him, making his head loll. "Sabre, wake up!"
Tears stung her eyes as she stared down at him, not knowing what to do. Red welts marred his skin, but he seemed otherwise uninjured. The surviving villagers gathered around, chattering in a strange tongue. A man in a blue shirt, who carried a brown bag, pushed through the crowd and knelt beside the prone warrior. He checked the pulse in Sabre's neck, exclaiming in apparent surprise when he found one, and a murmur went through the crowd. The man took a vial from his bag and waved it under Sabre's nose, which wrinkled, then the cyber convulsed in a massive sneeze and opened his eyes.
Tassin cried, "You're all right!"
He looked dazed, then frowned. "You!" He sat up with a grimace. "You pea-brained bloody idiot! I told you to stay with the damned mosscat! You could have been bloody well killed!"
Tassin gasped at his ingratitude, her brows knotting. Sabre became aware of their audience as the men cheered, and he forced a tight smile, raising a hand in acknowledgement of their unintelligible accolade. He fingered the back of his head, then shook it a few times and climbed to his feet, evoking more amazed mutters from the crowd. Someone handed him his sword and the rather bent dagger, and he gripped her wrist. Men clapped him on the back, to congratulate him, she assumed, and he smiled as he walked away, dragging Tassin. She tried to free her wrist, but he tightened his grip until she yelped. Sabre towed her back towards the wood, leaving the villagers waving and smiling, but clearly puzzled by his sudden exit.
Sabre addressed his captive as he forced her to trot beside him. "Just exactly which one of us were you trying to get killed?"
"I was trying to help!"
"Help?" He stopped and glared at her. "How can you be so stupid? What do you think you are?" He strode on, ignoring her squeaks at his vice-like hold on her wrist. "I have never met anyone so moronic, stubborn and downright contrary in all my life!"
"At least I tried!"
"All you did was almost get me injured, since I had to stop the bloody thing from killing you!" He stopped again, leaning down to glare into her eyes. "Didn't I tell you to stay with Purr? Did you not understand the order? Should I have spelt it out? Do you need it written down in triplicate?"
Tears burnt her eyes at his harsh words. "I am not stupid! I was afraid for you! I wanted to help you!"
"Oh that's right, have a good howl! Tears don't work on me, Your Majesty. I'm immune to female wiles, didn't you know that? As for being afraid for me, that's ridiculous! Fighting is what I was bred for! No, not bred... designed, created, manufactured, trained. All of the above. Haven't you figured it out yet? Wasn't I described as a weapon when or before I arrived in my natty case? That's what I am; a weapon, understand? That means I don't need anyone to rescue me, least of all a flea-brained little girl who thinks she's a god dammed warrior queen!"
Tassin covered her face and burst into tears. Sabre swore and released her, turned away and ran a hand over his hair. She howled louder, and he swung back, looking harassed.
"Stop it!" He made a helpless gesture. "Bugger it!"
Tassin drew a shuddering breath and wailed some more, her hands clamped over her face. He cursed again and swung away, striding towards the wood. Tassin lowered her hands and stared after him, confused and angry. If Sabre noticed that the howls stopped abruptly, he did not turn to see why, and she swore under her breath. She had played her trump card, and he had walked away. No one had ever done that before, not even her father. His imperviousness intrigued and annoyed her, and she wondered why she was attracted to such a heartless man.
Sniffing and wiping her eyes, she followed, and found him sitting on a log with Purr. The mosscat's eyes gleamed as Tassin approached, and she suspected that he had witnessed the whole scene, the nosey little snoop. Sabre looked haggard, his eyes shadowed. He kept rubbing his forehead, and she deduced that he had a splitting headache from his fall. He started to hand her the dagger, then noticed that it was bent and straightened it.
When she enquired about his head, he glared at her, and she realised that she was deep in his bad books. The mosscat looked smug, and she pulled a face at him. They rested until Sabre's headache had abated, then he led them around the village and into the woods on the far side, marching along with a stony countenance and allowing Tassin to dawdle in the rear.
Late in the afternoon, they encountered a Real-reality stream and camped on its bank, dining on fish again. Sabre remained aloof, ignoring Tassin's overtures, to her intense chagrin. He bathed the welts from the monster's spit in the stream, but they stayed red.
Gearn hunched over the fire and stared into the pot he stirred. The sun sank in a pale, cloudless sky, and Murdor snored a couple of metres away. The spell was not going well. For a day and a half, he had struggled to make the correct potion, but all he had succeeded in doing was creating several bangs and clouds of noxious smoke. The Death Zone barrier shimmered, mocking him. The landscape had suffered from his efforts, which had drained any energy from it, turning the coarse sand to black powder. He had shielded his companions from the effects of his spell-casting, but it had depleted his strength and made him nauseous.
The pot bubbled, and he lifted it from the fire, studying its seething surface. Sighing, he stood and walked around the camp, sprinkling the potion, then set down the empty pot and began a complicated chant. The translocation spell was a difficult one, but he was sure he would succeed this time.
His chant ended, and he made the odd gestures that invoked the spell. The sand around the camp glowed eerie green, and a surge of triumph ran through him. A thunderclap shattered the stillness, accompanied by a flash of sickly light, and a cloud of green smoke billowed up. The horse shied, and Murdor leapt to his feet with a curse. The wolf raised his head and looked around in alarm. Gearn swore, ignoring Murdor's string of curses. He glared at the Death Zone barrier, admitting defeat for now, and settled down for the night. Murdor muttered some derogatory comments under his breath as he lay down again. Gearn snorted. Tomorrow he would get it right.
After several more hours of walking through the park-like wood, the flickers of brown and green streaked through the land, warning the trio of the coming Change. They dashed for the nearest Real-reality looking boulder, which turned out to be Flux-reality. The world warped and Changed to a barren landscape of smooth grey rocks interspersed with stony areas and an occasional patch of sand. The icy wind that blew across it tugged at Tassin's skirts and sent chills through her. Leaden clouds scudded overhead, blocking out the weak sunlight.
Sabre glanced back at her, then walked away across the new terrain. She stumbled after him on numb legs and throbbing feet, longing to stop and rest, but Sabre set a gruelling pace. The rocks twisted her ankles and barked her shins as she tried to keep up, and she muttered curses. The mosscat adapted to the new world with a soft sneeze, his legs lengthening and his paws sprouting stubby claws. For a while Tassin followed, then she decided that she had had enough and sat down on a boulder. She watched Sabre march away, wondering how long it would take before he noticed that she was no longer following.
Sighing, she rubbed her aching legs, pulling up her skirt to massage her calves. Something stirred amongst the rocks, so well camouflaged that only its cautious movement betrayed it. Alarmed, she stood up as a slender head shot out of a cranny, and pain lanced up her leg. She leapt away with a yell, but the creature had already vanished back into the stones. Sabre ran back to her as she tottered towards him, desperate to reach the security of his presence. Agony shot up her leg, then her back arched in a spasm and she gave a choked cry. The grey world spun around her, and she fell into darkness.
Sabre reached Tassin as she collapsed and swept her up. Her head flopped back, and he sat on a boulder and cradled her with one arm while he patted her cheek to try to rouse her.
"Tassin! Come on, wake up!"
Purr appeared nearby, sniffing the air. "Something nasty here, come away."
Sabre rose and moved to another rock. "Something nasty? Like what?"
"Venomous."
"Why didn't you warn us when we passed this way?"
Purr huffed. "We didn't. She was far behind, and you were doing your best to ignore her."
Sabre glared at him. "She's been bitten?"
"Probably."
"How bad is it?"
"How should I know? All these worlds are new to me. I've never seen the same one twice."
Sabre found a black swelling on Tassin's ankle, and red streaks already spread from it. Cold dread squeezed his heart as he laid a hand on her brow, finding her skin cold and clammy.
"She's gone into shock."
Purr glanced around. "We must make camp and await the next Change. She'll have to fight the poison until then."
Sabre carried Tassin to a sandy area, which Purr declared was safe after he sniffed around it. Sitting on a rock, the cyber wrapped her in the bedding, alarmed to find her hot and flushed, yet she shivered.
He looked at the mosscat. "What can I do?"
"Hope for Change."
"What if it's hours away? She could die."
Purr shook his head. "There's nothing we can do."
Sabre stared down at the Tassin, whose blackened eyes and swollen nose were mute testimony to the hardships she had endured in the Death Zone. Yet she hardly complained anymore, and kept up even though her strength was so much less than his. Why had he let her lag behind? He had been angry with her for coming after him at the village, then ending his tirade with the ultimate female weapon. That had struck a raw nerve, for he had wanted to comfort her when he should have felt nothing, and the feelings were alien and unwelcome.
Sabre was not even certain how to comfort a weeping girl, since he had never encountered such a situation in his vaguely perceived former life. All his reactions were based on that second-hand impression of the world, and his limited repertoire of social interactions lacked a great deal. Not knowing how to do something did not prevent him from wanting to do it, however, and he found it confusing, which made him inclined to withdraw from the situation rather than try to figure out what to do and possibly make a mistake.
There was no place in his life for a girl, and he had thought that his heart, so long deadened by the cyber, was immune. Tassin was a real person, even if she was impulsive, impetuous and strong-willed, or perhaps because of it. What was he? Just a damaged cyborg. A freak. A broken killing machine. He had failed her. His job was to protect her, not to leave her stumbling in his wake, vulnerable to attack. The cyber would not have done that. It would have done a better job, unburdened by human emotions, and he cursed himself.
Tassin shivered and moaned. Sweat sheened her flushed skin, and she pushed away the bedding with trembling hands. Sabre held the blankets in place, foiling her efforts to be free of them. He stroked her cheek as she relaxed. Her strength drained away with alarming speed, and he willed her to live until the next Change. He would do better, he vowed. He would keep her safe, if only she would survive. The cyber drew his attention inwards to a scrolling display of Tassin's vital signs, which showed her heart rate to be elevated and her blood pressure dropping while her temperature soared. It could not detect the reason for her sickness, however. Everything in and from the Death Zone seemed to be invisible to the scanners.
Even so, with modern equipment, he could have made a serum for her in less than an hour. All he would have to do was find another creature like the one that had bitten her and be bitten himself, then transfuse some of his blood into her. His ability to manufacture a serum for just about any kind of venom twice as fast as a normal man would ensure that he could provide anti-venom before she died. He would also become ill, though not as badly, and not for long. Without the necessary equipment, however, he could not help her.
By the time the Change came, her breathing was laboured and he was sure he would soon be holding a corpse. At Purr's warning he stood, and the world Changed. Sabre glanced around at a rolling meadowland dotted with spreading trees. Tassin shuddered and gasped, then breathed normally again.
Purr looked up at him. "She'll be all right now. The Flux-poison has been left behind in the stone world."
"I've got to get her out of this place. Come on."
The mosscat bounded ahead, and Sabre strode after him. The rolling fields remained for many hours, and he made swift progress. The Changes came a lot slower now, and the sound of birdsong was faint. He did not stop to eat or rest, driven by a powerful urge to get out of the Death Zone before it killed Tassin. They had come too far to fail now, and the sooner he could get back to reality, the better. Tassin remained in a deep sleep or coma, he was not sure which, but at least she breathed easily and her colour was good. The cyber told him that her vital signs were almost normal, but her energy level was low.
Fatigue forced him to stop and sleep while Purr stood watch, and he woke to find that the mosscat had dug up some shrivelled tubers, which he claimed were Real-reality. Purr grumbled about the lack of food and water on this side of the Death Zone. He had been unable to find any pools to hunt in, and the water skins were almost empty.
When Sabre had consumed the sparse fare, he walked on with his burden, and the mosscat ranged ahead in search of food and water. The scenery Changed to another rocky world, this time brown stone swept by endless winds, which had carved the rock into weird shapes. Towering pillars were capped with oddly balanced boulders that seemed ready to fall at any moment. Sabre threaded his way through them, alert for danger, but apart from a wandering Real-reality monster in the distance, the world was lifeless. The incessant wind moaned through the worn landscape in a miserable dirge that matched his mood and chilled his skin with its icy touch. He set a fast pace, no longer slowed by the Queen, and his long strides ate up the ground. Purr panted as he trotted ahead, casting astonished glances back at Sabre.
They encountered a Real-reality pool at last, and Sabre filled the water skins. The pool was devoid of fish, to Purr's disgust. The Flux-reality sounds became fainter, and the scenery grew more tenuous as Sabre walked. The moaning wind became a ghostly whisper and its touch a zephyr's caress. Flux-reality Changed to a world of rust, filled with crumbling, blood-red iron ruins through which oily rivers ran. Nothing lived in this world either, and Sabre wondered if it was a planet that mankind had ruined. The seeping corruption and acid smog seemed likely to have been caused by rampant pollution. Too little remained of the rusting artefacts to identify them as the leavings of humanity's senseless plunder, however.
The scenery had Changed to a barren scrubland by the time Tassin woke. She glanced around with a frown, then looked up at Sabre. "Something bit me."
He stopped and put her down. "I know, but the poison's gone now. You're okay."
She examined the scenery again, clearly struck by the silence. "Where are we?"
"We're nearly out of it. No sound or smell."
"Thank goodness."
Sabre tried to persuade her to eat some of the shrivelled tubers, but she shook her head and asked for water. The mosscat vanished and returned with a fish, which they had to eat raw, since the Flux-reality wood was too unreal to burn now. Tassin left most of her share and went back to sleep, which worried Sabre. Although raw fish was not terribly appetising, she also seemed listless and dazed. He rested until Flux-reality Changed to a tropical landscape of sand covered with fleshy creepers and tall palms that waved in a spectral wind.
Tassin woke again and drank more water, but would not eat. He examined her ankle, which was black and swollen around the bite. Deciding that she could not walk, he continued to carry her. She laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes. He assumed that she was asleep, and he hoped the rest would speed her recovery. Flux-reality became more and more unsubstantial, and Purr was glad to be out of real Flux-reality, judging by his gambolling.
Tassin's leg worried Sabre. The blackened flesh was not healing, and he wondered if the damage was too severe. If so, there was a significant risk of an infection setting in, and his tube of antibiotic cream would not do much good if that happened. Even the antibiotic injections might not be able to stop it.
Late in the afternoon, he left behind the last vestige of Flux-reality and emerged into the rocky Real-reality that bounded the Death Zone. The mist swirled around him in damp streamers, and at every step he expected to emerge into the desert once more. The mosscat stopped and sat down, regarding him sadly.
"The Flux ends a few feet from here."
Sabre turned to his strange companion. "We're very grateful to you, Purr."
The mosscat shrugged. "It was an interesting adventure. Few have ever crossed the Flux. You proved able to deal with the dangers. I'm impressed."
"What will you do now?"
"I shall explore this side of the Flux, perhaps it's more pleasant than the other."
Sabre glanced around. "I hope so, for your sake. Maybe you'll find others of your kind here."
Purr chuckled. "There are no others of my kind. I'm unique, as is every creature of the Flux. I came into being within the Flux. I was moulded by its magic."
Sabre shifted his sleepy burden, and Tassin sighed, her arms tightening around his neck. "I hope I can find medicine for her on the other side of the desert."
"I hope so too. When she wakes, tell her that I wish her well, and please stay out of the Flux."
Sabre smiled. "I will. Take care, Purr."
"Fare you well, Sabre." Purr rose and ambled back the way he had come, vanishing into the mist.
Sabre walked towards the mist wall, and experienced a weird sensation akin to what he imagined it would be like to wade through syrup, then he staggered into the early morning sunlight of the Real-reality desert. He laid the Queen down and rigged the petticoat on a stick for shade before lying down to sleep.
At dusk, Sabre set out across the desert. Tassin stumbled beside him, aided by his grip on her arm. She surveyed the moonlit wasteland with dull eyes, and he told her that they were out of the Death Zone. He let her drink all the water she wished, hoping she would regain her strength. The wound weakened her despite the antibiotic injections he gave her and the cream he smeared on it. For three nights, she walked, and he hoped the exercise would get her blood flowing and help to fight the infection. At the end of the third night, she seemed exhausted, and fell asleep the moment she lay down.
That day she woke him several times as she tossed and moaned in her sleep. When he shook her from her restless slumber in the red glow of sunset, she would not even try to walk, but sat staring at the ground. She turned her head away when he attempted to persuade her to eat a shrivelled tuber. He ate a little, then slung the packs over his shoulders and picked her up. Tassin gazed at him with hopeless eyes while he walked, then laid her head against his chest and fell asleep again. Twice during the night he stopped to rest, going down on one knee and supporting her on the other to ease his arms for a while. Tassin did not wake when he put her down at dawn. He ate the last of the food and sipped a little water.
When Sabre woke at dusk, he realised that she had slipped into a coma. He dribbled water into her mouth, but there was not much left. Sabre walked all night, resting three times, and when the sun rose, he searched the horizon for signs of greenery. The water was finished, and he was starting to feel the effect of its lack, since he had given Tassin most of it. The cyber's host status light went from steady orange to blinking red, a warning of his dehydration that he did not need.
That night, he carried Tassin over his shoulder, since it made no difference to her and was easier for him. He was forced to detour twice, once for a patch of radiation and again for a mauve dot on the scanners that warned of a sand dragon. The fact that the scanners were working again hardly registered on his fatigue-dulled brain, and he reacted to its information instinctively.
Three nights later, Sabre walked like a zombie, barely aware of his surroundings. Once he wandered into a pocket of radiation, not realising until he was in the middle of it, his tired mind ignoring the cyber's warning for a while. Hoping it would not make Tassin sick, he trudged on, more alert now. When he put the girl down at dawn, her shallow breathing and deathly pallor concerned him. He scanned the horizon with burning eyes. As the light strengthened, a smudge became visible in the distance. Greenery? Clouds? Hope swelled in him, and he lay down to sleep with a lighter heart.
That night he tried to walk faster, stumbling over stones. Tassin seemed to have grown heavier, and his breath rasped through sand-caked nostrils. Dust rimed his skin and mixed with sweat to form a cement around his eyes and lips. He was forced to rest several times, as his strength began to fail, but he refused to give up. The flashing red host status light became a steady one, warning him that he was close to collapse. His bio-status was only forty per cent. When the sun rose again, it lighted the line of green ahead, and the promise of water lured him on. Knowing that Tassin hovered close to death, he pushed himself to his limit in the burning sun.
At midday he stumbled into sparse grass, where hardy shrubs struggled to grow, twisted by radiation. He rested for a while, aware of the danger of falling asleep and not waking again. Catching himself dozing off, he stood up and staggered forward, his steps dragging. The passing landscape blurred before his exhausted eyes, swimming around him. It grew greener, and the grass became lusher as the bushes turned into trees. The cyber detected water two kilometres ahead, and Sabre staggered on, knowing that if he stopped, he might not get up again.
When he reached the creek, he laid Tassin on the grass beside it and knelt to scoop up the trickle of water with shaking hands, gulping the brackish liquid. He had to force himself to stop and give some to her, and she coughed as it ran down her throat. After digging a pool to collect the seepage, Sabre washed his face and wiped the dust from Tassin's, gave her more water and sipped some himself.
As it revived him, he took stock of the scrubby, arid landscape, reminding himself that this was not Flux-reality, and would not change. On the other side of a stretch of golden grassland, a verdant jungle grew, overhung with clouds. The activity on the scanners showed that it teemed with life; a veritable larder once he was strong enough to hunt.
Late in the afternoon, the cyber's host status light stopped flashing and changed to amber, and a little of his strength returned. He walked to the edge of the jungle, where he found the herbs he needed to make a poultice for Tassin's wound. A chill invaded the air at dusk, and Sabre shared the blankets with the Queen, too tired to be bothered by her presence.
The next day, he rigged the petticoats over her for shade, then stripped and bathed in the meagre trickle of water, scrubbing the dirt from his clothes. He dozed for the rest of day, rousing only to drink and give Tassin more water. At dusk he changed the poultice, pleased to find the wound improved. The following day her colour was better, and he spent it recovering his strength and letting the poultice do its work, then fell asleep beside her at dusk.
Tassin crawling over him to reach the pool woke Sabre, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. "You're awake."
She scooped up handfuls of water and gulped it down, too intent on slaking her thirst to pay him any attention. He watched her with a smile. "You've been unconscious for quite a while. I lost track of the number of days. We're out of the Death Zone. We made it to the other side. Purr stayed behind."
Sabre let her drink until he calculated that she had had enough, then pulled her away. "Enough now, take it easy. You'll get sick if you drink too much. Take a break, the water's not going anywhere. You can have more in a few minutes. Give your stomach a chance to get used to it again. You're still thirsty because you haven't absorbed it yet, and bloating yourself won't help."
Tassin gazed longingly at the water, then, knowing that he was right, tore her eyes from it. To distract herself, she studied him. Considering that he had carried her all the way across the desert, he showed surprisingly few ill effects. Lines of fatigue bracketed his mouth, he was a little thinner, and his lips were cracked and scabbed. He had washed, shaved, and shorn his hair again, making the white lines that ran through it almost invisible.
Realising that she was staring at him, she looked away and fingered the bandage on her leg. "What is this?"
"The bite from the rock snake caused an infection. Although the poison was left behind, you were still very sick. That dressing is making it better."
Tassin rubbed her face, surprised to find it clean. "How long did you carry me, without water?"
"Six nights and half a day."
"I did not think it was possible for a man to go that long without water, especially carrying a burden."
He smiled. "It's not. I'm a not a man."
"You look like one to me."
"Looks can be deceiving."
Tassin sighed and turned to gaze across the golden grass at the dense green wall of vegetation beyond it. She was not in the mood to argue with him now.
"So much for paradise. I would not call a jungle paradise."
"No. But perhaps there's something better beyond it."
She slumped, dejected. "I am so tired of walking. I don't think I can walk another step."
"Not right now, but you'll feel better once you're stronger and your leg's healed. There's plenty of game in the jungle. I'll soon have you fattened up and fit again."
Tassin forced a wan smile, unconvinced.
They rested by the pool until the afternoon, by which time she had slaked her thirst. Then they moved upstream into the shade of a tree, where the stream ran more strongly. Sabre built a fire and left to hunt in the forest, admonishing her to climb the tree if anything nasty came along. Since the forest was less than a kilometre away, she would be within scanner range.
Sabre returned before dark, carrying a buck and an armload of fruit. The animal's throat had been slit, and she wondered if he had used the cyber to catch it. He dumped his load, and she selected a bright orange fruit while he gathered more firewood and cleaned the buck. Her appetite returned, sparked by the succulent fruit, and they feasted on roast meat, after which she fell into a sated sleep.
Gearn gave a crow of triumph and turned to look back at the shimmering Death Zone barrier, now behind him.
"It worked!"
Murdor gazed around, scratching his head. "You sure yer didn't just turn us around?" he asked. He had watched the wizard's efforts for days now, and had developed a healthy scorn for the bungling mage.
"Of course I am sure!" Gearn retorted. "I know when my magic has worked." He turned to the panting wolf. "Find the trail, if there is one. We have to catch up."
Gearn gathered up his precious potions and packed them into the saddlebags, then they waited for the wolf to return. Murdor sat in the shade of the tent the mage had conjured for him and wished he was back in Arlin, supping ale in a taproom. The mage did his best to provide whatever Murdor wanted, but the ale he conjured was weak and tasteless. The gladiator had grown tired of the hardships of travelling across the desert, and almost regretted the deal he had made.
When the wolf returned, several hours later, his eyes were bright with excitement as he gambolled away in the direction whence he had come, pausing to look back. Murdor gathered, from his antics, that the beast had found the trail. Gearn mounted his horse and followed him. The gladiator trudged after them, part of him hoping they had only been turned around, and the trail would lead back to Arlin.
Sabre glanced across the fire at Tassin as he turned the spit upon which their supper, a wild pig, was impaled. Her bruises had faded, and although she still looked tired, her tanned skin glowed with health once more. They had camped by the stream for five days to allow her to recover her strength. He had built a rude shelter to keep off the dew, and hunted every day. Her wound had healed, speeded by the good food and the poultice he renewed each afternoon.
They had spent many hours in idle conversation, and he found her to be a pleasant companion, well-versed in many subjects. Thanks to the cyber, he was a font of information, most of which she would not understand, so he kept to topics she knew something about. She had mellowed considerably, he found, and although she still did not help much with the camp chores, she treated him more as a companion than a servant now. He lowered his gaze to the fire.
"We should move on, you know. We can't camp here forever. There may be people beyond the forest. Perhaps even civilisation. Just think, soft beds, good food, pretty clothes, servants and princes."
Tassin eyed him, clearly irritated by his teasing. "It would be nice to get back to civilisation."
"Yeah, I thought you might like that."
She glanced at the jungle and shuddered. "But I do not fancy going through that."
"Why not? You went through worse than that in the Death Zone."
Picking up a pebble, she tossed it into the stream. "Well, I suppose there is no choice, is there? We certainly cannot go back, so we have to carry on."
Sabre smiled at her martyred air, reflecting that she had endured a lot. "I hope what you're looking for is on the other side."
She shook her head. "It cannot be; we left it behind."
The next morning, they crossed the grassland and entered the jungle's humid, sullen beauty. Orchid-like plants clung to damp, lichen-covered trees, trailing streamers of sweet scented flowers. Soft ferns grew in the humus, and a host of tropical plants vied for supremacy, carpeting the jungle floor with vibrant hues. Verdure reigned supreme in a life and death struggle for light, water and soil, where the strong flourished and the weak withered. Older trees fell prey to parasitic plants, and when the giants fell they opened up opportunities for their saplings. Vines linked the jungle behemoths in an aerial web festooned with moss and hanging creepers. Brightly feathered birds flew overhead, filling the air with raucous cries and lilting, liquid songs. Fleeting glimpses of shy animals drew Sabre's eyes to the colourful foliage in which they hid, and the scanners thronged with so many life signs that the black field resembled a starry sky.
For a while the open jungle was easily traversed, but it grew denser as they moved further in, and Tassin's leg hampered her. Hanging creepers and vines clogged the way, forcing Sabre to hack a path with the sword. Their progress slowed as the foliage grew thicker, and insects attacked. Tassin swatted at the blood-sucking pests, which left itching bites. Sabre was also assaulted until he came across a bush the cyber's data banks identified as one that contained an insect-repellent chemical. Once anointed with the pungent sap, the insects left them alone.
Late in the afternoon, Sabre came across a fallen forest giant whose spreading roots formed a shelter in the hollow of its former foundation. Sweat dripped from his chin and ran down his chest. Dust and bits of leaf speckled him. Tassin settled on the soft humus and listened to the jungle's din as she inhaled the fragrance of a flower she had plucked earlier. Sabre left her to hunt a pig for their supper, then collected wood and built a fire. After they had eaten, he draped the petticoats over the roots to form a rude tent, then lay down with his back to her and fell asleep.
The wolf trotted into the jungle, its nose quivering over the ground, and paused to glance back at Gearn, tongue lolling. The mage smiled and nodded at it. The trail blazed into the jungle was fresh; the wilting plants beside it were no more than two days old. The Queen had stopped to rest after crossing the desert, which did not surprise him. After they had encountered the butchered corpse of the chestnut horse, the scuffed trail left by her stumbling steps had revealed her exhaustion. When her prints had vanished into the Death Zone, he surmised that she had been at the end of her strength. Three days after they had picked up the trail on the far side, the Queen's track had vanished and the warrior mage's footprints had deepened. It amazed him that the man still had the strength to carry her.
Murdor trudged behind, stony-faced. His humour had dwindled on the journey, and, although he did not appear to be particularly tired, he was obviously bored. Gearn's hood had protected his pasty features from the sun, but Murdor's were burnt a deep brown and his shaven pate was peeling. As they followed the trail into the jungle, insects assaulted them, and Gearn cast a simple spell to repel them as Murdor swatted and growled at the irritant.
The following day, Sabre and Tassin pushed on. Sabre slashed at the undergrowth with unnecessary savagery, she thought. They crossed several streams, and refilled the water skins each time. Tassin picked exotic blossoms and arranged them in her hair to amuse herself. Sabre stopped to rest every so often, and eyed her girlish adornments with a marked lack of enthusiasm. In the afternoon, they came to a river, and Tassin stared at the expanse of brown water in horror, then glanced at Sabre.
"What are we going to do?"
"Cross it."
"How? I cannot swim."
He smiled without humour. "Somehow I didn't think you could, in spite of being a warrior queen." He wiped the sweat from his brow. "We'll find a bridge, or a shallow spot."
Sabre led her upstream along the riverbank, where the undergrowth was thinner. Two hours later, they found a tree fallen across the spate. Sabre climbed onto the broad trunk and walked across, then came back, smiling.
"There you are; a bridge."
Tassin stared at the slippery-looking log. "What if I slip?"
Sabre's smile faded as he jumped down and leant against the trunk. "You won't slip. If you do, I'll just have to fish you out, won't I?"
"It's not safe. There must be a better way."
"Maybe, maybe not. But we have to cross the river, and this is a perfectly good way to do it." He flashed her a mocking smile. "Don't be scared, I won't let you drown if you fall in."
Tassin drew herself up. "I am not afraid! There could be a bridge further upstream. You said that there might be civilisation here."
"I said there might be some on the other side of the jungle. This is the middle of the jungle; no civilised person would live here."
She frowned at the log. "But if I fall..."
He straightened, easing his back. "Don't fall."
Goaded by his mockery, she put aside her fears and climbed onto the log with his help, clinging to it. Sabre dumped the pack and climbed up beside her.
"Don't look down. Pretend that there's solid ground under it." He walked out over the river, then came back and held out his hand. "Here, take my hand and look at me."
Tassin gripped his hand and rose unsteadily to her feet, her gaze fixed on his chest. Sabre edged across the log, his hand a solid support. The tree had been there a long time, and lichen covered the aged wood. Step by step, she moved out over the river, aware of its rushing, sucking sound below her, just waiting for her to fall into its wet clutches. She concentrated on easing her feet across the slick surface, leaning on his hand.
Sabre moved back as she advanced, not pulling her along, but her nervousness increased as they moved out over the swirling brown torrent. Although she did not look down, she could sense the river beneath her like a cold, brooding presence. She longed to grab Sabre and hang on, but controlled her panic with an effort. The lichen grew wetter as they neared the middle of the log, and its squelching undermined what little confidence she had in the safety of her footing. As if her pessimism prompted fate, her foot slipped. Tassin jerked in a panic-stricken bid to right herself as she lost her balance, wrenching her hand from Sabre's grip with the unexpected action. He made a grab for her, but the treacherous footing prevented him from lunging after her, and he teetered. With a scream, she plunged into the brown water.
Tassin shut her eyes and mouth as the river closed over her head. It rushed into her nose, and she thrashed in panic. Strong currents spun her around, and sunken branches tore at her clothes. Her lungs, emptied by her scream, burnt for the air above that she could not reach. She clawed at the water, her panic increasing as she failed to find purchase on the liquid. The cold river embraced her, pulling her down, and her skirts tangled with her legs as the current buffeted her. It dragged her along the rocky bottom, bruising her on submerged trees whose slimy branches clawed at her. Icy terror gripped her heart, and the overpowering urge to inhale hammered at her brain. The rushing river's song became a roaring in her ears, and she flailed.
Strong hands gripped her dress and lifted her towards the surface. She grabbed Sabre and pulled herself up his arms, desperate for air. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped in a great lungful with a whoop. The water lapped at her chin, threatening to engulf her again, and she tried to climb onto Sabre's head. He sank, and the terrifying water closed over her again. The cyber pulled free of her clutching hands and turned her away from him, sliding an arm around her neck. She fought him in a blind panic, thrashing. With a powerful surge, they shot to the surface. Tassin gasped and spluttered. Her hair was plastered to her face, adding to her hysteria. His arm was like an iron bar across her throat, and she struggled to turn and grab him, the only solid thing in this frightening liquid world.
"Relax, or you'll drown us both," he said.
Tassin barely registered his words. Terror overwhelmed her, and she thrashed, splashing her face, which panicked her more. She twisted and gripped his shoulders, pulling herself up. Once more he went under, and she sank with a strangled scream as the water washed over her again. Her hands found his head, and she pushed upwards, causing him to sink further. He grabbed her wrists and surged past her to the surface, then she was yanked upwards. Gasping, she struggled to free her wrists from his vice-like grip.
"Stop it, Tassin!"
Sabre pulled her into the neck hold again. Still she splashed and struggled, water going up her nose and into her eyes. He dragged her through the swirling current, then released her throat and allowed her to turn and grip his shoulders. His arm slid around her waist, and he lifted her, using branches to pull himself up the bank with his free hand. Tassin slipped and scrambled beside him, but it was his arm that drew her up the bank.
When they reached level ground, he stopped and let her to sink down with a squelch of sopping skirts. Water streamed from her hair, and she wiped it from her stinging eyes with shaking hands, her nose burning. She looked up to find Sabre crouched next to her, looking concerned.
"Are you all right?"
Tassin nodded, pushed back her hair and wrung the water out with studied composure. How many times had he asked her that, she wondered. Every time he had rescued her, which seemed like a lot, although she could not recall how many, exactly. She shivered, her teeth chattering. Sabre knelt within reach, and without thinking, she turned and embraced him. He tensed in apparent surprise or unease, then held her and patted her back.
"It's okay, you're safe." He comforted her in an awkward, embarrassed fashion for a few minutes, then disentangled himself and took her hands, studying her. "Feeling better?"
Tassin longed to tell him that she would feel a lot better if he held her for at least an hour, but decided that he might find the idea repellent, as he apparently found her embrace. At her nod, he rose and vanished into the jungle, leaving her cold and forlorn. She gazed after him with a mixture of longing and sadness. He returned with the packs and draped a blanket around her shoulders. She wrapped herself in it, rocking and shivering. Sabre gathered wood and built a fire, which helped to warm her, but her sodden dress clung coldly to her.
"You've got to get out of those wet clothes," he said.
Again she nodded, her teeth clenched to stop them chattering. Despite the jungle's warmth, the river water had chilled her to the core, and shock made it worse. Sabre shook out another blanket and held it up between them.
"Take them off and wrap yourself in the blanket."
Tassin's hands shook as she unbuttoned the faded pink dress. It stuck to her, and she had to peel it off, glancing at the blanket as parts of her became exposed, but Sabre held it high. When the dress and her slip were a soggy pile at her feet, she wrapped the blanket around herself and sat down again.
"All right, I have finished."
Sabre dropped the blanket and picked up her clothes, wrung them out and hung them over a branch. Tassin eyed him as he crouched by the fire again, feeding it. Water still dripped from him, yet he was not shivering, and she resented his immunity.
"Do you never feel the cold at all?" she demanded.
He smiled at the fire. "Not really. But I'm not suffering from shock either. The water holds no fear for me, because I can swim, although you nearly drowned me as well."
A twinge of shame sharpened her tongue. "I thought you were the great cyber, who can do anything."
"Not quite. Cybers are not the greatest swimmers. Twelve kilos of extra weight does tend to cramp our style in water. Your efforts to climb onto my head didn't help, either."
"I was drowning!"
"I know. I'm not blaming you."
Tassin's shame turned to self-righteousness. "I said I would slip."
"Yup, you sure did." He shook his head in mild reproof. "You're a pessimistic person. Pessimism breeds fatalism, and fatalism causes loss of confidence, which creates nervousness, and that causes accidents. I could walk up and down that log all day and not fall off, because I'm confident, but you couldn't even cross it once."
Tassin stared into the fire. "It was slippery."
"There you go again. That log was easily half a metre wide. A herd of horses could have crossed it, but you just had to slip, because you were afraid of slipping, and convinced yourself that you would." He prodded the fire with a stick. "It's cause and effect. If there hadn't been a river under that log, you would have skipped along it. But because there was danger under it, you got tense, scared, and you made an error of judgement."
Tassin raised her eyes to his face. "So you're saying that if I had not been scared of falling, I would not have?"
"Exactly. I'll prove it to you. The next time we come to a fallen tree, you walk along it and see how easy it is when there's no danger."
"And if I still fall off?"
He shrugged. "Then you're just plain clumsy."
Tassin lowered her gaze to the fire once more. She looked subdued, as if the drenching had quenched some of her spirit. Sabre prodded the fire again, remembering his dip.
Water was not his favourite element; he preferred dry land. The extra twelve kilos was only partially offset by his increased lung capacity and strength. A cyber was a not a strong swimmer, and dragging a struggling girl from the water had proven awkward. He had considered rendering her unconscious with a neck pinch, but the prospect of her verbal retaliation had daunted him. The tongue lashing he would have received for harming a queen would have been severe, he surmised, although technically it was not really harm, since it did not injure her. Even so, he had been surprised that she had not berated him for making her walk across the log, or being tardy in his rescue. Perhaps she was mellowing.
When Sabre was dry, he left to hunt, and returned with a buck that he cleaned and cooked as usual. Tassin stared into the fire until the food was ready, unable to look at him. The light faded as the sun sank beyond the trees, and croaking frogs and singing crickets replaced the daytime racket of bird calls and chirring caracans. Her brush with death had engendered a strong sense of inadequacy, which he had compounded by pointing out her failings.
After the meal she lay down, exhausted by her ordeal. Sabre poked sticks into the fire and waved them in the air to create glowing patterns, and Tassin watched him with drooping eyes. She could remember doing that as a child, but the novelty had worn off long ago. Sabre did it with the innocent fascination of one who has never been able to indulge in such petty activities before.
A surge of pity went through her as she thought about the cruelties to which he had been subjected. Tears stung her eyes as he twirled two glowing sticks and watched the circles and figure-of-eights they formed in the air with obvious delight. At the same time, she wanted to laugh at his childish antics, and the bittersweet mixture of emotions confused her.
How strange, she mused, that she should feel so safe in his company, so certain that he would never do her harm. She owed her life to this strange, mutilated man whose gentleness was utterly at odds with his lethal skills and strength. She trusted him more than she had ever done another, yet she hardly knew him. Still pondering, she drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that he was nearby.
An hour after dawn, Tassin donned her damp clothes, and they continued through the jungle. The trees became bigger and the undergrowth thinned, but the insects grew more prolific. Sabre warned Tassin to check herself for leeches, especially her legs. She shuddered at the thought of little beasts sucking her blood, and, when she found one, he sliced off its body, leaving the head to drop off by itself. The scope of his knowledge astounded her afresh. He seemed to know a solution to every problem and a cure for every situation.
They walked for two days, and spent the nights under fallen trees or between massive buttress roots, using the petticoats to keep off the dew and unwelcome droppings from above. Tassin was horrified by the variety of things that fell from the trees, either by accident or design. Huge spiders, lizards, beetles, rotten fruit, bird and animal dung, seeds, nuts, leaves, branches, bits of bark and flowers rained down. For a time, a troop of monkeys followed them above, pelted them with fruit and dung and shrieked with what sounded oddly like laughter.
The jungle teemed with screeching, honking, hooting, chirping animals. At night droves of insects took over, filling the darkness with their mating songs, and hosts of frogs held the endless chorus.
Gearn stared at the log with dawning horror as the wolf trotted across it, then back again, as if to prove how easy it was. The trail led here, which meant that the warrior mage had used the log to cross the river. The tree trunk looked old and slippery, its surface mottled with lichen and fungi. He slid from his horse and turned to look at Murdor, who leant against a tree. The gladiator looked smug, as if he was laughing inwardly at some private joke. Gearn frowned, resenting the giant's lack of respect.
"My horse will not cross that."
The gladiator shrugged. "Then you'll just 'ave to walk, like the rest of us."
The mage grunted, staring at the log again. Obviously Murdor was pleased that Gearn would now be afoot, as he was. The man's smugness annoyed him, like an itch he could not scratch. Gearn reflected that he could not have chosen worse travelling companions than a coarse ruffian and a grinning wolf. Added to that, the journey's discomfort and the raw patches on his rear combined to make him most disagreeable.
Much as he wished for one, he had no spell to help him here. Even if he shrouded the log in an illusion to fool the horse into trying to cross it, the animal would only fall off. He sighed. They were not far behind the warrior mage now. Unsaddling the horse, he turned it loose to forage and hid the tack in a hollow tree. When he returned, he would recapture the beast and ride it back, for he had no intention of walking across the desert.
Gearn climbed onto the log and tottered across it, waving his arms to keep his balance on the treacherous surface. Murdor padded after him, smiling as the rotten wood creaked under his weight. Gearn jumped down to safety, dismayed to find himself facing a wall of foliage and vines. The wolf sniffed around, then sat and stared at him. Gearn looked back at Murdor, who gazed around, picking his nose. The trail ended here. The warrior mage and the Queen had walked onto the log, but not off it, which could only mean that they had disembarked in the middle of it.
Gearn scowled at the muddy torrent. Did the warrior mage know that he was being followed? He shook his head. No, it could only have been an accident, which meant that they had been swept down river, and, if they had survived, that was where they would be. Torrian would not be pleased if the Queen was dead, but he could hardly blame Gearn for that. Turning to the gladiator, Gearn gestured at the river.
"It seems that they fell off the log, Murdor. We will have to look down river. I shall need you to clear a path."
The giant smiled and unsheathed his sword. It seemed that after weeks of tedium, he was glad use his strength, even if only to clear a path.
Sabre was relieved when the jungle gave way to a forest of tall slender trees whose leafy branches formed a green roof, its floor carpeted with golden-brown leaves. The insects were less bothersome, and it grew cooler, which was pleasant after the humid tropical heat. He sheathed the sword, glad to give his arms a rest. The soft trilling of birds and the occasional rustle of a fleeing animal replaced the jungle's din. Tassin walked beside him, and her smile reflected her appreciation of the new landscape. Their conversation was desultory, since he was in a rather terse mood.
The cyber's scanners picked up the life signs of seven humans ahead, and Sabre stopped. "There are people ahead."
She turned to him. "At last! I thought we would never find civilisation in this stinking country."
He raised his brows. "I didn't say they were civilised."
Tassin snorted. "Well, let's find out who they are."
"We will, but I think we should be a little cautious. You stay here, and I'll go and take a look first."
She frowned. "I want to come too."
"They could be savages. I'm only thinking of your safety."
"I am coming, you might need help."
Sabre gritted his teeth, wishing that he could tie her to a tree and gag her until he returned, but he had no rope. "Remember what happened the last time you tried to help?"
"Yes, you got all huffy and left me behind to be bitten by a snake."
Sabre shot her a surprised look, unable to refute her statement, although that was not what he had meant, of course. Tassin's glare dared him to deny it. Instead he said, "I want to move very quietly, so I can get a look at them without them being aware of me."
She shrugged. "All right."
Sabre frowned at her, then turned and walked on. Of all the dumb, stubborn, mule-headed females in the world, he had to get stuck with the prize-winner. He cursed under his breath. As they drew nearer to the people, who were moving across their path, he slowed, wary of twigs and rustling leaves, but Tassin continued to tramp through the fallen foliage. He winced and turned to her.
"Will you walk quietly?"
"I am!"
"You're making enough noise to wake the dead in Arlin!"
She put her hands on her hips. "What do you want me to do, float above the ground?"
"That would help. Why don't you wait here? I won't be long."
"No."
"Then be quiet!"
Tassin pulled a face, and when he started forward again, it sounded like she was making more noise than before. A herd of elephants could have made less of a racket. The points of light on the scanners scattered, moved towards them and spread out. Sabre groaned and halted.
"What is it?" Tassin whispered.
"They heard you."
"Oh. Well, then we will meet them soon."
"Whether we want to or not," he grumbled.
"Now who is being pessimistic?"
Sabre swung around, his brows knotting. "I'm not being bloody pessimistic, I'm being cautious! I'd rather know who I'm going to be dealing with, and whether I want to be dealing with them, before I reveal my presence. Fools rush in without knowing what they're getting themselves into."
"So now you are calling me a fool?"
"You're too pig-headed to see it, aren't you? You just can't admit that you're wrong!"
Tassin folded her arms. "Maybe I am not."
"How do you figure that, since we don't know..." he trailed off as seven painted women emerged from the trees, surrounding them. He had been too distracted by the argument to check the scanners, and the cyber's warning light had started flashing the moment the strangers had come into range. Sabre studied the newcomers, who intrigued and puzzled him.
They were two metres tall or more, and carried spears that were aimed mainly at his belly, except for those that were pointed at his kidneys. None, he noted, were aimed at Tassin. Leather halter tops and short skirts clad their lithe, muscular bodies, revealing long, tanned legs. Strings of beads adorned their necks and entwined their flaxen hair, which hung down their backs in thick braids. Multi-coloured stripes decorated their hostile faces.
Sabre held out his empty hands in an appeasing gesture, and one woman stepped forward to relieve him of his knife and sword, which she examined. Tassin appeared dumbstruck by the strange females, and stared at them with wide eyes. The woman, who topped Sabre by four centimetres, eyed him as she tested his weapon's keen edge. She stepped in front of Tassin, who drew herself up, and the two looked each other up and down. The woman fingered the tattered pink dress, then touched the Queen's hair, but made no effort to remove the dagger tucked into Tassin's belt.
"Who are you, wandering alone in the jungle?" she enquired without malice.
The woman used the same language as Tassin, although so heavily accented that Sabre wondered if the Queen would understand it. As was common on civilised planets, the entire population spoke a single tongue, although regional dialects were typical and population groups often had their own language. On Omega Five, the dialect for this region had clearly corrupted the original language, which was Engron, a common tongue on many planets. He glanced at Tassin, wondering if he would have to translate for her.
She frowned, but replied, "I am Queen Tassin Alrade of Arlin. I come from the land on the other side of the Badlands." Tassin exuded a haughty air, despite her bedraggled appearance.
The woman looked a little puzzled by Tassin's foreign accent, but smiled. "A queen, eh? You must come and meet ours; she will want to greet you."
Although phrased politely, Sabre knew it was not an invitation, and he had a nasty suspicion that these women belonged to a man-hating culture known on old Earth as Amazons. The leader stepped in front of him again, and her lip curled as if he stank like a week-old corpse.
"And this? Why are you accompanied by a man?"
Tassin looked confused, glancing at Sabre. "He's my ... servant. He takes care of my needs."
Sabre was glad she seemed to have grasped the situation, although what she had said was basically true; she had evidently sensed the woman's hostility towards him.
The big woman sneered. "A slave."
The Amazon stood so close to him that he could smell her musky odour, and her eyes roamed over him, lingering on the brow band. She raised a hand to finger and tug at it. "What's this? An ornament on a slave?"
Tassin shook her head. "No, it... subdues him."
"Ah." The Amazon raised her brows and tilted her head. "Science."
"Yes, that's it. Science."
"It makes him... amenable?"
"Yes." Tassin shot a worried look at Sabre.
The woman walked around Sabre, studying him. She squeezed his biceps, prodded him in the stomach and pinched the skin of his flank.
"He looks strong, but a little small and thin."
Sabre wondered if she was sizing him up for the cooking pot. The spears did not waver from their target, and he thought it prudent to keep quiet. The Amazon was supremely confident; it did not seem to occur to her that he might be dangerous, and she examined him with obvious interest.
She traced the scars that ran down his arms. "Is he a fighter? It looks like he's been tortured."
"Yes."
The Amazon shot her a hard look. "But you control him completely?"
"Yes, absolutely."
The blonde nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then he can come. We are Andarons, and our village is not far away. I'm Shizana, these are my huntresses." Shizana rattled off six names, none of which Sabre could remember later. Turning away, she led them through the forest, and Sabre stayed close behind Tassin, aware of a sharp spear point mere millimetres from his back. The Andarons found a faint path and followed it, moving at a fast jog that soon had Tassin panting, although she kept up.
A short while later, the cyber's scanners detected a multitude of people ahead, which he assumed was the Andaron village. They entered a clearing occupied by a sprawl of thatched huts with walls made from dried mud, a patch of cultivation next to each one. Three trees had been felled to allow enough light in for a paddock, where a few goats grazed. A stream meandered through the village, and paths led from hut to hut, joining together, like capillaries into an artery, to form a road. It ran up the approximate middle of the village, and ended in a well-worn square before a fair-sized house.
Shizana led them towards the mansion, which was undoubtedly the Queen's dwelling. Women looked up from digging in their vegetable gardens, washing clothes, cooking over open fires, or cleaning skins for drying. Sabre was impressed by the industry. Children played games in the dirt, and the women were uniformly large, muscular and blonde, although some of the older ones were running to fat. A few wrinkled, white-haired crones squatted before their huts, smoked pipes and instructed groups of youngsters in various skills.
Although there were plenty of pubescent girls, no boys older than about twelve were in evidence, and he wondered what had happened to them. Strangely, the boys were black-haired and dark-eyed. Each hut had a rack of spears at the doorway. By the time they reached the Queen's house, a procession of children followed them, staring at Sabre. Grisly trophies decorated the mansion, mostly animal skulls and bright feathers, but several human skulls grinned from the posts outside. Shizana stopped and turned to Tassin.
"He must wait here."
Tassin nodded and relayed the order to Sabre, then vanished inside with Shizana, leaving him at the mercy of a gathering crowd of Andaron women. Most shot him hostile looks, and a few queried his guards, clearly outraged by his presence in their village. Several spat in his direction and stalked away. Some young girls stared at him with open curiosity, their eyes filled with wonder. From their fascination, he gathered that they had never seen a full grown man before. They giggled, whispered and pointed, pinching and poking each other as they blushed and squirmed.
The guards swatted the girls' backsides with their spear butts, sending them squealing, but they ignored the boys who gathered. Other idle warrior women joined the mob, leant on their spears and chatted to the guards. They treated Sabre as if he was no more important than a dog or goat, and about as intelligent. Most of the boys, after studying him for a while, grew bored and wandered off, but a few settled down to wait for something interesting to happen.
Tassin was ushered through painted leather curtains into a room where the primitive queen held court. A fire roared in a central grate, the smoke funnelled out through the apex of the high, thatched roof. Two bead-hung windows added to the illumination provided by the fire and a few torches. Several older women reclined on soft pelts spread over benches next to the walls, smoking pipes, nibbling food or sipping drinks. Tassin halted in the middle of the room as the women's chatter ceased, aware of the intent stares of many sets of blue eyes.
A fat woman sprawled on a fur-draped throne, dressed in soft white leather and adorned with strings of beads, teeth and feathers. Her greying hair was plaited and coiled around her head to form a crude crown, and carved bracelets clattered on her wrists when she moved. She had a strong, large-featured face, and might have been called handsome in her youth, but not beautiful.
Shizana stopped before her and bowed, indicating Tassin. "This woman claims to be Queen Tassin, from across the Badlands."
Tassin shot her an angry look. "I am Queen Tassin."
The matriarch studied Tassin with hard eyes, then smiled. "You speak strangely, so you must come from afar. You sound like a queen, but all women are queens, so welcome to my village, Tassin. I'm Molla."
Tassin nodded, as was polite between peers, though she hardly considered this barbarian queen her equal. If Sabre thought her primitive, these women were savages by comparison. Nevertheless, they seemed friendly. A woman gave her a cup of sweet beverage and showed her to a seat on a bench. Another offered her a selection of strange food, which smelt appetising, and she filled the bowl she had been given.
Molla invited her to tell her story, and Tassin omitted nothing. More lamps were lighted as it grew dark outside, and an apparently endless supply of food circulated amongst the women. The sweet drink flowed, although she found, to her relief, that it was not alcoholic. When the story ended, the barbarian queen studied her, looking intrigued.
"Why did this man carry you out of the Death Zone?"
"He's my servant."
"And he didn't violate you while you were helpless?"
"Of course not!" Tassin cheeks warmed with embarrassment.
The women murmured, and Molla gestured for quiet. "He would fight to defend you?"
"Yes." Tassin wondered where this was leading.
"Because of this thing on his head."
"Yes, partly."
"Why else?"
"He's loyal." Tassin frowned, uncertain if that was true, since she had no idea of Sabre's real motives. The cyber was loyal, and Sabre had made a bargain with it, so it was close to the truth. Would he have come after her, had it not been for that?
"Do you know how to make this thing on his head?" Molla enquired.
"No." Tassin suppressed a smile, understanding.
Molla looked disappointed, her vision of cyber-controlled slaves clearly shattered. "Who made it?"
"Other men in a faraway place."
"Other men? Why would they want to enslave their own?"
Tassin shrugged. "For the same reason as you."
Molla nodded sagely. "You may keep your pet man, but he's not allowed in any house, nor may he eat with women. He must not attempt to speak to us, and he must obey anything he's told. If he lays a hand on a woman, he will die."
"I will order him so."
The women murmured, and Molla gazed at Tassin with a pensive air. The woman beside her offered Tassin a pipe, which she declined as graciously as she could. The air was thick with pungent smoke, and her eyes watered. She sipped her drink as the pipe was passed across her to the next woman, continuing its rounds.
When the talking died away, Molla remarked, "Never have we heard of anyone crossing the Death Zone before. It's an auspicious deed. Monsters come from there and terrorise our village sometimes. They're terrible creatures, and hard to kill.
"That you survived in the Death Zone itself, where these creatures dwell, is extraordinary. We sent warriors to try to cross the desert, but only a few returned to tell of the horror that exists there. Those who did return died shortly afterwards. You're welcome amongst us, for you must be a great warrior."
"Sabre got me across," Tassin admitted, pulling a face. "He's a far greater warrior than I."
Molla shook her head, looking puzzled. "I don't understand why he helps you, since you give him nothing in return. Even with this thing on his head... it must work very well. Yet you say in your land you ruled men and women."
"That is right."
"I would like to hear more about this. Tomorrow, perhaps. A house has been prepared for you. It's late, and you must be tired."
Tassin rose and nodded to Molla as Shizana stepped forward to guide her. Outside, Sabre stood where she had left him, and she realised that he had been waiting there the whole time. Different guards watched him; the shift had probably been changed many times during the hours she had spent with the Queen. Sabre looked tired and aggrieved.
Tassin went over to him. "I did not think I would be so long. Are you all right?"
His smile was bitter. "I'll live. It would have been nice if they'd let me sit down, maybe even offered me some food."
Tassin bit her lip. She should have realised that these women, who clearly disliked men, would not extend any courtesy or comfort to one. Until now, Sabre had taken care of her, and now it was her turn to see to his needs, since the warrior women would not allow him any real freedom. Here was her opportunity to prove that she was not a silly girl, and already she had failed him.
"I did not realise." She turned to Shizana. "Can you bring food for him?"
The huntress' lip curled. "We don't feed men; he can feed himself."
Tassin's jaw dropped, and Sabre muttered, "How nice."
Several spear points bristled around his neck, pricking his skin, and Shizana scowled. "He's not permitted to speak!"
Tassin glared at the tall woman, her hand on her dagger. "He speaks if he wishes, that is my wish!"
"You heard the Queen's orders."
"I'm also a queen. While I shall respect Molla's wishes, and will pass on her orders, you will also respect mine. Sabre may speak to me whenever he wants to, and I will have no more spears at his throat." She pushed away the nearest spear. "He was not speaking to you, so he broke no laws. It's too late to hunt now, and he's hungry, so bring him food." Tassin glowered at Shizana, and the warrior woman's eyes lowered before the royal glare.
"If it's your wish, Queen Tassin."
Tassin turned to the women who surrounded Sabre. "You may go, all of you! I do not need guards to watch him. He obeys me, and is no danger to anyone."
The women looked uncertain, but lowered their spears and walked away, casting many looks back at them.
Sabre eyed Tassin. "Obeys you?"
"I had to tell them that, or they would kill you."
"So you told them what? That I'm your slave?"
"No! You do not understand these women, they seem to hate men."
He shook his head. "I understand them perfectly. They do hate men, they're taught to by their mothers and grandmothers. To them, a man is worse than an animal, especially since he's a member of their own species."
"I must tell you the rules before you break one."
"And then they'll try to ram spears through my gut?"
"Yes. You are not allowed in a house, and you must not speak to any of these women, or touch them. You may not eat with them, and it seems you must provide your own food."
He nodded as if it was no more than he expected. "They're a hospitable bunch, but I don't mind hunting as long as we're here, and we're not going to be here very long."
"Oh?" Tassin raised her chin. "I would like a rest from travelling, and they're good to me."
"Bully for you. I'm the one who'll have to sleep outside and maybe get attacked for some minor, probably imagined, infraction of the rules. I don't enjoy being glared at and spat on."
She frowned. "No, of course not. Perhaps you could camp in the forest until I'm ready to journey on."
"Well, at least one of us will be comfortable."
"It will only be for a short while, I promise."
Sabre looked pensive, his brow band sparkling in the gloom. "A few days, no more. If you want to settle down here, you can count me out. These women may have once had a genuine gripe against men, but they're too hostile for my liking."
Shizana returned with a haunch of slightly burnt meat, which she gave to Tassin, who passed it on to Sabre. They followed the huntress to a hut, where she bowed to Tassin and bestowed a final glare upon Sabre before departing.
Sabre inspected the meat. "I wonder if this is edible. It looks like they threw it in the fire, maybe they pissed on it for good measure."
Tassin hesitated. "You think they would do that?"
"I wouldn't put it past them."
She glanced inside the hut. A fire burnt in a stone hearth, a pile of bedding lay in one corner and a pottery jug stood on a low table. She held out her hand. "I will wash and heat it for you."
He gave it to her, and she entered the hut, where he unthinkingly followed.
"Get out!" she whispered. "You are not allowed in here."
"Oh, right."
Sabre retreated and opened the pack, arranging his blankets outside the wall. Tassin washed and heated the meat, then sat with him while he ate it.
Between mouthfuls, he said, "I'll stay here tonight, and tomorrow I'll find a comfortable spot in the jungle. I'll show you where I am, then I'll stay there. If you don't appear within the next week, I'll leave. I'm not hanging around here like an unwanted dog."
Tassin nodded. "I don't blame you. They're not being very nice to you."
"That's the understatement of the century."
"Will the cyber let you leave?"
He looked away with a frown. "I don't know."
Tassin pitied him, but hoped it would not. She did not want him to leave.
The cyber's flashing warning light woke Sabre from a deep sleep, and he opened his eyes to find a spear point centimetres from his face, aimed at one eye. He squinted, trying to focus on the sharp bone tip in the bright morning sunlight. Realisation hit him like a bucket of cold water, and he jerked back, banging his head on the wall.
A slender girl stood over him, her brows knotted in a thunderous scowl, the spear gripped in white-knuckled hands. Her expression was half resolved, half scared, but her weapon did not waver from his eye. A spear through the eye was as fatal to a cyber as anyone else, and Sabre tensed, ready to defend himself. The girl was about Tassin's age, her face innocent of paint, and Sabre hoped he would not have to hurt her. He turned his head slowly, forcing the girl to shift her target to his ear.
"Tassin," he called.
The young Andaron tensed further. Her nostrils flared and her eyes glittered. Sabre was surprised she had not tried to kill him in his sleep, only inexperience kept her from it now, he surmised. There was no reaction from within the hut, and Sabre cursed Tassin's heavy sleep.
"Tassin!"
The girl's face twisted as if his shout had pushed her over the edge, and she drew back the spear, preparing to ram it into his ear. Sabre's hand flashed up to grip it as it stabbed at him, stopping her thrust with an iron hold. She pushed against him with all her might, determined to kill him now, it seemed. Sabre held the point away and bellowed, "Tassin!"
The girl screamed in a strangled, agonised howl, either with rage or frustration. A thud and a muttered curse from within the hut told him Tassin was awake, and moments later she appeared, her hair tousled, clutching a blanket around her. Her eyes widened at the sight of the wild-eyed girl trying to shove a spear into Sabre's head.
She flapped her hands. "Stop it! Leave him alone!"
Sabre shot her a scathing look, unimpressed by her tactics. Tassin grabbed the girl's arm and tried to pull her away. The girl lashed out with her elbow, knocking the Queen aside with a grunt.
By this time the ruckus had woken other Andarons, and bleary-eyed warrior women rushed over, clutching spears. Sabre was glad he still lay in his bedding, so there was no way they could accuse him of any wrong doing. The girl continued to scream and lean on the spear.
Shizana was amongst the first to arrive, her blonde tresses in disarray. To his surprise, she did not grab the maddened female and drag her away, but laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. Tassin rose to her feet, clutching her stomach, and the girl stopped screaming.
"Mishra," Shizana murmured in a soothing tone. "Mishra, it's all right, he's not going to hurt anyone. Leave him, my dear, he won't hurt you."
Mishra rolled her eyes at Shizana. "I'll kill him!"
"Yes," Shizana agreed. "If he comes near you, kill him. Leave him now."
The girl eased up on the spear, then yanked it away. Sabre sat up, watching her warily, in case she misinterpreted his action for an attack. Shizana stroked the girl's hair, but Mishra still breathed hard, her face twisted with loathing. She glared at Sabre as if he was a poisonous toad that had just crawled into her breechclout.
Tassin pointed at the girl. "She hit me!"
To Sabre it sounded petty, but Shizana's brow furrowed. She gripped the girl's shoulders and turned her, breaking her eye contact with Sabre. "Mishra, did you strike Queen Tassin?"
"Queen?" Mishra shot Tassin an incredulous glance. "I didn't know she was a queen. She tried to stop me!"
"He belongs to her. She's a queen from across the desert."
Mishra looked stricken, and Sabre watched the unfolding drama with interest as the girl turned to Tassin. "I didn't mean to, Queen Tassin." She bowed low and laid her spear at the Queen's feet. "Break my spear, for my offence. I'm sorry."
This was obviously some form of ritual performed as an apology. The skilfully made spear must be the girl's most prized possession. Tassin looked amazed and confused, but soon collected her wits.
"I will not break your spear if you tell me why."
Mishra's face twisted as if Tassin had just condemned her to death. Shizana stepped forward to stand beside the girl. "Please don't ask that, Queen Tassin."
Tassin rolled her eyes. "Then you tell me."
Shizana glanced at the girl, her expression full of sorrow and pity. "Mishra and her friend Nyatt were captured by men and tortured for three weeks. She escaped, but Nyatt did not. Mishra was on patrol when you arrived. She didn't know about you and your man."
"Oh. I see."
"Tassin."
The women stiffened at the sound of Sabre's voice, and Tassin turned in surprise. "Yes?"
"Tell her I'll rescue her friend if she tells me where she's being held."
Tassin nodded, turning back to relay the message, but got no further than opening her mouth.
Mishra snarled, "Does he think we didn't go back for her? He would abandon his friend because he's a man, but I would not!"
He addressed the Queen. "So she's been rescued?"
Tassin opened her mouth again, but Mishra shouted, "She's dead! They killed her! Tell him that!"
Sabre bowed his head, and a tense silence fell. "In that case, tell her that if she can describe these men, and give me their names, I'll bring her their heads to hang on her wall if she wants."
Mishra's eyes widened in patent disbelief. "He lies! Why would he kill one of his own? Ask him!"
The Queen swung back to Sabre, who replied, "Because they committed a heinous crime, and should be punished."
Tassin turned to Mishra, who said, "All men do this! How can he think it a crime?"
Tassin looked at Sabre, who answered, "Not all men do, only bad ones."
Mishra shouted, "You would do it!"
Tassin seemed to have been left out of the discussion, and Sabre shook his head. "Never."
Mishra looked around for support, and Shizana explained, "That's because Queen Tassin controls him."
"No." Tassin finally got in on the action. "He's a good man."
"He's your puppet," Shizana said.
Tassin shook her head. "He helps me because he wants to."
Shizana looked outraged. "You lied!"
"Because I didn't want you to try to hurt him."
Shizana glanced around, and Sabre spotted the Andaron Queen plodding towards the commotion, her bevy of advisors surrounding her.
"Queen Molla will decide what to do."
When Molla arrived, puffing, the women clamoured for her attention, making the old woman wince. Tassin did not join in, Sabre was pleased to note. After a good deal of arm-waving, Molla got them to be quiet and looked at Tassin.
"Is this true? You don't really control him?"
Tassin shrugged. "I do, because he does what I say, but he isn't compelled."
"So the story about the thing on his head is false?"
"No. It used to control him, but he got free of it. Now he obeys because he wants to."
Molla looked thoughtful. "You did lie, but not completely. You did this because you feared for his life?"
Tassin opened her mouth as if to agree, then shut it, glancing at Sabre. "No. I did it because if your warriors had attacked him he would have defended himself, and he might have hurt them. Sabre doesn't like hurting people."
Sabre nodded in appreciation, and Molla sank her chin into the rolls of fat around her neck. "You think he could have defeated seven warrior women?"
"I've seen him kill twenty-two men."
The women muttered, and Sabre shook his head. That had been the cyber, not him. He would not kill anyone unless he had to, although in that situation, he would have been forced to do the same. It had been self-defence, and his offer to Mishra was born from a deep anger at the men who had abused her and killed her friend. It seemed that these women had an excellent reason for disliking men, and his resentment of their treatment abated somewhat.
Molla poked one of her advisors, who whispered in her ear, and the Andoran Queen nodded. "This offer he made to Mishra, it's genuine?"
"Yes."
"And you guarantee his behaviour?"
"Yes." Tassin raised her chin. "He'll live in the forest, where he'll be no trouble to you."
The women muttered again, and one of the advisors whispered in Molla's ear. The old Queen shook her head. "No. He'll stay in the village."
"The women spit at him."
Molla grunted, glaring around as if to spot the guilty parties. "They will stop. He'll be tolerated if he does this deed for my daughter."
Tassin glanced at Mishra. "I see." She inclined her head in a regal nod. "Princess Mishra."
Sabre stood up and stretched, indulging his urge to yawn now that the women had relaxed.
Mishra eyed him. "He's small."
Tassin giggled. Sabre, who leant against the wall, shrugged and raised his brows. Mishra was about the same height as him, a willowy girl who showed the promise of becoming a strapping woman. A fitting queen for an Andaron tribe. She stepped closer to him, gripping her spear in a white-knuckled fist, and he tensed, unsure of her intentions. Her eyes blazed with hate.
"There were five of them. All much bigger than him, two with hairy faces, one with a hairy lip. One had a scar on his cheek."
Sabre glanced at Tassin. "I need more than that."
The Queen shifted her gaze to Mishra and opened her mouth to repeat what he had said, just in case she thought he was speaking to her.
Mishra did not give her time. "I have their names." She spat in the dirt and rattled off five names.
He nodded. "Does she want their heads?"
"Yes!" Mishra snarled.
Sabre grimaced, regretting his offer to bring her the dead men's heads, which made it rather macabre. He reminded himself of what they had done, and would undoubtedly do again if not stopped. There was no gratitude in Mishra's eyes, however, and he got the impression that she would dearly like to add his head to the collection, as well as every other man on the planet.
Sabre addressed Tassin. "I need to know where to find them."
The Queen once again opened her mouth to act as a go between, but Mishra thumped her spear butt on the ground. "With the other filth, of course, in the tribe of men. Two days walk east of here."
Sabre gathered up his bedding, rolling it into a bundle.
Mishra's eyes narrowed. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
He straightened, surprised at being directly addressed, but then, he was forbidden to speak to them, not they to him. He gave his answer to Tassin. "What?"
"A weapon," Mishra said.
"It's not necessary."
"You go to kill five men, all bigger than you, with no weapon? You're a fool!"
Shrugging, he picked up the roll of bedding. "Call me that if I don't return with their heads. Now if you'll excuse me, I must go and catch or find my breakfast in the forest, then I'll leave."
Molla turned to Shizana. "Feed him."
The women dispersed, but Mishra remained, staring at Sabre as if she was trying to drill holes in him with her eyes. Tassin went into her hut to wash and dress, leaving Sabre alone with Mishra, an unwelcome situation. He placed his bedding on the ground and sat on it, trying to ignore her. She did not wish to be ignored, however.
"Stand up."
Remembering that one of the rules was that he had to obey these women, Sabre rose to his feet and leant against the wall. Mishra looked him up and down at her leisure.
"Why did you say you would kill those men?"
He turned his head and called, "Tassin, can you come out?"
She emerged, looking annoyed. "What now?"
He nodded at the Andaron girl. "Mishra asked a question. Tell her I think those men did a terrible thing, and they'll do it again to other women. They must be stopped."
The Queen snorted and turned to Mishra. "I'm not acting as a so-called go between, just to stand here and look from one to the other. If you want to ask Sabre questions, you must tell him to speak to you or leave him alone, Princess."
Mishra stepped back from the Queen's ire. "I'm sorry, Queen Tassin."
Tassin tossed her head and vanished back into the hut, and Mishra licked her lips. "How will you kill them?" Sabre ignored her, and she snarled, "Speak to me!"
"I'll probably break their necks."
"I want them to suffer!"
He met her baleful eyes. "Perhaps you'd like me to bring them back alive, so you can torture them?"
"No. Just make them suffer!" Spinning on her heel, the princess stormed away.
Sabre sat on his bedroll and waited for Shizana to bring his food. The warrior woman returned with a steaming pot, which she handed to Tassin with a toss of her head and a brief glare in his direction, to remind him of her dislike for the chore. When Tassin passed it on to him, he found that it was a creamy porridge, which he consumed with relish, his palate tired of roast buck and raw vegetables. Tassin sat nearby while he ate, fidgeted and looked worried.
"I don't know why you offered to do this. What if something happens to you?"
Sabre raised a brow. "Nothing will happen to me. I think I explained that once, in a fit of anger. This time you definitely aren't coming with me, either. It'll get me out of the way for a few days while you have your rest here with your new friends. I offered to do it because men who do things like that should be punished, and the only way to ensure they don't do it again is to kill them."
"I thought you didn't like killing?"
"I don't. I'm not doing this for the fun of it, but in the interest of justice. There's no law around here, that's why these men can rape and kill. Death is a common punishment for murderers on many civilised worlds. It might also teach these women that all men aren't bad, and perhaps in time they'll change their ways. They'd be better off if they had men to protect them. Right now they're easy prey, and it's created a cycle of victimisation and hatred."
Her eyes met his before she looked away. "But what if something does happen to you? What about me?"
Sabre smiled. "I'm touched by your concern. Stop being so pessimistic. You're safe here; the Andarons will take care of you."
"I can take care of myself!"
"Sure you can, and so can I."
Tassin snorted and re-entered the hut, slamming the door. When he was ready to leave, Sabre knocked and informed her of his departure, but only received a hostile grunt in reply. Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he set off through the village in an easterly direction, which took him across most of it. The women paused in their work to watch him pass with unfriendly eyes. He thought he glimpsed Mishra watching from a doorway, but did not turn his head to look.
Beyond the village, he increased his pace to a jog trot, which ate up the miles without tiring him. The men's tribe might be two days walk away, but he intended to cover the distance a lot quicker. The cyber flashed a warning light in his brain, indicating its dislike for him leaving Tassin, but, since she was in no immediate danger, it seemed to accept his decision.
At midday on the second day, the cyber's scanners picked up a profusion of human life signs ahead, indicating that he had found the men's village. It proved to be a larger version of the Andarons', but more disorganised and dirty; a sprawling collection of huts, shacks and skin tents bordering muddy roads. Five giant trees had been felled to create a grazing area for cattle and horses.
Many of the buildings were clustered around the bases of trees, using the massive trunks as walls. Ladders hung from the branches, and shacks were built on platforms spanning the huge limbs. People thronged the streets and scrawny dogs ran amongst them, yapping. Hammering issued from a blacksmith's, and he glanced in at a muscular man beating out a sword blade.
Weapons were his main product, judging by the number in the racks around the walls. A few women hurried by, laden with water or wood, and slatterns lounged in doorways calling raucous invitations to passers-by, eliciting equally coarse replies. Not many children were in evidence, and men outnumbered the women two or three to one. Quite a number of thin, dark-haired teenage boys hung around in frowning gangs, swaggering and sniggering, which solved the mystery of the fate of the Andarons' sons.
Sabre selected one of the five names at random and approached a whore, deciding that they would know most of the men in town. The thin, brown-haired girl, garbed in a tattered wool dress, smiled gap-toothed at him, offering her wares. Sabre glimpsed bruises on her pale flesh before he looked away.
"I'm looking for a man named Belom. Do you know him?"
"Sure do, honey, but it'll cost you."
He shook his head. "I have no money."
"What do you want with him?"
Sabre hesitated, gauging her loyalty to the village men, which, judging by her battered appearance, would not be an issue. "I'm going to kill him."
The harlot smiled again. "Are you now? In that case, you'll find him at the wood mill, that's where he works."
"Thank you."
Evidently Belom was not popular with the ladies, which spoke volumes about his treatment of them. Sabre followed the sounds of chopping, sawing and hammering that came from the edge of the village, and wandered into the hive of activity that was clearly the village's main source of income. The men dismembered one of the huge trees that had been felled to make the grazing land, the seasoned wood as black and shiny as polished ebony. They sawed the iron-hard wood into planks, which were piled into stacks awaiting transport. He collared a passing woodcutter.
"I'm looking for Belom."
The woodcutter pointed at two men sawing a plank, and Sabre strolled over to them. From the amount of progress they were making, it would take days to cut one plank, but they showed no sign of impatience. Their log spanned a high scaffold, and one man stood atop it, the other beneath. Between them stretched a shiny, well-oiled saw, which the man on top pulled up and the other pulled down, locked into a perfect rhythm, which, if disturbed, could snap the blade. They stopped and looked around at his arrival.
"No work here, buddy," the one on top said.
"I'm looking for Belom."
The second man, a brawny fellow with a thatch of black hair and a flattened nose, released the saw handle. "Who're you, and what do you want with me?"
Sabre glanced at his companion. "Can we speak in private?"
Belom nodded and walked away, leaving his partner to mop his brow and sip water from a pottery jug. As soon as they were out of earshot, Belom turned, but Sabre shook his head.
"Let's walk in the forest a bit."
Belom followed him into the trees, and when they were out of sight of the wood mill, Sabre stopped.
"This is far enough."
Belom leant against a tree. "So, what's the deal?"
"Do you remember assaulting two Andaron girls?"
The big man smiled. "Yeah, we 'ad fun with them. Boy, they didn't half fight, too!"
"Five men against two girls."
"They were Andarons, an' one of 'em still escaped."
"What happened to the other one?" Sabre enquired.
"She died, silly bitch."
"How?"
Belom shrugged. "I dunno. Someone must 'ave thumped 'er too 'ard. Why do you want to know?"
Sabre tensed. "I have a message for you from the one who lived."
"Do yer now?" He grinned. "Does she want another go around then?"
"She wants your head, and I intend to give it to her."
Belom's jaw dropped, then he bellowed and swung a fist. Sabre ducked and retaliated, not holding back this time. His fist hit the side of the man's head with a dull crunch, killing him instantly. Sabre stared down at the crumpled corpse, his gut knotted with revulsion. For him, killing was too easy, and doing it of his own volition, no matter how justified, only served to remind him of what he was; something he longed to forget. He used Belom's hunting knife to sever the corpse's head, and wrapped his grisly trophy in the dead man's shirt. Adding it to his pack, he tucked the knife into his harness and returned to the village to find his second target.
Sabre made sure that each man confessed to the crime without remorse before killing them. By sundown, he had five heads in his pack, which he hid in the forest between executions, and a sickness in the pit of his stomach, partly from killing the men and partly from the details he learnt about the crime. Although they deserved to die, he was glad when the last one was despatched with a quick neck twist. On many civilised planets, they would have been executed for murder, but he did not like being an executioner. He used the dead men's money to buy a meal before he set off for the Andaron village.
Tassin reclined in her hut, nibbling a bowl of cooked tubers in sweet sauce. Although Sabre had only left the day before, she already missed him. Shouts and screams outside made her pause, her blood chilling in alarm. Putting aside the bowl, she went outside to investigate the ruckus. Armoured men boiled into the village, and the warrior women rallied to engage the marauders, but the men were clearly good fighters. They divided their forces, and some fought the women warriors while others dragged screaming pubescent girls from their huts. Tassin turned to make a dash for the safety of the forest, and almost bumped into a man with a brand. She drew her dagger and thrust it at his belly, but he blocked it, receiving a gash on his arm.
Dropping the brand with a bellow, he knocked her down. The blow made lights flash in her eyes, and he twisted the dagger from her grip. When her vision cleared, she found him crouched over her, the dagger at her throat. She thought he would kill her, but he yanked her to her feet and hauled her towards the forest. She kicked him as hard as she could, making him grunt in surprise.
The warrior twisted her arm behind her, making further struggle futile. She screamed for help, but the women were locked in battle with the armoured raiders, outmatched in strength, skill and weaponry. The men used swords to cut down the Andarons, who had only spears, with merciless savagery. Tassin glimpsed a black-furred creature, which resembled a massive, deformed cat with tusks, chasing fleeing women. It looked like a Death Zone monster, yet its presence was strange, especially since it only seemed to attack the Andarons.
A knot of warrior women protected Molla and Mishra, and, although some men fell, more women died. Girls were dragged into the forest while the women fought the contingent of men whose purpose it was obviously to prevent any would-be rescuers from reaching them. Burning huts added to the confusion and forced the girls who hid in them to flee their shelter. The men captured unarmed girls and dispatched the older women who tried to defend them.
The warrior took Tassin into the forest, ignoring her shouts of abuse and struggles, and the arm-lock prevented her from fighting. He pushed her through the undergrowth, branches and thorns scratching her. Leaves slapped her face and rough bark scraped her arms. The pain of her twisted arm made her sick and faint, and when she sagged, the man gripped her other arm and forced her to keep walking.
The warrior thrust Tassin into a clearing where several men waited, each holding one or two struggling, wild-eyed girls who kicked and bit their captors. One prisoner's hysterical struggles tripped her kidnapper, who almost lost his grip. She bit him in the ensuing tussle, before he subdued her. Hauling her upright, he slapped her, glancing sheepishly at his grinning fellows.
More warriors emerged from the forest, some with captives. Many of the men were wounded, and tended their injuries while they waited for their comrades. The girls quieted once their hands were bound, and Tassin's captor added her to their number. He fastened a rope around her neck, and she glared at him, tossing back her hair, which had escaped its bonds.
"You're going to regret this, you mindless ape!" she snarled.
The warrior grinned, but her words caught the interest of an older man, his temples touched with grey. He wandered over, a hand on his sword hilt, to inspect her.
"Where did you get this one, Trom?" he asked her abductor, who shrugged.
"In the village, coming out of a hut."
"She doesn't look like an Andaron." His eyes fell on Trom's bleeding arm. "She cut you?"
"Just a little knife she had."
Tassin said, "You're all going to be very sorry if you don't let me go right now!"
The greying man, who seemed to be the leader, raised his brows. "And why is that?"
"I am a queen! You cannot treat me like this. My abduction will be avenged, even if I don't slit your throat first."
"Really?" The leader smiled. "By whom?"
"Someone you don't want to meet, even in your worst nightmare."
He snorted. "One man? Look around; how many men do you see here?"
"I don't care how many men you have! He'll kill you all for this, and I'll help him."
"A little thing like you?" He chuckled. "You won't be killing anyone, my pretty. I'd like to meet this man, if he exists, but unfortunately we must be going."
The leader walked off, and her captor tied her to the other girls and led them into the forest.
Gearn glared at Murdor, who leant on his sword, smirking. It had taken two days to find the trail that led away from the river, despite the wolf's keen nose, for the frequent rain had washed away the scent. Murdor had chanced upon the pile of ash left by a campfire, yet he looked as smug as if he had used magic.
The wolf sniffed around the ashes, but the trail blazed out of the clearing was obvious, although older than it had been before. Gearn scowled at Murdor, who grinned, clearly enjoying the magician's exasperation. After two days of following Murdor through the dense undergrowth, Gearn's aching legs, scratched arms and scraped shins soured his mood. Murdor had not bothered to create such a wide, easily-traversed trail as the warrior mage had.
Shooting Murdor a last angry look, Gearn followed the wolf down the track, glad to be following the wider one again. Murdor tramped after them, swinging his sword and whistling, something that he had discovered annoyed Gearn, so he did it almost constantly.
Sabre did not make such good time on the return trip, and arrived at the Andaron village in the afternoon, four days after his departure. Even before he came within sight of the village, the stench of death carried to him on the breeze, and he quickened his pace, foreboding chilling his blood.
A few huts stood amongst the charred ruins of those that had been torched. The paddock was empty, and the vegetable gardens trampled into the mud. The bodies of several big, black-haired, bronze-skinned men were nailed to posts on the perimeter. Their bellies had been slit to allow their entrails to spill out in a gory mass, and carrion birds had started their grisly feast.
Young boys stood in hollow-eyed, apathetic groups, and a few girls huddled together, their eyes red and puffy. The foetor of blood and entrails thickened the air as he walked towards the central square, where a funeral pyre blazed. Andarons wandered amongst the wreckage, collecting debris to feed the fire. There was no sign of a jet-maned head amongst them, and a strange ache filled his chest as he approached Tassin's hut.
Charred wood and crumbling walls marked the spot where it had stood, and his stomach clenched. Shizana stood nearby, watching him with narrowed eyes that glinted with hatred. Sabre opened his mouth to ask her what had happened to Tassin, then remembered that he was forbidden to speak and closed it.
If he broke the rules after the Andarons had been so recently raided, they might well try to kill him. Turning away from Shizana's baleful glare, he called Mishra. Shizana gasped in outrage, but before she could do anything else, the princess stepped from the midst of a group and walked closer. She frowned, her eyes darting from him to Shizana. He unslung the pack and emptied the heads at her feet, each one wrapped in a bloody shirt.
"There's your justice," he said. "Where's Queen Tassin?"
Shizana started forward, her spear aimed at his belly. "You are forbidden to speak!"
He addressed the princess. "You ordered me to speak, Mishra."
She scowled at him before glancing at Shizana. "I did."
Mishra pulled the shirt away from one of the heads, and Shizana lowered her spear. The princess stared at the dead face, then unveiled the next, studying each one before looking at Sabre again.
"Did they suffer?"
"They knew why they died."
She nodded. "That will do."
Her eyes filled with tears, and Shizana put down her spear to hug the sobbing girl, stroking her hair. Sabre shifted, anxious to find out what had happened to Tassin, and Shizana deduced his need.
"Your queen is alive. The Oroka have taken her."
Relief washed through him, easing the knot in his stomach, and he swung away.
"Wait!"
He turned to find Mishra facing him, brushing tears from her cheeks. "What will you do?"
"I'm going to get her back."
Mishra walked closer, gripping the hilt of her knife. Spotting his new weapon, she plucked it from his harness and handed it to Shizana, who had picked up her spear again. The princess studied him, and her scrutiny puzzled him.
"There's not a mark on you." She frowned. "You killed those men with your bare hands, and they didn't even land one blow? You have no bruises, no cuts, nothing. Perhaps they were already dead, and you just stole the heads?"
"No, I killed each one alone."
"All of them were bigger than you!"
"Size isn't important."
Her eyes narrowed. "I hope you're right, if you're going after your queen. The Oroka are savage men. They stole eighteen girls."
"How many did you kill?"
"Eight, but we lost fourteen warriors. The village will feel their loss for years to come. Tarren had two daughters stolen, but luckily for her, she's dead. Entill had four younglings, two boys and two baby girls. Now others will have to foster her daughters, and the boys will go to the men's village early. It will be bad for them; the men will abuse them. Twelve girls are orphaned, eight boys. Many more will suffer for this day's work; not only those who died and those who were stolen. This is what men do!" She spat on the ground.
Sabre inclined his head in commiseration. "I grieve for you, but I must find my queen."
Mishra nodded. "Go find your queen, if you can, but they've been gone for three days already. If you don't find her, don't return, for without her you're not welcome here."
"I'm not like those men, Mishra. I think women should be cherished and protected, not abused and butchered. I understand how you feel, and I'll get Tassin back if she still lives."
Mishra snorted. "She lives, rest assured."
Retrieving his knife from Shizana, she held it out. Sabre took it warily, careful not to touch her hand, then turned and trotted away. He would have liked to have had his sword back, but did not want to push his luck by asking for it.
The raiders had left plenty of tracks, and he followed them to a fresh trail at the far end of the village. There were about twenty men in the raiding party, and the trail headed west. A set of clawed tracks mingled with the men's', as if some sort of monster had accompanied them. Sabre settled into a fast lope, anxious to make up for lost time. With three days' head start, the raiders might reach their destination before he caught up, and the thought of Tassin suffering at their hands drove him on even after night fell. He did not doubt that the raiders' reaction to the Queen's barbed tongue would not be pleasant.
The cyber's infrared vision made travelling at speed in the dark forest easy, so nightfall did not slow him. Before the silver moon rose, he passed through their first camp, and a few hours before dawn he came across the second one. He was gaining on them rapidly, but by dawn his leaden limbs forced him to rest for half an hour.
The mile-eating lope he employed was part of a cyber's training, faster than a trot but not as tiring as a run. At noon, hunger forced him to rein in his anxiety long enough to kill a bush pig and cook it, knowing he would be useless if he did not have the strength to rescue Tassin when he found her. After the meal, he slept for four hours, and woke strengthened and refreshed.
The trail crossed areas of thick bush and open forest glades, the terrain becoming more diverse. Several times it became difficult to follow, and he lost time scouting around before he picked it up again. The Oroka made no effort to hide their tracks, evidently not expecting pursuit, which, judging by the fatalistic acceptance of the Andarons, they had never had before. Since the women stood no chance of defeating so many armed warriors, their disinclination to try to rescue the stolen girls was wise.
By dawn the following day, he had slowed to a trot. More than thirty-six hours of fast loping with little rest or food taxed even a cyber's stamina. He had encountered a third and fourth campsite, yet despite the women the Oroka made good time, and he worried about Tassin, who was not as fit or robust as the Andaron girls. Again he hunted, ate, and slept. If he caught up with the Oroka before they reached their destination there would be a battle at the end of the trail, and he did not want to be too exhausted to win it.
Tassin stumbled behind the girl to whom she was tied, too tired to take note of where she was, or care. Never had she walked so far, so fast. Sabre had set a reasonable pace and stopped to rest when she grew tired, but her captors moved fast, prodding the staggering girls along.
Since her abduction, it had been a nightmare of stumbling through thick undergrowth, tripping over roots and being whipped by the branches that the girl in front pushed aside. Twice she had fallen, and the line had halted while a warrior dragged her to her feet and helped her on her way with a push. When they had stopped for the night, she had collapsed, her muscles jumping with weariness.
Now she reeled forward with dragging feet, fatigue numbing her mind. Her legs and arms ached, and she prayed for the journey to end before she passed out from exhaustion, afraid of what might happen if she did. She tried not to dwell on what may await her at the journey's end. Numerous nasty possibilities had already presented themselves, all of which were frightening. She cursed Sabre. Why had he gone off to kill those men instead of staying at her side? What had taken him so long, and where the hell was he?
The control unit's warning light woke Sabre, and he sat up in alarm, glancing around. The sun sank behind the trees, and he cursed. He had slept for too long, craving rest, and, although he was stronger for it, he had lost valuable time. A glance at the scanner information revealed no danger in his vicinity; the cyber had used its warning only to rouse him. After finishing the remains of the meal he had cooked in the morning, he moved on at a fast lope again.
The terrain grew damper, pools of stagnant water glinting amongst the trees on either side of the trail, which became a well-worn track. There was little undergrowth, since the ground was too wet to support anything other than the strange tress, which stood on huge roots. Furtive movement in the mud and water made him wonder what kind of creatures lived in this swampy environment.
Safe on the road, he increased his pace further, his feet flying over the ground. With a cyber's stamina, he could keep up this pace for hours. Only the need for food or sleep would slow him down. His bio-status was not that good, however. It hovered at about eighty per cent, and had not been at a hundred per cent since he had stepped out of the casket. As the hours passed, it dropped.
Through the fog of weariness, Tassin became aware that branches no longer whipped and scratched her. With an effort, she raised her head to look around. Tracts of swamp, populated with odd-looking trees, bordered the road on which she travelled. Her aching feet trod a dusty surface devoid of the roots and rocks that had tripped her on the forest's leafy floor. Her breath rasped in painful gasps, and her lungs burnt. The Andarons trotted, apparently tireless, but she could go no further. Her head spun, and the world floated around her like a bad dream, then she collapsed.
The rope around her neck jerked tight, and dragged her for a short distance before the girls stopped. She rested her head on the dirt and closed her eyes. Her limbs seemed to be made of lead, and all she wanted was to let lassitude claim her in a blessed tide. She longed for the comfort of Sabre's presence, and wondered where he was. Now would be an excellent time for him to appear.
Something prodded her in the rump, and a voice shouted, "Get up! Move, woman!"
A hard hand gripped her arm and tried to pull her to her feet, but she sagged. Another voice spoke, and she recognised the softer, more cultured tones of the leader.
"Leave her, she's had it."
"Leave her here for the carracks?"
"No. We're almost home, carry her."
The first voice grumbled, then the rope around her neck was released, and rough hands hauled her upright. She was hoisted over a shoulder, and hung there while the warrior walked. His pungent smell stung her nose, and his shoulder dug into her midriff. She cursed her inability to keep up with the Andaron girls, hating her enforced proximity with the warrior.
Gearn cursed as he straightened from his perusal of the trail, staring up it. Two hours ago, they had come across the village, and while circling it the wolf had found this track. The beast stood further up the trail, looking back. Murdor leant against a convenient tree, paring his fingernails with his knife. There was no doubt that the prints were the warrior mage's; his boots had a distinctive zigzag pattern on their soles. The wolf was excited, which could only mean that Tassin's scent was here too.
The other tracks worried Gearn; some twenty odd male prints mixed with the smaller footprints of many women. Judging by the state of the village, the men had raided it and taken a number of women, including the Queen. The warrior mage followed them, his track a lot fresher than theirs. Gearn scowled. The warrior mage had clearly lost her to these men, and the mage feared what might happen to her. If he brought soiled goods back to Torrian, the King would be furious.
This thought spurred Gearn to start up the track after the wolf, which bounded ahead. Murdor pushed himself away from the tree and followed, his heavy footfalls loud. Gearn whispered a spell to give himself strength, and fresh vigour flowed into his legs.
Tassin's captor carried her into a city and dumped her on stone paving with the rest of the girls. The men removed the ropes and thrust the girls into a metal cage in front of a pillared edifice on one side of a plaza. The older warrior, whose name she had learnt was Rai, came to stand before her. She refused to twist her neck to look up at him, and was too tired to stand, so she ignored him. He hunkered down, meeting her glare with hard brown eyes.
"I can take my pick of the women, you know. As a raid leader, my status allows me to do this. Perhaps I'll choose you. How would you like that?"
Tassin raised her chin. "I would rather eat pig dung."
"Really?" He smiled. "That can be arranged. It's been years since my last wife died. No woman has interested me since, but I find you interesting. You're different, not like these dull-witted blondes." He nodded. "I think I'll have you for my own."
"I'll murder you in your sleep."
His smile widened. "You have spirit. I like that." Rising, he called to one of the warriors, "Bring this one to my house and give her to my sons."
Two men pulled her to her feet as Rai walked away, and she shouted after him, "You'll regret this, I promise!"
Rai laughed, not glancing back, and Tassin did not have the energy to struggle. The warriors marched her along several streets, past houses and shops. The city boasted paved roads, and gardens bordered houses built from dressed stone. Flowering trees grew through round holes in the paving, adding sweet perfume to the air. Well-groomed men sauntered past, clad in well-cut tunics and embroidered trousers, their necks and fingers heavy with gold and silver. Most studied her with varying degrees of interest; some paused to stare at her. Compared to the loutish warriors who held her, they looked remarkably civilised, as if they belonged to a different culture.
Her guards stopped before a metal grill door in a quiet side street and rang the bell beside it. After a few minutes a gangly youth appeared and greeted the men by name.
One guard said, "Your father sends this to you, Marn, it seems he's chosen a new wife."
The warrior thrust Tassin forward as the gate opened, and Marn took charge of her with a grin. Her tired brain reeled in horror at the guard's words as the youth steered her into the house, passing through an enclosed garden with a pool at its centre. Two younger boys appeared and stared at her.
"Who's she, Marn?" one asked.
"Father's new woman."
The boys swapped smiles, evidently pleased by this announcement. Tassin was too shocked and dazed to speak, and the youth led her into what could only be a sitting room, judging by the padded chairs and low tables that furnished it. She sank down the couch he guided her to, and he untied her hands. Stuffed animal heads and crude paintings decorated the walls; coarse bleached curtains framed several windows that looked onto a shady street.
Two more boys, younger still, entered through another door and climbed onto a neighbouring couch to gaze at her with wide eyes. So Rai had five sons, ranging in age from eighteen to ten years old. She listened to the boys chatter about their father's new acquisition while she ate the cold roast meat and boiled vegetables Marn gave her, hunger overriding her misery. When she finished, he took her arm and tried to tug her to her feet.
"Come, you must wash and prepare for my father's return."
She frowned. "I am not primping for that pig."
Marn looked disconcerted, then smiled. "So that's why my father likes you. He's always had an eye for spirited women."
"Surely you know that what he's doing is wrong? I was kidnapped and dragged here bound like an animal. Will you help me to escape?"
He shook his head. "How else can we get women? This is the way we've always done it. One day he'll bring a girl for me."
"Where are your women? Don't your father's friends have daughters?"
"No girls are born in Oroka. We must have wives, so we have to steal them."
Tassin stared at him in astonishment. "No girls?"
"No. The elders believe we're under a curse. No girls have been born here for hundreds of years."
Stupefied by this information, she allowed Marn to tug her to her feet and lead her through the house to a tiled room with a sunken tub at its centre, which one of the younger boys was filling with steaming water. The second eldest boy entered with a diaphanous dress of pale blue silk draped over his arm.
"This was our mother's; it should fit you." He held up the gown, and she fingered the soft material, then swung around as Marn tugged at her dress' fastenings.
"What are you doing?"
"Helping you."
Tassin glared at him, and he stared back undaunted. "I can do it by myself. I don't need your help."
Marn shrugged. "As you wish."
"And I'm not wearing that dress. Don't you have anything less... sluttish?"
The boy shook his head. "That's what father will want you to wear. If you refuse, he'll just beat you."
"He'll what?"
"Beat you. He used to beat mother when she was bad. He says women need it."
Tassin gaped at him in horrified amazement, and the brothers glanced at each other before they left her to bathe. As soon as the door closed behind them, she turned to survey the room. Apart from the door, it had only two small glass-paned windows, so there was no hope of escape. Desolation overwhelmed her, and tears of misery and exhaustion trickled down her cheeks as she contemplated her imprisonment and its promise of violence, the prospect making her queasy. She sat down and covered her face, cursing her weakness and Sabre's abandonment.
When her tears dried, she decided that there was no point in wasting the hot bath. Her abused body craved the comfort and relaxation if offered. Afterwards, she donned the old pink dress, and the boys frowned at her when she emerged. They did not let her out of their sight until their father came home late in the afternoon, then they made themselves scarce. Rai eyed her dress with a scowl as he opened the bundle he carried and drew out an ornate jewelled collar and chain.
"For you, my dear. You will wear them with pride."
"Chains?" Tassin shrank back as he approached her.
"Of course, a mark of honour for an Orokan woman."
"No!" Tassin tried to evade him, but he caught her hair and pulled her back, pushing her down on a couch. She yelled and punched him, making him grunt, and he slapped her several times, hard enough to make her head swim. While she was dazed and sobbing, he fastened the collar around her neck, then hauled her to her feet by the chain.
"You will not defy me again, understand?"
Mustering her flagging courage, she spat at him, and another stinging slap rewarded her temerity. Rai used the chain to lead her into a room with a hard bed in one corner, where he released her and threw the despised silk dress at her feet.
"You'll put this on, or I'll beat you properly next time."
Rai left, and the bolt on the outside of the door slid into place with a clunk. Tassin lay down on the bed and wept, hating all Orokan men, and praying that Sabre would find her before something terrible happened.
Sabre stopped and stared ahead, his chest heaving. Sweat trickled down him, and his leg muscles jumped with fatigue. The stilt trees had thinned to reveal a city at the end of the road, built on an island that rose out of the swamp. The large, pillared stone edifice in the centre of it looked like a palace or temple. The city extended into the swamp, the wooden houses on its outskirts built on stilts driven into the mud, bridges joining them. The reason for its location could only be defensive, he mused, for an attacking army must use the road or become mired in the swamp.
Sabre pondered the situation while the last belt of stilt trees hid him from the city guards. He could sneak into the town through the swamp, braving whatever dangers lurked there, or he could enter boldly as a traveller seeking shelter. A lone man could not be seen a threat, so there was no reason for the guards to apprehend him. At worst, they might refuse him entry, then he would have to go through the swamp. He walked towards the city again, revealing his presence to any watchers as he left the shelter of the trees.
As he approached the gates, two men clad in leather armour emerged from the shade next to the wall. Their hands rested on their sword hilts, and they regarded Sabre from beneath scowling brows. He stopped and eyed them, wondering why they appeared to be so hostile. The taller man addressed him.
"What's your business here, stranger?"
Sabre tried to look disarming, and shrugged. "Just passing through, looking for a soft bed and a good meal."
The guard's eyes lingered on the cyber band. "There's no through road."
"I came across the track back there, and decided to see where it led."
A man with greying hair emerged from the shadows and stopped beside the guards. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for a woman with black hair, would you?"
Sabre smiled. "Not particularly, but I'm not fussy. I'll take any woman you have to offer."
"Very funny." He signalled to the guards. "Take him alive."
Sabre stepped back. "Hey, wait a minute! What's going on?"
"I think you're lying, and I intend to find out the truth."
The guards walked towards Sabre, not bothering to draw their swords, and he backed away. The last thing he needed was to become embroiled in a fight now, and he wondered why the grey-haired man was so suspicious. Most likely, Tassin had been threatening them with her invincible warrior, and he cursed her stupidity. He was not about to try to fight his way into the city, so it seemed he would have to retreat and sneak in through the swamp. Turning, he sprinted away, the guards pounding after him.
A cyber could outrun a normal man easily, and shouts of rage and frustration came from the guards as he left them behind. Something hit him between his shoulder blades, making him stumble. Recovering, he ran on, but the sounds of pursuit had stopped, and he glanced back. The guards had slowed to a walk and, beyond them, the grey-haired man stood holding a long tube. Becoming aware of a burning pain in his back, Sabre stopped and twisted one arm to reach the source. His fingers encountered something hard, and he pulled out a feathered dart, its tip smeared with blood and yellow fluid. He looked up at the approaching men, wondering why they had tried to poison him if they wanted him alive. Cybers were immune to just about every poison known to man, so, unless this was a new one, he was in no danger.
A warning light flashed in his brain, drawing his attention to a column of scrolling writing. Before he could read it, the world swam and his vision clouded as if a thick mist had rolled in and engulfed him. His hand dropped to his side, and the dart fell from it. The road's dusty surface rushed up as he sank to his knees, then sat back on his haunches. He raised his head to watch the approaching guards, unable to move his arms. Either this was a new poison, or some sort of anaesthetic. Whatever it was, it was working. His head sagged forward, and the road hit him in the face.
Tassin gazed out of the barred window at the streets below. The sun sank in a red glory, and tears of fear and anger blurred her vision. Rai had stayed away the previous night and today, and Marn had brought her food at midday. She looked around as the door to her prison opened. Rai entered, looking triumphant and angry as his eyes raked the tattered pink dress she still wore.
"Do you want to be beaten?"
Tassin raised her chin. "Beat me all you want, you won't make me cower like a whipped dog, or wear that damned harlot's dress."
He approached her. "You're either very stupid, or very brave. Maybe both." He paused, then added, "Your warrior arrived today."
Hope flooded her in a warm tide. "Where is he?"
"A man with an odd band on his head?"
She nodded.
"He's in the temple dungeons, where he belongs."
"You captured him?"
"He tried to run, but we caught him. So much for his exacting vengeance, he's now harmless."
"Is he all right?" she asked.
"He'll recover. I want to speak to him before he dies. The temple will be happy to sacrifice him, volunteers are scarce."
"You bastard."
Rai smiled. "I didn't believe your story at first, but you're not Andaron. We don't get many travellers, so when he appeared only hours after we got back, I knew it was him. So much for his being an invincible warrior."
Her last hope of rescue died, and Rai turned to leave, pausing at the door to say, "I advise you to be wearing that dress next time I see you."
Tassin stared at the wall after he left, too overcome with the hopelessness of her situation to allow her thoughts to dwell on the future.
Sabre drifted back to consciousness as the effects of the drug receded in waves. He became aware that he was lying on his stomach on a cold stone floor, his arms wrapped around a pillar, and his back smarted from the dart. His limbs were stiff and cold, and he gritting his teeth as a headache pounded at his temples. When he tried to release the pillar, he found that his wrists were chained together on the other side of it. Raising his head, he looked around at a large, windowless room, fighting the nausea that churned his stomach.
Several freshly lighted torches burnt in sconces, filling the room with soft light. Rusted chains hung against the walls, and a number of torture instruments occupied most of the floor space. His harness and weapons were gone, along with his medical pouch. He rested the brow band on the pillar while he waited for the nausea to ebb and the headache to become bearable. When it did, he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. The pillar was just thick enough that his arms were at full stretch around it, and he was forced to lie on his side or stomach.
A rattle and creak made him raise his head as the door opened and the grey-haired warrior entered. Two burly guards and a podgy man dressed in brown robes and sporting a monk's tonsure accompanied him. The grey-haired man smiled at Sabre.
"So, our cowardly friend is awake. You didn't live up to your reputation. The girl told me you were a mighty warrior, but you seem more proficient at running."
Sabre eyed him. "Where's Tassin?"
"Is that her name?" The warrior shrugged. "She's at my house, preparing to become my wife."
Sabre experienced an odd sinking sensation in his chest, but the man's confidence amused him when he contemplated Tassin's undoubtedly acrimonious reaction to such high-handed intentions. He smiled, shaking his head. "I doubt that. More likely she's looking for a big knife or some sort of club. She's a queen from beyond the Badlands, and you're going to regret choosing her, I think."
"We don't have queens in Oroka, only an emperor, who has many wives, none of whom could be called queens. Whatever she might have thought she was, she's just my woman now." The man paused, considering the cyber. "I'm Rai, by the way."
"So what do you intend to do with me?"
"You're going to be sacrificed, of course. But first I want to ask you some questions, with a bit of gentle persuasion if necessary."
Sabre shook his head again, not breaking eye contact with his captor. "I have nothing to hide."
"Good. Then you'll be sacrificed even sooner." Rai settled on a metal table nearby. "So, where are you from?"
Sabre decided to save them a lot of time on tedious questions, and related the story of Tassin's flight in terse, clipped sentences.
"Well, you're certainly a talkative fellow, aren't you?" Rai glanced at the fat monk, who shook his head, looking apprehensive.
"The emperor will want to see him. He crossed the Flux Zone."
Sabre studied the man with renewed interest, wondering how he knew that it was a flux. Sabre had called it the Death Zone, as Tassin did.
Rai raised a brow at the monk. "Why? He's just a wanderer."
"No one has crossed the Flux Zone before. He's dangerous; he knows too much."
"So? He'll be sacrificed, and the knowledge will die with him."
"And the woman?"
Rai frowned. "She'll be my wife; she won't talk to anyone."
The priest shrugged. "That's up to Norak. He may demand her death too."
The monk left, and Rai turned to Sabre. "So, you were manipulated by a woman. A sad tale indeed, but that's what happens when you give women choices, and make them queens, they get choosy."
"Every person should have a choice in what they do with their lives, or whom they marry. It's a basic human right."
Rai shook his head with a supercilious smile. "Not women. They don't know what they want, or what's best for them. They have to be controlled, and made to do what a man wants; otherwise they make his life unpleasant with petulant demands and peevish complaints. But I didn't come here to discuss our society, prisoner. What is that thing on your head, and what does it do?"
Sabre shifted, easing a tingling leg. "Originally it enslaved me, but it's broken now."
"How did it enslave you?"
"It controlled my mind, and made me obey the orders of my owner."
"And she was your owner," Rai said.
"More or less."
"Why did you continue to obey her when you were no longer forced to do so?"
"I wanted to."
Rai folded his arms. "Then you're a fool to continue to be her slave."
"I chose to help her. I'm not her slave."
"I don't believe you. I think that thing does more than you say. It has lights in it. If it was broken, it would not. What else does it do?"
"Nothing. The lights are the only thing that still works."
"You're lying." Rai signalled to one of the guards, who left the room. "That thing looks like old technology, and I want to know what it really does."
Sabre cursed inwardly; he had hoped that by telling the truth, he could avoid torture. If it was the kind than involved breaking bones, his modifications would be discovered, and that would lead to more questions. "You're wasting your time."
"I think not."
Rai looked around as the door opened, and the guard he had sent away returned, accompanied by the monk, who addressed Rai. "You're to bring him to Norak. He wishes to speak to him."
"He could be dangerous," Rai said. "I don't know what that thing on his head does yet."
"Norak does not fear a mortal. He must be obeyed."
"Very well, but he should be drugged, for safety."
The monk nodded and dug in his robe, producing a vial and a rag. Uncorking the vial, he sprinkled a few drops of clear liquid onto the rag and handed it to Rai. The warrior approached Sabre, who tensed. Evidently deducing his prisoner's intention to defend himself, Rai stayed out of range of his feet and pinned Sabre's neck to the floor with his knee, clamping the rag over his nose and mouth. Sabre held his breath and waited for a couple of minutes before going limp, feigning unconsciousness, but Rai continued to hold the rag in place. A cyber could hold his breath for close to twenty minutes when not exerting himself, but clearly Rai had noticed that he was not breathing. Time crept past, and the silence became pregnant with growing amazement as Rai waited for him to inhale.
The cyber's host status warning light flashed as Sabre ran out of oxygen, and he strived to slow his metabolism to a crawl, but the light turned red. Had the cyber had more warning, it might have been able to slow his metabolic rate sufficiently to extend his oxygen supply. In a few more seconds, he would pass out and inhale anyway, so he had no choice but to breathe.
A chance remained that he might be immune to the drug, but the last one had worked, so he doubted it. Whatever alien plant this chemical was derived from, its antidote was not, apparently, in a cyber's defensive arsenal. A pungent odour stung his nose, making him dizzy, and reality receded into a haze. Rai removed the rag, and someone unshackled Sabre's hands, then twisted his arms behind his back and chained them at the elbows and wrists.
The guards raised him onto rubbery legs and half carried him out of the torture chamber, his feet dragging. He was vaguely aware of passing spluttering torches in a dark corridor, and sombrely clad men stepping out of his path. A pair of doors opened ahead of them, and they entered a well-lighted hall with a high roof supported by carved pillars as thick as tree trunks. Dozens of torches burnt against soot-streaked walls, and the guards' footsteps echoed as if they were in a massive cave.
The guards forced him to his knees, and he looked up at a red-robed man seated on an ornate gilt throne; Emperor Norak, presumably. A dozen brown-robed priests stood in a row behind Norak, their heads bowed and hands clasped. Several naked blonde girls wearing gold collars knelt beside the throne, the torchlight gilding their slim bodies. Sabre averted his eyes from their unwilling exposure and turned his attention to the man on the throne. His vision sharpened and the dizziness abated as his enhanced immune system flushed the drug from his blood with a cyber's peerless efficiency.
Only the torches that hissed in their sconces broke the chamber's oppressive silence. The guards knelt, and Norak rose to loom over Sabre. A skull-like visage gazed down at him, gleaming black eyes sunk deep into the dark caverns of their sockets. Pallid skin covered his jutting bones, and a shrivelled nose protruded over his almost lipless mouth. Oiled, wispy white hair was braided behind his head, and a waxed goatee covered his chin. Norak walked around Sabre, studying him, then returned to the throne and sat down again.
"How did you cross the Flux Zone?"
"We walked."
One of the guards thumped Sabre in the kidneys. "My Lord."
"I'm not your lord."
"Not you, I meant -"
"Leave it," the emperor boomed. "He thinks he's clever." He took a gold goblet from a cowering servant and sipped from it. "How did you avoid the perils of crossing the Flux-reality?"
Sabre shrugged. "We ran, we hid, sometimes we fought."
"You don't strike me as a man who's capable of crossing the Flux-reality. My captain tells me you're a cowardly sort."
"We were lucky I guess. How would you know what it's like in the Death Zone?"
The emperor gave a glottal laugh, then coughed and sipped from his cup again. "The Flux Zone is my birthplace. I was a guardian, created by the Core, but you don't know what that is, do you?" His eyes glowed red in their dark holes. "I have powers you could only dream of, which is why these people respect me. Now, how did you cross the Flux Zone, and what is that thing on your head?"
"I already told you."
Norak gestured with a skeletal hand. "Rai, show him how we run things around here, perhaps that will refresh his memory."
Rai, who knelt next to one of the guards, nodded and rose. The soldiers steered Sabre out, his legs still wobbly. The fresh air cleared his head further, a welcome relief after the smoky confines of the palace. Two more guards fell in behind him, and Rai led them through the city, affording Sabre his first glimpse of it. The paved streets' cleanliness gave it a cold, unlived in air, and the idle prosperity of the men who wandered along them did little to relieve that impression.
Only the low mutter of male pedestrians broke the city's brooding quiet. The absence of women made it a drab, melancholy place. Instead of gaily-clad housewives swapping gossip on street corners, or haggling with merchants, a few sombre boys carried bags of groceries home from the equally dismal shops. Sabre wondered how the Orokans could bear to live in such an oppressive, unhappy society.
Rai led the little group out of the city and back along the road through the swamp to the forest. When they reached the trees, he turned onto a narrow, upward-sloping track that ended where the land fell away into a large, sheer-sided box canyon. Clearly it had once been a quarry, and solved the mysterious origin of the stone from which the city was built. Soldiers guarded a pair of stout gates that blocked the narrow gap at one end, and animal and human bones littered the floor. A dozen Death Zone monsters of various shapes, sizes and ferocious aspects paced around it or lay in the shade. Sabre noticed that the scanners did not detect them, even here, and wondered afresh at this strange phenomenon.
Rai turned to him. "Norak's pets. They have to be fed, and that's where you come in. If you don't co-operate you'll end up down there."
"Why does he keep them?"
"He controls them, and we use them to raid villages. Then they feast, and at other times they eat our criminals, vagrants and the occasional traveller foolish enough to wander into our city and cause trouble, but we don't have enough of those. They'll only eat live prey, so dead bodies are no use. No one dares to stand against us or attack us. Half of those girls we captured will be used to feed Norak, who drains them of life. A waste, if you ask me, but no one will gainsay him. If anything happened to him, those creatures would tear us apart."
"A vampire," Sabre said.
"No, he doesn't drink their blood. I don't know what he is, but he's powerful."
"He's a Death Zone monster."
Rai shrugged. "Maybe, but we're rich because of him."
"How does he control the beasts?"
"I have no idea. They just seem to do as he wishes."
"Some sort of mind control, perhaps," Sabre mused.
"Have you seen enough?"
"Too much."
"Good, now you can tell me what I want to know."
"There's nothing more to tell."
"You want to be thrown in there?" Rai asked.
"You want me to make up stories? Besides, I don't doubt that I'll end up down there whether I talk or not."
Rai scowled and headed back along the path. Sabre considered kicking his way free, but his arms were shackled in such a way that it would be impossible even for him to break the chains.
Back in the torture chamber, they waited for the monk to arrive with his bottles. Rai sprinkled the drug on a cloth again and clamped it over Sabre's nose while the guards held him. Sabre quelled a strong urge to kill the obnoxious captain, which he could have done with one kick. Such an attack would, he suspected, only result in his being thrown to the monsters, a prospect he did not relish.
When his knees buckled, they removed the manacles and lifted him onto a table. Blurred figures moved around him, pulled his arms straight and shackled his wrists and ankles to the table. By the time they had finished the haze receded, and when the room came back into focus Rai stood over him, holding a slender knife. Sabre smiled, recalling the torture he had suffered at the hands of the surgeons on Myon Two.
Under the cyber's control, he had endured the exquisite agony of being sliced open with lasers, unable even to vent the screams that had hammered in his trapped mind. Only one host had ever broken cyber control, and had leapt from the operating table to cavort around the theatre in a gruesome, screaming dance of agony, killing two surgeons before he died of blood loss and shock. Sabre had blacked out after a time, and had been spared the full horror of the procedure. Compared to that, the threat of a knife was laughable.
Rai returned his smile. "Our methods are not so crude, you'll soon see." He studied the scars that ran down Sabre's chest and limbs. "I see you've been tortured before, in a strange fashion. Still, you'll find our technique a lot more persuasive."
Sabre glanced at the weapon poised over his belly. "I've already told you the truth."
"We'll see."
Sabre gritted his teeth as Rai sliced into his skin. Just under it, the knife would encounter the silk-fine barrinium mesh and go no deeper, then there would be more questions. Rai seemed satisfied as soon as blood welled from the incision, however, and put the knife aside. The monk handed him a bottle, which he uncorked and tilted over the cut. A small, greyish creature fell out, writhing on Sabre's skin. He stared at it in horror as it paddled in his blood with countless legs, its worm-like body pulsing.
Rai drawled, "You see, this is a true instrument of torture, far more effective than knives or whips. This is a meeder, a parasite from the swamp. It likes to eat people alive. It will ingest your flesh slowly, and very painfully, I am told, gnawing its way into your guts. Once it gets there, you'll die, but the temple will consider it a sacrifice. Few men last that long, however, most are babbling when the meeder takes its first few bites."
Sabre flinched as a lance of fiery pain shot through him. The meeder had wasted no time in settling down to its meal.
"So, what have you to tell me?" Rai asked.
"Go to hell."
"The pain will only get worse, my friend. You see, the meeder digests its food before it consumes it, by injecting a particularly virulent acid."
"I've told you the truth."
Rai shook his head in mild reproof. "Your stubbornness is foolish. I can end your suffering as soon as you tell me everything."
Sabre sensed a tugging deep in his mind as the control unit urged action, but suppressed it, ignoring the scrolling readouts that demanded his attention. "I've told you everything."
Rai sighed and turned to the monk with a shrug. "It seems our friend enjoys pain."
The monk's round eyes darted to the tiny monster that chewed Sabre's flesh, his fat cheeks dimpling. "Perhaps we should employ another?"
Rai gazed at Sabre, lips pursed. "No, I think one's enough. Two would kill him too quickly."
Sabre forced himself to lie still, disregarding the cyber's urging to control the animal. Since the meeder would not be able to chew its way into his guts, it was not necessary to reveal the cyber's ability, which was something he might need soon. The creature's legs scratched his skin as it burrowed into his flesh, sending shafts of agony through him. For an ordinary man it would have been unbearable, but it did not compare to the torture of the surgeons' lasers.
Rai turned to the monk again. "We should leave him to think on his decision for a while, Brother. Let's return later, when he's feeling more talkative."
Sabre knew that the prospect of being left at the mercy of this tiny monster was supposed to panic him into talking, but it was just what he wanted. Rai gazed at him, disappointed, then walked to the door with the monk, the guards preceding them. At the door, he glanced back.
"Enjoy yourself. I hope I remember to return in time."
Rai followed the monk and the guards out, closing the door. The brow band flared electric blue, and Sabre raised his head to aim it at the meeder. The deep, almost inaudible drone filled the room, and within seconds the beast ceased to feed, then withdrew from the wound before curling into a ball and rolling off. As it hit the floor, he sagged back, the cyber band dulling. A residual burning sensation filled the wound, fading slowly. Sabre strained at the steel cuffs, but, unlike the chains in Olgara, they were made from good quality steel, and without any leverage, he could not break them.
Rai returned within twenty minutes, and his brows rose when he found Sabre relaxed on the table. He inspected the wound, then his eyes flicked to Sabre's face.
"What happened to it?"
"I think it found me unpalatable."
Rai scowled. "It didn't appear to find you unpalatable earlier."
"Perhaps it took a while to make up its mind."
The warrior's eyes narrowed. "You did something to it."
"How could I?"
Rai searched the floor and found the meeder, which he set on the wound again. The animal remained curled up, and Rai returned it to its bottle.
"So, we'll have to use more conventional methods on you, it seems."
"You're wasting your time."
Rai smiled. "Maybe I am. You do appear to be impervious to pain, and clearly you have experience with torture. Perhaps it's not you I should be torturing. I fancy the girl will be more susceptible."
"No. This is stupid and pointless. If you intend to kill me, what difference does it make what the brow band can do? Once I'm dead it can do nothing."
"Indeed, but I don't want anything to go wrong at the sacrificial ceremony; the priests would take it as a very bad omen. I don't want portents of doom bandied about simply because you have some unusual ability I'm unaware of."
"Do you really think I stand a chance against those monsters?" Sabre asked.
"You survived the Death Zone, and there are lots in there. According to Norak, you shouldn't have been able to get through, and he should know."
"Maybe there aren't so many anymore."
Rai shook his head. "There are more coming out all the time. Before, we used to see one only rarely, now we see them regularly. Don't tell me there are less in the Zone, when more are coming out of it."
Sabre frowned at the soot-blackened ceiling. Rai was no fool. These people knew something about the old technology that had once existed on this world, and he was rightly suspicious of the control unit. If he tortured Tassin, Sabre would be forced to tell him something, although he could try lying. Rai seemed shrewd, however, and Sabre was no expert in the art of deception, having never attempted it before. If it did not work, Tassin's suffering would provoke a reaction from the cyber. What kind he was not sure, but it might disable him again in an attempt to take over.
Cybers were programmed to sacrifice themselves to save their owners and people with command privilege, when all else failed. Even though it knew it could not take over, it could still inflict a great deal of pain in a bid to force Sabre to tell the truth and save Tassin. A threat to the cyber's charge would turn it against Sabre, and he did not relish the prospect of another mental battle. He needed to get free in order to save the Queen, but, with the drugs Rai employed, that would not be easy. He had hoped that at some point he would be put into a cell from which he could escape, but that seemed unlikely now.
Rai smiled, turning away. "I'll fetch the girl, then I'll find out what I want to know, I suspect."
Sabre watched him leave, helpless rage coursing through him. The thought of a fiendish meeder torturing Tassin made his skin crawl and his gut clench. He did not think he would be able to keep silent if he was forced to listen to her screams and pleas, even if the control unit did not torture him too. He strained at the cuffs again, making the metal creak and the bands dig into his wrists, but they held.
Relaxing, he considered his situation. Rai would only be convinced that he was harmless when he was dead, even though, as far as Rai knew, he could have killed him with the dart, had it been poisoned instead of drugged. Initially Rai had wanted to question him, but had probably intended to sacrifice him all along, and for that he needed Sabre alive. Now he had discovered that Sabre might have other weapons at his disposal, and could not risk him escaping.
It seemed that for the Oroka, sacrifice was the only acceptable method of execution, and entailed being flung into the pit with the monsters. The meeder had only been for torture, Rai had never intended that it should kill him. That led him to believe that the Oroka deemed it necessary for the sacrificial victim to be perceived to have a chance of survival. Their overdeveloped machismo demanded that a man be respected, even if he was a criminal or an enemy, so he had to be given the illusion of having a chance to fight free. If they flung Sabre into the canyon, he would escape. Rai clearly did not intend that to happen, which made him suspect that if a man was able to survive, the Oroka would be forced to let him live, perhaps even free him.
Tassin, he thought bitterly, would tell Rai all he needed to know, if he asked her, but Rai considered women too stupid to know anything. Sabre knew he could not see her tortured and remain silent, and the cyber would not allow it, in any case. Once Rai knew what he could do, he would undoubtedly devise a suitable method of sacrifice from which there was no hope of escape. He had to find a way to avoid telling them anything, yet still spare Tassin from torture.
Sabre turned his attention inwards to the cyber's scrolling readouts and concentrated on communicating with the tiny supercomputer. The crystalline AI weighed five grams, and was located at the centre of the brow band, one of the smallest components in it.
Tassin looked around as the door of her prison opened, clutching the chain that hung from the collar. Rai scowled at the tatty dress she still wore.
"Too stupid to know what's good for you, aren't you?"
Rai strode over to her and ripped the chain from her hands, pulling her to her feet. She kicked him in the shin, and he slapped her hard enough to make her stagger. Gasping, she blinked away tears as he led her from the room, the collar cutting into her neck. She stumbled behind him through the house, and his sons watched them pass with wary eyes. Outside, she trotted to keep up, held onto the chain and wondered where he was taking her. They passed other men going about their business, and she suspected that the women were all chained up in the houses.
Soldiers saluted Rai as he entered the pillared palace in the centre of the city, and he tugged her through the entrance hall. Brown-robed monks wandered about, their faces blank, and she wondered if this was a palace or a temple, or both. Rai did not slow his pace as he left the main hall and led her down a side passage to a metal-bound door. Thrusting it open, he pulled her into a torture chamber. Sabre lay on a metal table, his ankles and wrists clamped to it.
"Sabre!" She started towards him, but the chain brought her up short. Sabre stared at the roof with blank eyes, and her heart sank.
Rai chuckled. "How sweet."
A cold pang of dread shot through her. "Sabre, what's wrong?"
He closed his eyes, and Rai chortled again. "It seems your mighty warrior doesn't like being helpless, especially in front of the woman he was supposed to be protecting, and now cannot."
He tugged on the chain, making her look at him. "You see, he hasn't told me all that I want to know, and I don't think he will, no matter what I do to him. But if I torture you, that'll be different. Not so, prisoner?"
Rai towed her over to a wall hung with chains and shackled her wrists to it at shoulder height. Tassin's gut clenched with dread, and she cast Sabre a pleading glance.
Rai grinned. "Be persuasive, my lovely. If you can make him talk now, you'll spare yourself a great deal of pain."
Sabre's inaction annoyed her, but she refused to give Rai the satisfaction of making her beg. She could withstand a little pain, and Sabre would not allow her to suffer. He seemed oblivious to her fate, however, and she wondered if there was something wrong with him. As Rai knelt to clamp shackles on her ankles, she tried to kick him, and he jumped up and slapped her.
"Don't anger me, woman, or it'll go worse for you."
Tassin looked at Sabre again, blinking away fresh tears. The cyber band was full of flashing red lights. She wondered if the two were locked in another titanic struggle for supremacy, perhaps sparked by her prospective torture, but he was too peaceful. Rai fitted the irons onto her ankles and left the room.
"Sabre!" Tassin whispered. "He's gone! What are you doing? How are we going to get out of this?"
Sabre ignored her, and Tassin frowned and rattled her chains. He hardly seemed to be breathing, and she had to watch him closely to detect any movement at all.
Rai returned with a brown-robed priest whose round, piggy eyes flitted over Tassin, his tongue flicking out to lick thick lips. She shuddered and looked away. Rai came over to stand before her, thrusting his face close to hers.
"You'd better start screaming, my dear. Your protector seems to have fallen asleep from sheer boredom. Perhaps he cares nothing for you after all?"
Tassin's eyes widened as Rai drew a knife from his belt, and she glanced up at his hard face in disbelief. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced through her dress and into her skin. A line of blood appeared on her belly, and she hissed. He smiled, then went over to the priest and accepted a bottle from him. Tassin glanced at the motionless cyber again.
He followed her look. "I'm sure your screams will awaken him."
Rai opened the bottle and shook a grey creature into his palm. She shrank back as he held it towards her, tugged at the chains and tried to squirm away from his outstretched hand. He gripped her waist and pressed the creature to the bloody cut. She gasped as sharp claws gripped her skin, swallowing bile at the sight of the beast clinging to her belly.
The animal searched for raw flesh, found the cut and started to feed. A lance of unbelievable agony shot through Tassin, and she yelled and struggled, striving to reach the loathsome creature and pluck it from her skin. The manacles cut into her wrists, foiling her attempts to reach the beast, and she writhed, trying to shake it off. It hung on, burrowing into her. Hysteria rose in a tide of mindless terror, and her shrieks echoed around the chamber.
Sabre remained unmoving, and Rai looked puzzled. He went over and shook him, then beckoned to the monk, who hurried over to examine the prisoner. Tears of pain blurred Tassin's vision, and her screams drowned out the men's words until Rai turned and plucked the creature from her skin, stuffing it back into its bottle.
"Shut up!" he snarled, striding back to Sabre.
Tassin sagged, sobbing, as the fiery agony faded to a fierce burning. Blinking the tears from her eyes, she looked at Sabre. The cyber band was black, and his skin looked unnaturally pale. The monk hunted for a pulse in Sabre's neck, his face creased with worry and disbelief. When he looked up at Rai, his round eyes were white-ringed.
"He's dead."
A stab of pain impaled Tassin's chest, and she hung her head as fresh tears stung her eyes.
Rai bent over Sabre, also hunting for a pulse. After a moment he straightened and frowned at the monk. "I would not have thought it possible," he muttered. "A reaction to the drug?"
The monk shook his head. "Doubtful. I would say that he willed himself to death. A bad omen. Very bad. Norak will be furious."
Rai paled, shooting Tassin an angry glance, then turned back to the monk. "You don't have to tell him about this. We could tell him that we flung him into the pit with the beasts."
The plump monk shook his head again, his triple chins wobbling. "No, I won't lie to save your hide, Rai. This was your idea, and a bad one. You should have readied him for sacrifice, not tortured him."
"He might have been dangerous! We don't know what he could have done, maybe evaded the monsters and won free. That would have been a bad omen too, and we would have had to release him. At least now he's no longer a threat."
The monk shrugged. "Maybe so, but he might have been as helpless as the next man when faced with those creatures. No excuse will appease Norak now." He turned away. "Dispose of the body. I'll make my report. You'll be disgraced, Rai, so prepare yourself."
The monk waddled out, and Rai turned to Tassin, his expression murderous. "You caused this, you bitch! It was to save you that he died!"
Striding up to her, he gripped her throat and squeezed. Tassin struggled while Rai's face mottled with fury, his eyes like chips of obsidian. The world grew dim, and she sagged. She was hardly aware of the guards who dragged Rai away and thrust him out of the door into the custody of others. Hanging in the chains, she breathed in whooping gasps. A man unshackled her, supported her when she would have collapsed and took hold of the chain around her neck.
"I'll take this one back to the pen," he said.
The second warrior nodded, undoing the clamps that held Sabre to the table. Tassin cast a despairing glance at him as she was led out, her heart a leaden lump, her emotions a turmoil of anguish and anger. Was it possible that Sabre was so monumentally stupid that he had willed himself to death in order to save her from torture? Surely it would have been better to have told Rai what he wished to know? Could he have killed himself, with the aid of the cyber? She knew so little about his abilities, and if Rai said Sabre was dead then it must be true. Without him, she had no hope of escaping from this terrible place. How could he abandon her like this?
Numb with desolation, she followed the soldier through the streets to the cage that held the Andaron girls, where he removed the collar and pushed her inside. Many soft hands guided her to a pile of straw, and she sank down on it as the girls clustered around her to stroke her hair and wipe the tears from her cheeks. Surrounded by sympathy, she bowed her head and wept, which broke down the girls' composure. They joined in, hugging her and each other with wails of misery. The guard glanced around and clicked his tongue in annoyance as he surveyed the huddle of weeping women.
Sabre floated in the soft arms of darkness, remembering a time when he had done this before. It seemed like only a short while ago that he had hung in this disembodied gloom, neither fully asleep nor awake, unaware of anything except the steady beat of his heart. The control unit prodded his peaceful mind with urgent red flashes that exploded inside his skull, driving him towards wakefulness. Readouts flashed past, many of the indicators red, warning him of a low blood oxygen level and increasing hypoxia. He realised that his lungs burnt, and instinct activated his neck muscles, raising his head from the semisolid substance that blocked his nose and mouth. Air rushed into his lungs, and he relaxed.
Waking from cold sleep was always painful, and he waited for the stabbing cramps from long disused muscles. Instead, the cyber flashed a warning again, and his lungs spasmed once more. Raising his head, he drew in another gasp. Confused, he struggled through the dragging blackness of cold sleep, his heart speeding up. Again he raised his head to breathe, his inhalations becoming more frequent as his metabolism rose back to normal. Odd sensations impinged upon his waking mind. Something cold and clammy clung to him, and wetness surrounded him.
A strange bubbling noise accompanied his exhalations, which was not liquid enough to be water. Raising his head to breathe again, he tried to open his eyes and found that something sticky glued them shut. Pulling an arm from the grip of more sucking stickiness, he wiped the goo from his eyes and looked around. He lay face down in mud, his legs and one arm sunk into it. An almost impenetrable darkness surrounded him, relieved by starlight and the dull orange glimmer of a distant city.
Memories returned in a rush, and he struggled to sit up, pulling his other arm free. Glancing at the city again, he smiled, then grimaced as he realised that his mouth was full of foetid muck. He spat it out, wishing he had water to rinse it. His plan had worked, but going into cold sleep had been risky, since he did not know what these people did with dead bodies. In cold sleep, his physical functions became imperceptible. His heart beat only once a minute and his respirations were even slower. Without modern equipment to detect his brain function, he appeared to be dead. He had fooled them, and they had dumped him in the swamp, as he had thought they would.
It had seemed unlikely that they would go to the trouble of burying him, and Death Zone monsters did not eat dead meat. The easiest way to get rid of the dead was to throw them here, where the crabs would dispose of them. Lying back in the ooze, he waited for his strength to return. It always took a little time to recover from cold sleep, though not as long as it had taken him to go into it. He found that he was wearing his harness, complete with medical pouch, and marvelled at his luck.
Evidently the Orokans wanted to be rid of everything that went with him, too. He prompted the control unit for night vision, which it fed directly into his optic nerve, as it did the computer graphics it used to communicate with him. The Orokans had dumped him far out in the swamp, presumably to prevent the stench of his rotting corpse from reaching the town, although the swamp stank pretty badly. Only the half-hearted croaking of a frog and the occasional glug of noxious bubbles rising to the surface broke the silence. He shifted as his limbs sank into the mud again, finding something hard and round under his palm. Glancing down, he recoiled with a curse.
A half sunken skull grinned up at him, its eye sockets oozing mire like hideous tears, and he scrambled away from it, encountering more muddy, grinning skulls. His attempt to stand up made him sink knee-deep in the sucking ooze, and he was forced to crawl through the skeleton-infested slime as he struggled to escape the macabre graveyard.
Bony hands clutched at him, and accusing eye sockets wept mud as he wallowed amongst them, his movements enraging the tiny creatures that fed on the corpses. Worms wriggled under his hands and crabs scuttled over him as he crawled through the mire, the stench and gruesome sight of the rotting bodies knotting his stomach. A bevy of crabs scuttled from a half rotten cadaver in his path, and he changed direction to avoid it. The mud sucked at him, making rude, moist noises when he extracted each limb to move it.
A glance inward at the scanners showed him that millions of minuscule creatures surrounded him, most of which he hoped were harmless. Remembering the grey animal Rai had set on him, he shuddered, crawling over the muck as fast as he could extract his limbs from its sticky clutches. In places he floundered into wetter mud and sank into its foul embrace, freeing himself with difficulty. In drier areas coarse grass sprouted, but no stilt trees grew nearby. He crawled towards the city, glad to leave the graveyard behind, apart from an occasional bone scavengers had dragged from it.
Swamp gas rose in rude expulsions of noxious foetor, forced to the surface by his movements, and accompanied his slow slither with sounds that might have been heard at a giants' dinner party after they had feasted on beans. The struggle with the muck sapped his strength, and he paused on a patch of firmer ground to rest, eyeing the city. He had not made much progress, since walking on the mud was impossible. Even crawling, his arms and legs sank into the ooze, and he had to tug them free each time.
The men who had dumped him must have used some sort of smooth-bottomed raft that could skim over the slippery surface, and poled it over the mud. The swamp was certainly an excellent defence. An attacking army would become mired in its sucking embrace and slowed to a crawl, easy targets for the defenders. He looked at the sky, wondering how long it was until dawn. A glance at the cyber's chronometer told him that it was four in the morning. At the rate that he was progressing, he had little chance of freeing Tassin tonight.
A flashing red light in his mind warned him of danger, and he consulted the scanners. A large, unidentified life form approached him from behind, and he turned to face a flat shape sliding over the ooze, many paddles propelling it. The cyber came to life, filling the quiet swamp with its low drone. The creature raised a blunt, featureless head, turned and slithered away, diving into the sludge. Sabre sighed and quit his soggy island, lowering himself into the ooze again.
Gearn stopped and gazed at the city crouched in the swamp at the end of the road. His feet ached and his legs trembled with exhaustion after the nonstop march from the women's village. His strengthening spell was useless now that his energy reserves were gone. Lack of sleep made his head pound and his eyes burn, and only the prospect of finding the Queen in some man's boudoir kept him going. The wolf sat on the road and yawned, passing the urge to Gearn, who scowled at him.
"You'll have to wait in the forest."
As the animal trotted away, Gearn stifled a yawn and promised himself a week of sleep once they had the Queen. He headed up the road, Murdor tramping behind him. The gladiator's penchant for whistling seemed to have deserted him. The sweltering sun in which they had trudged all day had boiled the urge to be irritating out of him, apparently. As they approached the gates, a pair of stony-faced warriors confronted them, who eyed Murdor with a great deal of wariness.
"What's your business here, strangers?"
Gearn pulled out a damp handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Just travellers, seeking a good meal and rest."
The guard scowled at Murdor. "As long as you have coin, and start no trouble. A meal and a bed you can buy, but don't expect to hire a woman."
"Oh?" Gearn raised his bushy brows. "Why is that?"
The sentry thrust out his chin. "'Cause there aren't any."
"I see. Very well."
The guards stood aside, and Gearn entered the clean streets of Oroka, ambling towards the heart of it. He wondered how he was going to find the women from the village, and, realising that his chances of stumbling across them by happy coincidence were slim, he entered the next inn.
Settling at a table, he glanced around at the male crowd that quaffed ale and filled the air with their droning hubbub. The room boasted well-swept floors and freshly scrubbed walls. Even the polished furniture lacked the grubby patina that usually covered the tables of inns. Murdor licked his lips in anticipation as a fresh-faced youth took Gearn's order of ale. When the boy returned with it, the mage detained him.
"Tell me, lad, are there any women to be found in this town?"
The boy frowned as Gearn flashed a gold coin at him. "Didn't the gate guards warn you not to look for women here?"
"Well, yes, they did, but -"
"Then you should know better than to ask." The youth spun on his heel and stalked away.
Gearn sipped the thick, bitter ale, watching Murdor glug his down. "There's something odd about this place, Murdor."
The ex-gladiator wiped foam from his lips. "If they 'ave to go to the trouble of stealing women, they must be desperate."
"Yes, but we know they have them, so where are they?"
Murdor shrugged. "I could grab someone and beat it out of 'em."
"We might just have to do that." Gearn pushed his mug away and stood, heading for the door. Murdor polished off its contents before following.
Gearn headed up the road again, looking for a suitable alley, which he found in a quiet suburb. Murdor lurked in it until a lone man passed by, then grabbed him and dragged him into the lane, silencing his cries. Gearn approached the terrified man while Murdor held him, a huge hand clamped over his mouth.
"If you tell me what I need to know, we won't hurt you."
The middle-aged man nodded, and Murdor released his mouth.
"There were some women brought here a couple of days ago. Where are they?"
The man frowned, his expression hardening just as the tavern boy's had done. Murdor growled and shook him until his teeth rattled, and the Orokan cowered.
"Don't hurt me, please!"
"Then tell me what I want to know," Gearn said.
"They're in the cage by the palace temple. The building with pillars, in the city square."
"Thank you." Gearn walked away as Murdor broke the Orokan's neck with a soft crack.
Half an hour later, they found the city square and wandered across it with studied nonchalance, heading for the cage in front of the pillared edifice. Two soldiers leant on their spears next to it, watching Murdor approach with narrowed eyes. Tassin's black hair set her apart from the blonde girls with whom she was huddled in a murmuring group. Gearn approached the cage, excited to be so close to his quarry, only to be confronted by a flinty-eyed guard.
"No one's allowed near the women, fellow, so push off."
"But I want to buy one. They are for sale, aren't they?"
The guard grunted. "Tomorrow. Until then, you stay away from them."
Gearn glanced at the girls, who had stopped talking to stare at him with hate-filled eyes. The mage swung away and rebounded off Murdor's sweaty chest with an oath. Rubbing his nose, he headed for another alehouse, where he sipped sour wine and considered his options. If he waited until tomorrow, he suspected that he would find some rule banning outsiders from buying the women, so it would be better to steal her tonight. He told Murdor of his plan while the giant downed a second mug of ale, and he grunted and nodded. Deciding to catch up on some sleep, the mage rented a room and retired to it, leaving Murdor to drink.
Sabre woke with a terrible crick in his neck from sleeping on a narrow beam that buttressed the stilts of one of the houses built over the swamp on the edge of the city. His mouth tasted as if something furry and old had made a nest in it; a mixture of mud and bile. The black swamp mud had dried to a hard shell, which cracked and flaked off when he moved. Easing his backside on the beam, he restored the circulation to various parts of his posterior.
The sun sank towards the marsh mud, huge and red through the dusty atmosphere, and he picked dried mud from his face while he waited for the light to fade. Boots tramped overhead, mingled with the scurrying steps of playing children, their shrieks and laughter disturbing the dusk's stillness. His stomach growled, and his tailbone had developed a sharp ache. He shifted again, wishing that the sun would hurry its descent.
The activity above lessened as people retired to their houses for the night, and lights appeared as torch-bearing men lighted street lamps. More feet tramped above him when the city's nightlife began, and music drifted from the town. Sabre sighed, willing the hours to pass as his perch grew increasingly uncomfortable. Hours crept by before the city darkened as street lamps ran out of oil, and staggering footsteps overhead told of men reeling home with too much liquor in their bellies.
When at last an eerie silence fell over the town, Sabre eased himself off his perch and into the mud once more. With his slithering crawl, now well known to him, he made his way to the city's solid foundations. He paused to daub himself with fresh mud, then moved up the bank into the deserted streets. A few sputtering lamps still cast dim glows, and he switched to infrared.
Finding Tassin in the sprawling warren would have been impossible without the scanners. Unfortunately, most of the buildings were stone, and he hoped she was not incarcerated in one of them. He was pretty sure she would be with the rest of the girls, and searched for structures capable of housing them. The first such edifice he encountered turned out to be a barracks, and he trotted past it. Most of the life signs were patrolling sentries, and these he avoided. To his surprise, there was a group of eighteen life signs on the scanners, which meant they were either in a wooden structure, or out in the open. He found himself in a square bordered by pillared, important-looking buildings, and the one he had seen from outside the city dominated it. Staying in the shadows around the perimeter, he came to a cage full of girls. A pair of guards stood beside it, idly chatting while they leant on their spears. Sabre crept up behind them, but as he got into position, one man looked up with a curse.
"What's that smell?"
His companion sniffed. "Swamp mud."
"Never smelt it so strong before."
Sabre realised that he was the source of the stench, and his nose had become immune to it. Creeping from the shadows, he gripped the men's necks and banged their heads together. Their spears clattered onto the cobbles, and he lowered the unconscious soldiers, then waited a few moments to see if there was any reaction to the noise. When none came, he approached the cage.
Tassin stared into the darkness, her eyes gritty from weeping. The other girls had moved away after they had cleaned her wound, plaited her hair and comforted her. She ached with weariness, but the dread of what tomorrow would bring gave her no peace. Over and over, she saw Sabre's still body on the table, and a stab of pain shot through her heart each time. She tried to banish the image, but that only brought back the terrible visions of what was going to happen tomorrow, and she could not decide which was worse.
Fear lived in the pit of her stomach like a cold, writhing snake, but she tried not to show it. As the eldest, and a queen, she had to set an example for the others, who looked to her for leadership. Earlier on, some drunken men had approached the cage, calling crude comments and promises. The guards had kept them away, but the shouted threats had made the girls cringe. Now the town had grown quiet, and some of the Andorans had slipped into an uneasy doze, twitching and moaning as their terror invaded their dreams.
A terrible smell wafted into the cage, making her wrinkle her nose in disgust, and several girls groaned at the added irritant. This was really an awful place, she mused, a dung hill in a cesspit; a fitting home for the men who dwelt here. She looked over at the guards, wondering if they had noticed the stench, but they were stretched out on the ground, apparently asleep.
Snorting, she turned away, then almost leapt out of her skin when a hiss came from behind her. Swinging around, she peered into the shadows. After some fruitless searching, she wondered if she had imagined it. Perhaps a beast had crawled out of the swamp, bringing the stench with it. A muttered curse made her peer harder into the darkness, widening her eyes.
"Tassin."
The Queen glanced at the other girls, who did not seem to have heard anything. The whisper had been barely audible, but she was sure it came from the smelly shadows. No one had asked for her name, not even Rai. She moved closer to the bars, trying to pierce the gloom. Something black shot through the bars and gripped her arm, yanking her closer. She opened her mouth to bellow in alarm, but a second hand clamped over her mouth, reducing her outcry to a whimper. The stench that emanated from the hand made her eyes water, and she struggled.
Warm breath fanned her ear as a voice whispered, "Tassin it's me, Sabre. Keep still and be quiet."
The Queen froze, her eyes widening as the shadows moved. Sabre was dead, so this had to be a trick. Yet who else knew her name, or his? Still she could not believe it; she had seen his corpse. She tried to wrench away, but the hand that gripped her was like steel, holding her against the bars.
The whisper came again. "Feel the cyber if you're not sure. I'm not dead."
Tassin slipped a hand through the bars and touched a muddy face, shuddering at its sliminess. Her fingers encountered the familiar shape of the brow band, caked with mud like the rest of him, which was why she could not see its lights, and she relaxed.
"Okay?" he asked.
She nodded, and he released her. She scrubbed the mud from her lips, revolted. "You stink!" she whispered.
"I know. I'm glad to see you, too. Wake the girls, tell them to be quiet. I'm getting you out of here."
Tassin turned and crawled amongst the Andarons to shake them awake and whisper the instructions. Many still gasped and whimpered when a man-shaped shadow detached itself from the darkness and moved to the front of the cage. Sabre came to the door, gripped the bars and pulled them apart. The metal creaked as it bent, then the bolt snapped with a dull 'plink'.
Sabre opened the door and gestured for them to follow, raising a finger to his lips. Tassin led the girls, who clung to her and each other. Sabre's muddy disguise was sufficiently repellent to prevent her from touching him again. They followed him along the edge of the square and into a narrow side street. Sabre did not need to pause at corners to peer around them, but headed towards the edge of the city at a brisk walk. No one spoke until they had scrambled down the bank and encountered the sea of mud. Tassin stopped dead, causing a pile up behind her.
"Sabre, you're not suggesting we cross this, are you?"
He looked back at her, and white teeth flashed in his black face. "I'm afraid so."
"What's wrong with the road?"
He sighed. "Remember Olgara? This is the difference between the wall and the gate, between escape and recapture."
"This is different, no one has seen us."
"There are guards at the gate."
She snorted. "I'm not climbing into that filth."
Sabre approached her, and she recoiled from his smell. "That's exactly what you're going to do, Tassin." She jerked back when he took hold of her wrist, opening her mouth, and he muttered, "If you scream, that will be the end of our escape."
Tassin closed it with a snap. "I wasn't going to scream."
"Good." He pulled her closer, his muddy face centimetres from hers. "Soon you'll smell just as bad as I do, little queen."
Sabre swept her up and carried her down the slope, ploughed into the malodourous mud and ignored her hisses of outrage. She clung to him, trying to stay out of the slime, but he grinned and lowered her into it. The muck burped rudely, and a rancid smell wafted up from it. Tassin grimaced, trying to keep as much of herself clean as she could, like a cat in a quagmire. To her horror, Sabre scooped up a handful and proceeded to smear it on her with all the glee of a little boy in a mud puddle.
"Stop that!" she growled.
"Get dirty. It's the best disguise. Be mud in mud, and no one will see you."
"Ugh!" She shuddered as he plastered the cold muck onto her, and it slid down into her bosom, invading her slip. "You're going to pay for this."
"I know. That's what I always get for rescuing you, isn't it? Told to get my dirty paws off you, and now threats. Well, this time you're as dirty as me, Your Majesty." He grinned, smeared mud on her face and rubbed it into her hair.
"Do you have to be so thorough? I think you're enjoying this."
"Yup. Tell your little friends to get dirty."
The Andaron girls hung back on the bank, twittering like a flock of startled birds. Tassin growled at them, and they climbed gingerly into the mire. Noting their reluctance to get dirty, she picked up a handful of sludge and hurled it at them. This evoked muted squeals, then they got the idea and anointed each other, faint giggles erupting. Tassin looked up at Sabre as he smoothed the slime onto her cheeks.
"I'm glad you're alive."
He smiled. "Me too."
"How did you do that?"
"Cold sleep." He smeared another handful onto her neck. "It's the way cybers are stored in their caskets. The body's functions are slowed almost to the point of death, undetectable to anyone but a skilled doctor. It takes quite a while to sink into, and almost as long to recover from, which is why I nearly drowned in the swamp."
"You can do it at will?"
He smeared mud on her forehead. "It takes a little time, but yes, if the cyber co-operates."
"Why didn't you just tell Rai what he wanted to know?"
"Because then I'd probably be dead, and you'd be his wife."
Tassin stared at him while he continued to plaster her with sludge, remembering Rai's rough slaps and threats. "Rai was disgraced. I hope they sacrifice him."
Sabre met her eyes with a startled glance, and she wondered how it was that a supposedly civilised man like Rai could be so brutal, while one designed as a killing machine was so gentle. His solid presence was like a bastion of good in a sea of evil, and she flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. He patted her back in an embarrassed manner.
"He hit me," she whispered.
Sabre hugged her, imparting a wealth of comfort, and Tassin would have stayed there all night, but he pried her away. "We must get going. I think the girls are ready."
Looking at the black, mire-covered monsters that had once been pretty young girls, she had to agree, stifling a giggle. Sabre gripped her wrist when she floundered in the mud.
"Crawl over it, don't try to walk on it, you'll sink. Tell the girls to hang onto each other; we don't want anyone getting lost in the dark."
Tassin passed on the instructions, and the girls floundered nearer, hanging onto her while she took a firm hold of Sabre's harness. He began his slithering crawl, towing the string of girls, who plucked slender limbs from the sucking slime.
Gearn woke after dark and stumbled down to the taproom, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning. Murdor was slumped over a table, emitting a rumbling snore and the reek of ale. The rest of the patrons had left, and only the bartender remained, polishing tankards and setting them in rows on the shelves. It took a great deal of prodding, slapping and shouting to rouse Murdor, then Gearn plied him with water and bread. The ex-gladiator growled, but the mage persisted until he was sober enough to walk. Two boys appeared and swept pointedly around the pair, their message obvious.
Both the moons had set, and the city's street lamps were almost all extinguished. Gearn led Murdor through the dark, deserted streets to the square, where they found the guards asleep on the ground. Gearn blessed his luck, and hoped the girls would not cause an outcry if he told them that he had come to rescue them. If they did not rouse the guards, they might even escape without a fight. He went to the cage and searched the dim interior for the huddled forms of sleeping girls. Not finding them, he moved around the cage and discovered the door open, its steel bolt sheered clean off.
With a yell, he pounced on the nearest guard, hauled him up by his collar and shook him. The man scowled and clutched his head while Gearn shouted in his face. When the gist of Gearn's raving penetrated the guard's mind, he scrambled to his feet and woke his companion with over-zealous kicks, then shouted for reinforcements, rousing the warriors in the barracks down the street. Men came running, and the sentry pointed at Gearn.
"Not me, you idiots!" Gearn shouted, but the warriors grabbed him and the swaying Murdor. The giant swore and drew his sword, shook off his assailants and laid about him with wild, half drunken swings. Everyone ignored Gearn's enraged yells. Two soldiers gripped the mage's arms and dragged him away from the knot of struggling men around Murdor. An officer arrived, pulling on his trousers and trying to draw his sword at the same time. He dispatched torch-bearing warriors to search for the girls, but most concentrated on subduing Murdor.
Sabre's acute ears picked up the distant ruckus, and he urged the girls to go faster. He glanced back at the city, where men with torches ran about, their shouts growing louder as they moved towards the swamp. The girls whimpered and clung to each other, and Sabre found that he was making no headway at all. He turned and pried several hands off his harness, surprised that some of the Andarons were now clinging to him.
"Move, girls, crawl, don't just hang on to me. I can't pull you all along."
The girls obeyed, and they made progress again, Tassin crawling beside him. The cyber warned of an approaching swamp creature, and Sabre turned his head as the band activated. The mud on it hid its glow, but its deep hum vibrated the air. A slithering, snake-like beast veered off and whipped away across the mud at a remarkable speed, and Sabre glanced at the city again.
Torch-bearing men gathered at the edge of the swamp, launching rafts. He increased his speed, using his elbows to pull himself along, and floundered into a patch of wet mud. Muted wails came from the Andarons while he struggled out of it, then he turned to help the girls who had followed him in. Tassin was the first one he pulled out, and she helped the others.
Rafts skimmed over the swamp, flaring torches throwing light onto the mud. One approached them, and he whispered, "Get down! Everyone keep still and quiet!"
A man used a pole with a wide plate on the end of it to push the raft closer. The warriors aboard it peered into the gloom, holding their torches high. The girls flattened themselves on the sludge, and Sabre hoped that from the raft they would look like a patch of lumpy swamp. The craft passed by, accompanied by a plopping noise of the pole being pulled from the muck. As soon as the pool of torchlight moved away, he urged the girls to start crawling again. The swamp's natural flatulence would disguise the squelching, sucking sounds they made. More torch-bearing soldiers swarmed along the road that led to the city, searching the edge of it. Sabre kept an eye on the rafts that slithered over the swamp, torches waving as their occupants scanned the mire.
After a while, he allowed the girls to rest on a patch of drier ground, and they lay gasping while they watched the soldiers search. They had to reach the stilt trees before dawn, or they would be spotted in the daylight. When the girls had caught their breath, he moved on, ignoring their faint moans of protest.
Sabre had to ward off two more swamp denizens before they reached a clump of stilt trees as the first pale pink light brightened the sky. He crawled through the roots in search of a hiding place amongst them and found four trees that grew close together, their interwoven roots forming a platform. Heaving himself onto it, he helped the tired girls up beside him, and they reclined on the roots with sighs of relief, dripping ooze.
Tassin started to wipe off the mire, and he said, "Leave it. We'll have to hide here until night falls again, we need the camouflage. Those men aren't going to give up so easily. They'll increase their search in the day, hoping to find us stuck in the mud."
Tassin nodded, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion. The Andarons settled down, and Sabre found a fairly comfortable niche between two roots, wedging himself into it. Tassin crawled to his side and pillowed her head on his chest. Sabre leant back with a sigh as sleep washed over him in a welcome tide.
The cyber woke him, and he opened his eyes to peer through the stilt trees at the sunlit swamp. A raft approached, its occupants scanning the clump of trees and muttering in angry tones. He glanced at the girls, meeting many scared eyes as they looked to him for guidance, and he raised a finger to his lips. The swamp mud had dried to a light grey that matched the trees' muddy roots, and even he could hardly see them.
Only Tassin still slept, her cheek on his chest, her arms wrapped around him. He waited while the men on the raft peered into the trees. They drifted off, and the girls relaxed, shifting to more comfortable positions before settling down again. Tassin sighed and squirmed closer, her arms tightening around him, and he wondered what made her cling to him in her sleep. He shifted to restore the circulation to one leg, then settled back once more.
When he woke again, shadows crept across the swamp as the sun sank below the horizon, trailing streamers of crimson cloud. Many of the girls picked dried mud off each other and conversed in whispers, but Tassin still slept, now almost in his lap. Sabre smiled at the Andarons, cracking the mud on his cheeks, and some of them giggled. Their eyes flitted to the comfortable Queen, whose limbs were entwined with his. He shook her awake, and she sat up with a start, disentangling herself.
Sabre consulted the scanners, finding that the Orokans still searched the swamp, though none were close to them. Glancing at Tassin's mud-caked face, he grinned, for the hard grey sludge had cracked in a grotesque mask. She grimaced, cracking it further, then reached through the roots and acquired a fresh handful, which she clapped on his face, smearing it over his nose and mouth. The girls burst into giggles, and Sabre smiled, wiping the excess off. As the Queen turned to grin at the Andarons, he scooped up a handful and reached around to plaster it on her face.
Tassin gasped and reached for more sludge, even as Sabre scooped up another handful. Soon a full scale mud fight was in progress, and the girls joined in, slinging muck at each other. Muted giggles escalated to soft shrieks, and Sabre signalled for silence, which they managed with difficulty. Tassin scored a hit in his eye, and he squashed a glob down the front of her dress.
Tassin retaliated with a slimy handful down his trousers, until there was not a scrap of clean skin on any of them, even under their clothes. He grabbed Tassin's wrists when she tried to plug his ears with muck and held her at bay until she calmed down, putting an end to the fun. The distraction had served to pass the time until it grew dark, but now it was time to move on. The girls quieted, realising that they were hungry and thirsty, but their spirits were lifted and they were all covered with wet mud, a painless procedure when done playfully. Sabre released Tassin and climbed down through the roots into the sludge. She groaned and followed.
Amongst the trees, they were able to pull themselves along with the roots, and made good progress until they had to cross open patches. More trees loomed out of the darkness, and the mud became a little firmer, allowing them to crawl on their hands and knees. The cyber's scanners tracked the progress of the men now searching the edge of the swamp. A group approached, and Sabre signalled his charges to lie flat and still, watching the bobbing torches.
The men shouted and swore while they blundered through the trees, tripping over roots and cursing when they sank into patches of wet mud. As soon as they passed by, Sabre moved on, clambering through the roots when the footing grew firmer. The moons rose together, and their combined light made the cyber's infrared vision unnecessary.
A soft shriek made him whip around in alarm. A girl on the fringe of the group, who had evidently been crawling under a root, lay prone, struggling to free her arm. She grunted with effort and whimpered with pain and fear. Her distress drew the others to her aid, and Sabre climbed over the roots towards them. Belatedly consulting the scanners, he found a purple dot next to her, indicating an alien creature.
Moving faster, he reached the girl, whose arm was clamped in the jaws of a blunt-headed, ugly grey animal. Its neck emerged from a hole in the mud, and he guessed that there was a lot more of it underground. The Andorans beat it with their fists, but it merely closed its eyes and tugged at the girl's arm, trying to drag her into its lair. Sabre shoved the girls aside and bent to grip the creature's armoured head. Slipping his fingers into its mouth, he hooked them onto its serrated teeth and pulled.
The swamp beast writhed, striving to keep its jaws closed, and the girl whimpered as blood oozed from her wounds. Sabre cursed and yanked the animal's jaws apart, snapping its lower mandible with a dull crack. The girl recoiled, and the creature flailed until he broke its neck with a quick twist. Dropping the corpse, he turned to the Andaron girl, who clutched her arm, blood seeping between her fingers. She stared up at him with scared, amazed eyes, and he dug in his medical pouch for a roll of bandage.
The girl shrank back when he reached for her arm, and he beckoned to Tassin, holding out the bandage. "Here, someone will have to wrap that wound. We don't want to leave a blood trail for everyone to follow."
One of the girls near Sabre took the bandage and bent to tend to her friend, shooting him an unreadable look. He moved away and sat down to wait, and Tassin joined him. As soon as the girl's arm was bound, they set off through the roots once more, and the going became easier when they moved further into the trees. They floundered into a few deep puddles of mire, but for the most part they were able to walk and crawl through the trees with comparative ease, the worst behind them. When the ground grew firmer, he urged the girls into a trot, splashing through pools of clear water as they drew near the edge of the swamp. Tassin puffed beside him, her dress heavy with mud.
"Why are we running?" she panted. "They're not chasing us."
"We've left a trail out of the swamp that even a brain-damaged monkey could follow. They'll be after us soon."
"Then what? Do we run all the way back to the village?"
"I don't know. Maybe they'll give up if we get far enough ahead."
Sabre knew that he would, in all likelihood, have to kill their pursuers. Tassin kept up with the pace for a while, then slowed to a walk to catch her breath. The swamp trees gave way to open forest, moonbeams dappling its leafy floor. When they stopped to drink at a stream, the Queen sat on the bank and washed the mud off her face. Sabre caught many of the girls staring at him with a mixture of wariness, curiosity and bewilderment, and sympathised with their dilemma. When their thirst was slaked, he urged them on, helping Tassin with a hand under her elbow.
Dawn found them walking, exhausted. Tall, grey-barked trees with pale foliage populated the forest, and red-gold leaves carpeted it, interspersed with patches of moss and clumps of ferns. Sabre called a halt, and the girls collapsed with weary groans. After a rest, some of them foraged, and Sabre made a brief foray to bring Tassin a fruit. The Andorans stretched out and fell asleep, and Sabre's eyelids drooped.
The control unit's alarm jerked him from his doze, and he sat up. The scanners showed over thirty men on their trail, only one and a half kilometres away, approaching fast. He shook Tassin awake and shouted at the girls, who sat up frowning and knuckling their eyes.
"Get going!" he yelled as he dragged Tassin to her feet and propelled her through the trees. In the time it had taken to get the girls moving, their pursuers had gained half a kilometre. Tassin stumbled beside him, and Sabre supported her when she tripped over roots, her feet dragging. The Andorans ran ahead, then waited for them, and the scanners told him the men were catching up rapidly. Tassin's pace was far too slow; her tired legs buckled with every step, and she growled with frustration. Sabre picked her up, ignoring her mumbled protest, and increased his pace as only a cyber could, his feet flying over the ground.
The girls made a valiant attempt to keep up, but were soon left behind, forcing Sabre to slow down. He matched his speed to theirs, but although it was a lot faster than Tassin's, their pursuers still gained on them. Sabre could have out-sprinted the Orokans, even carrying Tassin, but if he left the girls behind they would be recaptured. Although they were not his primary concern, he wanted to save them as well, and knew he could.
The scanners showed that the soldiers were only a few hundred metres behind now. He wanted to urge the girls to greater speed, but knew they were exhausted, and the only way they would escape was if he stopped their pursuers. The soldiers' shouts rang through the forest, mingled with the crashing of heavy boots, and the girls darted fearful glances behind them. They entered a grassy, sunlit glade. Ferns bordered it, and animal trails criss-crossed it. Men burst from the trees, sprinting after them in a horde of yelling, sword-brandishing brawn.
Sabre shouted, "Run!"
The Andorans scattered like startled deer, and Sabre stopped. Putting Tassin down, he pushed her away and turned to face the first warrior, who charged him with sword raised. Sabre ducked under it and lunged, sending the Orokan flying backwards with a punch that lifted him off his feet. Half the men chased the Andorans, leaving fifteen to deal with Sabre.
They attacked in a roaring rush, impeding each other in their eagerness to reach him. He smashed aside any who came close enough, spinning to face every threat, his movements too fast for the eye to follow. This was a supreme test of a cyber's combat skills, though not the ultimate one. The only fighter who could hope to match him was another cyber. He was a killing machine, the hated, mocking voice in his mind told him. This was his purpose. He was good for nothing else. Cyborg! His mind became detached and calm, slowed the frenetic pace and allowed him to partially compensate for the number of foes.
The cyber switched to full combat mode, and a faint green grid appeared in Sabre's vision. On it, the predictive targeting data flashed in soft red lines as the supercomputer calculated each warrior's potential action and plotted it, supplying a recommended countermove in a flash of violet text. Sabre's brain, trained to react to the prompts, followed the control unit's strategy without any effort on his part. When the cyber had been in charge, he had been unable to see this data; the supercomputer had controlled his motor cortex. For the most part, he followed its directions, and often his reactions were identical to those of the control unit, a legacy of his training.
The cyber warned him of weapons aimed at his back, which gave him another advantage. One he needed when pitted against so many. Swords stabbed and slashed at his belly, forcing him to twist away. He drove his foot into a man's ribcage, sending him flying from the melee. A sword shaved past Sabre's side as he evaded it, and a gasp from behind told him that an Orokan had taken the thrust. He used his full strength to smash faces, break bones and send warriors sprawling with dented armour. As the mob closed in, he glimpsed Tassin standing in the forest, watching him with wide, horrified eyes.
"Run!" he shouted.
Many tall men blocked his view, and hands gripped his arms and twisted them in an attempt to overpower him. Using them for support, he kicked in one man's ribs and sent another reeling with a crushed face. Sabre ducked a sword stroke aimed at his neck and wrenched an arm free, a meaty crunch rewarding his backward elbow jab. Another sword bounced off his skull, and blood ran down his neck. He avoided his attackers with swift, lithe movements and slew them with brutal efficiency.
A cyber's combat reflexes were natural and graceful, but their deadliness was evident in the number of warriors who fell around him. Since he was unarmed, the brow band became a weapon, and two men dropped dead with oblong indentations in their skulls. He was a weapon all on his own, quite capable of taking on many armed opponents with his fists and feet. A blade sliced across his belly, the barrinium mesh just under his skin deflecting it.
The four men who held his arms twisted them until his shoulder joints popped, and he dragged them about in his efforts to avoid the weapons. A brawny arm slid around his neck from behind, and he jerked his head back, cracked the man's skull and sent him staggering. Sabre grunted when a knife gored his side and jerked his knee into the warrior's solar plexus, smashing another man's nose with a head-butt. A fist hit him in the stomach, and his kick sent the man sprawling. Sabre threw himself forward, using his weight to twist his arms free. Completing the roll, he leapt up and punched a warrior in the throat.
Only five men stood against him now, and they gave him a wide berth, their swords held before them. The scanners tracked them as they manoeuvred behind him, and he picked up a fallen sword. Two attacked, and Sabre stepped aside, grabbed a man's head and snapped his neck with a skilful twist. A sword sliced his belly as he jumped back and kicked, breaking the warrior's jaw before he could recover his balance.
The remaining three retreated to hold their ground until their comrades returned, but Sabre went after them. They were clearly surprised that a wounded man would carry the fight to them. Sabre dropped into a roll to avoid the swords that slashed the air where he had been a moment before, then leapt up in a spinning kick that flattened two. The last man fled, and Sabre turned to follow Tassin. Before he had taken three steps, the warriors who had pursued the Andarons emerged from the forest empty-handed, and he faced fifteen again.
Once more they closed in, and Sabre drove his foot into an Orokan's face, felling another with a backhand slash to the throat. A sword skittered off the internal armour on his belly, opening a shallow gash, and a knife slashed his back. Twisting, he punched the knife-wielder in the head, crushing it like a rotten pumpkin, then kicked another man in the jaw, breaking it with a sharp crack. He stabbed and slashed, forcing his foes to jump back to avoid his sword, and wounded some. Sweat and blood ran down Sabre's face, stung his eyes and blurred his vision.
A flashing red light in his brain warned him that the cyber's host analysis was critical. A soldier jumped in front of him and thrust his sword into Sabre's chest. It struck the metal plate on his sternum and drove him back into the men behind him. A knife sliced into his throat, and he kicked backwards, rewarded by the crack of breaking bone. The warriors flung themselves at him and bore him to the ground, rendering his sword useless. He kicked one in the ribs and another in the belly. Dropping the sword, he gripped the head of the man who had him pinned and broke the warrior's neck with a savage twist.
The world swam around him, and he fought on pure instinct, no longer able to comprehend the data the cyber supplied. He relied instead on the years of training that had honed his reactions to immediate retaliation without thought or hesitation. A blow on his thigh made him lash out, killing the man who had sliced it open. He pushed the dead man off his chest and tangled the legs of another warrior with his own, bringing the man down, then killed him with a blow to the back of his skull. A wave of blackness washed over him, and lights danced in his vision.
The battle had become a blur of movement dulled by a red haze of fatigue and blood loss and punctuated by the crunch of breaking bones as his fists and feet found their mark with unerring accuracy. A warrior tried to drive a sword into Sabre's gut, and he rolled onto his side. The blade slid off, inflicting another wound. He gripped the man's arm and yanked him closer to smash his face with a full power punch. A tide of weakness engulfed Sabre, and he rolled to his feet, his head spinning.
Fallen warriors littered the ground, some twitching and groaning, while others held smashed faces or broken limbs. The rest lay still in tangled, impossible positions, weapons abandoned amongst them. One man stood at the edge of the clearing, looking back. When Sabre glanced at him, he turned and trotted away, clasping his ribs. Sabre sank to his knees, then back on his haunches, bowing his head while he gasped. Lowering himself to the ground, he flopped onto his back and closed his eyes as the chill of shock and blood loss crept through him.
Trickles of blood and sweat ran across his skin. Some of his wounds burnt and throbbed while others remained numb. Fighting to stay conscious, he rummaged in his med kit and extracted two ampoules. With shaking hands, he broke the seals and injected the clotting agent into his thigh, flank and belly, then lay back again, his lungs straining for air. He could not remain here; some of the men were merely unconscious. If he passed out, they might wake and kill him. The cyber's host status light was a steady red, indicating that his condition was critical. Only adrenalin kept him going.
Sabre struggled to his feet, tottering. Blood oozed from his wounds and sweat blurred his vision, as well as periodic waves of star sprinkled blackness. Stumbling over prone soldiers, he reeled into the forest, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Using the cyber's video feed, since his eyes were not working so well, he walked into the undergrowth. Pain shot from his thigh at every step, and he clung to passing trees whose branches offered aid. He kept going for as long as he could, then collapsed and crawled under a bush before he passed out.
When Sabre woke, the air cooled as the sun sank. He drifted back into the harsh reality of his situation, and the forest welcomed him with its gentle greenness. The lilting song of woodland birds was a soothing counterpoint to the faint croaking of frogs. As soon as he moved, pain flared from his wounds, and his gut clenched when he sat up. A crust of dried blood covered his abdomen, and the scabbed wounds in his thigh and flank oozed afresh. Most of the dried mud had been scraped off during the battle, and what was left mixed with the blood, some of which was not his, in a brown paste.
Sabre leant against a tree and rested for a while, trying to gather what little strength he had left. The cyber's host status light flashed, which indicated that he had recovered somewhat. His liver had released its store of blood to replace some of that which he had lost. His condition was still serious, but no longer critical. A raging thirst burnt his throat, and he climbed to his feet, clinging to a sapling as waves of dizziness washed over him. When his heart had speeded up to compensate for his low blood pressure, he hobbled through the forest until he encountered a trail.
The Andaron girls, being skilled in forest lore, should not have left one, so he hoped it was Tassin's, and followed it. The forest passed in a blur, and he concentrated on what was in front of him, avoided trees and used saplings and vines for support. Tassin's trail of scuffed moss and overturned leaves was easy to follow, and he limped faster when his stiff muscles loosened. He slaked his thirst in a stream, hoping Tassin was well on her way to the village by now, and would return with help.
A few minutes later, the scanners detected a stationary human on the track ahead, and Sabre approached quietly. A muddy form huddled next to a tree, her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, her face buried in her knees. He stepped on a twig, and Tassin's head snapped up, her eyes wide.
"Sabre!"
Leaping up, she hobbled to him and flung her arms around his neck, making him stagger and grab a sapling. Trust Tassin to put her foot in something, he thought.
"I thought you would be killed!" she said, her eyes glimmering with tears.
"I'm hard to kill, remember?" His legs folded, and he sank to his knees, then back onto his haunches. Tassin crouched beside him, her horrified eyes flitting over his scabbed wounds.
"You're hurt!"
Sabre chuckled, blood loss and his sense of the ridiculous making him euphoric. Did she really think he could beat thirty-two sword-wielding warriors without injury? She had thought he would be killed, but not hurt, apparently.
"I'm a bit battered, but I was a slightly outnumbered."
"I would have gone for help, but I twisted my ankle."
He sighed as dark abyss yawned his mind. "You would."
Tassin gave a shocked cry when Sabre keeled over backwards, senseless. His ashen face and clammy skin alarmed her, and her eyes flinched from the terrible gashes on his belly and chest. She straightened his legs and scraped some leaves into a cushion for his head, then crouched beside him, wishing she knew more about medicine. At least the wounds were no longer bleeding, and what he seemed to need most was rest. She lay down beside him, and the forest's soothing sounds lulled her into an exhausted sleep.
Tassin woke with a start, opening her eyes to find several tall blonde women standing around her, their spear butts resting on the leaves. Pale morning light filtered through the leaves in golden shafts, gilding the Andorans' bright hair.
"Shizana!" Tassin scrambled to her feet, grimacing as her ankle protested. The warrior woman stepped forward to help her.
"I'm glad we found you, Queen Tassin."
"So am I."
Mishra moved closer, eyeing Sabre. "What happened?"
Tassin smoothed her muddy hair. "Sabre followed us to the Orokans' city and freed us. We spent two days in the swamp, then the Oroka caught up with us. The girls ran away, and Sabre stopped the Oroka from following them."
Shizana nodded. "We found them while we were hunting, so we came to look for you. You're fortunate indeed that Mishra wanted to hunt on this side of the forest." She cast a meaningful look at the princess.
Tassin pulled a face. "I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle, then Sabre found me."
Mishra peered at him. "Is he dead?"
"No, he's just hurt."
"Where are the Oroka?"
Tassin shook her head. "They were fighting Sabre, then he told me to run, and I left. I haven't seen any since."
Mishra scowled. "He couldn't have beaten them. He must have run away also."
"I don't know, but he's been in a terrible fight." Tassin turned to Shizana. "We need help to get back to the village."
Mishra asked, "You expect us to carry him?"
"Why not? The least he deserves is a bit of help!"
"We will not touch him!"
"You would just leave him here to die?" Tassin demanded. "After all he's done for you?"
"He's a man!"
"And a human being!"
"He can manage on his own."
Tassin opened her mouth to give Mishra a tongue lashing, but Shizana placed her arm around the princess' shoulders.
"We'll aid him, Queen Tassin, never fear. As you say, after all he's done for us, he has earned our help."
Tassin closed her mouth with a snap, glaring at Mishra. Sabre opened his eyes, then closed them again with a grimace and groaned, "Oh, no."
Tassin turned to him. "Are you okay?"
"I've been better."
She smiled. "You've looked better too."
Sabre glanced down at himself. Those parts of him that were not crusted with dried gore were smeared with a mixture of blood and mud. "They fought dirty."
"The Andorans will help us back to the village."
He swept the band of stony-faced women with sceptical eyes, which came to rest on Mishra, who glowered at him.
"Where are the Oroka?" she demanded.
"Mostly dead, I'm afraid."
She thumped her spear butt on the ground. "That's impossible! The girls said there were over thirty of them!"
He nodded and winced. "Thirty-two, actually. Some were just unconscious when I left, and two ran away."
"We lost fourteen warrior women to kill eight of them, and you say you killed thirty, alone?"
"Like I said, some of them were just unconscious."
The Andoran princess looked incensed. "You lie! That's not possible! You ran away, and lost them in the forest."
Tassin rounded on the princess. "Sabre doesn't lie! If he says he killed them, then he did."
Mishra subsided under Tassin's wrathful glare, shooting a scathing glance at Sabre, who lowered his eyes and fingered the crusted scabs on his stomach.
"I didn't kill all of them," he muttered again.
Shizana gestured to two women, who approached him with obvious reluctance, handing their spears to others. They gripped his arms and helped him to his feet, supporting him as he hobbled after Tassin and Shizana. Plainly they considered him so loathsome that they would only touch him under duress, but Sabre seemed glad of their support.
The journey back to the Andoran village took two days at Sabre's slow pace, and sapped the last of his strength. The women provided fresh meat each night and blankets to sleep on, looking shocked when Tassin curled up beside Sabre. He was not all that keen on the idea himself, but did not have the energy to argue with her about it. He cited his wounds as a reason to keep her from cuddling up to him, which was not altogether unfounded.
When they shuffled into the village under the curious stares of the women who came out to watch the procession trudge in, Sabre could barely put one foot in front of the other.
A furore erupted when Shizana refused to allow Sabre into Tassin's new hut. He sat on the ground with his head in his hands while Tassin argued that he needed rest, a soft bed, good food and medical attention. Shizana would not be moved, but when she could take no more of Tassin's barrage, she sent a warrior for the Andoran Queen. Molla arrived with her bevy of advisors, looking annoyed at being roused from her comfortable chair. Tassin turned to vent her wrath on the Queen, but Molla held up an imperious hand.
"There's no need to lecture me, Tassin. I'm glad you have returned safely." She looked down at Sabre, eyeing the blood that seeped from his thigh wound. "He's fulfilled his promise to my daughter, and now he's freed our young girls who were captured by the Oroka and avenged our warriors who were slain." Molla glanced at Mishra, who stood grim-faced beside her. "Therefore, he'll be allowed to stay with you, and the midwife will attend him. When he's recovered, he'll be banished once more."
Tassin nodded. "Fair enough."
Molla slipped an arm around Mishra's slender waist. "We're grateful, Tassin, even my daughter, though she does not show it, is thankful. It would be truly churlish of us to deny him aid now, after all he's done." She shot a hard glance at Shizana. "We may hate men, for reasons of our own, and shun their company, but we'll help those who help us."
Shizana bowed and strode away.
Molla gazed after her. "She is proud. As chief of the warriors, she must be. I think it shames her that a man succeeded where she failed."
"But it was Shizana who helped him in the forest when Mishra would not."
"Ah, yes." Molla nodded. "Shizana is fair, and doesn't hate men the way Mishra does. She was willing to aid the man, but not so far as to break the rules. That's why she's a good warrior. She was helping as much as she could, you understand?"
"Without breaking the rules."
"Exactly. I'll have the midwife come to you, but you had best get him onto the bed before he passes out. Few will be willing to carry him." Molla dismissed the crowd with a regal wave and led Mishra away.
Tassin helped Sabre into the hut, where he sat on the bed with a sigh. She removed the muddy harness and heated water, using it to wash off the worst of the dried blood. Her stomach knotted at the sight of the wounds she found under the crusts, amazed that he had survived, never mind walked away. Sabre sat with his eyes closed, and only an occasional twitch betrayed the pain she inflicted, although she tried to be gentle. As she was throwing out the dirty water, the midwife and her two apprentices arrived.
The large, motherly woman shook her head while she inspected Sabre's injuries. She ordered him to remove his boots and trousers and sit on the floor. The Queen slumped on the bed while the midwife took charge, sending her apprentices for more water, which she used to slough the dirt from his wounds.
By the time she was satisfied that they were clean, water ran out of the door. Sabre sat on the bed while she stitched the wounds on his back, then he was allowed to lie down. He closed his eyes and seemed to drift into an exhausted doze in spite of the pain. Tassin watched him with deep concern, noting that there were an abnormal number of flashing red lights on his brow band. When she finished her needlework, the midwife smeared the wounds with a strong-smelling green paste, leaving some for Tassin to apply later. She bound the Queen's ankle with a strip of cloth and ordered her to rest it, then gathered up her bag of medicine and left.
An older woman brought a pot of broth at dusk, and Tassin shook Sabre awake. His eyes kept closing unless she continued to shake him, and it took a great deal of prodding and persistence to feed him a bowl of broth. She settled down on the extra straw mattress Shizana had brought, satisfied that she had done all she could for him. In spite of this, images of him beaten and bleeding to death invaded her dreams, making her toss and turn.
Gearn glared at Murdor, who leant on his broom, scratching his armpit. After the brawl in the square, they had languished in the Orokan dungeons for two days before being brought before the judges. When two warriors returned from the party sent to track down the girls and informed the judges that the man with lights on his head had freed them, Gearn and Murdor were acquitted of the charge. Blood had been spilt in the brawl, however, even though no one had been killed. Murdor was blamed for it, with Gearn as his accomplice.
The sentence had been four days of service, which involved sweeping streets and hauling garbage. Their first job had been to scrub the blood from the square's stones. Murdor did little, leaving Gearn to do the bulk of the work. Gearn had never done so much hard labour, and his healing spells gave him little relief from his aching back. He now hated this city's cleanliness, convinced that he was the only person keeping it that way.
Without his bag of potions and magical items, he could not cast a spell powerful enough to free them. Nor could he conjure his bag without the potion he used for that. Even if he could, the only spell that would ensure a clean getaway was the translocation spell, which had proven fickle when he had used it to circumnavigate the Death Zone. He could cast a confusion on the guards to facilitate their escape, but Murdor would still have to fight his way out of the city, and Gearn doubted that even the giant would be able to do that.
According to the rumours that circulated amongst the soldiers in hushed tones, the warrior mage had defeated thirty men and slain seventeen of them, which made Gearn wonder afresh if Murdor would be able to vanquish him. Sighing, he pushed the broom again as the guard scowled at him. Just a few more days, and they would be free.
Sabre spent most of the next week asleep, rousing only to eat and drink before dozing off again. Five days after the fight, Tassin, who sat vigil at his bedside, noticed the brow band's flickering pattern change. Two new red lights flashed, and her concern grew when his skin became flushed and sweat poured off him. He groaned and muttered in a strange language that she assumed was his own tongue. She laid a hand on his brow, and snatched it back in shock when she found his skin burning hot. When the midwife arrived, she was convinced he would die, and ordered buckets of water to be poured over him in an effort to cool him.
Two hours later, the fever abated as suddenly as it had developed, leaving him weaker. After that, his wounds healed swiftly, which surprised the midwife, who spent a great deal of time grinding leaves and bark to make the pungent ointment Tassin smeared on the wounds. Tassin spent most of her time with Sabre, leaving only for an occasional walk or to do chores. She would sit beside the fire and watch him sleep, comforted by the sound of his breathing. To her surprise, Mishra often came to stand beside the bed and stare down at him, strange expressions flitting across her face, as if she was trying to come to terms with him.
Tassin was darning a tear in the tattered pink dress, and Sabre snored softly as usual, when Mishra broke her habitual silence.
"The day after we returned with you, I took a patrol to the place where he fought."
Tassin glanced up. "Oh yes?"
Mishra's expression was a mixture of puzzlement and awe. "We found seventeen bodies."
The Queen smiled, returning her attention to her sewing. "He did say he didn't kill all of them."
"Seventeen! We killed eight, at a cost of fourteen warriors, and he killed seventeen on his own!"
"And he wasn't even trying."
"What do you mean?" Mishra turned to frown at her.
"Sabre hates killing people. He would rather just beat them unconscious if he can. Against so many, I suppose he had no choice. It was him or them."
Mishra eyed the sleeping cyber. "It must be strange to know a man so well."
Tassin smiled again, her sewing forgotten as she too gazed at Sabre. "I hardly know him at all. He's an enigma to me. I do know that he's gentle and kind, but that's about it."
"From my experience, that's not normal for a man."
"It depends on how they're raised. If they're taught to respect women, they don't treat them badly."
Mishra wandered over to the fire in the corner, where a pot of broth bubbled, and stirred it. "They're not like us. They have no feelings. They enjoy inflicting pain and dominating women."
Tassin tended to agree, remembering Rai's brutality and Torrian's reputation, but then she thought of Sabre's gentle ways and shook her head. "No, not all of them. There are good men, like Sabre."
"Certainly if we had men here, the Oroka would not be able to steal our young girls."
"That's true. Why don't you keep your sons, instead of sending them to the men's village, where they're taught to despise women? Then they return to abuse you as men."
Mishra shook her head and blew on a spoonful of broth. "We don't trust them. They could rise up and enslave us again."
"Is that why you became autonomous?"
Mishra glanced at Sabre as he shifted and sighed, relaxing when he resumed his soft snore. She tasted the broth and stirred it again. "Yes. Many generations ago, we were slaves. We tilled the fields, hauled the water and wood, bore the children and cared for them. Women were bought as wives or mistresses. Fathers sold their daughters. Men had as many wives as they wished."
"What did they do?"
"They hunted, sold the skins the women prepared, the produce they grew, and the daughters they bore."
"So the more wives a man had, the richer he was?"
Mishra nodded. "We rebelled. We ran away one night, all of us. They hunted us, and there were some terrible fights. Many women were recaptured, many more were killed. Of the two hundred and eighty-six who ran away, only fifty-two made it here."
Tassin was stunned. "Were the Oroka your tribe before?"
"No." Mishra snorted. "They're just savages who discovered that we have no male warriors to defend us. The men who enslaved us, we left very far away."
Tassin resumed her stitching. "Despite what you went through, male warriors are an advantage. You've seen what Sabre can do, although he's exceptional. If you kept the tribe a matriarchy, and made sure any trouble-makers were cast out, you shouldn't have any problem with your sons."
"How will we be able to throw them out when they're so much stronger than us?"
"The good ones will help you, just as Sabre did."
"It's an interesting notion," Mishra said. "The boys cry when we send them to the men's village, sometimes the mothers cry too. They want to stay with us; it is we who are afraid to let them."
"If you told them that story, and raised them to respect women, I'm sure they'd be good to you. Boys love their mothers just as girls do. It's only when their fathers teach them that women are worthless that they lose respect for them. With no men to influence them, your boys would grow up to be good."
"I'll speak to my mother. Perhaps she'll agree to keep some boys and see what happens."
"Even if she doesn't, you'll be queen one day."
"Yes. I thank you for your council, Queen Tassin."
With a final, thoughtful glance at Sabre, Mishra took her leave. His eyes opened, and Tassin set aside her sewing to rise and go over to the bed.
"You were awake the whole time, weren't you?"
He smiled. "I'm afraid so."
"I thought your snoring was a little louder than usual."
He tried to sit up and winced, relaxing again with a sigh. "That was a sad story, but I thought it would be something like that."
Tassin perched on the edge of the bed. "Yes, I suppose at the time, all they wanted was to be free, but now they're still preyed upon."
"Your idea is good. I hope Mishra considers it, after what happened to her."
"I think it's you who have influenced her a great deal," she said. "In you, she can see that some men are good. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that Mishra is torn by her feelings. Judging by the way she looks at you, I'd say that she has fallen a little in love, in spite of her hatred, her upbringing, and her experience."
"You must be kidding. She hates my guts."
"Not so. When you're asleep, she doesn't look like she hates you at all. Why do you think she comes here?"
"In the hope she'll find me dead."
Tassin smiled. "She stands for hours beside your bed and just looks at you, as if she's trying to understand you, or come to terms with her feelings. The man-woman relationship is the most natural in the world, and she's attracted to you."
Sabre gave a disbelieving snort. "She already tried to kill me."
"That was before she got to know you. Although these women appear happy, and they seem to satisfy each other's need for companionship and love, what they have can never compare to what a man and a woman share together."
His brows rose towards the flashing brow band. "I didn't realise you knew so much about it."
She shrugged, looking away. "I know enough. Unfortunately, as a queen, I doubt that I'll ever experience it."
Sabre's eyes drifted closed again, and she returned to her chair to resume her needlework.
Gearn sat in the rude shelter Murdor had built and glared at the rain sleeting through the forest. The wolf was stretched out nearby, his belly bulging with the meal he had just eaten. Murdor sat at the back of the shack, carving a piece of wood, his brutal face rapt as he whittled his crude creation.
They had been camped here for four days, since following the trail back to the village, and Gearn was growing impatient. The wolf had made sure their prey did indeed reside in the Andaron village, and Murdor had wanted to rush in, but Gearn had pointed out the nature of the strapping women who lived there. Murdor would have a difficult time fighting all of them as well as the warrior mage, Gearn insisted, and the big man had grumbled, but subsided.
Soon the warrior mage would leave the village, for Gearn was sure Queen Tassin would not want to live amongst such savage women. Until then, they would wait.
Sabre sat up on the narrow bed, wincing as the healing wounds in his thigh and arm twinged. After seven days, most of the pain had abated. His appetite had returned several days ago, and he had regained most of the weight he had lost. The infection that had caused the flash fever had come from the graveyard in which he had woken. A virulent bacterium had entered his system through his wounds, and the cyber had put his metabolism into overdrive to counter it. The bacterium was a flesh-eating variety that would have killed a normal man, but Sabre's enhanced immune system had manufactured antibodies during the two hour fever that had prevented the infection from spreading.
The midwife's efforts to cool him down had been counterproductive, and forced the cyber to increase his temperature even more, which caused his subsequent debility. Sabre had never been in any danger from the infection, but the control unit was programmed to retaliate aggressively to any biological threat, since cybers were often used in alien environments and exposed to dangerous microbes. This particular bacterium had been alien and unknown to the cyber, causing its extreme reaction.
Evidently Omega Five, so long isolated from the rest of the space-faring galaxy, was home to microbes that had not been logged into Myon Two's vast database, nor had cybers been immunised against them, since it was a restricted world. Considering the hundreds of inhabited planets and billions of biological threats that were already catered for, it did not surprise him that Myon Two had neglected to include bacteria from a backwater planet where a cyber was never supposed to go. Since his immune system was well able to deal with most unknown threats, the oversight had not endangered him.
Sabre tore his mind from the clinical thoughts, which depressed him, reminding him of what he was. Cyborg! He gazed at the wall, trying to blot out the hated word.
Two days ago, Tassin had removed the stitches he could not reach. The wounds in his belly had healed well, since the internal body armour had prevented deeper damage. The injuries in his thigh and arms still hurt, and he was careful not to tear the fragile flesh.
Since then he had done a little more each day, helping Tassin with her chores, stretching and strengthening muscles stiff from disuse. Only Mishra knew of his progress, and after she had found him awake, she had stopped visiting. Tassin wanted him to stay in the hut, but he was bored. After pacing about like a caged cat until he could stand it no longer, he went for a walk, longing for fresh air.
On his stroll through the village, he found that none of the Andarons glared or spat in his direction, which made a pleasant change. Many refused to look at him at all, while some stared blankly, but a few nodded in a friendly manner, and one or two even managed a timid smile. These, he suspected, where the mothers of the girls he had rescued, attempting to show a little gratitude. He smiled and nodded back at them, stopping in surprise when a young girl flew out of a hut and ran up to him, grinning. Although he did not recognise her without the coating of mud, he knew she had to be one of the ones he had rescued. She was about twelve years old, and squirmed shyly, blushing. Sabre lowered himself to one knee, favouring his wounded leg, and smiled at her.
"Hello, little one."
The girl reddened further, shooting him shy glances. "You helped us."
"Reckon I did. We had a grand mud fight, didn't we? Maybe sometime we'll make a big patch of mud and do it again. We'll use less smelly stuff this time, hey?"
She giggled. "It was fun, but my mum would kill me if I played with you."
"That's a shame. I like mud fights." Sabre thought of the childhood he had missed.
The child reached out and fingered the control unit, clearly fascinated by the flashing lights. "This is pretty. I wish I had one."
"If I could take it off, I'd give it to you, princess."
"I'm not a princess."
"But you're pretty enough to be one."
"My mum says men are nasty." It came out in a rush, and she gulped.
He sighed. "Well, some of them are. You have to be really careful who you trust, always."
She raised shy blue eyes. "You're nice. I like you."
"Thank you. That's the best thing anyone's ever said to me."
She reached for the brow band again, fingering it for a moment, then slid her hand down to his cheek in a shy gesture of affection. "I'm glad you're better. Mum said you were very sick."
"I was, but I'm all better now." Sabre looked up to find a vast blonde woman bearing down on them, her eyes flashing blue fire. "Uh oh, here comes mum."
The girl looked around and grinned. The big woman ground to a halt a metre away, her mouth opening and closing as she surveyed her daughter standing within touching distance of Sabre. He regarded her warily.
Her eyes bulged. "I... You... I..."
Conflicting emotions chased each other across her face, and he understood her quandary. Here was the enemy, talking to her daughter, for which he should be flogged, hung, drawn and quartered. The very same enemy had saved her daughter from a fate worse than death, however, and should be thanked. He was curious to see what she would do. It looked as if she would pop. Her face reddened, then she grabbed her daughter and marched to her hut, slamming the door.
Sabre stared after her, wondering what she would tell the child. That men were bad? He had saved her though, the daughter would argue. How did you explain it to a child? He wished he could treat the girl to a mud fight, they would both enjoy it. Rising to his feet, he continued his walk, limping to the end of the village and back.
On his return to Tassin's hut, he found his bedding outside next to the wall, and the Queen waiting, arms akimbo. He wondered why she looked so angry, since he was the one who had to sleep outside now, not her.
She confronted him when he walked up. "Shizana saw you, and she informed me that since you're well enough now, you must sleep outside again."
He shrugged. "I was expecting it."
"Why couldn't you stay in the hut?"
"I needed some fresh air."
She snorted. "Fresh air! Now you have to sleep outside again. I hope it was worth it."
"If it wasn't for Molla's decree, I'd stay in the forest."
Tassin huffed, clearly unable to think of a suitable retort, then stormed into the hut and slammed the door. He seemed to have a knack for making women slam doors, he mused. Spreading his bedding, he settled down on it, wondering what difference it made to her if he slept outside. Now she could sleep on her bed again, instead of the mattress on the floor, so she should be pleased. The walk had tired him, and he rubbed his aching thigh for a while before lying down.
The next day, he went into the forest and cut some of the broad palm leaves they used for roofing, using them to build a crude shelter next to the wall. The scanners picked up two human life signs in the forest some distance from the village, but he shrugged it off as a couple of women engaged in some secret female ritual, upon which he definitely did not want to intrude. They were more than two kilometres from the village, so he had not noticed them before. He did not try to even guess at what they were doing.
"Why do they let the little man stay with them?"
Gearn glanced up from the book he had conjured, startled by Murdor's question. "What do you mean?"
"You said they hate men, so why do they let him stay there?"
"Ah." Gearn nodded. It had taken more than a day for Murdor to arrive at this revelation. "He's not alone. The women allow the Queen to stay, and so therefore so does the warrior mage."
Murdor's ugly face creased in a frown. "What queen?"
Gearn sighed. He had not seen any reason to mention the Queen before, but now he gave a brief account, and Murdor smiled.
"So it's Queen Tassin yer after. No wonder yer want the warrior dead." He looked thoughtful, an alien expression on his blunt visage. "If Torrian gets a kingdom out of this, p'rhaps I should've asked fer more reward."
"The King will give you whatever you want for this service."
Murdor nodded, smirking. "I'll see that 'e does."
Gearn glanced at him and shuddered. The gladiator could become a problem when this escapade was over, and he hoped the King was pleased enough to recapture Tassin that he would satisfy Murdor's demands. Then again, what else could he have done? His mission was to bring Tassin back by whatever means necessary, so Torrian would have to deal with Murdor.
Gearn had chosen to camp far away from the village, since the Andorans mounted constant patrols around their home. The wolf scouted around the village every night, searching for a trail. The rest of the time he made himself scarce, possibly hunting further away. He returned each night and flopped down panting, but gave no indication that the Queen had strayed from the village. It was only a matter of time before she did, however, and Gearn was prepared to wait.
Tassin put aside her empty bowl and watched Sabre, who had finished his meal and now ground a boar tusk into a spear head. He was rarely around these days, and she missed him. Each morning he vanished into the forest, to return at dusk laden with meat and fruit, which he cooked and shared with her. A week had passed since he had been banned from her hut, and, apart from the fading scars and a lingering limp, he was back to normal.
He glanced up at her. "Are you thinking of moving on yet?"
She looked down, rearranging her ragged skirts. "Yes. They're good people, but I don't fit in." Tassin had discovered that, amongst the Andarons, foreign queens had to fend for themselves to a certain extent. "I would like to find a truly civilised people, where I can live comfortably for a while."
Sabre nodded, bending over his work again. "Good. Maybe we'll find a society where men are accepted too. I'm getting tired of living in a dog box."
"Yes, you must be."
"Are you planning on settling in a similar culture to your own then?"
Tassin shrugged, watching his deft swiftness as he turned and polished the tusk. "What choice do I have? I can't return to Arlin. If I can find a decent people who will treat me according to my station, I suppose I'll be content enough."
"Soft beds, hot baths, servants and princes?"
She ignored his teasing. "Just the comforts I'm accustomed to."
"Naturally."
"So we will leave tomorrow."
He performed a mocking bow without bothering to stand up. "Yes, Your Majesty."
Tassin scowled at him. "I thought you wanted to go?"
"I do."
Tassin looked mystified by his mockery of her high-handed manner, and Sabre returned to his polishing, shaking his head in amazement at her lack of understanding. She ordered people around without even realising it; it came so naturally to her. It still amused him, and he hoped his teasing would eventually mellow her into a more normal person. He glanced at the scanner information, as he did from time to time, noting the continued presence of the two human life signs in the forest, which had hardly moved since he had first noticed them.
The following morning, Tassin went to the mansion to bid farewell to the Andaron Queen, and returned with an assortment of gifts. Two women carried bags of dried food, water skins, and two leather tents that the grateful mothers of the kidnapped girls had made for her. Sabre's worn belongings, which had survived the Orokan raid, were amongst the baggage. He had demolished his crude structure, and eyed the bags with a jaundiced eye, knowing he would have to carry it all. Shizana accompanied Tassin, and approached him, holding out an intricately carved, ivory handled knife.
"A gift from Mishra. You lost yours."
He took it with a nod. "Thank her for me."
Sabre studied the weapon while the women dumped their burdens and left. Shizana ignored the fact that he had addressed her directly and drew Tassin aside.
"Mishra spent weeks working on that," Shizana confided to the Queen in a murmur Sabre was clearly not supposed to hear. "She can't thank him, but this is her way. Ever since her ordeal, she's been consumed with bitterness and hatred, frustration and shame. She was plagued by terrible nightmares, and many feared she would lose her reason. Now that the men who did it are dead, she's at peace once more. For this, we're all grateful."
Tassin smiled. "I'm glad, and Sabre will be pleased too."
Sabre shouldered the heavy packs, pulling a wry face when Tassin made no effort to help. Shizana escorted them to forest's edge and watched until the vegetation swallowed them up. He glanced back as the leaves closed behind them. Mishra stood beside a hut, gazing after them, looking confused and forlorn.
Sabre set a leisurely pace in the pleasant coolness of the green gloom under a canopy of huge, spreading trees that shaded tracts of ground carpeted with golden-brown leaves. Streams meandered through it, edged with lichen-covered rocks and frilly ferns. His wounded leg still ached, although almost a month had passed since his battle with the Oraka. He glanced at the cyber's scanner information and noticed three points of light following, two kilometres behind. One of them was a wolf-man like the ones who had attacked him on the mountain, and he stopped, turning to Tassin, who looked up at him.
"What is it?"
"Your King Torrian hasn't given up after all." She looked alarmed, and he added, "It's only two men and one of those wolf things. They shouldn't be a problem."
"They crossed the Death Zone after us."
He nodded. "Must have followed our trail, or they'd be suffering from radiation sickness by now. How they got through the Death Zone is a mystery, though."
"What should we do?"
"I'll have to get rid of them, I guess."
"But you're not well yet."
Sabre raised his brows. "I'm touched by your concern, but I assure you, I'm well enough to deal with two men and a pseudo-wolf."
He went over to two trees growing close together and dumped the packs behind them.
"Take the sword; you might need it," Tassin said.
"I don't want to kill anyone if I can help it, and with a sword I will. I'd rather discourage them; send them packing with a few cracked ribs and bruises."
"They'll have weapons; you could be hurt."
"I know what I'm doing, okay?" He fixed her with a steely gaze. "Wait here. And if you interfere this time, I'll definitely put you over my knee, understand?"
She nodded, but her eyes were defiant.
The scanners showed that the men were approaching quite fast, one lagging behind. Leaving Tassin to guard the packs, he walked into the centre of a nearby glade and waited, folding his arms.
The wolf entered the clearing first, nose to the ground. Spotting Sabre, it veered off and moved around the edge of the glade, its yellow eyes seeking Tassin. Sabre watched it for a moment, then his attention was jerked away as a giant strode into the clearing. The brawny goliath towered over two metres tall, clad in a chain mail breechclout and gladiator's sandals, and the hairs on Sabre's nape rose. The giant stopped a couple of metres away, his scarred face splitting into a gap-toothed grin. He drew a battered broadsword, and Sabre unfolded his arms, letting them fall to his sides.
Sabre noted the black-robed man who followed the behemoth, and veered off, as the wolf had done, to circle around the glade. The cyber's attention remained on the giant, who swung his sword in a whistling arc, his brown eyes gleeful. He approached Sabre, who waited until the warrior raised his weapon, then leapt forward and drove his foot into his opponent's belly.
The blow would have lifted a normal man off his feet, and the giant staggered back with a grunt of surprise. Sabre launched himself into a high spinning leap and kicked his foe on the chin, staggering him again. The man's sword sagged, and he shook his head, looking amazed. Sabre followed through with a double-fisted punch to the giant's solar-plexus, holding back only a little this time. The faint crunch of a breaking rib mixed with his foe's grunt. The giant growled and retreated, his sword held before him. Sabre spun again and leapt high, his right leg lashing out for the man's sword arm.
The black-robed man who stood at the edge of the glade raised his hands, and swirling light filled the cyber's vision. His foot struck his foe's arm a glancing blow, not breaking it as he had intended, and he fell, rolling away. The giant roared, and his sword clunked into the soil where Sabre had been a moment before. Sabre scrambled to his feet and backed away, shaking his head in a futile, instinctive bid to get rid of the strange lights that blinded him. Something hit him on the temple hard enough to make more lights flash in his eyes, and he sprawled on the leaves.
Sabre regained his feet in a lithe motion, only to be sent crashing to the ground again, his ribs aching from a powerful blow. A boot thudded into his back as he rolled away, and another kick punched the air from his lungs. He glanced at the scanner information, but, while it was unaffected by the lights, it was useless. It only showed a human life form right on top of his position, and he already knew that. A metallic clang on his skull, together with a terrific impact that made him taste blood, told him that the giant had hit him on the head with the sword. Waves of blackness nibbled at his mind, and he screwed his eyes shut, struggling to stay conscious.
Sabre grunted and flinched as the control unit's active infrared night vision actuated, far too bright in the daylight. It came from the tiny camera in the brow band, a set of blue outlines from the ground scanners mixed with it. He wondered what had happened to the standard video feed, which would have been far more useful. The supercomputer dialled down the spectrum to pick up heat sources, and the glowing gargoyle that was his foe appeared close to his right. Sabre leapt away, then spun to lash out at it. A meaty thud rewarded his action, but a huge hand gripped his arm, almost dislocating his shoulder when it lifted him and flung him down. The air left his lungs in a coughing grunt, and pain flashed through him. He writhed, gritted his teeth and rolled away as waves of blackness threatened to engulf him, fighting to breathe.
Tassin clamped a hand over her mouth in horror when the monstrous man smashed Sabre to the ground. He seemed to be blind, and she gave a choked cry as the giant stamped on Sabre's head. The cyber punched his opponent's shin, making the giant hop away with a curse. Sabre pushed himself up on his arms, shaking his head. What was the matter with him?
Tassin glanced around. The black-robed man stood amongst the trees, his arms raised, his lips moving in a silent chant. A magician. She recognised him as Torrian's sallow mage, and tried to remember his name. Gearn. She snatched up a fallen branch and strode towards the magician. The wolf stepped into her path, teeth bared, and she clouted him on the head as hard as she could. The animal collapsed with a yelp, and she paused, wondering if she should kill him. A grunt of pain from the glade drove her towards the mage once more. Gearn was so immersed in his spell-casting that she was able to walk up to him and smash the branch down on his head with all her strength.
Sabre's sight returned, and for a moment he experienced the dubious joy of seeing the giant in three different types of vision. A huge man with a twisted face, overlaid with a glowing infrared heat image and blotched with the colours of the rainbow bore down on him, sword raised. The extra images vanished as the supercomputer deactivated them, and Sabre leapt aside, stabs of pain lancing from his ribs and head.
Sabre kicked the giant in the calf, making him reel. The man swung around, and his sword flashed down, forcing Sabre to dive aside and roll to his feet once more. As he leapt up, he drove his fist into his opponent's solar plexus. The giant grunted and sagged, and Sabre used the momentary advantage to kick the sword from the man's grip, sending it spinning into the trees.
The warrior roared and lunged, his arms outstretched, Sabre leapt aside, caught his adversary's wrist and swung him into a tree trunk with a crunch. The man rebounded, blood oozing from his nose. Tassin's scream made Sabre spin around. She struggled with the black-robed man, who gripped her wrists, trying to avoid the kicks she aimed at his shins.
Crossing the glade at a run, Sabre grabbed the scrawny man's robe and yanked him away from the Queen. She landed a last clout as the man released her and turned, his eyes widening. He shrieked and threw up his hands to cushion the blow that would have crushed his skull. Sabre dropped him and seized Tassin's wrist, almost yanking her off her feet. She stumbled after him, and he picked her up and quickened his pace.
Within a few minutes, he stopped and put her down, gazing back. The cyber band flashed erratically, and blood ran from a deep gash in his scalp, mingling with the sweat that sheened him. He breathed hard through an open mouth, his features drawn with fatigue and pain. Taking her arm again, he headed away, his eyes scanning the terrain. His grip on her arm was painful, but she did not dare to complain; he looked too keyed up.
About half an hour later, he halted and turned to look back again. When he relaxed and released her arm, she sank down on a log, rubbing it. After a moment he squatted and bowed his head.
"They're not following, but they will."
"Perhaps you killed him."
"No, he's alive, just not feeling too good."
"He's a magician." She scraped back her hair, which had escaped its plait. "His name is Gearn, and he works for Torrian."
He regarded her with doubtful eyes. "You mean that was magic he used on me?"
"Yes. I don't know what he did, but I saw him casting the spell and hit him on the head with a branch."
"No wonder they got through the Death Zone. That's a dangerous combination. The big man I could beat, no problem, but when the other guy blinds me, they have the advantage. I underestimated them. When they come after us again, I might have to kill them."
Tassin slid off the log and knelt beside him. "You're hurt."
"Yeah." He cast her a wry smile. "I guess I need to be stitched up again."
One side of his head was reddened, and blood oozed from his nose and spiked his hair. She lifted a hand, but he rose to his feet, evading her.
"Not now. We have to find somewhere to spend the night. I think those two will lick their wounds for a while, but then they'll come after us, and the wolf will track us. Come on."
Sabre headed downhill into a more thickly wooded area, where dense pines grew on a rocky slope that a layer of pine needles made slippery, replacing the spreading trees. They entered a steep-sided valley that levelled out into a broad flat area. A stream rippled over mossy rocks in the middle of it. Sabre waded into it and headed upstream, but Tassin hesitated on the bank, confused. He beckoned to her.
"Come on. The wolf won't be able to follow our trail, and they'll have to look for it again."
Tassin nodded and took a few steps downstream before wading in, gathering up her skirts and tucking them into her belt as the icy water swirled around her knees, making her shiver. Her feet slipped on the mossy rocks, and she tottered after him, waving her arms. Sabre waited for her to catch up, then took her arm to steady her.
After wading upstream for two hours, Sabre spotted a cave amongst the rocks, and they quit the frigid water to enter it. Tassin took off her shoes and rubbed her cold feet; Sabre settled near the entrance and stared into the gathering dusk. She gritted her teeth to still their chattering.
"Can you light a fire, Sabre?"
His head turned, and he frowned. "No. They might see the smoke."
"But you said that they're not following us, and I'm freezing."
He appeared to give himself a mental shake, and some of the tension left his expression. "Okay, just a small one to warm you up, then we put it out."
Tassin nodded, and he gathered some wood and lighted a fire on which she toasted her feet. Sabre sat on the far side of it, looking tired and dejected, obviously unhappy with this latest development. He had evidently visited the stream to wash off the blood, and the gash in his scalp oozed afresh. A thin red line ran down the side of his neck.
"You're bleeding," she informed him.
"I know. It needs stitching."
"I could try," she offered, disliking the idea.
"I'd appreciate that."
Digging in his pouch, he took out a curved needle and threaded it. Tassin edged closer, and he smiled at her nervousness as he held out the needle.
"I'm not going to bite."
She took it. "I've never seen anyone fight like you. It was amazing."
He shrugged. "Cyber training. He was more of a challenge than King Torrian, although he did some damage too. The cyber controlled me then, and its way of fighting is more mechanical."
Sabre bowed his head so she could reach the gash, and her hands shook as they hovered over his short damp hair. It had been different when she had cared for him in the Andaron village; he had been asleep most of the time, or groggy. After just witnessing his lethal speed and strength, she was inexplicably nervous.
Sabre looked up. "What's wrong?"
"It will hurt."
He smiled. "Don't worry, I can handle it."
"Couldn't I just bandage it?"
"No. It must be stitched."
Tassin swallowed hard, and he bent his head once more. She shivered when she pushed the needle into his scalp, and his jaw muscles bulged as he clenched his teeth. She tied each stitch, as she had seen the Andaron midwife do, the sight of his blood on her fingers making her queasy. By the time she had tied the last stitch, she was light-headed. The sight of blood had never worried her before, but for some reason his did, and she wondered why.
Sabre took the needle from her, stowing it away. As he zipped up the pouch, she slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him. His sudden tension betrayed his surprise.
"Hey, it's okay," he said, clearly perplexed. "What's wrong?"
"I'm afraid he'll hurt you... or kill you."
Sabre stroked her hair with awkward reluctance. "No he won't. That's not so easy to do, remember?"
Tassin raised her head to regard him, too close for comfort. Sabre leant back against the cave wall and looked away. Had she been anyone else, the cyber would have flashed a proximity violation warning in his mind, but she had command privilege, so she was allowed to touch him. The situation was unfamiliar, and, on one level, unwelcome. On another, more human level, it held a forbidden fascination.
Sabre had no idea how he should react. Part of him longed to hold her, while another kept him frozen, as if his body refused to obey his mind. His trained responses, he realised, blocked his natural ones, but the fact that he had a strange wish to return her affection did not make it acceptable. When he had kept her warm in the Death Zone blizzard, it had made him uncomfortable, but it had been necessary. He did not understand the reason for her action, which made it all the more disconcerting. Her rather inept embrace brought a rush of unwelcome emotion, and he strived to quell it. She gripped his chin to turn his battered face, her eyes flitting over it.
"I couldn't bear to lose you now."
Warmth invaded his heart, and his throat tightened. He turned his head away again, afraid she would see the tears that stung his eyes. His reaction to her affection surprised him. He could not speak, and was glad the darkness hid his expression. He coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"I'm not going anywhere, okay?"
Tassin nodded and released him, and he wondered who she was confusing more, herself, or him. Since he had never been treated as a person before, he found it bewildering, and did not know if his reaction was the right one. Should he have done or said something different? Was she disappointed? More than anything, he was afraid of doing the wrong thing through sheer ignorance. He knew any affection she might develop for him was doomed, anyway. He was a cyber.
A cyber-bio combat unit, to be exact. Grade A. He had a serial number to prove it. He even had a bar-code burnt into the back of his skull, so if he was incinerated and his control unit's memory wiped, he could still be identified. A killing machine. One that was currently broken, but would be fixed in the not too distant future, he was certain. He was a weapon considered so dangerous that Myon Two kept track of all its cyber units, no matter where they were.
Even if the spacer who had brought him to this planet did not return, Myon Two would track Sabre down in the end. His owner must have falsified the annual location reports to smuggle him onto a restricted world like Omega Five, but the subterfuge would not last long. There was no hope of escaping his fate; the locator hidden somewhere in his body would lead them to him. He was just a broken killing machine living on borrowed time. The mocking voice that always roused at times like this taunted him from the dark recess of his mind: Cyborg!
Tassin studied Sabre's pensive expression, wondering what he was thinking. More than anything, she longed for him to hold her and keep her warm, to impart his special brand of security and comfort that she had experienced so rarely. He was a fascinating man, and her boldness had surprised her. She seemed to have no control over her actions when she was close to him. Her desire to be in his proximity overwhelmed her good sense, and she was certain he must think her a complete idiot. Worst of all, her embrace had clearly unsettled him, and his rejection was tacit. She had admitted her feelings for him, and he had made light of it. Her ego smarted and her heart ached.
Sabre rose and stamped out the fire. In the blackness that followed its extinction, she curled up on the floor. Her damp skirts made her shiver as she listened to him settle down for the night. As silence fell, she closed her eyes and banished her quandary so she could sleep.
Gearn regarded Murdor over the fire, dismembering a succulent roast chicken he had conjured. Murdor chewed on a smoked haunch, looking preoccupied. The gladiator's swollen jaw and nose were testament to the warrior mage's strength and skill. Murdor winced as he chewed and shifted when his broken rib jabbed him. Gearn was almost glad that the warrior mage had done so much damage; it made up for all the scoffing Murdor had done. Gearn's head pounded, and even the wolf looked miserable.
"So he was not as easy to beat as you thought, hey, Murdor?"
He glared. "He was lucky, that's all. Tomorrow I'll tear him apart."
"If I had not cast a spell to blind him, you would be dead now."
He spat a gob of gristle into the fire. "I don't need yer help. Tomorrow he'll die."
Gearn shrugged, sucking the tender meat off a drumstick. At least Murdor had the courage to face him again, which not many men would, after seeing the speed and skill with which the warrior mage fought. He had not used the blue fire, though, and Gearn wondered if he had lost that magic. The Queen was a problem, however. Her attack had been unexpected. Tomorrow, he would make sure that she was unable to interfere.
Tassin woke alone, and sat up, panic nibbling at her. Shivering, she went to the cave mouth and peered out at the peaceful wooded vale. Only the stream moved, gurgling over the rocks. Her stomach rumbled, and she went down to it for a drink, then looked up as Sabre descended the slope, carrying the packs. He seemed unaware of her, but when he reached the valley floor he headed straight towards her. He only looked up when he was a metre away, but he was obviously aware of her location. He dumped the packs and rummaged in them, handing her some dried meat.
While they ate, he said, "They're camped in the glade where we fought, but they'll be coming after us soon."
"You went back there?"
"How do you think I got the packs?"
"Oh. So what are we going to do?"
He shrugged. "We can't elude them while they have the wolf to track us. I don't want to kill them, so perhaps I'll just break the big guy's leg, or the wolf's."
"Could you really kill that giant? He's huge."
"Easily." He studied the shrivelled meat. "But if that damned magician blinds me, it will make it a bit more difficult. The cyber can provide active infrared vision and heat images to compensate, but it's not the same as my sight. I lose a lot of my depth perception, and that hampers me. The cyber uses a bunch of other sensors, proximity scanners and stuff like that, but my brain can't process that information.
"It's never used my eyes, but it feeds the infrared into my optic nerves so my brain will record it, since that's where its data is stored. If I attack the magician, the warrior will try to protect him, and who knows what other tricks the mage might have up his sleeve? If you can keep him from casting his spells, maybe hit him over the head again, I could defeat the big man a lot quicker."
"What about the wolf?"
"The wolf really complicates things. If not for it, I could ambush the giant and break his leg, but the wolf will know where I am." He paused, considering. "I could ambush the wolf I guess, since it always leads. If I get rid of it, we can give them the slip."
After the meagre meal, Sabre shouldered the packs and set off upstream along the bank. The gorge narrowed, and the pine trees on its slopes became twisted and stunted. The sun was overhead when Sabre slowed and looked back down the gully.
"They're catching up. It's time to pick a spot." He walked on, scanning the terrain, and stopped where the gorge widened into a flat gravel area. His glance at the stream reminded her of his aversion to water. He hid the packs amongst the rocks, took out the sword and sheathed it in the scabbard strapped across his back.
She said, "I'm glad you're going to use the sword this time."
"It will come in handy to ward off his weapon, and perhaps a few non-lethal cuts will deter him."
"It would be a lot easier to kill him, wouldn't it?"
He nodded. "Sure. Killing's easy."
"Why do you risk your life to save his? He's trying to kill you, so you have every right to kill him."
"I'd rather not kill anyone if I can help it." Sabre pointed at a dense stand of stunted pines on the downstream side of the clearing. "You hide in there, so you'll be behind them."
With a worried glance at him, she clambered in amongst the trees and settled down to wait. Sabre went over to the rocky slope and climbed up it to a twisted pine tree that leant out, where he settled, hidden by its trunk.
Time dragged past. Tassin caught herself chewing her nails and clasped her hands together. Only the gushing river and an occasional bird singing amongst the trees disturbed the gully's quiet, and various parts of her anatomy grew numb from her uncomfortable position. She squirmed to ease them, and her hands crept into her mouth again. She fondled her dagger's hilt to occupy them.
A flitting grey shadow entered the makeshift arena. The wolf circled it, nose to the ground, following their trail. She held her breath and willed him to move closer to Sabre's hiding place. The wolf stopped and raised his head to look around, then lowered his nose to the ground again, trotting towards her. He halted again, encountering another track, which he sniffed, then turned back, heading for Sabre's ambush.
As the wolf neared the slope where Sabre hid, some sixth sense must have warned him, for he leapt away as the cyber jumped. Sabre landed close to the animal and lunged, catching his tail in spite of the speed with which he tried to flee. The wolf yelped as Sabre dragged him closer, then a flash of green light arced across the clearing and hit the cyber on the arm. He dropped the wolf, which fled, and looked up at the black-robed mage who walked up the stream bank towards him. The giant sauntered beside him, hefting his massive sword. Sabre inspected his arm, which was unharmed, and the mage and his companion stopped a few paces away.
"I'm Murdor, champion of the arena, and this time, I'm goin' to kill yer," the giant stated in a thick, gravelly voice.
Sabre regarded him with flat eyes, reminding Tassin of when he had been controlled by the cyber. "It's a pity you don't have the guts to fight me without the help of magic."
Murdor growled, glancing at the wizard, who shook his head and said, "You use magic too; this only makes it fair."
"Enough talk!" Murdor roared, striding towards Sabre.
Tassin's hammering heart tried to crawl into her throat as the giant closed with the cyber, and Gearn folded his arms. Evidently he was not going to use his magic right away. Sabre stepped back and drew his sword with a hiss, then spun and leapt. The weapon sliced into Murdor's jaw, jerked the gladiator's head around with a spray of blood and made him stagger sideways. Sabre lunged and thrust his sword at Murdor's thigh, but the gladiator raised his weapon in the nick of time and turned Sabre's blade aside at the last moment.
Murdor swung his sword, forcing Sabre to jump back as the giant charged, trying to impale his elusive opponent. Sabre moved in a blur, avoiding the blade. As the sword skimmed past him, he gripped Murdor's wrist and twisted, throwing his weight behind it. The gladiator yelled and dropped his sword, his arm bent at an ugly angle. The magician raised his arms and began to chant, his eyes closed in concentration.
Tassin crawled from her hiding place as Sabre staggered back, clearly blinded. Murdor gave a triumphant bellow and charged again, but Sabre dived aside and rolled away as the giant thundered past. Murdor swung around, skidding on the gravel, and flung himself on top of the cyber before he could scramble out of reach. Tassin gave a cry of anguish as Sabre was crushed beneath the gladiator. She struggled to extricate herself from the tangled branches, the sharp twigs scratching her arms. She ran towards Gearn, drawing her dagger.
Something grey and hairy hit her from the side. She fell, grazing her palms when she flung out her hands, and the dagger skittered away across the stones with a tinkle. Teeth sank into her arm, and she yelped, beating at the wolf. He growled, tugging at her arm, his teeth tearing her flesh. Her puny blows made no impression, and she glanced around at Sabre, who had dropped his sword and was locked in a gargantuan struggle with the giant gladiator, matching the huge man's strength.
Pinned beneath him, Sabre gripped Murdor's wrists to prevent him from gouging his eyes. Cords stood out on the fighters' necks and blood vessels bulged on their temples. The magician chanted, undisturbed. Sabre slowly pushed Murdor away, lifting the giant despite his enormous weight. Murdor threw himself against Sabre's arms, causing them to give under the strain. Rearing back, the gladiator drove his knee into Sabre's belly, but the cyber's abdominal muscles were iron hard ridges. Murdor ground his knee into the cyber's solar plexus and heaved on his arms, striving to overpower him. Sabre was tiring, and Murdor forced the cyber's arms down to the ground, holding him spread-eagled.
To Tassin, he appeared to be helpless, overpowered by the behemoth of muscle that crouched over him, and perhaps he was. Murdor seemed to think so, for he grinned, staring into Sabre's blind eyes, then raised his head and jerked it down in a savage head butt intended to crush the cyber's face. Tassin shrieked, but Sabre tucked in his chin, and Murdor's forehead hit the brow band. He rebounded, stunned, and Sabre freed his arms with a quick twist, then punched Murdor on the jaw, making him reel further.
Murdor swung a fist, almost in reflex, which hit Sabre on the side of the head and smashed him back onto the gravel. Tassin tore her eyes from them and looked at the wolf, her other hand groping for a stone. The gravel around the stream was useless pebbles, and she glanced about, spotting a larger rock just out of reach. Gritting her teeth, she crawled towards it, dragging the wolf. The animal deduced her intention and pulled back with a jerk that sent fire lancing up her arm, making her cry out. Darkness threatened to engulf her, and she stopped, glaring at the wolf. Her eyes flew back to the struggle.
Sabre knelt, his wrists gripped in the gladiator's hands again. His eyes were closed, and the mage chanted on. Murdor rose to his feet and dragged his opponent towards the stream. Tassin realised his intention, and her heart contracted with a spasm of pain. Sabre clearly could not free himself from the gladiator's powerful grip. Not only was Murdor twice his size, Tassin suspected that his strength had been magically enhanced as well. Perhaps Sabre had underestimated his opponent when he had stated so confidently that he could kill him easily, not knowing the extent of Murdor's strength.
Surely he was not still trying to cripple Murdor? By now, he must be aware of his danger, or was he unable to see the stream with only the cyber's sensor data? Sabre kicked Murdor in the gut, making him grunt and stagger, but the cyber's proximity to the giant did not allow him to use his full strength. Sabre twisted his arms, trying to break Murdor's hold, and kicked his legs in an attempt to break one, but his lack of depth perception obviously hampered him.
The giant bellowed and lurched, even though Sabre had only landed a glancing blow, then lifted the cyber and hurled him into the stream. Flinging himself on top of Sabre, Murdor forced the cyber underwater. Cold terror chilled her blood. The water roiled as Sabre struggled, but the stream was more than knee deep here, and clearly he could not push himself to the surface while Murdor held him down. The gladiator pushed down harder, intent on drowning his opponent.
Sabre's hands slipped on the streambed's stones, foiling his attempts to push himself away from the giant's merciless hold. Murdor's strength matched his, something he had discovered too late. The water cushioned his blows, preventing him from hitting Murdor hard enough to do any real damage. Panic surged through him, and he tried to pry Murdor's hand off the back of his neck, but the awkwardness of his position made that impossible. Murdor put a knee in the small of Sabre's back and pinned him to the streambed. The shock of being hurled into the icy water had forced much of the air from the cyber's lungs, and his struggles were rapidly using up what little remained. Even the ten minutes he was able to survive without air while exerting himself did not seem like long now.
Tassin crawled towards the rock again, and the wolf tugged, almost making her cry out. Sabre's struggles weakened, and the gladiator grinned as bubbles rose. Tassin dug in the pebbles, scraping her fingers and tearing her nails. She uncovered larger stones, but continued until she found a rock. The wolf jerked on her arm, and she groaned, grimacing, then lifted the rock high. The wolf released her and jumped back, and her stone smashed down on the gravel, bruising her fingers.
Tassin stood up, nursing her injured arm. As she stumbled towards the wizard, he lowered his arms and opened his eyes, turning to face her. Murdor lifted Sabre by the back of his harness and waded ashore. Hot tears flooded Tassin's eyes, and the mage smiled at her. Murdor dumped the cyber and limped over to Gearn. Tassin stared at Sabre's still form, desolate. The mage bowed, his small green eyes glinting.
"Your Majesty. You have an appointment with King Torrian, at the altar, I believe."
Tassin threw the rock at him, and it bounced off his bony chest with a hollow thud, making him grunt and step back.
"If you take me back to Arlin, you're condemning Torrian to an ugly death, for I will find a way to kill him," she said.
Murdor stepped closer, but she ignored him, refusing to twist her neck to look up at him. Gearn scowled. "That's his problem. I was ordered to bring you back, that's all."
"Do you really imagine I'll go with you?"
"You don't have a choice in the matter, Your Majesty. If you choose to be difficult, Murdor will carry you."
"And when I tell Torrian that your man mistreated me, he will have him executed."
Murdor glanced at the magician, who shook his head and smiled. "I doubt Torrian will care, since you've caused him so much trouble."
"You underestimate your king. He'll be only too pleased to have an excuse to be rid of this monster and save himself the expense of paying the reward you have undoubtedly promised him. Especially if I agree to be a dutiful wife in return for his head. I may even ask for yours as well."
The mage looked uneasy. "Torrian is an honourable man; he'll not go back on his word. Rather, he will reward us richly for bringing you back to him."
"You, he might spare, but do you really think he'll want to pay a huge reward to this muscle-bound moron?" She shot Murdor a scathing glance. "He's a dead man if he returns to Pradish."
Murdor growled, and Gearn turned to him, making a soothing gesture. "He'll pay the reward, never fear. She's only trying to confuse you, Murdor."
"What she says makes sense," the giant rumbled. "Once he's got her, why should he pay me?"
"Because he's an honourable man."
Tassin snorted. "You know he's not."
"It's you who don't know him, Queen Tassin. He's a man of his word."
She turned to Murdor. "What did you ask for? Castles? Women? Gold?" He nodded, and she snorted again. "I doubt Gearn even told Torrian of your demands, and he certainly will not pay it."
Murdor scowled at Gearn, who shook his head, looking flustered. "Of course I told him, and he agreed."
"You're lying," she said.
"No, I..."
A wheezing cough made Tassin look around, and her mouth fell open in astonishment. Sabre pushed himself up on his arms, bowed his head and coughed again, foam oozing from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. He raised his head, his skin ashen and his lips flecked with foam, then rose to his feet. Murdor also gaped at the cyber, and Gearn lifted his arms and chanted again. She hunted for a rock, but the wolf padded closer and bared his teeth. Murdor walked towards the cyber, who stood perilously close to the stream, facing the approaching giant.
Sabre stared through Murdor, the brow band ablaze with red and green sparkles. Tassin frowned. The cyber band had not had that many green lights in it since it had lost control of him. A sob closed her throat. The diagonal line of lights on the right hand side of the control unit was green, the top two flashing. It was not Sabre. The cyber was in control again.
Sabre ignored Gearn's spell casting, took a few light steps towards Murdor and leapt high to drive his foot into the big man's stomach. The cyber was clearly not blinded by Gearn's magic. The giant grunted and staggered back. Sabre leapt again in a high spinning kick that smashed the gladiator sideways. The mage raised his arms higher, and his chant increased in tempo, becoming louder and a little frantic. The cyber smashed his fists into Murdor's gut, bringing him to his knees.
Murdor tried to retaliate, but Sabre blocked the blow with a savage counter-punch, and the gladiator's forearm broke with a dull crack. Murdor roared and swung his other fist, and Sabre swayed aside. Gearn stopped his chant and waved his arms. A flash of green light struck the cyber in the chest, but he ignored it. Tassin knew the green light was an illusion, just like the one that had tricked Sabre into dropping the wolf, but it did not fool the cyber. Murdor regained his feet and backed towards his sword, holding his broken arm. The cyber followed and leapt again, drove his foot into the gladiator's solar plexus and hurled him backwards.
Gearn shouted a string of arcane words, and a huge serpent appeared in front of Sabre, poised to strike. He walked through it. Murdor's face twisted with superstitious dread as he crawled away, and Gearn yelled another chant, gesturing. Fire sprang from Murdor's skin, so realistic that the gladiator bellowed and beat at the flames before he realised that it did not burn.
Sabre reached through the fire and gripped Murdor's neck in a stranglehold. The gladiator groped for his sword, finding the hilt as his eyes bulged. He brought the weapon whistling up towards Sabre's neck, and the cyber raised an arm in an automatic defensive response. The sword hit his forearm with a terrific clang, cleaving through the flesh to glance off barrinium-plated bone. Sabre released Murdor and seized the weapon, wrenching it from the giant's grip with a vicious twist. Flipping it point down, Sabre thrust it into Murdor's chest.
The gladiator writhed as the blade pierced his heart, shuddered and went limp. The cyber stepped away and turned his head in search of the white-faced mage, who gave a cry of fear and made a peculiar gesture while he jabbered a string of harsh words. His form shimmered and twisted, swelling as scales appeared all over it. A fierce head rose from it on a sinuous neck, its jaws armed with gleaming white teeth. A true dragon crouched before Sabre; a creature of legend, aglow with colour, its scales shimmering green, blue and gold, banded with red. Huge leathery wings unfolded to block the sun, and the dragon reared back and engulfed Sabre in a blast of fire.
Tassin flinched, retreating from the heat. No warrior could hope to defeat a magician, and Gearn was obviously powerful. The cyber walked through the fire, emerging unscathed. The dragon backed away and exhaled another searing conflagration that enveloped Sabre, but again, when the fire abated, the cyber was untouched. The dragon turned and leapt into the air with a sweep of its wings, rising on powerful strokes that lifted its vast form with deceptive ease.
It soared above the pine trees, dwindling as it flew higher. Sabre stared after it for a moment, then turned his head to seek his last opponent. The wolf fled, but the cyber scooped up his fallen sword and flung it. The bounding grey shape collapsed and rolled to a stop with a rattle of pebbles, the sword protruding from its flank. Sabre walked over to it, pulled the blade out and wiped it clean on the animal's fur, then sheathed it. He turned to Tassin, his blank eyes staring through her.
The brow band still blazed red, sparkling with green. He walked up to her, and she forced herself to stand still when she wanted to flee too. This was the killing machine of which Sabre had spoken. A cold, inhuman cyber-bio combat unit. Sabre might think he was as good a fighter as the cyber, but his compassion prevented that.
The cyber knew no mercy and gave no quarter, nor cared much about the injuries its host sustained. It was without remorse or fear; it merely killed. He was expressionless, without even a flicker of pain, although blood dripped from the deep wound in his forearm. When he reached her, he dug in his medical pouch, took out an ampoule and injected himself in the arm, then awaited instructions. Tassin searched his face for a sign that Sabre still held some sort of control, but found none.
"Cyber."
"Yes?"
"I order you to release the host brain."
"Order not understood."
"Relinquish control of the body to the host brain," she commanded.
"Unable to comply. That is counter to cyber programming."
"I don't care about your damned pog - progamming! I have issued an order, you must obey!"
"Unable to comply."
She tried to think of a way to make it release Sabre. "Cyber, you are damaged; you must switch yourself off."
"This unit is functional."
Tassin cursed, running out of ideas. She needed to think about it. "Bring the packs and follow me."
At the cave, she ordered him to find food and build a fire, then went to the stream to wash her injured arm. Sabre returned with two fat pheasants, which he plucked in a cloud of feathers, gutted and spitted over the fire.
While they were cooking, she ordered him to kneel before her, and examined his injuries. The scalp wound seeped blood, although the stitches were intact, and the side of his head was red and swollen, with some deep scratches. Considering the blows Murdor had landed on Sabre's head, she was surprised the skin was not more broken. Red marks covered his torso, arms and legs, and a swelling on his cheekbone partly closed one eye. She lifted his arm and examined the deep cut, biting her lip.
"This needs stitching."
"Yes." The cyber tilted his head to scan his arm. "First it must be straightened."
"Straightened?" Tassin studied at his arm, noticing that it was indeed a little bent. Bile stung her throat, and she looked away, turning the spit to distract herself from the sickening sight. Evidently when the cyber had snapped Murdor's arm, he had broken his own as well; or had it been when he had blocked the sword stroke? Both blows had been powerful enough to do serious damage. Sabre placed his arm across his knee, used his good hand to hold it down, and straightened it.
When he released it, sweat sheened his brow under the blazing band, and his features were drawn and pale. He dug in the pouch and found the needle, which he threaded with perfect dexterity and held out to her. She swallowed hard when he bent his arm to reveal the wound. Fresh blood oozed from it, and he sat unflinching while she stitched it. As she cut the final stitch, she glanced at him and gasped with joy, for his eyes seemed to be focussed on her face.
"Sabre!" She leant forward, but his gaze remained fixed on the spot where she had been, and her happiness ebbed away. Frowning, she tended to the birds, remembering what Sabre had told her. He had lost control again, so he could not focus his eyes, but he could hear her. She turned to him, hating his blank expression and longing for the gentle companion she had grown to treasure.
"I hope you're going to take over again soon, Sabre. It's not much fun talking to this thing that's in charge now."
"Order not understood."
"Oh, shut up."
Tassin inspected her lacerated arm again. The puncture wounds oozed clear fluid, and the area was hot, inflamed and red. Tearing a strip from a petticoat, she bandaged it.
After they had eaten, Sabre settled against the cave wall, his head turned towards the entrance. He closed his eyes, but she knew the brow band was scanning the area with endless vigilance. He looked peaceful, devoid of expression. Tassin cradled her throbbing arm and wondered how she could help him to regain control. There had to be a way.
Fatigue made her eyes droop, and she curled up in the blankets beside the fire, watching him. How terrible it must be, she reflected, to be trapped and helpless. The cyber must have regained control when Sabre had lost consciousness during his near drowning, but was his mind damaged? If so, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to take over again. The prospect of dealing with the cyber, now that she knew the real man, made her shudder. Sabre's loss filled her with a deep, aching sorrow, but she refused to give up on him. There had to be a way for him to win free again. The dull pain in her arm faded as she drifted off to sleep.
Tassin woke shivering, and clutched the blankets around her to try to get warm. Sabre still sat against the cave wall, his eyes closed. Her parched mouth demanded water, but she had no wish to emerge into the cold air to seek it.
"Sabre," she croaked.
The cyber's head turned towards her, and his eyes opened. "Yes?"
"Bring me some water."
Sabre rose, took a water skin from the pack and handed it to her, then returned to his position by the cave mouth with a swift economy of movement. Tassin gulped the water, which made her colder, and she huddled in the blankets as her shivers increased. Her clothes stuck to her, wet with rancid sweat, and she wondered what was wrong with her. She longed for Sabre's company and warm reassurance, but the blank-faced man who guarded the entrance only had his body; his mind was trapped in some diabolical prison inside his skull. She closed her eyes as tiredness dragged her back into the soft dark arms of sleep.
The rattle of wood woke her as Sabre fed the fire. Two plump pheasants lay beside him, ready to clean and cook, but the thought of food made her shudder, her stomach a tight knot. Instead she drank more water, then drifted into a light sleep. Strange dreams of bloody battles and burning deserts made her toss in the sweat-soaked blankets.
A raging thirst woke Tassin the next morning. She shivered violently, her teeth chattered and her skin burnt. The world swam when she opened her eyes, so she closed them again. She groped for the water skin and drank from it before slipping back into a troubled sleep, moaning and tossing. Several times that day, she jerked awake from hideous, vivid dreams of gory battles scenes, crying out for Sabre. Each time, the cyber responded, but she ignored his soft replies.
Sabre struggled against the darkness. His eyes were closed, so not even blurred images had reached him since the cyber's last foray for food. Something was wrong. More than a day had passed, yet Tassin had not spoken since she had asked the cyber for water, apart from calling his name in a despairing tone, which alarmed him.
Once again, the terrible memory of drowning returned to haunt him. This time he thrust it aside instead of burrowing into the velvet blackness to escape it as he had done before. He had to find out what was wrong with Tassin. Pushing against the oppression that trapped his mind, he sensed the cyber's ever-present control. A scanner image flitted across his inner eye, showing a few woodland animals, and Tassin. He fought to surface from the black sea that held him prisoner and prevented him from reaching the light that was the real world outside.
The spark of his psyche brightened, flaring within the dark walls that imprisoned him, and he fanned it, urgency goading him. He was trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake, and his body ignored the instructions he gave it. Something terrible had happened to Tassin. Why had she not spoken? Why did she just sleep? He reviewed his memory of her blurred image that he had seen when the cyber had given her water, but it did not help.
Sabre fought against the supercomputer's control harder than he ever had before. Even when he had been taken from the sensory deprivation tank and discovered that he no longer controlled his body, he had not struggled so much to be free. The cyber was damaged; its hold on him was not as strong as it should be. He just had to cross the line of control, and he would be free. The horror of the near drowning had thrust him back into the dark corner of his mind and allowed the cyber to take control of a situation he had believed to be hopeless. Now he was desperate for release.
With a supreme effort, he broke through one of the cyber's blocks and opened his eyes. A blurred image of the cave mouth came to him, mostly black, and pain blossomed in his mind as the control unit fought back. Flashing lights sparkled on his inner eye, blinding him. He struggled for motor control, and smashed another cyber block. His neck muscles twitched in response, turning his head slightly. The cyber slammed another block into place, which he smashed again, gaining strength from the victory.
The supercomputer tried to replace the block, but Sabre had already slipped through. He commanded his muscles, and his spine arched. He slid down the wall, still half under the cyber's control. His soft groans reached him through the muffling. This was not the same as when he had awakened in the mountain cave. Then, the damaged computer had been able to hinder his takeover, but it had not been in charge. Now he fought for supremacy with a cyber that already ruled. He mastered his neck muscles and jerked his head around, trying to smash the brow band against the wall.
His arms responded to his brain's frantic signals and snapped up to grip the band, as he had done in the mountain cave. It gave a focus to his struggle, and his psyche continued its advance. The cave sprang into sharp focus, then blurred, and his hands pulled at the brow band. The warm coursing of control went through him, and then the cyber was no longer the master. He moved his legs, twisting and writhing.
Pain spiked his brain as he fought free of the sucking black quagmire of cyber control. The supercomputer fought back with waves of agony, and the darkness lapped at him, trying to suck him down again. Like a soaked bird struggling to rise from the water that trapped it, he fought to throw off the last paralysing vestiges of cybernetic dominance, beating imaginary wings to lift him from the blackness. A lance of agony shot through his head as the cyber made its last stand, trying to shock his brain into submission.
Everything sprang into sharp focus. He lay gasping, pain shooting up his injured arm from his exertions. Fresh blood oozed from the wound, and more dripped from his scalp, which he had banged on the cave wall. His head pounded from the injuries he had received in the fight with Murdor, made worse by his struggle to win free of the cyber.
Sabre sat up, sweat trickling down his chest. The fire had died to embers during his struggle, and he piled wood on it until it flared up, then crawled over to Tassin. She tossed and moaned, and he pulled the damp blanket down. She plucked at it, trying to tug it up again. Sweat sheened her flushed face, and he placed a hand on her cheek, finding her skin hot despite her violent shivers.
Sabre stripped the blanket off her completely, wresting it from her clutching hands. He had to get her temperature down, or she would die. Picking her up, he carried her out of the cave. The moons were full, and he did not need the infrared vision the cyber no longer granted. Striding down to the stream, he waded into the icy water, and Tassin groaned when he lowered her into it. Kneeling on the slippery rocks, he supported her head and immersed the rest of her. She writhed, her eyes moving rapidly to and fro behind closed lids.
Sabre waited for the cold to lower her temperature, wiping away the strings of sweat-damp hair that clung to her forehead. Concern gnawed at him, for she may still die if he was too late. He held her close and stroked her brow while she moaned and squirmed. The icy water swirled around him, its touch bringing back vivid images of being under it, helpless and running out of air. He quelled the urge to quit its liquid realm and concentrated on Tassin. Her breathing grew laboured, and she began to gasp. Sabre frowned and stroked her cheek, willing her to cling to life. At any moment, her breathing could stop, and she could go into convulsions as she overheated. Pain blossomed in his chest, making his breath catch.
He gazed down at her. "Don't die, Tassin. Come on, you can do it. You can fight it, you're strong. You're a goddamned warrior queen."
Sabre laid his cheek against her brow and rocked her in the icy stream. Her skin seemed cooler, and he tested it with his hand, finding that her temperature had dropped, although her breathing remained laboured.
"Come on, fight! Don't give up on me now."
Sabre waited for what seemed like hours, until Tassin's breathing returned to normal and she stopped moaning. When he tested her brow again, he found it cool and rose to his feet, her dress streaming water. Back at the cave, he placed her on the pine needles and contemplated what he had to do next with some disquiet. He could not leave her in the wet dress. Dreading her reaction if she woke in the middle of it, he began to undo the tiny buttons in the front of the tatty pink gown.
There seemed to be hundreds of them, and he swore when they foiled his inexperienced fingers. He pulled the dress off her shoulders and eased it over her hips. No wonder noblewomen required help to dress themselves, he mused; it was like peeling a sausage. Under the gown she wore a satin slip, and he considered leaving it, but the possibility of pneumonia changed his mind.
Sabre pulled it off, averting his eyes, and wrapped her in a blanket. She shivered again, but her brow remained cool. Searching for the source of the infection, he cut off the dirty bandage on her arm and frowned at the ugly, inflamed wounds under it. No wonder she had a fever. It looked like she had been savaged by a wild animal. Casting his mind back to the battle, he vaguely remembered her cries of pain through the blows and illusions that had muddled his perception. The wolf.
Sabre cursed, glad now that the cyber had killed the fleeing animal. Her arm's slenderness dismayed him, but he thrust his knife's blade into the fire. The puncture wounds had started to close, but, judging by the swelling and fever, they were infected. When the knife was sterile, he pulled it from the fire and let it cool. He disliked the task he had to perform, especially on this unconscious girl. He was no surgeon, and his memory of what such men had done to him filled him with dismay that he should be forced to do the same thing to another, but he had no choice.
With a swift stroke, he sliced open the puncture wounds and released a trickle of pus and blood. He squeezed and washed the cut in clean water, then put his mouth over it and sucked out the last dregs, spitting it out. Tassin moaned, her eyelids fluttering. When he was satisfied that the wound was clean, he rummaged in his medical pouch and found the antiseptic cream. He smeared a little on and bound her arm with a clean bandage.
Emptying out the pouch, he sorted through its contents until he found what he was looking for; an ampoule of antibiotic. Breaking off the glass cap, he pushed the needle into her arm and injected it. He repacked the bag, then checked her temperature again. Her brow was cool, but she shivered now with genuine cold. Sabre stripped off his wet boots, socks and trousers, stretched out beside her and pulled her into his arms, dragging the blanket over them. Her naked proximity kept him awake for a while, but he fell asleep when her shivers ceased.
Tassin woke cosy and comfortable, sandwiched between soft blanket and warm skin. She stretched and sighed, then started from her pleasant doze when she realised that she was naked except for her knickers. What was more, her wounds throbbed with renewed venom and she lay in Sabre's arms, her cheek pillowed on his chest. She clutched the blanket around her and raised her head to look at him. His brow band flashed sporadically, with only a few green flickers. She tried to move away, then froze when his arms tightened. He opened his eyes and smiled, removing his arm from beneath her to roll onto his side, prop his cheek on his hand and regard her with mocking eyes.
"Good morning."
"You're back."
"I'm afraid so."
"What happened to my clothes?" she asked.
"I had to take them off."
"You... you... Why?"
"They were wet."
"No they were not."
"They were after I dumped you in the river," he said.
"Why did you do that? I don't remember that."
"No, you were unconscious."
"I was?" Confusion flooded her. "What happened to me?"
"The wound in your arm, where the wolf bit you, was infected. You were running a dangerously high temperature, so I had to dump you in the stream to cool you down."
"So you took off my clothes."
He inclined his head. "Well, yes, afterwards. They were wet."
"What else did you do?"
"Nothing. Well, I had to cut your arm and wash out the pus."
"What else?"
"Nothing." He met her eyes. "What do you think I did? You nearly died, and the cyber wouldn't have done anything, because you didn't ask it for help. I realised that something was wrong, and I was able to take over again, just in time to rush you to the river. Why didn't you tell the cyber you were sick? It would have helped you. If I hadn't been able to get free, you'd have died. All you had to do was tell the cyber that you required medical attention. It would have scanned you, diagnosed the problem, and done exactly what I did."
"I didn't know I was sick, just that I was cold."
"Silly girl."
Tassin pulled the blanket closer to her neck, struggling to quell an intense sense of vulnerability.
He looked puzzled. "Just what, exactly, do you think I did to you?"
"Nothing. But you saw me..." Her face grew warm, and she looked away.
"Naked? It's not the first time I've seen a naked woman, and it's not like I planned it or anything. I had to take off your wet clothes, or you might have caught pneumonia."
Sabre tucked the blanket around her and rose to light the fire. She sat up, nursing her throbbing arm. He wore only his silken undershorts, and she surmised that he had also got wet when he had dunked her in the stream. He took their clothes outside to hang in the sun, and returned as she was removing the bandage. Her arm was still swollen, and a fresh cut dissected the puncture wounds.
Sabre examined it and smeared ointment on it, then rebandaged it. He left to fetch water in the pot the Andorans had given them, putting it on the fire to heat for tea. Tassin was glad he was himself again, yet resentful that he had removed her clothes. His right eye was black and swollen almost shut, and mottled bruises marred half of his face, while others covered his chest and arms in strange patterns, like bizarre shadows. His right arm looked as if it had been dipped in blue ink from elbow to wrist, and she wondered how he ignored the pain.
"Why did my wound go bad, and not yours?" she asked.
"You were bitten by an animal. Such wounds usually get infected; animals have dirty mouths. You had blood poisoning, but fortunately it didn't have time to get into your system. I wouldn't have got an infection even from an animal bite, though. I have an immune system that can defeat the entire microbe population of a planet without breaking a sweat."
"Is your arm sore?"
He glanced down at the blackened limb. "Fair to middling."
"It was broken."
"Still is."
"Then you should put a splint on it."
He shook his head, smiling. "There's no need. The barrinium plating was a bit bent, but now that the cyber's straightened it, it will knit. It forms its own splint."
"Oh." She regarded him with grave awe. "Did you really drown?"
Sabre sprinkled tealeaves into the pot and stirred it. "Almost. I went into a blind panic, and that's when the cyber took over. I passed out, and when I woke up I was lying on the bank and the cyber was in charge."
"You must hate water."
He nodded. "Deep stuff."
"The cyber didn't see the magic."
"Nope. Machines have a blind spot when it comes to magic, luckily. I guess it proves that when technology encounters magic, technology wins through sheer logic."
"Will the cyber be able to take over again?"
Sabre frowned, glancing out of the cave mouth. "That magician's still out there, licking his wounds. He may try again, even without the muscle-bound moron, in which case, the cyber is our only effective weapon. It's hard for me to ignore what I see, which is why those illusions are effective. The cyber doesn't perceive them at all."
"So only the cyber can fight him?"
"Only the cyber is unaffected by his magic, but who knows what he's capable of?"
She shivered, despite the fire's warmth. "I wish you had killed him."
"There's a chance that he'll go back to Torrian now, I suppose."
"No, Torrian would kill him if he returned empty handed."
Sabre took the pot off the fire and set it aside to brew. "Then he's more dangerous than he was before. We'll have to be careful from now on. We don't know when he'll strike, or as what. I'll see him on the scanners, though. His magic can't do anything about that, and he doesn't know it."
"And then the cyber will have to fight him?"
"Perhaps. At least now I know I can regain control afterwards."
Tassin gazed at him, troubled. Would the cyber grow stronger with each takeover, or would Sabre? Who would ultimately win the battle for supremacy? The thought of losing him caused a strange pain in her chest, and she looked away.
Sabre gazed around at the scrubby vista. Clumps of trees crowded shallow gorges, and streams gushed from rocky nooks to run through them and vanish. Herds of grazing beasts wandered in the distance, and ground-nesting birds flew up ahead with warning calls. Two weeks had passed since they had left the cave.
For two days after his victory over the cyber, they had rested, waiting for Tassin's arm to heal. He had kept a wary eye on the scanners, but there had been no sign of the magician. On the third morning, Tassin had announced that she was strong enough to travel. They had climbed out of the gorge and turned north once more. The scanners had showed no life apart from woodland animals since then, and he had relaxed a little. Perhaps Tassin was wrong, he mused, or maybe the magician had accepted defeat, and would live peacefully on this side of the Badlands.
After several days, the forest had given way to scrubland, interspersed with copses and briar thickets. They slept in the tents, which kept them warm as the nights became chillier, and safe from the dew and frequent rain. Tassin pitched the tents and lighted the fire while Sabre hunted for their dinner, then helped to cook it while he relaxed. She seemed to have come to appreciate how much he did, especially since she had tried to pick up one of the packs and had almost fallen over in surprise when she discovered how heavy it was.
With much grunting and puffing, she had dragged it along for a bit, and he had watched her, chuckling, until she gave up. It had surprised him somewhat that she was unable to lift the pack. He had always thought her stronger than she actually was, he realised. The pack only contained one of the leather tents, several water skins, an assortment of pots, and the sword, and he did not find it terribly heavy. It probably weighed a little less than she did, he calculated, which was not much by his standards. She had sewed a shorter, more practical dress and a pair of moccasins from the cured skins of the animals he killed, since her pink frock was almost worn to rags and her soft slippers had holes in them.
As they strolled through a belt of trees that meandered out of one of the gorges, a warning light drew his attention to the scanner information. It showed a human life sign ahead, and he had his suspicions as to its identity. The trouble with wandering through strange territory, he mused, was that you had no idea who was around the next corner, or how hostile they were. At least the magician was a known quantity, to be treated with extreme animosity, and not to be confused with a possible friend. As they emerged from the belt of trees, he stopped, frowning. A glossy black stallion grazed on the lush grass that grew between the scrub and woodland, and he checked the scanners again, which showed that the animal was, in fact, human. The horse threw up its head and stared at them, its nostrils flaring as if trying to catch their scent.
Tassin cried, "Look, a horse!"
Sabre caught her arm when she started towards the animal, halting her, and she looked up at him in confusion.
"What's wrong? We can catch it and ride it."
He shook his head, not taking his eyes off the beast. "That's not a horse."
"What do you mean? Oh. It's him."
"Yes. Act normal, just walk around it."
Tassin gazed wide-eyed at the horse, and Sabre admired the mage's illusion. The beast's hide twitched away flies, and he wondered if they were part of the illusion, or real. The stallion watched them, its ears pricked, and, had it not been for the scanners, Sabre would have been fooled. The horse whinnied and trotted towards them, the epitome of a lonely, tame beast looking for human company. Sabre wondered if the noise was also a delusion, or if the mage had actually made the sound. He stepped in front of Tassin, and, when the animal drew close, picked up a stone.
"Shoo!" He threw the rock, and the stallion shied.
"Sabre," Tassin muttered, "are you sure it's not real?"
"Positive."
The horse watched them walk away, then tossed its head and trotted off. Tassin gazed back at it until it vanished into the trees.
"It certainly looked real."
Sabre nodded. "He's a master of illusion, but it seems he's not keen on coming to grips with me. That's why my hostility put him off."
"What was he trying to do?"
"Get close to you. If he grabs you, he could use you as a shield or a hostage, and hurt you if I try to rescue you. Maybe he could even fly away with you, like he did as the dragon. I'd really like to know how he did that. He's scared of me, though."
She frowned. "So why didn't you just tell him that you knew it was him, instead of acting as if you really thought it was a horse?"
"That might lead to a showdown, and I'd prefer to put off a confrontation until I'm completely healed. If we pretend we don't know it's him, but avoid the traps he sets for us, it buys me more time."
Tassin glanced at his arm, which he still favoured. The bone was not entirely strong yet, apparently. Her injuries had faded to pink scars, and his other wounds were barely noticeable lines and the faint remnants of yellowish bruises. She had removed the stitches from his scalp and arm a week ago, amazed by how quickly he healed.
They walked on, and Tassin glanced over her shoulder several times, although Sabre assured her that the scanners were once more devoid of human life signs.
The scrubland gave way to a vast tract of sighing golden grass inhabited by huge herds of terrestrial buffalo, antelope and deer, which grazed beside wild cattle, sheep and goats. Streams became rarer, which forced Sabre to carry more water, adding to his already considerable load. Since there was no firewood in the rolling grassland, they collected and burnt dried dung to cook the game Sabre killed. Tassin found that she could now walk at his side all day without growing tired, and even carried a small pack to lighten his burden. She kept her hair a practical plait, while Sabre cut his with his knife.
Two days after the encounter with the black stallion, a human life sign appeared on the scanners again as Sabre crested a hillock. A clear, sparkling pool nestled in the next hollow, and Tassin gave a delighted whoop and ran down to it, taking him by surprise. He reached her as she was about to kneel and scoop up the water, and she gave a yell when he pulled her away up the slope.
"What is your problem? I want to wash! I'm sticky and dirty, and so are you! Let me go!"
Sabre leant closer and whispered, "That's what the mage wants."
Tassin gulped, glancing back at the seductive pool.
"It's stagnant. It'll make you sick," he declared, for the mage's benefit.
As soon as they were out of sight, she stopped and turned to him. "I didn't think he could become something like a pool."
"No, that was unexpected."
"You knew he was waiting for us. Why didn't you warn me? I nearly fell for it."
Sabre's lips twitched in a faint smile. "I was curious to see what he'd try next, a lost puppy or kitten."
"He's too clever for that. Next time, tell me."
The following afternoon, thunder clouds rolled in like a billowing grey blanket, and icy rain slashed down. The wind lashed them while they struggled to pitch the tents, driving the frigid water even into the warm spots deep in their clothing.
Tassin glanced up from the peg she was trying to hammer into the sodden ground and pointed. "Look!"
A boulder stood in the golden grass, resting on a smaller one, a cosy cave between them. She began to bundle up the tent, and Sabre checked the scanners, certain the rocks had not been there when the storm had struck. Sure enough, where the rocks stood, a point of green light indicated a human being, and he stilled Tassin's busy hands with one of his.
"It's him."
Tassin wiped away the water that streamed down her face and gazed at him with incredulous disappointment. "You're sure?"
He nodded.
"What should we do?"
"Nothing; let him sit in the rain, maybe he'll get pneumonia."
They pitched the tents end to end and left the flaps open so they could talk, and Sabre watched the point of light while Tassin dried her hair. By the time they broke out the cold rations and settled down for supper, the mage had moved away.
Weeks passed in endless walking, except when it rained and Tassin refused to travel. On those days, Sabre was glad of the rest, for although the exercise kept him fit, it also sapped his strength. Despite his massive stamina, the load he bore weighed considerably more than a normal man could carry for any length of time. The grasslands appeared to be uninhabited, apart from the grazing beasts and a few slinking, cat-like predators.
They encountered the wizard as a bubbling brook, a clump of sweet-scented flowers, a bush full of ripe berries and a shady tree in the heat of the day. Sabre began to enjoy the encounters, making loud comments about the unpleasant aspects of each object. The flowers, he warned, would give Tassin a rash. He insisted that the brook was tainted, and claimed that he could smell its pollution without venturing any closer. The berries were poisonous, he told Tassin, and the tree he said was unstable and liable to attract lightning down on their heads. Sabre wondered how long it would take the mage to realise that he knew who hid within the illusions.
Time passed in slow travel, and Sabre wondered if they would reach the sea without encountering anyone, apart from the magician. Gearn had disguised himself as rose bush Sabre had warned Tassin was full of thorns, a freshly killed animal he had asserted was rotten, and a thin, friendly dog he had chased away by pelting it with stones. Several pained yelps had rewarded his marksmanship, to his delight.
Changing his tactics from the sublime to the ridiculous, the wizard had then created an illusory feast set out on a table, and the aroma of roast fowl and savoury stew had made their mouths water. They detoured around it, Sabre declaring that it must belong to someone, and therefore should be left alone. Since then, he had detected the magician's life sign several times in ostensibly empty areas, and had given them a wide berth for no apparent reason. Sabre had to admire the mage's persistence, if nothing else.
A few days later, they came across dozens of great swathes of short green turf amongst the long golden grass, as if a horde of wandering madmen had driven gigantic lawnmowers through the plains. The tracts of lawn became more numerous, and when they found one going in the right direction it made their journey easier, but the trails always curved away after a while. Sabre found that, for once, the cyber had no answer to this strange phenomenon in its vast store of information.
The trails remained a mystery until they crested one of the many rolling hills one warm afternoon. In the next valley, a herd of monstrous snail-like creatures moved through the grass, each leaving a verdant trail behind it, dotted with manure. Sabre stopped and studied them, while Tassin gazed at them in patent amazement. Their curling shells were at least eight metres in diameter, pale grey striped with dull green. Vast, rippling dark blue feet supported them, and their heads each bore two feelers and a pair of eye stalks tipped with simple eyes.
"What are they?" Tassin asked, without taking her eyes off the strange beasts.
"An indigenous species. By the looks of it, a type of snail."
"Not him."
"No, this would be beyond his powers, I think." He did not bother to check the scanners.
The snails munched the grass, their heads moving from side to side as they mowed it.
He glanced at her. "Let's go and have a closer look."
"What if they're dangerous?"
"They don't look dangerous. Besides, even you could outrun a snail."
She grinned. "These days, I could outrun you."
He laughed. "You think so?"
"Want to wager on it?"
"No."
"Because you know you'll lose."
"No, I just don't want a tongue lashing when I win."
Sabre stepped aside when she tried to clout him, then dumped the packs and ran backwards, mocking her. She dropped her bundle and gave chase, and he turned and raced away, leaving her behind. Tassin ran after him, laughing. She must know she stood no chance of catching him, he reflected, but clearly she enjoyed the rare moment of relaxation and playfulness.
Sabre was far ahead when he became aware of the cyber's warning light, and he stopped and glanced back just as a man rose from the long grass right in front of Tassin. She gave a startled yell and tried to swerve, but slipped and fell with an inelegant grunt. Sabre cursed the fact that he had not checked the scanners for some time. There had not seemed to be much point in the open terrain, where everything was visible from a distance, and the mage had not put in an appearance for a while. He sprinted back to Tassin, alarmed by the appearance of a stranger in the apparently empty plains. A tall, tanned man with dark red hair and bright green eyes stood over the Queen, looking concerned.
"Are you all right?"
Tassin glared up at him and rubbed her elbow, and Sabre arrived at her side as she stood up. The stranger topped him by several centimetres, but then, most men did, and it did not bother him in the least. The man, who wore a fawn suede shirt decorated with beadwork, matching trousers and soft leather shoes, smiled at him and made an odd gesture.
"Greetings. I'm Shan of the Moniliid Tribe. What tribe are you from?"
Sabre introduced himself and Tassin, wondering if the mage had found a disguise he could not penetrate.
Shan turned to Tassin. "I'm sorry I gave you a fright. I was just relaxing in the grass when I heard you coming. You might have stood on me." He shifted under their combined scrutiny and asked, "Where's your herd?"
"Our herd?" Sabre asked.
"Yes, your snails."
"We have no snails."
Shan looked amazed. "You're out here on your own?"
"We're travelling in search of a cultured people."
"So you left your herd?"
Sabre shook his head. "We came from the forest."
Shan grinned. "You're from a faraway land!"
"Yes."
"That's wonderful! You must stay with us a while. Come and meet the chief."
Looking as excited as an overgrown schoolboy, Shan turned and headed for the snails. Sabre glanced at Tassin. There was no way to tell if Shan was in fact the mage, but he seemed like a harmless fellow, and had made no attempt to get close to her even when she had been within his reach. She raised her brows, indicating that it was his decision. Sabre shrugged and followed Shan.
As they approached the gigantic snails, more people appeared, as if from nowhere. Sabre wondered if they had all been hiding in the grass. He belatedly checked the scanners, and found twenty-seven life signs in the cyber's human scan total, plus thirty-two aliens. The control unit's warning light had stopped flashing, since the people were unarmed. It did, however, detect the presence of bows and arrows inside some of the snails. The people beamed and gathered around, calling greetings as if he and Tassin were long lost friends. They wore similar clothes to Shan's, some more decorative, and the women were clad in knee-length suede dresses with tasselled hems and beaded necklines, their feet shod in beaded ankle boots. A short, wiry man pushed through the crowd, grinning. His thinning, dark gold hair was slicked across his scalp, and bright blue eyes twinkled in his deeply tanned face.
"Welcome! Welcome! I'm Chief Clon." He made the same odd gesture as Shan had done, and looked confused when they did not return it. Shan whispered in his ear, and the chief's grin broadened. "People from afar! Wonderful! You must stay with us. We want to hear all about your land, and your travels."
Sabre nodded, smiling. The tribe's open friendliness was infectious. "Thank you. Where's your village?"
"Our village? Why, you're standing in it!"
Sabre glanced around at the munching behemoths. "I'm standing in a herd of snails."
"Yes, this is our home."
"You're nomads? You live in tents?"
Clon shook his head. "No, we live in the snails."
"In the snails?"
"That's right. Come, I'll show you."
Still beaming, Clon led Sabre to the nearest snail, and the crowd followed, murmuring and smiling. Clon rapped on its shell, and it tilted, the flesh under it receding to form a passage just large enough for a man to enter. Clon crawled up, and Sabre followed.
Tassin, either unwilling to be left behind or curious, came after him. As she crawled out of the passage, he sensed the snail's movement as it closed the door. Above him, the shell curled away out of sight, and a taut sheath of muscle ran up the convex wall at the front of it. Soft golden light seeped through the shell to illuminate a spacious living area atop the snail's back, which was flat, warm and dry, the texture of brushed satin.
Pots, plates, clothing and toys were scattered around, and bedding was rolled up next to the wall. The snail's slow movements could be detected under them as it grazed. Five steps, attached to the front of the shell next to the muscular sheath, led up to the top of its curve.
Clon gestured. "This is where we live. Up there is storage and the water reservoir." He pointed to the steps. "Of course cooking and calls of nature are taken care of outside."
Sabre gazed around in amazement. "How do you train them to accept you and let you in here?"
"We don't. They do it naturally. We believe that at some time they had an indigenous symbiote, which the colonists probably wiped out. Chances are, it was a predator, possibly dangerous. The snails have a parasite that we rid them of, as their previous symbiote undoubtedly did. In return for this service, we get a warm, dry, safe home."
"I wonder why the colonists allowed such a large indigenous creature to survive," Sabre mused.
Clon shrugged. "Why not? They're completely harmless, and they crop the grass and fertilise the land. There's no reason to destroy them. They eat the tough grass that grazing animals like cattle and sheep don't, and leave a rich green lawn in their wake, as you've seen."
"You're the first person I've encountered on this planet who knows it was once a colony."
The little man swelled with pride. "Ah, well, most people have no record of what happened. For them, the past has been swallowed up in legend. Our people survived the holocaust because they were farmers, and didn't live in cities. They were thinly spread over this vast planet, for even then there were only a few million people.
"Most kept in touch with civilisation with radios, and made biannual trips into the cities for supplies. When the bombs destroyed the cities, the survivors went a little mad. But for the farmers, all that changed was they could no longer get supplies and there was no market for their produce. Most became subsistence farmers, but some became nomads. We still have records of what happened, which we carry with us now, and teach our children."
Tassin asked, "How did your people discover that they could live in the snails?"
"We're not too sure about that, but probably some adventurous person came across a herd and knocked curiously on a shell. Once he had been admitted, he must have seen the advantages of living in here instead of in tents or shacks as they did then."
"So anyone can knock on a shell and be admitted?"
"Oh yes, the snail always responds to a knock by opening the passage."
She raised her brows. "What if the people inside don't wish to be disturbed?"
"Well, the snail waits for a while if no one enters, so the visitor will always call out for an invitation before entering."
"What about your enemies?" Sabre asked.
"We don't have any." Clon grinned and clapped the cyber on the shoulder. "Don't worry; you and your wife will be quite safe with us."
Tassin scowled. "I am not his wife. I am the Queen of Arlin."
Clon's eyes darted between them. "You're not married to each other, yet you travel together?"
"Sabre is my man-at-arms. He is responsible for my welfare and protection."
"I see, well, that's fine, you can share a snail until things change."
Sabre wondered what was going to change, and why it should. Tassin seemed to be too interested in the snail to notice Clon's odd statement.
She studied the blue bulk beneath her. "What happens when the snail comes into its shell?"
Clon's perennial smile broadened. "They rarely do that. Only when there's danger, and not much frightens these beauties, as you can imagine. But when they do, there's still room at the top there." He pointed up the stairs. "You can sit quite comfortably until it comes out again. For some reason, the air's always fresh inside, even when the snail's in its shell."
Sabre glanced at the top of the steps, calculating that there would be little space there when the snail's vast bulk had been pulled in. "So you're trapped until the snail decides to vacate the shell again?"
"Pretty much. But no one would be foolish enough to want to go out when there's danger outside."
Sabre opened his mouth to ask what sort of dangers there were in the plains, but Tassin spoke first. "Are there any cities or towns around here?"
Clon shrugged. "There's Malkil to the north, but I wouldn't recommend that to anyone."
"Why?" Sabre enquired.
"It's not a nice place. It's a city that was gassed during the war, and the culture is an odd mixture of old and new. They have no laws, so people do as they please, murdering, stealing, even enslaving others. They use pre-war weapons, which makes them dangerous. You seem to know something about our history. I thought only snail people knew that this world was a colony. Even the idiots in Malkil believe in crazy stories and legends, mixed with a smattering of truth. Did your people also keep records?"
"That's a long story."
"Good, we need new stories told at supper. Yours will be a most welcome addition." Clon eyed the control unit. "That thing on your head looks like a modern gadget."
"It is."
"Excellent. You can tell us all about it tonight."
Clon turned towards the exit, but Sabre detained him with a touch on his elbow. "One thing, before we decide whether or not to stay here. Has a stranger joined your tribe within the last few days?"
"No, we've seen no one since last we met another herd, and that was, oh, about eight months ago now."
"Any new snails?"
"No, why?"
"Just curious."
Clon clapped his hands, and the snail pulled its flesh aside to open the passage. Outside, the crowd had dispersed, and only Shan waited for them. He smiled when Tassin emerged.
Clon joined them, turning to Sabre. "We'll find you an empty snail to live in right away."
"Oh, no," Tassin said, "we'll be more comfortable in our tents."
"My dear girl, you can't stay outside; it's not safe!" Clon was clearly horrified. "There are wolves, and besides, these beauties may look slow, but they can cover quite a distance in a night. You would wake up to find us gone."
"We've been camping in the plains for weeks, and we've seen no wolves," Sabre said.
"You've been lucky. It's not safe to sleep in the open. We just have to find an empty snail, and you can put your mark on it and move in."
"Thank you."
Clon told Shan to find them an empty snail, then continued to expound the advantages of living in snails, which seemed to be many and varied. Sabre listened with half an ear, thinking of all the disadvantages he could have pointed out, like the lack of indoor plumbing, privacy, and land to grow crops that the snails' endless meandering would not leave behind. If you fell asleep in the grass, you would wake up to find that your home had vanished over the horizon, he mused. Then again, the snails left a large enough track to follow.
A burst of giggles made him look up. Three grinning children sat on the huge tail of the snail he had just inspected, bouncing and jostling as it moved past. Tassin smiled at them, increasing their shy giggles while they tried to hide behind each other. Shan returned and guided them to a snail on the outskirts of the herd, walking close to Tassin. Sabre did not miss the covetous looks he shot her, and sensed trouble brewing. She seemed oblivious, listening to his prattle, and, when they reached the snail, Shan drew knife.
"I haven't been inside yet, and, although we check the empty snails from time to time, there may be parasites. Come with me, and I'll show you what to do."
Tassin shot Sabre a meaningful look, clearly not interested in killing parasites, so he followed Shan into the shell. Three black, tube-like creatures clung to the floor, and Shan squatted beside one. The parasite was as featureless as a piece of garden hose, but it wriggled like a maddened snake when Shan gripped it. He jerked it out, revealing the long proboscis that had been imbedded in the snail's flesh, sucking its blood.
He explained, "When they crawl up they move very fast, but once they're attached they're easy to kill." He cut it in two with a flick of his knife. "We prefer to try to kill them before they attach themselves, to save the snail from pain, but it doesn't really matter."
He killed the rest of the parasites, then stood up and confronted Sabre, smiling. "I like your wife. Perhaps I'll challenge you for her."
"She's not my wife, and I wouldn't advise it. You can ask her if she's interested, but if not, leave her alone."
Shan beamed. "If she's not your wife, there's no problem."
Sabre's brows rose at this assertion, wondering what he meant. He followed Shan back outside, where he smiled and winked at Tassin before sauntering off.
She swung to glare at Sabre. "Did you tell him something?"
"Only what you told Clon; that you're not my wife."
"He asked?"
Sabre headed into the grassland to collect the packs. "He assumed. I think he fancies you."
Tassin snorted and followed him. "Well, I don't fancy him."
"You don't fancy anyone who's not a prince or king."
"That's right."
"So when he asks, tell him."
She trotted to keep up with his long strides. "You should tell him. You're my bodyguard."
"No I'm not."
"What are you then?"
"Good question."
When he had retrieved the packs, Sabre climbed into the snail and spread the bedding out on opposite sides of the oval room. Tassin gazed around, looking dubious. Sabre noticed that a faint, spicy odour hung in the air within the snail, rather like incense.
"Home sweet home," he quipped, eliciting a weak smile from her.
"I never dreamt that I would one day live in a snail."
"Me neither." He grinned. "But it's different."
Tassin sat on the soft, warm floor. "I don't think I want to stay here very long."
"That's good. Shan might become a problem if we do."
"What kind of problem?"
Sabre settled on his bedding and leant against the smooth wall. "Well, when he thought I was your husband, he said he might challenge me for you. When I told him I wasn't, he said that then there was no problem. I think in this tribe, the women go with whoever wins them."
"That's barbaric!"
He shrugged. "This whole planet is barbaric. I wish I knew how their society worked. It would be a lot easier if you just pretended to be my wife, you know."
"But I'm not!"
"I'm well aware of that, but it may save a lot of trouble. We don't even know what constitutes marriage around here. Maybe possession is nine tenths of the law, and all Shan has to do is drag you into his snail, and presto, you're married." He chuckled. "Although I pity him if he does."
"Why?" She raised her brows.
"Because every man who's ever had designs on you, you've threatened to murder. You did threaten Rai, didn't you?"
"Yes, but he was a pig. So was Torrian!"
"I agree. Are there any men you don't consider pigs?"
She looked away. "You're not a pig."
"Thank you. And Victor."
"Victor's a coward."
"He's a prince and a politician, and there's never anything honest about politicians. They have too many ulterior motives."
Tassin eyed him. "It's your job to help me, so if Shan becomes a problem, you'll just have to take care of it."
"That's the problem. I don't want to have to."
"Oh, Sabre, don't get soft again. It's your job."
"My job? You jest, My Queen," he mocked. "It was the cyber's job, not mine. I agreed to help you, but that doesn't necessarily include chasing off suitors, does it?"
"Oh, so you would just let him drag me off and ravish me?"
"Who said anything about ravishing?"
"Well if I'm not willing, what would you call it?"
He smiled and cocked his head. "A marriage of convenience?"
Tassin's brows drew together in a thunderous scowl, and she jumped up, advancing on him. "You're impossible! It's not funny!"
Sabre chuckled and ducked when she took a swing at him. "He'd be a better catch than Torrian. He's good looking, at least. You could be Queen of the Snail People!"
"That's not funny, Sabre!" An unwilling smile tugged at her lips even as she tried to clout him again.
He rolled to his feet, evading her. "Oh, now you're going to beat me up too? Since you're a fearsome warrior queen, why don't you chase him off? You're very good at that, aren't you?"
Tassin gave up trying to clobber him and stamped her foot. "I will, too!"
Sabre grinned, delighted. If Shan pursued Tassin, it would be a source of much amusement indeed. Although the journey's trials had mellowed her, sometimes her old stubborn snobbishness returned. He looked forward to the fireworks that would ensue if Shan decided to tackle her, and pitied the man.
The snail made a comfortable home, and the tribe's simple lifestyle proved to be carefree and filled with laughter. Every night they built a communal fire, and the women cooked the meat the hunters provided, as well as roots and tubers the women had collected. The people ate, talked, told stories and danced to simple tunes played on drums and a sort of violin. The women wore bright, printed cotton skirts on these occasions, and Clon explained that they traded with the people from Malkil for clothes, pots and steel knives, paying with skins and pretty stones they found in the grassland.
Tassin and Sabre's tale kept the Moniliid entertained night after night, for they insisted that it be retold many times. The tribe's folk tales proved equally entertaining to the newcomers, and the story-tellers were happy to have a new audience. After the song and dance, everyone retired to the snails, which were lighted by luminescent algae that grew on the inside of the shells.
The hunters used bows, and lay in ambush for the fleet-footed grazers. Even previously domesticated animals like cattle and sheep had evolved a fair turn of speed and a healthy distrust for anything that moved in the grass. The hunters were excellent marksmen, but the speed with which their targets moved curtailed their success rate. The day Sabre joined the hunt, however, he brought down three cows and five sheep, at which point the hunters asked him to stop before they had more meat than they could use. Their effusive praise of Sabre's marksmanship embarrassed him, and when they sang his praises around the fire that night, Tassin laughed at his discomfort.
The snail tribe had an orderly, stable society of families that relied on each other, and ensured that no one ever went hungry. If someone fell ill, another hunter, usually a relative, would provide for him and his family until he recovered, or in the case of a woman, cared for her and her children. Almost everyone was related, some by marriage and many by blood, but marrying relatives was forbidden. Girls were considered to be of marriageable age at sixteen, and when two tribes met, a friendly sort of war broke out as single men challenged husbands or fathers for their women.
Fathers usually only put up a token fight, and many husbands were not averse to a change of mate. Once children had been born into a union, however, it was seldom challenged. If it was, the battle was often fierce and bloody, for the children went with their mother. Few men wished to raise another's children, however, so these fights were rare. Three children in a family was generally the maximum. The men fought with sticks and shields in a traditional duel that the elders judged and refereed. The tribe treated their elders with respect and provided for them. They taught the children their folklore on the tail of a snail, and Sabre often attended the school to learn more about their culture, much to the children's amusement.
The women showed Tassin which roots were edible and how to clean and cook them, as well as which pretty stones should be collected. They helped her to hone her sewing skills and make a pretty dress from the soft lambskin Sabre provided. The men taught Sabre to make a bow and arrows, took him hunting, and sparred with him. The tribe's carefree lifestyle involved no major decisions, since they went where the snails took them and ate what they were able to kill or find. The traders from Malkil came out in wagons to barter, and followed the herd until the transactions were complete. The tribe had no real need of a chief; Clon had been chosen because he had a quick tongue and was good at settling disputes.
Sabre checked the cyber's human life-sign total daily, to ensure that it had not increased by one. Any illusions the magician cast would be investigated by dozens of people, however, and, clearly realising this, he kept away. Sabre remained vigilant, even so, aware that the wizard could ambush a hunter out in the grass and replace him, if he chose.
Shan pursued Tassin with a single-minded intensity that drove her to distraction, but Sabre refused to interfere. Shan was undaunted when she refused his gifts of meat, flowers, skins and pretty stones, or by her slaps, glares and harsh words when he tried to hold her hand or stroke her hair. Sabre found it amusing, which enraged the Queen further. Her scolding tirades only made him avoid her company, though, and left her more vulnerable to Shan's attentions.
Tassin railed at Sabre for this too, but he was determined to let her sort out the problem. When she realised the error of her tactics, she stopped castigating him and stayed close to him instead, in the hope of finding protection there, he guessed. He spent a great deal of time with Clon, who was a font of information about snails, which Sabre found fascinating.
One balmy afternoon, Sabre sought out Clon, as he often did, and joined him on the sloping side of a low hill. Tassin followed and sat beside him, although the subject of snails bored her. The chief greeted them with a warm smile, and Sabre propped himself on his elbows and gazed at the herd. Plucking a blade of coarse grass, he chewed it.
"How old are these snails?" he asked.
"They live for many hundreds of years," Clon explained. "Only when they're about four hundred years old are they big enough to live in. There are males and females, and they mate at a certain time of the year, then migrate to a river, where they lay their eggs. The eggs are swept into the sea, and the baby snails spend the first fifty or so years there, then crawl ashore, seek out a herd and join it. Herds seldom grow larger than thirty, then they split up. If they moved in greater numbers, there wouldn't be enough grass for all of them."
Tassin groaned as Shan approached with an armload of flowers, which, considering how few grew amongst the grass, must have taken him all day to collect. The tall man knelt before her and laid the blossoms at her feet.
"For you, Tassin."
She glowered at him. "Go away, Shan, and take your flowers with you."
He looked pained. "I merely wish to show you how much I admire you, Tassin. You're the most beautiful woman in the tribe."
She snorted. "I'm only visiting."
"You have a snail with your mark on it, so you're one of the tribe."
She glanced at Sabre, who suppressed a smile, then turned back to her unwanted suitor. "Leave me alone."
He rose, looking hurt, and walked away.
Clon frowned at her. "He could cause trouble for you, young lady."
Sabre's amusement evaporated. "What sort of trouble?"
"Well, he's right. You're officially part of the tribe now, and women don't stay single here. Shan is the only unwed man, and he can only find a wife if he challenges one of the other men, or if we meet another herd. Since you two aren't married, he has every right to pay court to Tassin. He's been quite patient, but I fear that his patience will run out soon, and then he may resort to more forceful tactics."
"Then Sabre will kill him, or I will," Tassin retorted.
Sabre's brows rose, and he shot her a dubious glance.
Clon shook his head. "You have no right, since you've declared that you're not wed. Why should Sabre protect you from a suitor?"
"Because I don't want him."
The chief smiled. "Women never know what they want. They always say no, but once they've been persuaded, they're happy. They just enjoy the chase."
Sabre chuckled, and Tassin shot him a killing glare. "We're leaving," she said, jumping up.
He squinted up at her. "What, now? It's getting late, you know."
"In the morning." She marched off towards their snail.
Clon gazed after her. "She has a lot of spirit."
Sabre snorted. "You could call it that, I suppose."
"I'm surprised you haven't claimed her." Clon turned to him, raising a brow. "She's young and beautiful. If I wasn't already married..."
"She's a queen, and I'm just a commoner. Besides, you don't know her like I do. She's cute, but boy, is she a pain sometimes."
Clon laughed, his eyes sparkling. "But all women are like that, Sabre. My wife Rishal is a lovely girl, sweet and beautiful, and I love her dearly, but sometimes I wish someone would challenge me for her. I wouldn't fight very hard."
Sabre grinned. "Nags, does she?"
"When she gets going, I run!"
"How is it that men and women, who are so different, can get along?"
"You don't understand love, my friend. They say it's blind, and they're right. But that warm feeling you get in your chest when everything's going well, like bubbles bursting, nothing can beat it. When I first saw Rishal, the world moved. Her father didn't like me. He said I was too small, and he beat me good, gave me two black eyes and almost broke my arm, but I wouldn't give up. Eventually the judges gave her to me. Then I had to win her heart, and that was an even tougher battle." He leant closer. "But I think you've already won little Tassin's heart, my friend. You should marry her."
Sabre stared across the plains. "What makes you say that?"
"The way she looks at you, of course. And when one of the other women looks at you, she glares."
Sabre touched the brow band in an involuntary gesture of despair. If Tassin had developed feelings for him, she would only get hurt. The feelings he had, which so confused him, were pointless and forbidden. The voice in his head taunted him from the dark corner where his despair dwelt. Cyborg! He glanced at Clon, who looked concerned, but as the chief opened his mouth, shouts came from the direction in which Tassin had vanished into the herd.
Clon looked around. "Oh dear, Shan has lost patience."
Sabre leapt up and sprinted towards the herd before Clon had finished the sentence. Skidding around a snail, he found Shan dragging Tassin, who punched and kicked him, shouting insults. A chuckling crowd gathered, and Shan looked like he was already regretting his move, hopping as the Queen landed a good kick on his shin. He persevered, however, warding off her blows. Sabre grinned.
Tassin spotted him, and her wrathful expression boded ill for him too. "Sabre! Get this lout off me!"
He strolled closer, and Shan paused as Sabre blocked the path and said, "Shan, you really don't want to do this."
Tassin shouted, "Just kill him!"
Shan gaped at her.
"See what I mean?" Sabre enquired. "She's a real cow."
Tassin spluttered, glaring at him. "How dare you? I'm a queen, above all you riffraff! Let me go!" She landed another kick on Shan's shin, and he hopped, cursing.
"Is this why she's not your wife?"
Sabre folded his arms. "I wouldn't touch her with a bargepole. Imagine having to put up with that for the rest of your life? She'd drive any man to drink, take my word for it. The window dressing's nice, but the language?" He shook his head. "You'd be a brave man to tackle her, and you'd get no joy from it. She'll make your life a misery."
Shan eyed the panting, dishevelled Queen, who glowered at each of them in turn. "Perhaps you're right." He released her, and she rubbed her wrist.
"The pair of you can go to hell!" she shouted, and marched off.
Sabre put a hand on Shan's shoulder. "My friend, you have no idea what a narrow escape you just had."
The tall man looked bemused but disappointed. Sabre grimaced and followed the Queen. He found her in the snail, stuffing her bedding into a bag. Leaning against the shell, he watched her until she turned on him, then raised his hands at her thunderous expression.
"Hey! Whoa! Peace!"
"You!" she snarled. "How dare you insult me like that? You should be flogged!"
He groaned. She was back on her high horse again. "It worked, didn't it?"
She hurled a wooden bowl, which he ducked. "Knocking him out would have too! Without embarrassing me!"
"Oh, right, I should have just put his lights out. At least you've mellowed from killing." A rolled up blanket flew at his head, and he ducked again.
"You have no class! A prince, or even a knight, would have shown me more respect!"
"Well I'm sorry, Your Highness, I'm just one of the riffraff."
"That's right!" Tassin yelled, and hurled a stream of missiles at him; three pottery jugs, two wooden bowls, a half full water skin and a metal pot with a dent in it that bounced off the shell with a clatter. He caught the pottery jugs to save them from destruction and dodged the rest, wondering what the snail thought of the ruckus going on in its shell. He hoped Shan was listening.
Tassin ran out of ammunition and stood panting, arms akimbo. "I suppose you thought it was funny?"
He put the jugs down. "Well... sort of." He grinned.
She flew at him and smacked his face before he caught her wrists. "Take your dirty hands off me!"
"I will if you stop trying to hit me. I don't enjoy it, you know. I feel pain just as much as anyone else."
Tassin growled and wrenched away. He released her, and she retreated to the far side of the snail and glowered at him.
"So, you still think I'm a cow?"
He shrugged. "Only when you act like one."
"Oh!" She gestured wildly. "So I should have just let him drag me into his snail?"
"No, you could have simply called me, instead of cursing a blue streak and pulverising his shins."
Tassin glared at him, still fuming, but stumped. "Sometimes I wish you were still a cyber, then I wouldn't have to listen to your pontificating self-righteousness!"
He sighed. "Well, technically I am still a cyber, but I'm not self-righteous, just trying to keep the peace."
Tassin swung away. "We're leaving! I need to live amongst people of my own class, who have manners, not a bunch of savages with the morals of cavemen."
"Oh? And Torrian wasn't about to drag you, kicking and screaming, to the altar before we left?"
Tassin spun back. "You always have to be right, don't you? At least Torrian's a king!"
"He's still a man. Under all the pomp and a silly title is just another hairy male."
"Silly title?"
Sabre cursed under his breath. He was only digging a bigger hole for himself, it seemed. He waited for the next outburst, then tensed when shouts and screams came from outside, and he wondered what was going on. As he raised his hands to clap, the floor heaved. Tassin yelped as she lost her balance and fell against the shell. The floor bulged, rising at a remarkable speed, carrying them and all the brick-a-brack up with it. The shell slid downwards, filled by the rising body. The snail was withdrawing.
Sabre crossed to Tassin's side, and as soon as he was in range she threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. He held her while the snail continued to withdraw, the shell sliding past his back. He was forced to walk forward as the floor moved under his feet, yet stayed against the wall. The snail's foot soon filled the lower part of the shell, reaching the curved section, where the floor tilted, forcing them to make their way down onto the top of the curved spiral.
The only sound was a soft slithering as the snail's silky skin rubbed against the smooth inside of the shell. They were flung across the shell, and Sabre thrust himself between Tassin and the wall to cushion her from the impact. Deprived of its massive foot, the tall shell had fallen over. Sabre tried to untangle himself from Tassin, but she hung on, trembling, and he was unwilling to pry her away. The snail had almost completely withdrawn now, but, as Clon had said, there was still enough room to sit comfortably. A squeaking sound told him that the snail was pulling its door into place, then silence reigned.
For the next few minutes, only their breathing broke the quiet. Sabre assumed that everyone had reached their snails and were safely inside. He had not asked Clon whether a snail would let a person in after it had withdrawn, but he doubted it, for once the massive chitin door was in place, the snail could not open the passage without opening the door. Questions plagued him. What had caused the snails to withdraw, and could it harm them? He did not relish the possibility of being trapped inside a decomposing snail.
Straining his sensitive ears, he detected the faint padding of paws moving through the grass, and the sound of panting, like a dog's. A flashing red light deep in his brain caught his attention, and, remembering the cyber, he consulted the scanners. Thirty-two life signs moved amongst the herd. The bright lights indicated large creatures, and the colour identified them as terrestrial wolves. Why would a pack of wolves attack the alien snails, he wondered, and why were the snails afraid of them? Clon had mentioned wolves, but not that they were dangerous to the snails. Surely wolves could not kill one of the multi-tonne beasts, whose leathery hide was immensely strong?
Teeth grated on the shell close to his head, making Tassin gasp and clutch him tighter. Claws scratched the shell, then the beast outside moved away, going around to the bottom of the snail to test the door's strength. There too, it seemed to have no luck, and silence fell once more as the wolf moved off. Sabre was sure the pack would soon lose interest and leave, but the snail remained closed. He became aware of Tassin's face buried far too intimately in the side of his neck, and her arms locked around him with the tenacity of a lamprey. He patted her shoulder.
"Tassin, there's no need to try to climb into my skin. It's just a pack of wolves, and they can't get in, okay?"
An unintelligible mumble, muffled by his neck, answered him.
"What?"
She turned her head. "Is it too much to expect a little comfort from you in a dangerous situation?"
"Just a few minutes ago, you were throwing pots at my head."
"Things change."
"Don't they just? Come on, ease up, you're giving me a cramp."
Tassin looked up, her face centimetres from his, and Sabre turned his head away. Tension filled the shell's cramped confines.
"Are you so heartless?"
"No."
Tassin pulled back to study him, and Sabre extricated himself, moving away to lean against the curving wall.
"You find intimate situations strange, don't you?" she asked.
He scowled, irritated by her astute deduction. Was he so transparent? "Of course I do. I haven't exactly had a lot of experience with that sort of thing."
"And how will you ever gain any, if you avoid it?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps I don't want any. What good would it do me?"
"You may learn what it is to be human."
"My being human has only ever led to disaster."
"That's no reason to shun it. Do you think I want you to be like the cyber?"
"I don't have to... just leave it, okay?" He met her eyes, and she looked away. Sabre leant his head against the shell and tried to relax.
If only Sabre was not a commoner, or, at least, not so handsome, Tassin mused. A thought struck her, and she asked, "Sabre, the man you were... cloned from, what do you know about him?"
A bitter smile twisted his lips. "Not much, but he was only a dirty commoner, so you can forget that little idea too."
"I'm just trying to make conversation to distract myself from the situation, that's all."
"Yeah, right. Why don't you accept that you're no longer a queen? You can never return to Arlin, and even if we find a country populated by a monarchy, you have no proof of who you are. We're just a couple of wanderers now. Wouldn't you be happier if you accepted that and lived a normal life?"
"You mean become a commoner."
He sighed. "You've lived as a commoner since we left Arlin. Has it been so bad?"
"I was raised to be a queen. How can I forget that?"
"But you can't be a queen here. What will you do, spend the rest of your life searching for a prince to marry?"
She bit her lip, her heart heavy. "I'll not be happy until I rule Arlin again. That's what I was born to do. How can I live as a commoner, knowing that I'm a queen?"
"How can you go back, knowing that Torrian's waiting for you?"
"I don't know." She frowned and turned away.
Sabre listened to the silence outside, wondering why the snail remained closed. A glance at the scanners showed him that all of the wolves were gathered around one snail, and the realisation hit him like a slap.
"Shit! They've found a way in."
"What?" Tassin looked up in surprise.
"The wolves. They must have found a way into one of the snails."
"What makes you say that? Maybe they've left?"
Sabre shook his head. "No, I can see them on the scanners. They're all around one snail." He paused, frowning. "And there are four people inside it."
"Do you think they will survive?"
"Perhaps." He nodded at the wall of flesh that filled the shell behind him. "These are very big creatures. I doubt even thirty-two wolves could eat their way through all that. Maybe we'll just have to dig them out when the wolves have gorged themselves and left. But how can wolves eat an alien creature like this? It's poisonous to them."
"They're just animals. Maybe they don't realise."
"That's possible, I suppose."
"Maybe it's the mage!" she said.
"I don't think he has the power to do this. Those animals aren't illusions. Besides, I don't see him on the scanners; all the people are inside snails."
As they waited, the light within the snail faded from the dull illumination of the sunlight permeating the shell to the dim light of the algae. The snail was not going to open until the wolves had feasted and left, Sabre surmised. Tassin fell asleep, and he dozed against the wall.
The cyber's chronometer told Sabre it was noon, local time, when a soft slithering sound alerted him to the fact that the snail was re-emerging. The wall of flesh receded, moving around the curve of the shell. He woke Tassin, and they followed it. The snail extended its foot far out of its home, allowing sunlight to flood in through the gap. Once its foot had a firm grip on the earth, it pulled the shell upright, and they jumped onto its back. Sabre clapped his hands, and the beast drew aside its flesh to open the passage.
Outside, a balmy breeze ruffled the tranquil, rolling grasslands. He stretched, glad to be out in the fresh air. All the snails were either re-emerging or already out, waving their feelers in an agitated manner. Clon trotted past, and Sabre and Tassin followed him to the edge of the herd, where a crowd gathered around a terrible sight.
A snail shell lay on its side, a huge area of blood-stained grass surrounding it. Long strings of sinew hung from it, and chunks of gristle clung to the inside, where the snail's body had been attached to its home. All sign of its inhabitants was gone, save for the shreds of inedible flesh. Clon stood amongst the gathering crowd, tears in his eyes, and many people sobbed and wailed.
Sabre approached him. "Who was it?"
Clon wiped his eyes. "Milla and Derk, and their two children, Sten and Clia."
Sabre stared at the empty shell. "I thought you said it was safe in the snails?"
"It is. This happens rarely. Mostly the wolves don't find a weak snail. I warned Derk. Their snail was very old. They should have moved into a younger one, then they would have been all right. This snail also had a chunk taken out of his door at the last breeding season. They liked him because he was so big, and they needed space for the children. They should have moved!" Clon's face twisted with grief.
Sabre vaguely remembered a blond man and a brown-haired woman, their children about twelve and eight years old. "I'm surprised terrestrial wolves eat these animals."
The chief looked bitter. "Those were no ordinary wolves. Some say that they come from some sort of Zone, far to the south. They're as big as ponies, and they eat anything."
Sabre thought about the weeks he and Tassin had camped in the grasslands, oblivious to the danger. No wonder Clon had insisted they stay in a snail. Now Tassin wanted to move on, which meant camping again. He wondered if the magician had fallen foul of the wolves, which would account for his absence.
"Are there many of these wolves around?"
Clon shrugged. "Who knows? Probably quite a few, since they have no natural enemies. We can't kill them, and even the men from Malkil with their pre-war weapons would rather leave them alone. It's not often that they kill a snail, so their visits to herds are few, and casualties rare. They're one of the reasons our ancestors started living in the snails. As the wolves grew bigger and more prolific, they became more of a threat. The snails offered not only a comfortable house, but protection from those monsters as well."
"You can't guide the snails, can you?"
"No, they go where they will, but they always stick together. Unless the herd splits, of course."
"Why do they stay in herds?"
Clon scowled. "This is a hell of a time for a lesson in snails, Sabre."
"I'm sorry. I'll ask another time."
"Do that."
Sabre walked back to Tassin, who stared at the snail shell with wide eyes, a hand over her mouth. On the way, he stopped to examine a bloody paw print that was larger than his spread hand, and deeply pressed into the soil. He took Tassin's arm and led her away, answering her questions about its erstwhile occupants.
"This poses a problem for us, you know," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you want to leave, and that means camping again."
"Oh. So what do we do? I don't want to be a snail woman for the rest of my life."
"I might have a solution, but I have to ask Clon a few questions to see if it'll work, and he's not feeling too much like talking now."
They returned to their snail, which grazed again with the rest of the herd. As they had seen many of the snail people do, they sat on its tail in the sun while the grass moved past.
By mid-afternoon, the empty shell had been left behind, and Clon joined them, climbing onto the door. His face was still haggard and furrowed, but he apologised for his shortness earlier.
"You wanted to know why the snails move in herds?"
Sabre nodded.
"As far as I know, it's a social gathering, for company, and to have others to mate with."
"So a snail would be okay on its own?"
Clon shrugged. "Sure, I don't see why not. When they come from the sea they spend many months travelling alone."
"Do the wolves live in the forests?"
"I don't think so. They mostly prey on the grazing beasts that inhabit the grasslands. There's not much for them to eat in the forests, I suppose, most animals there live in the trees."
"Is this a strong snail?" Sabre patted the tail on which they sat.
"Oh yes, she's a young snail, very strong, as you saw last night." Clon paused. "Why do you ask? Are you worried about the wolves returning? Because it's unlikely that they will for a very long time, and even then, you'll be safe in her."
"No, it's not that. Tassin wants to look for people who are similar to her culture. But now we know it's dangerous to camp in the grasslands, so I was planning on taking the snail."
The chief snorted. "Impossible. There's no way to make her leave the herd, or to guide her."
"I have a way."
"Oh?"
Sabre tapped the brow band. "I explained about this, and one of the things it can do is control animals."
"Amazing." Clon looked awe struck.
"So if I guide the snail to the edge of the forests, where we'll be safe, she'll find and join another herd?"
"Yes." He shook his head in admiration. "That's a mighty handy tool, that cyber band."
Sabre quelled a grimace of distaste and nodded. He had not told Clon that the cyber had once controlled him, and he had been its tool. The chief gazed at the receding shell of the slain snail, now small in the distance.
"It's a pity you want to leave, though. Our tribe is a small one. New faces are so welcome."
"This is not the life for us, pleasant though it is," Sabre said. "Tassin's not happy here. We're not snail people; we must rejoin our own kind."
"Where will you go?"
"Back to the forests, then maybe east, to see what's there. If beyond Malkil there's only sea, there's really nowhere else to go."
Clon nodded. "When will you leave?"
"Tonight. At the moment, the herd is heading away from where we want to go, so the sooner we turn the snail, the better."
The chief sighed, deep furrows appearing between his brows. "We have two things to mourn tonight, then. The feast will be a big one. I'd better tell the others." He jumped down and walked off.
A subdued, mournful atmosphere dominated the gathering that night. The people muttered while they ate, and the children huddled close to their parents. The story-tellers told of heroism and tragic past encounters with wolves. Couples approached Sabre and Tassin to say goodbye, some tearful, even though they hardly knew them. Many of them pressed gifts of food, pottery, and skins into Sabre's hands.
When the time came to leave, the tribe gathered to see them off, and Clon patted the snail's shell.
"Look after her, and don't try to drive her into the forest. She'll get stuck between the first two trees."
"I'll try to remember." Sabre smiled.
Shan was absent, which surprised Sabre, since he had been closer to them than anyone else. When he asked Clon where the young hunter was, the chief's face fell.
"Derk was Shan's older brother. He's in his snail, mourning."
"Oh. Please tell him how sorry we are for the death of his brother, and bid him farewell."
"I will."
Sabre rapped on the shell, and Tassin followed him inside. He walked to the rear of the shell and sat with his back to the smooth wall, facing the beast's head. Tassin dithered for a bit, not sure where to sit. Clearly she did not want to be in the direct influence of the cyber band. She settled against the side.
Sabre closed his eyes and thought about Tassin's wish to find a more suitable people to live with, and the danger of the wolves, then the idea of turning the snail and guiding it to the forest. In the past, the cyber had reacted to the situation they were in, but on this occasion he had to communicate his, or rather, Tassin's, wishes to the AI. It did not need any explanation of what had to be done, and he sensed the green flashes within his mind that indicated its understanding. A vivid blue glow replaced the brow band's flickering red, and the deep vibrations began, a low, near silent hum. At first there seemed to be no reaction, then the muscular rhythms of the snail's back quickened and changed as the great beast turned.
Sabre opened his eyes and looked at Tassin without turning his head. "We're on our way."
"It worked?"
"Naturally. Why should a snail be any different? It might not have much of a brain, but it does have one."
"How long do you think it will take?"
"Quite a while, at a snail's pace." He smiled. "I'm not too sure. It's stopped grazing, and it's going much faster than usual, but that's because it's a new sensation. When it gets hungry, it'll slow down and start to graze again, I suppose."
"And you'll have to sit there the whole time?"
"No. Once the compulsion is deep in its brain, it'll just keep going. This is a form of hypnotism, very effective on simple brains like this one. On higher animals it's more difficult. Some are impossible to hypnotise, and have to be controlled by the cyber all the time. The sand dragon was difficult. That was a surprisingly intelligent lizard. The more complex the brain, the more difficult it is to influence it. All I'm giving the snail is a wish to travel in this direction. I don't want to interfere too much with its instincts."
"Otherwise when the wolves come, it won't withdraw?" she asked.
"Exactly. It also won't eat, and these animals need to eat almost all the time to sustain their enormous bulk on something as nutritionally poor as grass."
After about half an hour, the brow band's blue glow and hum abated. Sabre clapped his hands and went outside, and Tassin followed. The herd was still visible in the distance, about two and a half kilometres away. The snail was moving at roughly five kilometres per hour, he calculated, faster than normal, which was one or two kilometres per hour.
At her enquiring look, he explained, "I wanted to make sure I hadn't brought any others with me. The cyber's got an effective radius of five hundred metres, so some of the other snails were within range. But it must have understood that I only wanted this one, and limited its influence."
"I thought it had a two kilometre range?"
"No, that's the scanners."
Tassin nodded, and they returned to the snail to bed down for the night.
The snail blazed a lonely trail south eastward, its cropped track arrow-straight across the grasslands, detouring only for obstacles such as gullies or rocks. Each night they walked ahead and built a cooking fire, and by the time they had eaten, the beast was well past them. During the day, Sabre hunted and Tassin walked beside the snail, digging up the roots and tubers that the snail people ate.
At night they slept in the shell's warm safety, knowing that by the morning they would be between twelve and twenty-four kilometres closer to their destination. The snails stopped for three or four hours at night to sleep, and theirs continued to do so, its resting patterns unaffected by the cyber's command. Although it was slower than walking, the advantages outweighed its lack of speed, and they were in no hurry. Or at least, Tassin was not.
Sabre spent more and more time away hunting. He complained that game was scarce, and spoke to her seldom. She wondered if he was tired of her company, and now could not wait to be rid of her so he could get on with his life. She missed him, and spent her time looking forward to his return. Long sunny days passed with no sign of the mage in any guise, which made her wonder if he had fallen prey to the wolves. Nevertheless, Sabre assured her that he stayed within scanner range when he was hunting, alert for any human sign.
Days became weeks, which passed without either of them really noticing. The snail's smaller coils were well stocked with water skins, enough to drink and bathe. Bathing was a straightforward process. A leather bucket was filled and carried down to the snail's back, where they stood in it and washed. Tassin bathed during the day while Sabre was hunting, and he bathed while she tended the fire. Once they were finished, they overturned the bucket to give the snail a wash too. The beast did not seem to mind, and its warmth soon dried it.
Gearn followed the snail at a distance. Its trail made it unnecessary to risk going any closer. He had no fear of the huge wolves; his illusions protected him. When the Queen and the warrior mage had joined the snail people, Gearn had burnt with impatience and frustration. The wait had given him time to reflect, and he realised that the warrior mage had seen through all his illusions and avoided each trap without revealing his knowledge of its true nature.
Gearn's estimation of the warrior mage's magic had increased, and he used the time to think of new ways to kill the man. Illusions were his strongest magic, and if they did not work, that called for a whole new strategy. First he wanted to lull them into a false sense of security, so he stayed well away from the snail.
Almost two months after leaving the herd, Sabre woke from a deep sleep and lay wondering what had disturbed him. Tassin's steady breaths broke the silence, and a glance at her showed him that she still slept. Nothing seemed unusual. The snail's faint munching sounds told him that it was grazing. A red flashing drew his attention to the cyber's scanner data. A tight bunch of light points moved towards them, following the snail's track. Wolves. They were still about one and a half kilometres away, and the snail had not detected them. Sabre rose and rolled up his bedding, then shook Tassin awake. She blinked at him in bleary surprise.
"Get up. Wolves are coming," he said.
Her eyes filled with fear, and she scrambled from her bedding. He rolled up her blankets and climbed the steps into the upper part of the shell, where Tassin joined him, shivering in the chill of the upper shell.
"Why has the snail not withdrawn?" she asked.
"I don't think it's aware of them yet."
"What if your hypnotism will not let it?"
Sabre considered that possibility. The scanners showed that the wolves were only a kilometre away, approaching fast. How close did they have to be before the snail became aware of them? Had his compulsion to travel south-east overridden its instincts to protect itself? He doubted it. The survival instinct was one of the strongest. Tassin huddled on the opposite side of the shell, wrapped in her blankets.
He said, "If it doesn't close up soon, I'll use the cyber."
She nodded, her eyes wide. Sabre counted fifteen wolves, half a kilometre away. How long did it take the snail to withdraw?
Four hundred metres... three hundred.
The shell tilted, and the soft slithering of silken hide on smooth shell reached him. The snail was withdrawing. The sleek expanse of muscle that ran up the front of the shell contracted, pulling the vast body in.
Two hundred metres.
The massive bulk of snail flesh came into sight at the top of the curve, moving towards them.
One hundred metres.
Sabre braced himself, then caught Tassin as she was flung into his arms. The shell had fallen over.
Fifty metres.
The plug of flesh slowed, reaching its peak, now at the top of the curve.
Twenty metres, ten. There was a faint squeaking as the door was pulled into the shell's entrance, and he sighed, hardly aware of Tassin huddled against him. They were safe. Moments later, the wolves' padding and sniffing came through the shell. The scanners showed them all around the snail, circling. Claws scraped on the shell, and Tassin buried her face in his chest, her arms tight around his ribs. Sabre held her, patting her back. Teeth grated on the shell like a gigantic rasp grinding on rock, followed by the frustrated whining of hungry wolves. Claws scraped again, and teeth grated in another location. Tassin tensed further, whimpering.
"It's okay, they can't get in," Sabre murmured.
Soft snarling, and a few thuds made him think of the dead, gutted snail. There were no other snails to choose from this time. More scraping, grating, whining and snarling penetrated the shell. Tassin was glued to his chest like barnacle, but the noises distracted him. The shell rocked a little, and claws scrabbled at the side for a second. Were they trying to climb on top of the snail? The shell was four metres broad, and he doubted that they would succeed in that venture, and even if they did it would do them no good.
The shell rocked again, and he wondered what they were doing. They had to be powerful animals to rock the multi-tonne snail. Claws and teeth rasped against the tough shell, a dull grinding sound that grated at his nerves. Tassin released her vice-like grip on his chest to stuff her fingers into her ears, still pressed against him. Sabre listened. What if they found a way in? The door, made of thick chitin, was the weakest point. Could fifteen wolves eat an entire snail, thereby exposing them?
Tassin groaned, her face twisted with fear and loathing. "Sabre, make them stop!"
Sabre looked down at her in surprise. There was a way, with the cyber. When the other snail had been attacked in the herd, he had thought of the cyber. It had been too far away, nearly a kilometre, but these wolves were right outside. He closed his eyes and turned his thoughts inwards, communicating with the supercomputer. The wolves were a threat, he thought, they might succeed in killing the snail, and perhaps attacking the Queen. They must be driven off.
The brow band lighted, and the deep throbbing hum filled the confined space. Tassin squirmed and jammed her fingers more tightly into her ears, which was futile against the subsonic hum. The vibrations deepened and intensified, and the hairs on his arms rose. Behind him, the mighty wall of flesh rippled, almost shivered, and Sabre sensed the power of the cyber touch even him, its emanations were so strong.
The cyber broadcast fear in powerful waves, and Sabre understood why. A strong urge to run could force the snail to emerge and attempt to obey. The idea that there was something bad in the shell could also drive the snail from its home, but pure fear would only make the snail close up more tightly. The wolves would get nervous, and wonder what made them afraid, then they would follow their instinct to flee. The grating of teeth and claws lessened, and more whining replaced it. A burst of snarling told him that one wolf had blamed another for its inexplicable cowardice.
Sabre wished he could see the huge, yellow-eyed wolves stricken by terror, looking around as nervously as sheep, tails tucked. The grating stopped, and Tassin unplugged her ears, listening wide-eyed. Faint, worried whines were the only sound, then the padding of heavy feet. Sabre consulted the scanners. The wolves were trickling away from the snail, the most fearful leading the more confused. He almost laughed in triumph, then a cold sensation on his chest distracted him. Tassin had moved away, looking embarrassed.
"Have they gone?"
"They're leaving."
The Queen tried to flatten the hairs that stood up on her arms, but the cyber's deep, soundless drone kept them rising while fear throbbed in the air. Sabre watched the scanners as the wolves passed the five hundred metre mark and left the cyber's influence. They paused, probably wondering why they were no longer afraid, and milled in confusion. Perhaps they considered whether they should go back to the prospective meal, but it seemed that cowardice triumphed over hunger, and they moved off.
Sabre watched until they passed out of scanner range, then focussed on Tassin again. The cyber's hum faded, and she rubbed away the goose bumps on her arms. Sabre settled back against the wall of flesh, which had warmed the top of the shell, making it cosy. He doubted that the snail would open for a while yet, until it was sure the wolves would not return. Pulling his roll of blankets onto his lap, he unrolled it and spread it on the floor. A yawn cracked his jaw.
Tassin watched his preparations with a jaundiced eye. "You're going to sleep now?"
"Sure, the wolves have gone, and I doubt the snail will open until morning. Besides, I'm tired."
"What if the wolves return?"
He shrugged. "The cyber will wake me."
Tassin looked grumpy, but spread her bedding and lay down.
Sabre woke as the cushion of flesh behind his head moved away. Knowing that they had little time, he dragged Tassin from her blankets and helped her to stumble around the curve after the receding snail. When the shell was upright once more, he clapped his hands.
Outside, a soft drizzle soaked the grass, falling from a dismal sky, and Tassin retreated inside again. The snail was already moving, and he walked back to examine the spot where they had spent the night. A depression showed where the shell had fallen, and the deep paw prints of huge wolves surrounded it. Four trenches had been dug in the hard ground where the wolves had tried to tunnel under the shell, searching for a way in. He marvelled at their strength, for the holes were deep, the tough grass dug up in chunks. Catching up with the snail, he studied its shell. Faint scoring marked its edge, white lines where teeth and claws had scratched the hard surface. The door, now on top of the tail, showed more damage. Deep gouges had been bitten in it, strips of the layered structure hung off, and scratches covered it. He patted the indigo beast, glad of its protection.
Although he could have used the cyber on the wolves while out in the open, controlling fifteen animals would have been difficult. Those behind him would not have been influenced as powerfully, and some strong-minded beasts might have attacked. When the cyber had radiated fear, it had not affected all of the wolves, but fear was contagious, and their fellows had infected those that had escaped the cyber's influence.
After the encounter with the wolves, Sabre ranged less far afield to hunt. He spent more time with the snail, and as a consequence, Tassin. Although he enjoyed her company, she unsettled him. Despite the fact that she had warmed towards him, or perhaps because of it, she made him nervous and self-conscious. He knew that in her estimation, he was only the local riffraff. The reality was far worse. He was just a broken killing machine, and not supposed to have feelings. The mocking voice shouted that hated name often from that dark recess in his mind. Cyborg! He had a piece of metal attached to his skull, not to mention that which was welded to his bones, and he was covered with scars. Certainly she must think him as ugly as he knew himself to be, yet he wondered why he cared what she thought of him. The pain that was growing inside him would never have a voice, for who cared what a cyber felt? He would not be around long enough for it to matter, anyway.
The snail's crawl brought them to a rough scrubland, where the beast struggled between the bushes, pushing them aside with brute force. Sabre knew that soon they would have to leave it, and did not look forward to losing their warm, comfortable mobile home. The hunting was poor, since they had left the herds of grazing beasts behind, and the wolves too, he hoped.
Sabre was eating a cooked tuber when he became aware that the snail had stopped. Tassin sat opposite, peeling a bulb. They had decided to eat lunch inside, due to the wet weather. He rose and clapped his hands. Outside, he discovered that a belt of scrubby trees blocked the way, too dense for the beast to penetrate. The snail waved its feelers in agitation, its head raised high as its eyestalks roved back and forth, searching for a way through. Sabre asked the cyber to remove the compulsion and replace it temporarily with a need for sleep. The beast relaxed and drew in its eyestalks and feelers, leaving the head a blunt, blind nub. He re-entered the shell to inform Tassin of the problem. She stopped peeling a tuber and groaned.
"You mean now we have to walk?"
"Unless you want to live in the grasslands."
She cocked her head. "Tempting, but no. I'd rather find somewhere where they have real houses, with indoor plumbing and hot baths."
"I thought as much. Servants and princes, too."
She ignored his teasing. "Do we have to leave now? It's raining."
"No, I've made the snail sleep. We can wait for better weather."
"Good."
The next day dawned warm and sunny, and they sorted through the collection of oddments that the snail people had given them, keeping only the necessities, since now they would have to carry them. The rest they stored in the space at the top of the curving shell, where perhaps the next tenants would find them. Sabre shouldered the bulk of the equipment, and left a bundle for Tassin to carry. When he released the snail from its enforced slumber, its eyes and feelers popped out and waved about as if it tried to comprehend how it had ended up so far from home, and alone. He gave it a pat as it turned back towards the grasslands, and hoped it would meet no wolves while it was alone. It stood a far better chance of survival once it had rejoined a herd.
Tassin watched the snail leave, and her wistful expression told Sabre that she already missed its comforts. He headed into the scrub, and she followed, glancing back often at the receding snail. He could understand why the grassland tribes had settled in the snails. People grew attached to a home, especially a living one. The discomforts of traipsing through the bush soon had the Queen cursing, as branches scratched any bare skin they found.
That night, Tassin had the task of pitching the leather tents. Sabre returned from his hunt with two scrawny rabbits to find her flushed and bad-tempered. The tents leant drunkenly, sagging in places. Evidently they had fought her every inch of the way. He fixed them while she lighted the fire, smiling at her newfound ineptitude. That night they rediscovered how hard the ground was, and woke stiff and aching in the morning.
When they set out, Tassin strode ahead with grim determination, clearly consumed by a desire to find a village or town with soft beds and hot baths. This amused Sabre, who knew, from the poor soil and twisted trees, that no one would live there. As dusk fell, they crossed a stretch of crumbling tar road, and Sabre stopped to gaze along it, but it vanished into thick bush.
A little further on, they came across more ruined road and the remains of brick walls. He caught a flash of distant light through the bush, a reflection of the sunset, and made out the faint outlines of tall towers. It could only be a ruined city, a little off their present course, and he decided to investigate it the next day, since the radiation level was normal.
When they had set up camp and Sabre roasted a pair of rabbits over the fire, he looked up from his task. "There's a ruined city to the west. I want to explore it tomorrow."
"Why? That's a waste of time. I want to find civilisation, not go poking through some old ruin. What do you think you'll find? And what about the curse?"
"I don't know what I'll find, but it might be something useful. As for radiation, it's clean. It must have been gassed."
She sighed. "If there were people it would be different, but I don't see what could still be useful after five hundred years. Everything will be rotten."
He sliced off a chunk of meat and gave it to her. "No, they made things then that never rotted; clothes, knives, shoes, all kinds of useful things. It might have been looted already, but we won't know unless we look."
"You just want to explore it," she accused.
"Okay, there's that too."
Tassin stared into the fire. "Oh, all right, but only for a few hours."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. "I didn't mean to sound condescending."
His brows shot up. "You've never worried about that before."
"I've been foolish. I realise that now. You can stop calling me 'Your Highness', it sounds silly out here. Besides, a princess is referred to as 'Your Highness', a queen is 'Your Majesty'."
"I'm glad you can see that now. Even a queen should have tact, don't you agree?"
She smiled. "You've taught me a lot. I'm beginning to understand."
He hesitated, pondering. "You know, after all these months of traipsing through the countryside with you, it almost feels like I belong here."
"I'm glad. You deserve a good life. When I get my kingdom back, I think I'll make you a knight."
"Sir Sabre. Sounds sort of silly, if you ask me."
She giggled. "You'll have to adopt a surname. Something grand, like..."
Sabre raised a hand and turned his head, listening. A distant, lonely call drifted on the night air. The harsh, klaxon cry trailed off in a mournful wail, like a squashed bagpipe.
Tassin grinned. "Donkeys!"
"Better than rabbit."
She looked shocked, then glared. "Don't you dare! If you kill one of them, I'll never forgive you."
"Why?"
"They're beasts of burden, friends of man. They're supposed to be holy, that's why they carry a cross on their backs. They, and the horse, have done more to help mankind than any other beast. I will not repay that by eating them." She paused, looking thoughtful. "You could catch some for us to ride, though."
Sabre chuckled. "I'm not riding a donkey."
"Fine, I'll ride, you can lead it. At least I'm not too proud to ride a donkey."
"Pride has nothing to do with it. They have backbones like knives, and I have no wish to be sawn in two. Anyway, how will you catch one? They're wild," he teased.
"You have the cyber, not me."
He shot her a martyred look. "Right."
The next morning, Sabre headed for the city, curious to find out what was left of it. Gleaming towers rose from a forest of tall trees that the city's ancient waste nourished, their roots tapped into sewers and reservoirs. Tassin stared in wonder at the glass towers that flashed in the sun. Concrete roads ran between them in dead straight lines, built with precision and uniformity. Time had taken a toll, however, and trees grew in the concrete paving, lifting it into humps. Broken windows stared like hollow eyes, and smashed glass littered the street. Weeds sprouted in every nook and cranny, and creepers spread their verdure over glass and steel. Rust wept blood-red streaks down stained white structures, and cracks crawled like crooked snakes along crumbling walls.
Sabre led the way down the main street, broken glass crunching under his boots as he studied the ancient city with keen interest. The functional architecture was blocky and uninspired, designed to satisfy the needs of a growing population. How strange, he mused, that these almost modern buildings were ancient ruins, and the medieval castles of Arlin were new. Everything was back to front on this planet. The old had ousted the new, now that technology was lost.
Furtive movement amongst the buildings told him that the city now had four-footed inhabitants, and he wondered how safe it was to walk amongst these tumbled-down buildings whose fabric was rotting away. Sagging, rust-riddled skywalks hung overhead, and walls leant perilously, the encroaching trees that would eventually obliterate the city undermining their foundations.
Sabre kept a wary eye on the unstable structures, and stayed in the middle of the road. Some walls had collapsed, strewing rubble, mixed with twisted, rusty reinforcing, into the street. Piles of rust, glass and plastic, some with a skeletal framework, were all that remained of once shiny hover cars. Tassin picked up bits of glass and bright plastic, plaguing him with questions.
Near the end of the street, a squat, sturdy building hunched between two tall neighbours like a poor relation. Its windows were intact, although the walls were cracked, and he guessed that the windows were armoured glass. He stopped and considered it, filled with a strong urge to walk past. Tassin would never know the difference, yet he did not have the right to make the decision. Denying her the choice was wrong. Her life was more important, for his was surely not going to be his own for too much longer.
Tassin touched his arm, dragging him from his thoughts. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Testing the door, he found it unlocked and forced it open against the rubble on the other side, then inspected the place before allowing Tassin to enter. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, and the rest was poised to take the plunge, sagging concrete blocks hanging from twisted steel mesh. Rows of shelves and racks lined the showroom, stacked with silver and crystal tubes covered with a patina of grey dust. Hundreds of lasers, sonic blasters, rocket launchers, explosives and power packs stocked the shop. Every instrument of modern destruction known to man, and they were only a little out-dated. He gestured to the piles.
"There's the answer to your problem."
She eyed him. "Oh? And how will a pile of dirty poles help me?"
"They're weapons, like the ones the cyber had when it first came here. The ones that shot blue fire and made big bangs."
"They don't look the same."
"That's because these are a little old fashioned, so they're bigger than the ones I had. With these, you could defeat Torrian, Grissom and Bardok combined. No one could stand against you."
"How do they work?" She still looked doubtful, but her eyes held a dawning eagerness.
"Never mind that now. We have to figure out how to get them across the desert and through the Death Zone, if that's still what you want?"
"I want to go home more than anything, Sabre."
He became brisk. "Fine. They won't work for long, of course. Only until the power packs run out, but the kings won't know that."
"But we can't carry all these."
"No, we'll have to find something with wheels."
Sabre went over to a glass cabinet and took out a silver laser rifle, checking the mechanism. Finding it in good working order, he examined the ones on the walls, then opened drawers and inspected the selection of hand lasers and rocket launchers. The shop's inventory was in good condition. The almost airtight building had protected it from the elements, and the weapons were made from non-corrosive metal. He discarded several weapons that were a little stiff, since there were more than enough good ones. Most of the power packs were fully charged, and he stacked the weapons he had examined on a counter.
Sadness stole over Sabre while he worked. This meant the end of their adventure through strange lands together, and of her dependence on him for protection and provision. Once Tassin no longer needed him, his owner would take him back, so helping her speeded his doom. He would be returned to the horrible existence of a cyber-controlled clone. Thrusting the gloomy thoughts aside, he reminded himself that returning Tassin to her kingdom was far more important than the fate of a damaged cyborg. When the pile of weapons was large enough, he left the shop in search of wheeled transport.
Wheels were hard to find in a city where hover cars had been the main transport, but he discovered some bicycles in a sports shop. Modern people still kept fit, he mused. They drove hover cars, then tortured themselves cycling around recreational parks. The bicycles' wheels were made from a non-corrosive alloy, but the frames were rusted and the rubber tyres had perished to black dust. Tyres were optional, though, and he collected the items he would need to build a cart.
The sports shop proved to be a gold mine of equipment, and, while he searched the piles of goods, Tassin picked through heaps of rotten clothing and shoes. It took him the rest of the day to build a cart from bicycle parts and a plastic box attached to a shaft. In the afternoon, he killed a city-dwelling pig for supper, and after they had eaten they spread their bedding in a relatively intact building, safe from marauding animals and the vagaries of the weather.
Gearn stopped and cursed. The snail's track, which he had followed into the scrubby trees, turned and headed back into the plains. He examined the ground, and found where the Queen and the warrior mage had left it and entered the scrubland. Now they would be much harder to track, and he increased his pace, afraid the trail would fade. The Queen's track was easy to follow, but the warrior mage's footprints were almost non-existent. He swore as thorn bushes caught his robes, and his back ached from bending to examine the ground. The trail led him around the worst of the terrain, but in places became difficult to follow. He lost it in an expanse of tough grass, then spotted a footprint beside an area of flat black stone.
Gearn studied the gritty surface, which stretched away in both directions, puzzled by it. Realisation dawned with a wash of cold dread, and he looked up. A shining tower glinted above the trees. He recoiled with a cry, backing away from the ruined city. Making signs to ward off evil, he retreated into the scrubland and made a camp, glaring at the glass towers that loomed above the trees.
Entering one of the ancient, accursed cities was forbidden. Countless scrolls described the tales of their pestilence. Conjuring a fire and a meal of roast beef and steamed vegetables accompanied by a musky red wine, he wondered if the warrior mage had magic to counter the evil pestilence, or whether he was ignorant of the danger. He prodded the fire with a stick.
There was nothing to do but wait and see if they emerged from the blighted place. He jumped and shivered as a wailing cry cut through the dusk, adding more wood to the fire. It sounded like a donkey, but he was certain that horrors prowled at night in this accursed place, and wished he was back in his tower.
The following morning, Tassin hung around while Sabre finished the cart and hauled it to the gun shop. When she offered to help him load the weapons, he shook his head, looking preoccupied, and she wondered what was wrong with him. The weapons were light, apparently, so only capacity limited the load, and he packed the cart to the brim. She poked through the drawers while he was busy, and found a pretty blue crystal object, which she pocketed as she followed him from the shop. The prospect of returning to Arlin excited her, and she pondered it with delight.
Sabre seemed to be in a hurry, and strode ahead with the cart. She trailed behind, took out the little blue crystal thing and fiddled with it. It had a three buttons, one green, one blue and one red, and two sliding knobs on the side, which she pushed up and down. The green button clicked when she pressed it, and a tiny blue light flashed on the top of the tube, above a slanted square piece with indentations in it, which looked like it was meant for a hand to grip. A panel on the side of it glowed, and she peered at the word in it. 'Armed'. Curious, she turned it so the short cylinder pointed upwards and examined the solid end, then pressed the red button.
A beam of white-hot light sizzled past her face, accompanied by a thunderous bang, and she jerked back with a yelp. A horrible crack came from above her. Sabre spun around, dropping into a crouch at the sound of a weapon's discharge. Horror dawned in his eyes as he looked up. Tassin followed his gaze. A ruined walkway plunged towards her with a shriek of tearing metal and tortured plastic.
Sabre shouted a warning and dropped the cart's shaft, sprinting towards her. Tassin screamed and flung up her hands as the mass of twisted steel and plastic drove her to the ground. He ran to the settling heap of tangled metal, and fear chilled his heart as he plunged into the cloud of dust where the walkway had fallen. Groping within it, he grasped whatever came to hand and ripped it aside with a grating and shrieking of metal and plastic.
"Tassin!"
He tore debris from the pile, ignoring the cuts the sharp edges inflicted on his hands.
"Tassin!"
Sabre hurled heavy pieces of rusted metal behind him in a frenzy of fear and anguish. As the dust cleared, he dragged away the last of the wreckage, uncovering the steel beam that had supported the structure. Tassin lay pinned beneath it, grey with dust, blood seeping from a gash on her temple. A shard of plasglass protruded from her side, and blood pooled under her. He climbed into the debris and crouched beside her, the cyber scanning her. The results that scrolled in his mind told him that her vitals were strong, although her heart rate was elevated. The supercomputer's analysis of the scanner image indicated no broken bones or internal bleeding, and he sagged with relief.
Sabre cut her leather dress with his knife to expose the wound, then dug in his pouch for an ampoule of blood-clotting agent and injected it above the injury. Working with the calm efficiency his training engendered, even though his heart hammered with anxiety, he pulled out the plasglass shard and staunched the bleeding with a cloth from his pack. He bound it in place, lifting her to pass the bandage around her waist.
The beam lay across her thighs, and he was afraid that if he tried to pull her free it would hurt her more. Sabre tugged at the girder, which had supported the weight of the walkway and the people who had once crossed it. Although rusty, it was solid and bulky, and most of the walkway was still attached to it. Tassin had escaped serious harm because the walkway's mass and attachments had slowed its fall. The beam had missed her head, and the weaker, half-rotten floor had evidently knocked her unconscious.
Sabre took a water skin from the pack and wet a cloth to wipe her face, partly to revive her and partly to see if she had any head injuries. His ministrations exposed a bleeding lump on her forehead, and he cursed. Pulling more material from the pack, he wadded it and pushed it under her head. She moaned, her eyelids flickering, and he kept repeating her name, hoping it would penetrate the veil of unconsciousness. After several minutes, her eyes opened a slit. She grimaced, then gasped and clutched her side. Sabre pulled her hand away.
"Lie still. You're hurt, but you're going to be all right."
Her eyes filled with dazed confusion. "What?"
Of course, Sabre reflected, the blast had deafened her, and he would be surprised if her eardrums had survived the concussion. He leant closer and yelled, "Can you hear me now?"
She looked puzzled. "Not very well."
"Okay. Your eardrums are intact then, just damaged. You'll be pretty deaf for a while."
"My side hurts."
"Yes, there's a wound there, but it's not serious."
She lifted a shaking hand to her forehead. "My head."
"Yeah, you've got a bump on it. Nothing to worry about, though." He took a bottle of painkillers from his medical pouch and shook two into his palm, then lifted her head. "Swallow these; don't chew them."
Tassin pulled a face at the pills' bitter taste when he held the water skin to her lips. "My legs hurt too."
"They're stuck under a beam, but they're not broken."
"What?"
He repeated his explanation, more loudly.
"You mean I am trapped?" She looked alarmed.
"Not for long. I'm going to get you out. You'll be all right." Sabre studied the beam. He could lift it, but he needed her to pull her legs out, for to drag it away would cause more problems, there was so much attached to it. "I'm going to lift the beam, and I want you to pull your legs out when I do, okay?"
"Yes."
Sabre stepped over the girder and crouched beside it, preparing for a dead lift of what the cyber calculated to be well over a tonne. The beam was easier to grip than the concrete slab in the desert had been, but it was also heavier. Setting his hands around it, he braced himself, finding the perfect balance with which he had been bred. He pulled a little, then shifted until the weight was evenly distributed on his arms and legs. This lift would require all the strength the drugs and exercises had forced upon him from an early age.
His mind flew back to the cold-eyed instructors who had pushed the boys beyond their limit, sending the weaker ones back to the labs for more drugs. Cybers had to conform to predefined standards. They had to be able to lift a certain weight, run at a specific speed for a set distance, punch with a predetermined amount of power, and kick up to a certain height with a set force.
It was all in the brochure that customers leafed through when they contemplated buying one of the manufactured men, and it had to be met. Sabre had not been amongst those who were sent away for more drugs. He had achieved his A-grade rating, along with a few others in his batch. Those who only achieved a B or C grade were sold for less, and their flaws and limitations were detailed in the brochure.
The walkway's wreckage probably weighed more than his maximum lift, but he had to do it in order to save Tassin. He took a few deep breaths, then straightened, his shoulder and elbow joints protesting as they bore the girder's weight. For a moment nothing moved, and he pulled harder, the cords on his neck straining at his skin. The wreckage creaked and gave a metallic groan as it rose, sections of the plasglass passage that were still attached rising with it for some distance along the beam's length.
Blood pounded in his temples as his heart speeded up and his blood pressure rose, and he panted to satisfy his body's demand for oxygen. Tassin wriggled free with a whimper, and as soon as she was clear, he let the girder drop with a grinding crunch. He straightened, shaking his burning arms, his back muscles aching, and waited for the throbbing to subside. Tassin curled up in a foetal position, clasped the bandage and bit her lip as fresh blood seeped through the cloth. Stepping over the beam, he slid his arms under her and picked her up. After the beam, she was ridiculously light.
Sabre carried her to a wall and placed her beside it. He wished he could take her pain upon himself; he was far better at dealing with it. Bringing a blanket from the pack, he wadded it and pushed it under her head. Tears ran down her cheeks when she looked up at him.
"Am I going to be all right?"
"Yes." Sabre coughed and turned away to rummage in his pouch, extracting the curved needle and a length of thread. "I'll have to stitch the wound."
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes." He threaded the needle.
She watched him, her eyes filled with dread. "Must you do it now?"
"I have to sew it up, or it won't heal properly."
"I know, but... could you do it later?"
Sabre hesitated, wishing she was unconscious. She might pass out, but he was not good at inflicting pain, and the prospect of doing it to her made him queasy. "It must be stitched while it's fresh. There's a way to stop the pain, but you'll have to co-operate."
"What must I do?"
"I can use the cyber to put you to sleep, but only if you let me. If you fight it, it won't work."
"All right."
Sabre turned his attention inwards to communicate his need to the supercomputer. Its programming forbade the use of its cybernetic influence on a human, but Sabre insisted that it was for Tassin's welfare, and necessary for her continued health. Another scrolling readout of her vital signs appeared, ending with the computer's deduction that she was going into shock. That, plus his urging and the fact that she had given her consent, seemed to be sufficient incentive, and the cyber's deep hum vibrated the air. He faced Tassin, turning its full power on her, and her eyes glazed.
"You'll start to feel sleepy; let your eyes close," he said, forced to speak loudly because of her deafness. Her eyelids drooped. "Close your eyes... you're feeling very sleepy... let yourself go... drift away..."
Tassin's eyes closed, and she relaxed as the cyber's hum deepened, seeking the perfect tone to hypnotise her. Sabre spoke soothing words while her breathing slowed, and he kept the cyber on her, wanting her in a deep sleep. When he judged that she was in a profound trance, he stitched the wound, smeared antiseptic cream on it and rebandaged it. He packed away the medical kit, then gazed at her, pondering the potential for harm that the cyber's power offered.
This was part of the reason for its former control over him. It had no ulterior motives or human urges. In her present state, he could suggest anything, which, when she woke, she would be unable to disobey. A cyber could not force a person into this state, but once there, she was as easily subjugated as the snail. Her trust touched him, and he gave in to the strange urge to stroke her cheek. The sight of his scarred hand jerked him back to reality, and he snatched it away. He was not a man, just a cyborg. The cyber's hum faded.
"Tassin, wake up." Her eyes opened, and he smiled. "How do you feel?"
"What?"
He repeated the question a little louder.
"Better. It doesn't hurt so much anymore."
"Good, the painkillers have taken effect."
Tassin fingered the bandage. "You've sewn it up?"
"Yes."
"I didn't feel a thing."
Sabre nodded. "You were asleep."
"It felt funny. Like I was sinking into a warm black sea."
He knew the sensation all too well, only his sea had not been warm. "How do your legs feel?"
She pulled her skirt up to reveal a broad, mottled red mark across her thighs, then covered them again. "They don't hurt too much, just a kind of throbbing."
"You're lucky they're not broken."
Tassin sighed. "I guess I was pretty stupid, huh?"
Sabre held up the blue crystal weapon he had found beside her in the wreckage. "You set this off, didn't you?"
Tassin shot the weapon a guilty glance. "What is it?"
He hefted it. "It's called a sonlar. It's a cross between a sonic gun and a laser. It's designed to destroy solid matter, like buildings. It's only really effective at short range. The combination of amplified light and subsonic waves will destroy just about anything. It'll kill a person too, of course, but mostly it's used to break through fortified walls. A sonlar will make a hole big enough to drive a bus through a reinforced concrete wall."
He turned the weapon and pressed the green button, deactivating it. "Had you chosen an ordinary laser, it would have melted a hole through the walkway, and maybe a few bits would have fallen on your head. But no, Tassin has to choose a sonlar, guaranteed to bring the entire bloody structure crashing down on her."
"I didn't know that."
His frowned, and his voice hardened. "So why the bloody hell were you playing with it? You're incredible, you know that?" He shook his head. "If there's a log to cross, you'll fall off it. If there's a hole in the ground, you'll step in it. If a bunch of men raid the village, you'll get caught, and if there's a rotten bloody walkway over your head, you'll bring it down on top of you."
Tassin had the grace to look ashamed, although still a little mutinous. "It wasn't my fault."
His scowl deepened. "Damn it, Tassin, do you have a bloody death wish?"
"No!"
"Then don't play with things you don't understand!"
"I was just looking at it. It's pretty."
Sabre groaned and rolled his eyes. "Pretty! It's a bloody ugly little weapon when you know what it can do. I didn't even take any of these." He hurled the sonlar into the trees. "Another two centimetres, and you'd have had no head! Those things vaporise flesh. Do you understand now?"
She nodded, and he scowled at her. "The next time you find something pretty, like a goddamned deadly snake or some bloody poisonous flower, show it to me before you play with it, okay?"
Tassin nodded again and looked down at her dusty hands. He wrapped her in a blanket with brisk efficiency, then carried her back to the building where they had spent the night.
For a week, they waited for Tassin's wound to heal. Her bruises blossomed to blue-black, then faded to green. Sabre hunted the scrawny chickens that inhabited the abandoned buildings, not straying far from his charge. He had glimpsed several cat-like predators prowling amongst the ruins, although he did not mention this to the Queen. Tassin's wound kept her immobile for a while, but, as it healed, she grew restless, longing to return to Arlin with the weapons and reclaim her throne.
Sabre used the cyber to tame two donkeys to pull the cart, and fashioned a harness, working slowly and using that as an excuse to delay their departure. He told himself that he did this because Tassin was still weak, but deep down he knew his reluctance to return to Arlin stemmed from his fear of losing his freedom. By the end of the week, the harness was complete, and he could procrastinate no longer. Tomorrow he would set out on the return journey and, once Tassin was safely restored to her throne, wait for the spacer he knew would come for him. His owner, who would return him to a life of slavery as a cyber host, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
\*\*\*\*\*
The Cyber Chronicles saga continues in Book III, The Core, Book IV, Cyborg, Book V, Overlord, Book VI, Warrior Breed, Book VII, Sabre, Book VIII, Scorpion Lord, Book IX, Precipice, and many more as yet unwritten.
About the author
T. C. Southwell was born in Sri Lanka and her family moved to the Seychelles when she was a baby. She spent her formative years exploring the islands -- mostly alone. Naturally, her imagination flourished and she developed a keen love of other worlds. The family travelled through Europe and Africa and, after the death of her father, settled in South Africa. T. C. Southwell has written over forty novels, ranging from fantasy and science fiction to romance and adventure, as well as five screenplays. Her hobbies include motorcycling, horse riding and art, and she earns a living in the IT industry.
All illustrations and cover designs by the author.
Contact the author at demonlord07@hotmail.com
Mike Baum and Janet Longman, former employers, for their support, encouragement, and help. My mother, without whose financial support I could not have dedicated myself to writing for ten years. Isabel Cooke, former agent, whose encouragement and enthusiasm led to many more books being written, including this one. Suzanne Stephan, former agent, who has helped me so much over the past six years, and Vanessa Finaughty, good friend and business partner, for her support, encouragement and editing skills.

