Blade #17 - Mountains of Brega by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord [Lord, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523407906
Publisher: Pinnacle Books (Mm)
Published: 1976-08-14T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Blade awoke suddenly, with a noise in his ears that sounded like people screaming. As the sleep-fog cleared from his head, he realized that he was hearing exactly that. He could also hear from outside the hut people running and the clash of weapons. Frantically moving lights glimmered through the chinks in the logs.

Blade sprang to his feet, wishing that there was something in the hut he could use as a weapon, even a loose floorboard. But he could only stand there, fists clenched in impotent frustration, waiting for whatever was happening outside to sort itself out.

That did not take long. He had been awake and alert for barely a minute when hammers sounded outside. They were working on the braces of the door, and Blade could see it shaking. He flattened himself against the wall to the left of the door opening. Perhaps he could jump whoever was going to be charging through the door in a moment, get their weapons-

"Blade!" came a shout from outside. Blade was silent. The shout came again. Then the voice went on angrily, "Blade, are you there? We are from the Purple River, come to rescue you. Nugun reached us! "

Blade started. In the next second the door toppled with a crash. Two Blenar leaped over it into the hut. They whirled as they saw Blade crouched against the wall.

"You're safe, thank the Spirit of Union. Nugun was afraid-"

"Nugun? He reached the Purple River?"

"Of course. Would we be here if he hadn't?" snapped one of the men. "Now for the Spirit's sake and your own life, come on with us and stop talking! We've come with thirty men into a land where Rilgon can call out a thousand! Come on!"

Blade moved. The two Blenar might not be telling the whole truth, but at least they seemed willing enough to get him out of Rilgon's hands. For the moment he would be content with that.

As the three men burst out of the hut, two of Rilgon's Blenar warriors came dashing up, swords drawn. There was a brief and deadly flurry of clanging weapons. One of the Blenar ran off screaming, left wrist a bloody stump. The other folded in the middle and toppled, to lie face down beside the bodies of two dead Senar. Blade bent down to snatch up the dead man's weapons.

As he did so, a furious yelling and screaming burst out to his right. Blade looked that way and saw a mass of Senar storming forward, with a dozen Purple River Blenar slowly giving way before them. The Senar struck desperately with their clubs and thrust with their spears, but even when the blows went home, the Blenar did not go down. Blade realized that the Purple River men were wearing heavily padded, boiled-leather jackets and thighpieces, which could easily turn aside a Senar spear point.

One of Blade's rescuers jerked his arm. "Come on. We'll have to cut down along by the river and head north." Blade nodded; then a thought struck him.

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