The Bronze Axe Read online

  Blade was suddenly aware that he couldn't. Leighton had reached behind him and pressed a button. Blade was aware of a low humming sound, of gentle electrical charges surging through his body and making little waves in his blood.

  Blade could not move now. He willed his legs to move and they did not respond. Nor did his hands and arms. There was no pain, yet the current held him in the chair like a giant repressing hand, a hand that had solidity but no weight. He was rigid, immobile, bound to the chair by invisible chains of electricity.

  His vision began to blur. His head began to swell like a balloon. Lord Leighton's twisted body changed into a ball of color, a flame, a whorl of spinning haze that faded away and away and then was gone. The glass around Blade changed to water and began to run over him, yet he did not feel wet. The wires were tiny snakes now, biting at him with shiny jaws, yet their bites drew no blood, brought no pain.

  The roaring began in Blade's ears. He was free now, no longer in the chair, soaring through the sky and rolling and dipping in an absolute freedom he had never known before. He was a spirit without body. He lived, and yet he was no thing; he was huge and he was tiny; he was an ant and he was a planet.

  Storm now. A mingled wrath of darkness and light. Blade went curving into it at a trillion miles an hour, into an awesome boil of clouds. Lightning stabbed at him. Again. Closer. Blade knew cold and fear and he screamed as the lightning came again.

  The massive lightning bolt was a crooked golden dagger slashing at Blade, skewering his head. His brain exploded. The pain was beyond bearing. There had never been pain like this before, never would be again. All the pain since the world began was being poured into his skull.

  The pain vanished. Blade, a seared leaf, a crumple of dust, a trace of moisture, trembled upward into void.

  Chapter Two

  Richard Blade regained consciousness in a strange crepuscular world; he did not, for the moment, open his eyes, but lay quiescent and let a myriad of stimuli impinge on his brain.

  He was lying in thick grass. There was a hum of insects and, from a distance, the baying of hounds. Nearby a brook burbled. Even with his eyes closed he was aware of the florid wheel, the burning oriflamme, of a setting sun. Then an intertwine of moving shadow, an intrusion and then

  Cold water was dashed into his face. Blade, stung and shocked by the icy blast, sat up with a muffled curse. What in hell?

  "There," said the girl. "That is better. I was sure you were not dead. Now you must help me. At once. I, Princess Taleen, command it!"

  Blade sat up, squeegeed water from his eyes with his fingers, and stared at her. It was typical of Blade a facet of his character which had saved his life many times over that he accepted, immediately and without question, the realities of a situation. Not for a moment did he believe himself mad. Something had gone wrong with Lord Leighton's experiment. As simple as that. He would sort it out later.

  "Do hurry," said the girl impatiently. Her voice rose imperiously. "And stop staring like an oaf and a peasant. They are getting very close. If they find us they will kill us. I will make them kill us. I will not go back to be a captive of Queen Beata. I will not. I will die first!"

  Blade got to his feet, conscious for the first time that he was entirely naked. The linen loincloth had disappeared. For a moment the girl ran her eyes over his body and he saw approval, then she shrugged and handed him a short sword. It was bloodstained at the point.

  "Here. You take it. I had to kill one of my guards to escape. It is the first time I have killed a man and I did not enjoy it. But you look like a warrior and will know how to use it. Listen they are coming this way and getting closer."

  She spoke truth. Blade, swinging the heavy sword in his right hand, could hear the hounds baying closer now and men called to each other from somewhere toward the setting sun that was now only half a golden orb sinking behind green hills. They were in a small open glade through which the brook scampered, and ringing them was a dark and high reaching wood of oak and yew lightened here and there by stripling birch.

  Blade had much experience in hunting, and being hunted, and he knew there was yet a little time. The voices were still a quarter mile off. He looked at the girl, again conscious of his nakedness which did not appear to bother her in the least and said: "You say you are the Princess Taleen?"

  Her eyes were a soft luminous brown. In another mood, he thought, they would be as limpid as a doe's, but there was a hard glitter in them now. Her small chin firmed at him, and her straight little nose was haughty as she said, "You doubt it?"

  Blade, without knowing exactly why he did it, made a little bow and raised the sword in salute. "It is not that I doubt. It is simply that I do not understand. I am a stranger in all things."

  She studied him, her eyes narrowing. "Yes, I believe that. You are like no man I have ever seen in Alb. But still you must obey me I am indeed the Princess Taleen, daughter of King Voth of the North. I am in great danger. If you help me I will see that you are well rewarded. My father will pay many scills to have his daughter back. Now will you stop staring like a fool and do something!"

  She was tall and beautifully made. Dark auburn hair flowed to her waist, held back by a golden band. She wore a dress of dark linen, figured with semi-precious stones, that clung to her nubile body and did little to conceal the small firm breasts. Around her tiny middle was a belt of bronze links from which hung the drinking horn she had used to splash Blade. The dress ended well above dimpled knees. On her small feet were soft leather sandals with long thongs carried up and cross-gaitered around shapely calves.

  Blade saluted with the sword again. He smiled, his white teeth flashing in a dark stubble of beard. "I will obey, Princess Taleen. I am your true servant. But just exactly what is it that you want me to do? There is no danger at this moment." He cocked an ear. "They are still ten minutes away."

  The girl put her hands on her hips and stared at him in exasperation. Her eyes flickered up the tall trunk of him, over the slim hips, tidy waist, massive chest and wide shoulders and the thick column of his neck. Her gaze softened, as did her tone.

  "One thing I know you are no serf! Possibly you are a nobleman, an aristocrat, from some far-off land. Your name?" Imperious again.

  "Blade. Richard Blade. And indeed from a far-off land."

  "Blade? Richard Blade?" She pronounced it Rich-hard Bleed. She grimaced. "A strange name, by Frigga! My tongue will not accommodate to it. But we will speak of all this later now I command you to escort me to the town of my cousin, King Lycanto. The town is called Sarum Vil and it should be somewhere near. My cousin will protect us and give us shelter for the night."

  Blade smiled. "Somewhere near, you say? But you do not know exactly?"

  She frowned at him. "I well, not exactly. But I am sure we can find it. There is a path that "

  He chuckled. "If we can find the path. In other words, princess, you are lost. We are both lost."

  Before she could answer a great dog broke from the cover of the woods and came bounding at them. It was running far in advance of the pack, eyes glinting red and long muzzle slavering, and it was a killer bent on doing the work for which it had been trained. With bristling hackles and thunder in its throat the huge beast came straight in for the kill.

  As Blade stepped in front of the girl he plucked the drinking horn from her girdle. "Behind me," he snapped. "Remain perfectly still."

  The animal to Blade it looked like some weird cross between a mastiff and a wolfhound left the ground some ten feet from Blade. The long fangs glinted cruelly in the twilight. Blade went into a half crouch, the sword drawn back to thrust, the drinking horn in his left hand and in front of him.

  The dog at close quarters it looked as big as a small pony crashed into Blade with furious impact, the long teeth snapping for his throat. Blade, taking one backward step, rammed the drinking horn down the red maw and twisted it. Then, in a series of fluid movements, he withdrew a bleeding hand and thrust hard into the creature's bell
y. He put all his mighty shoulder behind the thrust and felt the hilt of the sword grate against ribs. The dog fell away with a dying squall and went into its death convulsions. Blade thrust quickly into its throat in a mercy stroke.

  He put the sword deep into earth to cleanse it and turned to the girl. She was watching, her eyes wide, one hand to her mouth, and for a moment her face bespoke fierce approval.

  Yet she said, "A fine animal. A pity to slay it."

  He held up a hand for silence. With the going of the sun the darkness had fallen suddenly, an abrupt curtain, and the voices and the baying of the hounds were closer. Blade, studying the thick woods to the west, saw the sudden red sputter of a torch. Then another, and still another. The scarlet flambeaus, danger beacons in the dust, denoted the two horns of a crescent that was closing in on them. Very close now. Too close. They could not go west, and already the horns of the crescent were closing off north and south. That left east, the direction in which the brook ran.

  Blade took the girl's hand in his big paw. "Come on, princess. We are going to run a little."

  The water was icy. The brook was not deep, never more than a foot or two, but the bottom was rough and stony with countless boulders around which the stream cascaded. Caught brush, snagged timbers and fallen trees impeded their way. It grew cold and a dank white mist began to rise and hang over the water. Blade, naked as he was, began to feel the cold. He was inured to hardship, discounted it, yet he was shivering.

  So was the girl. Her hand, clinging to his big one, grew colder by the minute. Blade was setting a merciless pace and soon she was gasping. Several times, but for his support, she would have fallen. Finally, tripping over a hidden snag, she came sprawling into his arms and remained there for a moment. She clung to him, panting, and he was very aware of the lithe body beneath the thin linen. There was a fragrance about her, other than that of clean woman flesh, which he found vaguely familiar. After a moment he identified it. Chypre. It smacked of sunnier climes, of the Levant, and he wondered how she had come by it. The last time Blade had smelled chypre had been in Alexandria. A man had been wearing it then, a queer who was selling information to Blade, a young deviate who had been murdered two weeks later. What had his name been?

  Blade could not remember. His mind was fuzzy and blank. With a great effort, feeling the sudden sweat on his forehead despite the cold, he switched his thoughts and tried tried Lord? Lord Leighton! Got it. And his boss? J. Yes, J. He could swear it. J? London? M16A? Yes yes then the mist seeped into his brain and he was no longer sure.

  He understood it then. His memory of past life was going. Slowly, but inexorably, leaving him.

  The girl cried out in pain. Blade, totally forgetting her, had tensed so that he very nearly crushed her ribs.

  He released her. "I am sorry, princess. I was thinking and for a moment forgot where I was. I did not mean to hurt you."

  She sounded cross, yet she did not move away from him. "You are a great brute, Richard Blade. You crush a woman like a straw."

  In the east, over a waving sea of endless trees, he saw the first pale hint of a gibbous moon. He looked back along the tortuous way they had come. The mist, risen higher now, hung like a visible miasma over the stream and drifted in ghostly whorls among the trees. There were no torches, no voices, no baying dogs. Their pursuers, it appeared, had given up for the night.

  Blade led the girl to the bank, where they found a grassy enclave which, if not warm, was at least better than the brook. They nestled down together and she came into his arms again.

  But first she said: "I am cold, Blade. I seek only the warmth of that huge bear's body of yours. You understand this?"

  She could not see his smile. "I understand," he said gravely. "What else? After all you are a princess and I am only a poor stranger a man with no clothes. What could such a one possibly aspire to? Have no fear, princess. I know my station and I will not reach above it."

  None the less temptation was present and he was well aware of it. She was soaked to the skin and her nipples had risen with the cold. Her breasts, half out of the skimpy dress, lay against his naked chest. And he knew, with the sure knowledge that a true man has, that although she would demur, and possibly even struggle a bit, she would in the end welcome his lovemaking. If he so chose.

  He did not so choose. That would resolve itself in time. If they were meant to be lovers they would be. Meantime there were more immediate problems they were lost, hunted, and his belly was screaming for food. If she was as hungry as he, then she was hungry indeed.

  She had not spoken for a few moments. She lay against him, shivering like a drenched puppy, with her fine spun hair tickling his nose. Now she pulled away and tried to see his face in the gloom. There was an edge in her voice.

  "I think you mock me, Blade. I am a princess, but I do not think I like your tone when you say it."

  "Again I am sorry, princess. I cannot help my tone. It is the way I always speak."

  "If I truly thought you mocked me, Blade, I would have you well whipped when we come to Sarum Vil. I swear I would."

  His teeth glinted wolf-like in the moonlight as he held up the sword. "I think not, princess. Not while I am armed and can fight back. Try to have me whipped and there will be blood perhaps mine, certainly that of your friends."

  His tone lightened. "Anyway it will not be necessary to whip me I do not mock you."

  Taleen regarded him with something of caution, and a new respect. She smiled back. "Very well. We are friends again. You may hold me, Blade. I am freezing."

  But before she came into his arms again they both heard it the sound of chanting voices coming from the deep black woods to the east. Taleen stared at Blade and made an odd gesture with her right hand across her breasts.

  "Frigga protect us! It is the Drus. They are meeting tonight in the sacred glade. And now I know where I am, Blade. Come. We will circle around them and find the path to Sarum Vil." She extended a hand to Blade.

  He stared into the depths of the wood, trying to locate the chanting. As he strained his eyes he gradually made out the flickering red stain of a fire, seen intermittently, now and then obscured by the great boles of the oaks and yews that lurked like mute giants in the tenebrific shadows. Blade felt an odd, uneasy and yet exciting, stirring in his blood and could not explain his atavistic response to the fire and the chanting. He only knew that he wanted to see, and understand, what was going on.

  But when he made this plain to Taleen she recoiled from him in horror. She snatched away her hand and stared at him as though he had gone lunatic.

  "No no! It is forbidden to spy on the Drus. Most especially forbidden to intrude on the Mysteries. If we are caught we will be killed. They will sacrifice us to the God of the Trees. That is what they are doing now preparing a sacrifice. If they catch us they will cut off our heads and our hands and our feet, and they will gut us like rabbits and cook us over a slow fire. Then they will eat us! No, Blade. We must circle far around them, and very carefully, too, because they always post sentries."

  He watched her, his handsome face impassive. There was no doubt that she believed what she said, and that her fear was genuine. In the moonlight, ever growing stronger, her eyes were full of terror.

  It only served to whet his curiosity. He reached and pulled her against his big chest once again. He stroked her hair and felt her trembling and knew the cold was not to blame this time.

  "You have seen this with your own eyes?" His voice was gentle and he kept it low. She might be telling truth about the sentries. "You have seen these Drus make human sacrifices and eat them?"

  Taleen shook her head and muttered against his chest. "No. I have not seen it. I would not dare. I am not a fool and do not wish to die. But I have heard the stories as has everyone in Alb and the stories are true. The Drus are very powerful and they are a law unto themselves. Everyone knows and understands that, Blade. And you, a stranger who may be forgiven for your ignorance, must understand it also."

&n
bsp; She pulled away from him and looked into his face. "Unless you are really a fool, after all, and have a great wish to die. And until now I have not thought you a fool."

  "I am not," said Blade, "and I do not wish for death more than any other man, but I would like to see these Drus with my own eyes. I will see them. Now. Tonight. At once."

  It occurred to him that if the Drus were so powerful they must also be potential enemies. Blade had survived for so long by adhering to the creed "know thy enemy!" He did not know how long his enforced stay in Alb would last, or how long his memory of another life would sustain and give him an advantage. It would be wise to hedge against the future whatever it might bring and to make his position as secure as possible.

  When he spoke again his tone was firm. "I am going to look into this matter, Princess Taleen. There is not much danger, for I am at home in the woods and brush, but you do not have to come with me. Remain here if you like. I will come back for you."

  She sighed in resignation. He had expected another flare of anger.

  "You are a fool, after all. You would never find me again. No I will go with you. If you are determined to be a fool then I must be one too. Only remember my warning when they are cutting off your head."

  Blade grinned at her and patted her lightly on the behind. So anxious and unsure was she that the lese majesty went unnoticed.

  "Follow closely," said Blade, "and do not be afraid. And try not to step on any dry sticks. Try to step exactly where I do. It will not take long. I want a glimpse of these Drus, nothing more. After that we will find your path and get on to the village of your cousin. It is a fact that I wish we had brought that dead dog along with us right now I think I could eat him raw."