A long silence followed Blade's words, a silence in which it seemed that even the wind had faded away to listen. Blade looked at the silent figures standing and looking back at him, defiance written on his face and in every line of his athlete's body.

Again it was Yezjaro who broke the silence. «I say the stranger is worthy. I say it by my office as instructor to our clan. And I say it by my love of seeing a mighty and ingenious warrior.» He grinned openly at Blade as he said the last words, and Blade grinned back. He had been right in his guess that in Gaikon they respected brains as well as brawn.

Now it was Yezjaro's turn to look a challenge at the house dabuni. «Brothers, will any of you say that the stranger is not worthy of the robe and the oil of Kunkoi?» He did not move his sword an inch. But the tone of voice he used could leave no one doubting what he would do to anyone who argued.

«It shall be as you wish,» said one of the dabuni.

«Yes,» said another. Then, with genuine enthusiasm that somewhat surprised Blade, «It will be an honor having him among us in the service of Lord Tsekuin.»

Yezjaro's clipped voice cut the second man down to size. «It is too soon to say whether it will be an honor or not. But certainly it will not be improper nor displeasing to Kunkoi. I think we all agree on that.» All the dabuni nodded. «Excellent.» Then he turned to Blade.

«Stranger, you are judged fit to rank as a dabuno in the service of Lord Tsekuin. Is it your wish to do so?»

Blade realized that he knew next to nothing about Lord Tsekuin or what serving him might mean. But the service of a powerful warlord was a good enough place to start his exploration of this dimension. It might be one of those lands where a person without a lord was a person without status and with small chance of more than bare survival.

He nodded. «It is acceptable to me.»

«Good,» said Yezjaro. «You will take the oath when we reach the castle. We start tomorrow. One of these brothers will show you to a sleeping room.»

Blade nodded. He was suddenly afraid to speak out loud, for fear that his voice would reveal how nearly exhausted he was.

The bedroom was small, but the walls were dark-colored and restful and gave off a faint scent. On the floor was a thick layer of bamboo mats and on top of that a straw-filled pad and a thick down-filled quilt. The pillows were made of leather, shaped like bars of pig iron and not much softer.

Two of the servant girls gave Blade a clean robe and led him to the bathhouse. There he soaked the chill and some of the aches out of himself while the girls sponged him down with pads of cloth soaked in scented oil, removing the last of the paint. They also kept pouring buckets of water into the tall wooden tub, keeping the water just below scalding temperature. When Blade finally climbed out of the tub and toweled himself off, he felt like a boiled lobster.

He took off the robe and crawled under the quilt. He had just decided to shove the pillows entirely aside when he heard footsteps approaching along the corridor outside. They stopped at the door. A moment later the sliding door scraped open, and a human figure showed in the opening, black against the light from outside.

Blade's training and instincts overcame his fatigue. In a single movement he rolled out of the quilt and off the pad. Then he sprang up, dropping into fighting stance as the visitor pulled the door shut and turned to look at him. He was about to snap out a challenge, when he recognized the visitor and laughed out loud.

It was Kika, the girl he had seen by the stream and in the kitchen. Now she stood by the door, wearing a pink robe with silver flowers embroidered across the breast. Her eyes ran up and down his body with obvious interest.

Blade laughed again and sat down on the quilt. «Well, young lady. What are you doing here now?»

The girl appeared to suddenly remember the respect owed to a dabuno. She dropped to her knees in a nervous flurry and bowed her head. «I am here to serve you, Honorable Dabuno. It was decided that my punishment for not taking care of the Honorable Instructor Yezjaro's robe should be to serve you this night.»

Blade nodded. «Who decided this? Captain Jawai?»

The girl looked unmistakably startled. «Oh no, that could not be. It was the decision of the Honorable Instructor Yezjaro.»

Blade nodded again. He understood or at least thought he understood more than he was probably supposed to. If Yezjaro was giving orders for punishing Captain Jawai's servants-that meant the captain was out of circulation, at least for tonight. With Yezjaro in charge, it was less likely that Blade would have to worry about a knife stuck into him in the darkness. That was a considerable relief.

The girl was young, but her body had unmistakably matured. Graceful curves were evident under the pink robe. And she gave off a subtle but undeniably appealing and arousing perfume. Blade suspected he knew the «service» she was supposed to render. Well, why not? He doubted if the dabuni were supposed to be ascetics. He certainly wasn't!

He remained standing, returning the girl's look, until she gave a little giggle and looked down at the floor. Without looking up, she undid the blue sash at her waist. The robe fell open. Then she shrugged slim shoulders, and the robe fell whispering to the floor and lay in a pink pool at her feet.

Like her perfume, the girl's beauty was subtle but arousing. All the curves were as delicate as if they had been drawn by a master artist with a very fine brush. In the dim light Blade could make out the faint sheen of shoulders and hips, the lift of small, pointed breasts with the nipples faint smudges at their tips, a small black strip almost perfectly centered between slim thighs. The girl threw her head back, until her black hair flowed down almost to the small of her back, and thrust her hips forward.

Yes, undeniably arousing. Blade couldn't have denied the arousal if he had wanted to. His massive member jutted forward, swollen, solid, sending urgent demands tip to his brain. He responded to those demands. He stepped forward, lowered his massive hands until he could cup the girl's firm buttocks, and lifted her. Her eyes and mouth flared open as Blade drove upward between her legs, into her wet channel. Then she closed her eyes and stretched out her arms to grab Blade by the shoulders. Her legs twined around Blade's hips, locking her into place as she began to rock back and forth with Blade inside her.

She was not only wet but fantastically snug. After what seemed like only seconds Blade knew that she was going to push him over the edge soon. Too soon? He didn't know. He didn't know anything except that he needed and wanted to hold against the glorious agony that was boiling up in his groin and threatening to boil over. He didn't know anything, didn't care about anything, couldn't have paid attention to anything else if his life had depended on it. The girl was light, but his breath was coming in great sobbing gasps, and she seemed to be threatening to tear his aching arms out of their sockets as she twisted her hips around and around and around-

Suddenly she pressed down, locking herself so tightly around Blade that he felt as though the breath was being squeezed out of his body. But it was her breath that came out in a great shuddering gasping groan as she heaved herself up and down in a final desperate effort.

The girl's efforts put an end to Blade's self-control. His own hips twisted and turned as he felt his own heat spurting savagely upward into the girl, going on and on and on. There had been a terrible heat in him, and it took a long time for it all to be released.

But finally he was empty, and he lifted the half-conscious girl in his arms and laid her down on his sleeping pad. Then he lay down beside her and pulled the quilt over both of them.