More than once during the three days, Blade was half tempted to steal a horse and slip quietly off into the forest. He was not quite sure what he would do then. The Steppemen's ways sounded no more admirable and no more hospitable than the laws of the Empire. Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to fade quietly away into the wilderness and live there like a hermit until the time came to return to Home Dimension.

Unfortunately, that would only make matters worse, as he discovered after talking with Haleen. She was horrified at the idea and begged him not to think of it.

«That would prove to all that you were a spy or something else just as bad.»

«Even to Duke Boros?»

«Even to him.»

«Then what would happen?»

«He would have to tell the Emperor at once. Kul-Nam would not be pleased. He would take Tulu as a hostage and send the duke out at the head of an army to scour the country for you. Hundreds of people would be killed or left homeless in the search.

«When they caught you, you would be castrated, blinded, flayed, then smeared with honey and tied across an anthill to have the flesh eaten from your bones. If you were not caught, Kul-Nam would execute Tulu in the same way. Boros would have to watch it, then be impaled alive. The House of Kudai would be abolished, all its slaves executed, all its freemen enslaved, all its wealth forfeited to the Imperial Treasury.»

Blade gave a long whistle of astonishment. «All because of accidentally befriending someone who might have been a spy?»

«Yes. That is the way of Emperor Kul-Nam. If you were to flee, you would be killing many people, as surely as if you took a sword and cut off their heads. My brother and I would certainly be among them. I beg you, think of us now as you did in the fight, and show this mercy that is so honored in England. Do not flee! Do not even speak of it as a joke!»

«I will not,» said Blade, and kissed her.

On the morning of the fourth day they rode out of the forested borderlands and onto the southern plains of the Empire. Here the land was flat and the roads straight and well maintained. The party swept along at fifty and sixty miles a day, starting at dawn and making camp only at twilight. They were heading north, toward the Emperor's current residence and toward the Silver Sea, which stretched a thousand miles toward the east.

This was also a land of broad fields of waving yellow grain and of walled towns. The party rode around the towns, close enough for Blade to notice that only those towns with Imperial garrisons had their walls defended. Sentries strode back and forth, carrying bows and muskets. Small cannon jutted from the tops of the towers and larger ones defended the gates. Mounted patrols swept the roads for miles around.

In the ungarrisoned towns, on the other hand, the walls rose unguarded, unarmed, and sometimes half crumbled into ruins. In none of the towns did Blade see anyone armed, except soldiers of the Emperor and handfuls of thuggish-looking types who seemed to be the local policemen.

As before, Haleen was able to help Blade make as much sense as possible of things in Saram. Blade found himself respecting her more and more as he got to know her better. She was only nineteen, born a slave and resigned to being one until she died. She could neither read nor write nor count without the help of her fingers and toes. But she had sharp eyes, a keen mind to understand what she saw, and clear words to explain what she understood.

«The Emperor does not trust anyone with weapons, except the nobles and those who serve them, the soldiers, and the constables. All others cannot even have spears or swords, let alone bows or muskets. All they can have is kitchen knives.»

«What about blacksmiths?»

«They all serve either the soldiers or the army. If they sell a single weapon to someone who cannot have it, they are killed. Melted iron is poured into their mouths, or-«

Blade held up a hand to stop her. He was no longer interested in catalogs of the ghastly punishments handed out to lawbreakers in Saram. What interested him was the military problem this law must create for the Empire.

«That means that towns without a garrison have no defense against the Steppemen except their walls.»

Haleen nodded. «That is true. Sometimes they do not even have their walls. You saw the walls that were falling down?»

«Yes. I couldn't understand why the people of the towns would let that happen.»

«Two years ago a town did rebuild its walls when they were falling down. Kul-Nam decided that the town was plotting against him. He had a dozen of the leading people tortured to make them confess that they were going to rebel.»

«They confessed, of course?» After a certain amount of torture, anyone would confess to anything. That was a basic fact of life Blade had learned years ago, long before he'd ever heard of Dimension X.

«Of course. The Emperor's army surrounded the town and stormed it. He even sent in the Corps of Eunuchs, who are the fiercest of all his soldiers. Everyone in the town was killed. Then it was burned. Kul-Nam does not trust the people of the towns.»

The Emperor was probably right. Unfortunately for Saram, that was his own damned fault! After the massacre, what else could he expect?

Blade knew by now that it was not only pointless but dangerous to say anything concerning a matter about which Kul-Nam had already made up whatever he used for a mind. Certainly His Magnificence had landed his Empire in a messy situation. Only a small fraction of the people of military age had weapons or any knowledge of how to use them. His army and the nobles' fighting men were spread very thin. Behind them was nothing-no reserve, no local-defense forces, nothing at all. The towns could not even delay the Steppemen by closing their gates and holding out until the Imperial army could move to rescue them!

It was a stupid situation. It was also a waste of time to worry about it. The thing to worry about for the time being was keeping his own head on his shoulders. If he could do that long enough, perhaps he might be able to do something for somebody else in Saram.

The ride north across the plain toward the Emperor's castle took five days. On the morning of the sixth day a haze of smoke and dust on the horizon ahead told Blade that they were approaching another town.

It was not a town, but an army camp as large as a town. Thick clouds of black smoke coiled up from a row of brick chimneys, telling of a large arsenal hard at work. There were rows of wooden barracks with tile roofs stretching for almost a mile, and numerous guns lined up outside the walls. All the lamer guns were mounted on heavy sledges instead of wheels. Such guns would be useful for knocking down the walls of a rebellious town or a rebellious noble's castle, but in the field against fast-moving horsemen they would be useless. In fact, they would slow down the movements of any army that tried to use them. In spite of this, they were all polished and painted and on display like so many blooded horses.

Kul-Nam was obviously proud of them, whatever use he might expect to get out of them.

The duke's party rode on past the camp without stopping or even approaching the gates. A score of riders came out to join the duke's party as an escort-or guard. From the riders' plump, hairless faces, Blade assumed they were from the Corps of Eunuchs.

They looked like good soldiers. They rode well, and their weapons had the appearance that comes with careful maintenance over many years. Their helmets sat square and their armor fit well, with no odd pieces missing or laces dangling. Their horses looked alert, tough, and well fed. Like most of the other Imperial soldiers Blade had seen, the Corps of Eunuchs would be formidable opponents in battle. If Kul-Nam's judgment had been as good as his soldiers, the Empire would have been in no danger at all. As it was, Saram had an army that was worthy of better leadership than they were likely to get from their Emperor.