Blade used that moment to time Dzhai's swings. He noticed that the man held his free arm out across in front of him.

Blade moved in. He darted under the swing of the mace, driving his left hand upward and jerking down with his right. Dzhai's right arm swung down in a perfect arc. The mace whistled past Blade's ear and grazed his shoulder hard enough to jolt him. His left hand crashed into Dzhai's descending elbow. Dzhai screamed horribly as his elbow shattered.

In the same moment Blade jerked Dzhai's free arm down and to one side, nearly pulling it out of its socket. From the corner of his eye Blade now saw Tzimon moving back into the attack, looking for an opening that would let him strike at Blade without hitting his comrade. Blade closed with Dzhai until he was embracing the man as tightly as he might have embraced a woman. His arms locked around Dzhai's chest.

Then Blade hurled himself backward, at the same moment heaving upward on his opponent. Dzhai rose into the air as Blade dropped. He came down at exactly the right moment for Blade's upthrusting feet to take him in the stomach. Blade continued rolling, balancing Dzhai on his feet. He rolled right over in a backward somersault, flinging Dzhai's entire helpless two hundred pounds squarely into Tzimon's face. There was a crunch and a gasp, the axe flew out of Tzimon's hand, the mace flew out of Dzhai's hand and landed in the fire, and the two men crashed down onto the ground together. Blade sprang to his feet, snatched up the axe, plucked a couple of thorns out of his buttocks, then looked at his two opponents. They were sprawled on the ground, both obviously out cold but still breathing.

Blade sank the axe into the ground at his feet and turned to face the two noblemen. Both were staring at Blade, their swords still drawn. To one side of them stood one of their guards, holding a matchlock musket under one arm. On the other side stood the dancing girl, now wrapped in a blanket. She was staring at Blade even more intently than the others, her eyes wide and seeming to glow in the firelight. The other men stood behind these four.

Blade bowed politely, drew his knife, laid it down on the ground with the point toward him, then bowed again. It was a symbolic disarming only. He could snatch up the knife and pick off at least one man long before any of them could do anything to him, even the one with the musket.

Everyone remained as motionless as figures in a waxworks for a moment. Then the father smiled, thrust his sword back into its scabbard, and stepped forward. His son hesitated for a moment, then did the same. The man with the matchlock blew out his match and lowered his weapon butt first to the ground.

The father stepped up to Blade, hand outthrust. Blade took it, matching the other's firm grip.

«Well, my-«began the father, then shook his head. «No, I cannot call you friend, not now, and not ever without the Emperor's permission. You are still a stranger, and the laws of the Empire are strict when they speak of strangers.» He smiled. «But though you are a stranger, certainly you are no Steppeman. You are just as certainly a warrior, whom I am happy to have met, and very probably a truthful man as well. Blade, I am Boros, Duke of Kudai. This is my son, Tulu. And these»-he pointed to the other men-«serve in the House of Kudai. Though we cannot call you friend, yet we can say that here and now we are happy to have you among us.

«Prince Blade, welcome to the Empire of Saram.»

Blade sipped from his cup of hot, spiced wine, found that he'd emptied it, and held it out to the girl. She took it, refilled it from a large jar near the mouth of the tent, and handed it back. Blade took another swallow of the steaming liquid, feeling it warm him all the way down, and looked at the girl for about the tenth time. She now wore a blue linen shift belted around her slim waist with a gilded silk cord. She was just as pleasant to look at the tenth time as she'd been the first.

Blade sat facing the mouth of the tent. He wore a pair of leather trousers, a woolen tunic, and a leather belt, all borrowed from Dzhai. Their former owner had no use for them at the moment. He lay in another tent, his shattered elbow and cracked ribs wrapped in bandages, the rest of him wrapped in blankets, filled with drugged wine and sleeping peacefully.

Duke Boros had apologized for not being able to produce better clothing for Blade. «I hope we shall be able to find garb more fitting to your rank before you come into the presence of His Magnificence. But for the moment, only Dzhai among those whose clothes would fit you has any to spare.»

Blade sipped more wine. «What is there about the Steppemen that makes them so hated and makes you so sure that I am not one of them?»

«As for what makes them hated, Blade,» said Tulu, «need you, who have survived one of their attacks, ask this? What they did to you and your men once, they have done a thousand times in the borderlands of the Empire. They have done it to soldiers, both by open attack and by treacherous ambush. They have done it even more often to farms and villages and towns. They slay all the men and enslave the women and children. Only the bravest will now live within two days' ride of the Steppes. There would be fewer still if it were not for His Magnificence Kul-Nam's iron will.»

«How is this?» said Blade.

«He has caused the abandoned farms to be resettled. The new settlers must hold on to the death against the Steppemen. Otherwise their lives are forfeit to the Emperor. The women and children are impaled or flogged to death. After watching this, the men are either burned at the stake or thrown into pits of snakes.»

Blade nodded politely. Kul-Nam's determination to keep his borders secure was impressive. His methods were another matter.

«One can understand why your Emperor's reputation has traveled even as far as England,» Blade said finally. «Indeed his will is one of iron.»

«It is,» said the duke. «Yet even iron has only so much strength. The army of Saram is strong, and when it can meet the Steppemen man against man and horse against horse, they must flee or perish. But this seldom happens. They choose their time and place and seldom fight unless they can bring against us numbers so great that we must flee or die. The soldiers of His Magnificence will not flee, for he is harsh with cowards. So they die. Each year our soldiers grow fewer, each year the Steppemen grow more numerous. We know they dream of a year when they will ride across our border in all their strength and sweep our army aside like the tides of the sea. We fear that year is not far off, for all that His Magnificence and his soldiers can do.»

So the Empire of Saram seemed to be facing the attacks of a horde of nomadic barbarians. Blade was not quite ready to call the Empire itself «civilized»-not with their Emperor's rather bloodthirsty taste in punishments. Yet certainly they were facing a notoriously unpleasant sort of enemy. A horde of horsemen could be as elusive, painful, and sometimes deadly as a swarm of wasps.

«I can understand why they are not welcome in Saram,» said Blade. The duke laughed shortly, and even his son managed a thin smile. «I am glad you decided that I was not one of them. Matters might have become difficult, for as you have seen, I would not have been easy to kill.»

The duke laughed again. «No, indeed. There would have been a battle worthy of quite a number of poems, if by some chance anyone had lived to write them. In fact, we had some hopes that you might not be a Steppeman when you first appeared. Not one in a thousand of them is as large as you are. Nine out of ten have their legs bowed like the crescent of the moon from a life spent on horseback, while yours are as straight as pine trees and as tough as seasoned wood.