Kun-Rala went over to the door and pulled it shut behind her. Then she came back over to the mattress and sat down at the foot. «I–I have not had much chance to be a woman, Blade. I have had to be a warrior for our cause for-for longer than I want to remember. I am proud of what skill I have as a warrior, even though I know it is not very much. But I want to learn to be a woman, Blade, and I think you can teach me well.»

Blade could not help feeling the beginnings of arousal, but he could also not help wondering if this was the time and place. «Kun-Rala, why now? We-«

«Yes, we may die the night after tomorrow, Blade. We may die together, but that is not all I want us to do together. I want to learn from you more about how to be a woman before I die, if I am going to die that night.» She shivered and held out both slim calloused hands. «Please, Blade-Liza.»

Blade did not need to say «Yes,» because his body was beginning to say it for him. And while Kun-Rala might want to know more about being a woman, she already knew enough to recognize a man's arousal when she saw it. She lay down on the mattress beside him, and her arms went around him. Blade could feel the lines of her body under the thin robe, and his own body said its «yes» even louder than before. She felt his stiffening maleness pressing up against her, and her lips curled in a smile.

He took that smile as a welcome, and his hands moved almost of their own accord to the belt of her tunic. It was a simple length of cord; his powerful fingers had it undone within seconds. Kun-Rala raised her hands over her head as Blade's hands crept down her thighs and under the hem of the tunic. Then they crept back up again, caressing the smoothly curved flesh underneath, raising the robe as they came. A quick jerk, and the robe was off and flung in the corner. Kun-Rala wore nothing underneath it, and the dim light in the room gave her body a weirdly beautiful sheen.

Now Blade's hands could roam freely all over that body, drawing small gasps from her as he touched sensitive areas. Her nipples were particularly responsive-dark delicate buds that sprang startlingly into solid life with a single brush of Blade's fingers. Kun-Rala gave a little choked «yes» as that happened, so Blade's fingers stayed on her nipples for a good long time, until she was gasping and writhing back and forth from that stimulus alone. At the same time her own hands were fumbling their way up and down Blade's body. Their touch was unsure and clumsy but delicate, and the unsureness, the sense that she was feeling her way, was in itself exciting to Blade. He felt a delicious ache growing in his groin, as Kun-Rala's hands crept down over the hard muscles of his stomach, to wrap themselves around him.

But he did not stop his own hands, for he sensed that Kun-Rala needed yet more preparation before she would be lost enough in an erotic fog for him to take her easily. He left off caressing her nipples and gently squeezed and released her small, high-standing breasts in an accelerating rhythm. She threw her head back, and her eyes closed. Blade's other hand could feel the growing wetness between her gracefully rounded thighs. His hand probed that wetness, and Kun-Rala's hips began to jerk from side to side, slowly at first but then faster and faster.

Eventually he saw and felt and heard that she was ready. He rolled over toward her, but as he did so, she rolled toward him, faster than he did. She swung up on top of him, he came up, she came down, and he entered her.

She was so aroused and hungry that her first spasm came almost in the moment of entry. She threw her head back and clawed with both hands at her close-cut hair as her pelvic muscles quivered convulsively and wetness poured from her down around Blade's thrusting organ. Her head went back so far that Blade had the vague fear that her neck would snap. Then she sagged forward, until her swollen nipples almost touched Blade's sweat-soaked chest. But he did not stop rising and falling, and neither did she. So she reached a second climax, and then when she reached her third Blade reached his along with her, and their bodies thrashed and their breaths hissed and moaned together.

She collapsed limply forward on to Blade's chest again, and this time she did not move for quite a while. Neither did he. Finally he found the breath to say, «Kun-Rala, you have been worrying about not knowing how to be a woman? You?» His tone of voice implied, «What an idiotic thing for you of all people to worry about!»

She wriggled happily, understanding his meaning, and her arms went around him again. For a moment he thought she was trying to arouse him again. But she was not. Curled against his chest, she drifted quietly off to sleep, and shortly afterward so did Blade.

Blade adjusted the straps of the carrying frame until they were as comfortable as he could reasonably expect. Fortunately he wasn't going to have to carry this frame or its load more than a few miles. Two hours' brisk walking even in the darkness should take both him and Kun-Rala to the base of the Tower of the Leopard. There the people that Bryg-Noz was leading out through the secret tunnel should be waiting. And, he hoped, so would a friendly reception committee from the Tower of the Leopard.

So far things had gone with almost perfect smoothness. Bryg-Noz was a sensible man; he had kept his plan simple. More than half of his people were to remain in the Tower of the Serpent, even more carefully hidden than before. They would be ready to go to work when the time came to take the tower. The most important two hundred would follow him out through the tunnel, to travel to the Tower of the Leopard, there to become the core of an «army of liberation.» They would travel by night and should be long gone by dawn tomorrow. Blade and Kun-Rala would make their way to the work chamber in whose walls the great wands were hidden, and collect a dozen or so of them. After that they would ride lifters down to the ground and join the other party.

The plan was simple enough so that the number of things that could go wrong was merely large-not completely impossible. But there were still more dangers than Blade cared to think about. So he decided not to think about them, and turned to Kun-Rala.

«Ready?»

«Ready.» She pulled her administering wand from its scabbard on her master's belt, composed her face into a scowl, and gestured toward the stairs. Blade composed his own face into the properly submissive expression of one of the Low People and shuffled toward the door. If he could just keep that expression, he was reasonably sure that no one would recognize him. His skin was smeared with dirt and grease, and his head was shaved entirely bald.

They climbed the secret stairway slowly, saving their wind and strength. Then they stepped out into the corridor, and headed for the Low People's shaft. Kun-Rala would have preferred to take the stairs the remaining four hundred feet up to the work chamber, but Blade had persuaded her otherwise. At this hour of the night there should be few people either High or Low moving about, except working parties like themselves. And the time and energy saved by using the shaft would be more than worth it, particularly if they had to fight. Blade hoped they wouldn't, but he couldn't be sure.

They had to cover about two hundred feet of open corridor from the head of the stairs to the entrance to the shaft. They passed one working party of four Low People being herded along by a candidate master, who bowed to Kun-Rala but said nothing. This was encouraging-at least mildly so.

There was no one in the shaft car that whisked them up to the work levels in the usual few seconds. And there was no one in the corridor outside the shaft door. But when they turned the bend in the corridor that led to the work chambers, they saw a guard standing before the main door to the chambers.