«It is.»

«Good,» she said, and then the other women were coming up. They swept Blade along as they ran toward the section of the arena stands where the two factions were. By the time the forty-odd survivors of Idrana's archers were gathered there, all the cheering had died.

Idrana stepped forward, lifting her bow in salute. In the front row of the Blue section, someone rose to her feet and bowed in return. In one swift, flowing motion, Idrana snatched an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, drew, and sent the arrow hurtling into the bowing woman. She doubled up and fell out of the stands onto the sand with a scream and a thud. Before she had struck the ground, all the rest of Idrana's archers had followed their leader's cue.

A hail of arrows whistled down into the Blue section.

Immediate and total pandemonium.

The shrieks and screams that rose from the Blue section were echoed seconds later from all around the arena. The women in the Green section rose in a body. Some of them scurried for the exits, while others drew their swords and started scrambling toward the Blues. Elsewhere in the stands women sat as if turned to stone; still others were dropping down onto the sand. Were they coming in to attack Idrana's archers or join them?

Blade didn't know, and badly wanted to. He wanted even more badly to find some place well out of the battle that would certainly be raging within a few minutes. If it was a place that offered an escape route, even better. He began looking around the arena.

Meanwhile, Idrana's archers kept up their fire, pumping flight after flight of arrows into the Blue section. That section was becoming a mass of writhing bodies and blood now, although a few of the Blue warriors had unlimbered their own bows and were shooting back.

As Blade ducked an arrow screaming toward him, he saw six women in the dirty gray clothes of manual workers leap down from the stands. The one in the lead waved her arms frantically at Blade. Blade stiffened as he recognized Truja.

He didn't wait. Shoving two of the archers aside, he dashed toward the approaching women. Truja leaped into the air in delight, then waved her arm at one of the open doors under the stands.

Blade and the women sprinted toward the door. As they ran, Blade heard a shriek of rage behind him-Idrana had seen her chosen male getting away. Blade tried to keep his head as low as possible.

But Idrana could not afford to waste arrows needed for the Blues on a fleeing male. Only a single flight came whistling over. All were aimed at Blade; none of them hit him, but by ill chance two struck one of Truja's women in the back. She screamed and staggered, then went down. Blade bent to help her up, but Truja stepped in front of him.

«No!» she snapped. Her hand darted in under her robes and drew out a sword. The woman writhing on the ground looked up and nodded. The sword plunged into the woman's neck, and she heaved convulsively in a death spasm and lay still. It was a quicker death than Idrana would have given her, and now she could not be tortured into betraying them.

The five surviving women and Blade charged into the door at a dead run, drawing their swords as they did so. The underground chamber was full of cages of Senar and chained women. The guards were already on the alert from the uproar above. They raised their swords as Truja's party charged in.

«Out of my way!» she snapped. «Business of the House!» «Business of the House» meant the affairs of the House of Fertility. None in the city except the Guardians of Fertility and Mistress herself might question these words. The guards drew back, the massive door rumbled open, and Truja led the way out into the underground corridor.

«Business of the House!» got them past the other two guard posts under the arena and several parties of armed women who were rushing about in a frenzy like ants in a broken nest. None of them paid any attention to Blade, although it was impossible to conceal him.

Truja grinned at that. «With everything else they've got on their minds now, I don't think they'd notice if you were fourteen feet tall and had two heads and long purple fur.»

Then they were outside the Arena. The roar from inside was, if anything, growing louder. The women in the streets were staring toward it in curiosity and mounting fear. They were much too busy to notice the five women and the strange-looking Senar who slipped out of one of the underground passages.

Now the women stripped off their workers' robes. Under them they wore hunting costumes, complete with short, heavy bows and quivers. They tossed the robes to Blade, who made a rough cloak and loincloth out of them. Then all six headed for the gates of the city.

They covered the three miles at a dead run, without stopping once or slowing more often than the wretched streets underfoot required. After three weeks of confinement and nearly three hours in the arena, Blade found the run an ordeal. His heart seemed about to burst out through his ribs, and his lungs felt as if they were full of flaming-hot gas. Hot needles drove into the muscles of his legs. But from somewhere he found the strength to keep going.

The city gates were still open when Blade and the women came in sight of them. They promptly slowed down to a walk and tried to get their breathing back to normal.

The officer commanding the gate peered down out of the gatehouse at them as they approached. The uproar from the arena was beginning to be audible even here. And someone must have started setting fires. Several columns of black smoke were swirling up from the quarter of the city around the arena.

«What in the name of the Mother is happening?» the officer shouted.

«There's a riot at the arena,» Truja called back.

«The Greens and the Blues?» the officer asked.

Truja shrugged. «Who else?»

«Damn them!» said the officer. «Where are you going? «

«Out to warn the farms and the patrols,» Truja said. «The thing with us is a Senar the House of Fertility is sending out to a farm near Ufol Valley. He's an odd one, and they want to see how well he can work.»

«All right,» the officer said, and waved them on through.

Once out of sight of the gate; the six broke into a run again. This time they kept running until they did not have the breath left to run any farther, then slowed down to a fast walk. They did not stop until they had covered five or six miles and the city was only a patch of darkness on the horizon behind them. They took shelter in one of the ruined buildings of the old city and collapsed.

Eventually Blade found the breath to ask a few questions and Truja found the breath to answer them.

«How are things at the camp?»

«I wouldn't know. I left for the city only two days after you were captured. As much as we wanted to get you back, getting the sisters out of the city was more important.»

Blade shrugged. «I can't blame you. Nugun and I shouldn't have let ourselves get captured the way we did. Did you get the women out?»

«All but a handful, yes. Most of them will probably be at the camp by the time we get there.»

«How many fighters?»

«Four hundred or more.»

«Good. That may be the largest body of city fighting women left by the time the Blues and the Greens get through slaughtering each other.»

«I know. And Rilgon's army is less than a week from the walls.»

«Has any word of it come to the city?»

«Not that I heard. And would the Greens have struck if they had heard of Rilgon's approach?»

«I don't know,» said Blade. «Their war leader Idrana is an ambitious fanatic. I'm not sure it would have made any difference.»

«May Mother Kina curse her,» said Truja slowly, pounding her clenched fist on the ground.