One of the priests chose that exact moment to regain consciousness. He moved and flung out an arm with a groan. The arm struck Blade's leg and tripped him. Blade, cursing, went to his knees. He recovered almost instantly, but Ptol was running past him, squealing like an animal about to be sacrificed. Blade regained his balance and lunged fiercely with the sword, wanting with all his heart to kill Ptol. The priest screamed and thrust out both hands, twisting his porcine body away from the slashing steel.

Blade's sword severed Ptol's right hand. The priest screamed again, clutched at the gushing stump and kept running. Blade turned back to the throne. Too much time had been wasted already. Time to be gone.

The girl shrank away from him as he approached. She tried to cover her bare breasts with her hands. Blade shook his head, unspeaking, and set about freeing her. This was no time to set about fathoming feminine quirks-the fact was that she was as terrified of him, or nearly so, as she had been of Ptol and his black executioners. Figure thatl

The chains were padlocked behind the throne. Blade found the long-handled tongs and thrust them into the hasps and twisted. At first the locks were stubborn, then he began to lose his temper-it was very short at the mo ment-and his biceps writhed, huge snakes of muscles, as he grunted and sweated. The locks burst asunder and the chains fell away. The girl remained huddled on the throne, staring up at what to her could only have been a fearsome apparition bloody, sweaty and begrimed, dark visaged and bearded and in a terrible temper.

Blade put his hands on his hips and glared at her. He could hear armed men in one of the passages, coming toward them. Another of the slumbering priests moved and groaned. Blade kicked him, thus venting some of his feelings, and turned back to the girl. She was standing now, trying to conceal both her breasts and her pubic area, although she obviously lacked a hand to do so successfully.

He began to bellow at her. «Do not stand and stare at me like some stupid cowl I am a stranger and know nothing of this place. It is you who must lead us out-and quickly, too, or we are both dead. Come on, womanl You are supposed to be a goddess? We both know better than that, but you must know the way to safety. How do we get outside this city, beyond the walls, into the marshes? Think, woman, and speak. Hurryl»

Her nose was straight and pert, her mouth wide and sensuous, her huge eyes gray with a violet tinge. She stared at him in fear and doubt. He kicked the still smoldering helmet and hurt his big toe. She laughed and her expression changed.

«Yes. I know a way. My people are waiting for me. You-you promise not to harm me?»

Blade had been through much. He stank of a sewer, he had numerous small hurts, every sense warned him that new dangers were fast approaching. He strode toward her. She quailed and shrank away, forgetting to cover herself. Blade smacked her hard across her firm white buttocks with the flat of his sword. The steel left a scarlet blazon on the tender flesh.

It was what was needed. She forgot her terror and spat at him, tried to claw at his eyes. Blade caught her up like a child, her fragrant breasts touching his faqe as he tossed her over his shoulder. He smacked her again, lightly, with the sword.

«Show me the passage,» he rasped. «Show me it and then keep your tongue quiet or I will still it for you. Which one to your people and the marshes, woman?»

She pointed to where a torch guttered over a dark entrance. «Yonder. You must go carefully. There is a fake turning and a secret stair, and a pit for the unwary. Listen to me carefully-heed every word or we will die in there.»

Blade adjusted her weight on his big shoulder, one bare arm between her sleekly fleshed thighs. He shifted the sword to his left hand. As they reached the tunnel entrance there came a great outcry behind them. Blade swiveled for a moment to see armed men pouring into the chamber. They bore the circled snake on their shields and leading them, supported by two of his black-robed brethern, was Ptol. Blade cursed. Who would have thought the little fat priest so hard to kill.

Ptol saw them and waved his bloody bandaged stump. «After them-after them! A full basket of gold to the man who slays the big demon.»

Blade ran, the scented flesh of the girl jouncing on his shoulder. So now he was a demon-the reputation might stand him in good stead. And now, also, he had a goddess on his hands. Or, rather, on his shoulder.

She whispered in his ear. «Just ahead you will see where the passage appears to turn right-look you sharply and you will find a false wall. Behind it the tunnel turns to the left and down a steep stair-beware of the pit at the foot of the stairs.»

Blade grunted and ran on. Two small hands crept around his neck and locked there. Her cheek was soft against his shoulder.

Four days passed. In this time Richard Blade wrought a miracle. He brought Juna and her retinue-old men and women, children, ladies in waiting, four emasculates whose former duties included guarding the lady in her bath, and one stout young lad for whom he had some hopes-over a hundred miles of desolate and treacherous salt marsh. He bullied and begged, threatened and cajoled, had at times beaten them, at times carried some of the children and old women and in the end. had come to the wild coast with a loss of only four.

He pitched a rude camp in the dunes, near where a row of tall and weirdly convoluted stones followed the surf line. These were the Singing Stones and it was here that Juna had guided him. Juna had sent a messenger to the Isle of Patmos, asking for help, and it was to the stones that the help would come, if it came at all. Blade was not sanguine.

Juna-Blade still called her so, and so thought of her, though she was no goddess to him-avoided him as much as possible. She kept her gaggle of servants and eunuchs and ladies close about her and, now and again, sent him imperious commands by messenger. Blade usually ignored the messages, scowling or laughing as the mood took him, but on occasion they caught him in particular ill humor and he booted an eunuch or two back to her goddessship.

Blade squatted on the sand, accompanied by the youth, Edyrn, and listened to the eerie skirling of wind through the Singing Stones. They did sing, in a way, an eldritch tirl of sound, a high threnody as the never ceasing wind blasted through the holes and crevices in the tall standing rocks. The constant wail was beginning to get on Blade's nerves. He glanced at the gray, sullen sea and scowled. Several times, when the mist and scud lifted, he had spotted sails out there. One sail, glittering in a rare shaft of sun, and borne the snake with its tail in its mouth. Samostan ships. Waiting, Blade guessed, for a change in the weather. For days now it had been miserable, with the surf running too high to risk a landing. He kept his little company concealed in the dunes as best he could, for what it was worth. That was not much. As soon as the weather changed they would corn6 in and kill or capture them all.

Blade had an inkling of what might lie in store for him. By now Ptol, unless he was dead of his wound, would have told Hectoris of Blade. The leader of the Samostans would be curious and Blade could guess at the orderstake the big stranger alive.

Right at the moment Blade was not too concerned-his stomach was knotted and gnawing. He had had his fill, forever, of roots and swamp berries. He was conjecturing on the possibility of catching fish when the lad beside him pointed with his lance and spoke, «Yonder comes the hag, sire. She who is called Kron. She has been listening to the stones and comes to make a prophecy, I wager.»