Blade turned slowly and raised both hands in salute to the chief.

«Hail, Naran; I come from beyond the Wall, to bring you news of the city of Mak'loh, of the army of the Shoba, and of your daughter Twana.»

Naran had too much dignity and self-control to start at Blade's words, but his eyes opened very wide and it was a moment before be spoke. Then he said slowly, «Come with me, Blade of Mak'loh. I think we should speak together.»

The «speaking together» took longer than Blade had expected. This was not because Naran was slowwitted or argumentative. It was because Blade and Sela had to explain the situation and propose the alliance three separate times. The first time they spoke with Naran alone. The second time they spoke with Naran and the subchiefs of the village of Flores. The third time they spoke with Naran and the chiefs and war leaders of a dozen other villages, whose fighting men were already in Naran's village or camped within a day's march of it.

The Shoba's army had originally come into the area to punish the villages for their «rebellion»-meaning Blade's attacks and Twana's escape. The villagers suspected this from the first and quickly confirmed it from a few captured scouts. They knew well enough what an army this size could do to them and how little they could do against it.

Yet they'd made up their minds to resist as well as they could. Some four thousand fighting men had been gathered from all the villages within three days' march of Hores. They had been assembled here in the north, to harry and ambush the Shoba's men as they moved south along the Wall. If nothing else, they could perhaps kill the sniffers and so make it possible for the people of the villages farther south to flee and hide themselves.

In fact, they'd all expected to be dead by now. Instead, the Shoba's army suddenly marched off into the hills and vanished as completely as if it had marched off the edge of the world. There were some in the villages who said they thought they'd seen something possibly happening to the Wall, but as Naran said:

«This told us no more than the humming of the dragonflies over a pond in the evening.»

No one quite dared to suggest that the Shoba's army was marching against the Wall. «Yet many of us began to think strange thoughts,» said Naran. «Something was drawing the Shoba's men away from us. Even in the time of our remotest ancestors, there were legends of life beyond the Wall. So we have been ready to believe what you came to tell us. We have even made the fighting men of the villages ready to be led against the Shoba.»

Blade smiled. «I wish I could lead them straight over the Wall tomorrow morning. But those you have here are not enough. Also, it would be wiser to cross the Wall farther to the south. That way we shall reach Mak'loh more swiftly and give the Shoba a great surprise.»

Naran frowned. «Then the help of other villages will be needed?»

«Yes. However brave the four thousand you have here might be, they would be going to their deaths.»

«Very well then. It will be necessary to travel about among the other villages and speak to their chiefs. Will you carry me in your flying machine?»

Both Blade and Sela stared at the old man. Their surprise seemed to amuse him. «Why not?» he said. «I am too old to walk all the way, even if we had the time. Your machine is strange, but not, I think, evil. That no man of Hores has ever ridden in one before does not worry me.»

He sighed. «I had thought the old ways of our village would go on, into the time of my children's children's children. Now I can see that they will not even go on to the end of my own time, whether I wish it or not. Certainly no one in any of the villages will be unhappy if we no longer have to stand alone against the Shoba.»

Blade, Sela, and Naran spent the next several days flying from village to village, calling on them to send out their fighting men to aid Mak'loh against the Shoba. Nearly all the chiefs and war leaders were more than willing, provided that Mak'loh would feed them and also give them some of its powerful fire-throwers.

Food would be no problem-the food factories could produce enough for an army ten times larger than the villages could send. Blade had his doubts about handing out the shock rifles, but Sela was enthusiastic. In several villages she made the suggestion without even being asked.

Village after village promised their men, until Blade knew that he would have at least ten thousand and probably many more. All that remained was to gather the Warlands army and pass it through the Wall. Naran would give all the orders needed for the first job, and Blade and Sela quickly made the necessary arrangements for the second one.

The night before they were to fly to join the army, Blade and Sela sat in a hut in Hores. Between them on the floor lay the remains of a roasted goat, a jug of beer, and two tallow candles that cast a flickering light around the low room.

Blade poured more beer into the cups, and they drank a toast to the future of Mak'loh and its allies and the doom of the Shoba. Then Blade asked, «Sela-why have you been so free offering shock rifles to these people? I know the rifles are easy to use, but have you no fear they may be used against Mak'loh in time?»

«Perhaps,» said Sela. «But if the Warlanders turn the rifles against us, we need only stop giving them the power cells. Then the rifles will be useless. Meanwhile, they will no longer be in Mak'loh. Thus Geetro will have the excuse he wants, to give out those rifles which remain in the city only to those people he trusts.»

Blade nodded politely without saying anything. So Geetro was thinking of setting himself up as dictator-or at least strongman-of the new Mak'loh? Well, Mak'loh was reviving every other part of civilization, so they might as well revive politics! Certainly he could hardly expect to do anything about it in whatever time he had left in this Dimension.

Before he could think anymore along those lines, Sela rose painfully to her feet. She undid the coarse wool robe that was her only garment and let it slip to the floor. The candlelight sent gleams up and down her body as she took Blade's hand and led him to the pile of furs in the corner.

As they lay together afterward, Sela gave a long, luxurious sigh and said, with her mouth half-muffed against his chest, «This must be the last time for us.»

«Geetro?» said Blade.

«Yes. He and I will do well together, I think. He has many of your qualities, and he is also of Mak'loh. You are of England, and sooner or later you will be going back there.»

«That is true,» said Blade. «I'm glad you've seen this without my having to tell you.» Unseen in darkness, he smiled. Were any of Geetro's qualities as important to Sela as his probably being the next ruler of Mak'loh? Blade wondered.

Well, Geetro might end up ruling Mak'loh, but Sela would very likely rule Geetro. The city and its people could do much worse.

Blade stood at the bottom of the hill and watched the flyer swooping low over the Wall. Sela was at the controls of the flyer, and at a radio signal from her the explosives placed under a section of the Wall would be detonated. The way into Mak'loh would be open for the army of the Warland villages.

Blade turned and looked at the fighting men of the villages, twelve thousand of them drawn up and ready to march. They carried spears, swords, bows, and axes. The two thousand shock rifles they'd been promised would be handed out when they reached Mak'loh.

As Blade turned, the sun glinted from a massive collar he wore around his neck, over his faded black Authority coveralls. Each piece of the collar was a bar of gold weighing nearly a pound, and Blade felt that it would crumble his collarbone into powder if he had to wear it much longer.

It was the War Collar of a High Chief of all the villages. Blade smiled as he remembered what Naran had said as he fastened the collar around Blade's neck.