Obviously the man took him for another tribesman. Just as obviously, the man was right about being mortally hurt. From the waist down his robe was soaked with blood, and both legs were twisted and smashed gruesomely out of shape. Probably his mount had stumbled and fallen on him, then had risen and walked off, leaving him to die.

There were a hundred questions Blade would have asked a healthy man or even one less seriously hurt. This man was dying, and dying in agony. He deserved what he was begging for. Blade bent down and drew the man's dagger from the blood-soaked sash. The man's eyes flickered upward and met Blade's; the pain-twisted mouth formed a faint smile.

«Jannah bless you and give you many sons, my brother. And when Kano is ours, may many of their women-ah, for the love of Jannah, strike!» as new pain tore through him. Blade raised the knife and struck downward, through the robe and between the ribs, expertly seeking out the heart. The man's body stiffened again, then relaxed for the last time. Blade gently pressed both eyelids shut, crossed the man's hands on his chest, and stood up.

Now there were weapons that the dead rider would never need again. Blade picked up the sword and swung it experimentally. It was about three feet long, with a heavy curved blade and a silver-mounted hilt, clearly at its best when swung from the back of a camel or a horse. If Blade had seen it in Home Dimension, he would have called it a scimitar. He stuck the sword and dagger as securely as he could in his sash.

The pistol was a long-barreled wheel lock that would have been nothing unusual in the seventeenth century. As old-fashioned as it was, that long barrel would make it formidably accurate at close ranges. It seemed to be loaded and working. Blade added it to his sash. Then he pulled the hood of the dead man's robe over the bearded face, turned, and once more headed north.