The extra time taken in killing the last warrior had let several others get around Blade's flanks. He had to back away again. He realized as he did that if these warriors could ever launch a mass rush at him, they would have him. Did they have some tradition of fighting one at a time, or did they want to wear him down and take him alive? Blade hoped it was the second. If they took him prisoner, he could always look for a chance to escape. But that was no reason to not go on making things expensive for them. A quick slash at a warrior who was crowding too close, and another man down with a leg streaming blood. The chief priest howled again.

Slash with the sword, lopping off limbs, opening chests and stomachs. Deflect blows with the axe, or use it to smash skulls and collarbones into bloody fragments. Scream war cries that made some of the enemy stop and stare-stop and stare for a few seconds too long. Hear the chief priests gibbering with rage as the Holy Warriors of Ayocan went down one by one, sometimes two by two, to litter the ground.

Before long Blade could no longer distinguish one exchange of blows from another, or keep track of his opponents. In spite of his iron endurance, his breath was rasping in and out of his sweat-soaked chest. His sword seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and his axe fifty. One man could not kill two hundred, no matter how much better he might be than any one of them. The enemy's warriors saw him beginning to flag and slow, and rushed in, still one or two at a time. They were too bold and Blade was still too fast, and more dead or wounded men joined the ones already on the ground. Blade stood with a circle of dead around him, in some places piled two or three deep. He could not get out of that circle any more, for the Holy Warriors were all around him. But when they tried to get at him, they were slowed by having to climb over the bodies of their comrades. And no matter how little they were slowed, it was still too much. The voice of the hysterical chief priest grew hoarse and raw.