The 53rd Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK; Geoff St. Reynard

by Geoff St. Reynard

  It’s a strange place for passion, she thought dazedly; an unknown cavern, full of antique wonders never heard of on earth, filled with a blue haze, and only she and the tall fierce rucker....

  CHAPTER IV

  The Mink has come to the bright sun’s light,

  His pick is lifted high;

  He hears the gentry’s whooping yell,

  And sees them gallop by.

  “Now all too long we’ve felt the yoke,

  And cringed and fawned and died!

  ‘Tis time we turned upon the squire,

  To skin his rotten hide!”

  —Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink

  * * * *

  Revel was sitting beside the hole in the wall, now filled with rocks, of course; he had replaced the four small guns in his belt and found, by breaking open the chest they’d lain on, a number of boxes of ammunition, with which he’d stuffed his pockets. Experiment had shown him how to load, and tradition of the ruck told him that to shoot, one pointed the end at something (or someone, he told himself grimly) and pulled the small curved projection. The woman should have helped him, but she was sulking in a corner, weeping. She had not wept an hour before!

  He wondered if he were the first rucker to hold a gun. Surely the first to have four such tiny weapons, at least.

  He heard voices from beyond the wall, filtering in, oddly distorted, through the air spaces between rocks. That was Jerran.

  “Yes, he came down here, and threatened me with his pick all dripping yellow, said he’d killed a lot of gods. Crazy, that’s what he was!” Jerran’s voice broke, a neat bit of acting. “Sure there’s an emotion trail! You think I wasn’t scared of that maniac? Wasn’t he excited? He stayed here a minute and then left again.”

  That was clever. Jerran had explained away the psychic scent left by the Lady Nirea. He must be talking to a god. But another voice spoke now, and Revel sat up, thinking, The gods don’t make sounds!

  “Was there a girl with him, a girl of the gentry in a silver gown?”

  “No, Lord Ewyo—” it was her father, then!—“he was alone.”

  “He may have hidden her body somewhere,” said a heavy voice. Rack, by the Orbs, Revel’s brother Rack! “He’s turned violent today.”

  “I understand he’s your brother?” said Ewyo.

  “Aye. A strong violent man, but worse today than ever he’s been.”

  “No rucker would dare harm Lady Nirea,” whined Jerran.

  “No rucker should dared have touched her,” barked the squire. Then, his voice respectful, he asked, “Can you tell me if she’s dead, priest?”

  There was a croak like a bull-frog’s, a chugarum with words in it. “She lives.”

  “Where?”

  Revel sucked in his breath. If the priest could see all, as they’d been taught, he was doomed. Then, before any other voices beyond the wall could speak, Nirea—he had been a muddleheaded and drooling fool not to seal her mouth—Nirea screamed. “In here, father! Tear down the barricades!”

  Revel was on her in two bounds and hit her a crack on the jaw, a vicious blow that sprawled her into a pile of clay tablets (inscribed with writing she had refused to read to him), dead to the world. Then Revel was at the hole, waiting tensely with a gun in his hand.

  “What can lie in the rocks?” he heard Jerran say. “The voice was a ghost’s.”

  “Hold your tongue,” roared Ewyo. “You’ll make a fox for the hunt, small yellow man!”

  * * * *

  A gap appeared. “Look in there,” said Ewyo, and a head came thrusting in, the head of a squire’s servant topped with the distinctive peaked cap and green ear flaps. Revel could not shoot a rucker. He hit the man full in the mouth, and the head disappeared with a howl.

  “Tear them down, he’s in there. We’ll let the zanphs harry him a bit,” said Ewyo. “Hear that, rebel?”

  “Send in your zanphs,” yelled Revel, grinning. “Let ‘em come in, squire!”

  The gap grew. Up over the rocks charged a zanph, its six legs scrabbling frantically, its snake’s head darting back and forth to search him out. He let it see him and utter its war cry, a hiss that became a growl. Then he pointed the gun’s muzzle at its face and calmly pulled the curved metal below the barrel. There was a crash as of a mountain falling; dust rained on him from the roof, echoes raged together; and the zanph, its skull fragmented all over four yards of floor, sank to the furred belly and slowly rolled over.

  “Send me a globe!” roared Revel, delirious with glee. “Send me a god, Ewyo!”

  There was silence beyond the wall; then the priest croaked, “He has a gun. Certainly this is more than a matter of a kidnapped daughter, Ewyo!”

  Jerran’s voice rose in a laugh. “It is, Lord Ewyo, it is!”

  What the hell did the old fellow mean? Revel shrugged. He’d learn later. Now was the time for action.

  Going to the prostrate girl, he slung her over his shoulder, a limp light weight. The tattered silver gown flapped as he walked to the hole.

  “Stand back,” he cried. “I’m bringing your daughter to you, Squire!”

  Another zanph showed its horrible reptilian head; he blasted it out of existence with another shot. There were outcries from the squire and his servants, and the priest rumbled, “Sacrilege!”

  Rack’s head showed between the rocks. “Calm down, boy,” he said, his staring walleye gleaming in the lantern light. “You’ve been living too fast—”

  “Not fast enough, Redbeard. Out of the way!”

  Rack slowly withdrew, and after kicking a few more boulders from his path, Revel stooped and went out into the tunnel.

  “At him!” croaked the priest, a thin man in a radiant blue-green robe, the double scalp lock waving like twin plumes on his shaven head. “Pull him down!”

  “Ewyo dies if I’m touched,” said Revel coolly, pointing the handgun at the squire’s belly.

  “Kill him—with that little thing?” said the priest. His voice seemed to come out of the ground, not from such a gaunt frame as his. “You bluff, rucker.”

  “Look at your zanphs if you think so.” He glared at them. There was Ewyo, burly in peach satin and white silk, his long-skirted coat pushed back from a lace shirt, skin-tight pants held by knee-high black boots, a cabbage rose thrust into his cocked hat. There was the priest, lean and savage beneath two hovering globes. Three servants of the squire, Jerran and Rack made up the rest.

  “Come here, Jerran,” he ordered. Smiling lazily, the little man ambled over. “Take a couple of these miniature guns from my belt. They’re loaded. You point them—”

  “I can use a gun,” said Jerran, “though I never had my hands on one this size.”

  “They came to us from the Ancient Kingdom,” Revel told him.

  “Ah,” said Jerran, nodding as he pulled two guns from the big man’s waistband. “I thought they might have. The ballads say they used such weapons. Everyone carried ‘em.” He faced the squire, and his small body appeared to swell and toughen as he went on. “Lord Ewyo, please to precede us with your servants and that feather-brained priest. We’ll go to the ladders.”

  * * * *

  Ewyo grunted. Orders from a rucker, to him, him, the greatest landholder in Dolfya! But after another glance at the mutilated zanph, he turned and walked down the tunnel.

  “Wait a minute,” said Revel, but Jerran turned to him with a face as hard and ruthless as a woods lion’s. “Shut up, lad,” he said. “I’ll handle ‘em. You just tend to the wench. She’s awake, in case you didn’t know.”

  He knew now, for she had just bitten him on the rump. He hoisted her a little higher and absently smacked her buttocks. “Lie quiet, damn you.” She lay quiet. He went on marveling at Jerran’s commanding new presence, but said nothing. He was behind a born leader now.

  Jerran said, “Priest, tell your gods to stop trying to get at my mind. I’ve shut it off from ‘em. You follow Ewyo.”

  The priest turned on his heel. The servants scut
tled after their lord, and Rack sat down on a rock and pulled at his beard, looking thoughtful.

  “I don’t think it’d be overstating it,” he said mildly, “to tell you two you’re in trouble.”

  “So are the gentry, brother,” Revel answered.

  “That’ll be seen. Well,” Rack said, squinting his good eye, “I’ll be seeing you. Or not, as the case may be.”

  “Come along,” said Jerran, and walked off, followed by Revel with the Lady Nirea.

  Ewyo had vanished. His servants, uncertain, were grouped under the ladder, and the priest was mounting up, his radiant robe billowing to show scrawny, hairless legs. The two gods lifted through the murk.

  “Ewyo,” said Revel, and Jerran interrupted. “Is gone. Did you expect to hold him captive, lad?” He shook his yellow skull. “Too much trouble for two men. Up you go.”

  Revel sprang at the ladder and was soon crowding the heels of the priest. That worshipful man reached the top of the ladder, turned and knelt and thrust his face into Revel’s. It was a vicious face, hawk-nosed and mean. Now it barred his way, gloating openly.

  “You’re dog-meat, rebel. A shame to kill the Lady Nirea with you, but the gods order it.” He reached out a hand and planted it firmly on Revel’s face.

  Hanging to the rung with his left hand, balancing the girl on the left shoulder, Revel shot up his right and gripped the priest’s wrist and heaved up and back, ducking his head at the same time.

  The robed man flew into space with a screech.

  “Look out below!” roared Revel, and, chuckling, he finished his climb and gave a hand to Jerran. “Where now?” From far below came the crunch of a carcass landing at the foot of the ladders, on the lowest level of the mine shaft. “One less priest!”

  “Follow me, lad,” said Jerran, and dashed for the entrance. There was no god on duty there, but the two that had accompanied the priest were mounting into the buttoned sky.

  The girl was light on his shoulder, a delicious burden, he thought. He hoped he could keep her. Just how, or where, he did not bother to consider. Things were moving too fast for plans, at least plans about women.

  * * * *

  Jerran led him up over the crest of the hill above the mine. Beyond lay the uncharted forests of Kamden. He had hunted mink and set rabbit snares on the edges of it since boyhood, but had never seen its depths. So far as he knew, no man had.

  As they started toward the wood, the beat of hoofs became audible in the quiet countryside. Revel couldn’t see the horses, but he began to run, easily and fast, with Lady Nirea bobbing and swearing on his shoulder. Jerran kept pace.

  Then they came up over the rim of the hill behind him, a pack of the gentry on their huge fierce stallions, with a couple of hundred-pound hunting dogs in advance, baying and yapping. The old terrifying viewing call rose: “Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo allo-allo!” Thousands of the ruck had heard the whooping cry moments before their grisly deaths. Revel tightened his grip on the perfect legs of Nirea, and pounded on. He’d ditch her if need be, but as long as he could hang on to her, by Orbs....

  The forest was closer. He could pick out individual trees, oak and silver birch and poplar, standing thick in the matted carpet of thicket and trash. A broad trail opened to the left.

  “That way,” gasped Jerran, pointing.

  “The horses can follow down that road!”

  “Don’t argue—damn you—lad—just run!”

  The gentry came yelling in their wake. A gun banged. Were they shooting at him? Not with the woman slung down his back. The priests might sacrifice a squire’s daughter without a murmur, but no gentryman ever harmed a gentrywoman under any circumstances. It was likely a warning. That was why they kept whistling the dogs back, too, for the enormous brutes could rip a human to scarlet rags in twenty seconds, and not even a squire’s command stopped them once they’d tasted blood.

  He had reached the trees and the wide path. He plunged into it, Jerran beside him; the older man was panting heavily now, but running as strongly as ever. “A little behind me, Revel,” he husked out. “See you follow me close.”

  Jerran knew where he was headed ... Revel surrendered all initiative to him. The ground thundered beneath him to the pounding of the horses. He looked back as he ran. They were almost upon him, gay and gaudy in their scarlet, green, fawn and purple hunting clothes; their faces were bloodless, malevolent, and entirely without pity. Several of them carried guns, the long clumsy weapons handed down to them by their grandfathers from the time, a hundred years past, when gun-making was still a known art. Ramrods were fitted below the barrels and the muzzles flared like lilies. He’d back his new-found little guns of the Ancient Kingdom against any such heavy instrument.

  Jerran dived into what seemed a solid mass of brambles. Revel shifted the girl and bent to follow; at that instant she grabbed the back of his thigh and wrenched with all her might. He had been carrying her too low again. The tug was just enough to throw him off balance, and rucker and lady sprawled on the forest pathway, entangled together, struggling frantically to rise, as the giant stallions of the gentry bore down upon them.

  CHAPTER V

  The pretty daughter of the squire,

  She came a-riding by;

  Of sunlight was her fine long hair,

  Of gray flint was her eye.

  The Mink he takes her by the arm:

  “Now you must come with me!

  We’ll dwell a space in the wild wild woods

  Beneath the great oak tree!”

  —Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink

  * * * *

  Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets, coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward.

  He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of the wench and try to preserve them both.

  He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady Nirea.

  At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx. He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body. As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute.

  Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he’d ever done. As the squires’ legs came abreast, one blink later, he took hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled down. Then he leaped forward between the horses’ tails, twitching the woman after him with a jerk that almost tore the arm from her body.

  The squire in the blue breeches toppled over, howling, and fell on the path. Revel yanked the Lady Nirea to one side as the mass of them swept by, and saw with satisfaction a stallion, trying not to step on the fallen squire, take a nasty tumble itself, flinging its rider ten feet ahead, where he was trampled by a couple of less cautious nags.

  Other horses fell over the first one, and the gentry milled about, roaring bloody hell and death on everybody. The two hounds smelled blood and attacked the fallen squires, and Blue Breeches raced off into the woods, one of the ravening dogs at his heels.

  Revel made for the other side, the brambles where Jerran had disappeared. He was hauling the girl behind him. A beef-faced squire on a pirouetting horse loosed off his gun at Revel, who snatched a handgun from his belt and fired back. Both of them missed. A gentryman in tan and gold long-skirted coat leaped in front of the miner, the flared muzzle of his gun coming up toward Revel’s breast.

  Revel shot by instinct, without aiming. The man’s face turned into a mess that looked like squashed raspberri
es. Revel stepped over his body and tried to plunge into the brambles, but he had lost the exact spot, and thorns barred the way.

  Then, four feet down the road, Jerran’s yellow face popped into view. “Here, lad!”

  * * * *

  At that instant Lady Nirea gave a wrench and freed herself from Revel’s grip. He whirled and leaped and snatched down, catching the collar of the silver gown. Her momentum carried her forward, but the dress stayed in his hand ripped completely off. He went after her—she was falling now—and caught her, though the atmosphere seemed to be composed equally of gentry and rearing stallions.

  Then he turned, carrying her slung over one arm, and managing to reach Jerran’s anxious-looking head by knocking down one squire and kicking another in the groin, he dived into the bushes. The Lady Nirea squalled shrilly as the thorns gashed at her soft skin. But Revel blundered on into the bramble patch.

  Jerran led him through what seemed impenetrable thickets, following a route that must have been marked, though Revel could not see how. Behind them, the gentry howled and loosed off their guns, but the brambles defeated them, for Revel caught no sounds of pursuit. A scream that thrilled up and choked off must have been the unfortunate Blue Breeches.

  Revel looked up, thinking of the globes; he could see the sky in many places through the tangle, but realized that it was probably a thick green solid floor to a watcher from above. A god would have to come very low to see anything moving beneath it.

  The woman said bitterly, “For Orbs’ sake, at least carry me in some fashion that won’t expose quite so much of me to the thorns!” She paused and added as an after-thought, “You mudhead!”

  He hitched her around and held her curled to his chest, faintly conscious of the smooth body, but concentrating on protecting her from harm; he thought suddenly that he was treating her as if she’d been a ruck woman, instead of one of the gentry, the loathed and feared squirarchy. Was he putting too much importance on the physical attractions that had made him take her?

  Jerran was leading him now along a tunnel-like passage of twined, arched shrubbery that made them stoop low. “It’d help if you walked, Lady,” he said.