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

by Geoff St. Reynard

  If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel’s chance to drop the buttons from the sky would be gone forever. Nobody on earth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as the antiforcescreenthrower of John.

  The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launched himself into space, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled over sideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him.

  The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it and lowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gave a lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tipped gradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall of the shaft. Revel howled, “Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts! Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable’ll be frayed in half!”

  Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cable through its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had to be distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righted itself, came horizontal again.

  “Up!” roared the Mink. Nothing happened. “More men on the winch!” Then in a moment they began to rise.

  The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.

  At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft. All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the night, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the antiforcescreenthrower was all but out of the mine. Another ten feet would bring it clear.

  Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Mink he turns his blazing eyes

  Up to the buttoned sky:

  “This night I’ll tear ye down from there

  To see if gods can die!”

  The gentry mass in stallioned ranks,

  The priests have gone amuck;

  The orbs and zanphs they now descend,

  All-armed against the ruck!

  —Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink

  * * * *

  John staggered to his feet. “Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an atomic city-buster if I ever heard one—and when the Tartarians were over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn’t so important to your damned orbs after all.” He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes’ buttons rose another of the dark twin clouds.

  “If they were trying to smack us, they could stand a refresher course in pin-pointing ... let’s get the thrower out here fast. Too many saucers directly above us for comfort.”

  “There went another quarter of Dolfya,” said Rack. “What power they have!”

  “You’ll see their power come plummeting to earth if I can work the machine,” said John urgently. “Bring it out!”

  The miners hauled it out, a titanic job even when men pressed tight against men and uncounted hands lifted the great burden. John showed them where to put it on the rock shelf. “Hoist me up on top,” he clipped. It was done. “Now watch.”

  Revel stared at the sky till his eyes began to ache. At last John shouted, “I’m ready, but listen—I see a lot of torches coming up the valley, and the men holding ‘em are mounted!”

  “Our rebels, likely,” said Jerran.

  “Send men to meet them,” yelled Revel. “They might be gentry. Pickmen and those with guns. Fast!”

  “Okay, son,” said John then, “watch the buttons just over us.”

  All heads tilted. A strange clanking came from the great box, a beam of thick-looking purple light lanced upward from the gun-like projection on top and fingered out toward the buttons. “Be ready,” called John from the top of the machine. “This’ll nullify the diamond rays for a few minutes, but then the things will be able to rise again. Your men must go out and break into the buttons before the globes can get ‘em up!”

  Revel issued his orders quickly. The purple light had now touched a button, which wavered from its fixed position, then as the beam caught it fully, dropped like a flung stone. Hundreds of voices bellowed the rebels’ joy. Half a hundred miners leaped off into the night to attack the fallen ship, which struck the earth some distance up the valley with a shattering crash.

  Already the beam, more sure now as John’s hands grew confident of their power, was flicking over other buttons. The least play of its purple glow on the under surface of an alien ship was sufficient to send it catapulting down. The other buttons were moving, sluggishly, then more swiftly, coming toward the valley; and John could be heard swearing in a strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around.

  A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley. Revel jerked his head up. “They were squires!” he said. “We’ve got to get up there to help our men!” Rack motioned to the miners behind him and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, “Some for the fallen globes! Some have to stay to—”

  Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. “Little man, are you the Mink?”

  Jerran struggled ineffectually. “No, damn it, no!”

  “Then shut your mug till you’re told to give orders!” Revel dropped him, and roared out, “Two hundred men—Jerran, count ‘em off as they pass you—to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o’ this hill—spread round in a ring that circles this ledge, and don’t let a squire or enemy through! We’ve got to protect John!” He turned, gripped Lady Nirea’s wrist urgently. “Have you quick eyes and hands, love?”

  “Faster than most men’s, save your own.” Her slatey eyes glowed eerily in the buttons’ light.

  “Then up you go,” he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her hands clenched on the upper edge of John’s machine. “Perhaps you can help him. I can’t spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!” He set off toward the nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight.

  * * * *

  The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts. An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick. Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs milled, then spread out to attack.

  He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on, coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth “saucer” as John called it, Revel gave up counting, and slew his way from button to button, gore of red and yellow spotting and splashing him, wounds multiplying in his legs and arms and chest, half the hair burnt off his head by the energy auras of angry orbs.

  His force dwindled. Men died with throats torn out by zanphs, with eyes singed from the sockets by globe-radiation. Men stood numbed and useless, hypnotized into immobility. Men sat looking at spilling guts that fell from zanph-slashed bellies. But still the Mink slew on and on, a tall dark wild figure in the uncanny light of the still-flying airships of the alien globes....

  John was bringing them down faster than ever, and Revel must needs split up his small force even more, sending miners to each wreck to catch as many entities as possible. Many spheres of gold managed to rise into the sky, where they found sanctuary in other saucers: some zanphs went scooting for shelter in the rocks a
nd bushes, but most stayed to fight and die.

  He yearned to check his forces back on the hill, those protecting John’s machine, and the men who still fought the gunmen in the upper end of the valley. But he dared not take his encouraging presence from the miners here. A button came swooping to earth not three yards from him, spraying him with clods of dirt, unbalancing him by the shock; a zanph gained purchase on his shoulder and tore flesh and sinew and muscle so that his left arm lost much of its strength and cunning. He killed it with the pick handle and struggled on into a mob of the brutes, panting now and blinking blood from his eyes.

  Of his original two hundred, less than seventy remained. Still he dared not draw any from the protective ring. Where were the rebels that Vorl and Sesker and the others had gone to rouse? Probably raiding mansions miles away. He should have told them ... oh, well. Surely the concentration of noise and buttons and gods above the valley would bring them soon.

  A moment’s respite allowed him to look at the sky. It was lightening a little for the early dawn, and the buttons were less bold; most of them hovered near the horizon, only an occasional one bravely sailing in at a terrific speed to make a try at bombing the valley. John, perhaps with Nirea helping him, had managed to bring down every one so far. But John and Revel would run out of luck some time, as every man does; then John would miss, Revel’s arm would fail, and they would all die.

  * * * *

  Even as he lowered his head a gargantuan blast shook the world below him. He fell into a mob of zanphs, who were fortunately so demoralized by the explosion that they ignored him till he could gain his feet and begin to murder them once more. From the tail of his eye he saw a mushroom cloud lowering just beyond the hill; he flicked his gaze at the crest where his men had been stationed to guard the antiforcescreenthrower—no human form showed against the gray sky. The blast had hurled them to dust, together with every tree on the skyline.

  Finally—the gods knew how long he had fought—he found with amazement that no more foes were in sight. The buttons that had fallen were all cleaned out. Zanphs lay thick in heaps and lines, emptied sacks of globes dotted the bloody grass. He listened for the sound of firing from the upper valley; yes, there were still isolated shots.

  His forces there still held, then. He glanced again at the sky. No buttons in range. They were giving John a respite—or was it a trick? Revel’s tired mind wondered if John and Nirea were dead, and the gods playing with him this way....

  He felt himself, his head, arms, chest, legs. He had been burned a dozen times by energy auras, only his incredible animal quickness preserving him, giving him the power to dodge away at first touch of the burning and slay the golden globes. The zanph bites atop the thorn scratches and hound gashes were rapidly stiffening his whole torso, his left arm, his thick-thewed legs. But there were shots in the upper valley, and Revel the Mink was needed there.

  Wearily he gathered his men—twenty-six of them now, all as tired as he—and trudged at a broken shuffling lope toward the light.

  As he passed the rocks where the machine of John sat, he scanned it with blood-shot eyes. A score of miners, perhaps thirty at most, stood around it, and the man of the Ancient Kingdom sat on its surface, wiping his face with a white cloth. Lady Nirea stood up beside him and waved her hand as he passed. He swung his pick in a big arc to show he was still hale and hearty, though the effort cost him much.

  Through his dulled brain now ran one thought, one hope. It was a chant, a prayer, a focus for his beaten spirit, for though he had won thus far, he was so death-weary that he could not conceive victory coming to him at the last.

  Just let me meet Ewyo. Only let me meet Ewyo without his horse. Give me now one fair fight with Ewyo the Squire of Dolfya.

  The first man he met was Rack, engaged in binding up a torn calf with strips of his shirt.

  “How goes it?”

  Rack turned the walleye toward him, as though he could see out of it. “We have eight or ten left. All their horses are dead or run away. We stayed them in hand-to-hand combat, but when they drew back and began to use their guns long-range, we lost heavily. Now we’re dug in along that rise, and they seem to be waiting for more squires, or horses, or something. I think they have twenty or thirty left.”

  “Then we have thirty-five or so, and outnumbered them.”

  Rack let his good eye rest on his brother. “Your voice is the croak of a dying frog, Revel. You must have lost a quart of blood. Your men are like sticks and sacks and limp rag bundles. You call this force thirty-five men?”

  “We are still men, Rack.” His voice, croak though it was, rang strong and fierce. “I can plant this pick in any gnat’s eye I desire. Now do you lead us to the battle front.”

  “Yes, Mink.” Rack turned and hobbled forward. “One of the slugs has sliced half the tendons of this leg, I swear.”

  “That wound is in the fleshy part, and won’t trouble you for a week. Is that a man?”

  “That’s Dawvys.”

  * * * *

  Revel started back, appalled. The man lying behind the rise was red and brown from short-cropped hair to waist, his back a mass of blood—sparkling crimson in the light of dawn, where it had freshly sprung leaks, and dirty mahogany color, where the scabs had dried and cracked and flaked. It was a back that should have belonged to a dead man; but Dawvys rolled over on it without a wince and grinned at his leader.

  “Hallo, Revel, bless your soul,” said the former servant. “I’m glad to see you alive.”

  “The same to you, Dawvys,” said the Mink. “Did you have any trouble in that pit?”

  “I went to sleep when the hounds had passed, and never awoke till your men found me tonight.” He stretched and grunted with pain; then, “I think I shall live.”

  Revel looked cautiously over the rise. Some fifty yards down the valley the squires were grouped in a knot, their costumes gaudy in the early light. A few of them were looking toward him, but most watched the far end of the valley. They were looking, thought Revel, for reinforcements. Time might be short.

  He scanned the terrain. Where the squires stood, the valley was narrow, scarcely more than sixty feet across. Above their knot, to Revel’s left, was the open mouth of a mine; the opposite hillside was bare and rocky, without break. A familiar voice behind him said, “What’s to do, Mink?”

  “Greetings, Jerran. Why did you leave the machine?”

  “Nothing doing there. The gods are sitting on the horizon. Have you a thought?”

  “See that mine?” He pointed with his gory pick. “Isn’t that the western entrance of the great mine of Rosk?”

  Jerran took his bearings. “It is.”

  “Then the other entrance is back yonder, and through it we can traverse the mine and come out that hole-above the squires.”

  Jerran nodded. “The best plan under the circumstances. Let’s go.”

  Rack said, “I come too.”

  “Yes, all of us save four men,” agreed Revel. “They must stay here to create noise and pretend to be forty people. Give us ten minutes, and the squires will find that mine shaft erupting death all over them!”

  CHAPTER XV

  The Mink has fought till nearly blind,

  Till almost deaf and dumb;

  Till all his strength is waned away,

  And all his senses numb.

  At last his foemen give before

  His pick as swift as fire;

  Before him now there stands alone

  The cruel, and savage squire!

  —Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink

  * * * *

  With thirty men at his back, Revel went down the valley at a crouch; slipped up the rock shelf to the eastern entrance of the great mine of Rosk, protected from the gentry’s view by a chance outcropping of shale, and went into the darkness. The tunnel he sought was on the second level. He dropped down the ladder, unhooked a blue lantern to guide his way, and followed the narrow tunnel west.

  Behind him the pad-pad of his w
eary men lifted muffled echoes, and he tried to set such a pace as would take them swiftly to the hill above the squires, yet not tire them further nor wind them before the battle. In the intense gloom he distinguished another lantern far ahead. As he approached, it appeared to move toward him. Was someone carrying it?

  He tensed himself and swung the pick a little; but when the priest hurled himself at the Mink, bearing him back against Jerran, the Mink was caught by surprise. It had been no lantern, but the priest’s glowing robe!

  Revel’s reflexes were still, if not hair-trigger, at least very quick. This was a tough priest, though, a lean hardbitten man, with a fanatical long face that shoved itself into Revel’s and clicked its teeth a quarter-inch short of his nose. The fellow’s arms were tight about him, as they rolled sideways against the rock, Revel straining to bring his pick into play, clutching tight to the lantern, while the priest flailed hands like knobby boulders against the Mink’s nape and head. A blow of his knee, and Revel doubled up, gasping; struck out blindly with the lantern, caught the fellow in the belly, and made him curl up in his turn, choking for breath. Jerran and the others were blocked by Revel, and growled encouragement.

  Revel straightened, nauseated and weak. The priest came at him. Revel raised his pickax and swung it—pain stabbed into his legs and belly—he bent involuntarily in the middle of his swing—and what should have been a neat spitting of the holy man’s skull became a messy job of disemboweling. The fellow died gurgling, picking futilely at his spilt entrails. Revel crawled over him and went on once more, his troops behind him.

  At the western entrance to Rosk’s mine, he peered out for the first sign of the highborn enemies. A thrill of panic touched him as he saw they were not where they had been; then, poking his head into the dawn, he saw them advancing in a slow line toward the rise where his four men were raising shouts and taunts.

  Orbs, he thought exultantly, here’s a piece of luck! We’ll take them in the back!