by Andre Norton
give passage to a few deermen and yet be easily defended by equally few.
The Condor Hall warriors had both courage and skill under arms. They
neither sued for quarter nor gave it, and it was a long, bloody time before
the partisans at last began to batter down their defense, longer still before
they could work their way along the line of wagons, most of which had
been turned to block the road.
Every foot of ground was bitterly contested, but at last, the two
Sapphirehold forces met, trapping the few remaining defenders between
them.
There was no call to surrender, no suit for peace. The surviving
invaders fought grimly on, determined to sell their already lost lives as
dearly as possible.
The flow of battle brought the three Sapphirehold leaders near one
another as they struggled to bring down the handful of invaders still under
arms, Eveleen and Allran so close that they might have served as
shieldbearers for one another in a different kind of warfare, the
commander a few yards from the other two.
The weapons expert fought like a spirit of retribution, a cold, precise
fury ever hunting the hot blood of those who sought to rip land and life
from the people she had come to love. It was always thus with her, and the
partisans had not long begun their war before Condor Hall's warriors had
learned to hate and fear her terrible skill and the intelligent courage
driving its use even as they hated and feared her more famed leader.
The one she now faced recognized her. He would have preferred to
engage some other, lesser foe, but, since fate had given this task to him, he
was determined to come away from it with her life on his sword even
though he must perish soon himself. He believed his skill to be the equal of
that, however good she might be.
He lunged, intending the thrust to be a feint to draw her guard and
open her to a second, more deadly stroke.
His springdeer slipped as his arm drove forward. The blade, instead of
streaking toward the woman, pierced the neck of her mount.
Comet reared in pain and terror, then fell heavily, throwing his rider
and pinning her beneath him.
Allran felled his opponent as the agent's wardeer gave his
death-scream. He turned in time to see Comet go down.
With a cry of rage, he swung at the invader who had done this thing,
striking him full in the breast. So fierce was his thrust that the sword
pierced him through the breadth of his body, and the mortally stricken
warrior was flung from the saddle as if he had been hit by a catapult-fired
stone, taking his bane-weapon with him.
The Lieutenant leaped to the ground. There was no danger now in this
area, except for the terrible, crushing weight upon Eveleen's fragile body.
Several of the other partisans, also freed from combat by the fall of
their final opponents, raced to his aid. Together, they raised the slain
wardeer and drew the Terran free.
Murdock's opponent crumpled before a thrust that had seemed no
more than a flickering quiver of his blade. One more invader remained,
but Gordon and another of the Sapphireholders moved in to take him
before their commander could offer challenge, and he found himself free
at last of death's grim shadow.
He turned to scan the suddenly quiet battlefield.
Ross paled as though fatally stricken himself. Allran was nearby on his
right, bending over the still form of a woman. Her chestnut hair pinned in
its golden net and the starkly white, wrenchingly fair features were all too
clearly visible to him. Several of the others were with them, but his eyes
were so fixed on the two Lieutenants that he could not have named them.
Shock seemed to freeze the heart in his breast. Not this, he thought,
desperate with fear and anguish. Anything to him, but not this. Not
Eveleen.
Lady Gay reached the pair in a moment.
Murdock was out of the saddle before the doe had ceased to move.
The kneeling man looked up. His face was grim. Grief and anger at his
own helplessness were etched on it. "Comet fell on her. She has just ceased
to breathe…"
"Get out of there!" The Time Agent flung himself on Eveleen, all but
hurtling the other aside.
He covered her mouth with his, pinching her nose with his left hand so
that none of the air he forced into her should escape that way.
He felt her chest expand, paused, drove the air from it, filled her lungs
again. Ten minutes went by. Twenty. He was growing exhausted himself
when he thought he heard a soft moan.
Imagination?
Ross sat back on his heels. No, her breasts rose of their own accord.
Before he could move to aid her further, Eveleen's eyes opened to look
into his. They were puzzled and unfocused for a moment but then widened
in horror as memory returned to her.
"Gently!" he said quickly. "It's all over now."
"Comet?" she asked faintly after a brief silence.
"Gone. He died almost instantly. I'm sorry for that."
"You wronged him," she whispered. "This wasn't his fault…"
"I know," the man responded, "but be quiet now. Please. Gordon's here.
Let him look you over."
She nodded her assent, and the commander arose, giving place to his
partner.
Ross found everything in good order, as he had known would be the
case.
The frenzied activity that always followed a capture was still much
evident, for the convoy was a large one, and each wagon had to be
carefully searched and all possible stores loaded on the captured deer. The
remainder would have to be burned, although he hated to let it go; the
wagons were too slow, too cumbersome, to risk traveling with them
himself.
The wounded claimed a great deal of attention. There were many both
among Sapphirehold's warriors and the invaders, a number of whom had
been stricken three and four times before giving over.
Some of the injured hung between life and death, and Ashe had been
forced to devote his first attention to these rather than to Eveleen.
Murdock had fought off her initial peril, and the withdrawal of Gordon's
aid in the immediate aftermath of the battle would have cost the lives of a
number of the others. Only when he had finished with them had he been
able to relieve Ross and concentrate on the injured Terran.
Once the commander had assured himself that there appeared to be no
unanticipated difficulties in the aftermath of their victory, he sought out
Allran and drew him aside. "I'm sorry for the way I used you back there."
The Lieutenant shook his head. "Forget it. What you did, I should
already have been doing."
"And so would you have done had I given you another moment. Shock
freezes us all. It was only some kind of instinct that moved me so quickly."
The other smiled faintly. "Eveleeni has reason to praise that instinct."
"If she's not hurt inside," he responded bleakly. "She won't have gained
much if she's only to die slowly now instead of painlessly, as would have
been the case if I hadn't intervened."
That thought ha
d been in the Sapphireholder's mind as well, and he
nodded glumly. "Perhaps Gordon will be able to give us his verdict
shortly."
Ashe came to them a little while later. He could tell them nothing
definite. It was his belief that the Lieutenant had not suffered any
permanent or grave injury, nothing, in fact, beyond an incredible bruising,
that shock and weight had been responsible for the failure of her lungs,
not any damage sustained by them. He was almost certain there had been
no breaking or crushing of bone, but more, he simply did not know. Only a
much closer examination than he was able to give her and several days of
careful observation would tell him what he needed to learn. Until then,
until her body had proven itself sound, she must be regarded as one of the
more gravely wounded despite her protests that she was fit to ride or to
fight as need demanded.
15
AT LAST, THE partisans were ready to depart. They divided as was
their custom, some going south with the bulk of their spoil and the
captives, most returning to the highlands, bringing with them what they
desired of the captured stores and, of course, their own wounded.
The shock of the accident was not quick to release Eveleen, and she was
more than content to ride the litter despite her words to the contrary, a
fact not lost upon her commander to his ever-increasing concern.
It was the worst journey Ross Murdock had known in a long time, that
return to base, as bad in its way as the terrible flight downriver in Terra's
past with the Baldies close on his heels. He had known fear then and
despair and physical pain and exhaustion. Now, his lash was uncertainty
and a dread so sharp that he could have become sick with it had the
strength of his will been less.
The Sapphirehold force pressed on hour after hour, long after darkness
had fallen. With so many of their party incapacitated, a number of them
totally, Murdock had no desire to meet with a company of the enemy
following after them to avenge either the herd or the convoy. Only when
the weariness of his warriors and mounts threatened to become a danger
in itself did he finally permit a halt.
Dawn brought no easing to his heart. One of the wounded had died
during the night, and another remained stable but very close to death.
Gordon's report on Eveleen's condition was essentially the same, but he
was more guarded in giving it. She was having pain, a considerable
amount of it, and he could not as yet say whether it was born of the
tremendous battering she had taken or from more grievous cause,
although he hastened to assure his comrades that he had found no other
symptoms of internal injury, which by rights should be revealing
themselves if anything existed to spark them.
Ross's head lowered as Gordon spoke. He tried to allow himself to be
reassured, but his despair only increased. Ashe really was good, a near
miracle worker to the minds of their Dominionite allies, but comrades had
died despite him, men and women who would have lived had they had a
real doctor or a proper hospital in which he could treat them. The same
lack could all too easily kill Eveleen Riordan within the next few hours or
days.
The partisans started again with the first light, not slackening pace
even when they entered the highlands once more, nor did they halt a
second time until they were within their home camp.
Ross waited only long enough to see that his wounded were settled
before going to Luroc to make his report.
As was his wont, the Ton did not interrupt his war captain during his
account, nor did he speak at once after it was completed. Murdock had
left little for him to question, and, in truth, he would have been loath to
press for further detail now even had he wanted it. The warrior looked
totally spent.
The agent was sitting in his usual place. His head was lowered, and his
shoulders were uncharacteristically bowed with the weight of his
weariness and with something that was akin to defeat. "I brought you a
costly victory," he said suddenly after a long pause, speaking with
apparent difficulty. "We have eleven slain and forty wounded, twenty-four
of them seriously even—if Eveleeni proves not to be so. Those are the
heaviest casualties we've suffered since taking to these mountains."
The gray eyes seemed utterly stripped of life when he raised them. "I
should have guessed what that convoy would do and allowed for it in my
planning. It was the very course I myself would've followed had I been in
their place. If you no longer want me as your commander, I'll resign…"
"Do not be a fool! Do you imagine yourself Life's Queen's equal that you
should ever be able to read the minds of men? You succeed quite often
enough in doing it, or in seeming to do so."
I Loran looked at him then and sighed. "Your pardon, Rossin. You have
enough riding you without my adding to your burdens."
Ross compelled himself to straighten. "You're right. I was being the
fool, and yet, I can't but grieve over our losses both personally and because
we can so ill afford them. It's a commander's duty to keep such to a
minimum, and right now, I can feel only my failure to do that."
"Without cause, as your own reason must tell you. Naturally, we suffer
for those who have gone down, but we must expect losses when we deal
with Condor Hall's own warriors rather than with mercenaries. Zanthor
has them too filled with tales of the revenge we shall exact upon them and
their kin in the event of Confederate victory for it to be otherwise. Your
party met with a large number of them and paid the cost of taking them, a
cost far lower than might well have been expected.
"As for Eveleeni's fall," he added shrewdly, "that was accident, beyond
any human controlling. Save that a sword caused it, she could as readily
have gone under her deer in the training field or during a supposedly quiet
ride."
The black eyes gentled. "It is you who gave her a chance at life."
"That means nothing if…"
"It means everything."
Ross's head bent once more but raised again in the next moment.
"Thank you for that," he said quietly.
The Terran gave his companion a wan smile as he literally willed the
depression to lift from him. "You make a strong advocate, Ton Luroc."
"I must be to argue down so unbending an opponent. Firehand meets
with no such condemnation from others as he levels against himself on
occasion."
The pale eyes twinkled now. "I've heard Luroc I Loran speak as harshly
of himself."
"And have named him a buck's tail to his face! At least, I have never
gone so far with you… Ah well, have I not said before that we are both
stubborn men?"
The Sapphireholder settled back in his chair. "No one in Gurnion's
camp will be minded to slight you when your latest donation arrives." He
shook his head. "That convoy was a prize even beyond the gold. Blankets,
winter clothing, medical supplies, foods designed to sustain men and
beasts in bitter weather—
all costly material, and much of it is not readily
procurable. Zanthor will be hard pressed to assemble another shipment
like it in any reasonable time, and all the while, he will be galled by the
knowledge that he will have no better guarantee of getting it through to
his army when he does put it together than he did with this first lot."
"He must try." Murdock sat forward. "I've been thinking, Ton. Suggest
to Ton I Carlroc when you next meet that he keep his army at least
partially active during the coming winter while the weather permits it at
all. Continue striking the invaders, even if just to the extent of annoying
them and forcing them to use more of their stores. The more unsettled we
can keep them during the winter, the less able they'll be to meet a full
assault come spring."
"That is sound," the older man agreed, "but I want you there to press
your argument yourself. We meet in council in a fortnight, and with the
crisis coming upon us, Sapphirehold's war commander should be present
along with the others, particularly since we now have mercenaries to face
as well."
The Time Agent nodded. "It would be best to coordinate our efforts as
much as possible," he agreed.
The energy was draining out of Ross again now that their more
pressing business was finished, and all the weight he had borne earlier
returned to crash his spirit.
He glanced at the door. "With your leave, Ton Luroc, I'd like to see how
Eveleeni's doing…"
"You have my leave to go to bed… No, I try to restrain myself from
issuing orders to you, but upon this, I do insist. The call to battle could
come again at any moment. You are but poorly fitted to lead warriors now
and will be less so in a few hours' time, perhaps incapable of it altogether,
if you waste the chance to rest now. Besides," he added bluntly, "there is
nothing you can do."
Murdock stiffened.
Luroc half softened, half laughed. "You do not like to hear that, my
Friend, but the truth of it remains all the same… Go to bed. Good news or
bad, it will reach you quickly enough when it breaks."
16
THE TIME AGENT slept like one dead, and when he did at last awake,
he saw by the position and intensity of the light streaming into his room
that it was already past noon.
He sat up with an oath. Even normally, there was too much to be done