by John Dalmas
By Oz standards, he realized, that was downright thoughtful. Even sweet. He looked at her earnest face and found himself smiling. Fondly! The realization startled him, left him mentally gawping. You're in love with her, Macurdy! he told himself amazed. You are! You're in love with this girl! "Sure," he found himself saying. "It'll help a lot. And Melody, I don't want you to feel bad about it; I really don't. Because I love you, too."
She stared at him, surprised, then annoyed. "Macurdy," she said, "you're an exasperating bastard." And pulling aside, fell in a little distance behind him.
Leaving Macurdy wondering what he'd said wrong. But the question was fleeting, giving way to the matter of being in love with two women at once. Truly in love with them. He'd never thought about such a thing before, had grown up accepting that you could only love one at a time. Yet it seemed to him both loves were real. His love for Melody was different than his love for Varia, but it was love, he had no doubt.
The difference that counted, he told himself, was the vow he'd taken. And he'd abide by it in spite of all.
***
The weather had turned nearly summery. Gnats were out, though not a kind that bit. The elms along the road were pale green now, with countless millions of disk-winged seeds, while the new leaves of various species were expanding.
This plain, this Green River Valley, was pleasant to Macurdy's eyes. Tekalos was good farmland. Talbott and Hauser assumed there was a geographical equivalence between Yuulith and Farside, and as closely as Macurdy could figure, if there was a gate here, it would open into Tennessee. Western Tennessee or maybe west-central. From all he'd heard, Tennessee was mostly hills and mountains, and he wondered if it had any area of farmland to compare with this.
In midafternoon, Blue Wing caught up with them. He'd flown back to the site where the bandits had attacked the dwarves, and filled his belly and crop with dead horse meat. Or so he said. But Macurdy was aware that even vultures, with their hooked and powerful beaks, let dead horses and cattle lay longer than that for the hide to soften. It seemed likelier that some dead bandit had been Blue Wing's meal.
The dwarves slowed their progress. Their ponies were slower, and they took breaks long enough to make fire and boil water for sassafras tea. They felt no urgency. And while Macurdy's experience with horses hadn't included long crosscountry trips, he told himself this was probably a more sensible speed anyway. Besides, more than a year had passed since Varia had been kidnapped; what difference would a few days make now? She was no doubt safe enough.
And it seemed to him the dwarves were much more important to him than the time they were costing; they were his passport to the King in Silver Mountain. Meanwhile they were good companions; it was one of them who shot a possum with his crossbow, then carried it along as supper for Blue Wing.
Still, from time to time he felt restless.
Near dusk, the six of them made camp in a pleasant woods, along a river not much more than a creek. It allowed them to bathe again, which they did naked, though the dwarves used a stretch of riverbank screened from the tallfolk by undergrowth. Naked, Melody was prettier than he'd realized, though muscular for a woman. Breaking the spell, he jumped from the cutbank into the river, to conceal his developing erection. The cold water killed it utterly, and he grinned as Melody waded tentatively in, her arms wrapped around herself.
"Shall I splash you?" he called.
"You hadn't better," she answered, then launched herself, gasping as she surfaced. He did splash her then, and she charged him, splashing back. In a moment they were tussling and laughing, their wet bodies twisting against each other.
Abruptly Macurdy let her go and backed away, chagrined, and at the same time pleased with himself. Melody smiled. "That's a good start, Macurdy," she said softly, and reaching, touched his cheek. Then she turned and waded out of the river. Macurdy watched first her departing back, then her buttocks and legs, while his fingers touched his cheek where hers had. Varia had touched him like that.
That evening, fireflies were out by the hundreds in their camp, yellowish glowing lights bobbing and circling in the twilight and dark. Melody went to where Macurdy squatted, and squatted beside him, their arms and shoulders touching as they watched. But only for a little. Then the three tallfolk bedded down near each other, Macurdy feeling as if, for the first time in his life, he had a girl friend. His relationship with Varia had skipped that stage.
The next day brought a thundershower by midmorning, and a prolonged thunderstorm in late afternoon that drove them to cover at a crossroads inn. It wasn't as large as the inn they'd stayed in before, nor as clean, and Macurdy decided this was a good time to exercise the magic Arbel had taught him for killing fleas, lice, and the like.
It seemed to work well; either that or there'd been none to start with. And no one had sex out of sight on the floor, because there was no bed, only three straw-filled sacks unrolled side by side.
About two hours into their ride next morning, Blue Wing's voice called from overhead: "Macurdy! Macurdy!" Macurdy reined in and waited, looking up. The great bird spiraled sharply down and reached for the roadside with long legs.
"What'd you find?"
"There's a town ahead, not far from the highway."
"Aye," said Tossi. "Gormin Town. I recall it. It's a reeve's town, a shire seat, walled with a palisade. There's a better than usual inn at the crossroads nearby."
Macurdy nodded, looking at Blue Wing, waiting.
"The town has an open space near its center," the bird continued. "With poles standing there, and men hanging on them."
"Hanging?"
"By their wrists. Some appear to be dead. Others were just then being fastened up."
"Sounds like a good place to stay away from," Jeremid suggested.
Macurdy spoke as if to himself. "Men hung up from poles." He focused on Blue Wing again. "How many?"
"You know I'm not good with numbers," Blue Wing said a little testily. "You are six, right?"
"That's right."
"At least twice that many, I would guess."
"If we spend a day or two there, what will you do?" Macurdy asked. "I may need you."
"There's a slaughterhouse nearby, with a place where the offal is thrown. They'll very likely put out some choice pieces for me: a head already skinned perhaps, and some organs. And I can keep track of where you are by the dwarves' ponies. There'll hardly be anything else like them there."
"Thanks. Keep an eye on me for a while, if you would. I may have questions."
"As you wish."
The raven took to the air, running and hopping a few strides for his takeoff, as if his crop was full; perhaps he'd already visited the slaughterhouse. Macurdy nudged his horse with his heels. "Gormin Town doesn't sound like a good place to be," Jeremid said.
Macurdy's lips pursed thoughtfully. "To get Varia away from the Sisterhood, it could be useful to have armed men with me. Not to take inside the dwarf kingdom, but standing by."
It was Melody who answered. "What do men hanging in the square have to do with that?"
"I'm not sure. But-why hang men up like that? Are they bandits? Rebels?"
She waited for the rest of it, and when there was no more, rode on frowning. An hour and a half later they came to the inn, at the crossroads a half-mile outside the town's north gate. Macurdy stopped outside the courtyard, and looking up, spotted Blue Wing high overhead. He waved until the bird tilted and started down. Then Macurdy gathered the others close around him. In a minute, Blue Wing arrived to perch on the top rail of a fence beside the road.
"Tossi," Macurdy said, "would you take a room at the inn for Jeremid, Melody and me? But not for you three?"
The dwarf gnarled his brows. "What have ye in mind?"
"I'm not sure. But it may be I'll want you to take a place in town for yourselves."
"In town?"
"Can you make swords?"
"What?!"
"You told Kittul Kendersson you wanted adventure. It might be
we'll find some here. If I decide it's the thing to do, would you hire a room at the inn for the three of us?"
"Aye, I would. But as for making swords… We could, any of us, but they'd not be of first quality. Better than tallfolk make, but… Every dwarf lad is taught to work metals, from gold to iron, but we'd rarely be called on to do it without a master smith at hand to supervise."
"Good enough. Making swords would only be an excuse for hiring a place in town. Let's leave our remounts and pack animals at the stable here and ride in. We won't take rooms yet; I have to see what's going on first."
At the town gates, Macurdy felt the sentries eye his spear, and those of the two Ozians, but didn't stop them. The dwarves, he decided, had been their pass. Inside the stockade, the cobbled main street was wide enough for wagons to pass easily, though buildings overhung it. The six visitors walked their mounts briskly, the quickstepping hooves of the dwarves' ponies a sharp counterpoint to the louder clopping of the horses, and shortly they came to the town square.
It was decorated with the bodies of men dead or dying, or soon to be-fourteen of them, standing or hanging with their wrists lashed overhead, the sun beating on them. Above each was a sign in blood red: REBEL. Two were conspicuously dead, had begun to swell, and flies swarmed on them. Six others were either dead or too weak to stand, hanging on their tethers, their hands swollen and black. Another six stood grimly, their weight on their feet instead of on their wrists. Three guards stood by. Most bypassers avoided looking. A stray dog, in slinking mode, approached one of the dead and sniffed. Spear leveled, one of the guards ran it off.
"Stay here," Macurdy murmured to the others, and dismounting, walked up to a guard. "We're strangers," he said. "From the Kingdom of the Diamond Flues." He gestured toward the posts. "What sort of men are these?"
The guard looked sourly at the posts, then at Macurdy's discolored face, but his speech was civil. "They're from the hills off north," he said. "Part of a rebel band." He wrinkled his nose. "The dead'll be cut down this evening."
Macurdy thanked him and returned to the others, to continue slowly on around the square. Here and there were benches, mostly unoccupied. Macurdy looked over the auras of the few who sat there, and shortly pulled up and dismounted again, walking over to a man who was old by Rude Lands standards, his mouth a sunken, lipless crease.
Sitting down near him, Macurdy spoke quietly. "A hard way to die, on those posts."
The old man said nothing, as if he hadn't heard.
"We're from over west of the Great Muddy, traveling east to the Silver Mountain. Came in to buy some goods, and saw those poor devils hanging by their wrists."
Still nothing.
"Why would men rebel, in a country as fertile as this? Surely there must be plenty to eat."
The toothless mouth seemed hardly to move, but words came from it now, low and monotone. "There are kingdoms where men are pressed down by cruelties and demands. Where the man who swings the scythe may have too little bread to eat, and where he'd best not have a pretty wife or daughter. Or pride."
"Ah. Then why so few rebels?"
"The commons have no generals, no strong and able leaders. Nor weapons, most of them, nor any place to hide."
"And yet those men…" Macurdy gestured.
The old man took a slow breath. "They're Kullvordi-hillsmen from off north. Their not-too-distant grandfathers were tribesmen who lived in their own way. Even now they have bows and spears; some even have swords. And forests to hide in, where soldiers hardly dare to go. But if a rebellion grows troublesome, the soldiers burn some farms, drive off their livestock, and kill hostages. And after a bit, the rebellion dies as if it never was, leaving only a few hard men living off what game they can shoot, and by thieving. Until someone gives them away for a purse."
The old man stopped then, and Macurdy asked no more. After a minute he lay a paw on a bent shoulder and squeezed lightly, then got up and left.
The six of them rode back to the inn for the midday meal. Afterward, Macurdy, Melody, and Jeremid took a room with money Tossi provided, then rode northward, killing time with exploration, while Blue Wing flew high, learning the land far more widely than they could.
Meanwhile the dwarves, with their ponies and a pack horse, returned to town to carry out their part of the plan. When they'd finished their business for the day, the youngest of them, Yxhaft Vorelsson Rich Lode, rode back out to the inn, where he sat in the pot room nursing a short mug of ale till the tallfolk got back. After a supper of pot roast and boiled potatoes, they all went to the small room the three tallfolk were to share. Tossi, Yxhaft said, had seen to everything agreed on. As for security-during the day there'd been a single guard in each of the rather widely-spaced watch shelters on the town walls, but it was logical to expect two or more at night, to keep each other awake. He also mapped the whereabouts of the ground-floor apartment Tossi had rented. "If yer uncertain," he finished, "there'll be a small sign by the door, with dwarf runes in charcoal, tellin' those who can read it-and I doubt there's one such in all Gormin Town, except ourselves-that 'here dwell three sons of the Rich Lode Clan.' "
He grinned at Macurdy then, for he was a youth as dwarves go. "It has a cellar hole," he went on, "and its own weed patch in back, with its own privy. We've put the anvil block on the cellar lid, and strewed sand over the floor, as one might to prevent fires startin' from the forge. It's a poor place for smithin', but who'd know except a smith?
"Oh! And Tossi got a letter of retainer from the reeve, which no doubt we can use, if we need to, as a pass to get through the gate. Should they start keepin' folks in, which I expect they will."
Then Yxhaft left, riding back to town.
According to the innkeeper, the town gates closed at sundown, or on cloudy days when dusk began to thicken. And because of recent disorders, there was a curfew. So when the sun was low, Macurdy, Melody, and Jeremid walked the half-mile to town, chatting and laughing deliberately as they approached the gate. They entered without being questioned, and strolled the perimeter street, still chatting while Macurdy unobtrusively examined the palisade. Each stair-flight up to the archery walk ended at a watch shelter, and even as they walked, a column of guardsmen marched past them, pausing to send three to each shelter, replacing the one on day watch.
"We'll have to figure out some other way," Jeremid said. "We can do the job tomorrow night."
Macurdy shook his head. "Tomorrow night's too late. We need to free them while they're able-bodied."
"Maybe we can use a rope with a hook," Melody suggested. "Throw it onto the archery walk, and climb."
Macurdy nodded, thinking that the odds of success were not good. Maybe Tossi would have some ideas. It wouldn't do, though, to be seen going into the dwarves' apartment, so when twilight came, they sheltered in the shadows of an unpaved alley nearby. Once they heard the hard-booted feet of a street patrol, but didn't see it. After the curfew bell tolled, Macurdy sent Jeremid out; he'd yowl twice like a cat if everything was clear. A minute later they heard the yowls and slipped out of their alley. Jeremid beckoned, and when they got to him, Kittul Kendersson stood with the door ajar. "In! In!" he rumbled softly, then closed it behind them.
The room was lit by the usual lamp-a bowl of oil with a wick on one side. Kittul took them into the room fitted as a smithy, and grinning, waved around. "The reeve provided all of it: forge, anvil, tongs, hammer, quenchin' tank-everything."
They're hungry for dwarf steel here, Macurdy thought. There were coarse sacks of charcoal, too, and from behind them, Kittul took a rope with knots at intervals. At one end was a triple grab hook that he held up chuckling. "Just made it. Thought it might be useful."
"Good. We've been talking about that. And the crossbows?"
"They're in the sleepin' room." Kittul paused. "I've been thinkin' though. 'Tis us should do the shootin'. We're used to crossbows; we'll not miss."
Macurdy shook his head. "I don't doubt you're better marksmen with them," he said. "But if anyon
e saw, even in the night, they could tell the patrolmen it was dwarves. While with us-in the dark we look like anyone else around here. And if there's a chase, our legs are longer.
"Besides, Jeremid and Melody have used crossbows, and in my world, we use weapons called guns that you aim pretty much the same way."
"Ah. Well," said Kittul thoughtfully, "there's no doubt we'd be recognized, even if just glimpsed. So then. Best ye start while the moon's still up." He led them into the bedroom, and standing on tiptoes, took two crossbows from pegs on the wall, crossbows that were cocked using a stirrup, and a hook on the belt. Macurdy had thought to use one himself, but the belts were too small to buckle around him.
He handed it to Jeremid, saying, "Try it on." Jeremid did. It buckled in the last notch. "You and Melody will do the shooting," Macurdy told him.
They got ready and left, walking to the square via an alley that opened onto it not far from the posts. At the alley's mouth they huddled in darkness, eyes sorting through the moon shadows around the post area.
Macurdy's eyes made out four guards now, one each on the southeast and southwest corners, while two stood conversing quietly within a few feet of one another on the north end, near where the main street hit the square. He wondered how alert they were. Did they think someone might try a rescue? Or was guard just routine, another dull watch?
He led the others back a ways. "Melody," he murmured, "circle 'round and come out the next alley south. Jeremid, circle north, cross the main street where they won't see you; come to the square on the other side. You two will kill the two in back, the corner men." He paused. "Melody, tell me what I said." She did. Then Jeremid repeated the instructions.
"Good. I'll take the two in front. After you've had time to get in position, I'll go out to one of them. I've got no bow, no spear, and no sword, and my knife's around back of my hip, so they shouldn't be too leery of me.