by John Dalmas
"Keep a close eye on me. I'll pretend I've been drinking, and walk up to him and start talking. Then I'll knife him and jump the other one. That's when you'll shoot your men and reload. Got it?"
They both stared at him. I know, he thought. I can't believe we're doing this either. They'd discussed the broad features back at the inn, and it had felt spooky enough then, in daylight and safety. "Good," he said. "Go!"
It took them three or four seconds to turn away, leaving Macurdy where he stood. Come on, he told himself, it's for Varia. Let's get going. He took another alley, moving quickly but quietly, eyes and ears fine-tuned. Asking himself how this could be for Varia, or how it could possibly work. But not wavering.
Shortly he reached the main street. The moon was low and the whole street in shadow, when he turned quietly onto it. He was in mid-block when he heard what had to be a patrol, and pausing, looked backward. They were turning onto his street from a cross street a hundred yards away. With torches.
Hell! he thought. Some of the shops along the street had small marquees over their entrances, perhaps to protect them from slops thrown from windows above. Striding a few quick steps farther, he jumped, grabbed a marquee, and pulled himself up. It took his weight, and he lay as low and flat as he could. If they'd seen him…
But the shadows were dark, and the torches had little reach. He shielded his face with his arms. The patrol passed so close below, it seemed to him they should have heard his heart pounding. Passed and continued along the street, hard-soled boots thudding and scuffing on the cobblestones. After half a minute he raised his head enough to see them from behind. Eight or ten, it seemed, fewer than he'd thought. At the square, instead of turning west or east to pass it by, they walked directly to the poles and stopped. Faintly he heard commands being given; seconds later they turned and started back his way. Again he lowered his face, shielding it, and again they passed beneath him, marching back north up the street, turned onto another and were gone.
Changing the guard! he thought. Gentle Jesus thank you! If I'd been three minutes sooner… He stayed where he was for several minutes, giving Melody and Jeremid more time, then dropped quietly to the cobblestones and moved on. That was an omen, he told himself, a good one! And tried to believe it.
The square opened before him, the nearer guard about thirty yards away, and he scarcely hesitated, emerging from the shadows, walking unsteadily. It only then occurred to him that they might shout or blow a whistle or something-maybe kill him-because he was breaking the curfew.
The new guards stood about five yards apart, instead of side by side like the previous two. Both pointed their spears at him, ready to thrust long or short. He walked up dangerously close to one of them, pretending drunkenness. " 'Scuse me," he said. "I'm lookin' for a frien' I used to have. Name is Lucky. Someone said he was one of these guys." He waved broadly at the pole-bound captives.
Both guards laughed. "Nobody here's called Lucky," one said. "Not anymore."
Macurdy peered as if to penetrate the night, stepping nearer, weaving, and spoke confidentially. "He owes me five coppers. Did you know that?" Then lowered his voice further. "Are they dead?"
"They cut the dead ones down at sunset, and took them away. These are all alive."
Macurdy leaned. "Lucky," he called hoarsely, "are you there?"
And moved, his left hand closing on the spearshaft, shoving it aside and pulling it past him, drew his knife as he strode into the guard, plunging it under his ribs, in and up and back out, letting the man fall, catching the other with his eyes. The second guard's reaction was slow; he took an uncertain step toward Macurdy, and the heavy knife, thrown hard, struck him in the middle of the chest. With a weak bleat, the man slumped and fell. Macurdy was on him in an instant, ignoring the third and fourth guards, who were Melody's and Jeremid's responsibilities. Gripping a shoulder, he turned the man over and grabbed the knife hilt. It had gone through the breastbone to the hilt and was slippery with blood. He'd probably stepped in blood, too, he realized.
Then Melody's voice hissed at him. "Macurdy! Hurry! A patrol's coming!" He looked around, feeling just an instant's prick of panic, then strode to the nearest rebel and cut the thong that held his arms overhead. The man fell unmoving, and Macurdy realized he'd been dead weight on his bonds. The next was standing, and he freed him. "Stay with her," Macurdy husked to him, and went to a third. He became aware that Melody was also cutting men free. When they were done, six rebels stood. Three others lay still. Without hesitating, Macurdy cut their throats; he couldn't take them, and wouldn't leave them for further torture. Only one gushed blood. The other two had died already.
"Come on!" Melody said.
"You take them," Macurdy answered. "My boots are bloody; they'll leave marks. Go!"
He heard a command shouted from near the south end of the square, and ran not north with Melody and the rebels, but west, scuffing his feet in the grass and dirt to wipe off what he could of the blood. Crossing the street, he ducked into an alley, wondering where Jeremid might be. Somewhere off southeast someone was shouting, and he wondered what that was about. Around a corner he stopped, and pulling off his boots, tied them together, slung them over a shoulder, then trotted off barefoot.
The cobblestones were rough-surfaced, and he was limping when the dwarves let him in. The front room was dark, crowded but quiet. Men sat on the floor with cups and bowls, and the place smelled of stew-supper reheated. Melody gripped Macurdy's sleeve and pulled him into the kitchen. "You did it!" she said, and began to unbutton his bloody shirt. "We need to rinse this before the blood sets."
He dropped his boots and stripped it off. Melody immersed it in a small tub, surging it up and down while the water reddened. "The boots too," Macurdy said, looking around for more water. Apparently it had to be carried from some public well.
"I need to get the blood out of your shirt, first."
"Where's Jeremid?" he asked.
"The last I saw, he was running toward the patrol. Probably to draw them off."
Macurdy's face was stiff with tension. He'd hoped to pull this off and get over the wall without an uproar. But now… Now the whole damned police force would be out, and any soldiers garrisoned there. The gates were already closed, and the guards in the watch shelters would be wide awake now, alert as hawks. "Where's Tossi?" he asked.
"Right here." The dwarf had come in behind him from the front room.
"Will your cellar hole hold six men?"
"If they don't mind dark and discomfort."
"Anything will be better than what they've just been through. But they'll need air and water."
Tossi frowned. "I can leave the trapdoor open most of the time. If someone bangs on the door, one of us can answer it while another closes the trapdoor and slides the anvil block over top of it." He paused, peering intently at Macurdy. "How long will we be stayin', with the six of them under the floor?"
"I'll try taking one or maybe two out with Melody and me tonight. And Jeremid, if he gets back in time. Police and soldiers will be searching house to house tomorrow-maybe even later tonight-and it'll look suspicious to have tallfolk here, even if they're not the prisoners. But these men need to stay somewhere, until things quiet down or I get them out somehow."
"One or two tonight, you say. The danger's great, I'm sure ye know. It'll be buzzin' like a beehive out there."
"It'll be worse a little later, when the confusion settles and they get organized. Let me trade shirts with someone, to wear while this one dries. Then we'll be on our way."
Ten minutes later, Macurdy was out in the night again, with Melody and a rebel named Verder. Macurdy carried twenty-five feet of slender, knotted rope wrapped around his waist, concealed by a tunic the canny Tossi had bought for the purpose. He carried the grapnel in his hand for lack of a better place. At the first corner, not a hundred feet away, they turned down an alley, moving at an easy jog.
It took a minute for the sound to register on Macurdy, but when it did, he sto
pped. The night, the town, held a diffuse droning. Melody and Verder were listening, too.
"What is it?" Verder asked.
"People," Melody said in a hushed voice. "People off south."
Then it struck Macurdy. He knew as if he'd been there and heard it happen! Striding to a shutter, he banged on it with the grapnel, shouting: "Have you heard?! The guards were killed in the square, and the prisoners cut free!"
Melody and the rebel stared shocked. "Macurdy!" she hissed. "What-"
"The people you hear," he answered. "They know! It must have been Jeremid. He must have run through the streets yelling what happened, and people are coming out. They don't like their rulers here; that's why there's a curfew. And if enough people come out, it'll keep the street patrols tied up." He turned and trotted off, still shouting, pausing now and then to bang on shutters. Melody and the rebel trotted after him, both of them shouting too. Voices answered from indoors, some questioning, some angry. When the alley opened onto a street, they turned east on it and trotted three more blocks shouting, before they saw five youths run into the street ahead of them from an alley. They were shouting too.
"The guards in the square are killed!" Macurdy yelled again. "The prisoners are freed!" Just ahead was a broken fence enclosing a weedy garden, and abruptly he stopped to yank staves loose from it. The youths watched, uncertain but alert. Melody realized at once what he was up to, and began piling the staves in the middle of the street. Verder helped, and now the youths, catching on, kicked and shoved on the supports of a rickety porch till the roof fell. Macurdy ignited the pile of fence staves, then ran on. They'd gone hardly more than a block before they heard shouts of "Fire! Fire!" behind them.
He shouted no more, nor stopped again till panting, they reached the perimeter street. The half moon was low in the west, but by its pale light, Macurdy could make out guards in and by the watch shelters. The sound of people was growing. To the guards it must seem dangerous, threatening.
"Let's go for it," Macurdy said. "If they see us, they still might stay where they are. If necessary, we'll run across the street again."
"What about the others?" Verder asked.
"I'll lower you two from the wall and go back for them. Melody knows where to take you."
The perimeter street was bare dirt, very wide by Rude Lands standards, about forty feet, but in dense moon shadow all the way to the palisade. Macurdy had opened his tunic while he'd talked, and unwound the rope. Now he dashed across, twirling the grapnel, and flung it up to the archery walk midway between watch shelters. It caught, and he started climbing, wishing the rope was thicker and gave a better grip. Thank God for the knots, he thought. After a moment's pause to look, he pulled himself onto the walk. There was a tug at the rope, and he hauled the rebel up, then repeated the performance with Melody. Still no one seemed to notice them. In another minute he'd lowered first Melody, then Verder down the outside.
Only then did he turn and look over the town. He wasn't the only one who'd set fires, and some hadn't taken care to light them in the middle of the street; south of the square, part of the town was burning. He rehooked the grapnel on the planking and lowered himself to the street, then with a few flips of the rope, dislodged it.
For a moment he considered leaving it there, finding it again when he came back. But afraid of losing it, he wrapped it around himself again, buttoned his tunic, and ran back up the street. It was starting to fill with people, and more porches were burning.
When he arrived at the dwarves' apartment, Jeremid was there, grinning excitedly. In a hurried conference, it was decided the dwarves should leave too. Their ponies were lodged at a stable on the main street, near the north gate, and it seemed likely that considering the fires, the gate guards would let them out. They were dwarves, after all, and had a letter of retainer from the reeve.
They'd take Jeremid with them, posing as their servant, to help them handle their personal gear. The smithing gear they'd leave behind. They'd gotten it on credit anyway, using the reeve's letter of authorization
Macurdy left with the five remaining rebels, taking alleys to bypass fires, and in minutes they'd reached the stockade. It was burning too, though not vigorously; the guards had abandoned their posts, and fires had been lit in some of the watch shelters. Moments later, Macurdy and his five charges were on the outside. Leaving the rope and grapnel hanging, he led his rebels north past the town.
23: The Rebel Commander
" ^ "
When he'd left the northeast corner of the stockade behind, Macurdy took his little band through a field of some spring-seeded small grain-whether oats or barley, he couldn't tell in the dark. It was heavily loaded with dew that had already soaked his boots.
Well before he reached the road, his rebels were getting strung out, too weak to keep up. "We'll stop here," he said, and at once, three of them sank to the ground despite the cold dew. Southward, the sky above town was ruddied by fires, with here and there flames tall enough to be seen above the town walls. Macurdy felt a certain guilt at his role in the burning. But the townsmen, he told himself, had been ready to rise up, to riot, and the fires had been inevitable.
Rebellion, he told himself, was the easy part. The hard parts would be winning, and replacing their government with something better. But that was up to them. What he needed to do was work this to somehow help him rescue Varia.
Meanwhile he had allies now, or so it seemed. He looked them over. All but one had what Arbel had taught him to recognize as warrior auras. The other had an artisan aura; he'd be good at making things, and maybe at coming up with ideas. "I guess you know my name's Macurdy," Macurdy said. "What are yours?"
They told him, stepping on one another's lines. It turned out they were from two different districts. Three were from north, up the road not many hours' ride; the others were from three day's ride northeast.
"Anyone here injured?" he asked.
They'd all been beaten after their capture, and the two from the northeastern band hadn't eaten for four days, except what the dwarves had fed them. Macurdy realized that he was pretty hungry himself. "All right. We're going north another quarter mile or so. There's an inn there. I'll hide you near it and go see about horses."
One of the rebels spoke then-one of the northeastern group-a rangy, tough-looking man who'd given his name as Wolf. "Where are you from?" he asked. "You don't sound like Tekalos, neither hillsman nor flatlander."
"From off west," Macurdy said, "the other side of the Great Muddy. A country called Oz; I was a soldier there. Two of us were, and the woman's father was a commander. She's one of a caste of warrior women, weapons-trained all her life. She's killed two men since we left there."
"How'd you get mixed up in our trouble?"
Macurdy laughed wryly. "We didn't get along with our troll's spawn of a commander. So one morning about daybreak I tromped the seeds out of him and three of his bully boys. Then we grabbed some horses and took off. Kept ahead of them long enough to cross the Muddy."
Macurdy realized that his story sounded unlikely, but it went with the lingering discoloration of his face, and his missing and broken teeth.
"That doesn't answer my question," Wolf said. "How'd you get mixed up in the troubles here? Why'd you cut us loose?"
"Any king, or count, or reeve who'd hang people up like that, deserves all the enemies he can get. We decided we'd give him six more."
"How'd the dwarves get mixed up in it? I never heard of them mixing in tallfolks' troubles before."
"They're young westerners, feeling their oats."
"Umm."
It was apparent that Wolf still had reservations, but he'd go along for the time being. The rest were probably too grateful, Macurdy decided, and too hungry, to question their rescuer's motives. "Okay," he said. "Let's get moving. We've got to get well away from here before daylight."
They walked slowly, keeping to the grain field to avoid people riding away from town and the fires. His rebels were rural, automatical
ly considerate of growing crops, and stayed in single file to lessen damage. After a bit they crossed the Valley Highway and continued well past the inn, then angled northwest across pasture. Northeastward, Macurdy could make out horses grazing, probably rental animals belonging to the innkeeper. Scattered along the north-south road were spreading trees that would have inhibited dew formation, and he steered toward one of them. When they got there, they found a thin fringe of shrubs and saplings growing along the rail fence, screening the pasture from the road. The rebels sank to the ground.
"I'll leave you here for a while," Macurdy said, "while I see what horses I can scrounge. Wolf, come with me. I'll be back before long." Then he headed toward the inn.
The dwarves had come in just ahead of him. The town gates had been opened, and the last room already let when they'd arrived, so they'd crowded in with Jeremid, Melody, and Verder, in the small room Macurdy had rented earlier.
"I've got the others waiting north up the road," he told them. "They're not in very good shape; haven't been eating, and two were beaten up pretty badly. I'll take them north up the road to the nearest rebel camp, but I need horses for them."
"Simple enough," Jeremid said. Melody was nodding agreement even before he explained. "Just take some from the stable. Saddle what you need and go."
Macurdy shook his head. "There's the stable boy, and whatever guard or guards the innkeeper has there. We'd have to manhandle them; tie and gag them. And the only enemies I want in this country are the king and his henchmen."
Tossi spoke before Jeremid could argue. "As I count them," the dwarf said, "we need only three more. I'll hire them from the innkeeper in the mornin', or buy them if he'll sell."
Macurdy was relieved. He'd decided the dwarves had deep pockets, but hadn't been sure that Tossi would go for another expense like this. Now he gave instructions: He, Melody and the rebels would leave at once. Jeremid and the dwarves would follow at dawn.