Bloch said: “How about the Oracle himself—or herself? Does he, she, or it inspire love?”
“We are not allowed to discuss the Oracle. I can however tell you that it is neither male nor female in the sense we know.” After a pause she resumed: “My only advice to all of you would be to love as much and as many things and people as possible, so you shan’t be so empty-hearted when you lose one of them. My only comfort is the oracular quatrain that goes:
“When the last sun sets and the stars grow cold
And the one-eyed queen has laid her last,
Then a new birth shall on Niond unfold
When the old has passed.”
“Cold comfort,” said Bloch. “Like most oracular verse, full of vague ominous intimations of nothing in particular. But who am I to spoil your one pleasure?”
When Iroedh and Antis had gone to bed on the air mattresses provided by the Viagens Interplanetarias, wrapped in their cloaks and each other’s arms for warmth, Bloch came and stood over them.
“Well,” he said, “perhaps you overgrown children are physically unable to experience our kind of love, but you seem to do all right.”
For three days the journey northward progressed with little event except an occasional rain. Iroedh, feeling herself no longer bound by her Community’s commands, passed on to Bloch her considerable knowledge of Avtiny history and culture. Barbe listened attentively, taking it all down in shorthand.
Bloch said: “I should like to inspect that ruined city of Khinam. Do you suppose the Elhamni would try to chase us off if we paid it a visit before we left?”
“They know about your guns,” said Iroedh. “They might not like it, but I don’t think they would try anything drastic.”
“Then we will try to work in a visit—Hello, what’s this ahead?”
“This” was a waist-high pile of logs and rocks across the road. Iroedh’s eye caught a flash of brass.
“Rogues!” she cried. “Get your gun ready, Daktablak!”
Bloch cried “Branio!” to his ueg, which obediently halted. He looked around nervously while unslinging the gun from his shoulder, saying:
“Do you think—uh—perhaps we could get the chariots turned around and run for it?”
“Too late,” said Antis, whipping out his bronze machete. “Look back there!”
A group of Avtiny drones had debouched onto the road behind them and were running toward them, all but one of them, who paused to aim a bow. There were two or three shields and helmets in the group, and one cuirass, but otherwise they were naked and carried only spears and the one bow.
Antis grinned at Iroedh, swishing his blade through the air. “If Daktablak could kill those with the armor, we could take it from them—”
Yaedh of Yeym called loudly: “Priestess of the Oracle of Ledhwid! I claim immun—”
Whssht! went the arrow released by the archer. Yaedh and Antis cut off their speeches to duck.
“Up ahead!” exclaimed Yaedh.
A similar group of irregulars had come around the road block in front.
“Get back here, Antis!” said Iroedh, drawing her own blade. “Let’s keep together and let the men deal with them at a distance. Then if they get close—”
Crack! Iroedh’s eardrums shook painfully to the discharge of Barbe’s pistol. The little female man had run to the tail of the column and fired past Yaedh’s chariot. The leading drone among the attackers spun around and fell in the roadway.
Barbe screamed: “You shoot those in front, while I—”
Tactactactac! went Bloch’s gun, echoed by another crack of the pistol. Then both weapons crashed together. One of the uegs upset its chariot in its terror. The racket made Iroedh wince and shut her eyes. Though she was a qualified soldier of her Community, this was as unnerving as her first helicopter flight had been.
Tactactac! Crack!
When Iroedh opened her eyes, the rogues to the rear were scattering to the shelter of the woods, leaving two of their number lying in the road. In front they were likewise running away or scrambling over the barrier. Three lay sprawled in that direction. The last to climb the barricade paused at the top to look back. Bloch raised the gun and with a single shot sent the drone flying into the road beyond.
The frightened uegs had tried to bolt, but Yaedh was calming them down by talking to them. Iroedh shook her head to get the ringing out of her ears.
“A short fight,” said Antis. “I never got a chance to show what I could do.”
“The fiends!” said Yaedh. “I can understand their attacking the rest of you, but to assault a priestess of the Oracle is unheard-of. This must be the band of Wythias; he’s the only rogue leader ruthless enough to commit such an atrocity.”
“Are you hurt, darling?” said Barbe to her husband.
“N-no, just a little shaken,” said Bloch, doing things with his gun. Sweat stood out on his face as though he had been running. “This must be what happened to the party from the Osirian ship.”
“Great Eunmar!” said Antis, who had walked over to look at a dead drone. “The magic weapon certainly smashes them up. This one has hardly any head left!”
Bloch said: “Let’s right this chariot and clear the junk out of the road.”
“As soon as I collect some armor,” said Antis, tugging at the chin strap of the helmet on one of the corpses. “Help me, Iroedh.” He got the helmet off and wiggled his own head into it. “A little loose, but with extra padding it’ll do. It’s a good piece; I recognize the work of Umwys. It’s too bad Bardylak made a hole in this breastplate, but I can hammer the points back in place with a stone and later have a smith patch it.”
Iroedh said: “Why bother with those heavy things when the Terran weapons go right through them as if they were vakhwil bark?”
“We may not always have Terrans on our side. Try this helmet. Now, don’t I look like a proper warrior out of the old epics?”
Antis stood up proudly in his cuirass and buckler and helmet and leaned on one of the dead drones’ spears. Iroedh thought he certainly did look impressive. Barbe, however, made an odd sniffing noise and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Yes?” said Antis.
Barbe said: “Me, I got some fluff up my nose. You look magnificent, Antis; but shouldn’t it cover—I mean, should there not be one of those things to protect you below the cuirass?”
“A military kilt?” said Antis gravely. “So there should be, except that none of our late enemies was wearing one. I shall get one eventually.”
He turned to help Bloch right the upset chariot and remove the barricade. Iroedh was astonished at the ease with which he picked up logs and hurled them into the brush.
“How strong you’ve become!” she said.
“The simple life.” Grinning, Antis heaved a stone that Iroedh thought no two workers could have lifted, jerked it to chest height with his great arm muscles standing out, and tossed it into the woods.
“Don’t show off or you’ll injure yourself,” said Bloch.
Antis turned and appeared about to launch a tart reply when there was another whssht! and an arrow streaked by inches from Barbe’s face.
“They’re attacking again!” she cried, jerking out her pistol. “Iroedh, did you see where that came from?”
Barbe pointed the pistol this way and that at the silent forest.
“No, I didn’t,” said Iroedh. “Daktablak, come back here and cover us with your gun. I’ll help Antis.”
“But—that’s not female work,” blithered Bloch.
“Do as she says!” said Barbe. “She has better sense than you!”
“Oh, all right—all right.” Bloch, looking harassed, climbed back onto his chariot and began sweeping the woods with his gun sights, first one side and then the other. Iroedh grunted and strained over the last logs.
Whssht! went another arrow, and struck Bloch full in the chest with a loud thump.
Bloch staggered, almost fell out of his chariot, and fired a burst in
to the section of woods from which the arrow had come. Antis and Iroedh had just carried the last log off the road and dropped it. They turned at the sound of a high scream from Barbe. The female man fired her pistol several times at random toward the woods, then leaped up to seize Bloch.
Iroedh ran back. Bloch stood upright in his vehicle and seemed to be wrestling with Barbe, though the arrow still protruded from his chest.
“No, no, I’m all right I tell you!” he protested. “Get back in your buggy and let’s get the hell out of here!”
“Aren’t you dead? Aren’t you hurt?” said Barbe.
“Not a scratch! Shall we go on or back? I’m for turning back—”
“When we’re three quarters of the way there?” said Barbe. “You are getting soft in the head, my old. Of course we shall go on!”
“Well, let’s go either way, only quickly! You two, get aboard!”
Iroedh and Antis leaped into their chariots and cracked their whips. The uegs, impatient from the wait and nervous from the shooting, raced away with long strides, the chariots bouncing and bumping behind, and lurching to dangerous angles as they rolled over the corpses, which nobody had thought to remove from the road. Iroedh thought she heard shouts from the woods around the roadblock, but if so the shouters were soon left.
Yaedh called up from the rear of the line: “You had better make good time, because that Wythias is a very persistent fellow. He may follow us.”
“How about you?” said Iroedh to Bloch. “Are men invulnerable, or have you armor under your tunic?”
Bloch wrenched out the arrow and threw it away. “Hit my damned radio. If it’s broken, as I expect, the results may be almost as serious…I didn’t know you Avtini went in for archery.”
“Ordinarily we use it only for hunting,” said Iroedh, “because arrows won’t pierce armor. Seeing us unarmored, the drones thought to use their hunting bows on us.”
Barbe said: “I’m sure a strong Terran bow could penetrate this thin brass, at least at close range.”
“Maybe they haven’t the right kind of wood,” said Bloch, “at least on this continent.”
Iroedh went into a daydream wherein she arranged with the Community of Khwiem, which specialized in marine trade, to get a cargo of some superior bow wood from another continent for the benefit of Elham.
Then she remembered that the Arsuuny war would be over long before she could effect any such transaction, and that, furthermore, she was now an outcast from Elham—an “orphan” like Yaedh. The thought of having no Community made her feel woebegone. Of course she had Antis, but one couldn’t dedicate oneself to a single drone, however admirable, with the wholehearted devotion one gave a Community. If one were a Terran one could choose a mate of the opposite sex and apply one’s oedhurh to this person, but as a neuter she was denied even this outlet…
They passed the junction of the road to Khwiem and the distant smoking cone of Mount Wisgad. The sky had clouded over and the uegs were puffing and staggering when they drew up, well after sunset. Bloch insisted on camping well off the road, so they plowed around in the brush and trees until they found an open space on the side of a stony hill whence they had a good view of their surroundings but could not be easily seen from the road.
Bloch pulled the radio out of his breast pocket, opened it up, looked it over by the light of another Terran device (a little cylinder with a light in its end) and threw it away.
“Hopeless,” he said. “It will be all right, though, because when they don’t receive my report this evening Subbarau will send Kang out to search for us. He can’t overlook us on that road. Hey, Antis! Belay the music!” For Antis had just played a run on his flute. Bloch turned to Yaedh. “Don’t you think we are far enough in advance of them to be safe?”
“I am not sure,” said Yaedh. “There is a short cut over Mount Wisgad which, if they marched all night, might bring them up to us by morning.”
“Then we’ll depart before morning. How much farther to Ledhwid?”
“If we leave early and drive hard we should reach it by tomorrow’s nightfall.”
“Would this tough character Wythias go so far as to attack the Oracle itself?”
Yaedh hesitated. “Had you asked me that yesterday I should have said the idea was absurd. All folk hold the Oracle in reverence, or at least respect it for its practical benefits. Workers of all Communities, even those at war with one another, meet freely and peacefully there, even Arsuuni. They exchange news and negotiate treaties. Now, however, that Wythias (if it indeed be he) has failed to respect my immunity, I am not sure what he will do.”
Bloch said: “In any case, we’ll set up a double watch.” He was fastening a tubular thing to his gun. “Barbe and I will take turns with the rifle and with one of you Avtini.”
Iroedh asked: “What’s that thing on your gon?”
“It enables us to see as well at night as one of you. Now help me arrange our gear in a circle, and then we’ll turn in.”
Iroedh had one of the later watches with Barbe, who said: “Your nights are all so dark here! I don’t think I should care to live on Ormazd, without a moon.”
It was dark, even Iroedh admitted, though never having seen a moon she could not compare her own world’s nights with those of another. There was no sound except the regular snores of Winston Bloch and the chirp and buzz of nocturnal creeping things.
Then Iroedh stopped pacing and froze, moving her head this way and that to let her little round ears pick up the faintest sound. She could have sworn by Gwyyr that she had heard the faint noise of metal striking metal.
“Iroedh?” said Barbe. “What is it?”
“Quiet. Somebody’s coming.”
“Let’s wake the others—” began Barbe, but then a voice cried:
“Kwa, Wythias!”
And the cry was taken up all around: “Kwa, Wythias! Kwa, Wythias!” Heavy bodies moved through the brush.
Barbe stopped halfway to where Bloch lay and brought the gun to her shoulder. Iroedh drew her machete.
“There they come!” said Iroedh, pointing to where her dilated pupils made out a mass of moving figures.
Tactactactac! went the gun. In the lull following the uproar Iroedh heard sounds from the other direction and whirled. Three rogue drones were rushing upon the camp from that direction, spears poised. Iroedh stepped forward, bracing herself to meet the attack, though with such odds she was sure the moment would be her last.
Crack! went the pistol from where Bloch lay, and again. Bloch jumped up, grabbed the gun from Barbe, and fired another burst in yet a third direction. By the flashes Iroedh had a fleeting impression of bodies falling and others scampering back.
Bloch put one of the brass clips into the gun; then, eye to the night-seeing attachment, swept the device this way and that.
“They learn fast about taking cover,” he said. “All out of sight but the stiffs.”
From around the camp there now came a buzz and clatter of many people moving without trying to conceal the fact. Snatches of speech could be heard, and somewhere somebody moaned in pain.
Antis and Yaedh were up now, the former with his machete out. They all huddled in the midst of the crude barricade of baggage.
“I don’t think they will try that again,” said Bloch.
“Wythias is stubborn,” said Yaedh. “His men fear him worse than they do your magic weapons.”
“Yes, but can he make them attack if they won’t? What’s that?”
Something was happening down near the base of the slope, though Iroedh could not quite make out what. There were thumps and jinglings and footsteps.
Yaedh cried: “They’re harnessing up the uegs! They will drive them off with our chariots!”
“Bless my soul!” said Bloch. “What shall we do?” Antis said: “You could shoot in the general direction of the tethering place; that should get a few.” He was sharpening his blade with a whetstone, wheep-wheep.
“But that would kill the uegs, and w
e should be almost as badly off as if they took them!”
“Then you could go down there with your gun and attack them at close range.”
“Uh? I don’t—I can’t see as well in the dark, and there must be hundreds of them—”
“Are you afraid? Then I’ll go after them with nothing but my matselh! I’ll show—”
“There they go!” said Yaedh.
There was a cracking of whips and a shouting, and the sounds of receding chariotry.
“Too late,” groaned Bloch. “Now we are in a fix! Our spare ammunition and food was in those chariots.”
“And my biscuit flour,” said Iroedh.
“And my notes,” said Barbe.
Bloch said: “Yaedh, you speak their dialect. Ask them what they want.”
Yaedh raised her head and called: “Wythias of Hawardem!”
After a few repetitions a voice called back: “I am speaking.”
“What do you wish of us?”
“We wish the magical weapons of the Terrans. If they will give them up we will let you go.”
When this had been translated, Bloch asked: “How reliable is this Wythias?”
“Not at all, seeing that he raises irreverent hands against a priestess of the Oracle.”
Bloch hesitated, nervously cracking his knuckles. At last he said: “Tell him no. I couldn’t face Subbarau if I let this fellow steal our guns.”
Yaedh told Wythias no. There were more movements in the dark and then the hateful whistle of an arrow.
Bloch said: “Lie down inside your baggage, everybody!”
More arrows whistled; one struck the baggage with a sharp rap.
“Can’t you see any of them in your magical viewer?” said Antis.
Bloch, who had been trying to do just that, replied: “Not enough for a shot. The archers are staying out of sight over the curvature of the hill and lofting them at us.”
Iroedh said: “In that case they may not hit us.”
“Maybe,” said Bloch. “Keep down.”
Antis said: “Why don’t you creep out of here and attack them? If you got among them with that weapon you could slaughter them.”
Rogue Queen Page 11