The barnlike room, lit by a single spluttering candle, was filled to overflowing with death. Toppled tables and chairs made a ragged jumble into which were mixed the dead and dying. A gray-haired man with an arrow in his chest moaned and stirred; a soldier bent over and severed his throat with a chop of his ax. There were crashes as the building was broken into from the rear by the rest of the nomads who had surrounded it. Escape was impossible.
One man was still alive, still fighting, the man who had stood in the doorway. He was tall and shockheaded, dressed in rough homespun, and he laid about him with an immense quarter-staff. It would have been simple enough to kill him, an arrow would have done it, but the nomads wanted to capture him and had never encountered this simple weapon before. One already sat on the floor, clutching his leg, and a second was disarmed even as Jason watched, his sword clanging into a corner. The lowlander had his back to the wall and was unapproachable from the front.
Jason could do something about this. He looked around swiftly and saw a rack of simple farm implements against the wall. One of these was a long handled shovel that looked as if it would do. He grabbed it in both hands and banged the center down hard against his knee. It bent but did not break. Well-seasoned wood.
“I’ll take him!” Jason shouted running to the fight. He was an instant late because the quarterstaff landed square on the swordsman’s arm, snapping the bones and sending the man’s weapon flying. Jason took his place and swung the shovel at the lowlander’s ankles.
The man quickly spun the end of his staff down to counter the blow, and when the weapons crashed together Jason used the force of impact to reverse his direction of motion, bringing the handle end of the shovel around towards the lowlander’s neck. The man parried this blow in time as well, but in doing so he had to step aside, away from the wall, and this was all that was needed.
Ahankk, who had come in with Jason, swung the flat of his ax against the man’s skull and he dropped, unconscious, to the floor. Jason threw away the shovel and picked up the fallen quarterstaff. It was a good two meters long, made of tough and flexible wood bound about with iron rings.
“What is that?” Temuchin asked. He had watched the end of the brief battle.
“A quarterstaff. A simple but effective weapon.”
“And you know how to use it? You told me you knew nothing about the lowlands.” His face was expressionless as he talked, but there was a glow like an inner fire in his eyes. Jason realized that he had better make the explanation good or he would join the rest of the corpses.
“I still know nothing about the lowlands. But I learned to handle this weapon when I was a child. Everyone in my . . . tribe uses them.” He did not bother to add that the tribe he was talking about was not the Pyrrans, but the agrarian community on Porgorstorsaand, far across the galaxy, where he had grown up. With rigid class and social distinctions the only real weapons were borne by the soldiers and the aristocracy. But you can’t deny a man a stick when he lives in a forest, so quarterstaffs were in common use and at one time Jason had been proficient in the use of this uncomplicated yet decisive weapon.
Temuchin turned away, satisfied for the moment while Jason spun the staff experimentally. It was nicely weighted.
The nomads were efficiently looting the building, which appeared to be a farm of some kind. The livestock were kept under the same roof and all of the animals had been butchered when the soldiers had broken in. When Temuchin said kill, he meant kill. Jason looked at the carnage and would permit himself no change of expression, even when one of the men, looking for booty, turned over a wooden chest. There was a baby behind it, perhaps thrust there at the last minute by one of the women now dead upon the floor, and the soldier skewered it unemotionally with a quick stab of his sword.
“Bind that one and bring him,” Temuchin ordered, brushing the dirt from a piece of cooked meat that had been knocked to the floor in the attack, then taking a bite from it.
Swift, tight turns of leather secured his wrists behind his back, then the prisoner was propped against the wall. When three buckets of water dashed into his face had failed to bring him around, Temuchin heated the tip of his dagger blade in a burning candle and pressed it into the soft flesh of the man’s arm. He moaned and tried to pull away, then opened his eyes which swam blearily with the aftereffects of the blow.
“Do you speak the inbetween tongue?” Temuchin asked. When the man answered something incomprehensible the warlord struck him, carefully, on the purple and enflamed wound made by the earlier blow. The farmer screamed and tried to get away, but still answered in the same unknown language.
“The fool cannot speak,” Temuchin said.
“Let me,” one of his officers said, stepping forward. “What he talks is not unlike the tongue of the hill serpent clan in the far east near the sea.”
Communication was established. With laborious rephrasings and repeatings the message was communicated to the farmer that he would be killed if he did not help them. No promises were made for what would happen if he did help, but the lowlander was not in the best of bargaining positions. He quickly agreed.
“Tell him we wish to go to the place of the soldiers,” Temuchin said, and their prisoner bobbed his head in quick agreement. Understandable. A peasant in a primitive economy has little love for the taxcollecting, oppressing soldiers. He babbled in his hurry to convey information. The translator interpreted his words.
“He says that there are many soldiers there, two hands, perhaps five hands of them. They are armed and the place is strong. They have something else, some kinds of weapons, but I cannot make out what the creature is talking about.”
“Five hands of men,” Temuchin said, smiling and looking out of the corners of his eyes. “I am frightened.”
The nomads nearby hooted with laughter and struck each other on the back, then hurried to tell the others. Jason did not think it a great witticism, but he could find no fault with the men’s morale.
A sudden silence passed over them as two of the soldiers slowly approached, supporting and halfdragging one of their comrades. The man hopped on one leg, fighting to keep the other foot clear of the ground, and when he raised his pain-twisted face to Temuchin, Jason recognized him as the one injured in the battle with the quarterstaff-wielding peasant.
“What has happened?” Temuchin asked, all traces of laughter gone from his voice.
“My leg . . .” the man, a minor chieftain, answered hoarsely.
“Let me see,” the warlord ordered, and the soldier’s boot was quickly cut open.
The man’s knee had been shattered brutally, the kneecap fractured so badly that pieces of white bone had penetrated the skin. Slow trickles of blood seeped from the wound. The soldier must be suffering incredible pain, yet he made no outcry. Jason knew that it would take skilled surgery and bone replacement to enable the man to walk again, and wondered what his fate would be on this barbarian world. He found out quickly.
“You cannot walk, you cannot ride, you cannot be a soldier,” Temuchin said.
“I know that,” the man said, straightening and throwing off the hands of the men who helped him. “But if I am to die I wish to die in combat and be buried with my thumbs. I cannot hold a sword to fight the demons in the underworld if I have no thumbs.”
“That is the way it will be,” Temuchin said, drawing his sword. “You have been a good soldier and a good friend and I wish you success in your battles to come. I will fight you myself since it is an honor to be sent below by a warlord.”
The battle was no ritual, and the wounded man did well despite his injured leg. But Temuchin fought so that the other had to turn toward his wounded side and he could not, so that a quick thrust caught him under the ribs and he died.
“There was another wounded man,” Temuchin said, still holding his bloody sword. The soldier with the broken arm stepped forward, the arm in a sling.
“The arm will get better,” he said. “The skin did not break. I can fight and ride
, though I cannot shoot a bow.”
Temuchin hesitated a moment before he answered. “We need every man that we have. Do those things and you will return with us to the camp. We will ride as soon as this man is buried.” He turned to Jason.
“Ride in front with me,” he ordered, “and do not make any stupid noise.” He apparently did not think much of Jason’s soldiering ability, and Jason did not feel like correcting him. “This place of the soldiers is what we are looking for. The stoat clan has raided this country in the past, but with no more than two or three men at a time since to send more moropes down is dangerous. They avoid the soldiers and attack these farms. But they have fought the soldiers and it is from them that I learned of the gunpowder. They killed one soldier and took his gunpowder, but when I put fire to it, it merely burned. Yet the stoats swear that it blew up, and others have said the same and I do not doubt them. We will capture the gunpowder and you will make it blow up.”
“Take me to it,” Jason said, “and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
They blundered through the forest until well after midnight before their prisoner tearfully admitted that he had lost his way in the darkness. Temuchin beat him until he howled with pain then, reluctantly, ordered the men to rest until morning. The rain had begun again and they sought what comfort they could find under the dripping trees.
Jason had a bad taste in his mouth. It wasn’t the dung-cooked food this time, or the filthy achadh, but the massacre at the farm. Get close to the trees and you don’t see the forest. He had been living with the nomads, living like a nomad, and had become part of their culture. They were interesting people and, since moving to Temuchin’s camp, he had found them a warm and, if not exactly the galaxy’s most humorous people, at least it was possible to get along with them. They were honest in their own way, and respected their own code of laws. They were also cold-blooded murderers and killers. It did not matter that they killed according to their own sets of values. This did not change the situation. Jason could still see the sword thrusting into the infant and he moved uncomfortably on the sodden leaves.
He had been in among the trees and forgotten the forest. He had forgotten that these people had slaughtered the first mining expedition, and would relish nothing better than doing the same to any other off-worlders that they met.
He was a spy in their midst and he was working for their complete downfall.
That was more like it. He could live with himself as long as it was constantly clear that he was just playing a role, not enjoying himself, and that all this masquerading had some purpose. He had to wreck the social structure of these nomads and see to it that the Pyrrans opened their mines in safety.
Alone in the wet night, chilled and depressed, it looked like a very dim possibility. The hell with that. He twisted and attempted to get comfortable and go to sleep, but the images of the massacre kept interfering.
In your own way, Temuchin, you are a great man, he thought. But I am going to have to destroy you. The rain fell, remorselessly.
At first light they moved out again, a silent column through the fog-shrouded forest. The captive peasant chattered his teeth in fear until he recognized a clearing and a path. Smiling and happy now he showed them the correct way. A wad of his clothing was stuffed into his mouth so that he could not give any alarm.
A crackling of broken twigs sounded ahead and there was the sound of voices.
The column stopped with instant silence and a sword was pressed against the prisoner’s neck. Nothing moved. The voices ahead grew louder and two men came around a turning of the trail. They walked two, three paces before they were aware of the motionless, silent forms so close to them in the fog. Before they could act a half dozen arrows snuffed out their lives.
“What are those stick-things they carry?” Temuchin said to Jason.
Jason slid to the ground and turned the nearest corpse over with his boot. The man wore a lightweight, steel breastplate and a steel helm, other than that he was unarmored, dressed in coarse cloth and leather. He had a short sword in his belt and still clutched in his hand what could only have been a primitive musket.
“It is what is called a gun,” Jason said, picking it up. “It uses gunpowder to throw a piece of metal that can kill. The gunpowder and metal are put down this tube here. When this little lever on the bottom is pulled this stone throws a spark down into the gunpowder which blows up and shoots the metal out.”
When Jason looked up he saw that every man within hearing had his bow and arrow aimed at his throat. He put the weapon down carefully and pulled two leather bags from the dead soldier’s belt and looked inside of them. “Just what I thought. Bullets and cloth patches here—and this is gunpowder.” He handed the second bag up to Temuchin who looked into and smelt it.
“There is not very much here.”
“It doesn’t take very much, not for these guns. But there is sure to be a bigger supply in the place where these men came from.”
“That is what I thought,” Temuchin said, and he waved the raiding party on as soon as the arrows had been retrieved and the bodies relieved of their thumbs and rolled aside. He took both muskets himself.
Less than a ten minute ride along the trail brought them to the edge of a clearing, a large meadow that flanked a smoothly flowing river. At the water’s edge stood a squat and solid, stone building with a high tower in its center. Two figures were visible at the top of the tower.
“The prisoner says that this is the place of the soldiers,” the officer who had been translating said.
“Ask him if he knows how many entrances there are,” Temuchin ordered.
“He says that he does not know.”
“Kill him.”
A swift sword thrust eliminated the prisoner and his corpse was dumped into the brush.
“There is only that one small door on this side and the narrow holes through which bows and the gun-things may be fired,” Temuchin said. “I do not like it. I want two men to look at the other sides of this building and tell me what they see. What is that round thing above the wall?” he asked Jason.
“I don’t know—but I can guess. It could be a gun, the same as these only much bigger, that would throw a large piece of metal.”
“I thought so, too,” Temuchin said, and narrowed his eyes in thought. He issued orders to two men who turned and rode back along the trail.
The scouts dismounted and vanished silently into the underbrush. These men, who had learned to conceal themselves in the apparently barren plains, could disappear completely in the wooded cover. With a predator’s patience the warriors, still mounted, waited silently for the scouts to come back.
“It is as I thought,” Temuchin said when they had returned and reported to him. “This place is well made and is built only for fighting. There is one more door, the same size, on the other side by the water. If we wait until nightfall we can take the place easily, but I do not wish to wait. Can you fire this gun?” he asked Jason.
Jason nodded, reluctantly, because he already had a very good idea what Temuchin had in mind. Even before he saw the two men returning with one of the dead soldiers. Everyone fought in Temuchin’s horde, even lute-playing gunpowder experts. Jason tried to think of a way out of this fix, but he could not, so he volunteered before he was drafted. It made no difference at all to Temuchin. He wanted the gate open and Jason was the best man for the job.
By rearranging the soldier’s uniform he managed to conceal the arrow holes and most of the blood, then he rubbed mud over the rest of the bloodstains to disguise them. A fine rain was beginning to fall and this would be a help. While he was putting on the uniform Jason called for the officer who had been translating and had him repeat over and over again the simple phrase “Open—quickly!” in the local tongue, until Jason felt he had it right. Nothing complicated. If they insisted on conversation before they let him in he was good as dead.
“You understand what you are to do?” Temuchin asked.
“Simple
enough. I come up to that gate from downriver, while the rest of you wait at the edge of the forest upriver. I tell them to open up. They open up. I go in and do my best to see that the gate stays open until you and the rest arrive.”
“We will be very quick.”
“I know that, but I’m going to be very alone.” Jason had one of the soldiers hold his helmet over the pan of the musket while Jason blew out the possibly damp gunpowder. He did not want a misfire with his single shot. He shook fresh powder into the pan, then wrapped a piece of leather around to keep it dry. He pointed to the gun.
“This thing will fire only once since I’ll have no time to reload. And I don’t think much of this government-issue short sword. So, if you don’t mind too much, I would like to borrow back my Pyrran knife.”
Temuchin merely nodded and passed it over. Jason threw away the sword and slipped the knife into his belt in its place. The helmet smelled of rank sweat, but it rode low on his head, which was fine. He wanted his face concealed as much as possible.
“Go now,” Temuchin ordered, irritated at the delay the donning of the disguise had caused. Jason smiled coldly and turned and walked away into the woods.
Before he had gone fifty meters he was soaked to the waist by the dense, waterlogged underbrush. This was the least of his troubles. Pushing his way through the sodden forest he wondered how he had become involved in this latest bit of madness. Gunpowder, that was the reason. He cursed loudly and fluently, then peered out at the fortified building, now barely visible through the falling rain. Another twenty meters should do it. He pushed on, then left the shelter of the trees and walked ahead until he reached the river bank. The water swirled by, laden with mud, and the rain spattered onto its surface making an endless series of conjoining rings. He wanted to check the powder in the pan, but knew it was wisest not to. Do it, that’s all, do it. Lowering his head he trudged towards the building, just visible as a dim form through the rain.
Deathworld: The Complete Saga Page 42