What would then ensue we could only guess.
There were those of the Foundation who suggested ominously that since the nature of the forces in opposition were at best obscure, then the threat might extend beyond Camelot —to the very Galaxy itself.
During the interim of Rawl’s preparing the four dottles for flight, a guard had detached himself from the main group and stalked across the great hall in the direction of the princess. The situation, thereby, grew slightly more difficult.
One would suggest, perhaps, that I simply switch the ion-laser at my belt to full power and destroy them all. That would have been the easy way. But it was taboo. It was also impossible. I could neither do it, use others to do it, nor even suggest that it be done. This, too, was a part of the preconditioning process—built-in limitations to the use of any and all equipment I carried. The final limitation, to keep me completely in line, was blackout. Before my hand ever could touch a stone for death or sentient destruction, I myself would be made instantly immobile; protection for the natural development of Camelot and, indeed, the evolutionary process of life on any intervened planet. Needless to say, I was both aware of these limitations, and in complete agreement as to the need for them. In effect, the Foundation would spawn no proconsuls. …
Rawl had moved close to me; he stood peering into the double fireglow and breathing hard on my cheek.
“Take care,” I cautioned. “We’ll make our move now. You will follow at a distance of thirty paces. What must be done, I will do. If I fail, you will proceed on your own. If I succeed, but am wounded unto death, you will do me the kindness of killing me. You will then flee with the princess Nigaard. Do you understand?” I looked him squarely in the eye.
My bravado was overwhelming. Despite his warrior’s background, I was willing to bet he had never heard anything as unequivocal and as carefree as that. He gulped, stared in awe, and just nodded dumbly. I knew then by his acquiescence and the light in his eyes that if I succeeded I would have a follower and a friend for life.
I smiled boldly and held up a casual hand. “Good,” I said. “Remember! Thirty paces.”
Then I strolled out over the earthen floor as if I were the very owner of Castle-Gortfin. I walked with such absolute assurance that even when I was but twenty feet from the two guards, their gaze was simply curious, without concern. I came on quickly, noting from a corner of my eye that the princess, too, was awake. She stared at me, I might add, with a curiosity to equal that of the guards. Then she recognized me, and her interest turned to heart-warming concern.
The guards were huge and heavily muscled. One of them, the man seated on the floor, looked Neanderthal—to borrow an adjective from Earth. He had a great prognathous jaw and beetle brows. His features were grotesque. I assumed he was one of the Yorns of which Rawl spoke. I was seeing one for the first time, since I had spotted none through my scanning of the lands of Om.
They continued, curious, absolutely unaware that I brought them their death.
It was quite simple. My reflexes and my superior strength were more than adequate. The newly arrived guard had time only to ask, “Who are you?” before I chopped him a lightning blow to the throat which crushed his larynx. I simultaneously dropped to one knee, snatched the naked sword from the hulking Yorn, and plunged it through his body so that it stuck out a forearm’s length beyond the muscles of his shoulders. Then, without pause, I withdrew the blade, stood up, and whirled it once to catch the first man. His face was already blue, though he still fought for air and fumbled desperately for his sword. He needn’t have bothered. I did him a service, actually. I brought the steel solidly down upon his helmet, cleaving both head and helmet to the shoulders—and this with one hand. …
Rawl had kept his thirty paces to my rear, though at the instant of action he had increased his speed. By the time he had reached my side I had stripped the guard’s quivering carcass of his gear. I tossed it to my young companion. “Your sword, sir, as I promised,” I shouted, simultaneously reaching for the Xear of the Yorn—the belt, the fal-dirk, and the sheath of the sword that I already held… . “See quickly to the dame Malion now,” I said. I moved toward the princess. “We will carry them both.” He was looking at me in awe. But this was no time to bask in the aura of hero-worship. “Quick, man,” I shouted, “or our luck will have availed us naught.”
Across the hall at a distance of some three hundred feet, the singing and the brawling had stopped. Silence filled the vacuum. Those standing, sitting, even those on the floor still capable of movement were looking in our direction. There were at least a hundred men-at-arms, with half again as many house-servants and handlers of the castle. But there were no liveried knights.
I looked to the princess. Her blue-purple eyes stared boldly back at me. t said, “Come, my princess, yon group of oafs will not stand idle long. We’re for the night and away from here, the four of us.”
As she arose, I noted her size for the first time. By Earth standards she was about five feet two. She weighed, perhaps, a hundred and five pounds. She was without her furred cloak, though she hastily snatched it up. She wore a sort of velvet ski suit—shimmering purple-gold—with soft leather fur-topped boots that reached to just below her knees. Dark fur trimmed the neck of the suit so that her own, quite golden fur stood out in bright contrast.
Rawl had tossed the aged dame Malion to his shoulder. He was already moving, running, with giant steps toward the stalls. I thought to do likewise. I bowed to the princess. “My lady,” I said. “I offer you my arm and my shoulder. In that way we will move much faster.” My right hand still clutched the naked, bloodied sword.
She barely had time to ask, “What manner of man are you, Harl Lenti?” before I scooped her up and over my left shoulder with my free arm.
“Not just a man, my lady,” I said, moving quickly toward Rawl and the stalls. “Consider me your knight.”
“It may be that you presume too much, sir. And it may be, too, that you are not a man at all.” Her voice came jerkily from over my shoulder, edged, I thought, with a slight note of anger at her helpless and rather undignified position.
I ignored her remark. There was no time to talk. Besides, though dire peril threatened—since behind us a hue and cry and the first sounds of pursuit were clearly audible—I was most content with the perfumed warmth of her slight body so close to my cheek … so warmly clasped against my chest.
The dottles were out of their stalls and ready.
The dame Malion was perched upon the wooden saddle of one, looking slightly dazed. Rawl Fergis straddled the great bulk of a second, holding the reins of two more. He controlled his dottle with his knees.
The ensuing action encompassed only seconds. I placed my disheveled princess in one of the saddles and gave a mighty slap to the rumps of the princess’s and Dame Malion’s steeds. Then I leaped aboard the fourth dottle. Rawl, who had ridden back perhaps ten paces to face the oncoming horde, was whirling his broadsword above his head in a shimmering, challenging arc, and yelling the equivalent of “Go! Go! Go!” Then he turned sharply, came up behind me, and gave my dottle the same thumping whack I had given the others, so that the four of us streamed out into the rain and darkness in one seemingly liquid current of dottles and riders.
A final surprise was that Rawl had thought to free most of the remaining dottles so that they followed after. There were some eighteen of them in one large pounding herd.
Looking back through the herd and beyond Rawl to the great entrance. I saw a screaming horde of mixed Yorns and-humans. They brandished swords, axes, pikes, and whatever weapons had come to hand. I wondered if, since they were on the side of dark magic, they, too, would be afraid of the night’s darkness. They were. For with or without dottles, none ventured forth beyond the great hall’s entrance. … A small voice told me, however, that this observation need not be wholly true.
Exactly how Camelot’s magic worked, I didn’t know. I therefore wished to put as much distance between ourselves a
nd the sorcery of Elioseen’s Castle-Gortfin as I possibly could. After all, if she had managed to transfer the four of us the two hundred miles from Glagmaron by “witchcraft,” what was to prevent her from doing it again?
On we went. The road was a facsimile of the cart path of the day before—as were all roads in Camelot. Great crags of dripping black stone loomed beyond the expanse of bowered trees on either side, all visible in the myriad flashes of blue lightning. The path led downward, a slow descent from Gortfin. We rode on, pressing silently through the rain and the lightning. A keening wind began to blow, and to howl then like all the banshees of Earth’s Hell.
After many hours the road began to rise again. Wearily we followed it until, in the faint pearling of what seemed the coming dawn, we arrived at the apex of a great crest or pass.
We halted then to survey each other and to look back across the thirty miles we had ridden to the shadowy bulk of far Gortfin. It was as I had seen it in the scanners, huge, darkly beautiful—and darkly ominous: no pun intended.
The herd of dottles gathered around as would the dogs of a pack as indeed other than the fact that they were herbivorous, they actually were. We sat our mounts in the herd’s center and looked at each other.
The princess, observing me, laughed aloud and said, “You are now a most sorry-looking knight, my lord. I would that I had comb and brush to take to you. And you, my sweet cousin”—she turned to Rawl—”look hardly the better.”
Rawl grinned. He, too, had the flashing blue-purple eyes, though his fur was a saffron orange. “No better at all, my lady. But,” he admonished us all, “we are in full view here. So let us away, at least beyond the height of this pass.”
“My lady.” I said, “I agree with your good cousin. Let us leave this place where all can see us.” I forged ahead in the act of talking, leading the others at a slower pace down the far slope. “We must rest, too,” I continued. The princess and Rawl rode on either side of me now. “Full daylight is soon here and they could be upon us by midmorning.”
“Rest our steeds, sirrah? You certainly are no rider, for we now have all of these to choose from.” The princess smiled at me curiously and indicated our pack of dottles who, by their friendly blue eyes and constant gentle pushing for attention, seemed forever fresh. “Even our good dame Malion has not complained, sir.”
She was right. The fact that I was tired and they were not reminded me that strength and stamina are two widely separate things. The dame Malion had come through the ordeal undaunted, I saw her now as something of steel and leather— as were they all.
“Good,” I said. “But after we move some small distance, I shall rest. For if the dottles are tireless, madam, I am not.”
Murie Nigaard lowered her pretty head. “Well then, indeed,” she murmured as we rode on, “you are human after all.”
A bilious sun tried hard. It peeked through various shifting holes in the low, scudding cloud mass; to no avail. The total effect was nondescript gray. Despite the missing sun—since it was summer on Camelot—it was still quite warm.
We presented a most peaceful tableau. The four of us half reclined on great flat stones some two hundred yards off the road. It was the only dry spot in the whole area of dripping flora and rain-soaked soil. It was also somewhat hidden from the highway. Our dottles peacefully browsed, glancing at us from time to time to see that we had not gone off without them… . they had a security problem.
All wooden saddles on Camelot, so I found, are kept stocked with important sundries such as flint and steel, needle and thread, honing stone, salt, fishhooks, arrowheads, and a jerked meat that tastes like sundried leather. At the moment, to all of us, it tasted like anything we chose to imagine. We chewed it with gusto.
Seated unassumingly close to the princess while we ate, I engaged her in small talk about the toughness of the meat, the duration and intensity of the rain, the whereabouts of the missing maid, the bettle-browed knight, and the fat-fannied Pug-Boo. From time to time, Rawl glanced angrily at the road as if spoiling for a fight.
I said finally, “My limited knowledge tells me, my princess, that we still have far to go. We are as many as three days from your father’s castle.”
“That is true,” she said. “I have been on this road in pleasanter days. But with our many dottles, we should make it in two. Now tell me more of yourself, sir. For I would fain have knowledge of you when we inform my lord of your protection.”
I rolled to my belly. I had taken off my wet shirt, as had Rawl and the princess, and even now they were spread to dry on the body heat of the first three mounts. Only the dame Malion had chosen not to do this, though the princess’s delectable upper half gave no indication of a general coyness in the displaying of parts.
“My lady,” I said, and I let a gentle ripple run up my back muscles to fix her attention, “I am who I said I am; which is indeed not much in one way, but could be much in others since there are things about myself of which even I am unaware.”
This last was a deliberate ploy designed to titillate their imaginations in case I needed an explanation for a lack of memory regarding things I knew nothing about, or to explain, perhaps, any other unorthodox potentials I might have to display. “I confess to both you, my lady, and to you, my lord Rawl,” I continued, “that I have been much out of the world. So rather than discuss my dull self, I would much prefer a telling to me of all that happens now in our great land of Marack. I have heard, for instance, of much war on our borders, and of war beyond that; and on the high seas, too, from the marauders of Kerch and Seligal. Why, my princess, if there is so much unrest in the world, inclusive of the land of Marack, do you feel so free to travel upon the highway?”
“My journey was for but a few miles only, sirrah! And though it was already afternoon, we had but five more to go. Other than the witch and sorceress, the lady Elioseen, ruler of Dunging in Marack—about which the lord, my father, will soon have something to say—no part of our kingdom is invaded or taken. Nor actually are we at war. Therefore, my lord, we felt it not strange at all to travel upon our personal highway.”
“If we are not invaded,” I asked, “how account then for the presence of Yorns? Are those beast-men not of the forces of distant Om and her vassals?”
“They are indeed.” Rawl muttered. “I have fought them in the far lands where I served my apprenticeship but one year ago … but never have I seen one across the river-sea, let alone in our sweet land.”
“Yet there have been rumors,” Murie Nigaard said.
“All too many,” Rawl agreed. “And a country grows not strong on rumors.”
“What are these rumors?” I asked softly, and with the proper tone of harmless curiosity.
“That Om masses its forces; that many of the kingdoms to the south and west are, in fear, making peace with the hordes of Om and its ruler, the dark one, the Kaleen; that those who even now fight among themselves, as is our tradition, do so at the hidden instigation of Om; and that black sorcery moves upon us and all that is good in the world of Fregis. … I would say, Sir Harl,” he finished bluntly, “that this last be not rumor, since we ourselves have been its victims.”
“They are not rumors, great sir,” came the high voice of Dame Malion. “We of Marack, greatest of the countries to the north of the river-sea, are too prone to make light of danger, as is our wont. This time, however, the clouds gather quickly.nAnd it may be that our world will not survive. We belittle that which is true. And we deny, even to ourselves, that which is fact.”
“But what is other than cloud and rumor?” I asked. “What is fact?”
“Kelb and Great Ortmund have already made their peace,” Rawl said bitterly. “And it was in those lands, guarding the roads from the river-sea, in which I earned my spurs last year. Now they are at peace with Om, which accounts, perhaps, for the Yorns and other dark soldiery who may, even now, be garrisoning the fair ports of those great lands.”
“As for other things that have not been before, th
e lands of Ferlach and Cheese are in bloody war with each other—as is traditional—but while fighting simultaneously with the first columns of Om upon their borders. One rumor has it that sorcery caused blindness to knights and men-at-arms alike who guarded a pass from the river-sea in Gheese, so that now Om sits astride that pass and gazes down into the fairest valleys in Gheese—and bides its time.”
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