Castle Kidnapped (11 page)

“No, not Trent,” he decided.

He resumed his stance and the incantation.

The globe grew milky. Motile shadows writhed within it, and fuzzy images flew hither and yon.

A face appeared; less a face than a contorted mask of pain, a horrific caricature of a face he knew.

“Ferne!” he called, dismayed.

The answer was a moan. Flecks of bloody foam dribbled from the lips.

“Ferne!” This time he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Ferne, where are you?"

The face of his sister changed. The eyes opened, a glimmer of desperate hope in them.

“Who ...?"

“Incarnadine, your brother. Where are you, Ferne? Tell me! Who has done this to you?"

Her face tightened again, the eyes became tiny wrinkled slits. She screamed hideously.

He shouted her name again, beads of sweat appearing on his brow.

“In the name of the gods, Ferne, speak to me! Tell me where you are!"

She spoke in Haplan, the traditional tongue of the Haplodites; her milk tongue, and Incarnadine's. “In Hell. In deepest ... darkest ... Hell.” She screamed again.

“They're hurting me. Inky.” Her voice was like a child's. “Tell them to stop."

“Steady on, woman. I will come and help thee."

“Please.” The voice was a rasp. “Help me."

“I swear on my life. The gods strike me dead an I fail thee."

There was a long, ragged breath, then coughing.

This now in English: “Hurry, Inky dear. Hurry."

The globe grew milky again, and the image faded. Soon the crystal cleared.

He lowered his arms. He staggered to an easy chair and collapsed into it.

He was a long time recovering. When he had composed himself, he got up and moved purposefully toward the door of the study, but stopped in midstride. He turned, pondered, then made a motion toward the bank of instruments, but again came to a halt.

What to do?

So many things. He needed help. Trent, it seems, had problems of his own. But Trent would have to fend for himself. There was no time for him, at least for now.

Who, then? Deems was gone, poor, dear, dead brother. Victim of his own venality.

Dorcas? A good heart, but not much talent. As for the other relatives...

No, he must avail himself of the resources of the castle, human and otherwise. But who—?

He had the answer. He would be taking a risk in relying on one so young and inexperienced, but raw talent was the requirement here....

At that moment the quaking began. He looked off, sensing, judging the magnitude of the disturbance. The effects were minimized here, protective spells shielding this section of the castle. He checked his guesses on the banks of measuring instruments.

When it had passed, he nodded his head.

“On schedule. I wonder if they know they're bound to destroy themselves as well."

He moved toward the door.

“Probably do, the insane bastards."

 

 

 

New Barsoom

 

Across a wide dusty plain, Gene rode for his life.

His mount was a
voort
(which Gene privately called a “thoat"), a six-legged cross between a camel and a knock-kneed llama. The sun was high and hot, but hotter still were Gene's pursuers, mounted ape-men bestride huge beasts that resembled Brahma bulls. They were riding hell-bent for leather and closing fast.

Gene called them ape-men, but didn't really know what animal stock they had been created from. They were likely some hybrid breed. Humanoid, exorbitantly muscular, their skin color a cadaverous blue, the
hrunt
were real mean sorts. The Umoi had created them for heavy labor, reserving the yalim for domestic and other semiskilled tasks.

The ape-men's mounts were generally faster than voort though not as surefooted in hilly country. But these were the lowlands, hruntan lands.

Gene skirted a shallow depression, then came upon another one, this one wider, which he thought better to cut across than ride around. The hrunt disagreed, and, as it turned out, made the wiser decision. Slowed by rough ground, Gene's mount scrambled out of the depression a bare six lengths ahead of the pursuit, its six spindly legs working in a complicated cadence, producing a rocking, seasickly gait.

A lance whistled by Gene's ear. Legs tightening around the saddle's girth, Gene took an arrow from his quiver, cocked his bow, pivoted his torso, took aim, and let fly. The arrow went wide of its mark, but the lead hrunt cautiously reined up and eased off the pace.

Gene followed up with another arrow to keep him honest, then turned forward and concentrated on whipping more speed out of the voort. But the beast was simply not built for speed.

Ahead were rocky foothills, leading to stark mountains beyond. Up there a voort would have the advantage, being a surefooted expert on the trails that wound over boulder-strewn slopes. Gene simply had to make it out of flat country and into the hills.

But that was the problem. He wouldn't make it in time.

Having certainly done a bang-up job of locating the enemy, it could be said that in a certain sense his reconnaissance mission was a success. But he was fairly new to the scouting business and apparently had much to learn about keeping a low profile. Well, live and learn.

If he could live. He hoped there would be future opportunities for learning and growth and all the rest of that good stuff, but prospects weren't exactly rosy at the moment.

Maybe he did have a chance. Hills rose up at either hand and the way narrowed between them. Just another quarter mile or so and he'd be among rocks, and his pursuers' mounts tended to be gall-footed over anything but the packed sand of the plains.

Maybe —

The voort bleated and collapsed under him, sending him flying over its head and into the dirt. Shaken, he was slow getting to his feet, but managed it, sword already drawn. He saw the lance sticking out of the voort's backside. Merely flesh-wounded, the animal struggled to its feet and limped off, bleating piteously.

The hrunt leader, its huge scimitarlike weapon raised, bore down on him. Gene stood his ground until the last second, then leaped away. Another rider followed close behind, and Gene dodged one lance, then a second. He dashed up the rise, making for a stand of boulders halfway up.

The riders dismounted and followed him.

Hrunt were fleet-footed, and Gene, still feeling the effects of the spill, had to turn and make a stand. The leader reached him first.

Up close, the hrunt was ugly as advertised, pinhole eyes, no neck, bulging upper body, and short fat legs. Its long greasy hair was blue black, its lolling tongue a liver brown. The thing snarled at him, wide thin lips curling into some thing resembling a victorious sneer. Then it spat.

Gene dodged the gob of green phlegm.

“Completely lacking in all the social graces, aren't we?” Gene said. “Well, my good man—"

The thing charged. Gene took a swipe at it, backed off, feinted, then lunged. The hrunt fended off the attack, countering with a vicious slash.

Which Gene ducked under, coming up to drive the point of his sword into the hrunt's throat.

The huge blue monster gurgled, thick blue ichor flowing from the gash in its neck. Then it fell over backward and rolled down the steep trail.

Fortunately hrunt were decidedly second-class swordsmen. Not so fortunately there were eight of them coming up the trail. Sometimes quantity counts.

Gene was therefore puzzled to see an arrow materialize in the forehead of the next hrunt. More arrows found their marks, beginning trajectories from the rocks above.

Gene ducked behind a boulder as ambushing yalim archers made quick work of the remaining hrunt. Then the rest of the cohort swarmed down for the mopping up, letting out whooping war cries.

It was short work. Turning his back on the grisly business of head-taking, Gene peered up the hill and saw Yerga, the Captain of the Royal Guard, come out from behind a ridge of sandstone.

Yerga was grinning at him, and Gene didn't like it. The grin was half sneer, half triumphant gloat. There was bad blood between Gene and Yerga, had been from the start. Yerga was the Queen's favorite—had been, that is, until Gene's arrival.

Gene could now see Yerga's stratagem in all its ingenuity. Yerga would have come up a winner on every throw of the dice. Send inexperienced Gene out on patrol. Gene could hardly refuse such a mission. If he gets killed, fine. If he's spotted and followed, again, he'll probably lose his life, and he'll have served his function in flushing out the hruntan raiding party that had been giving the tribe trouble recently. If, as it happened, he turns up in dire need of rescue, that very same raiding party hot on his tail, he'll look silly and lose face, if he doesn't buy the farm that way, too. Check and mate.

Gene could only admire such a well-thought-out screw job. It was hard, though, because now he had to listen to Yerga regaling the cohort with endless jokes at his expense.

Yes, hadn't the Strange New One looked the fool hightailing across the wastes like a frightened
yethna
(small ground-dwelling mammal).

Hoots.

No, it was not usually a good idea to wave greetings to the hrunt and let them know you've come to observe them.

Guffaws.

Yes, it had been very hospitable of Gene to invite the hrunt to midday meal.

Howls!

And so on and so forth. Gene didn't mind it so much, but he didn't like the fast slide down the pecking order that this ragging would doubtless cause. That was the way of this tribe. Lose face once and you might as well pitch your tent in the slit latrine, for all the respect you'd get.

There was a possibility of retrieving the situation, although Gene didn't care for the method. It was harsh medicine. But when he considered the alternative—a loss of face perhaps catastrophic enough to leave only suicide or self-exile (same difference) as the only honorable recourse—he realized he had no choice. He would have to challenge Yerga.

Gene suffered in silence all the way back to Winter Camp, a collection of tents and lean-tos pitched at the foot of a twin-peaked crag. Nearby lay the mouth of a cave, wherein the Queen usually dwelt. The tribe usually summered in sparsely forested mountains off to the east.

The yalim tribes had been nomads for centuries. The plains were dotted with ruins, attesting to many attempts at something better, but no yalim civilization to date had withstood hruntan depredations. Which was a shame, because the yalim were truly capable of civilization.

The yalim wouldn't remain nomads forever, if Gene had anything to say about it. He was determined somehow to precipitate a move into one of the Umoi cities, preferably Zond. What the Umoi had abandoned, their underpeople, the yalim, would inherit. Would, that is, it the yalim could overcome strong taboos about the abodes of the Old Gods. Legend had it that a body could die simply from looking at an Umoi city. Gene had his work cut out for him.

But for now, he faced a harder and much more unpleasant task: dealing with Yerga.

Gene looked up toward the mouth of the Royal Caves—the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting were the only tribe members who lived indoors. No one showed. The High Mistress usually greeted the troops when they returned from battle.

Gene dismounted, tethered his voort, and checked the beast's wounded rump. The thick leathery hide was almost like armor. The lance had barely penetrated muscle underneath. Barring infection, the animal would live.

Had Gene been wearing gauntlets, he would have thrown one or two down, but in this neck of the woods the accepted way of calling a guy out was to rip down his tent. Gene went directly to Yerga's campsite and did this thing.

The whole tribe held its breath. Yerga looked slowly about, then faced Gene and drew his sword, smiling a crooked, evil little smile.

Gene got the distinct feeling that he had walked the rest of the way into Yerga's trap. He wondered now why he had ever thought he could best Yerga in a swordfight. This was not the castle, and the spell that gave Gene his talent was not operative here. But, as was the case with the translation spell, there was some carryover. Even without the spell, Gene had felt evenly matched with Yerga.

Now that there was no turning back, though, he had his doubts.

These things were best done quickly. Gene drew his sword, approached his opponent, and got even more worried. Now Yerga's satisfied smile confirmed Gene's suspicions that it had all been planned this way. But there was no hope of rescue, and no remedy except to turn tail and run. The rover was out in the desert somewhere, pinned under hundred-ton boulders. Zond was powerless to help. He was trapped in a backwater universe, bound by its peculiar laws. He would have to make the best of things, or die trying. Of course, the latter was the more likely possibility.

Yerga sprang at him, and Gene sidestepped a wicked lunge that nicked his rib cage. The crowd ohhed at the sight of first blood.

Not the greatest of beginnings, Gene thought. I've already half-defeated myself.

Gene countered with a series of feints and lunges, but Yerga's masterly parrying left no opportunity. Then Yerga went back to the offensive, and Gene had to dance over an open campfire to get away.

Kicking out a hot coal that had wedged in his sandal, Gene got angry, mostly with himself. He had dug a fine psychological hole for himself, one of his gravest faults, on Earth as well as here. If he was to lose this fight, he was determined not to be defeated by his own self-doubt.

Gene attacked savagely, if not expertly, and sheer momentum drove Yerga back. Soon, though, the captain countered effectively, and broke the brunt of Gene's offensive.

Thereafter it was give-and-take, neither combatant able to gain the upper hand.

Gene wished mightily for magic. It was hard to get used to the notion that there was none here. At least he didn't think there was any. Maybe Sheila could tap whatever unseen forces were available. But this was probably a hard-science universe; and besides, Sheila was worlds away.