The Forever Hero (84 page)

Letting the heat build within him, he held back, knowing he was treading the thin edge of sanity. He raked her pale body again with his eyes.

As he stepped back toward her, she scuttled backward toward the top of the pallet.

Like a laser, he was on her. Pinned her hands over her head, forced her legs apart in a single rough body movement. Drove deep into her, ignoring the single scream that was a sob, shriek, and cry.

Ignored the small voices in his mind, and let himself be devilkid, again, if only for a few fleeting moments. Let himself forget the iron discipline of the commodore and the wisher of great wishes. Let him
self pay her back for all those who had used him, for all those he had let use him.

His own payment would only last forever…and he drove into her to forget the long past and longer future.

The jays broke off their chattering.

Gerswin stood in the target yard and balanced the heavy knife in his hand, listening for the sounds he half expected, half feared.

He paused, ears alert for the slightest indication of the hunters, trying to hold back the memories, to concentrate on the moment at hand, to let the old training and instincts take over.

Abruptly he slid the knife back into its hidden sheath. After checking the sling leathers and his pouch of smooth slingstones, he let his trained feet carry him from the shaded and walled target yard into the trees, off the few paths and toward the possible routes his attackers would take from the town.

He doubted if any knew the way, or that Lostwin's many times removed granddaughter would have been fool enough to give exact directions.

Click
.

Faint…the sound came from his distant right.

Gerswin eased from tree to tree, taking advantage of the few winter bushes and patches of sparse undergrowth that were scattered beneath the old spruces.

Old spruces they seemed, yet none was as old as he.

As he moved cross-hill to position himself behind the group of towners, he counted as he went. Eight. Just eight, and none were crafters or woodsmen.

Gerswin smiled faintly. Some were still his tacit allies, or feared the old devil of the hills more than they feared the growing strength of the towners.

Gerswin's expression turned bleaker as he began to stalk the rear guard of the party. His fingers brushed over the butt of the ancient, but quite serviceable, stunner he had brought.

The last man looked back, too late to utter a word. Gerswin's
hands flashed—one choking off any outcry, the other leaving the man momentarily disabled.

Thrumm
.

The rear guard had lagged far enough behind and to the right of his nearest companions that the single stunner bolt would not be heard.

Besides, reflected the hunter, not a one of his attackers had ever heard an Imperial weapon. Not in this time, not with the Empire gone from Old Earth.

Gerswin's second target was less than twenty meters from a heavier man Gerswin recognized as Verlint, the husband of the once-haughty lady.

The devilkid twirled the sling.

Swissshhh
.

The slingstone whispered through the spruce bough to the right of Verlint's companion.

Swissshhh
.

Verlint crashed onward in spite of his efforts to step softly. The second man scratched his head and turned toward the soft sound. Gerswin moved.

Thrumm
.

Within minutes, the second man was trussed and laid aside.

Verlint was next—a simple stalk and stun shot, since the five others were on the far side of the shallow ravine.

Thrumm!

Leaving Verlint trussed as well, Gerswin resumed his stalk, forcing himself to move carefully, despite the lack of caution on the part of those ostensibly tracking him.

The next man was a straggler, stunned quickly, and trussed almost as swiftly.

The remaining four moved together, whether from lack of response from their companions, or from nervousness. Less than four meters separated them. Two carried laser rifles, antiques that might work. Or might not, releasing all the energy in their power packs in a single unwanted detonation.

As if a laser were a good forest weapon to begin with.

Sighing silently, Gerswin decided to rely on herd instinct.

Craccckk!

The first slingstone slammed into the tree on the right side of the man farthest from Gerswin. He dived leftward, and began to scuttle toward the others.

“What's that?”

“Rouen? Where are you?”

“Where's Verlint?”

“Quiet!”

Gerswin grinned, melting back toward the other side of the group.

Cracckk!

“Devilkid!”

Cracck, cracckk!

“Down! Get down!”

“Where?”

Craacckk!

All four were huddled within meters of each other, crouching behind two boulders.

Craacckk!

The four edged even closer together, as if under siege.

The once and always devilkid checked the stunner. The power reserve would be more than adequate.

Slipping from spruce to spruce, like a shadow in the late afternoon, he moved to within meters of the quarry.

Thrumm!

“Dynlin!”

Thrumm!

“Get him!”

“How?”

Thrummm!

“Devil…”

Thrummm!

After wiping his forehead, Gerswin waited, listening to see if the forest sounds would resume, if he had missed someone, or if someone else were coming.

In time, a jay chattered once, then again. A squirrel scrabbled down a nearby tree. The hum of the scattered insects began to build.

At last, Gerswin began the tiresome process of lugging the unconscious men to a single clearing, trussing those he had not bound and disarming them all. The weapons he placed behind a stone-topped low hill, out of their line of sight.

Arranging the eight in a double line of four in the middle of the clearing, he sat down on the large stone to wait, letting his thoughts drift where they always seemed to drift. Into the past, into the darkness where he had met Caroljoy, into the Service where he had met
Faith, and Allison, and where he had lost Martin and Corson. Into the shadows.

In time, he glanced up into the spruces overhead, noting the growing shadows, seeing the straight trunks, half hearing the jays, the buzzing of the flies, an occasional scurry of the still-rare chipmunk, and the chitterings of the ubiquitous squirrels.

If his memories were correct, when he had returned to Old Earth the first time as a junior lieutenant, the lands where he now sat had been nothing but wasted red-purple clay, where the cold winds blew summer and winter.

Nodding at the improvement, he glanced back at the figures on the needle-covered ground, then toward the hidden location uphill where his dwelling nestled into its own past.

Not that he could blame the eight men, who had been out to protect what they thought was theirs to protect. All were too young, adults though they were, to understand that no one person could ever own another. Perhaps they were too wrapped in the fragility of their own masculinity to recognize that.

He laughed harshly, suddenly.

“You…of all people…”

He returned his thoughts to the squirrels, comparing the sleek animals that scampered along the branches to the scraggly refugees he recalled from centuries past. Shaking his head, he waited for his restless captives to wake.

“Who…”

Gerswin dropped his introspection, but said nothing. Just watched as the awareness, and the confusion, before him grew with each awakening man.

“Verlint! You here?”

“…old man…you said…”

“How did we…what happened…”

“…get here…”

“…told you…not to get him angry…but you…”

Almost as quickly as the babble of voices had risen, the noise dropped away as each man strained at his bonds to see Gerswin sitting on the low boulder, waiting and saying nothing.

The silence drew out.

“Dirty ambusher!”

“Sneak! Used Imperial weapons!” The outburst came from Verlint.

“Like your laser rifle?” asked Gerswin. “Rather I used my knife?”

There was no answer.

“What should I do?” Gerswin's eyes raked the trussed figures. “If I let you go, just come back. Execute you, and the Council will have to order something. Means I'll have to disappear. Too old for that.”

“…doesn't look that old…,” muttered the man lying next to Verlint.

“You don't fight fair,” stated Verlint.

“Lost that ideal long ago. Fought to survive. Still do.”

“That was then. This is now.”

Gerswin smiled, and his expression chilled the afternoon like sudden night.

“You want a fair fight? Fine. One on one. Any one of you against me. You pick the weapons.”

“No weapons,” rumbled Verlint.

Gerswin shook his head sadly. “If that's the way you want it.”

“You fight him, Verlint. Your problem,” mumbled another trussed figure.

“I'll fight. Not just my problem.”

Gerswin nodded in agreement with Verlint's assessment. A knife appeared in his hand, as if by magic. He was beside Verlint, and the knife flashed. Flashed again, and Gerswin stood back by the boulder as the dark-haired and bearded, heavy-shouldered Verlint freed himself from the just-severed leather thongs that had bound him.

“Wait.”

Although Verlint had already started to move toward Gerswin, he stopped at the light, but penetrating, voice of command.

“You're too stiff. Might take a drink of your water. I'll wait.”

Gerswin sat easily on the stone while the bigger man rubbed his arms, stretched, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Terms?” asked the man with the curly blond hair. “Falls, first blood, broken bones, or death?”

“Blood or bones, whichever comes first. Scratches are not blood.”

“Death!” screeched the thin man at the end of the seven bound figures.

“You're not fighting. Besides, he could have killed us all. He didn't.”

Gerswin stripped off his tunic, folded it, and laid his belt on top of the pile.

He moved toward the level end of the clearing, his back half to Verlint, listening in case the man might lunge for the weapons Gerswin had stacked behind the rock.

Verlint did not, but trailed Gerswin.

“Ready?” asked the heavyset man.

Gerswin nodded, his face impassive, concentrating on what he would have to do.

Verlint did not move, but centered his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to react to Gerswin.

Gerswin sighed, took a deep breath, and edged closer to the dark-haired big man, to whom he had easily spotted twenty centimeters and more than twenty kilos.

“Kill him!” screamed the thin man.

Verlint ignored the scream, as did Gerswin.

The devilkid blurred toward Verlint, who tried to dance aside. With a duck, a swirl, Gerswin slipped inside Verlint's too-slow arms, lifting the man overhead, then hurling him toward the needle-covered ground.

Crack
.

Gerswin had held the bigger man's right arm until the last moment, when the strain snapped the bone.

Verlint did not move for long moments, then, ashen-faced, struggled into a sitting position, cradling the broken right arm with his left.

Gerswin trotted back to the rock, where he pulled his tunic back on and replaced his equipment belt and knives.

Verlint staggered to his feet, but did not leave the clearing where he had been thrown.

“What…are…you…?”

“Am what I am. Born here a long time ago. Die here, I hope, a long time from now.”

The throwing knife appeared in Gerswin's hand, and he knelt by the first trussed figure.

Moving so quickly that there was little reaction, Gerswin severed the thongs holding all seven men before the first had finished stripping the leathers from his hands and feet.

“What do you really want, devil?” demanded the loud, thin man.

“To be left alone. To let anyone visit me who will. That is all I have asked since I returned.”

Verlint nodded, then spoke. “And what if others do not listen?”

“Then I will do what I must.”

All eight men shivered.

“Your weapons are here.” Gerswin gestured toward the rock. “Suggest one man carry them all. Do not expect to see you again.”

He stepped into the trees, sliding sidehill and out of sight before they could react.

He hoped that fear and reason would prevail—that and the hope of the women, the women who would come to be the leaders.

He smiled, wondering if the daughters could escape the sins of the father, fearing they might.

Fearing they might.