I admit I did less than charge headlong. I didn’t completely trust the Old Witch’s magic. And the bloodmaster looked like he was less than incapacitated.
It was gruesome work, work in which I take no pride even though it was them we slaughtered and threw behind us so the grolls could hammer their heads to pulp. We didn’t get through it easily, either, for even in their two minutes of madness, they knew they were being attacked. I picked up a dozen shallow claw gashes that would require careful attention later. Morley nearly got his throat ripped out because, out of some weird nobility, he tried to leave the bloodmaster for me.
Groll clubs hammered that old monster’s skull, and not a second too soon. Dojango was yelling about goings-on in the big cavern, where the crowd had decided to get involved after all. Morley was busy trying to get his prisoner sewed up. I yelled at the grolls to turn around, then threw Kayean and her guy out of the way so they wouldn’t get stomped. Doris chucked Dojango back, started stabbing with his club, driving the bloodslaves back.
I heard a sharp whine, turned.
Morley was pulling a unicorn’s horn out of Clement’s chest.
I snarled, “That wasn’t necessary.” I glanced at Kayean, wondering if she was going to go now. She sank down beside Clement and held his hand again. I faced the hole, shucked my pack, and pitched a few fire bombs past the grolls. That drove the bloodslaves back.
“Let’s go!” I ordered. I glanced back. Morley was on his way, dragging his prisoner. Kayean was rising reluctantly, her face as cool as the death she’d nearly become. But Dojango . . .
“Damn you, Dojango, what the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, Garrett. You know what a genuine blood-master’s bloodstone is worth? Look at this sucker. It must be three or four thousand years old.”
Three or four thousand years. For that long the monster had preyed upon humanity. I hoped they had a special place for him where they stoked the fires especially hot.
I dove through the hole behind the grolls and scattered the rest of my fire bombs and arced a couple of flares into the crowd. The screaming picked up again. I dropped to one knee, wooden sword ready, while the grolls flailed around with unprecedented fury.
A hand dropped onto my shoulder. I glanced up into sad, gentle, possibly forgiving eyes.
Morley plopped pack and prisoner on the other side of me and started flinging his bombs. I heard Dojango’s crossbow thunk. Morley asked, “What the hell did you do in there, Garrett?”
“Later.”
“I know sorcery when I smell it. What else do you have up your sleeve?”
“Let’s free the prisoners and start hiking.” The denizens of the pit had faded back, but they were gathering before the steps of the tunnel to the world. They had not given up. If they stopped us, their way of life would remain secure. They could wait until one of their born-to-the-blood children was old enough and tough enough to make himself bloodmaster.
An arrow arced down out of the gloom and thunked into Marsha’s shoulder. Someone had gotten to the gear we had left at the entrance to the cavern. What was merely a nuisance to a hide-thick groll could be lethal to the rest of us.
“Move it!” I snarled. “Your meat up top, Dojango.” Rose and Tinnie howled like an alley full of cat fights. We pushed over to the cages. Most of the captives were as colorless as their captors. The night people didn’t drain them quickly, like a spider. Most were too far gone to realize what was happening. I was surprised they were even alive. As somebody had said, the Cantard had been too quiet for the hunting to be good. “Hello, Saucerhead.” I ignored the women’s cage. “Are you going to be as stubborn as usual? I don’t want to leave you here.”
Give it to Saucerhead. Not much brains but plenty of spunk. He worked up a grin. “No problem, Garrett. I’m unemployed. I got fired on account of I couldn’t keep us from getting into this fix.”
He had enough wounds to show he’d damned well tried. He was blue with the cold, the arctic chill I’d hardly noticed in my frenzy to get in and get out.
“You’re free to take a job, then. Consider yourself on retainer.”
“You got it, Garrett.”
“How about you, Vasco? Still think you can get rich by stopping me? Look here. This is Denny’s girl. How much longer you figure she would have been good? A year? Maybe. If you were lucky. All your buddies died for nothing.”
“Don’t preach at me, Garrett. Don’t push. Just get me out of here. I’ll bury my own dead.” His teeth chattered.
“How about you, Spiney?”
“I never had any quarrel with you, Garrett. I got none now.”
“Good enough.” There were two Karentine soldiers in with them. They were the worse for wear, too. I didn’t think it worth my time to ask if they would give me any grief.
Meantime, Morley chatted up the ladies. They were in a separate cage. Rose was ready to deliver the moon if we would just get her out.Me was the word I heard, notus. Lovable, thoughtful, family-oriented Rose. Tinnie behaved with as much decorum as the circumstances allowed. I decided to give her a closer look if we ever got out of there.
“Think we ought to turn them loose?” Morley asked.
“Up to you. They might slow us down.”
It takes longer to tell than it took to happen. Even so, Dojango decided he’d had enough. “You guys quit jacking around or my brothers and I walk without you.” He had the bloodstone and several unicorn horns, and though he was feeling wealthy, he was also worried about living to enjoy his gains.
His crossbow thunked. An instant later an arrow hissed overhead.
“He’s got a point, Morley.”
Morley spoke to the grolls. They opened all the cages with a few well-placed club strokes. Over Dojango’s protests, Morley and I passed out unicorn horns. The grolls tossed our last few flares onto the steps and we headed for freedom.
48
Freedom was a coy bitch.
Our first charge looked like it would carry through. But they swarmed, threw everything at us, utterly determined to keep the secret of the nest. And I mean threw everything: filth, bones, rocks, themselves. And some were almost as tough as their masters. We lost every one of the older prisoners who had tagged along. They were unarmed and as slow as men in a syrup bath.
One of the soldiers fell. Vasco took a wound but managed to keep his feet. I collected another assortment of scratches. Saucerhead went down and had trouble getting up. When Doris grabbed him and started carrying him, the monsters swarmed all over him. I thought he was a goner for sure. When I saw he was still alive, I had to overcome self-disgust for momentarily wishing he’d died so we wouldn’t have to drag him out.
Then the night people fell back and were silent. I wondered why, noting there were only about thirty of them left willing to fight. Then I noticed that the last two flares were about to die.
In moments they would have us in their element: darkness.
Time, then, for another one from up my sleeve. One I had expected to have to use earlier than this. “Everybody get in close, here. Leave something sharp-pointed out, face uphill, and close your eyes.”
There were those who wanted to ask questions and those who wanted to argue. I lied, “Those who don’t do what I say are going to end up blind.”
Morley snapped orders in grollish. The triplets did what I wanted. That damned Doris was up and lugging Saucerhead again.
The last flare died.
Rustle and scrape as the night people began moving.
This one was actually in my boot, not up my sleeve. I said, “Close your eyes!” and ripped the paper open.
A blast of sulfurous air overrode the stench of the cavern. Light slammed through my eyelids. Night people shrieked. I counted to ten slowly. “Eyes open. Let’s move.” The enveloping light had waned to a tolerable glare. The Old Witch had said it was good for several hours. The light was much like that of the sun. The night people found it excruciating. If they didn’t get out of it quickly, it would
destroy what served them as sanity.
We went up the steps. I ripped rags off a fallen bloodslave, threw them over Kayean to shield her from the light. She was already in pain. Morley and Dojango wanted to stop and play with the bows we had left.
“Get out while you can!” I snarled. “Our luck has been too damned fantastic already. Let’s not push it.”
Marsha grabbed Dojango and started dragging. Everybody else started hiking. When he saw he would have to play alone, Morley grabbed his booty and joined the retreat.
There was no respite. The tunnel was one place the night people could escape the light. And once free of its maddening influence they became rabid, terrible enemies again.
Nevertheless, we outran them to the mouth of the world.
49
“What the hell is this stuff?” Morley growled as we struggled through the webbing or netting or wire that had materialized in the mouth of the cave during our time below.
“How the hell should I know? Just get through it.” I was fussing over Kayean. She hadn’t spoken a word yet. But she was whining like a baby. At first I thought it was fear of going out into a world she hadn’t seen in years. Then I realized it was because the tangle we were in was wire and the metal’s touch hurt.
Who put it there?
My money was on Zeck Zack. But where had he gotten the wire? And what did its presence mean to us?
We broke out. It was broiling, summer hot out there.
“Midnight,” Morley groaned. “We were down there longer than I thought.”
“Keep moving. Lots to do yet.”
We were halfway down to the desert floor when the screaming started behind us. There was pain in it, but it was mostly frustration and rage.
Dojango gasped. “They say those things can recover from almost anything. You think any of the masters will come around?”
I told the truth. “I don’t know. We’ll tell the army first chance we get.”
We hustled across to our camp. There was a three-quarter moon, so the going was quick, though Kayean kept whimpering at the brightness. So did Morley’s prisoners. As we climbed to our camp, Dotes said, “We’ll have to pack them in moist earth and wrap them up good to protect them from the sun.”
“We have to do some talking, too.”
“I suppose so.”
“What happened to the major? Tinnie, do you know?”
She was sticking as close to me as Kayean was. “The one who arrested us? I don’t know. I guess he got killed when the vampires attacked.”
“Vasco. Did you see what happened to him?”
“I was too busy.”
“Anybody?”
Rose said, “I thought I saw them carry him away. But maybe I was wrong. He wasn’t in the cages when you showed up.”
“Maybe they ate him,” Dojango suggested.
“We have the right number of bodies,” Morley said. Then he gave me a sudden, odd look, as though he suspected me of knowing something I hadn’t shared.
I did, but I hadn’t shared it only because it had hit me just minutes before. I whispered, “That name that kept turning up on those have-you-heard-of lists. The one I’d heard but couldn’t remember? I remembered.”
“And?”
“A legendary Venageti agent. Supposedly a shape-shifter. Also supposedly caught and killed. But if he was, why are some folks—with Venageti connections—so interested in him?”
“I don’t know and I don’t think I want to know. All I’m interested in now is moving myself from this godforsaken here to there where I can sit down to my first healthy meal in a month. But I suppose we have to protect ourselves. You think we rescued him?”
“There’s a chance.”
“Which one?”
“Take your pick.”
“Not the women?”
“No. One would know the other had changed. I’d vote for someone about his size.”
“Always assuming he’s still with us.”
“Always assuming that.”
We were pleasantly surprised to find our camp as we had left it, unplundered and the horses uneaten and patiently waiting. Morley sent Marsha off for a load of moist earth. He assumed the job of sentinel. The rest of us doctored one another. When I was satisfied that I wouldn’t succumb to the disease through my wounds, I hunted for Dotes. He was perched on a boulder contemplating the desert between our camp and the mesa. He said, “You haven’t said a word to her.”
“I’ll talk to her when she wants to talk. For now I’m satisfied with her letting me bring her out after what you did to Clement. It’s time you explained the latest moves in Morley’s Game.”
“I suppose. Otherwise you’ll badger me incessantly. You knew that six years ago the kingpin’s number one walked with half his plunder.”
“Old news. I also heard that he and his brother ran off to Full Harbor.”
“It took them a couple of years to find that out. The kingpin sent some men down. They must have stirred things up the same way we did. Something happened to them. They only got one report back. It said Valentine wasn’t in Full Harbor anymore, and that after a fast romance, his brother had married a local girl named Kronk. She had gone off with her husband when he followed his brother wherever.”
“Then you knew all along who she married.”
“Yeah. But telling you wouldn’t have helped you find her. His trail was already covered.”
I controlled my anger. “So the kingpin sent you down here.”
“Not exactly. I volunteered. When you asked me to join up with you, it was like the answer to a virgin’s prayer. An honest-to-god miracle. The kingpin was ready to list my name with those sleeping among the fishes. It was an out. I went and told him the story and said I would get Valentine if we could call it even. He bought it. He wants Valentine a lot worse than he ever wanted me. So I went ahead and hooked up with you, betting the longest odds I ever played, hoping you could find the woman and she would have lasted longer with Clement than she did with you or your buddy.”
For a while we stared at the desert. Shapes moved there, but none came our way. They didn’t have the fully developed senses of their masters. Finally, Morley started talking again.
“I didn’t have the foggiest where it was going till we walked into that place of Zeck Zack’s and found those vampires waiting. Then it clicked. The evidence was there all along. I knew Valentine back when. He was dying a slow death and he had no more conscience than a shark. For him it was the logical way to dodge death. He probably took the money in case he needed to buy his way in. Knowing him, he probably figured on being bloodmaster within fifty years.”
“So. The loose ends begin to come together. But there’s still one big one hanging out. Who were the people on that ship with the striped sail? What were they doing? Why were they interested in us?”
I had an idea and I thought Morley’s confessions lent it strong circumstantial support. But I meant to reserve that. It might prove useful. I wasn’t convinced that those people were out of the game.
“Why take Valentine back?” I asked.
“For the kingpin’s peace of mind. And mine. I don’t want him doubting for a minute.”
I glanced out at the desert. “What are they doing?” Those who had come out of the nest behind us were scampering around like blind mice.
“I don’t know. But I’ll give you another loose end. Zeck Zack.”
“Not much we can do about him.”
“I should have cut his throat.’”
“And you criticize me for what red meat does to me?”
“Marsha’s back. Let’s pack our prizes.”
“What are we going to feed them?”
“Let them get hungry. They’ll eat what we give them.” He dropped off his boulder. “Where do we go now?”
“Back to Full Harbor. Take a peek through the centaur’s tunnel. See how much excitement there is about us. I hate to leave our stuff if we don’t have to. Buying new would stretch the budget too
far.”
“That innkeeper probably sold everything already.”
“We’ll see. Keep a watch on our friends. Just in case the major is with us.” I had a couple tricks up my sleeve yet, one of which would probably give me the major, but I didn’t want to use them if I didn’t have to. Magics of the sort I had gotten from the Old Witch were too precious to squander.
We packed our prizes, as Morley dubbed them, in the earth Marsha brought, wet them down, bundled them up, and loaded them on the wagon. Tired though we were, I wanted to be traveling with first light.
Before I folded my blanket over Kayean’s face, she met my gaze directly for the first time and rewarded me with a feeble smile.
The nineteen-year-old Marine was still alive. He could be touched.
50
Vasco and Saucerhead also went into the wagon, with a moderately carved-up soldier on the driver’s seat. Doris insisted he was capable of helping Marsha pull. Fine. Let him if he wanted. Let him bleed to death. I wasn’t his mother.
Mrs. Garrett taught her boys never to argue with grolls.
We put the women on horseback. Everyone else would walk, like it or not.
We were ready to head out when Morley summoned me to his boulder. “Bring the spyglass.”
When I got there I heard it. It came from the direction of the cave. I trained the glass. There was barely enough light. “The ones who came out can’t get back inside.”
“Oh, my. Isn’t that sad.” Then he muttered something else, and pointed.
“Oh, my twice or thrice,” I said. “I guess this means we slip out the back door.”
“Yep. Papa’s coming home. Jodie goes out the window and keeps moving fast. It won’t take him long to figure we got out again.”
I could hear them now as well as see them. “I never saw so many in one mob before. He must have rounded up his whole tribe.” I guessed there were at least five hundred centaurs. Their advance was a movement of precision to be envied by any cavalry commander. They changed directions and formations as easily and quickly as a flock of birds, and with no more apparent signaling.