CHAPTER X
The pretty daughter of the squire, She gallops down the hill; The blood of gentry pounds so fierce, 'Tis like to make her ill!
Thinks she, I've come to see his death, The man who did me shame! And then she spies him limping there, All stripped and torn and lame....
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
The squire was clad in a sky-blue velvet coat, long and loose with a rowof big silver buttons down the front, a cabbage rose on each flaredlapel, a thick fall of silver lace over an olive-green weskit, limebreeches in white calf boots. His blunderbuss was tilted carelessly upover one crooked elbow, for he trusted to the iron-shod hoofs of hishunting stallion to smash the rebel into the muck of the valley. He wasa portly, floridly handsome man of some thirty summers, and he would notlive to see the sun rise again.
Revel turned at bay. He was just under the overhang of a short cliff, onhis right hand a swamp, on his left a pack of approaching hounds, andbefore him the squire on his upreared horse. He had just boosted Jerranup to the cliff's edge, and the little man was scrambling away, callingto him to follow; but there was no purchase for his fingers, and thething was too high to jump, at least in the brief moment he had. So hewas brought to bay.
The Mink drew his daggers, his fangs of Ewyo's more or less generousbestowal. The horse poised an instant before bringing its mallet-hoofsdown on his head, and Revel leaped in and thrust--hands together,knuckles pressed tight, so that the blades drove deep into the fleshjust below the rib cage of the stallion, their points not two inchesapart. Revel jerked them apart and out, and the horse contorted andwrithed together in a thrashing heap and came down, its blood hissingout from a foot-long gash. The squire, unable to realize what washappening, fell sideways on top of the Mink, who stabbed upward blindlyas he rolled away from the dying horse. The squire took one dagger inthe groin of his spotless lime breeches, the other just under a silverbutton above his heart. The world shut out for him in pain and terrorand a loud, broken screech.
Revel fought out of the tangle of limbs and crumpled corpse, shot to hisfeet in time to meet the charge of a pair of slavering hounds. He knewhe was done now, there was no more running for the Mink, and he cursedhis fate even as he blessed whatever power had sent him so many gentryto be pulled down with him. The dogs leaped, one died in mid-air and theother carried him down once more, its lean teeth snapping off a patch ofhide and muscle from his shoulder as its guts poured free of its bodythrough a frantically-given wound. Revel was up again, shaking himself,grappling with a third hound whose knowledge of men made it wary of hisblades. It hauled away as he slashed at it, lunged for his throat,caught an ear instead, and coughed out its life as it was flung over hisshoulder in time for him to run the next dog through the skull as itsailed at him.
He was bleeding like a punctured sack of wine, though the wounds werefar from mortal. One ear lobe was gone, his left shoulder felt as thoughit had been scalded by boiling pitch, and his whole frame was stiffeningsomewhat from the myriad tiny cuts it had received. Revel was in hisglory, although he counted his life in seconds now. The whole pack wasnot in the valley, these four dogs had not run with it, and only menremained. Yet above were the orbs, to take a hand if he should prove toomighty for the gentry's handling.
A squire galloped up, jumped from his saddle and came at the Mink. Revelblinked blood from his eyes.
"Rosk!" he said, grinning. Now the gods were kind!
The lean-jawed squire halted twenty feet away, presenting his gun to theMink's breast. "A fine fox," he said admiringly, "a damned fine fox, buttoo vicious for the hounds. Die, Mink!"
"Damned if I will," said Revel, flinging himself forward and down. Thegun roared harmlessly as Rosk, startled, tugged on the trigger. Revelwent up to stab for the man's belly, but a warning tremor of the groundgave him pause; a stallion was thundering down on him from the left. Heflicked a glance at it. A great roan, with the Lady Nirea up, and comingstraight for him.
She would run him down? He bared angry teeth--but she was going to misshim! She was galloping between him and Rosk! She was....
_She was stretching down a hand to him, her face twisted with hope andfear and--friendship!_
* * * * *
Instinctively he slapped her wrist with his palm as she hurtled past,jerked his legs up and was carried off by the rocketing roan. As hewrithed into the saddle behind her, she screamed.
"Help, oh help! He has attacked me!"
The bi--no, the clever girl, by Orbs! Helping him, she was yet savingher own reputation and life, making it seem that he had leaped astrideher mount as she was carried by him. No squire could have seen thathelping hand, for they were all on the opposite side of her. A vasthullabaloo went up from their ranks.
"Throw me off, you fool," she hissed at him, twisting round andpretending to strike him. "Throw me off!"
He reached past her, hauled on the reins, brought the animal back on itsheels, pitched her off unceremoniously, winked broadly at her and foundtime for a leer as her riding skirt hoisted unladylike as she sat up;then he rammed heels to the brute and was off on a run for his life.Guns banged behind him, slugs tore the air inches from his bowed back.Let 'em shoot, curse them, he had a chance now!
The cliff of reed-laced muck dwindled, and he turned the roan and leapedhim up to the higher level of ground. Then he turned and went chargingback the way he had come, quick eyes searching for his comrade.
"Jerran! Jerran, you scuttling mouse, where are you?"
_Bang_ went a musket.
"Here, Revel!" The little straw-colored man popped out of a bush in hispath. He bent as Nirea had, gave the rebel a hand up behind him. Then heswerved the horse and went off through the oaks, while the gentry cursedand raved and came after as best they could.
"Discomfortable riding, this, without pants. Ouch! Where shall we head,ancient one?" Revel asked grimly.
"The way we're going. There, see that hill? Up and over that, and we'reon a straight path for the forests of Kamden."
Revel was jolted nearly out of his battered hide by the unfamiliarjounce and rock of the steed; but he knew he could stick on it tillnight if he had to. The only enemies that fretted him now were thegolden spheres. You could not distance a god simply by mounting a horse.
"Look up," he said, watching the path. "Are there gods?"
"Yes, but high, following us. They mark our way."
"Let them! Jerran, at nightfall we head for the mine. Our mine, and ourcavern."
"You can't go there, you drooling baby, you'd find an army of globes,priests, gentry, and zanphs. They'll be crawling all over the things inthat cave, especially after you took guns from it! What is it that drawsyou there?"
"A metal chest--ouch--I've been thinking of for a long time. Jerran,what's 'suspended animation'?"
"Why?"
"Nirea kept muttering it to herself in the cave. I think she read it onthe chest."
"Suspended," mused Jerran. "Temporarily halted. Animation, life. Lifeheld in check? Movement stopped for a time?"
"That's it."
"Love of freedom, lad, what's it?"
* * * * *
Revel, glancing up at the soaring spheres, said half to himself, "Man ofthe 21st century. Century's a hundred years. Twenty-first? John R.Klapham, atomic something ... suspended animation. John sounds like aname. Rest of it, enigmas, but...."
"Watch out!" yelled Jerran, turning against his back. "A god comes atus."
"How good are you at throwing knives?"
"As good as the next rebel. Damned good."
"Take one from my belt, and see if you can spit it in the air. If ittouches you, you'll be a frizzled-up cinder in a wink."
He felt the knife leave his holster, there was a pause, then Jerran saidunder her breath, "Blast this horse--ugh--got it!"
They were almost at the crest of the hill now. None of the ruck watchedthe chase from here, for it was
far from Ewyo's house and none hadexpected Revel and Company to come so far. There were guards, though:three squires sitting their quiet horses on the brow of the hills, ahundred yards apart. They watched the roan with its double burden beatup toward them, then blinked and peered as they saw that the foremostrider was naked.
"Va-yoo," said one uncertainly, then, realization hitting him, "va-yoohallo! Here he comes!"
He came, and the squires bunched to meet him; he aimed his horse's headfor their center, they split off wildly at the last instant, and he wasthrough them before they could draw guns from the saddle boots. A crackbehind him was the first one speaking tardily, and the roan leapedforward, touched into fury by the slug's creasing its withers. Jerransaid calmly, "I'm hit in the leg. Let me see. A flesh wound, no matter.Ride, lad!"
"The globes are our only worries now," said Revel exultantly.
"And they're some worries, for they descend even now at us."
He looked up, and saw that it was true. A multitude of the radiant godswere dropping from their buttons, and the forest of Kamden with itssprawling borders and its secret, protective darknesses lay half a milebefore the Mink.
Almost he would rather have died by a squire's bullet than apseudo-god's fierce energy blast. He recalled the feelers that hadtouched his face yesterday, the searing heat of the aura that beforethat had crisped off the hair above his ear. It was a filthy way to die.
The roan, strongest of all the gentry's horses, was easily distancingthem all. But it could not distance a down-slanting globe.
Revel the Mink committed his soul to whatever might receive it, and dugin his heels for a last desperate gallop.