CHAPTER XI
The ruckers all have heard the call The Mink has sounded clear; They come from near, they come from far, To fight the squire and sphere.
He arms them all with stolen guns, With horses, pikes, and fire; He sends them all abroad to hunt The savage-stallioned squire!
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
As night fell, Lady Nirea left her father's house by the servants' door.She was dressed in the miner's clothes she had worn the previous day,and carried a gigantic portmanteau, so heavy she could scarcely lift it.
In the bag were her favorite gowns, numbering sixteen; two coats sheespecially loved; some bracelets set with diamonds--the rarest gem ofany, for though they were mined extensively throughout the country, theglobes took all but a very few for their own mysterious purposes--and anantique golden chain she'd inherited from her grandmother; some personaleffects, paint for her lips and such frivolities; a trumpet-mouthed gunwith the stock unmounted, together with as much ammunition as she couldfind; and lastly, four books from her father's secret chamber.
These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of themlabelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "God-Feeding" onits cover. The fourth was far older than the others, indeed, the oldestbook Nirea had ever seen.
Ewyo lay drunk in a deep chair in his library; he would sleep now tillnearly the middle of the night, when he'd wake up and howl for anotherbottle. Jann she had not seen for hours. The servants, being ruckers,did not count. Her escape from the mansion was going to be simple.
In the stables, Lady Nirea ordered her second best horse, another roanstallion, saddled and laden with the portmanteau on a special rackattached to the rear of the cantle. The usual trappings, the fancy reinsand broidered saddlecloths, she had the stableman leave off; she didn'twant to call attention to the fact that she was Ewyo's daughter.
When the roan was ready, she mounted, and turning to the stableman, ayoung rucker with shifty eyes and a shy, retiring chin, she askedsteadily, "Are you a rebel?"
"Me? No, Lady! Do I look crazy?"
"You look sneaky, but smart enough." She leaned over the saddlebowtoward him. "Tell me the truth. Don't be afraid, you fool. I am theLady of the Mink." It was a title she uttered proudly now. Nirea ofDolfya had been forced to think this day, and it had changed hergreatly.
The stableman backed off a little, his pasty face writhing with tics."My Orb, Lady, I don't know what you're thinking of! You, Ewyo's girl,calling yourself such a name--"
Her roan was trained to the work she now put him to; a number of timesshe'd used him for it in the streets of Dolfya, just for sport, out ofboredom. Now she pricked his ribs with the point of her sharp-toedshoes, just behind the foreleg joints, and said, "At 'em, boy!" The tallbeast reared up and danced forward, hoofs thrashing the air. Thestableman shrieked, took a step back, and threw up his arms as oneiron-shod hoof smashed into his face. Then the roan was doing a kind ofquick little hop on his body, and red blood ran out over thepacked-earth floor.
"If you were a rebel, you were too craven about it to be much good toyour people," Nirea said, looking at the body. "If you weren't, thenyour mouth is shut concerning me." She wheeled the roan and trotted outof the stable.
By the gate in the wall a tall figure waited, white in the early moon'slight.
"Jann!" said Nirea, with surprise and fear. Her older sister had alwaysbullied her; Nirea was unable to wholly conquer the dread of thisamber-eyed, sharp-eared woman. Jann stood with one hand on the gate, herhigh breasts and lean aristocrat's profile outlined against the darkblack-green of the woods behind her. Now she turned her head to look upat Nirea.
"What in the seven hells are you doing in that rucker's outfit? Whereare you going?"
"None of your business. Get out of my way."
Jann stepped forward and grasped the bridle at the roan's mouth. "Getdown here, you young whelp. I'm going to beat you--and then hand youover to Ewyo to see what's to be done with you."
* * * * *
Nirea never knew, though afterwards she thought of it often, whether shetouched her horse's ribs deliberately or by accident. All she knew wasthat suddenly he had thrown his forequarters up into the air, that Jannwas screaming, twisting aside, that the roan was smashing down....
Jann lay on the grass, and her profile was no longer aristocratic; norwere her breasts smooth and sleek and inviolate.
Nirea sobbed, dry-eyed, turned the roan away, leaned over to push openthe gate, and cantered off down the silent road, numb with horror, yetconscious of a small thrill of gratification, somewhere deep in herferal gentrywoman's soul. Nineteen years of knuckling under to Jann, oftaking insults and cuffs and belittling, were wiped out under theflashing hoofs of her roan stallion.
Now where should she ride? She was a rebel herself, molded into one byher father's actions and her memories of the Mink. If he were dead, thatgreat chocolate-haired brute, then she would simply ride straight awayfrom Dolfya until she found a place to live, and there plan at leisure.But if he were alive, then she would be his woman.
She touched the horse to a gallop, and sped toward the only place shecould think of where she might get news of him: the mines.
Someone scuttled off the road before her; she reined in, peeredunsuccessfully into the darkness, and called softly, insistently, "Ifyou're a rucker, please come out! Please come here!"
A rustle in dry brush was her answer. She tried a bolder tack. "It's theLady of the Mink who commands it!"
After a moment a man stepped onto the road from a clump of bracken. Redwere his hair and beard in the moon, and the white walleye staredblindly. Fate, chance, the gods--no, not the false, horrible globes, butwhatever gods there might be elsewhere--had crossed her path with Rack,the giant whom she trusted more than any other rucker.
"Rack!" she called quietly. "Come here, man."
He was at her stirrup. "What are you doing, Lady?" His voice wasanxious:
"I'm joining the rebels, big man. Where can I find the Mink?"
"I don't know. Lady, are you mad? The rebels are saying that the godsare overthrown and there will be gentry blood running all over Dolfya bynoon tomorrow. They're out of their heads."
"No, Rack, they're honest men fighting a hideous corruption." She toldhim rapidly what she'd seen in her father's room. "I don't know exactlywhat it means, 'but it's bad--degrading, horrible! I don't want to be agentrywoman any longer. I--I'm the Mink's girl. Listen," she said,leaning over to him, "he took me two days ago, and Revel is my man, hellor orbs notwithstanding. Now where is he?"
"I've heard he's alive," said Rack slowly. "I thought he would be; he'stoo tough to kill. Where he is, no one knows."
"Do the rebels trust you?"
"No." His face turned up to hers, honest and bewildered. "I'm of twominds.... I serve the gods, as any sane man must, but I have seenthings...."
"So have I. Rack, come with me. We must find the Mink."
He bit his lip. Then he took hold of her stirrup. She thought he wasgoing to pull her off, and edged her toes forward toward the signalpoints of her roan; but he merely said, "I'll hang on to this and run.Go ahead, Lady."
She tapped the horse to a canter, feeling better than she had in hours.Rack was a servant (say rather an ally) worth four other men.
"Head for the mines," grunted Rack. Her own idea. Surely it must beworth something. Soon they were coming into the coal valley. God-guardsshone with an eerie and now-abominable golden light at the variousentrances. "Which is Revel's?" she asked.
"Up there. He wouldn't be there, but if I can get past the guard, andthere's no reason I should be stopped, there are men on our level, thefourth down, who might know about him. There's no other place to check.I don't know the meeting places. I have never been a rebel." He seemedto brood darkly for a minute, then added, "Before!"
* * * * *
They hobbled the horse in a nook
of upended rocks, and she hid theportmanteau under some brush. They walked to the mine, she nowremembering the location by certain landmarks, and Rack said, "There'sno god showing. That's strange."
"I'll go with you as far as I can. If we do meet a god, I can explainmyself mentally; after all, I'm of the gentry. I'm not in danger."
"I hope not." He helped her up the shelf, and they walked furtively intothe tunnel. No sign of anything--till Rack stumbled over the corpse of azanph. Bending, Nirea saw beyond it the sack and draining ichor of aglobe.
"The rebels have been here!"
"Aye." He straightened, his white eye shining in the light of a distantlantern. "How can a god die?" he asked, in a child's puzzled tone."Lady, no god ever died before. They don't die--'tis in the Credo. Howcan these rebels slay them?"
"Maybe no one ever tried before. Come on." She hurried to the ladders.Blue-tinged, mouth agape and eyes upturned without sight, there lay apriest, half over the lip of the shaft. He had been de-throated by apickax.
"This looks like Revel's ferocious work," said Rack. "I hope he's alive.Yes, I do hope so."
"When I last saw him, riding off hell-for-leather on my nag, he wasextremely alive, mother-naked and covered with blood but as alive as Iam this instant." She went down the ladder hand under hand past threelevels, swung off at the fourth. Another dead man lay at her feet; thiswas a squire, a youngish man in plum and scarlet, very brutally slain bya pick-slash in the brain. It was a man she knew, and momentarily shefelt herself a traitor to her kind; then she thought of Ewyo's vices,corruptions, and she snorted defiantly. His gun, its stock remounted anda shell rammed home, was in her hand. She went forward, striding like aman ... and a man who knew what he meant to do.
The end of the tunnel was illuminated vividly by many blue lanterns, andpresented to their startled eyes an horrific scene of carnage. The deadlay in piles, in one and twos and fours, their brains splashed on thewalls, their guts smeared across the floor, their skulls cloven andtheir bodies rent. Ruckers lay here, miners and gentry-servants. Squireswallowed lifeless in pools of their highborn blood. Snake-headed zanphsclawed in their rigor at the dead flesh of priests, of rebels, ofsquires. Here and there lay the vacant sacks that had been gods. AtNirea's feet stretched a man built like Revel, who might _be_ Revel, forhis face was gone, burnt away by the touch of the terrible orb-aura atfull strength. No, she realized even as she swayed back, it was not he,for this man's body was unscarred, and Revel must be looking like askinned hare if he yet lived.
What a brawl this must have been! She was about to speak to Rack whenshe heard a familiar voice, booming brazenly out in the silence of themine. It came from the black hole at the end of the tunnel.
"Then a whole line of them came down at us, faster than a squire can puta horse over a hurdle, and the forest yet a good half mile away! I hadone dagger left, and my trusty small Jerran up behind me. The squireswere ashooting, but ineffectively, and the roan was carrying us well andtruly; but here came the gods, may they boil in my mother's cook-pot inHell!
"I looked wildly for something to beat 'em off with, for as you've seen,a touch of their radiance burns your flesh from your bones if they wishit so. Well! The only thing on the whole cursed nag is the scabbard inwhich a squire keeps his long gun. It's a thing some three feet long orover, of light metal, covered with satin and velvet and silk. I tore itfrom its moorings, and as the globes came at me, I stood up in thestirrups, naked as your hand, and started to swat 'em. Jerran leaningforward past me, guiding the stallion, for his reach is not half mine."
"Brag and bounce!" said a voice that was surely Jerran's. Lady Nireagrinned and walked toward the cavern.
"So I swatted, I beat at them, I swiped and almost fell, I did the workof twenty men--don't shake your head, Jerran, you know 'tis notbrag!--for half a mile, and not one globe touched a hair of our heads!They came at the last from all sides, like a swarm of angered bees, andone burnt the horse so that he streaked even faster; which saved ournecks, for my arm was nearly dead by then.
"I tell you, there is one protection only against these things, and thatis quickness: for let one come within a few inches of you, and you are adead man."
Nirea stepped into the cave.
"I thought you were a dead man, Revel the Mink," she said quietly, stillwith the ghost of her grin.
* * * * *
He stared at her, while the men in the place turned and sprang up andstood uncertainly, looking from her to their leader. He was dressed inminer's clothing again, and his skin was a perfect fright of scars andscabs and half-closed wounds. But he was whole, barring part of an ear,and he was smiling as only he could smile. "Here, men of the ruck, isthe woman you owe my life to. Here is--" he cocked an eyebrowquizzically--"here is, I think I can say, the Lady of the Mink."
"Here she is," said Nirea, and was stifled and crushed in a greatbear-hug. "And here's Rack, your brother, who I think may be rebelmaterial."
"I think so," said Rack heavily, staring at Revel with his good eye. "Ifyou want me, brother."
"Gods, yes! We need every man we can get this night. Did you note theslaughter beyond?"
"We did see a corpse or two."
"I think we kept that secret, for two of my fellows stood on the laddersand slew the gods who tried to pass. But it will soon be discovered, andthe gods will do to this place what they did to eastern Dolfya, unlesswe can fight them some way. I think I have a clue to help us. What thatis I'll show you now."
"Revel, dearest," she said, "are you all right?"
"Of course, thanks to you. Now to business."
"Rack must go to my horse above for things I brought."
"Go then, Rack. Wait--first give me that pick you've got there. I thinkit's mine." Rack handed it over, a little shamefacedly, and Revel gavehim the one tucked in his own belt. "I've missed this girl.... The chestI want to search is still here, though the gentry have carried off agreat deal from the cavern."
"Wait a minute," said Nirea fiercely. "You'd better do a few thingsbefore you start experimenting and searching. You'd better have a plan,and send men out to spread word of it among your people! There arethousands of them out there, ready to pounce at your word, to riseagainst the squires and priests, and take their chances of gods'vengeance. You'd better send out the word that the Mink is leading themto war. Otherwise, you'll have an army that's ineffectual and headless,that can be cut to pieces in twenty-four hours. For most of them thinkyou're dead--the gentry spread the word."
Jerran said, quietly so that only the girl and Revel heard him, "I thinkI named the wrong person. I think Lady Nirea is the Mink!"
Revel laughed grimly, "Haven't I been busy? Haven't I sent a troop forDawvys in his hole in the coppice, and another to say in the lanes andshebeens that I'm alive? Here, Vorl, Sesker, and you three, get out!Steal horses from the mansions' stables, and spread the news. We risetonight! Whether or not I find what I seek, we rise! If we all perish ina god-blast, still we rise! When you've enough men, attack the gentry'shomes, beginning at Dolfya's center and spreading out. Put every horseavailable on the road to Korla and Hakes Town and every village withinknowledge. If they look scared, show 'em a dead god! Take those outthere--stick 'em on the ends of pikes, carry 'em through the streetswith torches to show 'em off! Kill every globe you can reach, send thecorpses out for the ruck to see! There's our banner, our fiery cross--adead god on a pike!"