Ravagin froze in place as the dimly seen figures fanned rapidly out from in front of the mound. Sacrificial goats, if there had really been a spirithandler out there knowledgeable enough to have launched the attack they thought they’d just witnessed. The timing here was going to be critical …
The last searcher passed over the imaginary line he’d drawn … and Ravagin moved.
The closest of the two men flanking the Tunnel entrance never had a chance. He’d barely started to turn, responding perhaps to a flicker from his peripheral vision, when Ravagin’s short sword slashed viciously across his throat. The other swore and leaped away from the mound, bringing his sword to bear. Ravagin charged him, sensing Danae moving around the corner and into the Tunnel entrance—
“Sa-trahist rassh!” the guard shouted.
And a firebrat erupted directly in Ravagin’s path.
He skidded to a hard halt, throwing up his left arm as the heat washed over him. “Run, Danae,” he snapped. If the guard came around the firebrat now, while he was still blinded from its light, he was dead.
But no sword sliced toward him from the glare. Ducking past the flaming spirit, Ravagin turned toward the Tunnel, senses alert for the attack which still should be coming. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of running feet as the rest of the guards ran furiously to join the fight, and he realized that he had no choice. Clamping his jaw tightly, he lowered his head and charged, hoping that when the sword of his ambusher came for him he would at least survive the blow long enough to try and seal the Tunnel behind him.
Five long steps—a short eternity—and then his flickering shadow was looming over him on the Tunnel’s ceiling, and he was inside. Without injury or attack … and Melentha’s servants had just made their last mistake. He and Danae were inside, they were outside—
“Sa-trahist rassh!” he shouted, turning back to face the opening. “Sa-trahist rassh, sa-trahist rassh!”
And they were damn well going to stay outside. The three invoked firebrats flared up to block the Tunnel’s entrance, cutting off his view of the men furiously running toward him around the firebrat their comrade had called up.
And Ravagin’s blood froze.
He hadn’t been attacked because there had been no one there to attack him. The other guard hadn’t stayed around to fight after invoking his firebrat: he’d followed Danae into the Tunnel!
The others swearing and reaching for bow and arrow outside were instantly forgotten. Twisting around again with a speed that wrenched his back, Ravagin sprinted desperately down the Tunnel. Danae was alone, naked, unarmed—
He pushed the awful vision from his mind, putting everything he had into his legs. The light from outside was beginning to fade now with the distance; if Danae’s extraordinary vision hadn’t been blinded before she got into the Tunnel she would have the advantage over her pursuer when the path started to curve.
If she realized she was being pursued.
“Danae!” he called with all the breath he could spare from his running. “Behind you—watch out—get to the middle, fast!”
There was no response he could hear above his own pounding feet. She’ll make it, he told himself over and over. She’ll make it. But the words were small comfort. Gritting his teeth, he pushed his pace to the absolute limit.
And nearly wound up plastering himself against the wall as the Tunnel began its slow right-handed turn. “Haklarast,” he panted. “Stay behind me,” he added as the sprite appeared. The faint light from the glow-fire was just right. He kept on running—
The light faded around the turn as the sprite stayed where it had been invoked.
Damn. His spirit invisibility had unexpectedly played him false. Snatching his sword from its sheath, he stuck it out to the side, letting its point define the wall’s position for him as he ran. It bounced back and forth across the roughness there, throwing off sparks as the indestructible Tunnel material tore microscopic bits of steel from it. But it gave him a clear track to follow, allowed him to run as fast as he could manage. Ahead, somewhere, his eyes told him that there was faint light; and as he came around the last stretch of curve—
They were there, both of them, and it was a shock to find out just how much of their lead he’d managed to close. Directly ahead of Ravagin, perhaps six meters away, was the guard, a sprite hovering at his shoulder giving off the glow Ravagin had seen as he rounded the bend. Farther ahead was Danae—
Ravagin’s heart seemed to skip a beat. Danae was barely two meters ahead of her pursuer. And he was visibly gaining.
“You want to fight someone, fight me!” Ravagin shouted. Or had intended to shout; it came out sounding more like a dying man’s gasp. But it was enough. The guard twisted his head to look, slowing down in the process … and in the half-second breather it bought her, Danae reached down to half pull, half kick the shoes off her feet and sprinted the last three meters across the invisible telefold line to safety.
But the guard didn’t know she was beyond his reach. Apparently satisfied that he was in no immediate danger, he turned back and continued on toward her, raising his sword as he saw her collapsed against the wall just ahead of him. Ravagin put on a burst of speed, knowing suddenly what he would have to do and how he would have to do it; skidded to a halt and spun a hundred eighty degrees around, sword braced straight out against his belt buckle. Behind him, the guard hit the telefold, reappeared the preordained five meters back—
And slammed headlong into Ravagin, impaling himself on Ravagin’s sword.
The momentum of that rush bowled Ravagin over, the two of them toppling together onto the floor … and as the man on top of him rattled and died, a horrible, ululating scream split the air.
Dimly, through the ringing in his ears, Ravagin heard a voice. “Oh, God!” Danae was gasping. “Ravagin!”
“I’m all right,” he panted, struggling for the leverage to push the bloody body off of him. He’d barely begun when Danae was kneeling beside him, taking the dead man’s arm and helping Ravagin push. “Are you okay?” he added, looking up at her.
“I’m fine—he never touched me,” she assured him distractedly, eyes widening at the sight of the blood matting his shirt. “But that scream—I thought you’d been killed.
“I don’t think it was any human voice made that sound,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. “Looks like the spirits hedged their bets a little, after all, and had something in here keeping an eye on things.” In the glow of the sprite still riding the dead man’s shoulder, Danae’s sweat-sheened body fairly glowed; and it took a second for him to catch the significance of the way she was looking at him … “Your eyes!” he blurted suddenly. “They’re all right?”
“I guess so,” she said, helping him to his feet. “As soon as I crossed the telefold everything went dark.”
“Everything—? Oh. Right.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “We made it. We actually made it.”
“I never had any doubt we would,” Danae said … and abruptly she was in his arms.
They held each other that way for a long minute … and when the trembling of mutually released fear and tension had finally worked its way out, Ravagin gently disengaged her arms. “Yeah,” he said, “I thought we were as good as dead, too. Come on; let’s shake the dust of Karyx off our feet and get the hell out of here.”
Ravagin got undressed as quickly as fatigue and tired muscles permitted, stowing everything in the hidden lockers before crossing with Danae to the Shamsheer side of the Tunnel. He kept his ears cocked for sounds of further pursuit, but none of the guards they’d left behind had made an appearance by the time he and Danae were finishing dressing. “You think they’ve given up?” Danae asked, glancing nervously back down the Tunnel as he studied the weapons shelf in the glow of a firefly around his finger. “That spirit scream sounded like a battle call.”
“It was probably just venting a load of futile anger,” Ravagin shrugged. “The spirits must surely know we’re beyond their r
each now, and given that there’s no real point in their wasting time sending men in after us. Damn, but I wish they’d keep these weapons lockers better stocked.”
“If they came in naked—”
“I’d almost like to see them try it,” he said grimly, removing his old scorpion glove and a dagger from the locker and securing them to his belt. “Here,” he added, pulling out a second dagger and handing it to her.
She frowned a bit as she took it. “Last time we came through here you told me Shamsheer nobleladies didn’t wear weapons.”
“They don’t, but for the moment I don’t really care about the local customs.”
She snorted gently. “And Melentha might just be desperate enough to send naked men after us?”
He sighed. Danae was getting altogether too good at reading his mind. “She wouldn’t dare,” he told her, not entirely honestly. “I just don’t feel like taking unnecessary chances, that’s all. Come on, let’s go—I want to get a sky-plane and be somewhere civilized by breakfast.”
The first light of dawn had driven away all but the westernmost stars as Ravagin emerged from the Tunnel and stepped a few meters into the forest clearing surrounding it. For a moment he listened, alert for any of the nighttime predators who might not yet have sought shelter and sleep. But only the sounds of awakening birds and insects reached his ears, and after making a careful visual scan of the area he turned back to the Tunnel and waved. “All clear,” he called softly. She stepped out; and as he reached for the prayer stick at his belt, her eyes abruptly shifted skyward. He looked up, following her gaze—
And froze. Descending rapidly toward them was a sky-plane carrying the unmistakable figures of two trolls. Humanoid machines, programmed for defense of their Protectorate and castle-lord and totally incapable of moving even a meter outside their own boundaries … and yet they were here—at the Tunnel—over thirty kilometers from the nearest Protectorate.
“Oh, hell,” Ravagin murmured, very softly.
The sky-plane came nearer … and from one of the trolls boomed a voice: “Stand where you are, trespassers on the soil of the Feymar Protectorate,” it ordered. “You will submit to my command or be executed.”
Chapter 33
THIS ISN’T FAIR, WAS the first, resentful, thought to cross Danae’s mind as the sky-plane settled toward a landing. We’re tired and hungry, we’ve been hunted and harassed by an entire world and nearly killed in the process, and my eyes still hurt from what happened to them. And now this. Damn it all, it isn’t fair.
And then her fatigued mind caught up with her … and she felt her stomach muscles freeze. “Ravagin!” she hissed, “Those trolls—”
“Keep back,” he said without turning around. “Something’s very, very wrong here.”
“They’re not supposed to be this far out of their Protectorate, are they?”
“They’re not supposed to be anywhere out of their Protectorate,” he replied. “Stay back, Danae—if I have to fight them, I want to have room to maneuver.”
Fight them? Danae shifted her eyes back to the sky-plane and the two figures rising to their feet there. Sophisticated machines—she knew that much from her Triplet orientation—but from less than twenty meters away she found it hard to accept that fact on a gut level. True, their barrel chests and tubular limbs showed too much curvature and too little muscular definition beneath their orange/black/yellow garb; and their almost non-existent necks, overlarge bald heads, and pale skin kept them from ever being mistaken for human beings. And yet, there was something else about them—the ease and fluidity of their movements, perhaps—that seemed to belie their mechanical nature.
And in the midst of her sidetrack reverie, Danae’s eyes fell on the crossbow pistol strapped to each troll’s right thigh. Fight them … and she suddenly felt sick.
Ravagin let them get within ten meters of him and then raised his hand. “Hold, servants of Castle Feymareal,” he called in a firm voice. “As a law-abiding citizen of Shamsheer, I am entitled to know the charges against me.”
The first troll stopped; the second took another step before following suit. “You are trespassing on soil of the Feymar Protectorate,” the first said.
“But the soil of all Protectorates is free to all lawabiders,” Ravagin insisted. “What law-breaking charge is listed against me that my way may be interfered with?”
For the first time the troll seemed at a loss for words. “You will submit to my command or be executed,” it said at last.
“Yes, you’ve already said that,” Ravagin reminded him. “But if you cannot list any law-breaking charges you have no authority to detain me.”
Again the trolls hesitated … and abruptly, the sense of aliveness that had been nagging at Danae’s subconsciousness vanished. They were, really and truly, nothing more than machines—
“I think they’re deciding how they’re going to handle this,” Ravagin said quietly over his shoulder, his voice tight. “Get ready to duck back into the Tunnel if this doesn’t work.”
“All right,” she replied. The words felt odd in her mouth; abruptly, she realized Ravagin had spoken and she’d answered in Standard, not Shamahni.
The first troll seemed to make up its mind. “You will both return with us to Castle Feymareal,” it said, its hand dropping down next to the crossbow at its thigh. “If you refuse—”
“You will leave me alone,” Ravagin said suddenly, “or I will kill that woman.” His hand swung back, his dagger flashing as he turned half around—
And sent the knife spinning toward Danae.
It was so unexpected she didn’t even have time to gasp. Reflexively, she ducked, throwing up an arm in token defense as something only half seen darted in from the direction of the trolls. An instant later there was the crack of metal on metal and the dagger shot sideways off into the forest. Opening her eyes again—she didn’t remember closing them—she saw the first troll standing with crossbow pistol at the ready, its string still visibly vibrating … and suddenly she understood what Ravagin had done. He’d forced the troll to move to her defense, and in doing so to waste its first shot.
And then she shifted her attention to Ravagin … and saw that the trick had been a waste of time. Even as Ravagin yanked his scorpion glove free and jammed his hand into it, the second troll was already bringing its crossbow to bear.
It was as if time had suddenly slowed to a crawl, freezing the tableau before her. She could almost see the slight damped-sine oscillations of the troll’s arm as it corrected to its final aim; glimpsed the flat-tipped stun bolt which would be slamming into Ravagin’s solar plexus in the trolls’ normal so-called mercy shot … and when he was down and helpless before them …
And without any real thought of what she was doing, her sluggish brain finally reacted. “Man-sy-hae orolontis!” she screamed.
The troll seemed to start at the sound of her voice. Its bolt shot out—
And missed.
Danae felt her jaw drop. No, she thought wildly. No—I didn’t see that. I couldn’t have; Shamsheer’s trolls never miss. Never. Rut it had …
And even as her peripheral vision recorded the fact that Ravagin, too, seemed to have frozen at the impossibility they’d just witnessed, both trolls lowered their crossbows and started forward.
Danae shot a quick glance at Ravagin, saw her own disbelief mirrored there. The trolls’ casual manner could have only one reasonable interpretation: they were on their way to pick up what they clearly expected to be a gasping, helpless victim of their marksmanship. Not only had the computerized marksmanship failed, but they apparently weren’t even aware that it had done so.
This isn’t happening, Danae told herself again. It’s an illusion—some crazy dream left over from Karyx. But the trolls looked solid enough … and they were still advancing on Ravagin.
Abruptly, they stopped. For an instant they just stood there, as if just noticing Ravagin still on his feet and startled by the sight. Then, in unison, each reached to the
extra crossbow bolts strapped to its other thigh—
And with a snap, the whip from Ravagin’s scorpion glove lashed out to yank the crossbow from the first troll’s grip.
Danae half expected a bellow of pain, but the machine made no sound in response. Nor did it show any further interest in the crossbow as Ravagin sent the weapon flying over the trees. Reaching behind its back, it drew a short sword and continued to advance. Ravagin ignored it for the moment, sending the scorpion whip lashing out instead to wrap around the second troll’s crossbow—
But whatever other problems the trolls were having, their capacity to learn was apparently still intact. The second troll had just seen what had happened to its companion; and with blinding speed its free hand darted up to grab the scorpion whip coiled around its weapon.
“Damn,” Ravagin snarled, bracing his left palm against the right as he tried to pull the trapped whip free. “Danae!—distract it somehow!”
The fascinated paralysis freezing Danae in place snapped. Snatching out her dagger she slid one foot forward and dropped slightly into the position Hart had long ago taught her for target throwing. At this range the troll was far too big a target to miss—
But where the hell was she supposed to try and hit the damn thing? All right: it’s a machine, damn it—weak points ought to be joints, sensors, powerpack, power leads—
“Anywhere!” Ravagin shouted as she hesitated in indecision. “Hit it anywhere!”
Gritting her teeth, she hurled the dagger with all the power and accuracy she could muster; and as it caromed off the troll’s face near its eyes, Ravagin suddenly leaped into the air, twisted his body to bring tucked legs up toward the troll—
And was yanked horizontally through the air to slam feet first into the machine’s chest and head as the untrapped part of the whip coiled back into place on the top of the glove.
They went down together, Ravagin managing to hold onto most of his balance and land on his feet. It took another second for him to extricate the end of his whip from the troll’s loosened grasp, and then he was spinning to face the remaining troll, the whip snapping out into a defensive Z-shape in front of him.