Then the sound of chopping began again. Shortly, the team returned, carrying at least thirty feet of tree trunk two feet in diameter. Here and there along the trunk, they had left the stubs of branches for handholds. But most of those carrying the logs simply had one large hairy arm wrapped around it, and they grinned savagely at each other and at the outlaws.
The Bluffer squatted down and let Bill slip off his back. Bill started to approach Flat Fingers—but at this moment there was a sudden crashing sound from the forest behind them, as if a second tree was falling and everybody turned around. A moment later, a second party came trotting up, carrying a second trunk stripped down to little stubs of branches for handholds.
"No you don't!" roared Flat Fingers, waving them back. "One at a time! Here, lay that other pole up against the side of the cut, and give us some room."
The blacksmith's huge finger indicated the vertical rock wall that formed one side of the narrow entrance to the valley. Reluctantly, the second batch of Dilbians leaned their log up against this and fell back.
"All right, the rest of you!" shouted the Bluffer to the rest of them standing around. "Here we go! Ready with those rocks!"
Bill had noticed these others arming themselves with rocks—and in some cases, the very ones that had been thrown at them from behind the stockade. Now, looking again, he saw that almost everyone who was not on the battering-ram crew had at least two or three of these missiles in his or her hands.
"Shields, here!" bellowed Flat Fingers. Those of the battering-ram crew who already had shields swung them up into position overhead. The rest hastily borrowed shields from friends or relatives standing around and did likewise.
"All right, then!" cried the blacksmith, taking his place at the head of the battering-ram crew. "Here we go-o-o . . ."
The last word ended in a long, drawn-out howl, as the battering-ram crew started off at full speed toward the gate of the stockade. In a black furred wave behind them, surged the rest of the Dilbians—but they surged only to within throwing distance of the stockade wall, and began to loose a literal barrage of rocks.
The heads of the outlaws to be seen above the points of the stockade ducked hastily down out of sight as the first flight of stones reached them. They stayed down. Meanwhile, the battering-ram crew was carrying on full tilt for the gate in the very center of the stockade. For a moment, they seemed to be galloping away and making no progress. But a moment later, they loomed over the gate, and a second later, they struck it. The results were all but unbelievable.
The gate split from top to bottom with a sound like a crack of thunder. But this was the least spectacular of the results of the impact. The battering-ram crew, shaken loose by the impact, piled up against the gate and the walls of the stockade themselves, like so many Dilbian-furred missiles. As a result, not merely the gate but the whole stockade wall quivered and shook like a fence of saplings.
There were glimpses of hairy arms thrown in the air briefly above the stockade's points, as the outlaws on the catwalk inside were shaken loose and dumped backward. Evidently, not one of them up there had been able to retain his grip, for although the stones had stopped flying from the crowd of Muddy Nosers, not one head made its reappearance above the stockade wall.
"All right—up and at it!" Flat Fingers was shouting, down by the gate, as he scrambled himself to his feet. "On your feet and let's hit it again!"
The battering-ram crew recollected itself, picked up its log, and began to swing its front end rhythmically against the cracked gate. With each blow, the entrance to the valley resounded, and gate and wall shivered together. Slowly the crack widened, and another crack split the door into three pieces. Around Bill, back at a stone's throw distance from the gate, the rest of the villagers were going wild with triumph, and the din was deafening.
A cold feeling clutched suddenly at Bill's chest. He had not fully imagined the violence and excitement that surrounded him now. He had not planned to get outlaws and villagers killed or maimed—
The sudden, hard poke by something rigid behind him, sent him stumbling forward half a step. He spun about, swiftly and angrily, to find himself confronting Sweet Thing. She was carrying a rectangular shield and a sword slung in its supporting strap, both of which were too small for any Dilbian's use.
"Well, put them on!" hissed Sweet Thing, almost in his ear. "Flat Fingers left them behind, but I went back and got them. They're yours, Pick-and-Shovel! Put them on, will you? You can't fight Bone Breaker without them, and you're the only one who can stop the war by fighting him!"
She thrust shield and sword at Bill. Bill found himself numbly taking them and strapping the sword around him. The shield, fitted with an elbow loop and a hand grip and made of inch-thick wood covered with half-inch hide, dragged his left arm groundward when he tried to hold it up in proper fashion.
He—? Stop the war—? His head whirling, he stared about him at the shouting, leaping villagers as they cheered on the battering ram crew down at the gates.
Of course! Suddenly the whole Dilbian picture fell into place. Suddenly he understood everything, including why he had been assigned here and then apparently abandoned by Greenleaf and his other superiors! He turned and looked about him. The second battering ram still leaned against the rock wall of the valley entrance, a little ways off.
"Here, hold this," Bill grunted, shoving the sword and shield back into Sweet Thing's hands. He turned and ran for the tree trunk leaning against the cliff, and went quickly up it, using the handholds almost as the rungs on a ladder. Twenty feet above the heads of the Dilbians below he stared down and over the top of the stockade into the valley beyond.
He saw that there were no outlaws inside the gate now. The tall, coal-black figure of Bone Breaker was in the center of a line that was drawn up perhaps halfway between the gate and the outlaw buildings. They were all armed and ready. The noon sun glinted on six-foot swords, and the shiny metal of an occasional piece of body armor or protective cap. Behind the line, back by the buildings themselves, was a small knot of outlaw women, and close to them was a round figure in a yellow robe whom Bill had no difficulty in recognizing as Mula-ay. As he watched, Mula-ay lifted something to his face that winked in the sunlight in Bill's direction. A second later, the Hemnoid's hands lifted and flicked outward in a human, military-type of salute. It was the kind of gesture only a human being would be able to recognize for what it was. Mula-ay was thumbing his nose at Bill from the distance, and, having done so, Mula-ay turned about and disappeared around the corner of the eating hall.
In spite of his new understanding, the coldness in Bill's chest tightened into a hard, unmeltable lump. Bluff and bluster made up a large part of the Dilbian nature, but only up to a point. Now, neither the villagers nor the outlaws were bluffing—or at least, only half-bluffing.
Mula-ay had caught Bill neatly in a trap. He had known that taking the laser-welding gun might stampede Bill into inciting the villagers to just such an attack as this. An attack in which both outlaws and villagers would be killed or hurt. It was not necessary for the Hemnoid to risk killing Bone Breaker himself in order to get rid of Bill and discredit humans on Dilbia. All he had to do was wait for the attacking villagers to come to grips with the outlaws—and this Mula-ay must have planned from the very moment in which he decided to take the laser-welding gun.
There was only one solution to the situation now. The hard way out that had been available to Bill from the beginning. Only at the beginning he had not understood the way Dilbian minds worked. Now he was sure he did, and it was that extra knowledge that gave him his advantage over the Hemnoid, who not only did not understand, but was racially incapable of understanding.
Bill skidded hastily down the tree trunk. He ran back to Sweet Thing and snatched the shield from her. It was quite true, what she had said. Only he could stop the war.
"Where's the Hill Bluffer?" he demanded urgently. "Help me find him!"
"There he is!" she shouted, and started for him.
Bill ran after her.
The lanky postman was standing a little apart from the group, his eyes fixed and all his attention riveted on the battering-ram crew, which had now widened the original split in the gate to the point where only the bars beyond it were holding its planks together. Sweet Thing punched the Bluffer unceremoniously in the ribs, and he twisted about, angrily.
"Pick-and-Shovel!" said Sweet Thing economically, jerking her thumb back at Bill as he came pounding up.
"Bluffer," panted Bill, "I've got to get down into the valley before anybody else does, so I can reach Bone Breaker first. Can you get me to him?"
For a moment the Hill Bluffer stared as if he did not understand. Then, with a sudden whoop of joy and excitement, he reached out, picked up Bill and all but tossed him over a furry shoulder into the saddle. Bill grabbed for the straps, as the Bluffer pivoted on one heel and ran down toward the gate, which was beginning to disintegrate under the impact of the battering-ram crew.
It did, in fact disintegrate, falling apart in a shower of broken wood, just as the Bluffer reached the crew. Without pausing, the Bluffer hurdled the nearest member of the crew, who had collapsed, out of breath, wheezing on the grass, and ran directly toward the center of the armed and ready outlaw line, where the massive, black-furred figure of Bone Breaker towered, waiting with shield and sword.
Bill glanced over his shoulder, waited until they were midway between the gate and the outlaw line, and then shouted to the Bluffer to halt. As the postman did so, Bill jumped from the saddle and landed clanking with shield on the turf. Turning so that he could face first left toward the outlaws and then right toward the villagers who were now beginning to pour through the broken doorway, Bill shouted to them all—and a second later the powerful Dilbian lungs of the Hill Bluffer took up his shout and repeated it, so that it was plainly to be heard in the silence that had fallen over both attackers and defenders.
"Stop the war!" he shouted. "None of you are going to tangle on either side until I've first had my own personal crack at Bone Breaker!"
Chapter 24
It was only then that Bill realized he did not have his sword.
He had left it back in the hands of Sweet Thing. However, it seemed that the apparent ridiculousness of one unarmed small Shorty standing between opposing lines of armed giants and calling on them to give over the idea of fighting, apparently did not strike home to the Dilbians. Even as Bill looked, the outlaws on either side of Bone Breaker were relaxing, sheathing their swords and ambling forward. Looking in the other direction, he saw the villagers pouring through the broken gate, but also without signs of hostility. Two groups met and mingled around Bill as with the Hill Bluffer he went forward toward Bone Breaker, who stood still, waiting.
When Bill and the Bluffer reached him, the outlaw chief turned abruptly on his heel.
"Come on!" he said to Bill, and strode off toward the buildings. Bill, the Bluffer, and everybody else followed.
Bone Breaker stopped at last beside a long, narrow building, with only one or two windows, and a door at each end. Bill recognized it as the storehouse into the shadow of which Anita had led him that night when he had climbed down the cliff to see her. It was here that they had talked. Now Bone Breaker had brought him back here for their duel. Close up, now, he loomed over Bill like a mountain.
"Here's your sword—" muttered Sweet Thing's voice abruptly in his ear, and he half-turned to receive the hilt of his sword thrust into his palm. The leather-wrapped hilt was cold to his grasp and the weight of the sword seemed to drag down at his arm, even though it was less than half the length of Bone Breaker's great blade. In spite of his certainty that he had now figured matters out, it was a calculated gamble he was taking here; and the fact that it was calculated did not lessen the fact that it was a gamble.
"All right, Bone Breaker," he said, speaking as loudly and scornfully as he could, "how do you want it?"
"I'll tell you how I want it," retorted Bone Breaker. He pointed at the warehouse beside them. "I had the windows in there blocked off yesterday. The place is full of stuff, but there's room to get from one end to the other. I'll go in at this end—you go in at that. And the first one out the other end on his two feet wins. Right?"
"Right!" said Bill, glancing at the storehouse with a queasy feeling. He heard the crowd behind him making guesses as to the outcome of the duel. Although there was a small minority that seemed to feel that you should never sell a Shorty short, most of them seemed firmly convinced that Bone Breaker would have no trouble at all encountering Bill in the gloom of the darkened building, and chopping him into small pieces.
Meanwhile, there was no hanging back. Bone Breaker had already headed off toward one end of the building. Bill turned, with the Bluffer beside him, and headed for the other. The crowd made way for him as he went. They came to the end of the building and rounded it to find three wooden steps leading up to a heavy door. With a tight throat, which his inner confidence did not seem to help, Bill mounted the steps.
"Good luck—" he heard the Bluffer say. Then he had opened the door and was through it, stepping into a darkness heavy with a mixed odor of leather, wood, root vegetables, and other dusty smells.
The door banged shut behind him.
He stood. The sword was in his hand now, and now its handle felt slippery in his grasp. He waited for his eyes to adjust somewhat to the darkness, but for a couple of long minutes it seemed that even with their pupils at full dilation he would not be able to make out any of his surroundings. Then, slowly, vague shapes of darker black began to emerge out of the general gloom. He made out finally that he stood in a little cleared space, facing what seemed to be a corridor between ten- to fifteen-foot piles of assorted, unidentifiable objects.
The rattle of something displaced and rolling across a wooden floor sounded distantly, without warning, from the far end of the building. Bill froze. For a moment he was conscious only of the heavy pounding of his heart, and the heavy weight of the sword and shield on his arms. Then he began to breathe again.
That sound, unintentional or not, was adequate announcement that Bone Breaker was coming in his direction. Bill could not simply stay here and wait for him. It was necessary to go and meet the outlaw chief.
Cautiously, Bill began to inch his way forward down the corridor between the high piled contents of the storehouse.
The corridor was nothing but a lane connecting a series of spaces between stored goods. Occasionally the lane widened out into areas that were certainly big enough to give room for a sword fight between a Dilbian and a human. Again, it narrowed down so that a Dilbian, at least, would have had to go sideways to make his way through. But there was never any more than the one path among the things piled up. There was to be no chance, apparently, for Bill to sneak past his larger opponent without meeting him face to face.
Bill heard no more sounds from the far end of the building to inform him of Bone Breaker's progress toward him. But under Bill's own feet, the boards of the building's flooring occasionally creaked, and once or twice he stumbled over something lying in the path, with some little noise.
Each time he did so, he stopped still, sweating and listening. But there was nothing to be heard from the far end of the building to let him know whether Bone Breaker had heard him, or not.
By this time, Bill had covered some little distance. He found himself wishing that he had measured the building with his eye before going in, and then counted his steps once he was in, so that he would have an approximate idea of how far along its length he had traveled. It seemed to him that he must have reached the middle of the building by this time. But he had not yet encountered Bone Breaker, and certainly the outlaw chief would meet him at least halfway?
Bill went on, making his way, sword extended point first, before him along the narrow aisle of darkness. Still—there was no sign of the outlaw chief. By now, Bill was sure that he had covered at least half the length of the building. The only possible conclusion was that somewh
ere up ahead of him the huge Dilbian was waiting at some convenient place of his own choosing. And still, in the face of that conclusion, there remained nothing for Bill to do but to keep moving forward.
Surprisingly, however, this new conclusion of Bill's did not increase his tension or his emotion. In fact, a good deal of the downright fear and uncertainty he had felt on stepping into the dark building was beginning to slip away from him now. The handle of the sword no longer felt slippery with perspiration in his grip. His heart had slowed and calmed in its beating. There was even beginning to kindle in him now a sort of warm grimness of purpose—a readiness, foolish as it seemed—to be ready to fight back, if Bone Breaker should, after all, suddenly spring upon him out of the further shadows.
The Dilbian was huge—but that very hugeness, thought Bill, out of this new grim warmth inside him, made the outlaw chief clumsy in comparison with a human. If Bill could manage to dodge the first devastating blow of that man-long sword in Bone Breaker's grasp, it might be that he could get in under the other's guard and do something with his own small sword before his opponent could recover. If it came to that, it would probably be wise to throw away his shield the minute they came together, thought Bill. A shield was of some use to a Dilbian who could use it to deflect a blow from another's sword blade, but for a human to even be brushed by such a Dilbian weapon would be disaster. Bill would do a better job of running and dodging without the shield on his arm. Inspiration struck him suddenly—as long as he had to throw it, he would throw it at Bone Breaker. There might be a way of gaining some small advantage out of the surprise element of such a maneuver. What were the terms of the duel, as Bone Breaker had said before they went in the building?