"The Space Barbarians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Chapter Four

John and Dewey of the Hawks and Don of the Clarks rode hard. Each man was mounted on one war steed and led two more. Periodically, they changed horses.

Largely, they rode in silence, but Don broke it at last.

He said, “It is no time to be leaving Aberdeen, with the strangers there. Bertram, Bedel of the Fowlers, has announced that if this so-called guru can cure his blindness, he will take the soma.”

John said in irritation, “You know it is the only time. We have discussed and discussed, and there is no other time in which we could possibly force the city. Four years and more in planning this has taken. Another year and it might not work.”

Dewey of the Hawks growled, “This year it may not work. The more I think about it, the more I am of the opinion that we all play the fool.”

John didn’t answer him.

“Let’s change horses,” Don said. “Mine becomes jaded. We must preserve them. They must be fresh on the return, since we will have half the Clann Thompson on our trail.”

“We shall have all the Clann Thompson on our trail,” Dewey amended sourly.

Eventually, they reached their destination, a clump of trees overlooking the Caledonian town below. Even though the distance was still considerable, they fell into whispers as they dismounted.

John said, “Where is that confounded chart?”

Dewey brought a large piece of parchment from a saddlebag. “By the Holy, it had better be correct.”

John spread it out on the ground and hunkered down on his heels. “It is correct,” he growled. “It has taken four years to compile, from every source of information we could find.” He traced with a finger. “This is the longhouse of the Thompsons. These, the quarters of unwed lasses who do not live with their families. Here she must be, for she has no family, all having been killed in raid.”

Don of the Clarks said unhappily, “If we’re spotted by warders…”

John was impatient. “For all practical purposes there are no warders. All were at Aberdeen and the Dail.” He looked up at the sky. “Soon it will be dark enough. Listen!” He cocked an ear. “They are beginning to return. Hurry. The kilts.”

He and Don began to strip, as Dewey brought forth clothing from another saddlebag.

Dewey said, “Sally did a good job with the Thompson material. Aüi She must have been embarrassed. And imagine climbing into the kilts of another clann. Have you two no shame?”

Don laughed. “None at all. Give me that.”

They donned the disguises, and the Clark clannsman began to buckle his scabbard back around his waist. But John shook his head and hung his own sword and dagger over the pommel of his saddle.

“Are you daft?” Don blurted. “You mean to go down into Caithness unarmed!”

John of the Hawks brought his coup stick from its saddle sheath and tucked it in his belt. He said, “I cannot shed the blood of my bride’s kyn on the night I steal her. Especially since I steal her without honorable permission.”

Don rolled his eyes upward in supplication. “But I can! For many a year I have raided, and been raided by, the Thompsons. They know me well, and any of their clannsmen that see me in Caithness would—”

“No,” John said. “Besides, we will look less suspicious if we appear unarmed.”

Don silently and unhappily hung his own scabbard over Iris animal’s pommel. He said to Dewey, “When we come back, we’ll come back on the fly. Have all ready.” He took up a coil of rope from behind his saddle.

“I know, I know,” Dewey of the Hawks said. “If you come back. I still say we’re all three daft.”

John had started down the hill. Don followed him, after shooting one last longing glance at his sword and dagger.

They were already out of earshot when Dewey muttered, “There’ll be vendetta after this night. And a full year to go before a meeting of the Dail to reconcile it.”

From the far side of town, John and Don could hear the returning clannsmen entering the main gate, and they hurried. When they reached the wall, relieved that there had been no shout of a warder spotting them, John brought forth the parchment chart.

“Here. This is it,” he whispered, staring upward. This side of the longhouse was blank, being part of the wall defenses of the town.

Don had been carrying his coil of rope, a grapple tied to one end. Now he swung it, tossed the grapple up and onto the roof. The first time it failed to catch and made what seemed a considerable noise when it scratched across the roof and then fell with a clatter back to their feet. John groaned.

Don recoiled the rope, tossed again. It caught. He grinned success at his blood comrade and, without a word, started up the rope, hand over hand, his feet walking up the wall. When he was at the top, he looked about quickly, then turned and gestured for John. John followed him up the line.

On the roof, they checked their map again. “This way,” John whispered. “Over there should be the entry nearest to the quarters of the unwed lasses.”

“I know the way by heart,” Don muttered. They approached the roof entry and were relieved to find it open and a ladder in place. The nights were hot this time of year, and the occupants of the longhouse took full advantage of any breath of air that could be induced to enter their community home.

They descended quietly, reached the hall below and took a brief pause to orient themselves. The building was all but Identical to their own longhouses back in Aberdeen, so the problem was inconsiderable. “This way,” John whispered.

They found the area they sought. John of the Hawks took a breath and reached for the latch.

A voice said, “Where in the name of the Holy are you two going?” on whirled. A Thompson clannsman had stepped into the corridor from a room behind them. Even as the newcomer’s eyes began to widen, Don came in fast. His fist lashed out into the other’s belly. The Thompson doubled forward, his mouth trying to open in shout.

John stepped in close and slugged him mercilessly on the side of the head. The man collapsed. Don caught him, his eyes darting up and down the corridor.

“What’ll we do with him?”

“Back into the room he just came from,” John snapped. “And say praises to the Holy that there’s no one else in there.” He took a quick step to the door through which the enemy clannsman had stepped and threw it open. The room was empty. A small room, evidently some sort of storage area.

Don dragged the Thompson into the room and let him slump to the floor. He took his coup stick from his belt and looked down at the fallen clannsman.

He scowled and said, “Can you count coup on a man who is unconscious?”

John thought about it. “I don’t know. I have never heard of such a matter. However, he wasn’t unconscious when he first confronted us. And he is armed.”

“It will have to be left to the Keepers of the Faith,” Don said. He brought” his coup stick from his belt and tapped the Thompson, saying, “I count coup.”

John shrugged and brought forth his own coup stick. “I count second coup.”

They stuck their coup sticks back in their belts and left the room again, after checking the unconscious one. He looked as though he would be out for quite a time.

They returned to the quarters of the unmarried females of the Clann Thompson, and again John took the latch in hand. They pushed in and ran immediately into the presence of a girl who most certainly couldn’t have been more than sixteen years of age.

Her eyes widened, as she opened her mouth to scream. Don grabbed her as gently as possible and stuck a hand over her mouth. John closed the door behind them.

“What’ll I do with her?” Don demanded. “Aüi! She bit me!”

“Into one of the bedrooms,” John snapped. “We’ll tear up some bedclothes and bind her. Quick. They’ll all be returning. There could be more, any minute.”

They dragged the struggling Thompson lass into a nearby bedroom, gagged and bound her with torn bedsheets, then returned to the anteroom.

Don said unhappily, “For all we know, your lass will be the last to come. Perhaps she won’t come at all. Possibly she works in the community kitchen. Who knows? Perhaps she has duties elsewhere.”

“She’ll come,” John said.

However, two more innocents turned up before Alice of the Thompsons. And each was treated in similar wise to the first.

Don muttered, “We can’t tie up the whole Clann Thompson. Besides, we’ve got to get out of here, before the corridors are swarming with clannsmen. I wish I’d never let you talk me out of my claidheammor.”

But then she entered.

Like all the others, her eyes widened in first reaction to the presence of men—albeit in the correct kilts of the Thompsons—in the quarters of the unwed of the clann. But then the second realization came, that these were strangers and not kyn. And then, recognition.

“John!” she gasped. And then, as a good lass must, her had darted for the short skean at her side, and she drew deep breath to scream for her clannsmen.

John grabbed her, growling in despair, “Alice, Alice! I’ve come for you.”

Don caught up some of the torn bed clothing. “All very good, but the lass is no slink, and the proof is there before us. Slip this into her mouth.”

“I can’t gag my bride,” John said in indignation.

“Oh, you can’t? Well, I can!” Don snarled. “She’ll have the whole building down on us!” He deftly gagged the girl. “You take her,” he said. “I’ve been bitten enough this night. Not to speak of being kicked until I’m black-and-blue.”

John took her up and slung her over his shoulder, murmuring apologetically and quite senselessly. Don opened the door, darted looks up and down the corridor.

“Let’s go!” he said. “Fast!”

As quickly as carrying a kicking girl would allow, they started down the corridor toward the ladder. They rounded a corner and ran into the arms of a clannsman in his middle years. Don straightarmed him and kicked him in the side of the head even as he fell. John hurried on with his burden, but Don stopped long enough to grab out his coup stick and strike the man.

“I count coup,” he hissed, before following after his companion.

They reached the ladder by which they had entered the longhouse, and John started up it, one hand holding the girl to his shoulder, the other on the ladder rungs. Alice had let off kicking, at least temporarily, perhaps in fear of causing a fall, but perhaps in subconscious wish that the escapade succeed.

There came a shout of rage from down the corridor.

Don groaned. “Quickly,” he yelled. The fat was now in fire.

They scrambled up the ladder, and John headed for where they had left the grapple and line.

When Don reached the roof he turned, grabbed his coup stick and slashed with it across the face of the Thompson clannsman immediately behind. The other, encumbered with his drawn claidheammor and wishing to evade the ultimate insult, fell backward, taking three or four of his fellows along with him to the floor beneath.

Don half-yelled, half-laughed down at them, even as he hauled up the ladder. “I count coup!” He got out of the way just a split second before a carbine barked from below. He turned and scurried after John and his burden.

Not bothering to utilize the rope, Don grabbed the edge of the roof and swung over. He hesitated a moment, then dropped, hit on his feet, fell backward with a grunt of pain, jumped to his feet again and stared upward into the dark.

“Quickly!” he yelped. “They’ll be on us in moments.”

He could see a shape being lowered down, and when “she was near enough, he grabbed her about the legs. John had tied the rope beneath her armpits.

She began kicking again as soon as he had hold of her, and all his instinct was to clip her one; however, he didn’t want to answer to John, later on, in regard to that.

“Hush!” he snarled. “Are you daft? Do you think this is child’s play? If we are caught this night, John and I will hang in Caithness square before dawn.”

John dropped from above. A carbine barked from somewhere.

They started hurrying up the hill, the girl on her feet now. John had whipped the gag from her mouth. It meant nothing at this stage. The pursuit was on, and all bets were down.

Don hissed at her, “Run, lass. Those carbines cannot distinguish you from us.”

And run she did, John keeping immediately behind her, attempting to shield her body from the slugs that tore the air. She had hiked her skirts up, and now her white legs flashed in the night. Happily for their escape, it was a superlatively dark night by now.

They could hear horses behind them, and John groaned. “Faster, lass,” he called to her.

Don had gone on ahead as rapidly as he could. They heard him shout something to Dewey, and then came the rattle of his harness as he strapped sword and skean about his waist and dragged his carbine from its saddle sheath. He came charging back again.

“Onto the horses,” he yelled. He fired back the way they had come, threw the carbine’s breech, jammed another shell into the gun, fired again.

John was boosting Alice of the Thompsons onto the back of one of the horses. Dewey, in the saddle, was firing and reloading as rapidly as he could throw carbine breech. John’s orders against shedding blood this night were obviously being ignored by his desperate companions.

John vaulted into his own saddle and struck the rump of Alice’s beast sharply. “Let’s go!” he yelled.

Don, shouting the battle halloo of the Clarks, came scrambling up the hill. He leaped into his saddle and hurried after the others, laughing now in full glee.

He called after Dewey, “Wait until the bards sing this at the next muster.”

Dewey, slightly behind John and Alice and still firing back over his shoulder, shouted his own claim’s halloo but made no attempt to answer. They rode hard into the night, and behind them they could hear the pursuit. By this time, the revenge minded Thompsons must have realized that this was but a very small group and not a large raiding party to be approached respectfully.

It was a matter now of whose horses were freshest. Had the Thompson clannsmen taken the time to secure fresh horses, or had they taken up the pursuit on the animals they had just ridden in from Aberdeen? If their horses were fresh, then the four would be overtaken, for in spite of their spare war steeds, it had been a two day ride, with little rest.

Dewey and Don had dropped slightly behind to fight a rear guard action, but now they pulled up closer.

Dewey called, “John!”

John turned in his saddle and looked back. His two companions were behind, but Don’s face was pale, and he reeled in his saddle.

John blurted, “Don!”

Don grinned at him, then grimaced. “I’ve taken a slug in my side,” he said.