Firehand Part 13

22.

THE COMMANDER AND his three companions kept moving steadily all that day, trying to regain some of the time they had lost. They were silent for the most part, each busy with his own thoughts, and little was said even when they finally made camp for the night.

Eveleen held the second watch, that following her husband's. She was in no good humor and was glad none of the others was present to see the frown marring her features.

She was furious with Allran. Her fellow Lieutenant was a professional soldier and had honestly acknowledged his fault in addressing his superior as he had, but none of the anger against Murdock which had fired his outburst had faded. He reined it tightly now, but she knew him well enough after their months of service together to be aware of it, and she was certain Ross sensed it as well.

Her expression darkened still further. This was not the first time she had observed discontent or anger on him, either. What was the matter with the man? Ross did not need this with everything else he had to bear besides.

When she was finally relieved, the woman went to where Murdock was lying. Each of the partisans slept apart from his companions, visually separated from them so that some, at least, might escape if their camp were discovered and overrun. She was glad of that now, for it would give them the opportunity for private conversation if her chief were still awake.

Eveleen found Ross lying on his back, his arms pillowing his head. He appeared to be staring into the branches forming the dark roof above him but sat up as soon as she approached.

The Lieutenant gave the signal that all was well and seated herself beside him. "My watch is over," she chided gently. "You should've been asleep ages ago."

"I wanted to do some thinking." He smiled. "You wouldn't have come to me if you didn't expect to find me awake."

"I was afraid you would be," the weapons expert admitted.

"You've got to be played out, too. What's your excuse for staying up?"

Her head lowered and raised again. "The same as yours. I was thinking about what happened today, what Allran said to you."

"He was mad, and he knew I was right."

"Angry words can still wound. He used some pretty strong terms." Her eyes caught his. "Ross, no one, including Allran A Aldar, thinks of you like that."

"Not these people, no. Not now," he said dully, "but all Dominion will soon. You said they s.h.i.+fted into pacifism pretty early. People in our supposed profession wouldn't stay popular in that atmosphere." His eyes fixed on his hands. "I was a misfit in our own time until the Project found me, and I was a misfit in Hawaika's past. Now it's happening again..."

"Hardly," she informed him. "The conversion did not happen overnight. Besides, the locals didn't become idiots because they turned away from warfare on a yearly basis. They fought the Baldies, remember, and they did a proper job on them. Their history didn't condemn that stand, or try to drop it into the back of some file and forget it."

A slow smile just touched his lips before fading again. "I suppose I am getting myself worked up over nothing."

His expression darkened again. "I'd have to be stone blind not to see that Allran resents me, though. If he weren't such a professional, there would be serious friction between us even now."

His companion nodded. "It's gotten worse recently. I can't understand what's the matter with him."

"I imagine it's a problem mercenary commanders must occasionally encounter on long-term commissions," Ross said thoughtfully. "Most of these domain leaders are sound warriors and good officers, but their skills are usually confined to training and parading their troops, relieved, perhaps, by bandit control now and then in wilder areas or, in extremely rare instances, by a show of force against some troublesome neighbor.

"When real danger develops, mercenary companies are almost inevitably hired, always with the stipulation that their own officers will have precedence in all war-related activities, save only with respect to the Ton himself."

He sighed. "It's only natural, I suppose, that some of the local men should resent being thus superseded, particularly where rank and birth are interconnected. Such officers simply don't want to yield place to hired swords. I can't say that I blame them."

Ross looked into the distance. "Allran's fathers have commanded Sapphirehold's garrison for five generations. How pleased can I expect him to be to see a mercenary raised over him? Luroc's naming me his son can't have helped, either. It's got to have raised the nasty suspicion that I might stay here and make the current situation permanent. That would be a disaster as far as he was concerned."

The Terran man fell silent a moment, then recalled himself again. "I'll have to do what I can to make peace between us."

"You're not the one at fault!"

"All the same, it's my business to banish this tension before it grows still worse, which it's bound to do if I try to ignore it. We can't afford quarreling in our ranks. That would serve Zanthor so well that it might significantly delay his defeat."

"What more can you do?" Eveleen asked him. "Another man would've decked Allran or worse for what he said to you today."

"I wasn't far from it," her husband confessed.

He shrugged. "All I can do is talk to him. I don't want the place he desires. I should be able to convince him that mercenaries don't stick around once their work's done and life goes back to normal again."

"Will he believe that?"

"He should if I don't hold off so long before speaking to him that his feelings grow permanently irrational. That would be an enormous disservice to an extremely fine officer, and I've delayed nearly too long already."

Ross smiled at her. "That must wait until we're back in base. For now, Lieutenant, I suggest that we both get some sleep. As it is, we won't be happy when it's time to hit the saddle again."

23.

THE FOLLOWING DAY dawned pleasantly enough, but the weather turned early in the morning, and soon a sharp, damp wind snapped at them.

Rain joined with it just before noon, a nasty, steady drizzle that kept all four morosely hunched in their cloaks. They were tired in spirit and body after their long mission, they were cold, and even the fact that they were well into the mountains and should reach their base the next day did little to cheer them. None of them felt inclined for speech, although the need for caution was long since past.

All knew camp would be a most unpleasant affair that night, and Murdock weighed continuing on until they reached home.

In the end he decided to break their journey. There was still a goodly distance to go, and he disliked pressing a needless forced march on his companions. He tried never to overtax any of his soldiers without strong cause. They endured quite enough hards.h.i.+p in the normal course of their lives without his adding to their burdens.

The partisans stopped where they were when darkness began to fall despite the fact that the site offered little in the way of comfort. They knew the region in which they traveled and realized they would find nothing better anywhere close by.

At least, they were s.h.i.+elded in great part from the wind. They were in the lee of a high, very sheer cliff that broke the worst of its force. So effective was its screening, in fact, that a considerable amount of soil and softer matter clung to it, bound by the roots of the small, tough plants that had somehow found purchase there despite its almost perpendicular grade.

None of this vegetation was high or very dense, and the rocks and great boulders marbling the cliffside were clearly visible, as were the scars left to show where some of them had torn free.

Ross set their camp a fair distance from the cliff. Falls might not occur frequently, but the stones, some of them large, littering the ground near its base were proof enough that heavy material did occasionally break loose and come down. He was particularly inclined to show caution now. After a day's constant rain, that soil up there was likely to be wet through and maybe somewhat less stable, less able to bear weight against the draw of gravity, than would normally be the case.

A Aldar scowled when he saw where they were to settle. "We would have better shelter closer to the cliff," he protested, "and those two hollows there would let the ones not on watch sleep dry and out of the wind. The bigger of them would hold two of us."

"Some of that rock could too easily fall."

"The ground might tremble and open beneath us, too! If fate wants to take us that way, she will do so, Firehand's precautions be d.a.m.ned!"

The gray eyes turned cold. "Sleep where you will! I've issued no commands on the subject," he snapped, then pointedly turned his attention away from the other.

The Dominionite went to the larger of the two indentations to which he had referred as soon as the usual work of the camp had been completed. His watch did not come until Eveleen's was done, and he could hope for several hours of solid sleep before he was summoned, a considerably better sleep than any of his comrades would enjoy, however weariness might blunt the discomforts of their beds.

Ross could scarcely grip his temper even after he had left the others to take up his turn at guard, and he gave thanks that none of their foes strayed here. With this dark, violent pa.s.sion so strongly in possession of him, he would have been hard pressed to detect any sort of even minimally subtle approach.

He strove to quell the emotion sending the blood surging through his veins, knowing it to be sharp beyond the affront calling it forth.

The Terran understood well enough why he was reacting like this. The day had been a miserable, tiring one, and he was beginning to feel the backlash of the strain that always accompanied service in the Funnel. A night's proper sleep was what he actually needed to set him right, but until he was free to seek that, he would have to keep himself under very tight check. To his great discredit, he had given way once this night and had no wish to repeat that failing a second time, maybe with even less cause.

A dull rumble tore through the night, followed almost in the same instant by a heart-deadening crash.

The blood drained from the Time Agent's face. He raced for the camp, the certainty of disaster crus.h.i.+ng him like a sentence from the judgment chamber of Dominion's G.o.ddess.

It was too well founded. A great stone, a boulder larger than any of the others that had come down before it, had fallen from the cliff to settle against the place where the rebellious Lieutenant had chosen to pa.s.s the night. Whether it had broken him beneath its ma.s.s or merely trapped him inside could not as yet be determined.

Ross's mouth was a hard line. It could well be that the former was the kinder alternative.

He found no comfort in Gordon's expression when the archeologist turned to give him report. "It's wedged solid. We can't tell whether he's alive, and no air's getting to him if he is. Either we pull him out fast, or we might as well not bother."

His partner nodded grimly. That hole was very small. It would not hold any great supply of oxygen even for one lying p.r.o.ne and inactive, as the prisoner must.

He thought suddenly that it made an excellent tomb.

Murdock gave no voice to that. Allran needed better from him than despair.

He bent to study the boulder and the ground around it.

Bad. Very bad. The land sloped inward toward the cliff, very slightly, perhaps, but still perceptibly, and it was ridged besides so that the great plug was fairly effectively locked in place. It had holed the ground in its striking, too. Fortunately, the latter was itself very hard, and the indentation was slight, but coupled with all the rest and with the weight of the missile, it could too well be enough to defeat them.

He straightened. There was only one real chance that he could see. "Get a couple of the deer. Fasten them to it." He wished they could have used all of the animals, but there was no room for more than a pair of them to maneuver and not enough line to fas.h.i.+on a harness for them even if there were.

His comrades ran to obey.

"You think they'll be able to pull it out?" Eveleen asked doubtfully as she returned with two of their mounts.

"Out, no. They may be able to haul it lengthways along the wall, far enough for us to drag him free."

"A team can't work that way," Ashe told him, "not with the kind of rope harness we'll have to improvise. The path along which they'll have to draw is too narrow. They'd only be pulling against each other."

"We have enough rope to harness them in line, one before the other."

The older man nodded slowly. "Yes," he said softly. "That might just do it."

Working with the speed of desperation, the three soon had the animals readied for the attempt.

The wardeer strained until it seemed that the ropes must surely snap. The stone s.h.i.+vered, moved the barest fraction, then settled back again.

Ross and Gordon threw themselves behind it.

The weapons expert caught Spark's bridle. Fear knotted in her stomach. If that huge thing moved a little s.p.a.ce only to roll back again, both men, off balance as they would be, would almost certainly be pinned beneath it.

She called out to the springdeer, and once more, they set themselves against the enormous rock.

Murdock pushed on the stone. His full strength seemed as nothing, but he only forced himself the harder.

He could sense more than see Ashe straining beside him, but he, too, appeared to be powerless...

The boulder slipped, edged away from its crater.

Eveleen left her place with the deer. She was beside the men now, waiting, watching.

Inch by agonizing slow inch, it moved, farther and ever farther. How much of the entrance would have to be exposed before the captive-or what remained of him-was free?

The cave opened!

The woman darted inside, caught what she found there, and drew it forth, away from the path the boulder had sc.r.a.ped on the ground.

"He's clear! Jump!"

Both men sprang aside. Ross caught the archeologist's arm to hasten his retreat. The great stone fought the advance it had been forced to make against the slope of the ground, and he doubted the deer would be able to hold it once deprived of the humans' support.

They could not. He saw them begin to slide back themselves and called out a command of release lest the valiant creatures injure themselves in their attempt to remain firm.

He reached them even as he spoke and slashed through their ropes with a quick stroke of his sword.

The rock stood as if frozen for a second's fraction, then rolled back along the scar that marked its pa.s.sage over the hard ground to strike heavily against the cliff side once more.

The commander did not watch it hit. His comrades were bent over Allran's ominously still form, and he hastened to them.

Eveleen looked up. "He'll be all right. It clipped him when it came down, but he's not much hurt. He should be returning to us shortly."

"Praise Life's Queen for that... I'd best see to the deer. You two, stay with him."

Ross remained a long time with the mounts, which had been pastured several yards away from their riders, and Eveleen at last left her other companions to join him.

"Were they hurt?" she inquired anxiously.

"No, thanks to you and Gordon. You did a good job harnessing them... How's Allran?"

"Well enough. His head's sore, and he's ashamed." Her eyes fixed him. "Why are you avoiding us?"

The man turned away from her. "I don't know how I can face him again. I knew that the danger of this place was real, yet I permitted him to walk straight into it."

"Stop being such an a.s.s!" she snapped irritably. "You were tired and thoroughly miserable. Allran nettled you, and you responded to that. What of it? We're all very well aware already of your fallibility, and it doesn't hurt any of us to have it forced on your own attention now and then."

Her chin lifted as he whirled about. "Blast me for insubordination if you will, but listen and listen good first! If you persist with this nonsense, you'll quite effectively kill any hope of reconciliation with Allran and will probably succeed in ruining him besides. He's certain to read your behavior as your condemnation of him because of his stupidity and fail utterly to recognize it merely as a mark of your own."

Anger flared through Ross, but it quickly cooled. "No man likes to hear that, particularly when it's true."

He took a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly. Feeling calmer now, he forcibly fixed his thoughts on the problem before him. "You're skilled at wagging your tongue, Lieutenant. Do you think Allran would listen to you if you explained to him that I see myself as disgraced by my own part in this affair and ask that he come to me tomorrow after we've reached our camp and have rested a little?"