The brazen bellow of a gong split the night, rolling out from the great central keep.
Hugh cursed under his breath; some lordling had looked out a window, and seen what was happening in the courtyard, and raised the alarm. It wouldn’t be quite a clean sweep, after all.
But close enough …
He charged the great door of the keep, leveling his laser to burn out the lock; but the door boomed open, and a double column of Lords charged out, formed into a skirmish line, and opened fire as other Lords came running out onto the battlements from upper doors. Hugh and his men threw themselves flat and dived for cover behind carts, water troughs, anything, as the sky-men on the battlements opened fire on the Lords up above, and a thousand churls came vaulting up stone steps to join them. Laser beams embroidered the night with bright geometric patterns. Churls and Lords screamed and died, but others leaped to fill their places. The churls pressed forward foot by foot; but a thousand Lords were now spread out by the base of the Keep, and half again that number warred on the battlements. More pressed behind them.
Then a score of churls together blasted ten Lords out of the line and charged up to three feet of them before other Lords could replace them. The replacements came out firing, but wildly; ten churls survived to burn into the center of the packed mass of Lords, and a hundred followed them. The Lords turned on the invaders, but realized that a laser was as apt to burn a fellow Lord as a churl. They threw their pistols down with curses and whipped out their swords.
The churls met them with long knives.
In a few minutes, a knot of chaos had formed in front of the keep door as Lords paired off with churls in hand-to-hand combat. Other Lords charged in to help their fellows, and hundreds of churls ducked laser fire to plunge in to have a personal chance at a Lord. The whole courtyard became one huge melee, Lords bellowing and howling as they fought silent, flint-eyed churls. And still the Lords poured out from the keep, and still more churls poured in through the gate.
CHAPTER 14
An outlaw threw his weight on a lever and, slowly, the oak door at the top of the stairs groaned open. DeCade leaped forward, ducking and whirling out into an opulent bedchamber, staff lashing out in case of ambush. But the chamber was empty. He straightened slowly, looking about him, too, curious to see how the top percent of the other half lived. The carpet on the floor felt like a lush lawn beneath his feet. The walls were hung with rich, brightly worked tapestries, and the chairs, dressers, and tables were beautifully carved of a dark, rich wood. A huge canopied bed stood in the center of the room, hung with burgundy velvet curtains-drawn tightly, now.
DeCade stepped toward it, motioning them to follow. He eased up to the side of the bed, Dirk beside him. Half of the outlaws oozed over to the curtains on the far side.
DeCade reached out a huge hand and yanked the curtains open.
A fat, bearded young man started up out of a sound sleep, staring about him wildly. He took one look at DeCade, gave a shriek of terror, and burrowed back into the bedclothes, plastering himself against the headboard, trembling and staring at them with wide, dull eyes. His nightshirt was silk, heavily embroidered-and stained with food. There was a golden coronet on his head.
DeCade’s mouth drew up in contempt. “Is this a King?”
The hair was long, black, and straggling; the beard was sparse and scrubby. The creature pressed back against the headboard, mewling in terror, clawing at the bedclothes.
DeCade doffed his cap in sarcastic respect. “Well met, your Majesty … Have you nothing to say?”
“You know he doesn’t,” Dirk said gently. “Look at his eyes.”
The eyes were huge, wide, dull-and empty. Spittle glistened on the thick lips and dripped down into the beard.
DeCade nodded, with heavy irony. “Yes, I know. The churls are not alone in inbreeding.”
“He is always spoken of but never seen,” Dirk said slowly.
“Small wonder. Would you display an idiot for your King?”
Dirk shook his head. “But who’s been governing the kingdom?”
“I have.”
Dirk whipped around, his laser drawn. DeCade turned more slowly, with a sardonic smile.
A tapestry swung aside, and Lord Core stepped out into the room, laser in his hand. He bowed his head in mock greeting, a vindictive smile on his lips. “Welcome, Lords of the Torn Smocks. It seems I have anticipated you.”
DeCade seemed almost amused. “You have; but then, it took no great deal of thought to know we would seek the King first.”
Core frowned, nettled. “Nor did it take any great thinking to realize who led these rebels. But if you were able to guess I would be here to meet you, you were quite foolish to walk into my arms.”
“Indeed?” DeCade raised his eyebrows politely, glancing at the outlaws behind him. “May I inquire as to who has walked into whose trap?”
Core smiled and gestured. All around the room, tapestries parted, and fifty armed Lords stepped through, swords in one hand, pistols in the other.
“My trap, I think,” Core murmured, with a gloating smile.
DeCade threw back his head, roaring laughter—and his staff whipped up, lashing out at Core as he fell prone to the floor. Dirk fell with him, almost before he realized it, and fired his laser as he fell. A Lord screamed, and went down—and so did twenty others, as a ruby beam lanced upward from every fallen outlaw. The remaining Lords fired; but DeCade was on his feet again, and so were the outlaws. Two screamed and went down with burned feet; the others fired again, while the Lords were still burning the carpet—and screaming, as the outlaws’ shots burned home.
Then DeCade’s staff sent Core’s pistol spinning, but the Lord chopped left-handed with his sword. DeCade parried with his staff and stepped in to close quarters, as the outlaws leaped in to grapple with the remaining Lords, man to man.
Dirk jabbed his man under the breastbone with his knife, yanked it out as the Lord fell with a shriek, and turned to cut his way through to DeCade’s side. He had a certain respect for Core…
DeCade chopped at the Lord’s head with his staff; Core blocked the blow with his sword, and DeCade whipped the butt of his staff toward Core’s temple. The Lord ducked and swung his sword up in a vicious stab at DeCade’s belly. DeCade leaned to the side, and the tip of the sword flashed by to tangle in his cloak. The butt of the staff leaped forward at Core’s head again. Again, Core ducked, but the staff dipped down with him and caught him under the chin. He slammed back against the wall, dazed. A huge hand caught him on the rebound, caught him by the throat, and squeezed. Core choked, his eyes cleared, and he whipped a dagger from a sheath at the small of his back, stabbed at DeCade’s side. DeCade twisted, but the knife slashed his chest open. Snarling with pain, he caught the Lord’s knife hand, twisting it sharply. Core screamed as bone cracked, and the knife clattered to the floor. DeCade spat with contempt and flung Core into the four-poster bed. The idiot screamed and clawed at Core, trying to get away from him. Core slapped him across the mouth with a snarl; the King fell back, dazed, and Core rolled from the bed, a new laser appearing from his boot, centered on DeCade.
The giant stepped back, alert and watchful. Core smiled, gloating, and stepped toward him.
Dirk’s dagger drove into his side.
Core screamed and whirled about, his pistol spraying fire, but Dirk had dropped to one knee. He caught the Lord’s wrist as it went by overhead, and twisted; the pistol dropped to the floor, and Core screamed again. Dirk yanked out the dagger as he leaped to his feet, stabbed home again, into Core’s chest, then again as the Lord fell, and again, and again. “For my mother, who died from the lack of your medicine… For my father, who died from your scourge… For my sister, who fled from your lust… For the year that I spent hiding from your hounds, hiding and starving… For the—”