Dirk shook his head to clear the mists and drove upward from a crouch, catching him under the chin with the tip of his staff. The Soldier flew backward, hit the ground sprawling.
Dirk shot to his feet, staff back to guard … to find himself facing two leveled crossbows. The sergeant aimed at him from his left; the trooper between the huts had him covered from the right.
He didn’t stay to look; he fell to the ground and rolled, noting in passing that Gar seemed to have disappeared. A bolt hissed where his head had been; another grazed his leg. As he started to roll to his feet, he saw a long arm shoot out from behind the trooper between the huts, wrapping itself around the man’s throat. Then he was completing the roll, coming up between sergeant and Squire, waiting for the blade in the back, but bound to bring the smug Squire down with him. His body uncoiled like a spring in a straight line with his staff and caught the Squire in the belly as the sword swung down. The Squire shot backward over the rump of his horse, the blade sliced air a foot from Dirk’s face and went spinning, and Dirk whirled to face the sergeant.
Who wasn’t there.
He was running toward Gar, bellowing and swinging his crossbow like a club.
Gar’s staff shot out like an extended stiff arm. The crossbow clattered uselessly on its shaft; the tip caught the sergeant in the collarbone. He shot backward and landed sprawling, out cold.
Silence settled down over the village street. Dirk glanced around him and noticed the villagers were conspicuous by their absence. Wise.
He looked around him, at the five unconscious bodies, then up at Gar, who stood, feet wide apart, staff in his hands, a slight, ironic smile on his face. Dirk limped over to him, panting. “You’re a better man than I thought,” he gasped. “Where’d you learn to handle a quarterstaff—rich kid?”
Gar’s smile twitched. “My own home planet is still a little on the—shall we say—primitive side.” He nodded toward the unconscious troop. “Offhand, I’d say our cover is blown.”
Dirk turned slowly, looking around him. “You might say so, yes.”
“Well, you’re the local expert,” Gar grunted. “What do we do now?”
A door flew open beside them, and a woman stepped out. “In here, quickly! Before they awaken!”
Dirk stared.
She was tall and dark, with small, full breasts straining against a tight-laced bodice. The flowing skirt followed the gently rounded curve of her hip. This much was like any other Maid—but the heart-shaped face, the small, straight nose, the full lips and large green eyes with long fluttering lashes, and the wealth of darkly gleaming hair, made up a face more beautiful than he had ever seen. How did the Lords miss this one?
“Quickly!” she hissed, pointing angrily to the interior of the hut. “You must be gone from sight before they waken!”
Dirk stepped in slowly, feeling numbed; Gar followed closely behind, watching his “guide” warily. The girl whirled in after them and latched the door.
The slam jolted Dirk out of his stupefaction. He looked around him, eyes narrowing. Dirt floor, central firepit, rough-hewn furniture, a little light escaping through small parchment windows—nothing unusual; a peasant hut like any other. The same applied to the peasant woman and her girls, and the two young boys, scarcely more than toddlers. The women were all Housewives built on the wide and generous scale; and the boys were small blocks of beef, undoubtedly like their father. Typical Farmer family, even down to the apprehension in their faces; the churls were never free of it, though admittedly it was a little worse right now. Quite a bit worse—two fugitives in their house.
Dirk glanced at their brunette captor again—make that three. Maybe. Certainly she wasn’t a Housewife, equally certainly not related. What was she doing here?
She grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the ladder in the wall impatiently. “Quickly, up to the loft! Men look upward last, when they’re searching; ‘tis your best chance.” She whirled to the wife and children. “Go about your daily round; forget we are here, as much as you can. They’ll be gone soon enough; you have only to hold the masquerade an hour at most.”
The apprehension vanished from the wife’s face, to be replaced by grim, set purpose. She nodded once with decision and turned to crackle commands at her brood. By the time Dirk and Gar were stretched out on the nine-by-nine square of planking that served as a sleeping loft, the whole family were going about their daily tasks, seeming calm and unhurried, with only the faintest trace of anxiety about them.
Gar stared down over the edge of the planking, fascinated. Dirk glanced at him irritably; what could be so fascinating about scraping dishes?
Then he forgot Gar as cloth rustled beside him, and a warm, firm body stretched out next to him. He looked up, saw her tearing a square of homespun into strips.
“You’re wounded, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm. “Not that I care; but the blood might drip through the cracks in the boards and give us away.”
Dirk felt a stir of irritation. “If you don’t care, why’re you taking the risk of hiding us?”
“Use your imagination,” she snapped. “Do I look like a villager?”
Dirk nodded slowly. “So. You’re a rebel.”
“A courier for the outlaws. You’re from our ‘friends’ in the sky?”
Dirk felt the chill of wariness flow through him from the way she said “friends”—almost as though it were an insult. “How do you figure that?” he said slowly.
She shrugged. “When Lord Cochon and his troops ride out like the Wild Hunt in the middle of the night, it’s something more than an escaped churl. If it were an outlaw raid, I’d know of it; and what else could it be but one of your dropping in? So I paced you from house to house as soon as you entered the village; and, when I heard the talking in the street, I knew who you were.”
Dirk lay staring at her, feeling the hot flush of desire spread outward through his whole body. Not just beauty—brains, too.
He didn’t know how to handle the wave of emotion; it scared him. Simple lust he’d had a hundred times, and knew how to cope with—but this was something different; a fascination, the roots of an obsession. Warning bells clanged in his mind. He lay still, hoping the wave would flow through him, crest, and subside.
The girl pushed herself up to her knees and yanked down his stocking, baring the calf. “This won’t hold for long, but it’ll soak up the blood till you’re out of here. You’re lucky—it’s only a flesh wound.” She picked up his foot and started wrapping the cloth.
Dirk lay very still, trying to ignore the current her touch seemed to generate. “I take it we lie doggo till they’ve waked and gone away.”
“Yes, and an hour after that. Less, and they might still be scouring the village; more, and they’ll have the Lord’s Sniffer out after you.”
Gar’s head snapped up. “ ‘Sniffer’? What’s that?”
“A low-grade telepath,” Dirk explained, “usually also an idiot; the two qualities seem to go together more often than not. They’ll walk him around everywhere they think we might be. If he hears any thoughts out of the ordinary, he’ll point us out.”
Gar stared at him. “You talk as though a telepath were an everyday occurrence.”
The girl stopped bandaging, frowned down at him. “Why shouldn’t it be?”
“An excellent question, here.” Dirk smiled wryly. “One of the effects of massive inbreeding, Gar.”
Gar turned away, eyes wide, seeming almost numb as he watched the family below.
The girl noticed it, and smiled, almost contemptuously. “I thought all you sky-men claimed to be churls.”
Dirk felt his stomach sink. He turned and looked over his shoulder. “We are. This one escaped early—before he was two, in his mother’s arms.”