In a similar fashion Glystra took the ion-shine from Cloyville, the mate’s heat-gun from Ketch. Vallusser and Bishop carried only knives. Nancy carried no weapon of any sort.
Tucking the weapons into his pouch he stepped behind the blaster, took the ion-shine from Corbus. Five ion-shines, counting Abbigens’, and the mate’s heat-gun.
“Now we’re as toothless as possible, and I think we ought to try for some sleep. Ketch, you and Vallusser take a couple of swords, stand on each side of the clearing. Make a triangle with the blaster. Don’t get in between the blaster and the soldiers, because if anything happens— you’re gone.” He turned to Darrot and Corbus. “Hear that? Use that blaster if there’s even a hint of an excuse.”
“Right,” said Corbus. Darrot nodded.
He looked at Nancy, Pianza, Bishop. “We’ll try for some sleep now and stand the second watch… Right there by the fire is a good place, out of range of the blaster.”
The bracken was soft and comfortable under the blanket where the firelight had warmed it. Glystra stretched himself down, and fatigue came rising from his bones and muscles, and for an instant he was almost dazed by the pleasant ache of relaxation.
He lay ruminating, hands under his head. Above him the white blotches still peered over the walkways, and for all he could see they had not moved since he had seen them first.
Bishop settled himself nearby, sighed. Glystra eyed him with a moment’s pity. Bishop was a student, fastidious, with no natural inclination for roughing it… Nancy returned from the forest. Glystra had watched her go with an instant suspicion and then had relaxed. It was impractical to supervise every waking moment of everyone. He must remember, he told himself, to send her home to Jubilith the first thing in the morning. He closed his eyes, opened them a crack. Languor came at him in billows, delightful warmth leaching his consciousness. He lay on his side, one arm thrown over his eyes. It was difficult keeping himself awake.
“Awake or dead,” Glystra thought. “Awake or dead.” And he forced his eyes open. Darrot, Corbus, Ketch, Vallusser. It was not that he trusted them the less, but that he was instinctively sure of Nancy, Pianza and Bishop.
There was no sound in the clearing other than the low mutter from the cluster of soldiers. Darrot and Corbus stood stiff behind the ionic blaster, Ketch paced slowly along one side of the clearing, Vallusser along the other. Behind him Nancy lay still and warm, Bishop slept like a baby, Pianza tossed fretfully.
All in all, quiet and peaceful. But the air was heavy with someone’s private tension—his misgivings, fear, vacillation. The tension permeated the clearing, held Glystra’s languor at bay.
The tension grew and Glystra tried to place it objectively. In Corbus’ tight alertness, in Darrot’s rigidity? In the feel of Nancy at his back? Some subtle wrongness in the breathing of Bishop or Pianza?… What had aroused him he could not determine, but he sensed a focus of action forming. As soon as someone could summon the courage. He tried to see whom Abbigens might be watching, without success.
Minutes passed, a quarter hour, a half hour. The air was brittle as ice.
Ketch took a couple of steps toward the blaster, signalled, muttered a few words, backed off into the woods. Glystra watched without seeming to watch as Ketch attended the needs of his body. The soldiers noting Ketch’s momentary preoccupation, reacted with a small ripple of motion. A curt monosyllable from Darrot froze them.
Ketch returned, and now Vallusser stepped into the woods. Again from the captives the quiver of alertness, and again Darrot’s soft command and the slow subsidence of blue-clad shoulders, the sinking of the grotesque black felt hats.
A sudden shape behind the blaster, a sweep of sword, a startled cry, a bubble of pure pain… Then a stamp of feet, a stabbing flash of steel.
Teeth grinding together, Glystra leapt to his feet, ion-shine in his hand.
At the blaster there was now but one man, crouching, swinging the tube toward Glystra. Glystra saw it coming, saw the elbows tense… He squeezed the handle of his ion-shine. Crackling electric streaks down the violet ray. Man’s head charred, shriveled; blaster smashed, flung askew. Glystra sprang about facing the soldiers. They had raised to their feet, stood poised, undecided whether to attack or flee.
“Sit down!” said Glystra, his voice rasping, deadly. The soldiers slumped instantly.
Glystra reached in his pouch, tossed weapons to Pianza, Bishop. “Watch ’em from here; we don’t have any more blaster.”
He strode to the shattered field weapon. Three bodies. Corbus was still alive. Darrot lay with his dead face turned up, frozen in rage. Vallusser’s body, with the head like an oversized black walnut, sprawled across Darrot’s legs.
Glystra looked down at the bent little body. “So it was Vallusser the man-hater. I wonder what they bought him with.”
Ketch had unpacked the first-aid kit and they knelt beside Corbus. A thrust through the side of his neck was bleeding profusely. Glystra applied a clotting agent, antiseptic and sprayed an elastic film over the wound, which when dry would grip the edges of the cut close together.
He rose to his feet, stood looking down at Abbigens. “Your usefulness is limited. I’ve found out what I wanted to know.”
Abbigens shook the thick yellow hair back out of his face. “Are you going to—kill me?”
“Wait and see.” Glystra turned away. He looked at his watch. “Twelve o’clock.” He tossed Corbus’ ion-shine to Ketch, turned to Pianza and Bishop. “You two sleep; we’ll take it till three.” He felt alive, refreshed. His enemy had been discovered and dealt with; the pressure of his most immediate problem had been lifted off his mind. Of course, tomorrow would bring new problems…
6
The Gypsies
Darrot and Vallusser were buried in a common grave with the Beaujolains: the young swaggerer who had fallen from the tree and the six soldiers who had been killed when Glystra had first seized the blaster.
Abbigens heaved a great sigh when earth began to fall on the bodies. Glystra grinned. Evidently Abbigens had expected to be one with the seven.
Shafts of sunlight, heavy and bright as bars of luminex, prodded down at a slant through the foliage. Pale smoke drifted up from the ashes of the campfire. It was almost time to leave.
Glystra looked around the clearing. Where was Nancy? There she stood, by the pack-beasts, as inconspicuous as she was able to make herself. Behind her the tree-trunks rose like the columns of a great temple, admitting brief glimpses of the sunlit slope.
Nancy felt Glystra’s eye, turned him her quick wide glance, with a hopeful hesitant smile. Glystra felt his heart beating. He looked away. Corbus was watching him with an unreadable expression. He compressed his lips, strode forward.
“You’d better be on your way, Nancy—back to Jubilith.”
Her smile faded slowly, her mouth drooped, her eyes became moist. She looked off into the forest. “I’m— afraid,” she said in a voice which lacked conviction. “Those soldiers who escaped may be waiting in the forest”
Glystra snorted. “They’re half-way to Montmarchy by now—worse luck. Besides, you can almost see Jubilith from here, straight up the slope. I’m sorry if you’re frightened. You can take a catapult and darts if you like”
She apparently realized the hopelessness of argument, turned away without a word, crossed the clearing. At the edge of the forest she paused, looked over her shoulder.
Glystra watched silently.
She turned away. He watched her a few moments, moving through the trees. He saw her come out on the sunny bracken, listlessly start up the slope toward Jubilith.