At the bottom of the shaft, Charles crawled quickly into the narrow horizontal duct. Nils was waiting at the junction ahead and directed him into the branch that led to the guard room. The eyeless Northman was a pale light that illuminated nothing; the walls of the duct were as black as if he wasn’t there. When Charles had negotiated the turn and started toward the opening, he heard an angry voice ahead, with a tone of command.
“The guard captain is a telepath,” Nils whispered in his mind. “He’s sensed you; be ready. They’ll shoot arrows into the duct as soon as they see anything.”
A cold hand had gripped Charles’ gut as he crawled. Now it turned to a feeling of utter paralysis through which somehow he continued to crawl forward. The square of light ahead grew quickly until it was an opening almost within reach of his hand.
And almost miraculously the fear disappeared. Now he felt only calm and alert, quick and strong. He lay there long enough for the warriors to close up behind him, at the same time pulling a grenade from a pocket. Sten squeezed his foot. He pulled the pin, let the safety lever snap free, and deliberately counted to three before awkwardly tossing the grenade through the opening. An arrow zipped into the duct and rebounded, slicing his calf with its sharp-edged head, and there was an explosion in the guard room. Quickly, furiously, he scrambled head-first into the opening, and, without taking time to look or think, he rolled onto his back and pulled his upper body out with his hands. Sten grasped his feet and pushed, and in one spasmodic moment he was being lowered head-first, then dropped. The stone floor crashed into him, striking his extended hands, then his back, and he rolled to his knees beside a shattered orc, drawing his autopistol. An orc in a doorway was pulling his bowstring. Charles snapped a shot, and saw him fall as the arrow struck the high ceiling.
There was an instant’s silence, then a thud and a grunt and Sten rolled into him. Instantly the Northman was on his feet, reaching up to help the next man who was sliding out of the duct, back arched, like some grotesque steel-mailed myth birthing from a stone womb. A hurried arrow darted from the doorway, striking Sten’s steel cap and deflecting. Charles fired three more rounds, drew a second grenade, let the safety go, then fired another short burst as he rushed and pitched the grenade around the corner of the door. It roared, fragments whirred, and he darted in. There were cots and fallen men. One man was still on his feet against a wall, eyes and mouth wide, and he shot him down.
The key! He was supposed to get the key! Charles ran out again, saw an orc with a breastplate sprawled by the table, knelt, and shot off the ring that held the single large key to his belt.
There were shouts then, like voices in a well, words neither Anglic nor Scandinavian, and two of the Northmen ran past him into a short corridor toward the sound, swords in their hands. He started after them.
“No!” The wraith of Nils cut him off. “The other way! Quickly! The corridor to your left, and let your people out of their cells!”
For just a second he hesitated, confused, staring after the two warriors, then turned, dodged another rushing Northman, and ran with the key in his hand. But behind his eyes was what he’d started toward a moment before-orcs, a mass of orcs spilling through a doorway and the two Northmen hacking at them. He’d be killed. They all would. They were trapped down here like rats.
“Here!” The wraith was ahead of him again, pointing. Charles thrust the key into a lock and turned it.
“Watch now. There are two more farther on-Matthew and Mikhail. Quickly!”
The two men were at their cell doors, amazement in their eyes as Charles ran up and let them out. They started down the corridor, stopping to obey when a ghost called to them to help Chandra and Anne Marie.
Charles sprinted past them, pushing a fresh magazine into his pistol grip, then brought out another grenade. Pulling the pin with his teeth, he careened through the guard room and into the corridor where the two Northmen had been fighting.
It was over. Three Northmen stood there now by a litter of bodies. A heavy iron door had dropped into the opening from which the orcs had been issuing, nearly severing some bodies that lay across the threshold. Sten leaned grimly on a lever near it, a bloody sword in his hand. Three of the dead were Northmen.
Charles realized he had an armed grenade in his hand, walked back through the guard room and peered into the room with the cots. An orc knelt there, wounded, trying to stem the flow of blood from a comrade with the corner of a blanket.
Damnl thought Charles. No place to throw the damned thing. What in the hell do I do with… Abruptly the kneeling orc was on his feet, a knife in his hand, and Charles as quickly shot him, then backed from the room and lobbed the grenade around the edge of the doorway. The five seconds were forever before it exploded.
In the guard room, Matthew and Mikhail stood beside Anne Marie, staring at a Northman scalping an orc. Matthew had the slack-bodied Chandra over his shoulder. The other two Northmen strode in, hands and wrists smeared red.
“Let’s get out of here,” Charles said urgently, “before something happens.”
Sten looked at him, nodded, and gave an order in Scandinavian. They moved the heavy guardroom table beneath the ventilator. One Northman was boosted up and pulled himself into the duct. Then one after another they all were helped until only Sten was left to jump for it.
When they were gone, the only sound was the soft moaning of a twice wounded orc still alive in the guard quarters. The prisoners in their cells were as silent as if a threatening guard might come momentarily and punish them.
XXVI
“Alpha, this is the captain. Alpha, this is the captain. Over.”
“This is Alpha. Over.”
“Ivan, have you returned the Northman raiders yet? Over.”
“Not yet, Captain. We’ve been overflying the two armies-the orcs and the Northmen-at about six kilometers. The Northman in charge of the commando-his name is Sten-is sizing the situation up, seeing where the armies are relative to one another and to the Danube. And man, let me tell you, there’s an awful lot of orcs down there. Must outnumber the Northmen eight or ten to one, and… ”
“Damn it, Ivan! I didn’t send you down there to carry out a military reconnaissance! Your orders were to get our people back and bring them up here! Unload those Northmen as fast as you can and get our people back to the Phaeacia; they may need medical attention critically! Have you got that straight?”
“Right, Captain. Sorry. Nobody seemed that critical, and I figured that five minutes… ”
“ARE YOU A MEDIC?!?!” Ram’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Who told you you could make medical decisions?” The violence of his own reaction startled and shook him.
“Yes, sir. I’m on my way to unload the Northmen at once, sir.”
“Let me talk to him,” Matthew said softly. “Phaeacia, this is Matt Kumalo. Over.”
There was a brief lag, and the voice, when it answered, was husky and earnest. “God but I’m glad to hear your voice, Matt. How are you? How are all of you?”