"Release him!" cried a man.
"What is to be done with him?" inquired another.
"Doubtless to be impaled," said one of the mercenaries.
"No! No!" cried men.
"I wonder if those mercenaries realize they are in danger," said Marcus. "I trust that they are being well paid," I said. "Otherwise they are certainly being exploited."
"Save me!" cried the bearded fellow. "Do not let them take me! Save me, if there be true men of Ar here!"
"Back, sleen of Ar!" cried the mercenary with the prisoner in hand.
"Back!" cried the other.
"Certainly they are not being very politic," said Marcus.
"Nor very courteous," I said.
"Help!" cried the prisoner, struggling. His hands were bound behind him and there were some ropes, as well, about his upper body, binding his arms to his sides.
"There is one hopeful sign here," said Marcus. "there is obviously sympathy for the Delta Brigade."
"Yes," I said.
"Help!" cried the prisoner.
"Does it seem to you that there are secret guardsmen about?" I asked Marcus. I had been trying to determine this.
He, too, surveyed the crowd, and area. "I do not think so," he said.
"Perhaps then," I said, "it is time to remove our armbands and reverse our cloaks, and adjust our wind scarves."
"Yes," said Marcus, grimly, "as the poor fellow is surely in desperate need of rescue."
In a moment then, our armbands removed, and certain adjustments effected in our garmenture, we thrust through the crowd.
"Unhand him!" I cried. It was not for nothing that I had once been granted a tryout with the troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit. To be sure, the tryout had come to naught.
"Who are you?" cried one of the mercenaries. I did not think he was bad either. Surely he knew whom to expect, at any rate, in this situation. The prisoner's face suddenly beamed. With our wind scarves in place, and our blades drawn, there would be little doubt who we would be, at least in general.
"The Brigade!" whispered men, elated, about us.
"Unhand them!" cried one of the men about.
A fellow flourished a staff. I trusted the crowd would not now close with the mercenaries, for if it did I genuinely feared there would be little but pulp left of them. But, still, it seemed, they did not recognize that they were in actual danger. So little respect they had, it seemed, for the men of Ar. On the other hand, perhaps they read the crowd better than I. But I really doubt it. I think I was much more aware, and had been earlier from my position and perspective, and my awareness of the mood of Ar, of its tenseness, its readiness, its ugliness, like a dark sky that might suddenly, without warning, blaze and shatter with destruction and thunder. Indeed, it was the mercenaries whom Marcus and I, I believe, as it was turning out, were rescuing.
"We yield to superior force," said the first mercenary.
"We have no choice," said the second, apparently similarly resigned, the one who had the prisoner in hand.
A murmur of victory, of elation, coursed through the crowd.
"There are only two of us," I said to the mercenary who I took it was first of the two. "Let us have it out with blades."
"No, no, that is all right," he said.
"Here is seems you have many allies," said the second.
"I am sure they will be good fellows and not interfere," I said.
"No, we will not interfere!" said a fellow enthusiastically.
"Clear some space," said another.
The crowd began to move back.
"I tell you," we surrender the prisoner," said the first, somewhat unpleasantly. "We are surrendering him. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I said.
"We are yielding to superior force," he said.
"There is no choice for us," said the second.
"Very well," I said.
They then turned about, and expeditiously withdrew.
"You must now escape," said a man. "They will inform guardsmen, they will return with reinforcements."
"I do not think so," I said.
Men looked at me, puzzled.
"My thanks, brothers!" said the prisoner. "But our brethren of Ar are right! We must flee! Take me with you, hide me!"
I sheathed my blade, and so, too, did Marcus his.
"Hurry! Untie me! Let us make away!" said the prisoner.
"You do not seem to be well tied," I said, inspecting his bonds.
"What are you doing?" he cried. "Ugh!"
"Now," I said, "you are well tied."
He struggled briefly, startled, frustratedly. Then he understood his helplessness.
"What is the meaning of this?" he said.
"What are you doing?" asked a fellow, puzzled.
I bent down and pushed the prisoner's ankles together, and then looped a thong about them, that they might not be able to move more than a hort or two apart. He could not now run. To be sure, he could stand.
"Untie me!" he said. "We must escape!"
"You are of the Delta Brigade?" I inquired.
"Yes," he said, "as must be you!"
"Why do you say that?" I inquired.
"You have rescued me," he said.
"You regard yourself as rescued?" I said.
"Surely you, like myself, are of the Delta Brigade!" he said.
"I do not think I know you," I said.
"I am not of your component," he said.
"But perhaps we are not of the Delta Brigade," I said.
"But who then?" he said.
"Perhaps we are loyal fellows of Ar," I said, "who, as is presumably appropriate for those of the new Ar, hate the Delta Brigade, and are opposed to it, who see in it a threat to Ar's ignominious surrender, that is, to harmony and peace, who see in it a challenge to the imperious governance of Cos, that is, to the glorious friendship and alliance of the two great ubarates?"
"He speaks like the public boards," said a fellow.
"Like part of them, at any rate," said another.
"I thought only the pusillanimous, and naA?ve adolescents, took such twaddle seriously," said another.
"I do not understand," said the prisoner uncertainly.
"Are you for the old Ar or the new Ar?" I asked.
"I am of the Delta Brigade!" he said. "And there is only one Ar, the old Ar, the true Ar!"
"Yes!" said a man.
"Brave fellow!" said a man.
"Release him, and hide him!" urged another.
"No," said the prisoner. "They are right. They must make certain of me! In their place I would do the same."
"Make certain quickly then," said a man. "There may be little time!"
"Do not fear," I said.
The prisoner now stood straighter, more proudly, more assuredly. He now suspected he was being tested. Indeed, he was, but not in the sense he thought. "You then acknowledge," I asked him, "that the only Ar, and the true Ar, is the Ar of old, the Ar which was betrayed and which stands in defiance of Cos?" For a moment the prisoner turned white. Then he said, boldly, "Yes, that is the true Ar."