"Cone rifles!" Jason's voice was high-pitched and strange. "Militia up there!"
His tense face was staring up at the tree-hidden ridge. He scrambled to the next-to-last donkey in line, which carried their own gear, and wrestled with its load until he could tug free the weapon that had been issued to him. He slid back down to lie flat beside Hal once more.
"That won't do you any good at this range," Hal said. Jason's weapon was an ancient needle gun, inaccurate beyond sixty or seventy meters, and ineffective at less than double that distance.
"I know," panted Jason, still staring up at the hidden ridge. "But maybe they'll come down on us."
"They'd have to lose their heads - " Hal was beginning, out of the lessons he had absorbed as a child, when a crunching of boots in shale to their right brought their heads around. They saw Leiter Wohlen, one of the younger men of the Command, running crouching toward them.
"Seen anything?" he gasped, stopping at last over them.
"Get down!" said Hal - but it was too late. The sound of whistlings filled their ears once more, and Leiter fell, dropping his own needle gun. He started to roll bonelessly away from them down the slope. Hal plunged in pursuit, caught him, and saw that he was undeniably dead. Three cones had torn their way through his chest and one had furrowed across the side of his head. Hal snatched up the fallen gun; and, crouched over to take advantage of the cover of the path above, ran across the slope back the way they had travelled.
"Where are you going?" he heard Jason calling after him. But he had no breath to answer.
He scuttled across the loose scree of the slope until the curve of the mountain began to block the direct line of sight between him and that part of the ridge from which the cones had been sent down upon them. He was back in the indentation, that fold of the mountain rock leading upward to the cleft and the chimney. Safe now from observation by the weapon-holders above, he scrambled back up onto the path, and began to climb directly upward in the cleft.
There were not so many loose stones here. He scrambled upward mostly over bare rock, and he went swiftly, the needle gun bouncing on his back, held there by the strap of its sling across his chest. Sweat sprang out on his face, cooling it so that it felt naked in the dry mountain air. He found himself breathing deeply and steadily. It had been a long time since he had pushed himself physically in just this fashion, and his body felt stiff and awkward. But the early habits of his training lived deeply in him, and he could feel the air being drawn powerfully into his lungs, the hammering of his heart in his chest rapid but steady. He climbed swiftly into the narrow neck of the chimney; and from a scramble on hands and feet up the steep slope, he went to rock climbing.
The chimney was some nine or ten meters in height, narrowing sharply until at the top, just below the upper ridge, it was less than a meter in width. He made himself stop and breathe deeply at the bottom of the climb, willing his heart to slow and refilling his depleted tissues with oxygen for the effort.
The needle gun was the real problem. Ordinary procedure would have been to pull it up after him once he got to the upper ridge. But he had no line to lift it with. He stood for a moment, mentally calculating the distance between the ridge above him and the place farther along it, from which the fire of the cone rifles had come. Unless he was unlucky enough to have one of the Militiamen just above him at this moment, the sound of the weapon falling onto the flat rock of the upper ridge should not carry far enough to attract attention.
He stepped back and down from the base of the chimney to find a place where he could plant his feet firmly, then took the needle gun from his back and checked to make sure that its safety was on. It was, and he took the weapon firmly by the muzzle end of the barrel in both hands, swung it at arm's length, then flung it wheeling upward, until it dropped from sight with a distant crash on the upper ridge.
He stood waiting, listening. But there was no sound of anyone coming to investigate. He began to climb.
It had been over four years since his muscles had done this kind of work, and they were slow to respond to it. He climbed with extreme care, checking and rechecking every handhold and foothold, his eyes on the reddish, weather-smoothed rock only inches before them. Little by little, as he went, the old reflexes came back and the familiar skills. He was soaked with sweat now and his shirt clung to his back and shoulders. He panted heavily as he went. But he was warming to the ascent and something of his earlier pleasure at such conquests of vertical space, arm-reach by arm-reach, woke in him again.
He crawled out at last from the shadow of the chimney into the hot sun of the ledge above him and lay there, panting. After a moment a small breeze came by and chilled him pleasantly. His breathing slowed. He looked around for the needle gun, saw it lying within reach of his left arm and pulled it to him, sitting up.
There was a complete silence around him. He might have been alone in the mountains. For a moment a small finger of panic touched him, the thought that he had taken too much time coming up the chimney and the attackers might already have control of the Command. Then he put the feeling aside. Unprofitable emotion. He could hear the dry voice of Malachi, lecturing now in his memory.
He stood up, lifting the needle rifle with him. His breathing was almost normal again. He began to run, noiselessly, on the carpet of pine needles deep on this upper ledge, in the direction that would place him above the Command, strung out on the lower ridge.
His ears were tuned for any sounds from ahead as he went. After only a short distance, he heard voices and paused to liken. There were three speakers, just beyond a small clump of trees just ahead. He cut to his left up the slope and went on more slowly and even more silently. After a moment he was able to look down into the area beyond the tree clump. He saw three men there with cone rifles, wearing the same black uniforms he had seen on the Militia guards in Citadel.
Automatically, the needle gun in his hands came up into firing position. They were less than twenty meters from him, in clear view, with their backs to him. Patience, said the remembered voice of Malachi silently in his ear. He dropped the weapon again to arm's-length and continued moving, parallel to the upper ridge and above it.
He passed two more groups of three men with cone rifles before he came to one with four men seated with their rifles, peering down the slope and occasionally firing, while a thin man with the broad white bar of a Captain's chevron sewed slantwise on the left arm of his battle-jacket stood over them, his back, like theirs, to Hal.
There was an air of relaxation and confidence about the Militiamen that made Hal uneasy. He tried to see over the edge of the ridge to the Command below, but could not. Quietly, he turned and climbed higher on the slope and finally was able to see the line of animals and baggage along the path of the lower ridge. No people were visible at all; and he thought that they had sensibly all taken cover below the edge of the ridge, when he remembered the continued firing of the men he had passed and those just below him.
He shaded his eyes against the brightness of the sky - and for the first time was able to make out movement on the mountainside above the lower ridge. A number of those in the Command were working their way from one point of cover to another, up the slope in an attack upon their attackers; and as he watched he focused in on the movement of one slim, dark-clad figure in particular and realized that it was Rukh herself who was leading them.
It was a desperate response on the part of the Command. The Militiamen could sit and take their time about picking off the climbers as they momentarily exposed themselves; while the Command members were not only under extreme difficulty in firing back, but were being exhausted by the climb. Nonetheless they came on, and suddenly Hal realized what Rukh must have in mind.