Ice and Shadow Page 17

If she had not known what sort of beasts did roam without, Roane would have believed them the gentlest and most agreeable of pets. People did have odd tastes, as who should know better than she, who had been exposed to a variety of worlds and customs—but to find a man who dealt unreservedly with direhounds!

  “It takes many kinds of men, m’lady, to make a nation.” The Colonel might have read her thoughts, if not her expression. “There is”—his voice dropped to a whisper she could barely hear—“much to be said between the two of us. I know not why you came—but to you my—”

  “Wait until you are free. Ill luck can come from too early thanksgiving.” She had never been superstitious before, but now, uneasy as she was inwardly, she could understand primitive natives who feared to invoke wrong powers, tempt retaliation from ill luck.

  “Until another time, then. But, believe me, we shall have you forth as soon as we can—”

  She looked at him steadily, a dull wonder in her. He spoke now as if she were the one to be concerned about, when he was the hunted man.

  The door opened and the man who had led them here entered, dropping a heavy sack, which added another sickening odor of dog meat, on the floor with a thud.

  “How is he—” he was beginning, when the Colonel spoke up.

  “Come see for yourself, man! Your pets have played guard well.”

  “M’lord.” Haus crossed the small room in a couple of strides, knelt, and laid his hand palm down on the one the Colonel held out to him, bowing his head for a moment as if the gesture was a small but solemn ceremony.

  “It has been a long time, Haus.”

  “One can forget the toll of years, m’lord, when there is good reason. Now”—he sat back on his haunches so that his face was more or less on a level with that of the man he spoke to—“there is a plan, desperate, but the best which can be done for now. They have sent to Urkermark for his orders. Luck has so far served us in two ways. First, when the badge of Hitherhow fell in the courtyard, it brought down the Marshal of the West. He still lies unconscious and they do not know when, or if, he will come to his senses. Colonel Scharn got a broken collar bone and a bad scrape on the head, so he’s not been much use in leading any hunt.

  “While the other—this Colonel Onglas—has been fluttering around without much more wits than the least of my pack out there. He put most of the guard to searching the village, routing folks out of their homes to ask questions and seek for traitors.

  “Two hours ago he demanded the direhounds. Some of the patrolmen found the tracks and he wanted to set the hounds to those.”

  Roane heard the men around her exclaim over that. “Yes.” Haus nodded. “I told you he had the wits of a peckfowl! I told him how a coursing such as that would end. Even I could not hold them to any set trail which was not that of a spaybuck or a roffer. So—he ordered me to make identification scent.”

  “He is plain mad!” burst out the Sergeant. “Using what?”

  “He has straw out of the cell they kept you in, m’lord, and some of the rags they used on your arm when they brought you in. It would be enough, and he will see that I do it. He is sending down guards to watch.”

  “Here? Then what—” Wuldon began.

  “They will not come in, never fear. But I told him the truth, that even direhounds cannot pick up a hunted man’s trail if he is mounted. So he is having a duocorn killed and the carcass brought here, too.”

  “A duocorn! Let your pets sniff that and they will turn on any like beast—even those of the hunters,” Imfry observed. “He is truly insane.”

  “He is fear-mad, I think, m’lord. He does not dare face the Duke with no better news than he has now. But I told him straight facts, and others listened, if he did not. Never mind about the straw and rags. I can doctor those. But it goes against my liking to make a duocorn into bait. The hounds could head straight for the stables. And why should innocent beasts suffer? Only there are those with him, lesser officers, who have their heads screwed on. One of them is going to Colonel Scharn right now, sure he can get that order countermanded. But—this is what I rightfully want to say, Colonel—that dead duocorn they are bringing down—I think that will get you out of here.”

  “Keep talking, Haus. This is beginning to interest me.”

  Haus nodded. “Like the old days along the border when the Nimps were raiding. Yes, m’lord, I thought you would remember. They deliver this duocorn, but none of them is going to risk his neck to push the cart inside that gate. So I fetch it in, with Sergeant Wuldon here—”

  “Me!” The Sergeant jerked back a fraction of an inch. “But everybody knows that you are the only one who dares come inside—”

  “I already told them I have a forester to help with the bait and the coursing—said you were wearing a treated coat to keep the hounds off, but it was mine and I only had the one. I also told them that you had helped on other hound hunts. The Duke did turn up some men he wanted trained, but none of them lasted long.” He laughed. “All right, we drag the duocorn carcass into this hut to work on. In spite of all Onglas’s raving, none of them is going to get up nerve enough to push in to watch. Then—we take out the Colonel, only he’ll be wrapped up in the skin. We put him in the cart. Down comes Scharn’s officer to say there has been enough of such foolishness. I say we have to get the bait out and bury it before the hounds go wild. I tell you, these men know nothing of the nature of the beasts. They are ready to believe anything one babbles about them. We take the cart back into the woods and I have a little show ready waiting to cover us out there.”

  “And what about m’lady here and Mattine?”

  “They go out now, to lay low in my place. I make a big to-do later about needing help with the cart, and bring them along. That’s the best I can offer, Colonel.”

  “It is clever, Haus. But I do not want m’lady and Mattine to run a risk.”

  Roane found her voice. “I run a greater staying here. I tell you, it will sicken me and I have no remedies which will help.”

  He looked at her, searching, but she knew she spoke the truth.

  “They will have protection, m’lord. I am taking the she hound Surenose up to my house. She is near whelping and I always take such to snugger quarters. With her loose in the inner yard, no one is going to stick nose through the gate.”

  “A lot of things can go wrong,” Sergeant Wuldon observed. “What if this Scharn does not speak up in time and Onglas makes you take the bait to the hounds?”

  “I can spend a long time making it. I tell you he knows nothing about direhounds, and he is not one to come and see what goes on here. I will get the guards to protest, and, if necessary, he will find he cannot force a hunting party into the chase. Sure it is risky, but so is any game you are going to play to get the Colonel out. And I cannot promise better.”

  “He is right,” Imfry said. “There is no way I am going to get out of here without taking more risk than I care to think about. And this game sounds as if it does have possibilities.”

  CHAPTER 15

  ROANE, her hood once more well over her face, slouched along in the wake of a bobbing cart. She was no actress and now was the time when the slightest error might arouse the suspicions of those following them on this faintest of tracks away from the village and into the forest. At least Haus had been able to prolong his bait preparations until midafternoon, and it was close to evening when they had been ordered by Scharn, come to his senses enough to take charge, to do away with the carcass. She gave silent thanks that at least there had been no further message from Duke Reddick.

  The cart creaked and bumped. She would hate to lie therein, wrapped in a bloody skin which already attracted a trail of insects, as Imfry had to do. The Sergeant and Mattine pulled the shaft of that crude transport. No duocorn could be brought near the smelly cargo. Which was why the rear guard went dismounted. And how Haus, who walked by her side, proposed to get rid of those guards she could not imagine.

  Thus far his plan had worked, and Roane could
not quarrel with anything which brought them into the clean air, farther and farther from Hitherhow. At least she had slept away some of that period she and Mattine had been in Haus’s house, so she felt more alert. Though as long as she knew of that installation, the machines clicking away to regulate the lives of those who could not imagine they were so governed, she would be ill at ease.

  Roane plodded along, trying to act the sullen role of one pressed into unwilling service. She hoped to be ready for Haus’s move, or one from Imfry.

  “You—Haus!” A voice rang out from the rear. “How far do you expect to travel before you bury that carrion? We are not going to tramp all over this forest—”

  “Neither do I want to worry about the hounds taking to our trail and getting a taste for duocorn the first time they are uncoupled in chase,” Haus replied. “I do not fancy having to explain something like dead mounts to the Duke.”

  She heard grumbling, but no open protests. A moment later Haus’s shoulder brushed hers and he said harshly:

  “Can you not even walk straight, boy? By the Arms of the Guardians, what help are you? Get up ahead there and lend a hand to pulling or we are going to be half the night going a quarter league!”

  Roane pushed between the cart and encroaching brush and saplings, reaching the Sergeant, to lay hand to the shaft beside him.

  “Not long now, m’lady,” he whispered. “Be ready to jump to the right when I give the word.”

  Jump right—She glanced in that direction. There was a tumbling pile of stones, a trail of them, as if a wall had once stood there. But in that were frequent gaps which were filled with rank grass and matted vines. Also there were brush and trees. It was a gray day, without sun, and there was a damp feeling of coming rain in the air. Jump right—she ran her tongue over very dry lips.

  The track they followed, if track it really was, took a sharp angle left. And they had the cart half around the bend when out of the brush fronting them arose a grunting which could only be a direhound! The Sergeant shouted, gave a swift jerk to the pull, and the cart trembled. Mattine pushed as if in panic and the small transport began to tip toward Roane.

  “Now!”

  Once more the direhound sounded. Behind men yelled warnings while Haus bellowed confused orders. Roane took the chance that Wuldon knew exactly what he was doing. She leaped for the cover of the tumbled stones, plunging on away from the track. As she went she heard the crash of the cart hitting on its side.

  “Run, you lack-witted fools!” That was Haus. “They must have broken out the gate, are circling for a kill. Get away or face them!”

  Roane slammed against a tree, held to it, her heart pounding. It could not be as the hound master said because Wuldon had been expecting something. But this was her chance to be free of the whole action.

  She gave a sob, would have stumbled blindly on, when she heard a crashing behind her. So she backed around, the tree against her spine, half fearing to face death on four feet. What came was the Sergeant supporting a bloodstained, half-clothed man—Imfry! He must have been able to claw out of his reeking cover as soon as the cart overturned.

  “Come on!” The Sergeant and his superior officer passed, Roane followed.

  Though she could see no guide through this wilderness, the men before her went with as much confidence as if they were following one of those off-world homing devices. But they had not gone too far before Mattine came into view also. He was laughing.

  “That Haus! He has stampeded the whole squad! They are hearing twice as many hound calls as he sends, and they are racing back to the keep, doubtless to report we have all been eaten alive. M’lord, he is better than half a regiment by himself.”

  “He had better be! Were Reddick to suspect him—”

  “Would not do the Duke any good. With those pets of his Haus has a better bodyguard than any king.” Mattine lost none of his cheer.

  “They are mortal; a few well-placed bullets—I hope he has a tight tale for Reddick when he comes.”

  “You think the Duke will come, sir?” asked the Sergeant.

  “I do not flatter myself, Wuldon, that I am any great prize for myself alone. As you suggested, he will undoubtedly have me horned as an outlaw. After that”—Imfry shrugged—“I shall be meat for the shooting with a reward to top the fun of the chase. But Reddick knows that as long as I live I shall not rest until I know what spell he has set on the Queen!” There was such cold determination in that, Roane shivered.

  “He had her under mind-globe back there in the cave—but this goes deeper than anything Shambry can devise, holds longer and tighter. You heard the proclamation, the earlier one, that she is going to wed Reddick. It will follow that she will raise him to Prince Consort, and then—how long will it be before he rules Reveny? If she wakes from that spell with his creatures around her, what chance will she have? I tell you, she is as much a prisoner now as I was at Hitherhow. Though she may not yet realize it.”

  “Sir.” Mattine was serious now. “I always heard it told that mind-globe spells cannot make anyone do what is against his inner nature.”

  “I will not believe,” Imfry said slowly, looking at Mattine, a set, hard line to his jaw, his eyes cold, “that the Princess—the Queen—would have signed my death warrant of her own free will. Nor can anyone who knows her well. Ask you the Lady Roane. She had been much with her.”

  They looked to her now. And she gave them the truth. “She is under a spell.”

  Mattine and the Sergeant looked disturbed, but Imfry nodded, and some of that hardness left his face.

  “You see? The Queen needs our aid. Can we deny her aught we can do?”

  “Sir, we can raise no army. If we hide out in the Reserve and send the word about we can muster men, yes, that much I grant you. But an army large enough to go up against those Reddick can easily put in the field, no. And if the Soothspeaker Shambry is so powerful that he can hold the Queen in thrall against her nature, then it may be possible he can do likewise with even us, if he can find a way. Sir—if you will only go over the border—to Leichstan or—”

  “And would any neighbor give me refuge? The Queen went to Leichstan and was met by treachery. Could we hope to fare better? We cannot let Reddick drive us out now or there will be no return at all.”

  “Well, we need not set off today, sir. We had better think about saving our hides or Reddick will have them skinned off our aching backs,” returned the Sergeant.

  “Right you are,” Imfry answered. “This lay-up Haus told you of, is it far?”

  “Far enough to keep us moving well for a while, sir. You feeling it now?” Mattine cut in.

  “Less than I thought that I would, thanks to the Lady Roane and those miracles she carries in her jars and tubes. And you, m’lady, do you go with us now?”

  He was giving her a choice. But as he spoke she discovered she had already made it—long ago. He wanted an answer to the change in Ludorica, she was sure she had it. Facing Reddick bravely would do no good, not so long as those installations kept clicking away. They would control all—maybe they did even now. And the Service would not move in time to aid, even if Uncle Offlas managed to bring down the LB and return to the mother ship out in orbit.

  “Yes,” Roane answered simply.

  If she expected any encouraging comment from him, she did not get it. Mattine fell into step with her.

  “It is still a far piece, m’lady. But at least we can lay up there snug and tight, and watch our back trail without worry. It is one of the old war camps of the Karoff rebellion. The enemy did not take it by storm when it fell, but by treachery. Since we have no traitors we do not have to fear that, now do we?”

  Moonrise came, had the moon been able to penetrate thoroughly the drifting clouds, before they reached their destination. Roane never discovered what guides the Sergeant and Mattine used to bring them through the forest to a stony rise and up that by a very wandering and narrow way to a plateau.

  There were walls here, crumbling. Bu
t, while they had not been built with mortar, they were still intact enough to afford shelter. And that Roane was glad to have. She was breathing hard as she sank down in a corner niche and sat, her feet stretched out before her. They had not pressed on as hard during that journey as she had imagined they might, probably because her companions had wanted to spare Imfry. But the Colonel had regained some of his old endurance, for which she thanked her medical supplies. His shoulder seemed to give him much less trouble. Even during their last climb he had not favored it much.

  Where they were in reference to the off-world camp or the hidden installation, Roane did not know, but that Imfry might be able to find his way to the latter she hoped. The question remained as to whether he would do it if he knew of the danger Uncle Offlas had prophesied. On the other hand, she was as sure as if she had definite knowledge that there was no hope of freeing Ludorica except via the defeat of the machines.

  “Now, sir.” Wuldon had made a circuit of the ancient fortifications, returned to stand before his officer as if on duty and making a formal report. “We got you here safe and sound. Our boys who laid that false trail should have been free long ago and ought now to be waiting at the Twisted Sword. We will all breathe easier when we get together. So, with your permission, I will jog on to pick them up. And Mattine—he has to reach Pin Crossing to see about fresh mounts—”

  “Sounds as if you have made a lot of plans, Wuldon.” Was there a hint of surprise in Imfry’s voice?

  “Best we could, sir. Not knowing that you would be more yourself—as you are. If you want to change them.”

  “Why? I can be sure that they are the best under the circumstances. Good luck—Guardian’s Fortune—to you both.”

  “We will whistle the old call, sir, when we come back. There is a good deadfall over the high path in, one of those traps we used to set in the Nimp times. Pull the lock rock and it will close off the path—take a full company a day to clear it. Guardian’s Fortune to you, too, sir, and to m’lady!”