Firehand Part 3

"I have your proposal," the Ton of Condor Hall responded firmly. "I shall consider it in my own time. I am the one facing war. You are risking your gold, some of your gold. It is my life and my lands that I would be chancing. In the meantime, I will have the gold you promised to test to confirm that it is genuine."

"If you will have gold, we shall have payment. Your arms..."

I Yoroc's eyes narrowed. He shook his head. "Our arms and the arms of our escort, we keep. However, that carrion is of no further use to us. You want blood. Take the three of them as your payment. I shall come again soon if I decide that we have more to say to one another."

6.

MURDOCK'S HEART WAS hammering wildly, although his will was strong enough to insure that his agitation did not become apparent to those around him.

This was not their first such meeting. His party had traveled the length of the island from its southernmost tip where they had landed, carrying warning of the danger overshadowing them to those Tons of each region whom their studies had named as leaders of the confederation whose success they were striving to promote.

They had met with a good measure of success, for their story was strong and the evidence they had brought to corroborate it had been expertly prepared. The various domains would see to their arms and supplies, and their rulers would meet to discuss the possibility of uniting to combat Zanthor I Yoroc should he prove the threat these strangers claimed. In so far, the timing of their organization had been advanced by crucial months, but no army would actually a.s.semble, much less move north, not at this stage. Not one of the southern rulers could be that powerfully convinced of the reality of the hordes of mercenaries that would all too soon be marching against them.

Once again, Gordon Ashe had delivered his news and was facing the same battery of arguments, but this time, success, or the greatest possible success, was essential. They were sitting in Sapphirehold's great hall, and facing them was Ton Luroc I Loran and his chief military and civil staff. Fail here, and they had blown the whole.

"I do not hesitate to believe the darkness you impute to the Ton of Condor Hall, Healer O Ashean," Luroc said slowly, almost more to himself than to his guest. "I am not alone in thinking him no true son of Life's Queen, but that he represents such utter peril, that I cannot accept. Good though his domain might be in comparison with the rest here in the north, it still could not support so great a host of hired swords as you describe."

Ross felt the sour taste of defeat rise inside him. The meeting was going the way of all the others, and they would gain no more from it than the Ton's promise to stay on the alert himself and put his domain's garrison on the alert. That might be enough for the time being in the south, but here, they required a more concrete response. Without Luroc's full belief and support behind them, they could not begin to do what had to be done in order to preserve the domain as a fighting force and, through it, to preserve Dominion of Virgin.

d.a.m.n it to every version of h.e.l.l he had ever heard described, what was the matter with these people? They had no trouble imagining that one of their kind could seriously consider annexing their lands by force of arms, but to a one, they could not bring themselves to believe that he could secure the means to carry his plans to fruition. By the time Zanthor taught them otherwise, it would be too late for everyone except the would-be conqueror himself.

His eyes burned in his impatience. "You're wrong, Ton," he said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the speakers. "Condor Hall can hire mercenaries and has hired them, and they'll stay long enough to fulfill its ruler's aim if we don't move at once to thwart him. It'll be too late to do that in even a few more weeks."

Murdock knew he had breached custom in addressing the Ton and the company a.s.sembled with him. Men and the few women who made a career of war for any purpose except to secure the safety of their native domains were not held in high regard, however quickly their talents were sought when reason dictated that they could be of good service. A mercenary did not inject his presence into a conference such as this unbidden, whatever his rank among his own kind. Eveleen and he would not even have been present had their testimony not been required.

The others there, including his own comrades, looked sharply at him, some in annoyance, all in surprise.

Ross set his hands on the table before him. He had begun. Now it was up to him to state his case well. He would have one chance, or part of a chance, and nothing more. "I'm a man of war, Ton I Loran, not a manager of lands," he went on quickly, while he still had the a.s.sembly's attention. "Columns, not mere companies, would serve Condor Hall for a short span, or longer if their troops were granted the rape of his first, easy conquests and their commanders promised rich domains in the south, to be held in loyalty to Zanthor, as part of their service contract. There's probably not one of us of any significant rank who doesn't occasionally dream of winning such a holding, however slight the chance of that's ever happening might be in fact. There're men in plenty who'll fight for its lure, a.s.suming reasonable interim recompense as well."

The Ton's expression was dark as he studied the supposed warrior, but it was with concern rather than anger. "If that be so," he said at last, "what purpose was there in your coming to us? What can a few hundred soldiers accomplish against so many, or this joining of the southern domains, for that matter, if Zanthor I Yoroc can draw on virtually limitless hosts to support him?"

Ross Murdock smiled. "Not limitless, Ton. The column Commandants will serve long-term solely for the promise of land. There are only a finite number of domains, north or south, and Zanthor won't want to parcel so many of them out, away from his direct control, that he, in effect, would only be trading one set of rulers for another.

"No, you can't meet him in a straight fight. I don't think the whole north could even if there was time enough to ready yourselves. It's the Confederacy that has to beat him. Sapphirehold's business is to buy Ton I Carlroc time, and to preserve our own hides while we're doing it."

Luroc's heavy brows raised. "Preserve our hides?" he echoed.

The Time Agent shrugged. "It's my plan, Ton I Loran, the only one my companions and I believe has any chance of success. It requires a different kind of fighting, one that must involve all your people. If you're willing to give it a try, I offer my services to conduct it, or at least to prepare your folk for it."

The other said nothing for several long seconds. "What is your name, man of war?" he asked at the end of that time.

The Terran released the breath he had been holding, taking care not to betray the extent of his relief. In asking that he identify himself, the Dominionite ruler was giving him leave to enter into serious discussion on an equal's footing, thus permitting genuine give and take and open argument if necessary. "Rossin A Murdoc, Ton. A Captain of mercenaries."

"This plan of yours, Captain?"

Ross described the partisan war he envisioned and the preparations the domain would have to make for it to succeed.

He was greeted by dark scowls when he finished speaking. "You would have us cower in the hills like wardwolves, surrender our homes and fields without a struggle at all?" demanded a young man, very handsome by the flat-faced standard of his race. He was clad in the plain uniform of the domain's garrison, and a Lieutenant's stripe ran diagonally across his breast.

"I'd have you fight so you can win. It'll be a costly war no matter what you do. Conduct it as I describe, and you'll at least have a chance. You'll also more than triple your force, since all the able-bodied population can be trained to wage it."

"As for your dwellings and fields, you couldn't hold them anyway. Accept that they're gone until Zanthor's defeated, establish others in secret, and put the old ones to the torch when you must to deny Condor Hall's forces the use of them."

"That's easy enough for a landless, homeless man to say," the other snapped hotly.

"Easy or hard, I'm only stating fact. The loss is inevitable. It's up to you to decide whether it will work to your enemy's benefit or against him."

"Be still, Allran," Luroc commanded, silencing the reply the young officer would have made. "You offer to lead us, Captain A Murdoc. Are you capable of doing so? A man needs two sound hands to fight and at the same time control his mount."

The Time Agent started, for a moment at a loss as to the other's meaning. His eyes dropped to his hands then, where they lay clearly exposed on the table, to the left with its terrible ridging of scar tissue. Among people of this technical level, such burns would probably have taken the member itself, much less the use of it.

He lifted his arm so that all could see it and flexed his fingers several times. "It still works," he told the Ton.

Eveleen Riordan's head raised. "A man with the courage to hold his own hand in fire rather than give his enemies their will over him can also be expected to have the strength to work with that hand when Life's Queen so blessed him as to send him a healer capable of preserving it."

A good move, Gordon thought. It established Ross as a person of considerable fort.i.tude, and it lay to rest before they ever arose any questions as to why a full Captain should bind himself for a significant stretch of time to the dull and relatively unprofitable business of riding escort to a wandering scholar. Grat.i.tude for such a service, which must cla.s.s as a near miracle, would be more compelling than any oath. Eveleen herself was posing as Murdock's chief officer, bound to remain with him whether he currently commanded the company to which his rank ent.i.tled him or not.

The frown did not leave I Loran's expression. "You ask a great deal on the weight of your party's word alone, Captain."

"Benefit only can come to you for following his suggestions," Ashe told him smoothly.

As he had antic.i.p.ated, the other looked startled. "How so, Healer?"

"If our warning proves accurate, as we fear and know it must, you shall have preserved your people, your stock and crops, and your portable possessions. Not only will you have salvaged your fighters, but you'll have multiplied their number several times over, and you'll have so positioned them that they'll be able to make a major contribution to the defeat of your enemy."

"Truly spoken," the Dominionite man said dryly, "but if these mercenary hordes of which you speak fail to materialize, I shall have made myself a merry jest for half the domains on this island."

"On the contrary, Ton I Loran. You'll still profit well. Anyone who laughs will show himself to be the fool." The archeologist leaned back, clasping his hands before him. Ross half smiled, recognizing a glimmer of his old trader technique... "At the very least, you'll gain two harvests, and you'll have established fields and farms in the highlands, including the necessary dwellings and outbuildings. Should you want to continue using them, if only for pasturing your stock, it would be a relatively simple matter to move willing families up to take charge of them."

The blue eyes grew grave. "Less concrete but perhaps even more important, whether we're right or wrong, you'll have bound your folk to you with a loyalty that would send them through a wall of flame for your sake since you took such care to save them before the full scope of the danger threatening Sapphirehold was even definitely established."

Luroc nodded. His eyes fixed once more on Murdock. "You will teach my people, Sapphirehold's men, women, and children, how to fight this strange kind of war?"

The agent's mouth twisted as he suddenly recalled Terra's history and the countless generations of little ones whose lives had been blighted by her eternal conflicts. "The adults," he responded a bit sharply. "We'll leave the rest be."

It had not been a studied answer, but he could feel a change, a warming, in those around him. These were not men who sought war, even those who served in the domain's garrison. They wanted only to work at their various professions and protect their own, and it sat well with all of them that this strange fighter cared that their children, at least, should be shielded as much as possible from what he believed was soon to come.

"I'll show you the kind of fighting I mean. Lieutenant EA Riordan will handle the basic weapons instruction."

That last was met with looks of incredulity on every side. It was not so much her s.e.x that sparked the reaction, he knew... No one attained rank, or survived at all, as a mercenary without being well able to use the tools of the profession... It was quite simply her size. Dominion's people were big. Every one of the men around them was tall and powerfully muscled in proportion, with a stocky, solid build that magnified the impression of great bulk. Gordon and he looked no more than adolescents among them. Eveleen Riordan seemed like a young girl barely on the threshold of physical womanhood. He could hardly even blame these strangers for doubting her abilities as they obviously did.

The weapons expert had come to the same conclusion. She smiled at Luroc. "I've taught arms use," she explained, "and so am the most logical choice to deal with the instruction of beginners. It's your farmers and artisans that I'll be teaching, after all. The warriors of your garrison already know how to manage a bow and sword and would have no interest in coming to me." She stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Unless we have some different technique or manner of usage that they might like to learn. We come from a distance and may have skills unfamiliar here."

Murdock studied her speculatively. It had come to him that Eveleen fought most of her battles thus, with diplomacy, often accompanied by an air of not entirely manufactured shyness or even diffidence at times. It was a skill he had best acquire. Fast. One did not win friends and allies by stripping men, or women, either, of their pride and standing among their own.

He took up the argument once more. "Previous teaching experience aside, I specifically want Lieutenant EA Riordan to handle the weapons training. Your folk will be conscious of their lack of experience even after they achieve technical competence with their arms. They couldn't be otherwise knowing they'll have to go up against hardened mercenaries. Eveleeni's small and slight and stands as living testimony of what can be accomplished despite the lack of size and enormous strength. It's my hope that Sapphirehold's people will be able to carry that lesson over to their own case as well."

The agent leaned back in his chair, much as Gordon had done earlier. "It's a given that she's got the necessary skills, but you do have a right to see some proof of the fact. Let's go to your training yard and let her send a quiver of arrows into a target."

Allran A Aldar frowned. "You want her to shoot against my men?"

"No, only to show you that she can shoot."

Eveleen turned to the Sapphireholder. "What would be the purpose in a compet.i.tion, Lieutenant?" she asked. "I have no reason to try to best your men, if I could, and I know those I'm supposed to teach are novices. Why should I want to make less of them? It certainly wouldn't do much toward building their confidence."

"Quite true," Luroc agreed. He came to his feet. "I think I am probably not alone in wanting to see something of what you can do." He ordered one of his guards to have a target prepared for the strange warrior's use. There was no need to command that a bow and arrows be given to her as well. These, she would have herself, all well familiar to her hand, and she would require or want no others.

Ashe fell into step beside Ross. "Is this necessary?" he inquired in a low voice.

"Yes."

Murdock turned his head slightly to conceal his smile. For once, he felt the older and considerably the more experienced of the two. Gordon was the fairest minded of men. He, Ross Murdock, could lay claim to no such virtue, and he remembered well the day that he and some of his fellow Time Agents had first been introduced to Eveleen Riordan. They had been a fine pack of thick-skulled young studs, and if they had known better than to openly voice either doubt or ridicule, none of them had been very friendly toward their new instructor in either mind or expression.

The weapons expert had appeared to be completely unaware of their hostility, but she had acknowledged that they had good reason to want to see something of what she could do before putting themselves in her hands, even as he had done just now with the Sapphirehold Ton. Since they were on the pistol range at the time, she offered to fire a clip after they were done, although modern arms were not her specialty.

The hand guns were not noted for great accuracy when fired from that distance, and each of the men's shots liberally peppered the face of their respective targets, most of them congregating gratifyingly near the centers. There had been knowing grins in plenty when the woman had checked her weapon and stepped forward to take her turn.

The sense of superiority had left Ross and his eyes had narrowed when she raised the gun, steadying it with both hands. She was not holding it vertically but horizontally.

She fired. The kick threw the heavy weapon to the side, then swung it back into place again for the next shot and for those following it until the full clip had been emptied.

No bullet-spotted surface presented itself to the observers' eyes, just one wide, black hole dead in the middle of the bull's-eye. Three of the bullets had gone in one atop the other in its precise center.

It seemed that Eveleen's father was an Army Sergeant, a career man with the old-fashioned idea that it was his duty to teach his children all he knew about his trade, his diminutive daughter as well as his strapping son.

Murdock shook his head. She had been right, too, in her own estimation of her abilities. Compared with what she could do with archaic weapons and in unarmed combat, her knowledge of high-tech implements of slaughter was nothing spectacular at all.

She had had no more trouble after that exhibition, certainly none once she began to prove herself as a superb teacher, but a lot of the men still held aloof from her personally, outside of the demands of cooperation put on them all by the Project. Ross was not one of those. He had soon come to like the slight woman, the more especially when he learned that her sometimes astonishing store of odd knowledge had been acquired through observation and private reading, even as his own had, and not from the cla.s.srooms of some fancy college...

They had reached the training yard. A good crowd was present, the Time Agent saw, more than had been at the conference. Word of the demonstration must have spread.

Eveleen was readying her bow. Murdock silently braced himself, hoping he had read these Sapphireholders rightly, that they would respond to the display of her prowess as had their fellow agents at home.

He also hoped that she would not somehow flub the test. There was a trick to managing these oddly bent bows, though in trained hands, they could achieve remarkable distance and accuracy. It had taken them all some time to master this weapon.

The first arrow flew and struck home. Another followed and another until he could have laughed aloud in his pride in his comrade's skill.

The last bolt stood quivering amidst the ma.s.s of its fellows. For a moment there was no response, then a loud, enthusiastic cheering broke from the onlookers.

Allran A Aldar approached her even as the woman stepped forward to retrieve her arrows. "Lieutenant EA Riordan?"

She turned quickly. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"That trick you have of drawing and sighting in one motion..."

"You'd like to learn it?"

"I would," he averred, "and to have those under me learn it as well. I believe my father will want the whole garrison to master it."

Eveleen smiled broadly. "It will be my greatest pleasure to teach you."

7.

ROSS MURDOCK STROKED his doe's neck. The tension inevitable to these final minutes of waiting rippled through deer as well as rider and was at least as difficult for her to bear as it was for him.

Lady Gay would not betray them, of course. She was as well broken to the demands of the war they waged as was the Time Agent himself. His pale eyes hardened. After a year of this life, they should all be accustomed to it.

Because his enemies were as yet relatively distant, he permitted his mind to range back to the morning when the long-awaited confrontation had at last come.

Sapphirehold's garrison had ridden forth in full pomp, supposedly to meet the Condor Hall forces coming against them as had all their neighbors defeated before them, save that their army was considerably larger and far better prepared than any of those others had been.

They had known they were riding into danger and had traveled warily, with hidden, well-trained scouts ranging the lands all around. Thus it was that when they had reached the place Zanthor I Yoroc had chosen for their destruction, they knew that hill-fringed field for a trap and knew what their course must be to both activate it and escape its jaws.

The defenders had seemed to rise to the bait of Condor Hall's own army ranged along the base of the long, low hill in front of them, but they did not engage fully, and when the erstwhile concealed mercenaries had suddenly crested the higher ground behind Zanthor's troops, the Sapphireholders had as abruptly drawn back once more and fled to the south in apparently total panic, their supposedly victorious enemies in full pursuit.

The chase had lasted a full two hours, more than sufficient time to permit the work back at the keep to be completed. All the while, the escaping party steadily shrank in number until the last warriors had vanished into the wild hills among which they were riding as suddenly and completely as if Hawaika's Foanna had teleported them to another world.

The Ton of Condor Hall had not bothered to order an immediate search for what he saw as a ragtag band of demoralized men who represented no conceivable further threat to him, and had wheeled his army about to ride for and claim Sapphirehold's hall and cultivated lands.

Smoking ruins and smoldering ash where pastures and crops had been were all that met his eyes when he reached the seat of Luroc I Loran's authority. The totality of that destruction, the utter ruthlessness of it, had frozen the heart in his breast, for he saw in it a shadow of the spirit firing those he had made his implacable foes.

That chill had pa.s.sed in the next moment, but not the realization of the change this move would force in his plans. The loss of the supplies he had intended to take from Sapphirehold effectively ended his hope of pushing through to the south and crushing the domains there this season. It was late in the year, already past the time when a commander could expect to keep large numbers of troops in the field. He would not be able to supply his army through the Corridor during the long winter months and he could not gamble on being able to seize sufficient goods in the south quickly enough to meet his forces' needs.

It made no real difference to the outcome, he thought in the end with a mental shrug, apart from the annoyance of the delay and the regrettable necessity of feeding his hirelings throughout the winter. He would return in the spring to finish off any of the fugitives who did not bleed to death or starve on their cliffs or put them to the sword later if they fled south. In the meantime, he had accomplished his most immediate objective.

Zanthor I Yoroc had never been particularly interested in this rough country the Sapphireholders called lowlands, not in itself, but in winning it, he had secured control over the Corridor, the single pa.s.sage giving large-scale traffic access to the rich southern domains. Nothing but time, the few months until spring, stood between him and the possession of them now, or so he had believed in his moment of triumph.

The Terran's lips curled into a cold smile. Zanthor had erred seriously in his a.s.sessment of the defender's position. Sapphirehold had not starved. Far from it. Both highland and lowland harvests were in and had been bountiful, and people, animals, and crops were well sheltered against the fierce mountain winter. They had only to plan their vengeance and finish preparing themselves to bring it to pa.s.s. Once they had settled themselves and had seen the few injured out of danger, Murdock had resumed training his army in this new kind of war, a style of battle so utilizing the rugged countryside around them that it became a veritable ally rather than merely a theater for their activities. Its value had quickly become apparent, and the garrison's warriors had taken readily to it, as did the rest of the domain's populace.

To the off-worlders' relief, Sapphirehold's women had responded to their people's great need and had entered service beside their men. Most had soon established themselves as full equals. Indeed, when it was finally joined, they carried their war with a perfectly executed purpose and frigid fury that astonished not only their own menfolk but the Terrans as well.

Full war command of the company was Murdock's. In the single great tragedy of that day of foiled treachery, Luroc had taken an arrow in the back and had fallen with brutal force from his leaping buck. It was Ross who had dismounted and lifted the ruler's battered, bleeding body across his own saddle and borne him out of the battle.

The Ton had survived his wounds, but he was severely and permanently handicapped by them. Recognizing that he could lead no troops himself and acknowledging the debt he and his people owed this mercenary officer, he had formally given military control into his hands.

Zanthor had all too soon learned that he was dealing with no handful of pitiful living skeletons but a force of strong, able fighters who not only shielded their strongholds with deadly efficiency but so persecuted those of his troops venturing upon Sapphirehold land that the invaders dared do so only in large, well-armed units, and few even of those could hope to pa.s.s through the domain without serious loss to Firehand's ever more deadly followers.