The Practice Effect Part 26

But then, Dennis thought as they trudged under a dark canopy of trees, wasn't Earth a strange place when you came right down to it?

Cause and effect seemed so straightforward there, yet entropy always seemed to be conspiring to get you!

Dennis hardly knew three or four engineers back home who didn't secretly, in their hearts, devoutly believe in gremlins, in glitches, and in Murphy's law.

Dennis couldn't decide which world was the more perverse.

Perhaps both Earth and Tatir were improbable in the grand picture. It hardly mattered. What was important right now was survival. He intended to use the Practice Effect to the hilt, if that's what it would take.

He helped push the little cart. Already it seemed much easier. The wheels didn't seem to squeak much anymore. Linnora was no longer jostled and tossed like a sack of potatoes as they rolled along.

The Princess looked up at him in the moonlight. Dennis returned her smile. Everything would be all right, if only he could get Linnora safely to her people in the hills. No matter how great Kremer's strength, the L'Toff could surely hold out long enough for Dennis to whip up some Earth magic to save the day.

If only they could make it in time.

Dawn came earlier than he expected.

Ahead, in the growing light, was the crest of the pa.s.s. Dennis switched the donkey to hurry it along. He felt sure there would be an outpost up here.

But when the road peaked without any sign of trouble, he began to hope. The pa.s.s flattened out in a mist of early-morning haze. Dennis was about to call a rest when there came a sudden shout from their left.

Arth cursed and pointed. Up on the hill to that side was a small red campfire they had missed, in spite of their watchfulness. In the dawning light they could see bustling movement and the brown uniforms of Kremer's territorial militia. A detachment was already beating their way toward them through the underbrush.

The road ran slightly downhill ahead, around the flank of the mountain. Dennis slapped the tired donkey's flank.

"Get going, Arth! I'll hold them off!"

Arth stumbled after the cart, mostly carried along by inertia. "All by yerself? Dennizz, are you crazy?"

"Get Linnora out of here! I can handle them!"

Linnora looked back at Dennis anxiously. But she was silent as the muttering Arth led the donkey at a trot around the bend in the road.

Dennis found a good spot and planted himself in the center of the highway. Fortunately, the territorials weren't the best troops Kremer had-mostly drafted farmers led by a smattering of professionals.

Most of them would undoubtedly rather be at home.

Nevertheless, this would have to be a pretty good bluff.

When the patrol tumbled out of the brush onto the road, Dennis saw only swords, spears, and thenners. Fortunately, there were no archers. A good bowman was rare in these parts. A practiced bow required a lot of attention, and few had that kind of time or energy to spend on weapons.

His plan just might work.

He waited in the center of the road, fingering a handful of smooth stones and a strip of silky cloth.

The gathering soldiers seemed nonplussed by his behavior. Instead of charging, they came forward at a walk, urged by a growling sergeant. Apparently they had heard who the chief fugitive was, and they weren't exactly boiling over with excitement at the idea of attacking an alien wizard.

When they were within a hundred feet, Dennis dropped a stone into his sling. He whirled it three times and flung.

"Abracadabra! Oooga booga!" he shouted.

In the dense packing of militiamen, he couldn't miss. Someone howled and dropped a clattering weapon to the ground.

"Oh, demons of the air!" he invoked the sky. "Teach these fools who dare to try to thwart a wizard!" He whirled and flung another stone.

Another soldier clutched at his stomach and sat down, groaning.

A few of the militiamen began melting away from the rear, suddenly developing an intense interest in the breakfast they had left behind.

The others stopped uncertainly, their eyes wide with superst.i.tious dread.

A sergeant in a gray cloak began shouting at the men, and commenced kicking a few rumps. After a moment, the line began to approach again raggedly.

Dennis couldn't let this continue. Sure, he could make them pause again with another stone. But if they became habituated to his attack they would soon see that only a few men were getting hurt-and only getting the wind knocked out of them, at that. They would see that in a ma.s.sed charge they could easily overwhelm him.

Dennis put down his sling and pulled from his belt a long leather thong. At one end was tied a hollow piece of hardwood he had whittled back at the Sigels'.

"Flee!" he called out in his best deep movie voice. "Do not make me call forth my demons!" He advanced slowly and began whirling the thong over his head.

The hollow tube bit into the air, and began to let out a rumbling, groaning sound. He hadn't had much time to practice the bull roarer.

It would have to do as he had made it. In a moment he had it moaning loudly, though, an eerie, hackles-raising noise.

It was a chancy business, certainly. Dennis wasn't even sure Coylians were unfamiliar with the device. Just because he had never witnessed one in use and Arth had never heard of it didn't mean none of these men had.

But the soldiers began to swallow nervously and back away as he advanced. Several more dropped out from the rear of the troop and hurried away.

The sergeant cursed and shouted again. His voice had the accent of Kremer's northmen. But the rising growl of the bull roarer seemed to fill the forest with reverberations. It sounded as though there were animals out there, in the half light beneath the branches. The echoes were like strange creatures' voices, answering the summons of their master.

Dennis concentrated on making the noisemaker better, though he knew he lacked the talent to cause things to change so quickly. Only a talented L'Toff could occasionally purposely manage a rare felthesh trance-or a fortunate man who won the help of a fickle Krenegee beast. Still, the groaning noise rose until the hairs on the back of his own neck stood on end.

The militiamen were backing up now, staring about themselves fearfully in spite of the northman's curses. Finally the sergeant seized a spear from one of his frightened soldiers. With a yell he cast it toward Dennis.

Dennis watched the spear sail toward him. But he kept a smile on his face and advanced evenly. To turn and run, or even step aside, would put heart into these men. He had to seem not to care, and to trust that the sergeant was too nervous himself to be much of a marksman!

The spear slammed into the ground inches from Dennis's left foot.

It vibrated musically as he walked past it.

His legs felt like water. He laughed-though, to be honest, it felt more hysterical than humorous to him.

At the sound of his laughter, the soldiers moaned in terror almost as one. They threw down their weapons and fled.

The sergeant offered a brief grimace of defiance. But when Dennis shouted "Boo!" he spun about and followed his men, rushing pell-mell down the road to Zuslik.

Dennis found himself standing there in the misty morning light, whirling his little noisemaker, amid a scattered pile of shiny, abandoned weapons.

Finally he was able to make himself bring his arm down and stop the infernal racket.

When he hurried down the road, calling out their names, Arth and Linnora pulled out of a dark hole in the trees. Arth looked Dennis up and down, then smiled sheepishly, as if ashamed ever to have doubted him. Linnora's eyes shone, as if to say that she at least had never worried.

She plucked at her klasmodion as they resumed their march. Only by accident did Dennis, a short time later, glimpse her nudge Arth and hold out her hand. Arth shrugged and handed over a small wad of ragged paper bills.

7 Soon they were pa.s.sing the flint quarries Dennis had observed during his first week here. Now he understood why he had seen n.o.body back then. The preparations for war had already cleared the mountains. And here on Tatir, when people evacuated an area they took all their practiceable possessions and left nothing behind.

They made good time. The cart was clearly improving with use. As the morning pa.s.sed, however, Dennis still worried. Surely the fleeing militiamen would have reported in by now. Kremer would have better troops sent after them.

They arrived at a fork in the road. Ahead of them the highway continued along the flank of the mountains, westward toward the big flint mines of the Graymounts.

Linnora got up and hobbled over to the less-used fork, the one heading south. "This is the trade route. It is the way I first came when I felt the presence of the little metal house come into the world."

She frowned and scuffed the side trail, as if unhappy over its level of practice. Trade had been particularly poor during the past few years. If the neglect lasted much longer the beautiful surface would start to fade away to a dirt track.

Dennis turned and looked to the northwest. Out there, a couple of days' foot march north of the main highway, lay his "little metal house."

If he could be at all sure he could pull it off-slap together a new zievatron and practice it up sufficiently in time-he would be willing to take the gamble. He would offer to take Linnora and Arth away from this violent madness, to a world where everything was difficult, but sensible.

But there was no time, and anyway they had other obligations. With a heavy sigh he took the donkey's bridle and led it onto the southward trail. "All right. We have another big climb ahead of us and another pa.s.s to get through. Let's make tracks."

The highland vale dropped behind them satisfactorily. Under Linnora's gentle urging, with Arth's and Dennis's help, the little cart had begun to turn itself into something really quite useful. The axles spun in narrow grooves in the body of the wagon, apparently lubricating themselves much as the runners of the Coylian sleds did in the native roads. The leather straps Dennis had contrived for Linnora to pull seemed to grow better and better at steering the front wheels around tight switchbacks behind the donkey, as Dennis and Arth pushed.

They were only a mile or so from the verge of the higher southern pa.s.s when Arth touched Dennis's shoulder "Look," the small man said, pointing behind them.

Below, and about two miles back, a column of dark shapes moved quickly on the trail under the trees. Dennis squinted, wishing for his monocular.

"They are runners," Linnora told them, rising in her seat to bring her sharp eyes to a level with theirs. "They wear the gray of Kremer's northmen."

"Can they catch up with us?"

Linnora shook her head, indicating uncertainty. "Dennis, these are the troops with which Kremer's father defeated the old Duke. They run tirelessly, and they are professionals."

Though Linnora clearly admired Dennis for his exploits, among other things, she also clearly knew he had his limits. These were not peasants, to be frightened with stones and a little noise.

She stepped out of the cart. "I think I had better walk now."

"You can't! Your feet will start swelling again!"

Linnora smiled. "Climbing uphill, you all cannot pull me as quickly as I can hobble. It is time I started doing my own part." She took Dennis's arm.

Arth clucked at the donkey, who pulled gamely at the lightened cart.

Dennis glanced back at the line of dark figures behind and below.

They seemed larger already. The soldiers jogged on, and sunglints flashed from their weapons.

The fugitives turned and continued their climb toward the heights of the southern pa.s.s.

Both pursuers and pursued slowed as they approached the crest.

Now that Linnora was walking after a fashion, Dennis considered cutting loose the cart, or at least abandoning the little glider that lay bundled in the back. But although it would lighten their burden, for some reason he relented. A lot of practice had been invested in those things. They still might be useful.

The limit to their speed was Linnora's pace, anyway. She knew this.

Her face grew hard as she forced herself onward. Dennis dared not interfere or force her to rest. They needed every moment.

His own legs hurt, and his lungs complained in the thinner air. The ordeal dragged on for what felt like hours.

It took them by surprise when, suddenly, a new vista opened before them to the south-a new watershed. Worn out, finally they slumped to the ground at the crest of the high pa.s.s.

Linnora looked out over the chain of mountains, like stalwart giants glowering in an arc to the south. This side of the peaks lay in shadows as the afternoon sun sank slowly to their right.

"There," she said, pointing to a series of glacier-girdled peaks.

"That is my home."

To Dennis, the mountainous realm of the L'Toff looked like they might as well be as far away as the gentle hillsides of Mediterranea, back on Earth. How could they ever make it that far, pursued as they were?

Dennis stood in contemplation for a moment, catching his breath as Arth and Linnora sipped from one of the canteens Surah Sigel had provided.

Dennis looked at the twisting road that fell away before them to the south, along the flanks of the mountain. He turned and looked at the little cart that had served them so well so far. He whistled a faint tune as he felt an idea begin to emerge.

Could it work? It would be a desperate gamble, for sure. Probably it would get them all killed in a short time.

He glanced at his compatriots. They appeared almost done in. They certainly couldn't outmarch the troopers who were only a little way behind them.

"Arth," he said, "go keep a lookout."

The little thief groaned. But he got up and limped back up the road a piece.

Dennis poked under the nearby trees until he found a pair of stout sticks. He cut some rope from a coil Surah had given them and set to work attaching the sticks to the cart, along the railing just above and ahead of the rear wheels. He had hardly finished when there was a cry.

"Dennizz!"

Arth waved frantically from the northern edge of the pa.s.s.

"Dennizz! They're almost here!"

Dennis cursed. He had hoped for just a little more time. The Baron's northerners were certainly fine troops. They must be pushing their human limits to maintain such a pace.

He helped Linnora into the cart even as Arth tumbled back to them.

Arth began tugging at the exhausted donkey's tether, shouting imprecations as the animal became stubborn.

"Leave it alone," Dennis told him. He went over and cut the tethers, setting the creature free. Arth stared in surprise.

"Get in, Arth, there in back," Dennis told him. "From here on, we all ride."

8 The commander of the Blue Griffin company of the Zuslik garrison puffed alongside his troops. An ache tore at his side, where his laboring lungs complained in agony. The commander clamped down hard. He was determined not to be left behind by his men, most of whom were young volunteers from n.o.ble families, few over the age of twenty.