So it was. They had not realised how oppressive the town was, how claustrophobic the buildings, how threatening the inhabitants. The travellers, tired and strained, assembled their shelters, made a fire, and settled down to discuss what they would do next. Tired though they were, they could not sleep just yet.
Chapter 32
In the evening, as the sun was setting and moths were beginning to fly around the fire, it fell to Eln-Tika to make the first startling remark. After a winding-down discussion on the day’s events, she said casually, "You haven’t asked why I was so anxious that we did not sleep in that building, why I thought it was so dangerous." The conversation ceased and everybody looked at her. Something in her tone made them realise that this was important. When there was complete silence, she said, "You won’t have realised it but the Head Priest is a telepath. I only realised moments before that guard was about to lead us away. I didn’t have time to warn you."
"He can’t be," Welkarlin said emphatically. "He is the one who persecutes us. He kills us if he can."
"Perhaps he wants to keep his secret to himself. To him, telepaths are dangerous. Anyway, I felt just the faintest tingle from his direction. His mind is very controlled and I expect his telepathy is very controlled too. But there’s no doubt about it - he’s a telepath."
Ombissu instantly realised the implications. "Therefore, he knew what we were thinking. He knew, for instance, that Mekbill wants to do away with him, that we want to overthrow all that he represents."
"Yes," Eln-Tika replied. "But not only did he listen to our thoughts but he would have realised that three of us are telepaths. It is also possible that he realised that two of them were his own people."
"We are in danger," Reffurio said tersely. "Tomorrow we must either leave or attack. Which is it to be?"
"Attack," Mekbill said. "Of course we could leave and return with a bigger force - and logically perhaps that is what we should do - but we are obligated to help these people. And I have to remind you - we are also obligated by the King’s orders."
"The King would understand," Ombissu said. "It would be perfectly acceptable to leave, but do we? We need to decide on this tonight, before we retire. My opinion is - we fight."
"Do you have a plan, Ombissu?" Reffurio asked.
"Of course. You yourself suggested it. We attend the ceremony as we did today and shoot all the priests and guards in sight. That would account for about forty of them. They would have no warning for they do not realise the significance of our rifles. After that, they would be in a state of shock. We seek them out where we can and kill them. I doubt if there would be much resistance."
Fallassan, Voi-Till and Wath-Moll protested vigorously, but it was Eln-Tika who managed to articulate their feelings. "What you are proposing, Ombissu, is a massacre. We give them no warning, we show them no mercy. Is this right? I think not - we are descending to their level. We must think of a fairer way."
"Fairer?" Reffurio cried. "Why should we be fair to these monsters? And, anyway, why is this different to hunting flatheads? You aren’t fair to them. You give them no warning. In fact, you go to considerable trouble to give them no warning. What’s the difference?"
"These people are our own kind," Eln-Tika said simply. "We don’t kill our own kind."
"You do when they are evil," Reffurio said bluntly.
After a long discussion, after which all the travellers felt exhausted, the views of Ombissu and Reffurio prevailed: they would embark upon a massacre.
Prior to retiring, a rota of guards was arranged. There would be three shifts during the night, six guards in each shift, one of which would be a telepath. They felt far safer here out in the open than they did in the middle of the town, but it was best to be prudent.
*
It happened in the early part of the morning. A full moon had just risen, fading the great spangly pattern of stars. There was no wind and every sound could be heard clearly. Eln-Tika was on guard duty along with Fallassan, Voi-Til and three sailors. She was strolling idly along the camp perimeter when she was overwhelmed by a sense of danger. Quickly she ran to the shelters and woke up the sleeping chanits, making sure they kept silent. The other guards had seen her running and raced back to join her. In very little time, all the travellers were awake, out of their shelters and armed.
Eln-Tika quickly explained what she had felt: there was a large group of guards coming towards them from the north. They were about to attack them.
"They are all together? None coming from another direction?"
"No, they are all together," was Eln-Tika’s confident reply.
"Right. We will split up. Half run to the east of the camp and wait under the trees over there. The other half goes to the west. With luck they won’t see us. They will probably creep up to the shelters and try to kill us while we are sleeping. They will use swords, presumably. Rifles and arrows should take care of them. Don’t fire until either I or Reffurio fire. If we start too soon they may all run back into the trees. We want them in the open."
These orders were simple and easy to understand, just what was needed for an improvised plan created in the middle of the night. The travellers split into two and merged into the shadows.
They did not have to wait long. The sharp ears of Wath-Moll detected faint sounds of feet moving through the vegetation. He muttered softly to his group and they made ready their weapons. Eln-Tika passed her thoughts on to Welkarlin on the other side of the camp and they too brought out their weapons.
Dark moving shadows appeared. Silently they moved towards the shelters. Reffurio quietly brought up his rifle and aimed it at the figure that had just reached the nearest shelter. It lifted up its sword and brought it down into the middle of the shelter. He heard the figure give a grunt of surprise as his sword hit the ground. Reffurio squeezed the trigger and the figure fell.
Bangs and flashes exploded all around. Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika were firing arrows as fast as they could at the raiders. On this bright moonlit night they were easy to see. Before long there were no more moving figures to fire at and the noise and flashes ceased.
"They are running back along the road!" Mayvatha shouted. "We should chase after them!"
The travellers ran to their blenjis who had been tethered under the trees, and mounted them. Soon they were racing towards the road after the raiders. When the fleeing guards heard the sound of the following blenjis, they ran off the road to hide in the ferns and trees, but, guided by the three telepaths, they were hunted down remorselessly. Before long almost all had been killed.
Reffurio looked dispassionately at one of the bodies and said, "A sword might be useful. We ought to help ourselves." He removed the sword from the dead soldier’s hand and gave a few experimental swings. "Not bad. It will serve."
Ombissu looked at him sardonically. "A rifle and a sword? Aren’t we a little overdressed?"
"Maybe, but I can envisage situations when a sword would be handier than a rifle. I will certainly wear this."
"You may be right."
Ombissu issued an order: anyone who thought he would find a sword useful should take one. All of the sailors did, but none of the hunters; they preferred to travel light. The travellers slowly returned to their camp, collecting swords on the way. They collapsed around the faint embers of their fire.
"So much for being fair," Reffurio remarked. "They weren’t going to give us a chance."
"No," Ombissu replied. "And now we revise our plans for the morning. We can’t just ride into the town as if nothing has happened. If any of these murderous guards have managed to get back, then the rest of them will be warned. So what do we do? Do we leave or do we fight? And remember, if we killed about eighty guards tonight - and I think we did - there are still about one hundred and twenty left."
"We fight," Reffurio said. "We kill every guard and every priest and we free this people. Then we take some gold and we go home to return another day."
Ombissu looked around the grim faces and said,
"Anybody care to comment? This topic is now open for discussion."
Chapter 33
Brawfashnim, the Head Priest, listened in grim silence to the most senior of the guards who had survived. The night attack had been a disaster. The strangers had been alert enough to have avoided massacre, it would seem. Presumably they had had guards posted in places his men could not see, and they had communicated to those in the camp in ways they did not know. And now this abject soldier was babbling about sticks that spouted fire and made a loud noise and killed at long range and in a manner he could not understand.
His personal bodyguards were loyal and unquestioning. He turned to them and said, "Take him away. Kill him in any way you see fit."
After the screaming soldier was dragged off, he returned to his chamber to think. These strangers were clever and ruthless. Only a handful of the attacking party had returned. Thirty-eight had killed nearly eighty in a battle which they should have lost. The telepaths had presumably given warning, but how had only the eight armed with bows managed to kill eighty? It was not possible, yet the others - the leaders - were unarmed. All they carried were those curious sticks. Sticks... this soldier had mentioned sticks. Sticks that spouted fire. Surely not?
He thought back to the meal and tried to remember if there had been any indication that those sticks were important. Was there just a faint fugitive thought from one of the strangers? He could not be sure.
But what was certain was that they were about to be attacked. He could not imagine that these strangers would simply go away. They would ride into the town on those wondrous beasts. He could imagine them charging through the lines of guards that would be the obvious form of defence. That must not be the way, therefore. They would have to be more cunning, taking cover and firing arrows from a distance, perhaps. But his guards were not particularly skilled at archery. Their preferred weapon was the sword or the lance. They were especially adept at cutting down would-be dissenters; indeed, they were so good that there were hardly any dissenters left. The defence of the town was a problem that would require deep thought in a very short time. It would soon be dawn, after which an attack could be assumed to be imminent.
*
The sky was lightening. The long night was over at last. Wath-Moll watched the sun beginning to appear above the line of the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful day, this day that might be his last. They were about to battle with a superior force, and though Ombissu and Reffurio had been optimistic as to their chances of victory, he was not so sure. But he was not afraid of death. He knew that one day he would die. The usual cause of death of a hunter was after an injury, a fall or an attack by a dangerous animal. He had expected - insofar that he thought of these things - that he would die as the result of an attack by slashers. But life was always unexpected. He was sitting on his blenji amongst friends he had only recently met and was about to attack a foe whose existence he had been unaware of until a few days ago. He preferred not to die, but it did not matter if he did. He would still be part of the world, just in a different form, a form that could not think. In a way he was immortal, as was everybody. He would be happy with that.
Eln-Tika, too, thought she might die this morning. She did not want to die because she felt she had only touched upon the possibilities of life. There was so much she did not understand, so much she did not know. They had discovered this bizarre, horrible civilisation, unknown to her own people and unknown even to these intelligent, cheerful sailors that were her friends. What more was there in the world to discover? Then there was the shock of finding more telepaths, telepaths who were not hunters but who thought in ways different from her own. She had learnt much that was new in the last few days, and she wanted to go on learning.
Mekbill sat on his blenji, his gaze focussed down the road along which they were riding. Far ahead he could see the tops of the hated pyramids. It was his ambition to destroy them, to raze them to the ground, to abolish all traces of this evil religion. It was a worthy cause, one well worth dying for. He knew they would win. The gods were on their side in this most black and white of struggles. If he died, the conversion of this people would have to be done by others, so he would rather not die. He wanted to finish this task, and then he could take his place in the heaven that awaited him.
Reffurio, at the head of the advancing attackers, flanked by Ombissu and Wath-Moll, was not thinking of death, he was thinking of revenge. The night attack had been avenged but it was not enough. He hated these priests and their subservient guards, and he hated their vile customs. He knew he was riding into great danger, but he did not care. It was anger that was driving him on, that and loyalty to his friends.
The riders had reached the edge of the town. There were low buildings on either side of the road. Curious faces peered out of windows but there was nobody outside. Indeed, the emptiness was eerie. Welkarlin and Fallassan dismounted from their blenjis which were let go. The two great animals stood puzzled, unsure of what to do. Welkarlin and Fallassan, the latter now dressed in the fashion of a townperson, having swapped clothes with Mayvatha, strode off into the suburbs of the town on their part of the plan. The group of riders continued on their journey into the town followed by the two riderless blenjis. Now there were chanits on the streets going about their business. They stared in astonishment at the sight of the riders, now moving rapidly along the road.
"Danger!" Eln-Tika shouted urgently.
A moment later an arrow fired by Voi-Till whistled past Reffurio and upwards to the left. A figure crouched on the roof of a building disappeared as the arrow struck home. The riders increased their speed still further.
The buildings surrounding the ceremonial square were just ahead. They aimed their blenjis at the entrance to the square and burst into the pyramid complex. A hail of crossbow bolts met them as guards fired from the rooftops. Ombissu’s blenji fell followed almost immediately by that of Eln-Tika. Eln-Tika’s legs were trapped by her fallen mount. She struggled vainly to free herself. Ombissu grabbed her by the arms and pulled her violently from under the dead animal. A crossbow bolt struck the blenji just as Eln-Tika came free. Together they ran for the nearest cover, an entrance to the main pyramid. They dashed inside just missing another hail of bolts.
Reffurio, surprised by the ferocity of the attack, led the riders right across the square, skirting the central pyramid and out the other side. More bolts were fired but no-one was hit. They rode until they thought they were out of range, then stopped. Reffurio gathered them together.
"Is anyone hurt?" were his first words. His second were, "Ombissu and Eln-Tika escaped, didn’t they?" Nobody was quite sure as to the answer to that for it had all happened so fast.
"Where did those weapons come from?" Reffurio asked rhetorically. "Nobody mentioned anything like that. We need to rethink our plans. For a start, I think we should abandon the blenjis. They are too vulnerable. They got us here, but now I think they are an encumbrance in these circumstances. We will be fighting through the streets, hiding behind corners, dodging into alleys. We should find somewhere safe for the blenjis and return to them afterwards."
"There is a possibility near here," Mayvatha said slowly. "There is a sacred garden not far away. We would have to get rid of the priests, though."
"A sacred garden?" Reffurio asked.
"It is a place where only priests are allowed. It is surrounded by a high wall so nobody can see in. It is a place where bees are tended and worship of bees takes place. You could see over the wall sitting on a blenji. You could see if it were suitable."
"And if it isn’t?"
"I don’t know. I have nothing to suggest."
"Are there many priests in these gardens tending these bees?"
"I don’t think so. Much fewer then we, I should say."
"Very well. Lead us to it."
They rode cautiously through the streets following Mayvatha’s directions still followed by the two riderless blenjis. Soon they came to a street lined by a featureless wall. Ref
furio guided his blenji right up to the wall and looked over. He saw what seemed to him to be paradise, a green park filled with trees and ferns and flowers. Clear pools served as a place for water birds. White beehives were scattered everywhere.
"It looks ideal for our blenjis. We just have to find a way in."
"There’s a gate further along. It will be closed, of course," Mayvatha said.
They rode alongside the wall until they came to the gate, a solid wooden affair that reached to the top of the wall. It was firmly locked.
"We need an axe," Voi-Til said.
"Or a priest with a key," Reffurio added. He was still looking over the wall, and now he could see a couple of priestly figures hurrying towards them. "Do they like people peering over the wall?" he asked Mayvatha.
Mayvatha stared. "Nobody has ever done such a thing, as far as I know. It is an offence punishable by death."
The priests were close now and he could see that one of them had a large key in his hand. With luck, he was about to open the gate. He was in for a shock. Reffurio stared at them expectantly while the nearest priest shouted loudly at him. Reffurio grinned, just to infuriate the priest more, then there was the welcome sound of a large key being placed in a lock.
"As soon as the gate opens, get inside. Shoot the priests if you have to," Reffurio ordered.
The gate slowly opened inward and Voi-Til pushed his blenji through. The others followed before the astonished eyes of the two priests. Within moments all the riders were inside. A couple of the sailors jumped off their blenjis and removed the key from the still astonished priest. The sailors enthusiastically tied the priests to a convenient tree.
Reffurio said, "You two, stay here. Guard the blenjis and shoot anybody that comes near them. Lock yourselves in. If we are not back by the end of the day, make your way back to the ship."
And with that, the party slipped back through the gate and into the street.
*
Welkarlin and Fallassan were making their way cautiously through the streets on the outskirts of the town. The curfew imposed by the priests was from dusk to dawn, so, even at this early hour, they were legitimately allowed to walk. But it was unnerving, even for the brave Fallassan. Guards could appear at any moment; Welkarlin had explained that they patrolled the streets in groups, creating an atmosphere of oppression. This atmosphere hung over Fallassan as they looked around corners and rushed across intersections on their way to the rebel friends of Welkarlin and Mayvatha. They needed the support of the inhabitants of the town in order to defeat the priests and the guards. Welkarlin and Mayvatha had assured Ombissu and Reffurio that there was a group of them ready to fight on their behalf given the opportunity. He had already been in telepathic contact and they were waiting for them. After what seemed an eternity to Fallassan, they came to a door in a long line of houses with identical doors. Welkarlin knocked in a strange rhythm. The door opened quickly and they slid inside.
The First Riders Page 23
