The Barbarians
Page 3
everything went by theboard, and the nearest safety was the best. Behind them as they torethrough the brush, they could hear Dugald shouting:
"That way! The Barbarian's with him!" The Barbarian was grunting withevery step. Myka was panting. Geoffrey was in the lead, his throatburning with every breath, not knowing where he was leading them, buttrying to skirt around the pack of nobles that would be running towardthem in the darkness.
He crashed against plated metal. He peered at it in the absolutedarkness this far from the fires and torches. "Tankette!" he saidhoarsely. "Empty." They scrambled onto it, Geoffrey pulling at TheBarbarian's arm. "Down, Myka--inside. Ought to be room between steeringposts and motor." He pushed the woman down through the hatch, anddropped back to the ground. He ran to the crank clipped to one trackhousing and thrust it into place. "You--you'll have to hangonto--turret," he panted to The Barbarian. "Help me start." He woundfuriously at the starting crank until he felt the flywheel spin free ofthe ratchet, and then engaged the driveshaft. The tankette shuddered tothe sudden torque. The motor resisted, turned its shaft reluctantly,spun the magneto, ignited, stuttered, coughed, and began to roar. Theheadlights flickered yellowly, glowed up to brightness as the enginebuilt up revolutions. The Barbarian, clinging to the turret with onearm, pushed the choke control back to halfway and advanced the spark.Geoffrey scrambled up the sharply pitched rear deck, clawing forhandholds on the radiator tubing, and dropped into the turret seat. Hetook the controls, kicked at the left side track control without caring,for the moment, whether Myka was in the way or not, spun the tankettehalfway round, and pulled the throttle out as far as it would go. Itsengine clamoring, its rigid tracks transmitting every shock andbattering them, the tankette flogged forward through the brush. Therewas gunfire booming behind them, and there were other motors sputteringinto life.
There was no one among the nobles to drive as well as Geoffreycould--certainly no one who could keep up with him at night, in countryhe knew. He could probably depend on that much.
He lit the carbide lamp over the panel.
Geoffrey looked at the crest worked into the metal, and laughed. He hadeven managed to steal Dugald's tankette.
* * * * *
By morning, they were a good fifty miles away from where the battle hadbeen fought. They were almost as far as the Delaware River, and theground was broken into low hills, each a little higher than the last.Geoffrey had only been this far away from his home a few times, beforehis father's death, and then never in this direction. Civilization wasnot considered to extend this far inland. When a young man went on histravels, preparatory for the day when he inherited his father's holdingsand settled down to maintain them, he went along the coast, perhaps asfar as Philadelphia or Hartford.
Geoffrey had always had a lively interest in strange surroundings. Hehad regretted the day his journeyings came to an end--not that hehadn't regretted his father's passing even more. Now, as dawn came upbehind them, he could not help turning his head from side to side andlooking at the strangely humped land, seeing for the first time ahorizon which was not flat. He found himself intrigued by the thoughtthat he had no way of knowing what lay beyond the next hill--that hewould have to travel, and keep traveling, to satisfy a perpetuallyrenewed curiosity.
All this occupied one part of his mind. Simultaneously, he wondered howmuch farther they'd travel in this vehicle. The huge sixteen-cylinderin-line engine was by now delivering about one-fourth of its rated fiftyhorsepower, with a good half of its spark plugs hopelessly fouled andthe carburetor choked by the dust of yesterday's battle.
They were very low on shot and powder charges for the two-pounder turretcannon, as well. The tankette had of course never been serviced afterthe battle. There was one good thing--neither had their pursuers'.Looking back, Geoffrey could see no sign of them. But he could also seethe plain imprint of the tankette's steel cleats stretched out behindthem in a betraying line. The rigid, unsprung track left its mark onhard stone as easily as it did in soft earth. The wonder was that thetracks had not quite worn themselves out as yet, though all the rivetswere badly strained and the tankette sounded like a barrel of stonestumbling downhill.
The Barbarian had spent the night with one arm thrown over the cannonbarrel and the fingers of his other hand hooked over the edge of theturret hatch. In spite of the tankette's vicious jouncing, he had notmoved or changed his position. Now he raised one hand to comb the shaggyhair away from his forehead, and there were faint bloody marks on thehatch.
"How much farther until we're over the mountains?" Geoffrey asked him.
"Over the--lad, we haven't even come to the beginning of them yet."
Geoffrey grimaced. "Then we'll never make it. Not in this vehicle."
"I didn't expect to. We'll walk until we reach the pass. I've got asupport camp set up there."
"Walk? This is impossible country for people on foot. There areintransigent tribesmen all through this territory."
"How do you know?"
"How do I _know_? Why, everybody knows about them!"
The Barbarian looked at him thoughtfully, and with just the faintesttrace of amusement. "Well, if _everybody_ knows they're intransigent, Iguess they are. I guess we'll just have to hope they don't spot us."
Geoffrey was a little nettled by The Barbarian's manner. It wasn't,after all, as if anybody claimed there were dragons or monsters or anyother such oceanic thing living here. This was good, solid fact--peoplehad actually come up here, tried to bring civilization to the tribes,and failed completely. They were, by all reports, hairy, dirty peopleequipped with accurate rifles. No one had bothered to press the issue,because obviously it was hardly worth it. Geoffrey had expected to havetrouble with them--but he had expected to meet it in an armored vehicle.But now that the mountains had turned out to be so far away, thesituation might grow quite serious. And The Barbarian didn't seem tocare very much.
"Well, now, lad," he was saying, "if the tribesmen're that bad, maybeyour friends the nobles won't dare follow us up here."
"They'll follow us," Geoffrey answered flatly. "I slapped Dugald'sface."
"Oh. Oh, I didn't understand that. Code of honor--that sort of thing.All the civilized appurtenances."
"It's hardly funny."
"No, I suppose not. I don't suppose it occurred to you to kill him onthe spot?"
"Kill a _noble_ in hot blood?"
"Sorry. Code of honor again. Forget I mentioned it."
Geoffrey rankled under The Barbarian's barely concealed amusement. Toavoid any more of this kind of thing, he pointedly turned and looked atthe terrain behind them--something he ought to have done a littleearlier. Three tankettes were in sight, only a few miles behind them,laboring down the slope of a hill.
And at that moment, as though rivetted iron had a dramatic sense of itsown, their tankette coughed, spun lazily on one track as the crankshaftpaused with a cam squarely between positions, and burned up the lastdrops of oil and alcohol in its fuel tank.
* * *
Geoffrey and Myka crouched down in a brushy hollow. The Barbarian hadcrawled up to the lip of the depression, and was peering through a clumpof weeds at the oncoming trio. "That seems to be all of them," he saidwith a turn of his head. "It's possible they kept their speed down andnursed themselves along to save fuel. They might even have a fuel waggoncoming up behind them. That's the way I'd do it. It would mean thesethree are all we can expect for a few hours, anyway, but that they'll beheavily reinforced some time later."
"That will hardly matter," Geoffrey muttered. Myka had found Dugald'spersonal rifle inside the tankette. Geoffrey was rolling cartridgesquickly and expertly, using torn up charges from the turret cannon. Hehad made the choice between a round or two for the now immobile heavyweapon and a plentiful supply for the rifle, and would have been greatlysurprised at anyone's choosing differently. The Barbarian had not evenquestioned it, and Myka was skillfully casting bullets with the help ofthe hissing alcohol stove and the b
ullet mold included in the rifle kit.There was plenty of finely ground priming powder, and even thoughGeoffrey was neither weighing the charges of cannon powder nor measuringthe diameter of the cartridges he was rolling, no young noble of anypretensions whatsoever could not have done the same.
The rub lay in the fact that none of this was liable to do them muchgood. If they were to flee through the woods, there would certainly betime for only a shot or two when the tribesmen found them. If the riflewas to be used against the three nobles, then it was necessary, in alldecency, to wait until the nobles had stopped, climbed out of theirtankettes, equipped themselves equally, and a mutual ground of battlehad been