The Buttoned Sky Part 4

"Now all too long we've felt the yoke, And cringed and fawned and died!

'Tis time we turned upon the squire, To skin his rotten hide!"

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

Revel was sitting beside the hole in the wall, now filled with rocks, of course; he had replaced the four small guns in his belt and found, by breaking open the chest they'd lain on, a number of boxes of ammunition, with which he'd stuffed his pockets. Experiment had shown him how to load, and tradition of the ruck told him that to shoot, one pointed the end at something (or someone, he told himself grimly) and pulled the small curved projection. The woman should have helped him, but she was sulking in a corner, weeping. She had not wept an hour before!

He wondered if he were the first rucker to hold a gun. Surely the first to have four such tiny weapons, at least.

He heard voices from beyond the wall, filtering in, oddly distorted, through the air s.p.a.ces between rocks. That was Jerran.

"Yes, he came down here, and threatened me with his pick all dripping yellow, said he'd killed a lot of G.o.ds. Crazy, that's what he was!"

Jerran's voice broke, a neat bit of acting. "Sure there's an emotion trail! You think I wasn't scared of that maniac? Wasn't he excited? He stayed here a minute and then left again."

That was clever. Jerran had explained away the psychic scent left by the Lady Nirea. He must be talking to a G.o.d. But another voice spoke now, and Revel sat up, thinking, The G.o.ds don't make sounds!

"Was there a girl with him, a girl of the gentry in a silver gown?"

"No, Lord Ewyo--" it was her father, then!--"he was alone."

"He may have hidden her body somewhere," said a heavy voice. Rack, by the Orbs, Revel's brother Rack! "He's turned violent today."

"I understand he's your brother?" said Ewyo.

"Aye. A strong violent man, but worse today than ever he's been."

"No rucker would dare harm Lady Nirea," whined Jerran.

"No rucker should dared have touched her," barked the squire. Then, his voice respectful, he asked, "Can you tell me if she's dead, priest?"

There was a croak like a bull-frog's, a chugarum with words in it. "She lives."

"Where?"

Revel sucked in his breath. If the priest could see all, as they'd been taught, he was doomed. Then, before any other voices beyond the wall could speak, Nirea--he had been a muddleheaded and drooling fool not to seal her mouth--Nirea screamed. "In here, father! Tear down the barricades!"

Revel was on her in two bounds and hit her a crack on the jaw, a vicious blow that sprawled her into a pile of clay tablets (inscribed with writing she had refused to read to him), dead to the world. Then Revel was at the hole, waiting tensely with a gun in his hand.

"What can lie in the rocks?" he heard Jerran say. "The voice was a ghost's."

"Hold your tongue," roared Ewyo. "You'll make a fox for the hunt, small yellow man!"

A gap appeared. "Look in there," said Ewyo, and a head came thrusting in, the head of a squire's servant topped with the distinctive peaked cap and green ear flaps. Revel could not shoot a rucker. He hit the man full in the mouth, and the head disappeared with a howl.

"Tear them down, he's in there. We'll let the zanphs harry him a bit,"

said Ewyo. "Hear that, rebel?"

"Send in your zanphs," yelled Revel, grinning. "Let 'em come in, squire!"

The gap grew. Up over the rocks charged a zanph, its six legs scrabbling frantically, its snake's head darting back and forth to search him out.

He let it see him and utter its war cry, a hiss that became a growl.

Then he pointed the gun's muzzle at its face and calmly pulled the curved metal below the barrel. There was a crash as of a mountain falling; dust rained on him from the roof, echoes raged together; and the zanph, its skull fragmented all over four yards of floor, sank to the furred belly and slowly rolled over.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Send me a globe!" roared Revel, delirious with glee. "Send me a G.o.d, Ewyo!"

There was silence beyond the wall; then the priest croaked, "He has a gun. Certainly this is more than a matter of a kidnapped daughter, Ewyo!"

Jerran's voice rose in a laugh. "It is, Lord Ewyo, it is!"

What the h.e.l.l did the old fellow mean? Revel shrugged. He'd learn later.

Now was the time for action.

Going to the prostrate girl, he slung her over his shoulder, a limp light weight. The tattered silver gown flapped as he walked to the hole.

"Stand back," he cried. "I'm bringing your daughter to you, Squire!"

Another zanph showed its horrible reptilian head; he blasted it out of existence with another shot. There were outcries from the squire and his servants, and the priest rumbled, "Sacrilege!"

Rack's head showed between the rocks. "Calm down, boy," he said, his staring walleye gleaming in the lantern light. "You've been living too fast--"

"Not fast enough, Redbeard. Out of the way!"

Rack slowly withdrew, and after kicking a few more boulders from his path, Revel stooped and went out into the tunnel.

"At him!" croaked the priest, a thin man in a radiant blue-green robe, the double scalp lock waving like twin plumes on his shaven head. "Pull him down!"

"Ewyo dies if I'm touched," said Revel coolly, pointing the handgun at the squire's belly.

"Kill him--with that little thing?" said the priest. His voice seemed to come out of the ground, not from such a gaunt frame as his. "You bluff, rucker."

"Look at your zanphs if you think so." He glared at them. There was Ewyo, burly in peach satin and white silk, his long-skirted coat pushed back from a lace s.h.i.+rt, skin-tight pants held by knee-high black boots, a cabbage rose thrust into his c.o.c.ked hat. There was the priest, lean and savage beneath two hovering globes. Three servants of the squire, Jerran and Rack made up the rest.

"Come here, Jerran," he ordered. Smiling lazily, the little man ambled over. "Take a couple of these miniature guns from my belt. They're loaded. You point them--"

"I can use a gun," said Jerran, "though I never had my hands on one this size."

"They came to us from the Ancient Kingdom," Revel told him.

"Ah," said Jerran, nodding as he pulled two guns from the big man's waistband. "I thought they might have. The ballads say they used such weapons. Everyone carried 'em." He faced the squire, and his small body appeared to swell and toughen as he went on. "Lord Ewyo, please to precede us with your servants and that feather-brained priest. We'll go to the ladders."

Ewyo grunted. Orders from a rucker, to him, _him_, the greatest landholder in Dolfya! But after another glance at the mutilated zanph, he turned and walked down the tunnel.

"Wait a minute," said Revel, but Jerran turned to him with a face as hard and ruthless as a woods lion's. "Shut up, lad," he said. "I'll handle 'em. You just tend to the wench. She's awake, in case you didn't know."