"That's all right," the guard said. "Stay out here and tend my horse.
I'll go in and look around."
"Good luck," Kesley said. He let the man take six steps toward the
silent house, then whipped out his truncheon and brought it down with
skull-crumpling force. Hastily he dragged the man behind a low, bunchy
shrub, ran back to the street, and clambered aboard the waiting horse.
As the animal began to move, yet another wave of guards swept down from
the Palace. Kesley fell in with them, peering grimly forward into the
night as they rode. They dashed on, clattering up the main street and
splitting off there to explore any byway where the fugitive might be
hidden. Atop his horse--a scale-covered, dusky mutant with many-jointed
legs--Kesley choked off a chuckle and forced his face into the solemn
mask of the dedicated pursuer.
In the morning, the elaborate, half-mythical tracking devices would
be brought into play: the needle-snouted, mechanized bloodhounds of
legendary dread, the whirling radar parabolas, the ingenious screens
and devices inherited from a culture long dead. It wasn't much of a
secret that the Dukes maintained many of the taboo devices of the Old
World, and used them for their private ends. Miguel's closed-circuit
TV, Kesley thought, was an example.
But the bloodhounds wouldn't be called out till later. Right now the
reaction was one of simple hysteria; heads would be rolling at the
Palace if Kesley were not found at once. And, he thought, riding atop a
Ducal horse, clad in Ducal uniform, it wasn't too likely that they were
going to find him.
He glanced ahead. The guards were riding together, forming an anxious
little circle. Evidently someone had called a halt and was about to
organize a systematic search.
Further ahead, the towers set in the wall ringing the city were
lit; the guards there had been roused as well, it seemed. Kesley
surreptitiously cantered out of line and cut off down a dark
side-alley, taking care that none of the guards were following him.
A few minutes later he reached the West Gate--smaller than the
other three, and lightly guarded. Drawing his horse up before the
guard-tower, he shouted: "Open the gate, you idiots! The assassin's
escaped, and he's heading west."
"What are you saying?"
"I said _open the gate_. I'm Duke's guard. You're holding things up.
The assassin's out there at large someplace!"
The door swung back.
"Thanks," Kesley yelled. He kicked the mutant's scaly hide to make the
beast spurt ahead. He raced through the open gate and out of Chicago.
The confused shouts of the guards echoed faintly in the distance as he
urged the horse on.
Breaking out into the flat country that ran westward, he rode hard
without any direction or destination in mind. Once he looked around
and saw three riders about two and a half miles back, pelting steadily
after him.
They were on to him then. He hadn't fooled them completely. But it had
worked well enough to get him clear of the city and, if he could put
more space between himself and Chicago before they turned the hounds on
him, he'd be all right.
The road veered suddenly and split into a network of forks. Almost
without thinking, he grabbed the south fork and urged the horse
on. He didn't know the country at all down there, but there were
cities--Peoria, St. Louis, Springfield, Cairo way down on the river.
Somewhere between those empty names, he had heard there was a Mutie
City--a regular refuge for mutants, a walled city of some sort where
not even Duke Winslow's hand could reach.
He bent low over his horse's stringy mane and urged the gasping beast
on. Glancing back, he saw his pursuers--and dim in the night was
something dull and metallic grinding toward him down the flat road.
Bloodhound.
They had the hounds out after him already. Winslow wasn't going to let
him escape lightly.
Shortly after sunup, his exhausted horse stumbled and fell, pitching
him to the ground. Kesley rolled to his feet, glanced once at the
animal's splintered leg doubled beneath its body, and looked back. No
sign of his pursuers now.
He destroyed the horse with a single bullet and started moving, on
foot, through the underbrush. He had no idea where he might be, except
that he was somewhere south of Chicago.
Through the rest of the morning he hacked his way through the wild
vegetation that had sprung up in this uncultivated area. Exhausted
finally, he stopped near noon to rinse some of the sweat from his face
at a clear blue brook.
Wearily, he scuttled away from the brook and started to get to his
feet, without success. He remained kneeling, staring at the quivering
tips of his fingers, smelling the warm morning air and listening to the
singing of the untroubled birds, and finally slumped forward, face down
in the fertile soil, and slept. He had been awake almost fifty hours.
* * * * *
Later, Kesley felt gentle hands slide under his body and scoop him up.
Foggily, he opened one eye and fought to focus it. Deep in his mind,
he was struggling toward wakefulness, acutely aware he should flee but
unable to make his exhausted body respond.
"Let go of me," he murmured, clawing fitfully at the hands that held
him. He blinked. "Where are the hounds? Don't let the hounds near me."
"There are no hounds," a purring voice told him. "Winslow's men turned
back hours ago."
Some of the cobwebs cleared from his brain. "No hounds? You're not from
Winslow?"
"Look at me and see."
The hands released him and slowly Kesley turned. Standing behind him,
arms extended uneasily in case Kesley should topple, was a graceful,
seal-like creature with glistening, golden-brown skin. A slit-like
mouth was bent into a clumsy smile; narrow yellow eyes gazed warmly at
him.
"I'm ... very tired," Kesley said.
The mutant nodded gently. "You should be," he said. He took a step
forward, and caught the exhausted Kesley just as he began to fall.