The squire has gathered all his kin,
To hunt the fox so sly;
'Tis not a beast with paws and brush,
But a man like you or I!
They hunt him down the thorny glen,
And up the hillside dark;
"O hear him gasp and hear him sob,
Whenas our hounds do bark!"
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
When Revel was due for a rest space, he went through the blue-tinged
dusk of the mine, cleaned his arms and face at the washers, scrubbing
the coal dust from his big hands, and climbed the ladders, up and up,
till day shone in his face.
He stood beneath the cross-beam of the entrance, sucking in clean air.
The red and blue buttons shone in the sun; far down the valley a globe
passed between trees, bent on some private business. Another floated by
him into the mine; under it trotted a zanph, one of the ugly beasts,
six-legged and furry with the head of a great snake, that followed the
globes and sometimes attacked men on orders from the hovering gods.
Would the deities discover that one was missing? If they found the
corpse, he and Jerran would be foxes for the gentry....
Revel was a man of the ruck. The ruck was millions and millions of
souls, faceless, without rights; Revel had some little protection, more
than most others, being a miner and therefore important to the gentry.
The gentry numbered thousands, and they had many rights--owning great
estates, lighting their homes with candles, drinking wine legally,
keeping fierce dogs and going where they pleased on big wild horses. No
man of the ruck could touch one of the gentry and live. The gentry, the
squires who owned guns and hunted men three times a week, men called
"foxes"--it was whispered in the illegal drinking huts, the shebeens,
that the squires had once been members of the ruck. Above there were the
priests, who had always from the dawn of time been of the priestcraft,
being born a notch lower than the gods themselves, who were the golden
globes.
"Our Orbs who dwell in the buttoned sky," said Revel aloud, and spat.
Before that day he wouldn't have dared to think of such an action.
He walked out on the shelf of rock before the mine. Something moved at
the far end of the valley, a brown and silver speck that swiftly became
a horse and rider, rocketing toward him.
It was a girl, her silver gown pulled up to the tops of her thighs so
she could sit astride; she appeared to be having trouble with her mount.
Passing beneath Revel, swearing loudly at the plunging horse, she
continued for a hundred feet, then fell in a swirl of silver cloth as
the brute reared.
Revel leaped down the rock shelf as the horse cantered away. He ran to
the girl, who lay flat on her back, long white legs bared below the
disordered gown. She was blonde, tall, beautifully slicked. No rucker
wore such clothing, or rode a bay stallion, much less looked so groomed
and cleanly; she was a squire's daughter.
As he bent down she opened eyes the shade of sunlight on gray slate.
"Lie still," he said, "you may have broken something, Lady."
Her face was scornful. "Stand back, miner," she said, recognizing his
trade from the distinctive clothing he wore "Death to you if you touch
me."
* * * * *
A confusion of emotions was rioting in him. So much had happened
today--too much for sanity. He surrendered to madness gladly. This was
the most perfect wench he had ever seen. "Shut up," he said, and ran his
fingers over her body. "We of the ruck are expert at mending things,
Lady: bones, pots, and lives. Orbs know, you gentry have busted enough
of 'em for us. That hurt?"
She sat up, brushing her gown to her ankles as Revel took a last wistful
look at her legs. Evidently she was quite unhurt. "You'll play fox for
my father's hunt," she said coldly. "What made you do it?"
"You took a bad fall," he said lightly, wondering at his lack of fear.
Never before had he touched a squire's woman. She felt as all women
feel, her high caste couldn't be sensed in her body. "I'd sit still a
moment, if I were you." It must be the killing of the globe, he thought;
after that, any crime is possible.
"Who are you?"
"A miner," he mocked, standing. His pick was in his hand, as ever. He
thought, Should I kill her too? No sense to that, when I was only trying
to help. Or was it her body I wanted to touch? "Who's your father?"
"Ewyo of Dolfya, and his hounds will eat you for breakfast tomorrow."
Ewyo was one of the richest squires in this part of the world, and
Jerran's cousin served him. "You're Lady Nirea, then. A fine-looking
wench."
"My Orbs," she gasped, her scorn rattled by his incredible insolence.
"My Orbs above, who are you?"
"A dirty miner, who puts coal into your father's hearth but must warm
himself over smoldering peat. Why would you report me?"
"You _scum_," she said, the snarling hiss of a zanph in her voice. "Do
you remember when a brewer fell over a dog in Dolfya last year and
bumped my sister Jann? He was hunted over twelve miles before the pack
tore him to blood and rags! What do you think _you_ deserve, who dares
address me in that way, and--and fondle me?"
"Lady Nirea, if I fondled you, you'd know it," Revel said. Then, seeing
the hint of a smile on her sensuous lips, he looked up, for she seemed
to be staring over his shoulder.
From the button above them a line of globes dropped, golden globules
radiating bright energy.
_Whom the gods destroy, they first madden._ That was part of the Globate
Credo, wasn't it? Well, Revel had been gradually made mad that day, and
now, by Orbs, he'd show them something before he was destroyed!
As the first descended past him, and wrapped two tentacles under the
girl's armpits to lift her, he lifted his pick to smack it as he had the
supervising deity in the mine. He felt a tug; another globe had a
whiplash arm around his pick. Gritting teeth, he threw his tremendous
brawn into a swing, and the pick tore loose from the tentacle and
sprayed the guts out of the sphere before him. It fell on the grass
beside Nirea, an emptying sack. He slashed a second and a third,
laughing between set lips. What a way to go down--killing gods!
Then he felt a searing pain, a sudden spasm of the flesh, as though a
sword had been heated in a bonfire and laid alongside his ear.
Reflectively he ducked to earth, sprang two steps forward and spun,
rising to his full height again. One of the bulbous brutes had touched
the side of his head, its energy aura so strong at that close contact
that the hair was burned to a char and the flesh scorched.
So they could really hurt a man! He grinned with pain and defiance. If
his pick wasn't as fast as any damned floating ball, let them kill him!
He waited, crouched, keeping his eyes on them; and then they were rising
again, leaving him there in the valley with a screaming girl in a silver
gown.
* * * * *
Jerran, who had just started his own rest space, evidently, appeared on
the rock shelf and came down, walking faster than Revel had ever seen
him go. The little man came to him and, hardly glancing at Lady Nirea,
said, "Were you attacked, lad?"
"I did the attacking, when they objected to my touching this wench."
Jerran gazed up. "They're spreading out. The gentry will soon be on you,
Revel. You've got to hide."
"Where can you hide from a god?" It wasn't a hopeless tone he used, but
a kind of laughing, bantering acceptance of his doom.
"Come off it," said Jerran urgently. "You're still thinking like a
rucker."
"I am of the ruck."
"You're a rebel now, you fool! Think like one! Listen: _a man cannot
kill a god_."
"The Globate Credo," grunted Revel. "_Our Orbs are everlasting,
untouchable._ Crud! I've killed four today."
"Right. So stop fearing them and thinking they're omnipotent. _Our Orbs
see all we do._ More crud, lad! They're telepathic, adept at hypnosis,
but rock stops 'em. Get rock above you and you are safe for a while,
till I can think this over and get you some help."
"The mine!" Revel barked; to his madness, his exhilaration, was added
hope. "The secret cave, Jerran!"
"And of course," said Jerran wryly, "you have to take the woman."
Revel's jaw dropped. "Why?"
"You idiot, she just heard you say about six words too many. She'd lead
her father's pack straight to us!" Jerran evidently knew the Lady Nirea
by sight. "She knows our names, too. It's either take her or kill her."
His flinty eyes creased up. "Better kill her, at that. Less danger."
Revel looked at her. The talk of murder didn't turn a hair of that
flawlessly-wrought coiffure: she was either too sure of the gentry's
power, or too stunned by the gods' death, to be consciously frightened.
She was not stunned, for now she said, "You rabbit-brains, you filthy
grubbers, you must have lost whatever wits a rucker has. My father will
really think up something f--"
"Damn your father," said Jerran. "He eats dandelions."
"He doesn't!"
"My cousin gathers them for the old hellion," nodded Jerran. "I ought to
know. Revel, have any of those bulbous bubbles gone into the mine, that
you noticed?"
"Not yet, I've been watching."
"Good. Then get going. I'll take care of the wench."
Revel saw her lips curl slightly; she didn't believe she could be hurt,
even though she had a moment before been screaming at the death of her
gods. She was brave, or stupid, or very confident of her untouchability.
He glanced down over her body, squeezed tight by the silver gown. Her
breasts were fuller and higher than a ruck girl's, her limbs unbunched
with muscles, smooth and lovely.
"No, she doesn't die," he said. "Not unless I do." He bent and picked
her up and ran with her toward the entrance of the mine.