And now the squire has trapped the Mink,
And now he sets him free,
And now the Mink is hunted down
On hill and vale and lea.
He pants and gasps, his legs grow weak,
His eyes with sweat are blind;
In squire's halloo and hound's mad bark
He hears his death behind!
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mind
They took Revel to the top of a hill just behind Ewyo's mansion. He was
stripped to the buff, but on his feet were stout sandals of horsehide in
triple thickness, so that he could run well and give them a good hunt.
On the crest they untied him, and he stood naked in a ring of the horsed
gentry, rubbing his wrists and glaring at them. Beside him were Jerran
and the mutilated Dawvys, who both wore their customary shirts and
trousers.
Running his eyes over the squirachy, Revel saw with a strange thrill of
horror the Lady Nirea, on a deep-chested roan stallion, as cool and
distant as the moon ... and as beautiful, he thought bitterly. Well, but
hadn't he had her? He, a rucker born had loved this woman of the gentry!
Let her watch him die--small compensation that would be!
He bowed to her. "May you be in at the death," he said clearly, and had
the satisfaction of seeing her face go white.
"Give the Mink his fangs," said Ewyo. The burly squire was all in
scarlet silk and purple velvet, with white calfskin boots on his thick
legs. At his command, Rosk threw the tall rebel a belt with two
holsters, in which were thrust two short iron daggers. "By rights you
should go without, Mink," said Ewyo, "but it's more sport to chivvy a
fox with a bite in him. Now, you have till the count of three hundred."
"Five hundred is customary," interrupted Nirea.
"Three is plenty for the savior of the ruck. Hold your tongue, Lady." He
leaned over his steed's head. "Three hundred, Mink, and then we come
after you. Your course is down this hill and straight away toward the
sea. Don't try to escape the straight, either, because the hills are
rimmed with guards who'll blow your guts out if you cross the line; and
some thousands of your slimy kin are clustered on those hills to watch
their hero die." He nodded to the woman beside him, a blonde wench with
vicious amber eyes. "Begin the count, Jann."
The blonde said loudly, "One, two, three--" and at the third word Revel
was off, running like a slim brown stag down the slope of the hill.
Behind him came Dawvys and Jerran. The little man cried, "Don't wait,
Revel lad. Save yourself if you can. Remember you're the Mink!"
"I wish to Orbs I wasn't," he growled, and hit the bottom, skimmed over
a patch of raw rocks and struck the green beyond. As he ran he buckled
the belt around his waist, with a knife hanging on each hip. He had not
expected these, and though Ewyo thought he'd lose only a hound or two,
Revel intended to take at least a pair of squires with him into the
unknown....
He was a fine runner. By the time Lady Jann had counted two hundred and
fifty, he was half a mile down the straight, which was a belt of land
some quarter of a mile wide and twenty long, ending above the sea on a
cliff's edge. As the squire had said, he would not be able to break off
the straight, for guards and packed mobs lined it and a naked man would
be far too conspicuous heading toward them.
Now he thought of his two comrades in ill fortune. Neither of them was a
runner of any caliber. Should he wait and help them?
Selfishness said _no_--and unselfishness said _no_, for wasn't his first
duty to the ruck, not to his friends? Didn't he owe it to humanity to
save himself? And besides, he was a lusty young buck, and didn't want to
die.
But he glanced back, slowed, waited till the two had come panting up to
him, and thrusting an arm around each waist, ran them forward with him,
ignoring their protests.
* * * * *
They came to a coppice of elms, grown thick with brambles and cluttered
with deadwood. It covered perhaps an acre. Revel ploughed into it,
cursing as the thorns stabbed his naked hide. Too late he realized he
should have skirted it. In the rare quarter-seconds when the branches
were not snapping or the brush whipping noisily aside from their
progress, he could hear the faint barking of the great hounds; even, he
thought, the whoops of the excited gentry as they started down the hill
on their fiery stallions. He pictured Nirea, her slate-hued eyes
gleaming, her creamy skin aflush as she leaned forward eagerly for the
first sight of the Mink. Damn her!
Abruptly the earth slanted off to the right, so that Revel, who was
still pushing Dawvys and Jerran, went headlong into a patch of nettles,
losing his balance at the unexpected dip and shoving both companions
down on their faces. Dawvys rolled, yelping at the pain of scratches on
fresh wounds, then vanished with a howl. Revel crouched, staring,
unbelieving. In a moment the head of the plump rucker came up out of the
earth.
"What in Orbs' names--"
"It's a pit," said Dawvys. "It was covered with trash." His eyes were
wide and frightened. "Go on, Revel. I can't run another step."
The Mink thought swiftly. Dawvys was right, he could run no longer.
Quickly Revel shoved the man's head down, threw several branches and
bushes across the mouth of the pit, began to disguise it, talking as he
worked.
"Lie down and be very still, old fellow. Jerran and I will make enough
of a trail for the hounds to follow, and only bad luck will discover you
to them. If we escape, we'll come back tonight for you." The pit was
camouflaged, looked like a mound of trash beside the trail. Revel
murmured a good-bye, and went plunging on through the coppice to the
other side, Jerran following him nimbly with the strength of second
wind.
Now they could truly run, for Jerran, though forty-two, was no antique;
and Revel had the thews of a woods lion. The way before them was smooth,
grass cropped close by the sheep of Ewyo, gently rolling mounds one
after another so that skimming down one slope gave them impetus to dash
up the next. A faint cheer came to them from the left. The ruck was on
their side.
Perhaps if I die well enough, thought Revel, my death may spark a
revolt, and so count for something. He felt at the hilt of the iron
daggers. Just give me Ewyo, he prayed to whatever higher powers there
might be; just let me have one thrust at Ewyo the Squire!
From the crest of the highest hill he looked back, as Jerran sucked for
breath. The gentry were just topping a rise some half mile behind. Not
bad! But the dogs were much closer. They had gone through the coppice
without discovering Dawvys; now, with any luck, they never would.
Revel ran on. His feet thudded on rock, slithered on grass, shuffled
through the mire of a narrow swampland. Here trees slashed at him, there
a woodchuck sprang out of his path and made him stumble with sudden
panic. His chest labored, drawing in air; his legs pumped and ached.
Then he came to a river.
It was some ten yards broad, with a swift current. He said to Jerran,
"If we can make headway against that current, land up-stream on the
other side, we may have a chance."
The runty yellow man shook his head. "Look up," he gasped. Above them
soared a score of globes, plainly marking their position for the gentry.
"The filthy schemers," growled Revel. "The foul cheats! They call this a
game, yet 'tis as easy for them as it would be to shoot at us in a small
sealed room!" He bent down. "Get on my back, little one." Jerran climbed
on, and Revel grasped his legs, told him to hang tight around his neck,
and leaped into the river.
Only thirty feet across, it was yet quite deep, and Revel sank like a
dropped rock. When the water above his head was so opaque that he could
not distinguish anything save a dull mirky lightness, he struck out
downstream. For a full minute he swam with the current, then began to
rise, Jerran clinging weakly to his neck. The Mink thanked his Orbs--no,
not them, but whatever brought him luck--that he was one of the few
ruckers who had taught himself to swim....
* * * * *
He had gone farther by swimming than he might have running, for the
current was like a demon with a thousand legs, all speeding it on and
carrying him with it. His head lifted clear of the waters in the center
of the stream, and Jerran behind him broke into coughs and gurgles.
Revel looked for globes, and saw them upriver, lifting and falling
uncertainly. He said, "Take a breath!" did so himself, and sank again.
This time he stayed under for the space he could have counted fifty,
then rose again near the far bank.
He was among trees, birch and poplar and evergreen, that grew to the
water's brink. He struggled ashore, carrying a limp Jerran, and fell
with his burden beneath a single giant oak, which sheltered him from the
buttoned, all-seeing sky.
"Rest a while, Jerran. We've put plenty of distance behind us."
Yet when he stood up and gave his friend a hand, five minutes later, he
could already hear the baying of hounds.
A touch of panic threaded down his spine--not the panic that flared and
died when a woodchuck startled him, but the panic of any hunted creature
who, do what he may, still hears the pursuers close behind him. The
sound of the howls told him the dogs had crossed the river. He looked
up, but saw no orbs. No dog scents a man two miles off. Who had betrayed
them? Or were the gentry presuming that they must have crossed?
He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have
found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk
beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network
of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood.
He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at
best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was
open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted
him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and
high in the distance.
At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his
skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had
been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured.
"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind
him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill to the side of the
patch of bad ground.
Then it dawned on him how they had been followed; for behind the
stallioned squires rose the hills, which bordered the straight hunting
course, and on them showed small dots of color, the keen-eyed watchers
of the gentry. No matter where he ran on this long narrow coursing
ground, there would be eyes upon him.
At least the ravening dogs were not nearby. He picked up Jerran, tucked
him under one arm, and dashed for the shelter of the evergreen woods
before him. The hoofs of the horses pounded behind. He dodged in among
the pines, and the mournful call lifted--"Gone to earth! Go-ho-hon to
earth!"
"Damn you, put me down!" rasped Jerran. "Am I a child, to be carted like
this?" Revel dropped him. They skittered from tree to tree, and then a
charging horse was on them, and Jerran was rolling aside, bleating with
fear of the hoofs, while Revel turned and stood foursquare in the path.
As the stallion all but touched him, he jumped aside, jumped back, so
that the head of the beast passed him but the rider was struck and
clutched and hurled from his saddle, losing his trumpet-gun as he fell.
The Mink was sitting astride him before he could bounce up, and two
ruthless hands took him by the throat and tore out his jugular. The
second rider at that instant drew rein behind them, and lifted his own
gun for a quick shot.
Jerran hurled a rock. It took the squire on the head, spilled him out of
his saddle, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
"Two guns, by Orbs!" crowed Revel, gathering them up. "And two horses!"
He put a foot into the stirrup of the second one, but it shied madly at
the touch of a bloody, naked man; dashed forward, startling the other,
and together they vanished among the trees. "Hell!" said Jerran, taking
one of the guns; "nothing gained but two bullets, Mink."
"Two bullets is two more slain squires. Come on!"
* * * * *
The evergreens gave out shortly, and they were in a valley channeled by
sluggish rivulets and grown with noxious weeds and clumps of coarse
grass. Some distance away, a priest walked slowly, head bent, his double
scalp lock flopping down over the radiant blue-green robe. Above him,
apparently in communion with him, hung a golden globe.
Revel shifted his gun up and took aim at the orb. He must risk a shot,
rather than a god's exposure of his whereabouts. The priest looked up,
saw him, yipped in surprise, and the orb shot up ten feet just as Revel
fired.
One bullet wasted. Jerran fired as the echoes of the Mink's shot
racketed away, and the priest crumpled in on himself, a glittering sack
of dead meat.
"You fool!" said Revel, with a brief, pithy anger. "The man I could have
stabbed or broken in two. The sphere is beyond us now." It was slanting
up an invisible incline, faster than he had ever seen one travel before.
"Come on," he snarled. "We've got to travel!" He threw away the useless
gun and ran for his life.
Behind him, to left and then to right, rose the calls. Hoofs thundered,
dogs baying out afresh as they sighted their quarry, and the valley
filled with sound and horses, dogs and men. Over and over the calls
rang, and the air above the fugitives was filled with watching gods.
Revel ran as he had never believed he could run, and the calls, the
calls, the calls beat upon his eardrums....