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Mick's Fiction.
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GOING TO DIE |
Coal comforted Lord Grill as best he could. Night fell. "Watch your back," hissed the wounded Lord. Coal looked grim and held his good hand. Two nights later, eleven men were atop a narrow cliff near Diamondold. They had had no more "contacts." Coal hid with these ten Meinzeits and watched a watchfire's smoke stay a solid coil. Wind whipped the twisted ash all through these mountains. The eleven were all dressed alike- black. There's nothing showing, thought Coal, not even steel, which tells I'm not one of them. The land was better here. Coal focused on the land. The mountains were still rough with their white stone that made the constant Scuff wind howl. But all around them, below them, the desert had become grassy. There were trees here and wild sheep no more than two feet tall. Coal did not let even beauty appear through the grim mask he made himself wear. Dead, no one will be able to tell I'm. I'm NOT, damn them! a Meinzeit! Coal raged. I know right! And place! Ordinary men who cripple and abandon Lords! Why will I never return- die fighting aside these Oh, FATHER these cold lying, using murdering disloyal bastards! Die aside them or by their cruel hands when vicious battle- Coal stopped cold. Surely they realize I know-? Peering over the cliff edge the eleven could see the wall across the Diamondold valley mouth. The smoke rose from behind; Lord Diamondold had chosen an excellent narrows for his stronghold. Meinzeit spotters counted only ten warriors at the gate. "Lord Diamondold must have built strong defenses inside," calmly spoke Coal to one of the Meinzeits. "He has fifty men you said- that makes, five gates, this strong!" The Meinzeit laughed. "Ejidoman," he said. "Bovine and obsequious! Yes, there are three more gates before the pass really becomes a Valley. But why would Diamondold have soldiers waiting there the whole time?" Dumbfoundment struck Coal. The Meinzeit- Lord Board Rick was his name- laughed and told Coal about Diamondold. Four gates, and then a tower built against solid mountain face, he told. He told Coal where were the hamlets and where the orchards of pepper trees blossomed. He told how much food and silver the warlord had stocked. "How do you know all this?" "The same way we know he's only got forty-one men in there, total. Information! Intelligence gathering. You know. We've got men on the inside just like he used to have some out here in the glorious land of Scuff." Coal was dumb enough to ask how Meinzei had snuck someone into that small valley- and how come Diamondold didn't notice the pigeons? Board Rick laughed at him. "He uses his own out here, to look and sneak pepper east. We just drop a little gold and use some of his, too, of course. His own men tell us pretty loyal about whatever's going on inside." Coal did not need to feign his wonder. Retainers telling information to the Meinzei? Men betraying intelligence about their own patron, about their Lord? He immediately dreaded- is this the way, back in Ejido-Crust? Then he told himself it really was naive to think it was not. Board Rick kept bragging, laughing how they had three or four separate informants in Diamondold Valley, each dumb to the others. For validation. Coal was blank, and grim; he struggled to understand what all of this meant, and thought how far and sharp was the hated Meinzeit Dutchess' reach. Lord Board Rick was just laughing. "You got a soul in there, Ejidoman? Don't think you've ever changed what's on that scarred face since you joined up," chuckled Board Rick. "Ejidomen!" Toward midnight they had heard something. Nearby something was moving. Lord Grill had gripped his spear and Coal found two stones to make his arms into hammers. There were many moving sounds, and they moved nearer. Dead black as it was, they saw each other at the same time and ten feet apart. Part of a patrol line- men!-humans!- whose?-three in black soldier dress hissed out and leveled blades at them. The soldier men did not have Scuff sleeves; other than that, Coal did not recognize. Their captors--- eight in this patrol--- led them to a sort of encampment that was sure to be gone by dawn. They were led to a small, skinny man who took one look at Lord Grill by cold starlight and laughed a cruel laugh. "You are a dead man here. Two dead men," he said, including the fourth-caste Coal. After some cold vegetable stew their captors were content the pair would not pass out. "On the move, ten-toes!" one impelled. Coal and Grill had one thought. "Meinzeits?" After darkness had descended, enclosing their second day's watch, the hidden eleven marked the "Official" Meinzeit mission's approach. It came crawling. The eleven men knew, for a fact, that there were seventy-four dishuman warriors in this force. With spines and sword, horns and hide, the mob creeping below seemed endless, to Coal. Diamondold had his high spotters, too, and the eleven heard alarms being raised as the mob closed through the high Scuffland grass. A quarter-mile off, when it was clear their surprise was gone, seventy-four black shapes charged. There were a dozen ladders among the assaulting force. Diamondold had drilled his bowmen well by moonlight as well as by day. Eight dishumans fell before the first ladder hit the wall. The battle that was joined after that seemed sharp- an hour and a half of constant struggling in the dark before the dishumans were driven back for good. The gate opened and men struck out on horses to run down stragglers as the invaders scattered, howling; then the wounded, left in the field, were coldly, efficiently, sent from this brutal, carnal world. Thirty-two bodies were laid out in a long row, head to foot, the next morning. If this band of dishumans, whoever they were, wanted to try an attack again, Lord Diamondold thus declared, a trail was prepared, showing just where their charge would lead. Coal said nothing. He watched the leader of the black ten stop his kidding. Coal could surmise his Lord's estimation. Their captors were pussies, stopping often "to rest." At length they reached a flat area hidden by the surrounding crags, and the forced march was done. By now Coal was certain these mountains were not the ones above Lake. He was disoriented, but he suspected this range divided Scuff from the lands of Dutchess Sinclair. Though they had said they would kill them, their captors provided Lord Grill, and even Coal, with cloaks. These fellow humans wore uniform black- no insignias, pendants of toebone, or ranks. He was not deceived. He knew them by their bread. Meinzeit! Coal remembered the moldy, milky taste. So the Dutchess meddled in everybody's affairs, not just in those of the Ejidolands. Lord Grill spoke with one of very slight build and feminine features. Coal wished to know, but there was his place. He could not get up from where he had been ordered to sit. Grill talked to her for a long time. The day arrived. And Coal slept; he could not help it. At last he was shaken awake. Lord Grill stood before him- in black clothes, with a knife at his belt. "The Lord Father gives us one day more yet, Coal," said Grill. "I think." The dishumans' second attack began in late afternoon. Four fell before they could strike the wall. The fight continued for four straight hours. At the end of that time, the eleven watched, Diamondold's men withdrew. They were not driven; they simply withdrew to the next gate, where with fresher defenses their same efforts could dispatch more foes. When dawn came, there were counted fourteen fewer dishumans. Six dead men were shafted on long pikes, set atop the conquered wall as trophy. Coal asked how a so much longer fight could kill so many fewer than the first assault. Board Rick explained quietly that the second time, the Meinzeits knew what tricks and tactics the defenders used. They knew what had cost them heavily and had trained all day in ways around. They knew what to do and, though it took longer, the wall fell. Board Rick praised the dishuman commander. "He's a good Meinzeit officer. Known for his efficiency." The dishumans were strengthened by sixteen mercenary dishumans hired from the Scuff plains before the next attack. Meinzei bought what it willed. They were allowed to walk, unguarded, further back along this hidden trail. What started as a simple flat space wound- in places clearly carved from solid stone!- back through the mountains. Lord Grill explained to Coal as they ate a pail of thick meat stew with ladles. "This is how Marquisa Cappaghmora explained it, and her story matches with what we know on our own. The Jigsaw Map is a dishuman thing, rediscovered sometime in the last couple of years. I mean that it was discovered these ancient tokens formed a map, and somewhere also appeared a list of where the pieces had been hidden, that thousand-odd years past. The giants, two years ago, tie in with all this; they didn't drive all those hundred dishuman tribes out of the summits. They released the list. "Something about there being other lists, and gangs already out collecting pieces. I don't know and she don't rightly know, but Meinzei's population being more than half dishuman Cappaghmora knows better than most. "The map leads to some fabled prize that will give huge power to any unhuman tribe what finds it. That part's not too clear, but all the dishuman tribes believe in The Prize so strongly they are wiping themselves out, fighting and wandering and warring into annihilation over clues and pieces. Whole human Lordships are reported attacked and massacred, just for a single greened-over token." They ate and walked. It was good to have clothes again, and food! This secret pass- both men guessed it led all the way back to Sinclair's lands- was craftily defended. A few dedicated men running a rear-guard defense could from twenty places block an army of any size, then launch ambushes against the immobile column from twenty more. Coal asked about the pigeon cages atop the bluffs. Lord Grill had seen and learned much in his travels: he explained that messages could be tied to the birds' feet, and there were only two places these red birds would ever land- its home cage and at the roost of the Dutchess herself, no matter from where the messenger had been released. "There are probably about a thousand pieces, Marquisa Cappaghmora said. Some of the big players in this game have a hundred or more. How she knows that, I do not know. Meinzei has eighty-eight- I don't know if they are including these or not." Grill motioned to the bronzy fobs that had been glued to their faces. "'You are a dead man here- two dead men,'" remembered Coal aloud. With wild bands of dishumans overroving Scuff, warring for pieces- Want and the other Scuffsmen had fixed them a death, one to which they would be forced to fight. "It gets deeper," said Grill. "There's actually two Meinzeit expeditions looking. One is the Official one- dishuman led. There's bands of it in many lands- biggest one right here in Scuff. Apparently there's a rumor that the Prize itself is here, and certainly dozens of pieces. Dozens more, too, all the separate bands that have poured on in bringing their own! If there's any truth behind this belief, Meinzei wants to ensure they win in the game." "The men in black here- this is Meinzei's other expedition." Grill nodded. "I've said too many other times, Coal, my cousin lost a good man, loaning you to me." "Ah, he just wanted me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you bring the family jewels back with you." The wandering lord gave half a grin. "I wish to the Father in Heaven I'd never seen received the damned jigsaw fobs in tribute, let alone borrowed Crust's." "'Oh, look, Lord Grill, these pieces fit together," Coal lampooned the scene. "'Wow, Lord Crust, it resembles a map.'" Grill laughed at the shadow of himself, and filled in the words once spoken. "Gee Golly, maybe the court scholar in Lake or up in Scuff can read the writing on the back!'" They both fell silent; conversations led them to their present place. "All this, Coal. These men, the Marquisa. It's all secret, of Sinclair herself. The proposal of suddenly having her dishuman subjects in command of unlimited power----" Grill did not need to finish. Coal had nothing to say. There was wind and silence and then Grill explained that they were going to die. "Listen to what they tell you, Coal, but always remember. Our lives are hers, after last night and how we'd be dead out there anyway. . . In this brutal land, as it is, anything weakened is determinedly, inevitably, going to die. 'Lord Grill and an Ejidoman were misguided into travelling to Scuff and were there lost,' Coal! That is all the memory The Lords' Book will preserve about us. From one side or another, there's knives with our names, Coal. And all that, that she told me----No way they can let us go after telling us that. No matter what she said about 'Speaking Noble to Noble, just giving you background should you freely decide to join, to understand this one small favor we're asking of you.'" "Favor?" "That's what she called it." Coal was afraid for a minute that Lord Grill was choked up. A Lord? Cry? He would set a hand on Grill's shoulder. If only he could. Grill, Coal had learned, was an amazing, mighty individual. But the noble blinked, power over his two eyes and nothing else. "After our skin dies off, Coal, and they get these pieces- after that, we're bound to use in their 'Mission.'" Coal knew to be silent. "Their opinion of our Ejidolander knowledge of the world has not improved since we learned a nation existed amid the twisted valleys of those insurmountable peaks, four years ago. Caphamora told me a plain untruth, speaking 'noble to noble,' in claiming Diamondold was behind Scuffland's overrunning. They're not just pursuing pieces here, Coal, or interracial Meinzei politics or some supposed Prize. Whatever else they claim, these Dutchess men in black are determined to steal the whole nation of Scuff." The attack came, Coal heard, again at late afternoon. It lasted nine hours, ending when Diamondold and his men fled back to their third gate. Lord Diamondold was apparently not worried, just mad as Hell. The sharp-eyed spotters reported that there were seventeen Meinzeit dishumans left to carry on the attack, with reputedly about an equal number of men left facing them behind strong defenses. All members of the mercenary tribe had been killed in the fighting; they had been used, thought Coal, just as Meinzei is using Lord Grill and I, and Diamondold itself. Used, and killed. . . . Stop! Don't think! The Lord of Scuff was a prisoner somewhere within. "When all these cockhuman bands started fighting their way in, I bet," told Lord Grill,"our Good Lord Scuff knew he'd need help to keep order, here. But could he ask any of the Ejidolands, or Lake? Gracious, no! Ask help, look weak?" Lord Grill snorted a laugh. News of the Scuff's practical collapse had been successfully contained at its reinforced border posts- virtually the only ground Scuff's guardsmen reigned. "But Diamondold, the small Lord whose valley's one entrance had always into Scuff----" In his administrations Grill had never visited Diamondold, but he knew the old warlord's reputation. Diamondold stood no shit, neither from Lord Scuff nor the wild mobs of savages his incompetence let in. Coal craned to see, imagined unhumans charging in, in smoke and confusion. The fight was a rout. Dead were left on the field. The dishumans ran down fleeing wounded, as the men had done nights before with their horses. Coal thought of Lord Grill. The farthest they could see was the vanquished second wall. Spotters called back to the other nine, there was an immediate attack on the fourth and final gate. Arrows struck momentary chill the dishumans boil and the last gate would not burst. "We need to move in closer, closer," hissed eager Board Rick. The Meinzeits below recoiled from the last wall, just long enough for spotters to count and report twelve more dishuman Meinzeit warriors killed or too injured to carry on the fight. A dozen or fifteen men were up on pikes above the ruins of the third wall. Dead wore peasant clothes. "Good," whispered Board Rick, fidgeting as he took the news. "High casualties. Good, good!" At home, Lord Crust was patron to thirty fighting-men for all his Ejido. One less, 'Lord Grill and an Ejidoman were misguided into Scuff and were lost'- Whole nations were being used and perishing. From high above, Coal saw it all. I will scream like the wind---- Board Rick moved his tense men in a few hundred yards. The two trained spotters could better see the fourth gate and the weakness of these who were fighting to the last. "We may just pull this Mission off yet, damn that chance Contact out on the plain!" whispered Board Rick. "He is still alive!" protested Coal. The ten who remained standing swiveled their attention from the mangled proof of how quick and vicious the Dutchess' killers were. "Coal. . . !" wept Grill helplessly as jackal packs danced on the horizon. Their leader summoned. Eleven marched on toward white cliffs. It was all coming fast now. The full attack on the fourth gate was beginning. Diamondold was seen leading his wall of menfolk, only a handful in armor or proper arm. Coal felt the wind scream by, charged with blood. The other spotter brought news. More dishumans were seen approaching the valley. All the while Coal said nothing. Board Rick sent for word of the fourth wall and swore in waiting for news. "You got a soul in there, ten-toes? You make me nervous so quiet. Almost." These new dishumans were bold and towering. They came directly up to the first gate and shouted with the wounded few Meinzeits stationed atop. Minutes later, they roved back off a distance to calmly wait. The dishumans on that wall ached back into their armor and grew in number. "What happened?" asked Coal. "Looks like we tried to hire and got turned down," swore Board Rick. "Now those twenty or so are going to do the same as us, probably- wait 'til it's about over and then try to roll on in." The fourth gate battle was lasting longer than Board Rick, or anyone, had expected. The people of Diamondold were holding their ground. Seven more men were killed- it was the Lord alone, and common men defending their pepper trees, the only peppers grown between far Clay and Ejido-Plow, the only wood whose smoke remained a common coil. These men died in great numbers. A week before it had been a whipping offense for them even to fistfight, fifth casters. Now they gripped the spears of the fallen and fell as well. But their old warlord proved how his years had been spent. Only four dishumans remained fighting, none untouched. Suddenly one spotter came scrambling back. "Lord Scuff has entered the battle- with just a sword and a shield, he's decimating the serfs Diamondold holds in reserve!" Lord Scuff, Coal had learned, was thirty-one years old. He had never been known for his physical strength or action, but he was sure raising terror now! He'd come walking up to the backside of the gate and without warning started laying open wounds on the serfs gathered there. He murdered three men armed with their paltry sticks and then thrashed the tents where the wounded were taken. Women and wounded were scattered- two killed. A real one-man army! Board Rick laughed impulsively, abrasively. Then he conditioned: "Of course, it will be harder for us to 'rescue' him and run, if we'll need to track and calm the Righteous Lord down." Meanwhile the serfs panicked and fled, all those who were not on the wall beside Lord Diamondold. Diamondold was the only one who could have stopped him, and Diamondold was also the only one keeping the dishumans from overrunning the wall. Board Rick ordered the spotters back to their posts. He cursed, wishing there was some way he could get in there and snatch away Scuff before he got himself killed. "As a man, our Scuff is a fool; but as a Lord, he'll lead his backward people to a more perfect allegiance." The battle was at a standstill; the four remaining dismen- all wounded, to some degree- pulled down their ladder. Perhaps they heard the havoc inside and hoped it would kill this man of its own. "A retreat?" asked Board Rick, of no one in particular. But then his gaze was on the stone-faced Ejidoman, who'd been silently watching him whisper for days now. "Where?" cried Coal, staring intently down below. Surely they realize I know- "Is it dangerous? Who has it?" Diamondold was seen to hop the stairs and go after his escaped prisoner. Lord Scuff turned and ran. The ten killers surrounding Coal even releived themselves with a procedure, so tight was Meinzeit discipline. Coal struggled not to react, not to speak, felt burst not to think. Then at last there rose smoke that even Coal could see and screams he could hear. The battle was joined again; he learned later that a hot ember or torch had been flung atop the deserted battlement, from below. The jars men had been sent to carry had contained some of Diamondold's wealth- fine oil. Three of the four fighting dishumans died either in the trap's flames or in the leap to the ground below. One made it back down the ladder, and found Lord Diamondold and his charger waiting there for him. At last the fourth gate was wide open, but the Meinzeit never had a chance to burst through. The last fighting dishuman was struck dead by Diamondold steel. Lord Diamondold was a warlord in days a generation old. He was a Lord- not as formal as most, he'd speak with the common man- his word was law in his domain. He sent his tributes to the King. Fifteen years past he had settled here, with his four hundred souls, to bother no more and war no more, to build, and make a modest fortune with the pepper trees. The men quickly retook their empty third wall. Diamondold was seen to shoot an arrow at the wounded watchman atop the second gate, to damn his horned head back down below the battlement. Board Rick scrambled as a sentinel whistled his alarm; twelve horsemen flew now across the plain, straight on! The hidden Meinzeit had excellent eyes- as the horse-cloud drew closer, the spotter reported, these twelve wore Scuff sleeves! The eighteen bold savages spread out and bellowed challenges, waving claws in the air. They staked their claim and blocked the way to Diamondold's taken gate. The horsemen had no interest in these dishumans. Their blades swiped at them as they rode by, but the soldiers did not seek to engage. They were only drawn into a fight when two of the riders were knocked from their mounts. The redsleeves swirled around to defend. Ten minutes later, the thirteen surviving dishumans fled west. Five Scuffsmen had also been killed or wounded. Coal could not tell. "Will this never settle?" ruefully laughed Board Rick. "Will this anarchy cease?" No one answered him. The horsemen sped directly for the gate. Arrows shot up at the battlement. The dishuman heads disappeared. Hooks and lines sailed up the wall's face. Coal could see it was the Scuffsman Want himself who led this charge. The last dishumans had already run. They huddled atop the only bit of land left to them- the summit of the second gate wall. This bleeding remnant of the conquering force kept huddled against Diamondold's arrows from one side and the Scuffsmen's from the other. Coal said nothing. Everyone tensed. Board Rick was holding his judgement for the end. Diamondold picked off one of the huddled bastards. Those thirteen wild dishumans did not return but it was only a matter of time, sure. The Scuffsmen mounted the final attack with one of the Meinzeit's own discarded ladders. The final stand was a desperate one; two soldiers were killed taking the life of one cornered Meinzeit. Their desperation accounted for nothing. Want reached the wall. The last of the Official expedition died, then and there, butchered, still believing Sinclair's solemn Intelligence of the Prize hid amid pepper trees. They perished, and without pause there roared a still-panting discourse with Diamondold. The hid eleven could not discern any of what followed, but the lone Lord was obviously not pleased. "You know who the big one is, ten-toes?" asked Board Rick. Coal remembered the bounds, sweat, their bewildered interrogation in that near-deserted fortress. He and Grill, asking what they had stumbled in to. Coal flinched, Father, how can the Meinzeit bastard not see I recognize-? remembering the short temper and the asperic glue. "Shoo, sure is big." The panic, the defensive errors being made trying to run things with Lord Scuff held prisoner. Something of a great officer but he's no Lord, wasn't schooled from youth to command decisions. "I bet he's one dangerous man." The Meinzeit leader held his final judgement for the end. "Five Scuffsmen, a few more wounded," counted Board Rick. "One warrior left, but he's Diamondold himself. Ten- Eleven of us. Thirteen dishumans somewhere in wait." Coal had clamped his jaws abruptly. Board Rick listened for more, then said, "It is interesting calculation, figuring Lord Scuff is likely still there, too." And Scuff himself made the next move. He must have heard his men immediately the other side of Diamondold's wall, from concealment within earshot. He could not wait any longer. Scuff took the empty fourth wall for himself. He started shouting for Diamondold and all the land to hear. Weary atop the fragile decay of the third wall, Lord Diamondold recognized he was beaten. He was in the same situation as those last desperate dishumans. Ahead, Want by himself would be his equal. Outnumbered, there was no fight. He could turn and butcher the paltry Scuff, silence his little-girl yelling once and for all--- But the instant he turned, there would be Scuff soldiers at his back. He would die, fists beating the wood of his own fourth gate. There was not even point in delay. Lord Scuff shrieked blood, but Want shouted necessity. Lord Diamondold ignored the raving noble and panted his terms of passage with Want. Board Rick waited no longer for the perfect moment. "Let's go! Go!" he cried. He needed an easy battle, to win with strength enough to keep their prize- a lesson Coal could learn from all the spent, wasted missions below. Diamondold threw open the shattered gate and one of his cronies shouted to Scuff that he had Diamondold's word of passage. The captive hollered hence and forth about honor and station for a few minutes until Want roared for the Righteous Heir of Scuff to shut up and hurry. Scuff opened the gate and, sword in hand (Coal heard) crossed the blood-covered field to the third gate. Diamondold atop his ruined wall watched with evil in his eyes and spat as the Lord came near. Scuff hesitated twice and then sprinted through the wreckage. He did not stop until he was near the second wall, Want and his men waiting at guard. The Lord Scuff hollered the most base and vile things at his once-captor. Coal could hear, even hundreds of yards away over the stones rattling down. Diamondold- his valley attacked without provocation, now defenseless, hung crippled like bait in the wind- boiled over with anger and raised his bow. Three Scuff arrows cracked against the battlement and Diamondold's shaft remained unflown. "I am, now and future, the Righteous Sovereign of Scuff! We'll see how your taxes stand when this season is passed, my leige," cursed Scuff as he celebrated safety. "Let's see who has your quaint little valley in the end." Board Rick needed to catch the Scuffsmen quickly or they would be away on their horses. Coal was rushed along with the others. Board Rick grinned close behind his ear. "Soon you'll have your revenge in Scuffs' blood, Ejidoman, and then we'll guide you home-" "I will howl, Lord Board Rick," Coal promised. The Meinzeit laughed and repeated his own name, Board Rick! Coal's temples pounded. The Scuffsmen were quicker than the Meinzeits thought. Two minutes after Scuff was through the gate, all eight rode away, leaving the valley and its shattered walls behind. The Scuffsmen had five minutes' start on them, and horses, but the eleven in black ran hard in pursuit. In the late afternoon they saw them ahead. The horsemen had fallen into battle with the claws of the same thirteen. Whether the creatures had pursued or lain in wait did not matter. Somehow battle had proven unavoidable, and the so-recent rescuers now fought for their lives. "What luck!" called Board Rick. "The Scuffs had a Contact of their own!" It was not going well for the Scuffsmen. By the time the Meinzeits ran within detail's view, four of the eight were down and dead. Five of the dishumans had lost their lives, as well- the Meinzeits hurdled or sidestepped one crumpled with a lance in its side, on their approach. Board Rick slapped his ten into the fray, apparently on the Scuffsmen side. The fight- already an hour or more old- went on. Coal was short of breath and spirit but terror lent him strength. He was a killer with muscle of his own and he could damn well use it. Coal saw two Meinzeits beheaded almost immediately and Board Rick's brow contort in rage. Scuff had already got himself killed. It was a useless struggle, but one they had already joined. The dishumans tried to withdraw but could not, the melee was so fierce. Coal's first strike was at a dishuman already engaged by a Scuff rider. Coal attacked at the same time as a disciplined Meinzeit. This creature was eight feet tall, head like a rock, limbs elemental as sharp tree branches- but it could not fight three men at once. It was down in a minute. On the ground, they hacked him to pieces. Coal turned on another. It was running from the new humans. Two Meinzeits sprinted to intercept and one last time Coal caught view of Board Rick- Bordric!- behind, to one side. The man was near but his hand presented a coup d'gras blade, not a sword. The time was here. Coal sprinted after the fleeing dishuman. "Coal!" It cut his way, paused just long enough to tear the shield from Coal's arm and rend it in three. It recoiled from Coal's rage against its calf and started running again. Coal was shaken but charged. A hurled Meinzeit axe destroyed its shoulder, whistling over Coal's ear. The gargantuan ran for its life, loped far away. The two Meinzeits stopped but Coal, Coal followed course. Voices commanded him by name, but Coal's legs were under him. He knew from their tone not to stop, not even to turn. No Ejidoman would be found aside Lord Scuff's mortal corpse. Even quiet Coal knew that. Three Meinzeits had been killed. The seven and two surviving Scuffsmen did not stay at the battle scene. They moved together west, Want's huge head beaten down. The moon cast no light as Coal came to Diamondold's first gate. The Lord was asleep but soon roused. "These walls, they look different
having gotten down," told the Ejidoman. He had been outside, above.
Diamondold's gaze was cold, hard and cold. The gathered peasants alone
had anger enough to kill this stranger, one man where he did not belong.
"I will not abandon you! I mean, this time- This is Lord Grill again.
Lost or not, all doomed regardless or not, it means something. How
we die, it means something to me-"
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