We were halfway there when the man came out the front door. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he was looking down. He was human, not ogre. He walked fifty feet toward us before he realized he wasn't alone. He halted, looked at us, and his eyes bugged.
"Bruno," I hissed.
He whirled and headed for the building.
Sadler's crossbow twanged.
It was a damned good try for a snap shot. I think it clipped Bruno's left arm. He veered right and headed up the street, concentrating on speed.
"Let him go. I'll hunt him down later," I said. "He has some answers I need."
While I talked, Crask sped a bolt that split Bruno's spine three inches below his neck. Sadler reached him seconds later and dragged the twitching body into the nearest shadows.
"Thanks a bunch," I snarled.
Crask didn't bother turning that embalmed face my way. Doris and Marsha reached the roofs of their respective structures. They anchored ropes and dropped them. Inside Gorgeous's place the lights were dying. Saucer head and I stood at the foot of the rope. "You going to make it?" I asked.
"You worry about yourself, Garrett. Ain't nothing going to stop me now." He started climbing. I held the rope taut. Saucer head went up like he was seventeen and had never been hurt in his life. Sadler followed with not one but two crossbows slung on his back, then the Puddle. Lucky Garrett got to do it with no one to tauten the rope. When I reached the roof, I found that Marsha had already leaped to Gorgeous's roof. Saucer head was tying off the rope the groll had tossed back. Sadler was leaning on the chimney that anchored both ropes, sighting one crossbow on the top-floor window. Light still leaked through its shutters. I wondered if Marsha's rooftop landing had been heard below. I didn't see how Gorgeous could help but be forewarned with nearly two tons of groll prancing over his head. Puddle joined Marsha. Saucer head and I followed. I pretended the void below was really just water a foot beneath my dangling toes.
The pretense didn't help.
Sadler stayed where he was. He untied the rope so Marsha could haul it across and resumed his lethal posture. Marsha bent one end of the rope into a harness for me. As I got into it I wondered what was wrong with Gorgeous and his boys. Were they deaf? Or just chuckling as they got a little surprise ready for us?
I was going to find out all too quickly. There was enough light now to see Morley getting into a similar rig. Doris hoisted him and dangled him over the side.
The universe twisted. An abyss appeared beneath me. I turned at the end of the rope, glimpsing Sadler aiming too close for contentment. Marsha swung me in against the brick, then over to peek through the cracks in the shutter. At first I saw nothing. No ambush evidence, no excitement, nobody. Just an empty room. Then an ugly someone opened a door and shoved his face into the room and said something I couldn't hear to someone I couldn't see. The back of the other someone appeared momentarily as he followed the ugly someone out the door. The set of his shoulders said he was aggravated.
I waved. Saucer head tied the rope to something. They left me hanging.
Evidently the report from the far side was favorable, too. Marsha leaned over the edge and let go a mighty bash with his club. A second later he lowered Saucer head at the end of a mile of arm and flipped him through the window. Saucer head grabbed me and dragged me inside. Puddle came through an instant later. The room was uninhabited except for the insect life infesting the stack of bunk beds. Saucer head and Puddle headed for the door while I battled ropes like a moth in a spider web. There was one hell of a racket going on somewhere else.
A guy came charging through the doorway just as Saucer head got there. His nose and Saucer head's fist collided. No contest. The ogre's eyes rolled up. Saucer head thumped him again as he went down, just for spite. I got loose and charged after Saucer head and Puddle, into a narrow hallway that dead-ended to our left. As we turned right a couple of breeds popped out of another bunk-room doorway. They were no more fortunate than their predecessor. Saucer head was in one of those moods. In the meantime, heaven put on its dancing shoes and began hoofing it on the roof. The grolls were pounding away with their clubs.
The racket elsewhere revealed itself as a lopsided battle between Morley's crew and Gorgeous and about ten breeds. Several more ogres were down, with quarrels in them, and as we came to the rescue yet another made the mistake of stepping in front of the window. He squealed like a throat-cut hog as he fell. The bolt had gotten the meat of his thigh. Poisoned? Probably.
Being a nice guy, I just whapped a couple of heads with my stick instead of stabbing backs with Puddle. Saucer head threw ogres around the way us ordinary mortals might work through a pack of house cats. Holes appeared in the ceiling as the grolls kept pounding away, their blows so powerful they smashed through two-by-ten oak ceiling joists.
Our rear attack turned the tide. Suddenly, the numbers were ours.
Gorgeous made a run for the stairs. I flung a foot out and got enough of his ankle to unbalance him. His momentum pitched him into the doorframe. The fight seemed over but it wasn't yet won. Ogres are tough and stubborn. A few were still upright. Morley's boys left them to us and went to work finishing the ones who were down. I yelled a complaint that got ignored.
I'd gotten through the worst without a scratch. The others had a few dings and small cuts, except Sarge, who had collected a rib-deep slash across the chest and had taken himself out of the action to tend it.
"Not that one!" Saucer head roared at Puddle. "You save that one for me." He slammed the last upright ogre into unconsciousness, then explained, "That's the one that was in charge when they killed the girl."
Panting, I asked, "You see any others that were there?"
"Just him." He dragged his ogre out of the mess.
Morley said, "That's the one called Skredli."
I'd suspected as much. For several minutes there had been considerable racket downstairs. Now Gorgeous levered himself up and roared. Morley and I jumped on him, too late to shut him up.
The stairs drummed to stamping feet.
An ogre stampede arrived.
There must have been twenty in the first rush. They pushed us across the room, into the far wall. Grolls hammering heads from above scarcely slowed them. And more kept coming. Sarge couldn't defend himself adequately. Puddle went down. I thought Morley was a goner. It looked grim for the rest of us. Gorgeous shrieked hysterical, bloodthirsty orders.
It was time for something desperate.
______XXXV______
I dropped the witch's gift and stomped on it. The crystal shattered. I followed instructions and covered my eyes, taking several vicious blows as a result. A thread of fire sliced the outside of my left upper arm. Hell called the proceedings to disorder. I opened my eyes. The mob bawled like cows in a panic, flailed wildly, purposelessly. Some howled and clung to the floor. I danced away from the nearer crazies and unlimbered my head-knocker. According to the witch, they were seeing three of everything and their universe was revolving. But that didn't make them easy meat. There were so many of them flailing around... .
I watched Gorgeous bang into the wall three times trying to get to the stairs. I tried to reach him before he got away. My luck ran its usual taunting course. I was two ogres short of getting him when he made it out. He went tumbling downstairs, caterwauling in pain and fear. I wanted that man bad, but not bad enough to abandon friends to fate. I returned to my harvest. I took a few whacks myself getting the mob done, but lay them low I did. Morley, I saw, had survived after all. He leaned against a wall, pale as death. Saucer head stood with feet widespread, grinning a big goofy grin. The grolls, who had caught just the edge of the spell, looked in through the ceiling and grinned too. They had helped with the head-knocking. Morley's man Blood sat in a corner puking his guts up. Sarge and Puddle were somewhere under the mess.