A risk impossible to avoid. Had he been absent the guns would have been loaded and lifted away-now they had betrayed their intention. Yet he had permitted them to depart. Why?
Lavinia shrugged when he asked. "You heard him, Earl. There was nothing else he could have done."
"No," he corrected. "I heard you telling him that."
"It's the same thing."
To her, perhaps, but Dumarest recognized the difference. He looked at the sky. The suns were lowering towards the horizon, the discs merging, a haze softening the terrain below. The time of delusia when things were not exactly as they seemed and mistakes could easily be made.
Lavinia was at the controls. She looked beyond him as Dumarest touched her shoulder, her eyes vacant, her lips moving a little as if in silent conversation. Then, as he touched her again, she shuddered and leaned towards him.
"Charles! Charles, my dearest, why did-Earl!"
"What is the shortest way back to your castle?"
"Southwest by west. The compass-"
"Over high ground?"
"Yes. The Iron Mountains run far back and there are some high peaks."
Together with crevasses and precipices and ledges which could crumble beneath the weight of a foot. Bad country but, it being late, it was natural she would have taken the route.
"Earl!" She caught at his arm as he altered the direction the vehicle was taking. "We'll never get back in time!"
"Does it matter? What about the stopovers?"
"Yes." Her grip relaxed as she thought about it. "Yes, I suppose we could spend the night in one. But they aren't plentiful in this region. We'll have to rise high so as to spot where to land."
Rise high, very high, so high that nothing would be left of them or the raft if they crashed.
"Drop!" he snapped. "Fast!"
"Earl! What-"
"Do it! Get to the ground! Move!"
The engine was housed in a humped compartment. As Lavinia tilted the raft to send it gliding downwards to the misted terrain below Dumarest ripped at the casing, tearing away the thin metal with his knife, squinting as he peered inside. A grey cylinder rested against the engine, a cylinder which shouldn't have been there. He probed at it, eased it free and then, obeying the instinct which had saved him so often before, threw himself back and down.
The explosion was small, a dull report which caused the raft to judder and sent a puff of acrid yellow smoke from the engine compartment. Opened, it had lessened the damage, but it was still enough.
Dumarest heard Lavinia scream as the raft tilted. He rolled across the floor, felt the rail press against his shoulders and stabbed down with the knife, sending the blade slicing into the thin metal of the side. A hold to which he clung as the raft tilted still further, throwing him so that his body hung in space, only his grip on the knife and on the rail itself saving him from being hurled to the ground below.
"Level!" He yelled. "Level the raft!"
The woman, strapped into her seat, fought the controls, hair a tumbled mass over her face and eyes. The vehicle spun, lifted, dropped to spin again as if it were a falling leaf caught by sportive winds. Without power, supported only by the residual energy in the anti-grav units, the raft was little more than a mass of inert metal.
But still it had shape. A flat surface to act as a wing, permanent stabilizers fed from emergency sources, an aerodynamic balance which, with skill, gave a modicum of control.
Dumarest felt the strain on his arms lessen, a sudden blow as the edge of the raft hit against his stomach, then he was falling back into the body, sprawled, his knife ripped free and stabbed into the deck to provide another hold. Painfully, every muscle tense, he crawled to where the woman sat at the controls.
"Earl!" Her voice was high, strained with fear. "I can't handle it! We're going to crash! To crash!"
His arms closed around her as he locked his thighs around the chair on which she sat. His hands knocked hers aside as he took over control.
"Earl!"
"Crouch low. Bend your head into your lap. Rest your hands over the back of your neck. Turn into a ball if you can."
He stared at the swing and turn of the ground below. At the last moment, if able, he would release her straps and give her the best chance he could. Now, all he could do for the both of them, was to try and send the wrecked raft towards a slope, to keep it level, to let it skid instead of slamming against the rock and soil.
"How close?" Her voice was muffled but she had recovered her composure. "Earl, how close?"
"Brace yourself."
He dropped one hand to the release and freed her of the restraints. A hill loomed before them and he rugged, praying that the explosion hadn't totally destroyed the emergency units, that the hull would take the strain, that something, anything, would give them that little extra to clear the summit.
A gust of wind saved them. A vagrant blast which caught the prow of the raft, lifted it the essential fraction, letting it drop only after they had cleared the jagged peak. Below rolled a steep slope studded with massive boulders, mounded with accumulated soil tufted by patches of vegetation. Like a stone thrown over water the raft bounced and skidded, metal tearing with harsh raspings, fragments ripped free to litter the slope. A mount flung them into the air, a dip lay beyond, a boulder which smashed like a hammer into the prow of the raft, to send them both hurtling forward, to part, to land with a stunning impact, to roll and finally to come to rest.
Dumarest stirred, feeling the ache of strained muscles, a warm wetness on the side of his face. A questing hand lowered stained with red, the blood welling from a gash in his scalp. With an effort he turned and sat upright, fighting the nausea which gripped him and sent the terrain wheeling in sickening spirals.
When it had passed he looked around. Behind him rested stone, a rock against which he had been thrown, the force of landing softened by the vegetation on which he lay. Sharp thorns and jagged stones had ripped the plastic of his tunic exposing the glint of metal mesh buried within. A defense which had saved him from cruel lacerations but had done nothing to save him from ugly bruises.
But he was alive, intact, dazed a little, suffering minor injuries but that was all. His luck had not deserted him.
And Lavinia's had not deserted her.
She lay in a shallow dell, a place thick with soft grasses, shrubs like springs which had taken her weight and eased the final part of her landing. She was unconscious, a lump beneath the mane of her hair but, as Dumarest discovered after examining her body, she was free of broken bones.
Rising he looked around. The suns were low, the air holding a peculiar hush as if strained with the energies of an imminent storm. But there were no clouds and little wind.
Walking back to the ruin of the raft he found his knife, used it to slash a reedy plant and collected a handful of pale sap which he used to bathe the woman's face.
"Earl?" Her eyelids fluttered. "Earl-what happened? Earl!"
"Steady!" His hand was firm on her shoulder.
"Sit up if you can." He waited as she obeyed, staring with eyes free of suffused blood. A good sign-the chances were small she had a concussion. "Any internal pain? No? Good. Can you stand up and take a few steps?" He relaxed as she did as asked. At least she was mobile and he was freed of the necessity of taking care of a maimed and helpless person.
"Earl! Your face!"
"It's nothing." He collected more sap and washed the blood from his temple and cheek. The sap held a thin, sweet flavor and he drank a little. "Is any of this vegetation good to eat?"
"It won't hurt you but it contains no nourishment."
As he had expected, but at least it would fill their bellies in case of need. Lavinia stared her horror as he mentioned it.