Pel had thought he’d gotten used to gibbets and scaffolds and bones and corpses, so at first he didn’t really pay much attention when he realized that there were people hanging there; he just tried not to look. The fading light made that easier; so did his sore feet, as they kept his attention elsewhere.
After all, this was Shadow’s headquarters; why would it be any different from the rest of Shadow’s realm?
Then he heard Sawyer say, “Oh, shit.”
He turned, and saw the Imperial soldier staring up at the dangling corpses. Without meaning to, without thinking about it, Pel looked up at them, too.
He swallowed hard.
He had thought he’d gotten used to gibbets and scaffolds and bones and corpses, but this was different.
This time he knew them.
There were six men hanging there, each with his belly sliced open and grayish loops of his intestines torn out and draped across his legs and feet-Shadow apparently wasn’t interested in originality in its executions. Six men, and Pel recognized them all. Second from the left was Lieutenant Dibbs; Pel couldn’t put definite names to the others, but all wore the remains of the purple uniform of the Galactic Empire, and all their faces, twisted and discolored as they were, were familiar. Of the six, useless blasters still hung on the belts of three. One even wore his helmet.
As Pel watched, they swayed gently in the wind; one swollen hand brushed lightly against the damp gray stone of the castle wall.
If Dibbs had thought this was a story, he’d probably thought he was the hero, and now he was nothing but a warning to anyone who came after him.
Pel realized that he had stopped walking, that the entire party, even Ted, had stopped, that all nine of them were looking up at the dangling corpses.
“Now what?” he asked. He swallowed; his throat was suddenly dry.
“Now we go on,” Raven said angrily. “We’ve yet no choice.”
“That’s the lieutenant,” Sawyer said.
“That changes nothing,” Raven answered.
“Where are the others, though?” Singer asked, craning his neck to see the faces. “Where’s Dawber? Or Moore? Or Smallwood, or Twidman?”
“Wilkins isn’t there, either,” Prossie pointed out.
“They’re probably hanging around the other side,” Sawyer said.
“Why would they be on the other side?” Amy asked bitterly. “We were coming in this way, and Shadow knew it-it hung them up there to tease us.”
“Maybe there wasn’t enough left of the others to hang up there,” Susan said quietly.
“Oh, thanks, lady,” Sawyer growled. “You really know how to cheer a fellow up!”
“Or maybe Shadow’s just playing with us, trying to make us wonder about the others,” Amy said.
“Or maybe they really got away,” Pel suggested. “Maybe Shadow’s not as omnipotent as it would like.” He didn’t say anything about it out loud, but he found himself wondering if perhaps Wilkins or one of the others might be the actual hero of the tale. Maybe Spaceman First Class Ronnie Wilkins would appear at the last moment, guns blazing, to save Pel and the others from Shadow’s clutches-if he had guns that could blaze here. Blasters couldn’t.
Sword flashing, then.
Pel tried to imagine Wilkins with a sword; the image wouldn’t come. Instead, he saw him with a switchblade. It seemed more his style.
Ted had stared up at the corpses with everyone else, but had said nothing; now he shrugged and strolled forward, toward the gate, boots crunching on the gravelly road. The sound drew everyone’s attention.
Pel didn’t mind staring at Ted; he was happy to be distracted from the corpses.
For a moment, no one spoke, as Ted stepped through the open arch onto the stone floor beyond. The crunch of gravel turned to scuffing as he stepped into shadow.
“Our mad friend has the right of it,” Raven muttered. “We’ll learn nothing more out here; ’tis within that our fate awaits.”
“Maybe yours,” Sawyer said, stepping back, “but I’ve had it. I’m not going in there. I’m not the one it wants, any more than Wilkins was.”
“How do you know?” Amy asked.
“Because I’m just another soldier,” Sawyer said. “I’m nobody special.” He pointed to Valadrakul and said, “He’s a wizard,” then indicated Raven and continued, “and he’s some kind of prince or something. Thorpe’s a telepath, you’re pregnant-you’re all special somehow. Your crazy friend has visions, maybe that’s important. Mr. Brown-well, I don’t know, because I don’t know anything about him or the world he came from. That other woman hardly ever says anything, I’m not even sure of her name, she could be anything. But Singer and me, we’re just a couple of packhumpers and shipjumpers. It let Wilkins get away-why shouldn’t it let me go, too?”
“It didn’t let Dibbs go,” Pel pointed out. “Or Marks.”
“It killed Marks so the rest of you wouldn’t turn back,” Sawyer said. “And maybe the lieutenant put up a fight or something. Look up there, though-there are six of them, out of what, eleven men we left back at the ship? Where are the others? Shadow let them go, I tell you, because they weren’t important!”
“You’re guessing,” Pel said.
“We’re all guessing,” Sawyer retorted, “all of us, all the time! We don’t any of us have the first idea what the hell is going on here. We don’t know what Shadow is, or what it wants, or anything, all we can do is guess-and I’m guessing that it doesn’t want me, and I’m staying out here.”
Pel glanced at the others.
“Let him stay, if he would,” Raven said.
“What difference does it make?” Singer asked. “If Shadow wants him inside, it can get him inside.” He pointed at the giant-slug things.
Pel looked, back at the monster-speckled highway, then up at the dangling soldiers, then into the gloom beyond the gate. The sun was down, the light dying, but the darkness within the fortress was still far deeper than that without; there were no lights anywhere to be seen.
This was not how Pel had pictured it. Oh, the fortress was suitable enough, the marsh reasonably appropriate if a bit on the drab side, and the dead bodies were a fittingly macabre touch, but the gathering darkness, unbroken by torchlight, didn’t seem quite right-it wasn’t the shadowy, sinister darkness of dungeons or of midnight, but the soft dimness of twilight, the sort that doesn’t scare anyone but just gradually convinces everyone to go home for dinner.
Pel wished he could just go home for dinner, and find Nancy and Rachel waiting there for him. He was trying to get home-but of course, Nancy and Rachel wouldn’t be there.
And the gentle darkness didn’t seem right for an assault on the villain’s headquarters. The fact that poor mad Ted had gone on ahead, was already almost out of sight in the gloom, didn’t seem right. That they were virtually unarmed, no swords, no armor, no secret magic, didn’t seem right. That they were walking openly into the front gate, aware that Shadow expected them, didn’t seem right-shouldn’t they be sneaking in by some secret passage, scaling a back wall, crawling in through the sewers? They had no plan, no organization…
And no choice. One of the slug-things was crawling up onto the highway less than a yard behind Sawyer’s feet.
“Let’s go in, then,” Pel said. “And maybe Tom Sawyer’ll change his mind when those Shadow things start crowding him.” He pointed.
Sawyer whirled and saw the creature behind him. It opened its maw and showed him its teeth, but Sawyer did not retreat.
“I’m not going,” he said, still facing the slug. “The rest of you, go on if you’re going, and when you’re in there, maybe this thing will leave me alone.”
“What will you eat?” Susan asked abruptly, startling everyone. “We’ve had nothing since breakfast, and it’s a long way back to the last village.”