“To patriots of Ar?” asked Tersius Major.
“Yes,” said Portus Canio.
“What a fool you are,” said Tersius Major.
“Why?” asked Portus Canio.
“They will make away with it,” said Tersius Major.
“No,” said Portus Canio.
“How do you know?” asked Tersius Major.
“Because of honor,” said Portus Canio.
“I do not understand,” said Tersius Major.
“That does not surprise me,” said Portus Canio.
“Who is out there?” demanded Tersius Major.
“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.
“How many?” asked the officer.
“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.
“Many, doubtless many,” said Tersius Major.
We have sixteen men,” said the officer, looking about.
“If I were you I would withdraw,” said Portus Canio. “You might be permitted to live.”
“Where is the lightning?” said Tersius Major. “There is some left!”
“Supposedly a single bolt,” said the officer, “in the nearest device, over there.”
“With that, we are invincible,” said Tersius Major. He went to the pile of discarded weapons.
“Do not touch them,” warned the officer. “They are forbidden weapons, surely.”
“If so,” said Tersius Major, “that is because they would make us the equals of Priest-Kings! Surely it is the secret of their power.”
“I would not touch them,” said the officer.
“They are like small crossbows, surely,” said Tersius Major. “See? See the housing of this small lever? It is like the trigger of the crossbow. You point it, and press this and the lightning leaps out.” He swung the weapon around and pointed it at the officer.
“Put it down,” said the officer.
“I am now the equal of a Priest-King,” said Tersius Major.
“Put it down!” begged the officer.
“I am now in command,” said Tersius Major.
“You are mad!” said the officer.
Tersius Major went to the edge of the camp. He called out, to the fields. “I have lightning!” he cried. “Run! Go away! I have lightning!”
One of the sleen rose up, stretching.
“Do not agitate the sleen,” said the sleenmaster, uneasily.
“There were six such weapons,” said Portus Canio. “It seems we have accounted for only five.”
Tersius Major returned to the wagon. “Send another patrol into the fields,” he said.
“Lead it yourself,” said the officer.
“There may be a hundred men out there,” said Tersius Major.
“Then it would be well to establish that fact,” said the officer, irritably.
“Go!” cried Tersius Major, turning the weapon on the officer.
“If our vanished friend, who claimed to be first here, who fled the camp, was correct, that device contains but one more bolt of lightning,” said the officer.
“I am the equal of Priest-Kings!” cried Tersius Major.
“Until you loose the bolt, perhaps, but then you are no more than another man, and, I think, less than one.” Then the officer turned to his men. “If he should kill me, see then that he dies a lengthy, unpleasant death.”
“Yes,” said more than one, almost eagerly. As with most Goreans, they did not much care for traitors.
Tersius Major arrogantly, angrily, pointed the pistol here and there, jabbing it in this direction and that, threatening each man in view, Cosian or otherwise, in turn, reminding each in turn of its menace.
“If I were you,” said the officer to Tersius Major, “I would rather face such a device than touch it.”
“It is a forbidden weapon,” said one of the soldiers, uneasily.
“I am not afraid,” said Tersius Major. “With this,” said he, brandishing the weapon, “Priest-Kings fear me!”
“Abandon it while you have time,” said the officer.
“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus, irritably. “You are all foolish barbarians.”
There was suddenly a sound, a striking, as of a fist struck quickly, sharply, yet softly, into a chest, and the soldier atop the tharlarion wagon, he surveying the prairie, stiffened, stood unnaturally still for a moment, and then, half turning, knees buckling, tumbled from the surface of his post, from the wagon bed, falling into the grass.
Soldiers cried out in consternation.
“Be vigilant!” cried the officer to the guards at the perimeter. Almost at the same time he himself leapt to the surface of the wagon, stood up and looked about the camp. He scanned swiftly, turning about, describing a full circle. Then he descended, his brief reconnaissance completed. He did not care to remain in that location, perhaps from some vantages outlined even against the sky, for more than a moment, for longer than it took to complete his reconnaissance. He shook his head, angrily, negatively. Apparently he had seen nothing, the grass moving in the wind, the sky.
“You are a brave man,” said Portus Canio.
Portus Canio was kneeling beside the soldier who had tumbled from the wagon. “He is dead,” said Portus Canio.
“See the arrow,” said one of the soldiers.
Ellen had never seen such an arrow. It was quite different from the crossbow quarrels, of course, but, too, it seemed so much longer, and more slender, and lengthily feathered, than the arrows she had seen in the war quivers of Cosian archers.
“The peasant bow,” said one of the soldiers.
“So it is peasants out there,” said another soldier.
“I do not understand,” said a soldier. “Peasants are commonly placid, even hospitable, until aroused.”
“Surely we have done nothing to arouse them, not here,” said a soldier. “We have purloined no stores, taken no women from the villages.”
“There are no villages in the vicinity,” said the officer. “The land here is dry most of the year. There is no river, no stream, no moving water.”
“Then it is not peasants,” said a soldier.
“The arrow has pierced the heart,” said Fel Doron.
“An excellent shot, surely,” said the officer.
“Consider the penetration,” said Portus Canio.
“Flighted from more than a hundred paces?” speculated the officer.
“I think so,” said Portus Canio.
“Perhaps the shot was a lucky hit?” said the officer.
“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.
“Or we might be dealing with a master of the peasant bow,” said the officer.
“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.
“You know who is out there, don’t you?” said the officer.
“Now, yes,” said Portus Canio.
“How many are there?” asked the officer.
“That I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “It would be my recommendation that you sue for peace, and bargain for your lives.”
“If there were a large number out there, they would charge and force the camp,” said the officer.
Portus Canio looked out, over the grasslands, noncommittally.
“We will rope you and the others and take you to Brundisium for interrogation,” said the officer.
“Afoot?” inquired Portus Canio. “Do you think you will reach Brundisium?”
“It is growing dark,” said one of the soldiers, apprehensively.
“Darkness will protect us,” said the officer. “Unharness and hobble the tharlarion. No fires. Double the perimeter guard and halve the watches. Invert the wagon. We will stake it down and use it as a cage for the prisoners. If any would attempt to dig his way free, kill him.” He then turned to Portus Canio. “We will trek in the morning.”
Portus Canio shrugged.
“Lie down there, closely, huddle, the lot of you,” said the officer, indicating a place on the grass beside the wagon.
“We are not slaves!” said the fellow of Portus Canio, Loquatus, only he left of the original nine, other than Portus Canio himself, Selius Arconious and Fel Doron.