"Isaac," I said to Moise in Norman, "speak to the criminals in Greek. Tell them they can save themselves serious injury if they throw down their swords."
Moise repeated it in Greek. Tarel, of course, had understood my Norman French, and tossed his sword out readily enough. Gunnlag could hardly bring himself to let go of his, but he did, dropping it at his feet. That's when I decided to forget about getting some energy weapons back.
I'd settle for horses, with Gunnlag and Tarel my prisoners. "Bring shackles," I said. "I'll…"
I stopped there, because everyone's attention was shifting from me to someone else. It was Gilbert arriving, drawn like the rest by the noise. His hair was wild and his eyes wilder. He stared at Gunnlag and Tarel, then demanded to know what was going on-why they were still alive.
Stephen explained, and Gilbert's eyes turned to me, "An envoy from Guiscard? From the devil, I'd say. It is the same. Let me see your paper of authorization!"
I struck my forehead-the front of my helmet actually- with the heel of my hand. "In my saddlebag!" I said. I didn't expect him to buy that, but I had to try.
He peered at me then in the pale moonlight. "Don't I know you from some…"
He never finished. A floodlight spread around us from above, freezing the action. Then, as I looked up, the action really froze. Because someone up above- Deneen, obviously-was playing a stunner over the crowd. I fell, not unconscious, but unable to move.
Overhead, an emergency hooter began to sound, probably to spook the Normans. I hadn't realized the Rebel Javelin had a hooter; only a honker, I'd thought. It kept on, sounding as if the scout was settling to the ground. I couldn't see what was happening because I'd fallen on my side, and someone's body lay almost in my face. Seconds later I heard running feet. Someone grabbed me under the arms and raised me partly off the ground. Then I saw-Bubba? Bubba looking at me.
Someone started dragging me. I wanted to yelclass="underline" Deneen, don't risk the scout, don't… She was handling me as if I were a little kid, dragging me.
None of this felt right, felt real. The stunner must have affected my perceptions. I hadn't known they did that.
Then she was pulling me up the ramp into the scout. And someone else was there, by the ramp, with a blast rifle. That's Deneen, I thought. Deneen, slender in jump suit. So it had to be someone else dragging me.
I was laid out in the dark cabin, able to see only upward, and my rescuer ran back out. The cabin wasn't right either. Everything was weird.
A minute later someone else was dragged into the scout, and a voice said, "That's it! I've got Tarel too. Close her up and take her up!"
It was dad!
"Wait!"
I don't know how I got it out, but I said it. Slurred and slowly I had pronounced the word. And again, "Wait!"
"Hold it," he said. "What is it, Larn?"
"Frien's. Don'… leave… frien's… Be… killed."
I wasn't sure if he could understand or not.
"Jenoor, blast a couple of bolts against a wall, to keep anyone back who might be thinking of rushing us." I heard a rifle thud out three bolts.
Jenoor! He'd said Jenoor!
"Help me, Aven," he said. "He's heavy and he feels boneless. I need him up on my back." Between the two of them, my parents got me onto his back with my head flopped over a shoulder. He had to move bent over so I wouldn't fall off.
"Larn," he said as he carried me back down the ramp, "We're going over among the bodies. Tell me when I come to the right one. Can you do that?"
"Two," I mumbled. "Two… frien's."
"Two," he said. "I got that." We went back among the bodies, pausing over one after another, seeming to take forever. Most of a minute, I suppose. We'd looked at eight or ten before we came to Gunnlag.
"Him," I said.
"Right."
The next was Moise. "Him."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
There was growling, then an espwolf barked out "Down!" We hit the ground, arrows hissed, and the rifle thudded again, and again. Dad was back on his feet, had grabbed me under the arms, dragging me hurriedly, roughly, to the cutter and up the ramp. I hadn't known he was so strong; I'm not sure he had either. He dumped me and ran back out. I heard shouting in Norman, clashing of swords-clashing of swords?-more thuds from the blaster, and in half a minute another body was dragged in and dropped. The confusion of sounds continued outside, but for then the blaster was silent, and dad was gone again. The blaster thudded twice more, and a moment later once. Dad was back with another body, breathing hard.
"In, Jenoor! Aven, close her and lift!"
There were espwolves aboard, too-more than one.
Not Bubba, obviously. Lady and the pups-pups who'd been half-grown when I'd seen them last, but were near full-size now.
The door shut out the moonlight, and gradually the cabin illumination came on.
We'd be well above the ground now, I knew. The cutter's windows couldn't be opaqued like the scout's could, but we'd be high out of sight in the night sky. I didn't know what to think, what to feel, it had all happened so fast.
Then Jenoor was on her knees beside me, crying all over me, and I didn't worry about it anymore-just lay there with my eyes spilling over. It seemed impossible that she was still alive, and for an empty moment I was sure I'd wake up to find I'd been dreaming again.
After half an hour though, she was still there, and I was functioning well enough to talk better, even though I couldn't move much. By that time, Tarel and Moise and Gunnlag were talking, too. Slowly of course. Tarel had explained to Moise who these people were, and Moise had been explaining to Gunnlag. I was impressed with how matter-of-fact Gunnlag seemed about the whole thing.
I noticed, though, that Jenoor sat near with her stunner on her lap, just in case.
"Dad," I said, "there's one more guy we need to get back there." The words still didn't flow at normal speed, but they were clear now.
"One more? How do we get him?"
"I'm not sure. But I'd like to try to bring him out, too. I owe it to him. He's a Varangian, like Gunnlag. A barbarian warrior. A huge guy, tall, and strong as a gorn."
He didn't answer right away.
I remembered how Arno had recovered from a light stunning, back in Provence. After he got so he could talk decently, it hadn't been an hour before he could get around pretty well. "When I can get around all right," I added, "say in half an hour or so, we can go back. I'll think of a way."
"Tall, you say. Did he fight with a two-handed sword?"
I knew right then what he was going to tell me. I remembered the sound of swords back there.
"Yes," I answered.
And he wouldn't even have had a helmet. He'd given me his.
"Larn," dad said quietly, "it's too late for him. Some men came running toward me, from the other side of the cutter, and before Jenoor had a chance to fire, he came out of the shadows and cut them off. He was kind of hopping, as if something was wrong with one of his legs. He killed a couple of them before they cut him down, then Jenoor took care of the others."
I felt a surge of grief! Ketil. Big, mean, ugly Ketil. I couldn't even guess how many men he'd killed in his life. But still, I hadn't felt this bad since we'd raised from Evdash, leaving Piet and Jenoor. It was embarrassing. It took a minute or more before I trusted myself to talk again, and it was dad who broke the silence.
"Where are Deneen and Bubba?" he asked. "We quartered most of the continent between the northern sea and the Mediterranean, looking for the radiation signature of a scout, and had just about decided you hadn't come to Fanglith. Then I remembered you and Arao talking about 'Sicily,' and this island seemed to fit the description. But instead of getting an instrument read on a ship's systems, the wolves got an esp locational on you and Tarel "
"Deneen's got the scout on an uninhabited island in the western ocean," I told him, "with all systems off. She's had serious problems with fuel crystallization, apparently from the scout taking multiple blaster charges on the shield."