The Barbarians Page 4

agreed upon. In that case, three against one would make shortwork of it.

  The better chance lay with the woods and the tribesmen. It was thebetter chance, but Geoffrey did not relish it. He scowled as he droppeda primer charge down the rifle's barrel, followed it with a cartridge,took a cooled bullet from Myka, and tamped it down with the ramrod untilit was firmly gripped by the collar on the cartridge. He took a squareof clean flannel from its compartment in the butt and carefully wipedthe lenses of the telescopic sight.

  "Can I stop now?" Myka asked.

  Geoffrey looked at her sharply. It had never occurred to him that thewoman might simply be humoring him, and yet that was the tone her voicehad taken. Truth to tell, he had simply handed her the stove, pig lead,and mold, and told her to go to work.

  He looked at her now, remembering that he'd been hurried and possiblybrusque. It ought not to matter--though it did--since she was hardly alady entitled to courtesy. She hardly looked like anything, after hourscrouched inside the tankette.

  Her copper hair was smeared with grease, disarranged, and even singedwhere she had presumably leaned against a hot fitting. Her clothes wereindescribably dirty and limp with perspiration. She was quite pale, andseemed to be fighting nausea--hardly surprising, with the exhaust fumesthat must have been present in the compartment.

  Nevertheless, her hair glinted where the sun struck it, and herlitheness was only accented by the wrinkled clothing. Over-accented,Geoffrey thought to himself as he looked at the length of limb revealedby her short trousers.

  He flushed. "Of course. Thank you." He looked at the pile of finishedbullets. There were enough of them to stand off an army, provided onlythe army did not shift about behind rocks and trees as the tribesmendid, or was not equally armed, as the nobles would be. Yet, a man had totry to the end. "You don't expect this to do much good," he said to thewoman.

  Myka grinned at him. "Do you?"

  "No, frankly. But why did you help me?"

  "To keep you busy."

  "I see." He didn't. He scooped the bullets up, put them in one pocket,and dropped the cartridges in another. He stood up.

  "There wasn't any point in letting you get nervous," Myka explained."You can be quite a deadly boy in action, if what I've seen and heardabout you is any indication. I didn't want you killing any of ourfriends." She was smiling at him without any malice whatsoever; rather,with a definite degree of fondness. Geoffrey did not even feel resentfulat this business of being casually managed, as though he were liable todo something foolish.

  But he scrambled up to a place beside The Barbarian in a burst of tensemovement, and looked out toward the approaching tankettes. What Myka hadjust said to him, and the cryptic smile on The Barbarian's face, and athought of Geoffrey's own, had all fitted themselves together in hismind.

  There was no reason, really, to believe that barbarians would be hostileto barbarians, and certainly the inland raiders could not have returnedyear after year without _some_ means of handling the mountain tribes.Friendship, or at least an alliance, would be the easiest way.

  And out on the slope of the nearest hill, bearded men in homespunclothing were rolling boulders down on the advancing tankettes.

  The slope of the hill was quite steep, and the boulders were massive.They tumbled and bounded with a speed that must have seemed terrifyingfrom below. Tearing great chunks out of the earth, they rumbled down onthe tankettes while the tribesmen yelled with bloodcurdling ferocity andfired on the tankettes with impossible rapidity. With respectablemarksmanship, too. The nobles were swerving their vehicles franticallyfrom side to side, trying to avoid the boulders, but their ability to doso was being destroyed by bullets that ricocheted viciously off thecanted forepeak plating. All three of them were blundering about likecattle attacked by stinging insects. Only the lead tankette was stillunder anything like intelligent control. It lurched away from threeboulders in succession, swinging on its treads and continuing to churnits way up the hillside.

  Geoffrey saw the other two tankettes struck almost simultaneously. Onetook a boulder squarely between its tracks, and stopped in a shower ofrock fragments. The track cleats bit futilely at the ground. The vehiclestalled, the boulder jammed against it. The impact did not seem to havebeen particularly severe; but the entire body of the tankette had beenbuckled and accordioned. Possibly only the boulder's own bulk betweenthe tracks had kept them from coming together like the knees of a goredox. It was impossible to tell where, in that crushed bulk, the turretand its occupant might be.

  The other tankette took its boulder squarely in the flank. It began toroll over immediately, hurtling back down the hill, its driver half inand half out of its turret at the beginning of the first roll. Tanketteand boulder came to rest together at the bottom of the hill, the stonenosing up against the metal.

  Geoffrey looked at the scene with cold fury. "That's no fitting way fora noble to die!"

  The Barbarian, who was sprawled out and watching calmly, nodded hishead. "Probably not," he said dispassionately. "But that other man'sgiving a good account of himself."

  The remaining tankette was almost in among the tribesmen. It had passedthe point where a rolling boulder's momentum would be great enough to domuch damage. As Geoffrey watched, the man in the turret yanked hislanyard, and a solid shot boomed through the straggled line of beardedmen. If it had been grape or canister, it might have done a good deal ofdamage. But the cannon had been loaded with Geoffrey's tankette in mind,and the tribesmen only jeered. One of them dashed forward, under thecannon's smoking muzzle, and jammed a wedge-shaped stone between theleft side track and the massive forward track roller. The track jammed,broke, and whipped back in whistling fragments. The tankette slewedaround while the unharmed tribesman danced out of the way. The noble inthe turret could only watch helplessly. Apparently he had no sidearm.Geoffrey peered at him as the tribesmen swarmed over the tankette anddragged him out of the turret. It was Dugald, and Geoffrey's arm stilltingled from the slap that had knocked the pistol irretrievably into thenight-shadowed brush at the battlefield.

  "What are they going to do to him?" he asked The Barbarian.

  "Make him meet the test of fitness, I suppose."

  "Fitness?"

  Geoffrey did not get the answer to his question immediately. The woodsall around him were stirring, and bearded men in homespun, carryingfantastic rifles, were casually walking toward him. The Barbarian pushedhimself up to his feet without any show of surprise.

  "Howdy," he said. "Figured you were right around."

  One of the tribesmen--a gaunt, incredibly tall man with a grizzledbeard--nodded. "I seen you makin' signs while you was hangin' off thattank, before. Got a mark?"

  The Barbarian extended his right arm and turned his wrist over. A faintdouble scar, crossed at right angles, showed in the skin.

  The tribesman peered at it and grunted. "Old one."

  "I got it twenty years ago, when I first came through here," TheBarbarian answered.

  "Double, too. Ain't many of those."

  "My name's Hodd Savage."

  "Oh," the tribesman said. His entire manner changed. Without becomingservile, it was respectful. He extended his hand. "Sime Weatherby." Heand The Barbarian clasped hands. "That your woman down there?" thetribesman asked, nodding toward Myka.

  "That's right."

  "Good enough." For the first time, Weatherby looked directly atGeoffrey. "What about him?"

  The Barbarian shook his head. "No mark."

  The tribesman nodded. "I figured, from the way he was actin'." He seemedto make no particular signal--perhaps none was needed--but Geoffrey'sarms were suddenly taken from behind, and his wrists were tied.

  "We'll see if he can get him a mark today," Weatherby said. He looked tohis left, where other men were just pushing Dugald into the ring theyhad formed around the group. "Seein' as there's two of them, one of 'emought to make it."

  Geoffrey and Dugald stared expressionlessly at each other. The Barbariankept his eyes on Geoffrey's face. "Tha
t's right," he said. "Can't havetwo men fight to the death without one of them coming out alive,usually."

  * * * * *

  The tribesmen lived in wooden cabins tucked away among trees and hiddenin narrow little valleys. Geoffrey was surprised to see windmills, andwire fencing for the cattle pastures that adjoined their homes. He waseven more interested in their rifles, which, the tribesmen told him,were repeaters. He was puzzled by the absence of a cylinder, such ascould be found on the generally unreliable revolvers one sawoccasionally.

  The tribesmen were treating both him and Dugald with a complete absenceof the savagery he expected. They were being perfectly