Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (29 page)

Her face bent over his, and he pulled her down. The tall grass hid them from any observation, and he breathed into her ear, "Now?"

"I'm afraid," was the husky, low-voiced answer. "I'm a virgin. That's one reason I was supposed to be so valuable."

"You'll be my wife when we can find another priest. As far as I'm concerned, you're my wife right now. And my love. Forever and ever, until God calls us home. That's what our marriage service says."

Her lips came down on his then and silenced him. The grasses waved gently in the afternoon sun. Once there sounded a small cry, so soft and brief that even the bear could hardly hear it
These humans! he
thought.
At least that's over with and we can concentrate on other matters.
He drowsed too in the warm sunlight, half-listening to the grinding sounds of Klootz remorselessly demolishing his cud, over and over. The island slept, the silence broken only by the muted call of birds and insect hum.

They both awoke in early evening, or rather were awakened. Neither one said a word as they quickly drew on their clothes. The messages from Gorm,
Awake! They come!
had hit their two sleeping brains like a thunderclap. In the instant that this took, the terrible wailing cry which had grown so familiar to them came again, louder than they had ever heard it, and this time it did not cease.

"Aoough, aaaouugh, aaaooough!"

Now, in great volume, it came from all around them. In the half-light over the twilight lagoon, their island no longer seemed a haven of safety, but a tiny morsel of helpless sanity in a chaotic and implacable world. Hiero himself spared a brief and regretful thought for their first love-making, sandwiched between perils and duties, a moment already pre-doomed to evanescence.

With the morse and the bear, they rapidly took stations in the center of their island. Around them, the booming menacing wail grew louder still. "Aoough, aaaooough, aaough!"

Now, clearly outlined in the yet strong light, the travelers saw their enemies, and all knew at once that they had been watched from the beginning of their voyage through the drowned metropolis.

From every side but the open south they came, in small, narrow craft, half raft, half canoe, apparently made of tightly bound reeds, pointed at either end. From out between the encircling buildings, across the quarter mile of open water around the island, the strange craft surged, propelled by their owners' webbed hands, as well as paddles. And the white heads in the water between the boats showed where many more were coming fast by simply using their native element.

A new Leemute! Take a frog,
Hiero thought,
and stand him up; give him a high-vaulted skull and a pallid skin, white and sickly-looking. Give him evil black eyes, like huge bubbles of sparkling, vicious jet. Give him almost man size. Give him knives of bone, as white as his skin, and spears offish bone and bleached bone clubs. And give him hate!
As the things came steadily on, the priest thought of Gorm's first impression.
A frog that thinks. Must have been a scout and we've been stalked.

The wailing, sobbing cry which had filled the air suddenly ceased. And only then did Hiero realize that the frog-things themselves were utterly silent. The strange noise had come from the buildings all around them but not from the creatures themselves. Was it a signal to attack? Who had made it? Many other questions filled his mind, but there was no time for any of them. The first attackers had reached the island and were swarming ashore.

The priest's first instinct had been correct: get away from the lagoon and meet the frog creatures on dry land. They ran awkwardly, half-hopping, half-scuttling, and were obviously far less at ease with solid dirt under their great, webbed toes than with the swamp ooze or water. Still, there were many of them and only four of the travelers. But now Hiero had lapsed into the cold killing fit of his Abbey training. Defeat was not even a consideration. Luchare got the first one. Her long lance, the extendible javelin Hiero had taken from the Unclean priest, licked out, and a frog-thing's throat opened in scarlet. A shower of the barbed bone spears came whistling and everyone ducked. One struck Hiero full on the breast and he gasped. It had hardly penetrated the skin! The amphibian Leemutes were no spearmen. Apparently their skinny arms were not shaped for throwing. Even so, though this was a boost to morale, quickly communicated to the others, there were apparently hundreds of the ugly creatures swarming up the gentle slope from the water.
And they will be getting harder to see.
Hiero thought, for the light was now fading fast.

But again, the things' own physical characteristics worked against them! As the light died, they became more, not less, visible! A strange, spectral glow emanated from their dank, squamous skins, and they were thus outlined in their own luminescence. A weird and frightening sight, no doubt, but not to trained fighters, and by this time Luchare was one too!

Klootz!
Hiero sent.
To me!

The big morse had been guarding the left flank while the bear held the right, keeping his ground and scything with his great antlers at any Leemute who ventured near. They were afraid of him, and few of them tried that side.

Now he lunged forward between Hiero and Luchare and, at a word, crouched. Both swung up into the big saddle, one spear couched to the left, the other to the right.

"Charge!" the priest shouted.
Around the island, you big clown,
sent his mind.
Clean up on them! Follow us, Gorm!

Hiero had suddenly seen the best, indeed the only, method of attack. Once the strange characteristics of the frog-things became apparent, it was obvious. Individually no menace, they yet swarmed in such numbers that they might pull down an immobile foe if allowed to. But if attacked, and on solid earth where their weak land legs made them doubly vulnerable, things might be different!

The giant bull morse was a creature such as they had never seen, and he was almost invulnerable to their feeble darts, which could barely do more than annoy him. The low bushes and the few trees were no impediment to his charge at all, and he simply tore through the glow of the crowding frog creatures as if they were not there. Their gaping mouths, rimmed with needle fangs, opened voicelessly in terror and rage. But save for the stamping, snorting, and grunts of the morse, the growling of the bear, and the gasps of the humans, the strange battle was fought in utter silence. Even as he thrust savagely with his spear, Hiero wondered at the creatures. He had been able to detect no mental activity at all, and since they seemed voiceless, how on earth did the creatures communicate? Twice around the islet they charged, scattering havoc through their phosphorescent foes.

Suddenly, they had won, at least for the present. With no signal that either human could see or hear, a scuttling, shambling rush back to the lagoon began. One instant they were surrounded by a hideous, glowing pack of nightmare demons; the next, innumerable blobs of living light were ebbing away to the water's edge. Even as Hiero signaled a halt, he observed that the dead and wounded were being taken too.
Probably to eat,
he thought sourly, unwilling to concede any decent values to the squattering Leemutes.

"They're gone," Luchare breathed, bloody lance resting across the saddlebow in front of her.

"Yes, but not very far; look!"

The island now was surrounded by a ring of cold fire! The amphibian horde lay in the water, aboard their reed boats or simply floating; it was hard to tell in the dark. But one thing was obvious: they were not going away. "I think they'll be back all right, come first light probably," the priest continued. "Anyone hurt here?"
Are you all right, Gorm? Klootz, any wounds?

Their weapons are weak. I thought they might have poison on the points, but there is nothing. I am not even scratched.

Klootz shook his great antlers angrily. Drops of dark, evil-smelling blood flew back and caught his two riders in the face.

"Phew! I guess you're all right too?"

The man and woman dismounted and stood looking through the night at the weird cordon of light for a moment.

"Come on," Hiero said at length. "Let's clean our weapons and get some food into us. Then we can rest again. I'll take first watch. I've almost finished my crossbow, and I want to start to cut and trim some quarrels and bolts. The moon's rising again, and there should be enough light."

"I'm not staying asleep while you work!" his young lady stated flatly. "Maybe we can finish both of the bows between us."

The love and trust in her voice caused a pang deep in Hiero's breast. He had not admitted how forlorn it all looked, even to himself. What could the morning bring but another attack, one in overwhelming numbers this time? His ideas about completing the crossbows were only to avoid having to face the inevitable. Ringed by water and countless aquatic foes, what help could they count on in escaping? None.

A true Killman never gives up,
said one part of his training.
A priest trusts in God,
said another.
You 've been stuck before; look at Manoon, now,
said a third. He laughed, a quick, short bark, and Luchare looked curiously at him. But she said nothing. She was learning that her strange lover was a man of moods.

"All right," he said, "let's get busy, then. Our two fur people can keep watch."

It must have been well after midnight when Hiero suddenly stiffened, his sensitive hands pausing, immobile over their work of cutting vanes for the crossbow bolts. A strange mental signal had come to him. Something inimical moved in the night, but behind a shield he could not penetrate. Yet he was conscious of it coming, like a menacing cloud, which still conceals whatever lies within its heart.

Quickly he woke the others, for Luchare had long since collapsed, exhausted, despite her earlier boasts.

I feel it too,
came from the bear.
What it is I cannot tell, but you are right; it comes through the dark in our direction. It comes from there.
He indicated the south, where the open water lay.

"Unclean!" Hiero burst out in despair. "These damned frog Leemutes must be more of their allies. The feeling hung around them like an evil stench, and I couldn't put two and two together!"
We should have tried to leave earlier, even if it meant fighting our way through the line out there. At least the danger from those things only hits at the body!

Patience,
was the bear's calm reply.
You chose the best way you knew. You are our leader. We have escaped other traps.
There was a pause, as if the strange, literal, ursine mind was considering something new. Then there came a note of something surprising to Hiero—a touch of humor.
Let us not die before we truly are killed.

Hiero probed the star- and moonlit night, using all the new power of his own mind. The inchoate force continued to approach steadily, and at last, just before dawn, he too was able to pinpoint its direction, the same as that which the bear had found. With the coming of daylight, he guessed what he would see. The familiar "feel" of the enemy, even masked and hidden, was unmistakable.

Quietly, he gave his instructions to the others, not even excluding Klootz.

Luchare stared at him, wide-eyed. "Must we die, beloved? Is there no way out, no other hope?"

"I see none, dearest. They took me alive before, and they will make no mistakes this time. From my brain, from all our living brains, they could force knowledge, a knowledge which would probably ensure their ultimate triumph. The ancient weapons I seek would be an irresistible force in their hands, plus whatever the bear knows and my own new skills in mind-fighting." He smiled sadly down at the dark, haunting face, ringed by its tight, black curls. "I have two death pills," he went on. "Here is one. Klootz will not be taken alive."
Gorm, can you die fighting? Will you?

If necessary,
was the answer.
My Old Ones laid that on me, just as yours did. When you give the word, that is enough. Still, let us wait for the dawn.

Luchare understood him. "A false dawn," she said bitterly. "And one which means only night and death."

Hiero mastered his grief for her, so young and lovely, and spoke calmly, concealing what it cost him. "Gorm is right. Let's not die before our time. Who knows what may happen?"

His arm over her shoulder, they stood on the highest knoll of the islet and waited for the morning light. The two animals waited patiently by their sides, the giant morse "snoofing" loudly at intervals as he tested the dawn breeze. The phosphorescent glow of their enemies' bodies faded as the east grew pale and the sun rose. Their ring of reed skiffs and slimy, white shapes still covered the water, however, and they gave no sign of moving.

For the last time, the four now heard the awful wail which for them had come to symbolize the city.

"Aaaough, aaaooough, aaaooough," it rang out, from all about, its source as mysterious as ever. Far over the ruined towers it sounded, seeming to defy the very day itself. At last it fell silent, and the red disc of the sun appeared down one of the distant avenues of far-off buildings.

And those who had hunted the four so long also came with the morning. Out of the opening in the south came the hated black shape of that strange vessel which had caught Hiero. Perhaps, the priest thought, it was another like it, but it made no difference. In that black hull lay their destruction, sure and inescapable.

The pallid Leemutes, their slippery, pale forms gleaming in the morning light, paddled and swam away from the prow of the oncoming ship. A channel formed in their ranks, and the black vessel came slowly through it until, its speed diminishing, it coasted slowly toward the island. The guardian circle of monsters re-formed behind it. And all the other frog creatures followed, drawing in from all sides until they occupied only one, massed in deathly white on the side in which the black vessel lay and a hundred yards beyond it.

Hiero had never ceased sending mental darts at the ship, indeed had continually done so, even before it actually appeared. Now, as it came to a halt only a few hundred feet offshore, he ceased and merely held his own defense ready, waiting on the faint off chance that the Unclean might drop their barrier. He knew well the chance was infinitesimal. He could feel Luchare's body trembling, but he shot a sideways glance and noted proudly that her high-cheekboned face was impassive.