Starship Home (18 page)

‘It says “battery low”.’

‘I guess a recharger would be out of the question?’ Zachary said, and then the mobile phone beeped one more time and died. It had been a nice try.

‘You see, Zachary, even if you were from the past,’ Father John said, with inexorable logic, ‘the Don administers the law in this territory, and would still be within his rights to Test you, for in his mercy, he wants to give you a chance.’

‘I have a chance of surviving single combat with Ulf?’

‘Probably not.’

‘In his mercy, the Don could let me go.’

‘Ah, but balancing mercy, there’s justice.

‘I’ve never done very well out of justice, Father.’

‘And that’s exactly why you should make confession, while there’s still time.’

Zachary thought about that, and in the process realized that he still possessed his utterly dumb, totally irrational optimism. ‘But Father,’ he said, ‘I don’t plan on dying.’

Father John smiled in the way people do when they are humoring someone who does not understand the situation. ‘Of course not, my son,’ he said, ‘no one ever does.’

In the hold of the starship, by the door of the school bus, Meg and Harold, with the unsought help of the Wyzen, were explaining the situation to Guinevere, whose manifestation stood before them.

‘The Foresters just won’t move,’ Meg was saying.

‘And we don’t know whether the Trolls are going to or not,’ Harold said, ‘because every time we send someone into the castle they don’t come back out again.’

‘Wyzen! Wyzen! Wyzen!’ added the Wyzen excitedly.

‘So we’re going to have to get you the things you need for healing as quickly as possible,’ Meg said.

‘Just as soon as we get Zoe and Zachary out of Trollcastle.’ Harold added.

‘Wyzen! Wyzen!’ the Wyzen said by way of summing up.

‘There’s little time to waste,’ Guinevere began to say. She was worried about the natives. If they were unwilling to move away, they could die and some of the things she needed for her healing were not easy to get.

‘Relax,’ Harold interrupted. ‘I’ve got it all under control. ‘We get in the bus, you matter-transport us out of here.’

‘I shall, betimes,’ said Guinevere, and her manifestation disappeared.

‘What’s “betimes” mean?’ asked Harold.

‘Surely you must know that Harold,’ Meg said sweetly, hustling him onto the bus in a hurry, ‘since you know everything else?’ The Wyzen crowded onto the bus after them.

‘I don’t know everything,’ Harold said.

‘Don’t you? I thought you did,’ Meg said. ‘Off the bus Wyzen, off the bus!’

But the Wyzen had no intention of getting off, and ran to the rear of the bus and sat down and, before Meg could expel her, the bus disappeared from the hold in a blaze of white light, and reappeared instantaneously on the horse trail that ran through the forest.

‘There you are, Harold. “Betimes” means “early”, “soonest”, that kind of thing,’ said Meg, glaring with exasperation at the Wyzen, who thereupon took fright, and hid behind a seat. ‘Wyzen, come out of there!’

‘Meg, we don’t have time,’ Harold urged. ‘Anything could be happening at the castle.’

Meg thereupon shrugged, and moved to the driving seat of the bus, found to her great relief that the keys were still in the ignition, started the engine, and managed to get the bus into gear. She mentally blessed her father for having taught her to drive trucks and tractors on the family farm. Without that experience she was not sure she would have been able to get the bus running. They drove off, bumping along the forest trail as fast as the bus’s suspension would allow, knocking down saplings and negotiating rocks as they went.

After a moment or two, the Wyzen emerged from hiding and came to the front of the bus, where she settled down on the floor beside Meg, and tried to help her with gear changes. ‘Cut it out Wyzen! Cut it out!’ Meg screamed.

‘Here, Wyzen,’ said Harold, ‘play with this.’ And he showed the Wyzen the levers and knobs which worked non-essentials like the lights, the indicators and the horn.

‘I must be nuts doing this!’ shouted Meg over the roar of the engine.

‘It’ll work! I promise you!’ said Harold. ‘They’ve never seen anything like this before. It’ll terrify them! They’ll run like rabbits!’

‘I must be crazy!’ Meg repeated as they drove toward Trollcastle.

At Trollcastle, the inhabitants ate dinner early, just before sundown and, given the lack of electric light, Zoe could see the sense in this. The food had consisted of a vegetable soup, roasted wild sheep that the men had hunted the day before, and a pie made of several kinds of fruit, including apples, plums and apricots. The sheep had been cooked on a spit over an open fire and was delicious, reminding Zoe of the souvlaki lamb she had eaten at big family parties. The vegetables had been boiled. Delicious as the food might have been, Zoe had not eaten much. She was too worried about Zachary, and his forthcoming Testing.

Apparently the women were to watch the Testing. Behind a curtain, there was a fretwork screen let into one wall, and through it the Trollwives could see into the main hall. After their empty plates had been taken away, Zoe as the friend or, as the more romantic of the Trollwives kept insisting, the fiancée of the prisoner, was given place of honor at the centre of the screen.

She found herself looking down into the hall through which she had entered the castle earlier in the day. The Don, Ulf, Father John and some other Troll leaders were eating at a high table on the stage. In the main body of the hall, more trestle tables had been set up for the Troll warriors, who were sitting on benches, eating, drinking, and shouting at one another and, to Zoe, it looked like nothing so much as a shrimp and beer night that her parents had once taken her to at the local football club. As Zoe watched, the Don stood, and all talk ceased as he began to speak.

‘A man is to be Tested tonight,’ the Don said in a carrying voice. ‘Zachary Owens, a foreigner guilty of two hanging offences…’

‘Only two?’ yelled a scarred old veteran, and there was general laughter among the Trolls.

‘…has taken the option of Testing,’ the Don continued. ‘Ulf has agreed to be his examiner.’

There was more laughter and some of the Trolls thumped their pint pots on the tables. Zoe’s stomach tightened into a knot as the door at the back of the hall opened and two Troll men-at-arms dragged a very unwilling Zachary into view.
Get here now, Harold,
thought Zoe,
do something
.

At the moment Zoe was thinking this, Harold was watching Meg work on the engine of the bus. It had stalled and she was trying to find out why. Harold was offering good advice but each new suggestion he made seemed to make Meg angrier. The Wyzen’s playing with the horn was not helping her mood much either.

Back at the castle, Zoe watched through the fretwork screen as Zachary’s guards dragged him into a clear space in the middle of the hall. The Trolls stayed at their trestle tables eating and drinking, cleaning their plates with thick slices of bread, draining their pint pots, and yelling comments. Meanwhile, Ulf was coming down from the high table, stripping off his shirt as he came.

Ulf was big, and none of it was fat. Zoe noticed the white scars on his chest and arms, and deduced from them that Ulf had done this kind of thing before. He did not look like an amateur having his first bout. On the other hand, Zachary was very fit. Perhaps, Zoe thought, he could stay away from Ulf long enough for the big man to collapse from exhaustion, but it did not seem to be much of a hope.

A Troll man-at-arms holding up a sword in each hand walked into the centre of the cleared space and threw them down, first one, then the other, so that the point of each sword stuck in the floorboards. Ulf backed off to one side of the cleared space, and Zachary was dragged by his guards to the other side. They then ripped his shirt off him, and threw the remnants of it to one side.

The Don rose to his feet. ‘The Testing is very simple,’ he said, speaking to Zachary. ‘When I drop my hand, you both go for the swords. Are you ready?’

‘Hang on,’ said Zachary, ‘When you drop your hand, we both go for the swords … and then what?’

‘And then,’ said the Don with an elegant wave of his hand, ‘whatever.’

‘That’s … that’s very open-ended,’ said Zachary.

‘Yes it is,’ said the Don.

‘There don’t seem to be too many rules,’ said Zachary.

‘That’s true,’ said the Don and dropped his hand.

At the drop of the Don’s hand, both Zachary and Ulf moved fast, but in opposite directions. Ulf dived toward the swords, his intention: mayhem. Zachary dived towards the nearest window his intention: to get the hell out of there.

As a result of these two tactical efforts, Ulf ended up with a sword in each hand, and Zachary ended up being caught in mid-air by some laughing Troll men-at-arms, who simply carried him back and tossed him into the cleared space to face a grinning Ulf.

Zoe winced, put her face in her hands, and peered through her fingers.

‘Can we try that one more time?’ said Zachary.

Marlowe was watching with grim amusement as Ulf began to stalk Zachary, who backed off, using the space he had, trying to stay away from the two swords Ulf was holding. Ulf lunged with his left hand, Zachary jumped away, and almost too late realized from a flicker in Ulf’s eyes that Ulf had been feinting and the real attack was coming from his right hand. Zachary dropped beneath Ulf’s right-hand blade, and rolled, and came back onto his feet. He was watching Ulf’s eyes now, not the blades.

Zachary moved to Ulf’s left again, figuring that the odds favored Ulf’s being a natural right-hander. If the odds were wrong, he might be moving into trouble. He was desperately trying to remember if he had seen Ulf handle something. Anything which would give him a clue. Then he remembered. Ulf’s sword hilt had projected above his right shoulder. He was right-handed, probably weaker and more awkward with his left hand.

But while this may have been so in theory, it was not noticeably so. When the attack came from Ulf’s left-hand blade, it was strong and swift and almost took Zachary by surprise. Up on a bench he leapt, then higher still, onto the table, and the slash of the blade passed beneath his feet. He was down again, running, staying away from the giant’s attack. As Zachary turned, he heard the scrape of steel behind him, and he looked back for a moment, expecting an attack from that quarter.

It was the priest, Father John, who had drawn a sword from the scabbard of one of the Troll men-at-arms and was handing Zachary the sword hilt-first. Zachary grabbed it with gratitude. He had reconsidered his opening tactics and now, on sober reflection, had been wishing he had taken a sword. Not, he knew, that he in any way felt confident of his ability to use one, but at least it gave him something with which to try and block Ulf’s attacks, and also add to any dumb luck factor he might have going for him.

‘Thanks Father,’ he said, and dodged Ulf’s next attack.

‘Whose side are you on?’ roared Ulf to the priest.

‘We’re not butchers,’ the priest answered, distaste written clearly on his narrow face.

‘Speak for yourself,’ roared Ulf and moved after Zachary like a semi-trailer made of meat.

Zachary now had a plan. He would allow himself to be driven back toward a window, or a door, or any way out of there. It was not, he realized, a great plan, but it was better than no plan at all. He began parrying Ulf’s two swords, even pushing his own sword out occasionally in the vague hope that Ulf might be deterred by it, or even impale himself by mistake. Ulf, he found to his horror, seemed to be encouraged by this. It seemed that the giant enjoyed a bit of competition. It added interest, perhaps.

As Ulf drove Zachary back, the Trolls pushed back the trestle table and benches and as a result there was now a trestle table directly under the open windows. It could not have been better for Zachary’s plan. He stepped up onto a bench, then up onto the trestle table. Ulf slashed, with the obvious intent of taking Zachary off at the ankles. He leapt in the air, and again the sword passed beneath him, but this time the left-hand sword was sweeping in from the other side.

Zachary realized what salami must feel like, and managed to get his own sword down to parry the blow. Ulf stepped onto the bench, then onto the table. He was forcing Zachary back along the table. Zachary was just managing to block the two swords which kept coming at him as if under the direction of some malign machine. He was almost level with an open window. He half-turned, and was about to leap out the window when his foot went down hard on a plate, the plate skidded from under him and he found himself not flying through the window as he had expected, but instead skidding along the table toward Ulf.

Zachary had planted his full weight on the plate in order to power his spring to freedom and this meant that the effect of the plate’s flying out from beneath him was to send him sliding along the table at full speed. His feet connected with Ulf’s and drove them from beneath the giant, and in a tangle of arms and legs and weapons they slid along the trestle table and fell off the end in a heap with Zachary, the lighter of the two men, on top.

In the combat so far he had developed a deep hatred of bladed weapons, and the first thing he did as he got to his feet was to gather up their three swords and to hurl them as far away from himself and Ulf as he could. Ulf meanwhile was shaking his head and preparing to get up. Zachary smiled a beautiful smile and put out his left hand to take Ulf’s left hand. This was a situation Zachary understood. He had practised this kind of thing in bar rooms and bachelor barracks in mining settlements and on the deck of the occasional merchant ship. ‘Allow me,’ Zachary said, and gripped Ulf’s left hand, and pulled him to his feet. At the same time he turned back, dropped his right hand, and unreeled a haymaker which started at the floor and described a beautifully timed arc to land flush on Ulf’s jaw.

Zachary honestly thought that he had broken his hand. It was agony. He moved away from Ulf, nursing his right hand, not noticing that Ulf was getting a sway up. ‘He broke my hand,’ Zachary complained to anyone who would listen to him, ‘he’s a dirty fighter and he broke my hand.’

But no one was listening to Zachary: they were watching Ulf. Zachary turned and saw Ulf, unconscious on his feet, swaying to and fro like a giant tree in a wind, gathering momentum. Zachary decided that it was time to step out of the way, and as he did so Ulf, all two hundred plus pounds of bone and muscle of him, dropped to the wooden floor with a terrible thud and lay very still.

The Trolls looked up at the Don. Father John was whispering in the Don’s ear. The Don nodded and rose. ‘The Testing appears to be over,’ he said, and beckoned Zachary. ‘Come here, Zachary of the Ironcastle.’

As Zachary walked forward, Ulf was coming around. Trolls were pouring beer over his head, and he was shaking it everywhere like a huge dog coming out of a bath. Still nursing his hand, Zachary mounted the steps and dropped to one knee before the Don.

‘I like to have lucky men about me,’ said the Don. ‘Luck?’ said Zachary. ‘You think that was luck? I was toying with him.’ For a moment there, he could have sworn he heard Zoe’s laughter, but decided that it must have been a trick of the acoustics.