Part 8 (2/2)

The weapons expert fought like a spirit of retribution, a cold, precise fury ever hunting the hot blood of those who sought to rip land and life from the people she had come to love. It was always thus with her, and the partisans had not long begun their war before Condor Hall's warriors had learned to hate and fear her terrible skill and the intelligent courage driving its use even as they hated and feared her more famed leader.

The one she now faced recognized her. He would have preferred to engage some other, lesser foe, but, since fate had given this task to him, he was determined to come away from it with her life on his sword even though he must perish soon himself. He believed his skill to be the equal of that, however good she might be.

He lunged, intending the thrust to be a feint to draw her guard and open her to a second, more deadly stroke.

His springdeer slipped as his arm drove forward. The blade, instead of streaking toward the woman, pierced the neck of her mount.

Comet reared in pain and terror, then fell heavily, throwing his rider and pinning her beneath him.

Allran felled his opponent as the agent's wardeer gave his death-scream. He turned in time to see Comet go down.

With a cry of rage, he swung at the invader who had done this thing, striking him full in the breast. So fierce was his thrust that the sword pierced him through the breadth of his body, and the mortally stricken warrior was flung from the saddle as if he had been hit by a catapult-fired stone, taking his bane-weapon with him.

The Lieutenant leaped to the ground. There was no danger now in this area, except for the terrible, crus.h.i.+ng weight upon Eveleen's fragile body.

Several of the other partisans, also freed from combat by the fall of their final opponents, raced to his aid. Together, they raised the slain wardeer and drew the Terran free.

Murdock's opponent crumpled before a thrust that had seemed no more than a flickering quiver of his blade. One more invader remained, but Gordon and another of the Sapphireholders moved in to take him before their commander could offer challenge, and he found himself free at last of death's grim shadow.

He turned to scan the suddenly quiet battlefield.

Ross paled as though fatally stricken himself. Allran was nearby on his right, bending over the still form of a woman. Her chestnut hair pinned in its golden net and the starkly white, wrenchingly fair features were all too clearly visible to him. Several of the others were with them, but his eyes were so fixed on the two Lieutenants that he could not have named them.

Shock seemed to freeze the heart in his breast. Not this, he thought, desperate with fear and anguish. Anything to him, but not this. Not Eveleen.

Lady Gay reached the pair in a moment.

Murdock was out of the saddle before the doe had ceased to move.

The kneeling man looked up. His face was grim. Grief and anger at his own helplessness were etched on it. ”Comet fell on her. She has just ceased to breathe...”

”Get out of there!” The Time Agent flung himself on Eveleen, all but hurtling the other aside.

He covered her mouth with his, pinching her nose with his left hand so that none of the air he forced into her should escape that way.

He felt her chest expand, paused, drove the air from it, filled her lungs again. Ten minutes went by. Twenty. He was growing exhausted himself when he thought he heard a soft moan.

Imagination?

Ross sat back on his heels. No, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose of their own accord.

Before he could move to aid her further, Eveleen's eyes opened to look into his. They were puzzled and unfocused for a moment but then widened in horror as memory returned to her.

”Gently!” he said quickly. ”It's all over now.”

”Comet?” she asked faintly after a brief silence.

”Gone. He died almost instantly. I'm sorry for that.”

”You wronged him,” she whispered. ”This wasn't his fault...”

”I know,” the man responded, ”but be quiet now. Please. Gordon's here. Let him look you over.”

She nodded her a.s.sent, and the commander arose, giving place to his partner.

Ross found everything in good order, as he had known would be the case.

The frenzied activity that always followed a capture was still much evident, for the convoy was a large one, and each wagon had to be carefully searched and all possible stores loaded on the captured deer. The remainder would have to be burned, although he hated to let it go; the wagons were too slow, too c.u.mbersome, to risk traveling with them himself.

The wounded claimed a great deal of attention. There were many both among Sapphirehold's warriors and the invaders, a number of whom had been stricken three and four times before giving over.

Some of the injured hung between life and death, and Ashe had been forced to devote his first attention to these rather than to Eveleen. Murdock had fought off her initial peril, and the withdrawal of Gordon's aid in the immediate aftermath of the battle would have cost the lives of a number of the others. Only when he had finished with them had he been able to relieve Ross and concentrate on the injured Terran.

Once the commander had a.s.sured himself that there appeared to be no unantic.i.p.ated difficulties in the aftermath of their victory, he sought out Allran and drew him aside. ”I'm sorry for the way I used you back there.”

The Lieutenant shook his head. ”Forget it. What you did, I should already have been doing.”

”And so would you have done had I given you another moment. Shock freezes us all. It was only some kind of instinct that moved me so quickly.”

The other smiled faintly. ”Eveleeni has reason to praise that instinct.”

”If she's not hurt inside,” he responded bleakly. ”She won't have gained much if she's only to die slowly now instead of painlessly, as would have been the case if I hadn't intervened.”

That thought had been in the Sapphireholder's mind as well, and he nodded glumly. ”Perhaps Gordon will be able to give us his verdict shortly.”

Ashe came to them a little while later. He could tell them nothing definite. It was his belief that the Lieutenant had not suffered any permanent or grave injury, nothing, in fact, beyond an incredible bruising, that shock and weight had been responsible for the failure of her lungs, not any damage sustained by them. He was almost certain there had been no breaking or crus.h.i.+ng of bone, but more, he simply did not know. Only a much closer examination than he was able to give her and several days of careful observation would tell him what he needed to learn. Until then, until her body had proven itself sound, she must be regarded as one of the more gravely wounded despite her protests that she was fit to ride or to fight as need demanded.

15.

AT LAST, THE partisans were ready to depart. They divided as was their custom, some going south with the bulk of their spoil and the captives, most returning to the highlands, bringing with them what they desired of the captured stores and, of course, their own wounded.

The shock of the accident was not quick to release Eveleen, and she was more than content to ride the litter despite her words to the contrary, a fact not lost upon her commander to his ever-increasing concern.

It was the worst journey Ross Murdock had known in a long time, that return to base, as bad in its way as the terrible flight downriver in Terra's past with the Baldies close on his heels. He had known fear then and despair and physical pain and exhaustion. Now, his lash was uncertainty and a dread so sharp that he could have become sick with it had the strength of his will been less.

The Sapphirehold force pressed on hour after hour, long after darkness had fallen. With so many of their party incapacitated, a number of them totally, Murdock had no desire to meet with a company of the enemy following after them to avenge either the herd or the convoy. Only when the weariness of his warriors and mounts threatened to become a danger in itself did he finally permit a halt.

Dawn brought no easing to his heart. One of the wounded had died during the night, and another remained stable but very close to death.

Gordon's report on Eveleen's condition was essentially the same, but he was more guarded in giving it. She was having pain, a considerable amount of it, and he could not as yet say whether it was born of the tremendous battering she had taken or from more grievous cause, although he hastened to a.s.sure his comrades that he had found no other symptoms of internal injury, which by rights should be revealing themselves if anything existed to spark them.

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