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light-lance spat wide, shearing through four more bars as Gar's huge fist closed
around hand and gun both, squeezing. The guard's face went white; his mouth
stretched in a silent scream as he dropped, unconscious.
Gar stood over him, his body slowly loosening. Dirk could almost see him
changing back to his normal self. It was as though something were lifted off of
him, out of him ...
The prisoners rose as though one string pulled them all upright, with one massive
shushing hiss of straw sandals on stone.
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r r
Dirk looked up, ducked back through the hole in the bars, sure of what to do
without knowing why, as the prisoners began moving toward him like a single
enormous machine. "Oliver, Hugh, Gaspard!" he called out softly, but the
prisoners paused while the Tradesman, the Woodsman, and the Merchant
stepped forward to Dirk.
Dirk whirled back to Gar. "It's your party. What do we do?"
Gar shook himself, looked up, frowning. He gazed at the churls, seeming to see
them for the first time. He nodded. "The guards should be gathered in the
wardroom by the main gate. But we've made something of a noise, so they may
have a patrol out checking the halls, and they may have put a guard on the
armory. Divide into three partiesone to the armory, one to the arena gate, and
one to the wardroom. That'll cover all the halls, and the trouble points, too."
Dirk swung back to the three churls. "Oliver, go to the arena gate. Gaspard, to the
armory." They didn't even wait to nod just slipped through the hole in the bars
and split, Oliver to the left, Gaspard to the right. Two-third of the churls stepped
after them like a wave and filed through the hole in perfect order, half turning to
the left, half to the right, following Oliver and Gaspard, moving with the precision
of drilled soldiers without command or question-like zombies or robots, Dirk
thought-till he looked in their eyes and shuddered.
He turned back to Hugh. The big Tradesman just stood there, watching Dirk and
waiting, with seventeen churls waiting behind him.
Dirk turned to Gar and nodded.
The big man let out a long, hissing breath, set his jaw, nodded, and turned away.
Dirk followed, and behind him, Hugh stepped through the bars with seventeen
silent churls behind him.
"Mind telling me how you did that?" Gar growled down at Dirk as they led their
squad down an empty hall.
"Sure!" Dirk smiled brightly. "As soon as I figure it out."
There were two doors to the wardroom. Dirk split off from Gar and Hugh and
padded silently through the hall that led to the far door. Once he glanced back
over his shoulder, saw eight churls following him. Eight just about half. He
turned away with a shudder; not so much because of their unthinking precision-
he was almost getting used to that-but because he'd known what he was going to
see before he looked. That bothered him.
He rounded a corner and stopped just short of the opened door, waiting. He
didn't know what he was waiting for, or how Gar would let him know when to
charge-but he knew it wasn't time yet. The other eight churls had stopped behind
him and were waiting with a stone's patience; he knew that-he didn't bother to
look. On the other hand, he probably didn't dare ...
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r r
Suddenly, it was time. Dirk leaped through the door and saw Gar and Hugh burst
through the door opposite him. And he saw a startled guard whip around, staring.
Dirk dove, reaching for his throat, and saw a huge fist coming up at his face. He
twisted in mid-air, felt a boulder the size of a house crush his shoulder, and felt
his hands close around a flexible tree-trunk. Then body slammed body; the guard
staggered, overbalanced, and went down. Dirk whiplashed the head, cracked the
guard's skull on the stone floor, let go of a limp body, and leaped to his feet as his
churls charged into the room in perfect unison. The guards were surging to their
feet, catching up weapons, but Gar and Hugh's churls whooped, and the guards
looked back startled, as the first wave of churls hit them from the east. A moment
later, the western wave poured in, and the sea closed. There were nineteen
prisoners and twelve guards. The troubled waters spewed up jetsam.
Some of the guards died trying to raise their weapons. The ones who just laid
about them with their fists lasted a little longer. Dirk threw a punch and danced
back out of range; the guard charged him, roaring, and a silent fury landed on his
back, slamming him to the floor. Dirk heard something crunch as he turned
away, but he didn't have time to think about it; a guard was backing toward him,
retreating from two Merchants. Dirk dropped to hands and knees; the guard
tripped on him, bellowing, as the Merchants moved in.
It was all over in three minutes. Dirk climbed to his feet and saw Gar standing,
glaring down at the still bodies; but there was something bleak about him. Dirk
recognized the look; he got over to Gar fast. "You don't have time for a conscience [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]