The Lion of Farside

" ^ "

On the road next morning, Macurdy did not feel refreshed. His dreams had been restless and troubling, though he couldn't remember them. He had no trouble at all, though, recalling what he'd heard when he'd wakened in the night. He supposed he should feel complimented by the things they'd said about him, while by the standards of Oz, or at least the House of Heroes, their couplings had been unobtrusive, even modest.

These realizations didn't help. He felt-deprived and jealous. Feelings which he realized were totally unjustified. Jeremid wanted Melody as much as he did, and had as much right to. As for Melody and himself-clearly all he needed to do was say yes.

And how had Varia spent last night? he wondered. Being bred by some stud? Enjoying it? She'd been more than enthusiastic when they'd been together. He imagined her groans, her cries almost yelped, her strong fingers digging his back. Whose back now?

While he imagined, Melody trotted her horse up beside his. "Macurdy," she said, "we need to talk. Privately."

He dug heels in his horse's ribs, and they pulled farther ahead of the others. "You woke up last night, didn't you?" she asked.

He nodded without speaking.

"When I got back in bed, your breathing didn't sound like you were sleeping. And this morning-it was pretty obvious."

Yeah, he thought, I suppose it was.

"What did you hear?" she asked.

"All of it, I guess. The first time, and the second, and the talk in between."

"Macurdy, I love you, you-jackass. And it's damned hard to be around you without having you."

"It's the same with me."

"I suppose it was bad for you, listening to us go at it."

He grunted. "That's not your fault. Not your problem."

"I know it's not. But I don't like having caused you pain. I'd rather cause you pleasure."

"Suppose you get pregnant?"

"I've got lamb bane in my gear."

Lamb bane. Of course. He'd heard of it from Hauser, who collected it in season for Arbel. It didn't keep anyone from getting pregnant, but both sheep and women, if they ate it early enough, miscarried with no trouble. The two of them rode without speaking for several chains. "Look," she said finally. "I can't promise I won't hump with Jeremid again. But I do promise not to do it where you can hear us. Will that help?"

By Oz standards, he realized, that was downright thoughtful. Even sweet. He looked at her earnest face and found himself smiling. Fondly! The realization startled him, left him mentally gawping. You're in love with her, Macurdy! he told himself amazed. You are! You're in love with this girl! "Sure," he found himself saying. "It'll help a lot. And Melody, I don't want you to feel bad about it; I really don't. Because I love you, too."

She stared at him, surprised, then annoyed. "Macurdy," she said, "you're an exasperating bastard." And pulling aside, fell in a little distance behind him.

Leaving Macurdy wondering what he'd said wrong. But the question was fleeting, giving way to the matter of being in love with two women at once. Truly in love with them. He'd never thought about such a thing before, had grown up accepting that you could only love one at a time. Yet it seemed to him both loves were real. His love for Melody was different than his love for Varia, but it was love, he had no doubt.

The difference that counted, he told himself, was the vow he'd taken. And he'd abide by it in spite of all.

The weather had turned nearly summery. Gnats were out, though not a kind that bit. The elms along the road were pale green now, with countless millions of disk-winged seeds, while the new leaves of various species were expanding.

This plain, this Green River Valley, was pleasant to Macurdy's eyes. Tekalos was good farmland. Talbott and Hauser assumed there was a geographical equivalence between Yuulith and Farside, and as closely as Macurdy could figure, if there was a gate here, it would open into Tennessee. Western Tennessee or maybe west-central. From all he'd heard, Tennessee was mostly hills and mountains, and he wondered if it had any area of farmland to compare with this.

In midafternoon, Blue Wing caught up with them. He'd flown back to the site where the bandits had attacked the dwarves, and filled his belly and crop with dead horse meat. Or so he said. But Macurdy was aware that even vultures, with their hooked and powerful beaks, let dead horses and cattle lay longer than that for the hide to soften. It seemed likelier that some dead bandit had been Blue Wing's meal.

The dwarves slowed their progress. Their ponies were slower, and they took breaks long enough to make fire and boil water for sassafras tea. They felt no urgency. And while Macurdy's experience with horses hadn't included long crosscountry trips, he told himself this was probably a more sensible speed anyway. Besides, more than a year had passed since Varia had been kidnapped; what difference would a few days make now? She was no doubt safe enough.

And it seemed to him the dwarves were much more important to him than the time they were costing; they were his passport to the King in Silver Mountain. Meanwhile they were good companions; it was one of them who shot a possum with his crossbow, then carried it along as supper for Blue Wing.

Still, from time to time he felt restless.

Near dusk, the six of them made camp in a pleasant woods, along a river not much more than a creek. It allowed them to bathe again, which they did naked, though the dwarves used a stretch of riverbank screened from the tallfolk by undergrowth. Naked, Melody was prettier than he'd realized, though muscular for a woman. Breaking the spell, he jumped from the cutbank into the river, to conceal his developing erection. The cold water killed it utterly, and he grinned as Melody waded tentatively in, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Shall I splash you?" he called.

"You hadn't better," she answered, then launched herself, gasping as she surfaced. He did splash her then, and she charged him, splashing back. In a moment they were tussling and laughing, their wet bodies twisting against each other.

Abruptly Macurdy let her go and backed away, chagrined, and at the same time pleased with himself. Melody smiled. "That's a good start, Macurdy," she said softly, and reaching, touched his cheek. Then she turned and waded out of the river. Macurdy watched first her departing back, then her buttocks and legs, while his fingers touched his cheek where hers had. Varia had touched him like that.

That evening, fireflies were out by the hundreds in their camp, yellowish glowing lights bobbing and circling in the twilight and dark. Melody went to where Macurdy squatted, and squatted beside him, their arms and shoulders touching as they watched. But only for a little. Then the three tallfolk bedded down near each other, Macurdy feeling as if, for the first time in his life, he had a girl friend. His relationship with Varia had skipped that stage.

The next day brought a thundershower by midmorning, and a prolonged thunderstorm in late afternoon that drove them to cover at a crossroads inn. It wasn't as large as the inn they'd stayed in before, nor as clean, and Macurdy decided this was a good time to exercise the magic Arbel had taught him for killing fleas, lice, and the like.

It seemed to work well; either that or there'd been none to start with. And no one had sex out of sight on the floor, because there was no bed, only three straw-filled sacks unrolled side by side.

About two hours into their ride next morning, Blue Wing's voice called from overhead: "Macurdy! Macurdy!" Macurdy reined in and waited, looking up. The great bird spiraled sharply down and reached for the roadside with long legs.

"What'd you find?"

"There's a town ahead, not far from the highway."

"Aye," said Tossi. "Gormin Town. I recall it. It's a reeve's town, a shire seat, walled with a palisade. There's a better than usual inn at the crossroads nearby."

Macurdy nodded, looking at Blue Wing, waiting.

"The town has an open space near its center," the bird continued. "With poles standing there, and men hanging on them."

"Hanging?"

"By their wrists. Some appear to be dead. Others were just then being fastened up."

"Sounds like a good place to stay away from," Jeremid suggested.

Macurdy spoke as if to himself. "Men hung up from poles." He focused on Blue Wing again. "How many?"

"You know I'm not good with numbers," Blue Wing said a little testily. "You are six, right?"

"That's right."

"At least twice that many, I would guess."

"If we spend a day or two there, what will you do?" Macurdy asked. "I may need you."

"There's a slaughterhouse nearby, with a place where the offal is thrown. They'll very likely put out some choice pieces for me: a head already skinned perhaps, and some organs. And I can keep track of where you are by the dwarves' ponies. There'll hardly be anything else like them there."

"Thanks. Keep an eye on me for a while, if you would. I may have questions."

"As you wish."

The raven took to the air, running and hopping a few strides for his takeoff, as if his crop was full; perhaps he'd already visited the slaughterhouse. Macurdy nudged his horse with his heels. "Gormin Town doesn't sound like a good place to be," Jeremid said.

Macurdy's lips pursed thoughtfully. "To get Varia away from the Sisterhood, it could be useful to have armed men with me. Not to take inside the dwarf kingdom, but standing by."

It was Melody who answered. "What do men hanging in the square have to do with that?"

"I'm not sure. But-why hang men up like that? Are they bandits? Rebels?"

She waited for the rest of it, and when there was no more, rode on frowning. An hour and a half later they came to the inn, at the crossroads a half-mile outside the town's north gate. Macurdy stopped outside the courtyard, and looking up, spotted Blue Wing high overhead. He waved until the bird tilted and started down. Then Macurdy gathered the others close around him. In a minute, Blue Wing arrived to perch on the top rail of a fence beside the road.

"Tossi," Macurdy said, "would you take a room at the inn for Jeremid, Melody and me? But not for you three?"

The dwarf gnarled his brows. "What have ye in mind?"

"I'm not sure. But it may be I'll want you to take a place in town for yourselves."

"In town?"

"Can you make swords?"

"What?!"

"You told Kittul Kendersson you wanted adventure. It might be we'll find some here. If I decide it's the thing to do, would you hire a room at the inn for the three of us?"

"Aye, I would. But as for making swords… We could, any of us, but they'd not be of first quality. Better than tallfolk make, but… Every dwarf lad is taught to work metals, from gold to iron, but we'd rarely be called on to do it without a master smith at hand to supervise."

"Good enough. Making swords would only be an excuse for hiring a place in town. Let's leave our remounts and pack animals at the stable here and ride in. We won't take rooms yet; I have to see what's going on first."

At the town gates, Macurdy felt the sentries eye his spear, and those of the two Ozians, but didn't stop them. The dwarves, he decided, had been their pass. Inside the stockade, the cobbled main street was wide enough for wagons to pass easily, though buildings overhung it. The six visitors walked their mounts briskly, the quickstepping hooves of the dwarves' ponies a sharp counterpoint to the louder clopping of the horses, and shortly they came to the town square.

It was decorated with the bodies of men dead or dying, or soon to be-fourteen of them, standing or hanging with their wrists lashed overhead, the sun beating on them. Above each was a sign in blood red: REBEL. Two were conspicuously dead, had begun to swell, and flies swarmed on them. Six others were either dead or too weak to stand, hanging on their tethers, their hands swollen and black. Another six stood grimly, their weight on their feet instead of on their wrists. Three guards stood by. Most bypassers avoided looking. A stray dog, in slinking mode, approached one of the dead and sniffed. Spear leveled, one of the guards ran it off.

"Stay here," Macurdy murmured to the others, and dismounting, walked up to a guard. "We're strangers," he said. "From the Kingdom of the Diamond Flues." He gestured toward the posts. "What sort of men are these?"

The guard looked sourly at the posts, then at Macurdy's discolored face, but his speech was civil. "They're from the hills off north," he said. "Part of a rebel band." He wrinkled his nose. "The dead'll be cut down this evening."

Macurdy thanked him and returned to the others, to continue slowly on around the square. Here and there were benches, mostly unoccupied. Macurdy looked over the auras of the few who sat there, and shortly pulled up and dismounted again, walking over to a man who was old by Rude Lands standards, his mouth a sunken, lipless crease.

Sitting down near him, Macurdy spoke quietly. "A hard way to die, on those posts."

The old man said nothing, as if he hadn't heard.

"We're from over west of the Great Muddy, traveling east to the Silver Mountain. Came in to buy some goods, and saw those poor devils hanging by their wrists."

Still nothing.

"Why would men rebel, in a country as fertile as this? Surely there must be plenty to eat."

The toothless mouth seemed hardly to move, but words came from it now, low and monotone. "There are kingdoms where men are pressed down by cruelties and demands. Where the man who swings the scythe may have too little bread to eat, and where he'd best not have a pretty wife or daughter. Or pride."

"Ah. Then why so few rebels?"

"The commons have no generals, no strong and able leaders. Nor weapons, most of them, nor any place to hide."

"And yet those men…" Macurdy gestured.

The old man took a slow breath. "They're Kullvordi-hillsmen from off north. Their not-too-distant grandfathers were tribesmen who lived in their own way. Even now they have bows and spears; some even have swords. And forests to hide in, where soldiers hardly dare to go. But if a rebellion grows troublesome, the soldiers burn some farms, drive off their livestock, and kill hostages. And after a bit, the rebellion dies as if it never was, leaving only a few hard men living off what game they can shoot, and by thieving. Until someone gives them away for a purse."

The old man stopped then, and Macurdy asked no more. After a minute he lay a paw on a bent shoulder and squeezed lightly, then got up and left.

The six of them rode back to the inn for the midday meal. Afterward, Macurdy, Melody, and Jeremid took a room with money Tossi provided, then rode northward, killing time with exploration, while Blue Wing flew high, learning the land far more widely than they could.

Meanwhile the dwarves, with their ponies and a pack horse, returned to town to carry out their part of the plan. When they'd finished their business for the day, the youngest of them, Yxhaft Vorelsson Rich Lode, rode back out to the inn, where he sat in the pot room nursing a short mug of ale till the tallfolk got back. After a supper of pot roast and boiled potatoes, they all went to the small room the three tallfolk were to share. Tossi, Yxhaft said, had seen to everything agreed on. As for security-during the day there'd been a single guard in each of the rather widely-spaced watch shelters on the town walls, but it was logical to expect two or more at night, to keep each other awake. He also mapped the whereabouts of the ground-floor apartment Tossi had rented. "If yer uncertain," he finished, "there'll be a small sign by the door, with dwarf runes in charcoal, tellin' those who can read it-and I doubt there's one such in all Gormin Town, except ourselves-that 'here dwell three sons of the Rich Lode Clan.' "

He grinned at Macurdy then, for he was a youth as dwarves go. "It has a cellar hole," he went on, "and its own weed patch in back, with its own privy. We've put the anvil block on the cellar lid, and strewed sand over the floor, as one might to prevent fires startin' from the forge. It's a poor place for smithin', but who'd know except a smith?

"Oh! And Tossi got a letter of retainer from the reeve, which no doubt we can use, if we need to, as a pass to get through the gate. Should they start keepin' folks in, which I expect they will."

Then Yxhaft left, riding back to town.

According to the innkeeper, the town gates closed at sundown, or on cloudy days when dusk began to thicken. And because of recent disorders, there was a curfew. So when the sun was low, Macurdy, Melody, and Jeremid walked the half-mile to town, chatting and laughing deliberately as they approached the gate. They entered without being questioned, and strolled the perimeter street, still chatting while Macurdy unobtrusively examined the palisade. Each stair-flight up to the archery walk ended at a watch shelter, and even as they walked, a column of guardsmen marched past them, pausing to send three to each shelter, replacing the one on day watch.

"We'll have to figure out some other way," Jeremid said. "We can do the job tomorrow night."

Macurdy shook his head. "Tomorrow night's too late. We need to free them while they're able-bodied."

"Maybe we can use a rope with a hook," Melody suggested. "Throw it onto the archery walk, and climb."

Macurdy nodded, thinking that the odds of success were not good. Maybe Tossi would have some ideas. It wouldn't do, though, to be seen going into the dwarves' apartment, so when twilight came, they sheltered in the shadows of an unpaved alley nearby. Once they heard the hard-booted feet of a street patrol, but didn't see it. After the curfew bell tolled, Macurdy sent Jeremid out; he'd yowl twice like a cat if everything was clear. A minute later they heard the yowls and slipped out of their alley. Jeremid beckoned, and when they got to him, Kittul Kendersson stood with the door ajar. "In! In!" he rumbled softly, then closed it behind them.

The room was lit by the usual lamp-a bowl of oil with a wick on one side. Kittul took them into the room fitted as a smithy, and grinning, waved around. "The reeve provided all of it: forge, anvil, tongs, hammer, quenchin' tank-everything."

They're hungry for dwarf steel here, Macurdy thought. There were coarse sacks of charcoal, too, and from behind them, Kittul took a rope with knots at intervals. At one end was a triple grab hook that he held up chuckling. "Just made it. Thought it might be useful."

"Good. We've been talking about that. And the crossbows?"

"They're in the sleepin' room." Kittul paused. "I've been thinkin' though. 'Tis us should do the shootin'. We're used to crossbows; we'll not miss."

Macurdy shook his head. "I don't doubt you're better marksmen with them," he said. "But if anyone saw, even in the night, they could tell the patrolmen it was dwarves. While with us-in the dark we look like anyone else around here. And if there's a chase, our legs are longer.

"Besides, Jeremid and Melody have used crossbows, and in my world, we use weapons called guns that you aim pretty much the same way."

"Ah. Well," said Kittul thoughtfully, "there's no doubt we'd be recognized, even if just glimpsed. So then. Best ye start while the moon's still up." He led them into the bedroom, and standing on tiptoes, took two crossbows from pegs on the wall, crossbows that were cocked using a stirrup, and a hook on the belt. Macurdy had thought to use one himself, but the belts were too small to buckle around him.

He handed it to Jeremid, saying, "Try it on." Jeremid did. It buckled in the last notch. "You and Melody will do the shooting," Macurdy told him.

They got ready and left, walking to the square via an alley that opened onto it not far from the posts. At the alley's mouth they huddled in darkness, eyes sorting through the moon shadows around the post area.

Macurdy's eyes made out four guards now, one each on the southeast and southwest corners, while two stood conversing quietly within a few feet of one another on the north end, near where the main street hit the square. He wondered how alert they were. Did they think someone might try a rescue? Or was guard just routine, another dull watch?

He led the others back a ways. "Melody," he murmured, "circle 'round and come out the next alley south. Jeremid, circle north, cross the main street where they won't see you; come to the square on the other side. You two will kill the two in back, the corner men." He paused. "Melody, tell me what I said." She did. Then Jeremid repeated the instructions.

"Good. I'll take the two in front. After you've had time to get in position, I'll go out to one of them. I've got no bow, no spear, and no sword, and my knife's around back of my hip, so they shouldn't be too leery of me.

"Keep a close eye on me. I'll pretend I've been drinking, and walk up to him and start talking. Then I'll knife him and jump the other one. That's when you'll shoot your men and reload. Got it?"

They both stared at him. I know, he thought. I can't believe we're doing this either. They'd discussed the broad features back at the inn, and it had felt spooky enough then, in daylight and safety. "Good," he said. "Go!"

It took them three or four seconds to turn away, leaving Macurdy where he stood. Come on, he told himself, it's for Varia. Let's get going. He took another alley, moving quickly but quietly, eyes and ears fine-tuned. Asking himself how this could be for Varia, or how it could possibly work. But not wavering.

Shortly he reached the main street. The moon was low and the whole street in shadow, when he turned quietly onto it. He was in mid-block when he heard what had to be a patrol, and pausing, looked backward. They were turning onto his street from a cross street a hundred yards away. With torches.

Hell! he thought. Some of the shops along the street had small marquees over their entrances, perhaps to protect them from slops thrown from windows above. Striding a few quick steps farther, he jumped, grabbed a marquee, and pulled himself up. It took his weight, and he lay as low and flat as he could. If they'd seen him…

But the shadows were dark, and the torches had little reach. He shielded his face with his arms. The patrol passed so close below, it seemed to him they should have heard his heart pounding. Passed and continued along the street, hard-soled boots thudding and scuffing on the cobblestones. After half a minute he raised his head enough to see them from behind. Eight or ten, it seemed, fewer than he'd thought. At the square, instead of turning west or east to pass it by, they walked directly to the poles and stopped. Faintly he heard commands being given; seconds later they turned and started back his way. Again he lowered his face, shielding it, and again they passed beneath him, marching back north up the street, turned onto another and were gone.

Changing the guard! he thought. Gentle Jesus thank you! If I'd been three minutes sooner… He stayed where he was for several minutes, giving Melody and Jeremid more time, then dropped quietly to the cobblestones and moved on. That was an omen, he told himself, a good one! And tried to believe it.

The square opened before him, the nearer guard about thirty yards away, and he scarcely hesitated, emerging from the shadows, walking unsteadily. It only then occurred to him that they might shout or blow a whistle or something-maybe kill him-because he was breaking the curfew.

The new guards stood about five yards apart, instead of side by side like the previous two. Both pointed their spears at him, ready to thrust long or short. He walked up dangerously close to one of them, pretending drunkenness. " 'Scuse me," he said. "I'm lookin' for a frien' I used to have. Name is Lucky. Someone said he was one of these guys." He waved broadly at the pole-bound captives.

Both guards laughed. "Nobody here's called Lucky," one said. "Not anymore."

Macurdy peered as if to penetrate the night, stepping nearer, weaving, and spoke confidentially. "He owes me five coppers. Did you know that?" Then lowered his voice further. "Are they dead?"

"They cut the dead ones down at sunset, and took them away. These are all alive."

Macurdy leaned. "Lucky," he called hoarsely, "are you there?"

And moved, his left hand closing on the spearshaft, shoving it aside and pulling it past him, drew his knife as he strode into the guard, plunging it under his ribs, in and up and back out, letting the man fall, catching the other with his eyes. The second guard's reaction was slow; he took an uncertain step toward Macurdy, and the heavy knife, thrown hard, struck him in the middle of the chest. With a weak bleat, the man slumped and fell. Macurdy was on him in an instant, ignoring the third and fourth guards, who were Melody's and Jeremid's responsibilities. Gripping a shoulder, he turned the man over and grabbed the knife hilt. It had gone through the breastbone to the hilt and was slippery with blood. He'd probably stepped in blood, too, he realized.

Then Melody's voice hissed at him. "Macurdy! Hurry! A patrol's coming!" He looked around, feeling just an instant's prick of panic, then strode to the nearest rebel and cut the thong that held his arms overhead. The man fell unmoving, and Macurdy realized he'd been dead weight on his bonds. The next was standing, and he freed him. "Stay with her," Macurdy husked to him, and went to a third. He became aware that Melody was also cutting men free. When they were done, six rebels stood. Three others lay still. Without hesitating, Macurdy cut their throats; he couldn't take them, and wouldn't leave them for further torture. Only one gushed blood. The other two had died already.

"Come on!" Melody said.

"You take them," Macurdy answered. "My boots are bloody; they'll leave marks. Go!"

He heard a command shouted from near the south end of the square, and ran not north with Melody and the rebels, but west, scuffing his feet in the grass and dirt to wipe off what he could of the blood. Crossing the street, he ducked into an alley, wondering where Jeremid might be. Somewhere off southeast someone was shouting, and he wondered what that was about. Around a corner he stopped, and pulling off his boots, tied them together, slung them over a shoulder, then trotted off barefoot.

The cobblestones were rough-surfaced, and he was limping when the dwarves let him in. The front room was dark, crowded but quiet. Men sat on the floor with cups and bowls, and the place smelled of stew-supper reheated. Melody gripped Macurdy's sleeve and pulled him into the kitchen. "You did it!" she said, and began to unbutton his bloody shirt. "We need to rinse this before the blood sets."

He dropped his boots and stripped it off. Melody immersed it in a small tub, surging it up and down while the water reddened. "The boots too," Macurdy said, looking around for more water. Apparently it had to be carried from some public well.

"I need to get the blood out of your shirt, first."

"Where's Jeremid?" he asked.

"The last I saw, he was running toward the patrol. Probably to draw them off."

Macurdy's face was stiff with tension. He'd hoped to pull this off and get over the wall without an uproar. But now… Now the whole damned police force would be out, and any soldiers garrisoned there. The gates were already closed, and the guards in the watch shelters would be wide awake now, alert as hawks. "Where's Tossi?" he asked.

"Right here." The dwarf had come in behind him from the front room.

"Will your cellar hole hold six men?"

"If they don't mind dark and discomfort."

"Anything will be better than what they've just been through. But they'll need air and water."

Tossi frowned. "I can leave the trapdoor open most of the time. If someone bangs on the door, one of us can answer it while another closes the trapdoor and slides the anvil block over top of it." He paused, peering intently at Macurdy. "How long will we be stayin', with the six of them under the floor?"

"I'll try taking one or maybe two out with Melody and me tonight. And Jeremid, if he gets back in time. Police and soldiers will be searching house to house tomorrow-maybe even later tonight-and it'll look suspicious to have tallfolk here, even if they're not the prisoners. But these men need to stay somewhere, until things quiet down or I get them out somehow."

"One or two tonight, you say. The danger's great, I'm sure ye know. It'll be buzzin' like a beehive out there."

"It'll be worse a little later, when the confusion settles and they get organized. Let me trade shirts with someone, to wear while this one dries. Then we'll be on our way."

Ten minutes later, Macurdy was out in the night again, with Melody and a rebel named Verder. Macurdy carried twenty-five feet of slender, knotted rope wrapped around his waist, concealed by a tunic the canny Tossi had bought for the purpose. He carried the grapnel in his hand for lack of a better place. At the first corner, not a hundred feet away, they turned down an alley, moving at an easy jog.

It took a minute for the sound to register on Macurdy, but when it did, he stopped. The night, the town, held a diffuse droning. Melody and Verder were listening, too.

"What is it?" Verder asked.

"People," Melody said in a hushed voice. "People off south."

Then it struck Macurdy. He knew as if he'd been there and heard it happen! Striding to a shutter, he banged on it with the grapnel, shouting: "Have you heard?! The guards were killed in the square, and the prisoners cut free!"

Melody and the rebel stared shocked. "Macurdy!" she hissed. "What-"

"The people you hear," he answered. "They know! It must have been Jeremid. He must have run through the streets yelling what happened, and people are coming out. They don't like their rulers here; that's why there's a curfew. And if enough people come out, it'll keep the street patrols tied up." He turned and trotted off, still shouting, pausing now and then to bang on shutters. Melody and the rebel trotted after him, both of them shouting too. Voices answered from indoors, some questioning, some angry. When the alley opened onto a street, they turned east on it and trotted three more blocks shouting, before they saw five youths run into the street ahead of them from an alley. They were shouting too.

"The guards in the square are killed!" Macurdy yelled again. "The prisoners are freed!" Just ahead was a broken fence enclosing a weedy garden, and abruptly he stopped to yank staves loose from it. The youths watched, uncertain but alert. Melody realized at once what he was up to, and began piling the staves in the middle of the street. Verder helped, and now the youths, catching on, kicked and shoved on the supports of a rickety porch till the roof fell. Macurdy ignited the pile of fence staves, then ran on. They'd gone hardly more than a block before they heard shouts of "Fire! Fire!" behind them.

He shouted no more, nor stopped again till panting, they reached the perimeter street. The half moon was low in the west, but by its pale light, Macurdy could make out guards in and by the watch shelters. The sound of people was growing. To the guards it must seem dangerous, threatening.

"Let's go for it," Macurdy said. "If they see us, they still might stay where they are. If necessary, we'll run across the street again."

"What about the others?" Verder asked.

"I'll lower you two from the wall and go back for them. Melody knows where to take you."

The perimeter street was bare dirt, very wide by Rude Lands standards, about forty feet, but in dense moon shadow all the way to the palisade. Macurdy had opened his tunic while he'd talked, and unwound the rope. Now he dashed across, twirling the grapnel, and flung it up to the archery walk midway between watch shelters. It caught, and he started climbing, wishing the rope was thicker and gave a better grip. Thank God for the knots, he thought. After a moment's pause to look, he pulled himself onto the walk. There was a tug at the rope, and he hauled the rebel up, then repeated the performance with Melody. Still no one seemed to notice them. In another minute he'd lowered first Melody, then Verder down the outside.

Only then did he turn and look over the town. He wasn't the only one who'd set fires, and some hadn't taken care to light them in the middle of the street; south of the square, part of the town was burning. He rehooked the grapnel on the planking and lowered himself to the street, then with a few flips of the rope, dislodged it.

For a moment he considered leaving it there, finding it again when he came back. But afraid of losing it, he wrapped it around himself again, buttoned his tunic, and ran back up the street. It was starting to fill with people, and more porches were burning.

When he arrived at the dwarves' apartment, Jeremid was there, grinning excitedly. In a hurried conference, it was decided the dwarves should leave too. Their ponies were lodged at a stable on the main street, near the north gate, and it seemed likely that considering the fires, the gate guards would let them out. They were dwarves, after all, and had a letter of retainer from the reeve.

They'd take Jeremid with them, posing as their servant, to help them handle their personal gear. The smithing gear they'd leave behind. They'd gotten it on credit anyway, using the reeve's letter of authorization

Macurdy left with the five remaining rebels, taking alleys to bypass fires, and in minutes they'd reached the stockade. It was burning too, though not vigorously; the guards had abandoned their posts, and fires had been lit in some of the watch shelters. Moments later, Macurdy and his five charges were on the outside. Leaving the rope and grapnel hanging, he led his rebels north past the town.

23: The Rebel Commander