Slaves!

  I sat bolt upright, spilling Inini to the grass. By the horns of Pan and the eye of Odin—slaves!

  “Five thousand slaves!”

  “Eh?” Don Miguel came over to pick up the girl. “Thou’rt most unknightly at times, amigo…There, there, my little partridge, all is well, be calm…”

  Olga got it right away. I heard her fist slam the ground. “By Lenin! I think thou’st got it, Trebuen!”

  Five thousand slaves, mostly male, penned up in a wire stockade, not very heavily guarded—swiftly, we settled the plan of action. I showed Inini how to operate the tommy gun; she caught on fast and laughed savagely in the dark. I hoped she wouldn’t shoot the wrong people. Then we mounted and trotted back toward the Nest, changing women passengers this time.

  The moon had now cleared the eastern forests and was flooding the plain. It was a white, cold, unreal light, dripping from the grass, spattering the trees, gleaming off water and Don Miguel’s armor. I swore at it. Damn the moon, anyway! We needed darkness.

  We swung far around the Nest; to approach it from the side of the slave pens. Luckily, there was a lot of orchard there. Trees grew fast in the Oligocene, these were tall ones. Twigs and leaves brushed my face, branches creaked and snapped as Iggy went through them, speckles of light broke the thick shadows. I halted on the edge of the shelter and looked across a hundred feet toward the pens. The castle beyond was black against the high stars, most of its lights turned off again. The hunt for us must have died down in the hour or two we’d been gone.

  The pens were a long double row of wooden barracks, fenced in with charged wire. There was a wooden guard tower, about thirty feet high, on each side, with searchlights and machine-guns on top; but there’d only be a few men on each. Olga slid off the horse—her gun would frighten it too much—but Inini stayed with me, sitting in front and cradling her weapon. Nothing moved. It was all black and white and silence there under the moon. I licked my lips; they felt like sandpaper, and my heart was thumping. Two minutes from now, we might be so much cold meat.

  “Okay, Iggy.” I nudged him with my heels, trying to hold my voice hard. “Let’s go. Giddap!”

  He broke into that lumbering run of his. The shock of his footfalls jarred back into me. Someone yelled, far and faint. The searchlights glared out, grabbing after me. I heard the machine-gun begin stuttering, and crouched low behind Iggy’s neck. He grunted as the slugs hit him. Then he got mad.

  We hit the tower full on, and I nearly pitched out of the saddle. Wood thundered and crashed around me. The machine-gunners screamed and tried to drag their weapon over to the parapet. Iggy heaved against the walls; they buckled, and the lights went out. Then the tower caved in around us. Something hit me, stars exploded, and I hung on in a whirling darkness.

  Iggy was trampling the beams underfoot. Wires snapped, and the juice in them blazed and crackled. One of the guards, still on his feet, tried to run for help. Inini cut him down.

  The gun on the other side of the stockade began hammering. I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Go get ’em, Iggy! Goddam thee, go get that gunner!” He was too busy stamping on the tower we’d just demolished to notice. His breath was hissing as he wrecked it.

  Olga dashed past us on foot, shooting at the other post. She was hard to see in that tricky light. The tracer bullets marked the gun for her. Bullets were sleeting around me now. A few slaves began coming out of the barracks, yelling their panic.

  Iggy finally made up his stupid mind that the slugs still hitting him now and then were from the other tall shape. He turned and ran to do battle. Inini fired ahead of us as we charged. Olga had to jump to get out of the way. Iggy started pulling down the tower.

  Don Miguel was shouting to the slaves as they boiled out of their houses. “Forward, comrades! On to liberty! Kill your oppressors!” They gaped at his sword. God! Wouldn’t they ever catch on?

  Men must be pouring from the Nest now. I kicked and cursed, trying to face my idiotic mount around to meet them. The tower began crumpling. It went down in a slow heave of timbers and splinters. Don Miguel was still haranguing the slaves. Trouble was, about the only ones who knew much Norman French had been here so long the spirit was beaten out of them. The newcomers, who might fight, didn’t know what he was talking of.

  A horn blew from the castle hill. Turning my face from where Iggy stood over the ruins, I saw metal flash in the moonlight. Hoofs rolled their noise through the ground. Cavalry! And if the Duke got his armored vehicles going—

  Olga darted almost under Iggy’s feet, to where the machine-gun lay on its splintered platform. She heaved it back into position and crouched over it. As the horsemen entered the stockade, she cut loose.

  They broke, screaming. Huns and Tartars, mostly, with some mounted Normans and others. Bullets whined from their side, badly aimed in the confusion.

  I heard a slow drawl from down under me. Looking, I saw a tall man in the tattered leavings of a gray uniform. “So that’s the idee,” he called. “Whah, stranger, you should’a said so the fuhst time.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I found time to gasp in English.

  “Captain Jebel Morrison, late o’ the Red Horse Cavalry, Confederate States of America, at yo’ suhvice. The buzzahds grabbed me an’ mah boys when we was on patrol in Tennessee— All right, y’all!” He turned back to the milling, muttering slaves and shouted: “Kill the Yankees!”

  There was a scattering of rebel yells, and some other men came running out toward him. They snatched swords and spears from the riders we’d cut down, let out that blood-freezing screech once more, and trotted toward the entrance of the pen.

  “So ’tis smite the Papists, eh?” roared an English voice. “Truly the hand of the Lord is on us!” And a bull-necked Roundhead darted after the Southerners.

  “Allah akbar!”—”Vive la republique!”—”Ho la, Odin!”—”St. George for merrie England!”—“Ave, Caesar!”— The mob spirit caught them, and the huge dark mass of men surged forth toward the Nest. About half the slaves, the rest were still afraid, and they were unarmed and unprotected—but God, how they hated!

  Don Miguel galloped forth to put himself at their head. I cursed Iggy and beat him on the snout till he turned around and lumbered after them. Inini laughed shrilly and waved her tommy gun in the air. We broke out of the pen and rolled in one swarm against the enemy.

  Somebody reached up to touch my leg. I saw Olga trotting beside me; she’d grabbed one of those Hunnish ponies stampeding around the pen. “I didn’t know thou wert a cowboy!” I yelled at her.

  “Neither did I!” Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight as she laughed back at me. “But I’d better learn fast!” She snubbed in the pony’s neck as it skittered. I suppose her interplanetary flying had trained nerve and muscle—

  It must have been bare minutes from the time we first charged the stockade. Only the castle guard had been ready to fight us. But now as we entered the streets, going down long white lanes of moon between the black forms of houses, I saw the bandits rallying. Shots began to crack again. Men crumpled in our ranks. We had to hit them before they got organized.

  We went over one thin line of Romans with a rush, grabbing up their weapons. Circling the castle hill, we began mounting it on the side of the broken portcullis. Men were streaming from the houses and dashing toward our host. It was a bad light for shooting guns or arrows, but plenty bright enough for a sword.

  Inini and Olga blazed at them as they came up the Street of St. Mark. No one could miss a bunch of men, and both sides were having heavy losses; but individuals, like myself, were hard to hit, I saw the attackers recoil and churn about, waiting for reinforcements. We struggled on up the hill, in the face of gunfire from the castle.

  The bandits behind us were piling up now, into a solid wall of armed men across the street. I lifted my voice and bellowed: “Who wants to overthrow the castle?”

  They hesitated, swaying back and forth. Suddenly a shout rose. “By Tyr! I do!” A couple of men pitched aside as Thorkel the Berserk darted toward us. Inini fired at him. I slapped her gun aside. “Not him, wench!”

  Hoofs clattered on the street. I saw moonlight like water on the lacquered leather breastplates of Belgutai’s Mongol troop. God help us now, I thought, and then the Mongols crashed into the other bandits. Belgutai had always been a good friend of mine.

  Steel hammered on steel as they fought. I knew that a lot of those wolves would switch to our side if they thought we had a fair chance of winning. Hugo had trained them to steal anything that wasn’t welded down, and then stuffed his own home with loot—a mistake, that! But we had to take the castle before we could count on turncoats to help us.

  We were up under the walls now, out of reach of the tower guns, but our numbers were fearfully reduced. The slaves weren’t running forth so fast now, they were beginning to be afraid. I jabbed Iggy with my ax, driving him forward against the gate and its rifle-armed defenders. We hit them like a tornado, and they fled.

  I was hardly in the courtyard before a new bellowing lifted. The tank was coming around the keep. It was a light one, 1918 model, but it could easily stop our whole force. For a minute, my world caved in around me.

  The tank’s machine-guns opened up on Iggy. He’d already been wounded, and this must have hurt. He hissed and charged. I saw what was coming, dropped my ax, and jumped to the ground. Inini followed me. We hit the pavement and rolled over and bounced up again.

  Iggy was crawling on top of the tank, trying to rip steel apart. His blood streamed over the metal, he was dying, but the poor brave brute was too dumb to know it. The tank growled, backing up. Iggy slapped his big stiff tail into the treads. The tank choked to a halt. Its cannon burped at us. The shell exploded against the gateway arch. Iggy stamped a foot down on the barrel and it twisted. Someone opened the turret and threw out a grenade. It burst against Iggy’s throat. He got his taloned forepaws into the turret and began pulling things into chunks. Even a dying dinosaur is no safe playmate.

  There was fighting all around the courtyard. A lot of the men with guns must have been disposed of by now. Those of the slaves who knew how to use firearms were grabbing them out of the hands of bandits who’d been mobbed, and turning them on the Normans. The rest of our boys were seizing axes, spears, swords, and chopping loose. Captain Morrison had somehow—God knows how—managed to hold them more or less together. The Normans and their cohorts charging out of the keep joined forces and hit that little army. It became hand-to-hand, and murder.

  I was only hazily aware of all that. Olga came running up to me as I got on my feet. Her pony must have been shot from under her. “What now?” she cried. “What should we do?”

  “Get to the Rover,” I said. “It’s the only way—they’re better armed than we, they’ll finish us unless—”

  Don Miguel was fighting a mounted knight. He cut him down and clattered over to us as we and Inini ran for the keep. “With ye, my friends,” he cried gaily. I imagine this work was taking a lot of guilt off his conscience. Maybe that was one reason why some of the other bandits, down in the street, had thrown in with us.

  We ran along the hallway. It was empty except for some terrified women. Around a bend of the forbidden corridor was the Rover. I skidded to a halt. Machine-gunners watched over it. “Gimme that!” I snatched the tommy gun from Inini and burst around the corner, firing. The two Mamelukes dropped.

  The door was locked. I took my ax this time, and battered at it. Wood splintered before me. I turned at Olga’s yell and the bark of her gun. A party of Normans, a good dozen of them, was attacking. I saw Duke Hugo’s burly white-haired form in the lead. They must have heard the racket and—

  They were on us before we could use our guns to stop them. A sword whistled above my head as I ducked. I reached up and cut at the hands. As the man fell against me, screaming, I flung him into another chain-mailed figure. They went down with a clash. Two-handed, I bashed in a skull. Hugo had a revolver almost in my belly. I slewed the ax around and knocked it from him with the flat of the weapon. His sword hissed free before I could brain him. It raked me down the side as I dodged. I smashed at his unhelmeted head, but he turned the blow.

  “Haro!” he yelled. Edged metal whined down against my haft. I twisted the ax, forcing his blade aside. My left fist jumped out into his face. He staggered back, and I killed him.

  Don Miguel’s horse was pulled down and slain, but he was laying merrily around him. We cleared a space between us. Then Olga and Inini could use their guns.

  I went back to the door and smashed it in. We broke into the high chamber. The Rover lay there, a tapered hundred-foot cylinder. Inside, I knew it was mostly empty space, with a few simple dials and studs. I’d watched it being operated.

  Don Miguel grabbed my arm as I entered. “We can’t leave our comrades out there, Trebuen!” he gasped. “As soon as the Normans get organized, it will be slaughter.”

  “I know,” I said. “Come on inside, though, all of you.”

  When I turned a certain dial, the Rover moved. There was no sense of it within us, only a glowing light told us we were on our way through time. A thousand years in the future.

  Hugo had never checked his own tomorrows, and wouldn’t let anyone else do it. That was understandable, I guess, especially if you were a medieval man. I couldn’t resist looking out. The chamber was still there, but it was dark and still, thick with dust, and some animal which had made its lair here scrambled away in alarm. The castle was empty. In a million years or so of rain and wind, and finally the glaciers grinding down over it, no trace would be left.

  I drew a shuddering sigh into the stillness. But I knew I was going back. We’d left a lot of friends back there in the mess of the Nest. And besides, I’d always had an idea about the Rover. Those Normans had been too superstitious to try it, but it should work. Don Miguel swore, but agreed. And Olga helped me work out the details. Then we took off.

  The verniers were marked in strange numerals, but you could read them all right, once you’d figured them out. And the Rover was accurate to a second or less. We jumped back to within one second of our departure time.

  The rest of the fight is blurred. I don’t want to remember the next twenty minutes—or twenty-four hours, depending on how you look at it. We stepped out of the machine. We turned and went quickly from the chamber. As we reached its door, the machine appeared again, next to itself, and three dim figures came out. I looked away from my own face. Soon there was a mob of ourselves there.

  We stuck together, running out and firing. Twenty minutes later, each time we finished, we’d dart back to the Rover, jump it into the future, and return within one second and some feet of our last departure point. There were a good three hundred of us, all brought to the same time, approximately. And in a group like that, we had fire power. It was too much for the enemy. Screaming about witchcraft, they finally threw down their weapons and ran. I hate to think about seventy-five of myself acting as targets at the same time, though. It would only have needed one bullet.

  But twenty minutes after the last trip, our messed-up time lines straightened out, and the four of us were all there—victors.

  I stood on the castle walls, looking over the Nest as sunrise climbed into the sky. Places were burning here and there, and bodies were strewn across the ground. The bandits who’d fought with us or surrendered were holed up in a tower, guarding themselves against the slaves who were running wild as they celebrated their freedom. I only allowed firearms to those people I could trust, so now I was king of the Nest.

  Olga came to me where I stood. The damp morning wind ruffled her hair, and her eyes were bright in spite of the weariness in us all. She’d changed her ragged uniform for a Grecian dress, and its white simplicity was beautiful on her.

  We stood side by side for awhile, not speaking. Finally I shook my head. “I don’t feel too happy about this, iceberg,” I said. “In its own way, the Nest was something glorious.”

  “Was?” she asked softly.

  “Sure. We can’t start it up again—at least I can’t, after this night. I’ve seen enough bloodshed for the rest of my life. We’ll have to organize things here, and return everyone to whatever time they pick; not all of them will want to go home, I suppose. I don’t think I will. Life with The Men would be sort of—limited, after this.”

  She nodded. “I can do without my own century too,” she said. “It could be fun to keep on exploring in time for awhile, till I find some era I really want to settle down in.

  I looked at her, and slowly the darkness lifted from me. “Till we do,” I said.

  “We?” She frowned. “Don’t get ideas, Sir Caveman.” Her lips trembled. “Thou and th-th-thy Babylonian wench!”

  “Oh, Inini’s sweet,” I grinned. “Don Miguel was giving her the old line when I saw them last, and she seemed to enjoy it. But she’d be kind of dull for me.”

  “Of all the insufferable, conceited—!”

  “Look,” I said patiently, “thou couldst easily have shot me when I first grabbed for thy gun. But underneath, thou didn’t want to—be honest, now!—so thou missed. And I don’t think thou changed sides a little later because of a sudden attack of conscience, any more than the rest of us, iceberg.” I switched into Americanese, with Elizabethan overtones. “C’mere, youse, and let me clutch thee!”

  She did.

  Fairy Gold

  Women, weather, and wizardry are alike in this, that their beneficences are apt to be as astonishing as their betrayals. —The Aphorisms of Rhoene

  It is an old tale, often told: a young man loved a young woman, and she him, but they quarreled; whereupon he went off in search of desperate adventure while she wept in solitude. However, this time it was not quite so. Arvel stormed down Hammerhead Street toward the Drum and Trumpet, where he intended to get drunk. Lona, after a few angry tears, uttered many curses and then returned to her pottery, where she punished the clay with her fists and pedaled the wheel until it shrieked.