"Earl, what can we do?"
"You have little choice. It's too late to send for arms and hire mercenaries to use them. Too late to train your retainers. The Sungari, perhaps, but gaining their cooperation will take time and you have no time."
"So?"
Dumarest said, "Once, on a far world, I heard a story. It could be true. There was a man who sat at the head of a great House. Those under him were ambitious and friends came to warn him of danger. He said nothing but stepped into his garden. In it were flowers, some taller than others. Still remaining silent he slashed the head off the tallest bloom with his cane. Those with him knew exactly what he meant and what to do."
"Kill," said Roland. "Gydapen?"
"Gydapen." Dumarest finished his wine. "Before he learns that we're still alive."
This time they approached from the south, riding low, skimming over the hills, hugging the valleys, invisible to men and machines which searched the upper sky. Three rafts, each with a driver, hand-picked young men who could shoot and were eager for adventure. More rode with them; five in Roland's vehicle, four with Lavinia, four with Dumarest. Numbers only, shapes to be seen against the skyline, weight which would provide a distraction.
Only half of them were armed with weapons culled from the trophy room of the castle; rifles used for sport, not war, crossbows which could fire a bolt as lethal as a bullet if aimed true, a clutter of knives and ornate spears.
Pathetic things to set against machine rifles, but those rifles could change hands.
And the plan was simple.
Roland to break shortly and gain height. To lift and ride high as he headed directly towards the camp. There he would land and make a noise, demanding to see Gydapen, asking questions, worried about Lavinia and her continued absence. The men with him, even though crudely armed, would be a problem and would need to be handled with caution unless Gydapen was ready to make his move.
Lavinia would come in from the direction of the firing range, dropping as close to a small party of armed men as she could, using her authority to demand a momentary obedience, a chance to overpower them, disarm them, to move in with the captured weapons.
Dumarest would work alone.
He touched the driver on the shoulder as they neared a ridge. Beyond lay a slope, a stretch of rugged ground and then the arid waste. To cross it on foot would take too long but the chances of the raft remaining unobserved were small.
"Steady," he warned. "Don't veer. Just keep drifting lower as if you were riding a descending wind and were too busy talking to notice it. You two get ready to jump with me."
They nodded, eyes anxious, fighting the temptation to look over the side.
Dumarest looked at the sky. The suns were close and edging closer. Soon now they would merge and delusia begin. With luck those on watch would be talking to the departed. They would discount distant figures, could even mistake the raft for a piece of the delusion. Small gains, but every one mattered as they couldn't attack at night.
And, this time, there would be no attempt to bluff.
"Ready!" Dumarest looked down, judging time and distance. Ahead and below ran a shallow crevice which reached almost to the edge of the waste ground. Boulders strewed the ground between its end and the area of the huts. "The crevice! Get into it!"
The driver was skilled. Expertly he dropped the raft until it moved slowly over the bottom of the crevice.
"Now!" Dumarest touched the others on their shoulders. "Drop!"
He was over the side before they had moved, not waiting to see if they would obey. He hit, rolling, coming to a halt beside a stunted shrub. The others fell more heavily, one crying out at the snap of bone.
"My leg!"
It was a clean break and Dumarest bound it, setting the limb and using the haft of a spear as a splint. The raft had gone, turning, rising, veering as it lifted to head well to one side. There it would drop again, to lift, to move on and repeat the maneuver. Apparently sowing a line of men in an arc about the camp, finally to come to rest with those remaining ready to do their share.
"Sir?" The injured man looked at Dumarest. "I'm sorry."
"You couldn't help it."
"My foot turned on a stone. I should have been more careful."
An obvious fact but one useless to emphasize. To the other Dumarest said, "Stay with him. Try and get up to the edge of the crevice and, when you hear firing, begin to shoot. Aim high. I want noise not casualties but if anyone attacks you then get them first."
"Yes, sir. I-"
The man broke off, his face turning blank. Then, as Dumarest watched, his lips began to move and he smiled and nodded to empty air. Delusia. To him someone would be standing there, talking and smiling in turn.
Cradling his rifle Dumarest ran down the crevice. Before him a shrub blurred and became a tall, regal figure with glinting, golden hair. It vanished as he shook his head, conscious of the dull ache at the base of his skull, the pressure. It grew into a sudden burst of pain which sent him, sweating, to his knees and then, abruptly, was gone.
The wall of the crevice was loose, dirt and stone falling beneath hands and feet as he scrabbled his way up to the edge. The area beyond was deserted, Roland's raft slanting in to land, the men aboard leaning over the rail, displaying their weapons.
Dumarest began to run.
If the camp was properly guarded he would be seen and, if Gydapen had given the correct orders, met by a hail of bullets. But as yet the retainers were strangers to war, unblooded and reluctant to kill. Gydapen himself lacked experience and was, perhaps, over-confident. Gnais, the one man who would have known what to do, was dead.
Dumarest ran on.
The raft was low now and he could hear the thin sound of distant voices. The huts loomed ahead, the latrine closer then the rest. He reached it as the cookhouse door began to swing wide, flinging himself down, rolling to hide behind a loose hanging set to give protection against the wind.
He heard the sound of footsteps, the splash of running water, a grunt as someone set down the container he had just emptied into the trench.
"A hell of a job," he muttered. "Feldaye, you're lucky to be out of it. I know you warned me but what could I do? The Lord Gydapen Prabang ordered and what he wants he gets. You know that Martha got married to young Engep? Well, you can argue about that when you see her."
The muttering faded, a man talking to another who existed only in his memory. Rising Dumarest edged forward towards the cookhouse, threw the rifle on its roof and, taking a flying jump, followed it.
He landed like a cat, snatched up the weapon and moved down towards the end used as a storeroom. Lying flat he looked over the ridge of the roof.
Roland was still arguing, his arms gesticulating, those with him scowling at the others standing around. Dumarest looked at the sky, the suns were moving apart, the discs well separated and delusia, now already weak, would soon be over.
He looked back at the gathering. Gydapen was nowhere to be seen.
From the crowd a man said, loudly, "She is not here. You must leave."
"Not without the Lady Lavinia Del Belamosk!"
"You will leave." The man lifted his machine rifle. Already he was aware of the power it gave, the obedience it commanded. Soon it would come to dominate his life-if he lived that long.
Dumarest fired as the weapon leveled on Roland's slight figure.
He fired again as the man fell, finding another target, a third. The rifle he held was a sporting gun, well-balanced, the magazine holding fifteen cartridges, the universal sight throwing a point of red against the impact-point of the bullet.
Three down-why hadn't Roland seized their guns?
The raft lifted as machine rifle fire sent bullets to chew at the side and rear. Within the vehicle a man screamed, rearing, blood jetting from torn arteries. For a moment he hung as if painted against the sky then, as the force of his spring yielded to the pull of gravity, he toppled, to fall over the side, to land with a wet thud on the stoney ground.