Chapter 5

Hoddan swore from the depths of a very considerable vocabulary.

“You (censored)--(deleted)--(omitted)--(unprintability)”, he roared. “Get back up on your horse or I blast you and leave you for Ghek’s men to handle when they’re able to move about again! Get back on that horse! One--two--”

The man got back on the horse.

“Now go on ahead,” rasped Hoddan. “All of you! I’m going to count you!”

The dozen horsemen from Don Loris’ stronghold rode reluctantly on ahead. He did count them. He rode on, shepherding them before him.

“Ghek,” he told them in a blood-curdling tone, “has a bigger prize than any cash you’ll plunder from one of his shot-down retainers! He’s got the Lady Fani! He won’t stop before he has her behind castle walls! We’ve got to catch up with him! Do you want to try to climb into his castle by your fingernails? You’ll do it if he gets there first!”

The horses moved a little faster. Thal said with surprising humility:

“If we force our horses too much, they’ll be exhausted before we can catch up.”

“Figure it out,” snapped Hoddan. “We have to catch up!”

He settled down to more of the acute discomfort that riding was to him. He did not think again of the ambush. It had happened, and it had failed. Four-fifths of the raiding party that had fought its way into Don Loris’ stronghold and out again, had been waiting for pursuers atop a certain bit of rising ground. They’d known their pursuers must come this way. There were certain passes through the low but rugged hills. One went this way or that, but no other. Their blood already warmed by past fighting, when Hoddan and his dozen seemed to ride right into destruction, they flung themselves into a charge.

But Hoddan had a stun-pistol set for continuous fire. He used it like a hose or a machine gun, painstakingly sweeping it across the night before him, neither too fast nor too slowly. It affected the rushing followers of Lord Ghek exactly as if it had been an oversized meat-chopper. They went down. Only three men remained in their saddles--they’d probably been sheltered by the bodies of men ahead. Hoddan attended to those three with individual, personalized stun-pistol bolts--and immediately had trouble with his men, who wanted to dismount and plunder their fallen enemies.

He wouldn’t even let them collect the horses of the men now out of action. It would cost time, and Ghek wouldn’t be losing any that he could help. With a raging, trembling girl as prisoner, most men would want to get her behind battlements as soon as possible. But Hoddan knew that his party was slowed down by him. Presently he began to feel bitterly sure that Ghek would reach his castle before he was overtaken.

“This place he’s heading for,” he said discouragedly to Thal. “Any chance of our rushing it?”

“Oh, no!” said Thal dolefully. “Ten men could hold it against a thousand!”

“Then can’t we make better time?”

Thal said resignedly:

“Ghek probably had fresh horses waiting, so he could keep on at top speed in his flight. I doubt we will catch him, now.”

“The Lady Fani,” said Hoddan bitterly, “has put me in a fix so if I don’t fight him I’m ruined!”

“Disgraced,” corrected Thal. He said mournfully, “It’s the same thing.”

Gloom descended on the whole party as it filled their leaders. Insensibly, the pace of the horses slackened still more. They had done well. But a horse that can cover fifty miles a day at its own gait, can be exhausted in ten or less, if pushed. By the time Hoddan and his men were within two miles of Ghek’s castle, their mounts were extremely reluctant to move faster than a walk. At a mile, they were kept in motion only by kicks.

The route they followed was specific. There was no choice of routes, here in the hills. They could only follow every twist and turn of the trail, among steep mountain-flanks and minor peaks. But suddenly they came to a clear wide valley, yellow cressets burned at its upper end, no more than half a mile distant. They showed a castle gate, open, with the last of a party of horsemen filing into it. Even as Hoddan swore, the gate closed. Faint shouts of triumph came from inside the castle walls to the completely frustrated pursuers without.

“I’d have bet on this,” said Hoddan miserably. “Stop here, Thal. Pick out a couple of your more hang-dog characters and fix them up with their hands apparently tied behind their backs. We take a breather for five minutes--no more.”

He would not let any man dismount. He shifted himself about on his own saddle, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. He failed. At the end of five minutes he gave orders. There were still shouts occasionally from within Ghek’s castle. They had that unrhythmic frequency which suggested that they were responses to a speech. Ghek was making a fine, dramatic spectacle of his capture of an unwilling bride. He was addressing his retainers and saying that through their fine loyalty, co-operation and willingness to risk all for their chieftain, they now had the Lady Fani to be their chatelaine. He thanked them from the bottom of his heart and they were invited to the official wedding, which would take place sometime tomorrow, most likely.

Before the speech was quite finished, however, Hoddan and his weary following rode up into the patch of light cast by the cressets outside the walls. Thal bellowed to the battlements.

“Prisoners!” he roared, according to instructions from Hoddan. “We caught some prisoners in the ambush! They got fancy news! Tell Lord Ghek he’d better get their story right off! No time to waste! Urgent!”

Hoddan played the part of one prisoner, just in case anybody noticed from above that one man rode as if either entirely unskilled in riding or else injured in a fight.

He heard shoutings, over the walls. He glared at his men and they drooped in their saddles. The gate creaked open and the horsemen from Don Loris’ castle filed inside. They showed no elation, because Hoddan had promised to ram a spear-shaft its full length down the throat of any man who gave away his stratagem ahead of time. The gate closed behind them. Men appeared to take their horses. This could have revealed that the newcomers were strangers, but Ghek would have recruited new and extra retainers for the emergency of tonight. There would be many strange faces in his castle just now.

“Good fight, eh?” bellowed an ancient, long-retired retainer with a wine bottle in his hand.

“Good fight!” agreed Thal.

“Good plunder, eh?” bellowed the ancient above the heads of younger men. “Like the good old days?”

“Better!” boomed Thal.

At just this instant the young Lord Ghek appeared. There were scratches on his cheek, acquired during the ride with Fani across his saddlebow. He looked thrilled by his victory but uneasy about his prize.

“What’s this about prisoners with fancy news?” he demanded. “What is it?”

“Don Loris!” whooped Thal. “Long Live the Lady Fani!”

Hoddan painstakingly opened fire; with the continuous-fire stud of this pistol--his third tonight--pressed down. The merrymakers in the courtyard wavered and went down in windrows. Thal opened fire with a stun-pistol. The others bellowed and began to fling bolts at every living thing they saw.

“To the Lady Fani!” rasped Hoddan, getting off his horse with as many creakings as the castle gate.

His followers now rushed, dismounting where they had to. They fired with reckless abandon. A stun-pistol, which does not kill, imposes few restraints upon its user. If you shoot somebody who doesn’t need to be shot, he may not like it but he isn’t permanently harmed. So the twelve who’d followed Hoddan poured in what would have been a murderous fire if they’d been shooting bullets, but was no worse than devastating as matters stood.

There were screams and flight and utterly hopeless defiances by sword-armed and spear-armed men. In instants Hoddan went limping into the castle with Thal by his side, searching for Fani. Ghek had not fallen at the first fire. He vanished, and the castle was plainly fallen and he made no attempt to lead resistance against its invaders. Hoddan’s men went raging happily through corridors and halls as they came to them. They used their stun-pistols with zest and at such close quarters with considerable effect. Hoddan heard Fani scream angrily and he and Thal went swiftly to see. They came upon the young Lord Ghek trying to let Fani down out of a window on a rope. He undoubtedly intended to follow her and complete his abduction on the run. But Fani bit him, and Hoddan said vexedly:

“Look here! It seems that I’m disgraced if I don’t fight you somehow--”

The young Lord Ghek rushed him, sword out, eyes blazing in a fine frenzy of despair. Hoddan brought him down with a buzz of the stun-gun.

One of Hoddan’s followers came hunting for him.

“Sir,” he sputtered, “we got the garrison cornered in their quarters, and we’ve been picking them off through the windows, and they think they’re dropping dead and want to surrender. Shall we let ‘em?”

“By all means,” Hoddan said irritably. “And Thal, go get something heavier than a nightgown for the Lady Fani to wear, and then do what plundering is practical. But I want to be out of here in half an hour. Understand?”

“I’ll attend to the costume,” said the Lady Fani vengefully. “You cut his throat while I’m getting dressed.”

She nodded at the unconscious Lord Ghek on the pavement. She disappeared through a door nearby. Hoddan could guess that Ghek would have prepared something elaborate in the way of a trousseau for the bride he was to carry screaming from her home. Somehow it was the sort of thing a Darthian would do. Now Fani would enjoyably attire herself in the best of it while--

“Thal,” said Hoddan, “help me get this character into a closet somewhere. He’s not to be killed. I don’t like him, but at this moment I don’t like anybody very much, and I won’t play favorites.”

Thal dragged the insensible young nobleman into the next room. Hoddan locked the door and pocketed the key as Fani came into view again. She was splendidly attired, now, in brocade and jewels. Ghek had evidently hoped to placate her after marriage by things of that sort and had spent lavishly for them.

Now, throughout the castle there were many and diverse noises. Sometimes--not often--there was still the crackling hum of a stun-pistol. There were many more exuberant shoutings. They apparently had to do with loot. There were some squealings in female voices, but many more gigglings.

“I need not say,” said the Lady Fani with dignity, “that I thank you very much. But I do say so.”

“You’re quite welcome,” said Hoddan politely.

“And what are you going to do now?”

“I imagine,” said Hoddan, “that we’ll go down into the courtyard where our horses are. I gave my men half an hour to loot in. During that half hour I shall sit down on something which will, I hope, remain perfectly still. And I may,” he added morbidly, “eat an apple. I’ve had nothing to eat since I landed on Darth. People don’t want to commit themselves to not cutting my throat. But after half an hour we’ll leave.”

The Lady Fani looked sympathetic.

“But the castle’s surrendered to you,” she protested. “You hold it! Aren’t you going to try to keep it?”

“There are a good many unpleasant characters out yonder,” said Hoddan, waving his hand at the great outdoors, “who’ve reason to dislike me very much. They’ll be anxious to express their emotions, when they feel up to it. I want to dodge them. And presently the people in this castle will realize that even stun-pistols can’t keep on shooting indefinitely here. I don’t want to be around when it occurs to them.”

He offered his arm with a reasonably grand air and went limping with her down to the courtyard just inside the gate. Two of Don Loris’ retainers staggered into view as they arrived, piling up plunder which ranged from a quarter keg of wine to a mass of frothy stuff which must be female garments. They went away and other men arrived loaded down with their own accumulations of loot. Some of the local inhabitants looked on with uneasy indignation.

Hoddan found a bench and sat down. He conspicuously displayed one of the weapons which had captured the castle. Ghek’s defeated retainers looked at him darkly.

“Bring me something to eat,” commanded Hoddan. “Then if you bring fresh horses for my men, and one extra for each to carry his plunder on, I’ll take them away. I’ll even throw in the Lord Ghek, who is now unharmed but with his life in the balance. Otherwise--”

He moved the pistol suggestively. The normal inhabitants of Ghek’s castle moved away, discussing the situation in subdued voices.

The Lady Fani sat down proudly on the bench beside him.

“You are wonderful!” she said with conviction.

“I used to cherish that illusion myself,” said Hoddan.

“But nobody before in all Darthian history has ever fought twenty men, and then thirty men, and destroyed an ambush, and captured a castle, all in one day!”

“And without a meal,” said Hoddan darkly, “and with a lot of blisters!”

He considered. Somebody came running with bread and cheese and wine. He bit into the bread and cheese. After a moment he said, his mouth full:

“I once saw a man perform the unparalleled feat of jumping over nine barrels placed in a row. It had never been done before. But I didn’t envy him. I never wanted to jump over nine barrels in a row! In the same way, I never especially wanted to fight other men or break up ambushes or capture castles. I want to do what I want to do, not what other people happen to admire.”

“Then what do you want to do?” she asked admiringly.

“I’m not sure now,” said Hoddan gloomily. He took a fresh bite. “But a little while ago I wanted to do some interesting and useful things in electronics, and get reasonably rich, and marry a delightful girl, and become a prominent citizen on Walden. I think I’ll settle for another planet, now.”

“My father will make you rich,” said the girl proudly. “You saved me from being married to Ghek!”

Hoddan shook his head.

“I’ve got my doubts,” he said. “He had a scheme to import a lot of stun-pistols and arm his retainers with them. Then he meant to rush the spaceport and have me set up a broadcast-power unit that’d keep them charged all the time. Then he’d sit back and enjoy life. Holding the spaceport, nobody else could get stun-weapons, and nobody could resist his retainers who had ‘em. So he’d be top man on Darth. He’d have exactly as much power as he chose to seize. I think he cherished that little idea, --and I’ve given advance publicity to stun-pistols. Now he hasn’t a ghost of a chance of pulling it off. I’m afraid he’ll be displeased with me.”