“So—” Narth leered like villains are supposed to leer “—we meet again, Commandant O’Neill.”
Trussed up like a sack of praties with a dozen hordi spears pointed at his gut, Seamus O’Neill was not inclined to wit.
“The next time I’ll make sure you’re dead.”
Narth’s enormous stomach rolled as he laughed. “You amuse me, Taran. I might just keep you alive long enough to watch the destruction of the City. It would be pleasant to watch you as my warriors dispatch—slowly and lovingly, of course—your friends, particularly that delightful woman you seem to have taken for your own.”
Standard bad-guy threats. But how does the hero—me, that is—escape?
The dinosaur had fled terrified into the jungle. Seamus unfortunately had banged his head at the end of his spectacular flight from the hovercraft to the ground.
When he regained consciousness, he set to work straightening the metal sheets on which the machine rode. It was hot, difficult work which tore at his hands and wearied his arms. Finally, just as he was about to test the machine to see if it would work, the hordi pounced on him, their clawing hands like a hundred little bugs. They dragged him to the ground and sat on him while they tied him up, clicking and grunting triumphantly. Then they hauled him off, bruised and bleeding and deprived of all his dignity, to Narth’s encampment in a jungleside meadow that was dangerously close to the Dev’s landing site.
Had they found his ship and destroyed it and the precious medicine?
As he considered the camp and the thousands of well-disciplined troops in crimson uniforms with vast crimson banners, O’Neill realized that the question might be pointless. This army might not be stopped by dubious and ancient laser cannons. Certainly there was nothing he had seen in the City that could match the organization and efficiency of Narth’s forces.
“Impressed, O’Neill?”
“No combat experience,” he said hopefully. “They’d break and run at the first sign of competent opposition.”
“Which we don’t have here. I know. I organized the defense plans. They are folly, but it is all those senile fools would permit. As for the guns, they might just as well explode and destroy the City as harm my troops.”
“You’d better hope they do. Otherwise this crowd will scramble back to the hills as fast as they can run.”
“Care to wager?” he sneered.
Ah, he is not all that confident. But neither am I. The man is a genius to have pulled all of this together. If he weren’t mostly round the bend altogether, he might be unbeatable.
But that doesn’t get the hero out of the hands of the villain, does it?
Much more dangerous than Narth was his second-in-command, Popilo, Narth’s rumored successor. A tall, thin, mystical-eyed fellow with a lean fanatic’s face, Popilo was the ascetic Merlin to Narth’s frothing King Arthur. He might not be a genius at organizing this weird assembly of mutants, savages, and exiles, but he would be ruthless in using it to destroy everyone he hated, which seemed to be just about everyone.
“Kill him now,” he said coldly. “His talk is dangerous.”
If it were up to Popilo, Seamus O’Neill would have been fed to the eager hordi on arrival.
“Let us first see about the Iona. We can listen to it, but we cannot speak to it. Moreover, I do not understand this strange Spacegael you talk, with its strong mixture of Proto-English. It may be that we can make some arrangement with your masters, Major O’Neill.”
“Might it now?”
“Bring him to the tent,” Narth barked at the two one-eyed, three-armed giants who were in charge of fending off the hungry hordi.
O’Neill was dragged to the tent. Inside was a very ancient transceiver system, powered by a liquid-fuel generator. A tank of fuel rested against the generator. Twenty-second-century communication equipment in a world where solar batteries had not been invented.
“An old bugger.” O’Neill saw, very dimly through a dark cave, the way out.
“Can you make it send as well as receive? Or do not Majors in the Wild Geese have such skills?”
“Of course we do,” Seamus lied. “But ‘tis a real old machine. I’ll have to tinker with it.”
“You think we will release you and then you can fight your way out of here?” Narth’s big belly rolled merrily.
“What chance would I have? You want this fixed, or don’t you?”
Narth produced an old machine pistol, an Uzi Mark XXI, Seamus guessed, from underneath his cloak. “Untie him. A single false move and I’ll empty this into your gut. Fair warning?”
“Fair warning.”
You’ll have to release the safety before you do that, but I don’t think I’ll point that out just now.
They poured some of the liquid into the generator and cranked it up. Seamus, rubbing his hands to restore a bit of circulation, listened to the sound croaking out of the speaker—mostly static and an occasional word or two of Spacegael. Why hadn’t the idjits up there picked up this unit? Too weak to be noticed?
“’Tis a powerful old machine,” he murmured.
“I think you will make it work.” Narth raised his weapon warningly.
“Give me a bit of time,” he pleaded, running his numb fingers over the machine. “’Tis terrible old altogether.”
Now, let’s see, if you bring this red lead and this black lead together and hold them long enough there’ll be a spark, maybe a big one. Then if you throw the sparking wires into that open tank of fuel, you’ll create a frigging explosion that they’ll remember for a long time around here. The hordi may have to eat you toasted.
“I think we have it here, let me see, if you tie these two lines together.” He braced himself for the current of electricity. Roast Wild Goose.
Nothing happened.
He wound the wires together. “What’s the matter with you idjits?” he demanded. “Why don’t you have the current in these wires?”
“What current?” Popilo demanded. “Kill him, Lord Narth, he is a trickster.”
The man’s eyes shone brightly, his face glowed like he’d just enjoyed sex. He’s even more off the wall than his boss. Great pair. The Lord made them and the divil matched them.
Carefully Seamus laid down the twisted wires only a few inches from the open fuel tank. I was lucky the switch wasn’t on. Now if I can find it and then jump …
“Ah, here’s the frigging switch; you have a lot to learn about such things, Lord Narth.”
He took a deep breath, flicked the switch and jumped out of the way, ducking under Narth’s gun and ramming his head toward Narth’s belly. He was assisted in the last foot of this charge by the explosion behind him.
The tent blossomed like a Yule fire at Christmas. The hordi clicked wildly, the Zylongi screamed, the mutants rumbled. Seamus O’Neill roared like a squad of Wild Geese, removed his head from Narth’s great, soft belly, picked up the machine pistol, and ducked out of a flaming hole in the tent.
He banged an Imperial Guard on the head with the butt of his gun, yanked off the man’s crimson cloak, swirled it around his shoulders, jumped on a horse, and galloped through the camp.
A squad of Narthian guards tried to stop him. Seamus raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. It would not fire.
Like Narth he had forgot the safety. His horse tumbled into the crowd of soldiers. They jabbed at him with their lances, missing by a hair’s breadth. Finally he managed to free the safety and blasted away. The guards fled in all directions, and Seamus thundered out of the camp, screaming like an infuriated banshee.
Beat them this time.
What will we do when they show up at the gates of the City and we try to fight them off with sticks?