It was hard to think. In fact, his thinking through the whole mission had not been too impressive, as the Cardinal would doubtless remind him for the rest of his life, should there be any of that.
Zylong was no more. Its driving life energy and political structure had been wiped out. Its population was in chaos, thousands dead. The Hooded Ones were not all killed; some must have survived and returned to their underground lairs. Perhaps some more escaped the City itself. They could expect the wild hordi under General Popilo to attack. Soon? Did the wind blow so strongly outside the City? Did the wild hordi avoid the frenzy?
Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to attack before the end of the Festival time. Even if they could not enter the City, the food supplies for next year were stored in dumps at the edge of the City. They could be destroyed easily, meaning famine for those who managed to last through the Festival.
The food supply … maybe that was where his band of rebels belonged. They would be close enough to open ground for the Iona to evacuate them. Deirdre had said nothing about more survivors than he and Marjetta.… Still, for all her bluster, she had great affection for young people. His troops would go to pieces if he kept them here in the dark, damp tunnel much longer.
His thoughts were interrupted.
“Seamus.”
“What now, woman?”
“I have another problem for you. I think the tranquillity pills are losing their effect. I can feel the frenzy returning. You are going to have to give us more pills.”
“The first twenty-four hours are not over yet. There’ll be no pills left after another dose.”
“The wind may die in the morning. It usually does. So we should last through the day. After that … it may not matter by then.” Her teeth were clenched; the words were forced and a little harsh.
“One problem at a time, please.” Seamus thought desperately. He began to dispense the precious drug to his embarrassed followers. They were ashamed of their strange lunacy before the eyes of their Honored Leader.
“Chronos never said anything about freedom from the frenzy,” muttered Yens when he took his pill from Seamus.
“Poor man,” replied O’Neill. “He probably understood it even less than everyone else.”
The decision to evacuate was clinched when Carina stumbled through the darkness, announcing, “Lord O’Neill, there is water coming down the tunnel! Either one of the reservoirs has collapsed or an underground stream has been diverted by the explosions. There are only a few inches so far, but it is coming rapidly!” Already O’Neill felt the water trickling around his feet.
He called his band together. “This command,” he announced with more official confidence than he possessed, “is the only organized group left in the City. Therefore we must assume responsibility for protecting resources that will be absolutely indispensable when rebuilding begins. Horor and Ranon have ingeniously preserved the energy source; now we must redeploy to the City’s edge to guard the food dump just outside the main gate. We will not go hungry, though I do not think unrefined jarndt will be particularly tasty.”
They obligingly laughed at his very thin joke.
Seamus ordered them to stay close together during their march through the City. They would defend themselves against the “populace” only when attacked. With spears and carbines at ready, they would discourage civilian attack. There were not many Hooded Ones left, so he did not mention that if there were any, such a compact marching phalanx would be an easy target for an explosive charge.
They climbed back to the surface of the City with their handlights and marched across the ruins of the Central Quarter, through streets where neither darkness nor disaster had quieted the wild revelry, and finally to the main gate.
Their progress was impeded by repeated scuffles with bands of celebrants; the spears and determined faces of the Young Ones frightened the revelers. Most of the fires were contained within the Central Quarter, but the streets were littered with mutilated bodies, and screams rent the dark night air. Singing, shouting, drinking, and “lovemaking” were going on all around. The grimly determined Young Ones did not falter despite the exhortations of the fellow Zylongi to join them.
Limping painfully beside him, leaning on his arm for support, Marjetta told him, “It has never been this bad, Seamus. It is really the end of everything.”
“And the beginning. Chaos, then cosmos again.”
He wasn’t altogether sure what that meant, but he had heard it in the monastery school, in a class most of which he had slept through, and it sounded nice.
They arrived at the gate after first light and quickly moved out into the sloping meadows that lay in front of the vast pile of jarndt on the riverbank. Only Seamus was detached enough to look back at the City—now completely dark except for the towering fires still blazing in the Central Quarter and silhouetted against the brightening sky.
As they passed the hospital, he saw it was undamaged. Was there a supply of tranquillity pills in the hospital? Maybe later in the day he could lead a patrol back there to explore. Now it was important to set up a defensible position near the jarndt dump and snatch a little sleep. He was so tired.…
Margie woke him. The sun was shining brightly in his face. “Seamus, we have visitors coming,” she said calmly.
A mob was pouring out of the main gate of the City, flaming torches in hand, running toward them. Their screams polluted the clear, cool morning air.
Seamus O’Neill shook the sleep from his eyes. “Why the torches, Margie? It’s daytime.”
“I don’t think they’re coming for us, Seamus. They want the food.”
The advancing mob was many thousand strong. His young people had wanted to save Zylong; it was appropriate enough that they die defending the jarndt, which had been the basis of their civilization. He turned to look at his ragtag band. A sudden movement on the opposite bank caught his eye.
“Narth’s advance guard, no doubt. Well, good luck to you, fella; you’re welcome to whatever is left.”
He ordered his troops into a skirmish line in front of the grain, instructing them not to shoot until he gave the order. A sudden collapse of the leading wave of the mob might panic the others. He noted irrelevantly that it was the beginning of what would be a marvelously beautiful day. The sky was a deep purple, the sun a lovely rose; great white clouds were already marching by in stately ranks, the pile of still-brown jarndt smelled of good rich land. His skirmish line stirred nervously but did not break under the strain of the howling mob’s approach. They would hold, he knew, to the end.
“Look,” said Carina, who was standing with Horor next to Margie. “See who is leading them?”
“Who is he?”
“Farge, the Police Commissioner.”
Farge was a sturdy, handsome, silver-haired man, clad in the robe of the Hooded Ones but with his head bared. The leader of the police was also the leader of the Hooded Ones. A corrupt Zylongi to the end.
The frenzied Zylongi were now quite close. “Ready to fire!” he ordered. Ready to die.
“First shots over their head.”
“I love you, Seamus.”
“Fire!”
The guns of his ragtag crowd sounded like a packet of cheap firecrackers. But they seemed to do the trick. The frenzied Zylongi turned tail and ran screaming back into the City.
“We won!” He hugged Margie fiercely. “I’ll take an anticlimax any day. So long as it’s a victory.”
“I don’t think we’ve won yet,” she pointed toward the River. “Look!”
Narth’s army.