Dare - rtf Read online

  Those who knew him were prepared and jumped on him, held him down, and poured water on him until he sobered up. Several tunes, however, they'd been forced to knock him on the head or punch the wind out of his baggy stomach. He bore two close and parallel dark lines on his high forehead, scars given by friends who'd swung their pacifying steins a little too hard.

  No matter. Next day, he didn't remember what he'd done. He greeted the ones he'd attacked as if nothing had happened.

  As Jack sat down, he saw that Manto Chuckswilly was the only man standing. And seated next to him were two soldiers from the fort: Sergeant Amen and Captain Gomes.

  The iron-sniffer said, "Jack Cage, this is a rather informal meeting. There will be no candles lit, no masks worn, no mighty oaths sworn."

  His lips curved ironically.

  "So you may act as you wish, not as a young initiate who should be properly respectful and awed toward his elders."

  Several of the older men looked blankly at him.

  "Ed Wang has told us how he was attacked by Wuv and how he was forced to kill him. He also told us how you discovered him shortly after. Will you please describe, in your own words, what hap­pened?"

  Jack spoke slowly and distinctly. When he was through, he looked at Ed. His cousin's face had the same expression as when Jack had caught him above the corpse.

  "So then," said Chuckswilly, "the satyr had three wounds in his back. Master Wang, you didn't men­tion that."

  Ed jumped up and said, "I stabbed him when he turned to run away. Like all horstels, he was a coward. He knew I was overpowering him, and he knew I was going to kill him."

  "Hmmm. Jack, how large was Wuv?"

  "Six feet two. Weighed about sixteen stone.''

  Chuckswilly ran his gaze up and down Ed's short figure. He said, "I hate the Wiyr, but I do not allow myself to be blinded by realities. I've never seen a cowardly satyr. Nor have I ever heard of an authentic case of one attacking a man. Unprovoked, that is."

  Ed's face twisted and became pale.

  "Sir, are you calling me a liar? Those are dueling words, sir."

  "Sir," replied the dark man, "sit down. When I want you to stand, I'll ask you.

  "Meanwhile, let me remind you gentlemen of something. The HK is no play society. We are in this for blood. We have chosen you, the cream of this county, as the nucleus of the local chapter.

  "Mark, I said chosen, not invited. I need not say what will happen to any who refuse to join. We are taking no chances. And we are, despite our seeming informality, a military organization. I am your general; you will unquestioningly obey my orders. Otherwise, you will suffer due punishment.

  "Now --" He stopped, frowned, and then growled at Ed.

  "Sit down, sir!"

  Ed's neck was trembling so much his head shook. "And if I don't?" he grated.

  Chuckswilly nodded at Sergeant Amen. The soldier, a huge man, brought his hand up from under the table. It held a knobheaded stick. The knob struck Ed in the mouth. He fell back, knocking his chair over, and lay on the floor. Blood ran from mangled lips; after a minute, he rose and spat out three teeth. Tears flowed from half-shut eyes while he pressed a handkerchief against his mouth.

  "Now sit down, Master Wang. Please remember that in the future there will be no killings unless I give the word. And don't worry or chafe because you are getting no immediate action. The day will come when you'll wade in blood."

  His swarthy, big-nosed face swung toward the others, and he said, "If there should be one who does not agree with me, he may report me to the authorities. Sheriff Glane and Captain Gomes are at your disposal. You will not even have to leave the room to denounce me."

  Uneasy laughter ran around the room. Merrimoth stood up and pointed a stein at the prospector.

  "Mister Chuckswilly, you're a man after my own heart. Hardheaded, hardfisted, and with your feet on the ground. You know when to strike and when not to. A health to you, And to the HK."

  Chuckswilly picked up a stein and said, "To us, sir."

  He drank. The others rose and drank. They did not sound very loud, however, as they echoed his words.

  "Now, Ed, would you care to join in the toast?" said the dark man. "There should be no hard feelings -- you're well off. When I was organizing at Old City, I had to kill a man because he insisted on settling a personal grudge with a satyr. The fool couldn't see that the long view is the best."

  Ed removed the kerchief. Slowly he lifted a stein and dipped it to his leader. In a voice mangled as his mouth, he said, "To the damnation of all horstels, sir."

  Chuckswilly said, "That's a good boy, Wang. One of these days you'll be thanking me for having knocked some sense into your head. And now, if you please, perhaps you'd like to tell us what you told me before the meeting?''

  Ed's voice shook as he began, but as he progressed, it regained some of its old ring.

  "It's this. Mr. Mowrey's son Josh knows how I feel -- felt -- about Polly O'Brien. Yesterday he came to me and said that the night she ran away, he was walking home from the Cospito farm. He'd been bundling with Sally Cospito and it was very late, about four in the morning. The moon was still up; he was hurrying because he was nervous about werewolves. They've been seen recently, you know.

  "He was just about to turn in at his father's farm, when he heard a carriage rumbling over the bridge at Squamous Creek. Curious as to who'd be up and driving at that hour, he stepped behind a bush. And he was glad he did, because a masked man was driving and a hooded woman was beside him. And in the back seat were two satyrs. He couldn't tell, of course, who the humans were. But one of the horstels was Wuv. He's sure of that.

  "Josh also said that though he couldn't see the girl's face too well under that hood, he'd swear she was O'Brien. I think it's obvious she took sanctuary in the cadmus on the Cage farm. And I think that --"

  "It's time for you to sit down," cut in Chuckswilly. "Mr. Cage, from the way you've been puffing away on your pipe, you must have something to say."

  Walt rose and said horsely, "I knew nothing at all about her being on my farm. Believe me --"

  "Nobody suspects you," said Chuckswilly. "She could have been on anybody's property. As a matter of fact, knowing the cadmen, I'm surprised they didn't hide her on the Wang farm. But your place, Walt, is the most logical as it's the closest one to the mountains."

  Ed rose again. "If that's true, Polly will be taken away some dark night into the Thrruk! Don't you think before that happens we should raid the cadmuses and drag Polly out and burn her for a witch? That'd show the horstels they can't get away with just anything they want to, and it'd show the humans that there's hope for them, that there's a group that's willing to do anything to carry out justice!

  "Why, we could mask ourselves and go armed with bombs and burning oil. Catch them asleep, slaughter them, burn out the cadmuses. And destroy their goods, too, their crops and trees and wine and meat --"

  "Sit down!" thundered Chuckswilly.

  Jack's father heaved his bulk up and began pounding on the table. "Mr. Chuckswilly! I protest! If we were to follow Wang's plan, it would mean much more than the massacre of my horstels. It would mean my ruination! My farm would be destroyed; I'd be a poor man! How would the at­tackers be able to distinguish between the cadmen's property and mine? Not only that, but --"

  "Please sit down, Mr. Cage."

  Walt hesitated, then he lowered himself. He breathed so heavily his face was red, and he pulled hard at the roots of his beard.

  "You are correct," said Chuckswilly. "Your ruination as property owners may be one of the results of HK-Day and a minor one at that.

  "No -- quiet, please," he said as a babble broke out. "Allow me to explain."

  He turned to the wall behind him and pulled down a large map of Avalon. He used his dagger as a pointer.

  "Each one of these crosses indicates a group of cadmuses. The circles mark the centers of human population. Where there are large towns or cities, there are few cadmuses. Humans now out
number the horstels twelve to ten.

  "But in the rural areas, the horstels outnumber us. That means that on HK-Day, if things are left the way they are, they'll have the upper hand in areas such as Slashlark.

  "We don't intend to leave it that way. On The Day, simultaneously with night attacks of our Society on each cadmus, mobs of city people, in­flamed by speeches, free liquor, and promises of loot, will pour out of the urban areas and into the rural. They'll be armed, we'll see to that. They'll be in a killing frenzy.

  "Once the battle is launched, the Government will be impelled to back up the citizens. Especially since many officials are HK members. And the Queen, I'm sure, is looking for just such an action to break the cadmen contracts and order the Army to attack.

  "The HK is international. We've allied ourselves with heretics so we humans may act as one. Once the horstels are wiped out, we'll take care of the heretic problem.

  "Now, Master Wang, you wanted action at once. You'll get it. We've planned a raid, but not on cad­muses. It'll be on an Army wagon train coming by the Black Cliff road to the fort here. The wagons will hold the new Hardglass flintlock barrels, bullets, bombs, and a glass cannon, which will be very handy to blast open the hard shells of the cadmuses.

  "Also, there is a wagonful of flame projectors. These shoot a chemical that, if poured down en­trances, will either burn or strangle all life un­derground."

  Jack thought. If the Government was not secretly preparing for war and if it was opposed to the HK, why was it shipping weapons that seemed specifically designed for a cadmus siege?

  The answer was obvious.

  "-- meet at ten that night at the Merrimoth warehouse and decide on the details of the raid. The raiders are going to have to do something that will go against their grain. They'll have to disguise them­selves as satyrs. That is so the Queen may have an op­portunity to blame the horstels."

  He chuckled, and he was dutifully echoed.

  "Now, Mr. Cage, the point that bothered you. You fear the HK will get out of hand and destroy or loot everything in sight. You are half right. The city mobs will do just that. You see, you gentlemen live far from the cosmopolitan areas. You don't realize how destitute, how hungry, how desperate the poor are. Penned in their drafty and dirty firetraps, run over with noisy hungry brats, resentful, they hate the wealthy human as much as they do the cadmen. More, really, because they blame the aristocracy and the rich for their situation and they have scarcely any dealings with the horstels.

  "So, the day that they spill out of the cities, they won't be satisfied with just slaying the Wiyr and robbing them. Tasting blood, uplifted by the lack of restraint, they'll seize the chances given by the inevitable chaos and turn on those who have what they've never had.

  "Now, now" -- he held up his hand to still their protests -- "the HK was set up for more than one reason. Our primary goal, of course, was to organize and launch the attack. But almost as strong was the desire to hold down the mob, to preserve law and or­der. In short, to protect ourselves against an an­tagonist almost as dangerous as the cadmen -- the manpack.

  "Consequently, only half the Army will be used in the cadmus attacks. The other half will be held in reserve to act as a police force to get the crowds back into the cities once they've done their work. So, gen­tlemen, please don't be surprised at anything that happens on HK-Day. There'll be lives lost, perhaps some of yours. Houses and barns will be burned, crops trampled. Mean beasts will be cooked on the spot by the hungry and frenzied poor. Fortify your houses, lock up your stock.

  "But do not look so dismayed. After all, it's worth it to rid yourselves once and for all of the soulless beasts of the field. Victory is worth nothing if easily won.

  "Now, any questions?"

  Again Jack's father stood up. He leaned on rigid arms; his fists pressed into the tabletop. Sweat ran down his cheeks and into his beard, and his voice was strained.

  "This consequence was unseen by all of us. Especially one point. If I understand you correctly, every horstel will be killed. That isn't what I thought would take place. I thought enough would be slain to show them who their masters were. And then the sur­vivors would keep on working the fields, but as our slaves. So there'd be none of this nonsense about sharing the fruits of labor with them."

  "Not at all!" Chuckswilly stabbed with the dagger to emphasize his argument. "There must be no shilly­shallying. Every cadman must be killed. Would you replace one problem by another? If we did as you suggested, we'd still have noplace for the city folk to go. How could we allow them to settle in the country if horstels still lived in the cadmuses? No. Once the Wiyr are gone, the landless will be moved, quietly, orderly, and slowly into the less-inhabited areas. There they will become farmers."

  "But. . . but," choked Walt, "they don't know anything about farming. They'll ruin the soil, the or­chards, the herds. They're ignorant, lazy, dirty, shiftless. We'll never get the co-operation from them that we get from the horstels. Nor will we be sure about dividing the shares at the end of a season. Their word is no good. The result will be that we'll be dragged down to their level. We'll be as poor as they!"

  "Possibly true," said Chuckswilly. "In a way, that is. You gentlemen will not have to give away part of your land, or share it. Your property will remain yours. The immigrants will become hired help, dependent on you. They will be, in a sense, tailless horstels. But not as independent.

  "You'll have trouble, of course, breaking these people in, teaching them to love farming as their predecessors did. They'll make mistakes. Your lands will, for a while, suffer. But, eventually, something like the former production will return."

  "What about the people left in the cities?" asked Mr. Knockonwood. "We've enough trouble now feeding them. Won't they starve during the in­terim?"

  "No more than before. Why? Because you'll have only half the population to feed that you once had.''

  "What? Why?" ran around the room.

  "Why? Think, gentlemen. So far all you've seen is a rosy future -- the cadmen out of the way and all the wealth yours. Not so. Has it occurred to you that the horstel is aware of what's going on? That he'll fight even more fiercely than the human, because he knows it's a war of extermination? That they could have their HK-Day date set, too? Perhaps earlier than ours, so they could overwhelm the rural population and then march on the cities? That HK could mean, just as well, Human Killer?"

  Jack looked at Chuckswilly with increased respect. Brutally cynical though he was, he was also honest, intelligent, and realistic. That was more than you could say for the rest of the men in the room.

  Chuckswilly said, "I'll tell you at once, so the weakhearted may steel themselves, that we expect to lose half our forces."

  "Half?"

  "Yes -- a terrible price. But though I hate to say it, it's a good thing. It'll make more room. It'll be a couple of generations before Avalon begins to get crowded again. It'll also kill the threat of revolution from the cityman, who, as you gentlemen know, has been making the Queen uneasy for some time.

  "No, it'll be a bloody, bitter time. Gentlemen, prepare yourselves."

  Tony brought Jack's lunch. He found his big brother standing in the middle of the field, hanging onto the plow handles and cursing the team.

  "Every time they see a shadow they try to run away. I've been here since dawn, and I've done nothing but baby these brutes.''

  "Gee, Jack, I know," said Tony. "Why don't you eat your lunch now? Maybe you'll feel better afterward."

  "It's not me. It's those beasts. Man, what I'd give for the legendary horse! There, they say, was man's best friend. You could lie down in the shade, and he'd do all the plowing by himself."

  "Why don't you hitch men to the plow? Dad says the first men here did that."

  "Tony, when corn is first planted, it's finicky. It has to be buried deep, very deep. Otherwise the roots don't take hold.

  "Dad says our 'corn' isn't like what they had on Earth. He says that this stuff is a weed that the ho
rstels bred into a plant that could be eaten. But when they did so, they couldn't keep it from being delicate."

  Jack unhitched the team and led them to the creek. He said, "I understand the unicorns we use now are only a dwarf species. Once, there was a big brother the horstels used for plowing. He was smart and easygoing, like a horse."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He was wiped out, like most of the big animals, in a single day. Or so they say. That was the day all the iron on the surface of Dare exploded in one big bang. Boom! And just about killed every living thing there was."

  "Do you believe that?" asked Tony.

  "Well, miners and prospectors have dug up the bones of many animals that aren't living now. And you can see the ruins of big cities, like those near Black Cliff, to show that something catastrophic did level them. So maybe it's true."

  "Gee, that was a thousand years ago, too, so Father Joe says. Jack, do you actually suppose the horstels could fly then?''

  "I don't know. Anyway, I wish that when all that iron went up into the air, it had spared some good plow beasts."

  "Why don't you hitch up a dragon?" said Tony.

  "Sure," said Jack. He chuckled and began to eat his lunch.

  Tony said, "I read about St. Dyonis converting a dragon. He used him to plow up a big stretch of land."

  "Oh, you mean the story about the time he and his disciples fled Farfrom and came here? And the hor­stels agreed he and his descendants could inhabit all the country they could circle in one day with a plow. And he fooled them by hitching up this Christian dragon and circumscribing our present nation."

  "Yes, that's it. Wonderful, wasn't it? I'd like to have seen the look on those horstels' faces."

  "Tony, you shouldn't believe everything you hear. But I'd like to have one of those monsters. I bet they could draw as deep a furrow as you wanted."

  "Jack, did you ever see a dragon?"

  "No."

  "Then, if you never saw one and you should only believe what you see, how do you know there is any such thing?"