Web of the Witch World - Andre Norton

Down again. But within the bonds of the control Simon was flexing his new sense of power, beginning to test that compulsion as a man might chip away here and there at some confining shell, seeking the weakest point of its surface. By the time they had reached the water level he was ready for his great effort; however, he reserved that until the proper moment

The quays were now empty, the undersea vessels there—four of them—inert, nosed against the dock as if they were now useless. And all the laborers were gone. But Simon’s party, heading on around the water, came to a slit in the rock in which steps had been chiseled and they climbed until the air of night and the open shore blew in on them.

Still Simon marched, and then Loyse and Aldis, the Kolder officer to the rear. That fire which had made a scarlet line across the horizon was gone. Though drifts of smoke still arose to cloud the low-hanging stars. The ground here was rough, a scrap of beach walled with many rocks. And this was their final goal. Simon and Loyse faced about. He could not see the guards, but they were there.

“Now—” The Kolder officer ordered Aldis. “Use the girl!”

Simon heard Loyse cry out in pain and terror. He felt the brush of the mental command against his own mind. But at that moment he also struck. Not for his body freedom, not against Aldis or her master here, but at the metal-capped man they had left behind. All the will which had freed Simon from the room locked into a single dart, thrust at the alien. If he had drawn the right conclusions that was the proper focal point.

There was resistance—he had not expected it to be otherwise. But perhaps the very unexpectedness of that assault carried him past barriers too late alerted. Confused thoughts, then rage, finally fear—fear and a quick counterattack. Only that hampered defense had come too late. Simon hammered home his will. And—his bonds were gone.

But still he stood stiffly, waiting . . .

16 GATEWAY

IT EDGED IN through the shadows, another shadow close lying on the sea, its prow pointed for the strand just below their stand. Now Simon could hear the faint hiss of water on oar—no sailing vessel, but a ship’s boat making a rash touch on enemy territory. He could make out two—three in the boat and he knew that one was Jaelithe.

Beside him Loyse started forward as if to greet the newcomers, her stride stiff, limited. She was under control. And Simon did not need to see what menace hid in the shadows.

“Sul!” He gave voice to the war cry they had heard so many times in battle and threw himself, not at the girl, but at the watching Kolder.

The alien went down with a startled cry as Simon closed. Then the attacker discovered that if the Kolder used machines and possessed, they could also fight hard to save their own skins. This was no easy knockout but a vicious struggle with a fighter who had combat knowledge of his own. The initial surprise of his spring again gave Simon a small advantage which he used to the uttermost.

How it went on the shore he did not know, all his attention on his fight to take the most dangerous opponent out of the melee. At last that body suddenly went limp under him and he waited, his hands still locked about the Kolder’s throat, for any quiver of returning energy.

“Simon!”

Through the blood which pounded against his eardrums he heard that. But he did not loosen his hold on the Kolder, only turned his head a fraction to answer.

“Here!”

She came over rocks and sand, only a dark shape to be seen. Behind her moved others. But she would not have come so unless their struggle, too, was done. Now she was beside him, her hand touching his hunched shoulder. There was no need for more between them—not now, Simon thought with a rich exultation rising within him—or ever.

“He is dead,” Jaelithe said and Simon accepted her judgment, rising from the huddled body of the Kolder officer. For a moment he caught at her upper arms, drew her to him in what was not quite an embrace, which he needed to assure himself that this was no dream but truth. And he heard her laugh, that small happy sound he had heard before upon occasion.

“I have me a warlock, a mighty warlock lord!” Her voice was a whisper which could not have carried far beyond the two of them.

“And I have me a witch, lady, with more than a little power!” Into that he put all the pride he felt.

“So having paid tribute,” now her tone was light amusement for his sharing, “we advance to realities. What do we have here, Simon? The nest of the Kolder in truth?”

“How many are with you?” Simon did not answer her question, but went to the main point.

“No army, March Warder—two Sulcarmen to row me ashore—and these I am pledged to return to their ship.”

“Two!” Simon was astonished. “But the ship’s crew—”

“No. Upon them we can not depend until the fleet comes. What is to be done here?” She asked that briskly as if indeed she had captained in a troop of his Borderers.

“Very little.” His amusement was irony. “Merely a Kolder fortress to face—and their gate—”

“Lady!” A low but imperative call from the shore.

However, before they could answer, light—an eye-dazzling beam of it, striking to the water, lashing a path along the waves from which steam arose.

“Back!” Simon kept his hold on Jaelithe, drawing her with him into rocks which rose more than their height. He pushed her to her knees with an emphatic order, “Stay!” And ran for the beach.

The boat was still drawn up on the shingle, a body lying by it. There were startled cries.

“Get under cover—back here! Loyse—?”

He heard her answer from the left. “Here, Simon—what is that?”

“Some Kolder deviltry—come!”

Somehow he blundered to her, pulled her along, heard a curse in the Sulcar tongue as other figures followed him.

When they reached the rocky space where he had left Jaelithe, Simon found they were a party of six, two Sulcarmen having dragged a silent third form with them. As one they turned to watch the stormy display on the bay. That light, whatever it might be, cut back and forth with the precision of a weapon designed to make sure nothing alive remained afloat on the surface it now lashed. Under its touch the water boiled and frothed into steaming foam.

On the strand was another fire where the skiff had caught and burned as brightly as if it had been soaked in oil. Simon heard Sulcar curses twice as hot from the man crouched on his right.

But Jaelithe was already speaking into his ear, her voice raised above the crackling of the display in the bay.

“They will come, they are coming—”

Simon caught that warning himself, a tingling in his bones. To get away from the bay was necessary. But where to head in this maze of broken rock? The farther from the Kolder keep for now the better. Simon said as much.

“Aye!” That was the Sulcarman beside him. “Which way then, lord?”

Simon stripped off the Kolder smock since he lacked a belt. “Here.” He thrust the end of that into the Sulcarman’s hold. “Take off your belt, let your mate take the end of that. Through the dark it is best we go linked. What weapons have you?”

“Dart guns, sea swords—we are marines, Lord.”

Simon stifled a sound which dared not be laughter. Side arms—against the Kolder wealth of weapons in their home arsenal! However, night and the rough ground might aid the fugitives.

They moved out, Jaelithe paired with him, Loyse with one of the Sulcar marines, and the silent Aldis with the last. They had tied her hands, but she had not spoken since they had brought her from the shore, only moving at their pushing. Simon argued against the need of taking her with them, fearing betrayal. But Jaelithe had protested, saying she might have some use.

Their pace, of a necessity, could not be fast, but they were well away from the shore and the burning boat by the time they saw lights gather there, scatter out through the rocks marking a search. Simon kept them behind what cover he could and his precautions proved just. For they were in a pocket between two knife-edged, jutting ridges when that searing light burst over their heads.

The fugitives threw themselves face down, the heat of that ray harsh on their backs, although it whipped well above them. Back and forth across the countryside it played, and they cowered in the cut they had so luckily found. Then it flared on. Simon waited. This shift might be a device to entice them into the open. He sat up to watch the sky, studied the path of the ray as reflected there. At last it vanished. Perhaps the Kolder believed them caught and cooked.

There was one direction in which the enemy would not dare to aim that weapon—towards whatever lay behind the mesa to which he had watched those caterpillar trucks crawl. To head for that would give them some insurance against being wiped out. He told them of that.

“This gate—their gate—you think it lies there?” Jaelithe asked.

“Only a guess, but I believe it a good one. They are either reaching through that again, or preparing to. For some reason they must have contact with their home world.”

“And that is where we may also find most of their fighters.” One of the Sulcarmen observed.

“It is that—or the fortress. And frankly I would rather be in the open than in that Kolder shell again.”

The Sulcarman grunted what might be an assent to that. “Open—that is best. Ynglin, this will be a night to notch on the sword hilt before it is done.”

“The sword of Sigrod has already been well notched,” his fellow replied. “Lord, do we also take this woman with us?”

“Yes!” Jaelithe answered first. “She is needful to us, how I cannot yet see—but yet she will be needful.”

Simon was willing to trust to Jaelithe’s instinct in this. Aldis had not even gasped when the heat ray skimmed so close to their hiding place. Whether the Kolder agent was in a state of shock, or whether she was familiar with her masters’ weapons and merely waited for nemesis to catch up with the fugitives, Simon could not tell. But he felt uneasy over the talisman she carried and what that might do to entangle them again.

“We should take her Kolder symbol—” He spoke that last thought aloud.

But again Jaelithe countered with: “No—in some way that is a key and it may open doors for us. I do not think it will work so, save when Aldis uses it. But no thing of power is to be lightly discarded. And I shall know if she tries to use it, that I shall surely know!” The confidence in her words was complete, though Simon still had shadowy reservations.

Again linked together they began a slow journey, since none of them denied the wisdom of seeking the bottom of each cut or canyon which led in the general direction of the ulterior. In the dark Simon was the guide, testing and feeling for each step at times. And their progress was painfully slow.

At intervals they rested and all of them nursed bruises, scrapes, a cut or two, from falls and slips among the rocks. The dawn showed them as grimed and dirty scarecrows. But with the early light also came sound . . . Flattened on a rock slope they could watch, over the spine of a ridge, a crawling vehicle, its arcs of light cutting ahead to dazzle the fugitives’ eyes. Simon sighed with relief. His worst fear had been that they were lost in this wilderness of rock. Now he believed they must be close to what they sought.

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