A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [40]
Instantly, the beasts stopped shrieking. They collapsed-and Picard had the feeling that they would never get up again. He realized then and there that the blaster had more than just a pain setting.
“Dispose of those animals,” shouted the marshal, looking back to Picard. “Salvage what you can of the wagon’s supplies-and get this train moving again!”
“Certainly,” cried the human, containing his anger at the beasts’ unnecessary destruction. “After we get our comrade back up.”
Without waiting for a response, he lowered himself carefully over the edge, using the twisted reins for support. Finding a foothold, he pushed himself out from the cliff face and reached down for the tortured driver.
The victim saw him but didn’t dare reach up. If he let go of the reins with his free hand, all his weight would depend from his mutilated arm-and he couldn’t endure that prospect.
Picard understood. It meant that he would have to lower himself a little further, grab the driver by his tunic or something. He began to work his way farther down.
Suddenly, there was another blast of that strange, light-bending beam. Picard couldn’t help but flinch at it, and that almost cost him his hold on the reins. As it was, he lost his foothold. Desperately, he scrambled to find another while vertigo gripped him like an iron fist, threatening to squeeze the breath out of him.
Finally, he caught hold-steadied himself. And got his bearings enough to see what had happened. The driver below him was still dangling from his ensnared arm-but now he was limp, lifeless. His eyes stared up at the sky.
Picard found the marshal, glared at him with all the force of his boiling hatred. “Damn you!” he cried. “What kind of barbarian are you?”
He could see a crooked smile take shape on the sky rider’s face. Then, abruptly, it disappeared.
“Climb,” he said. “Now. Or you’ll join your friend.”
However, Picard was too caught up in the wave of his anger. “Answer me,” he roared, the wind snatching at his words. “Answer me, you heathen!”
Coolly, the marshal leveled his blaster at him-again. But this time, Picard knew, the weapon wouldn’t be turned aside.
Releasing the reins suddenly, he dropped. The blast hit nothing but the rock above his head as Picard snared the reins again, stopping himself a meter or so below his original position.
He and the corpse at the end of his life-rope spun dizzily together in the wind, the cliff face finally coming up hard against his shoulder. He fought for balance, tried to find the marshal again so he could attempt to dodge the next volley.
But when he located his antagonist, he saw that the sky rider’s attention had shifted. Picard looked up and saw someone descending after him-just as he had descended after the one who was now dead.
The marshal’s visage had become a mask of rage. Now he pointed his weapon at the newcomer.
“Get back!” shouted the sky rider. “All of you-get back!”
But Picard’s rescuer kept coming. For a moment, he thought the marshal would destroy both of them-send them plummeting to a grisly end.
Then, with a voluble curse, he holstered the weapon. And veered off on his sled, describing an arc as he used the winds to achieve height-and distance.
Picard stared after the sky rider for a moment, then sought the face of the one who’d saved his life-at the risk of his own. When he saw it, it startled him a little.
He hadn’t expected it to look so much like the face behind the blaster.
Abruptly, he realized why the sky rider’s countenance had seemed familiar to him. There was a definite racial resemblance between the two-though the marshal’s dark hair, so different from the driver’s reddish locks, had distracted him from seeing it.
Picard took the offered hand, felt himself being pulled up. He did his best to aid in the process. And when it came time to use the other driver for a ladder, he did so as delicately as possible.
Once the human was at eye level with the ledge, his comrades raised him the rest of the way. A few seconds later, his rescuer received the same treatment.
As the two