To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [64]
The ambassador slapped her hand away, scowling ferociously. “Do not touch me! Demons! Demonst Keep away from me! Help me, someone! Help me!” Her voice rose to a shriek as she pressed her back protectively against the trunk of a great tree.
All at once the grove seemed to teem with people. A group of five men armed with heavy wooden staffs and a few sharp-edged farming tools burst through the trees behind Lelys as a second, larger crowd came swarming up the mountain. The shepherd Avren and the village oberyin Bilik were in the lead.
“See? See?” Avren gestured wildly at the Away Team. “It is so. It is just like what the holy Ma’adrys told me in my dream! See? They are the ones, the evil ones who brought the sickness to us. Even one of their own accuses them! They are not travelers, they are demons, the living spirits of sickness. Only that one is safe”~he pointed at Lelys—”because holy Ma’adrys has made her her voice and saved her. If we do not capture them, the sickness will return and we will all die!” The men didn’t need a second telling. They charged the Away Team from both sides. Mr. Data calmly stepped into the path of the upslope group. He reached up into the trees overhead and tore off a heavy limb to use against the assault of their staffs. He fought with that mechanical precision peculiar to him, a cool and efficient style of combat completely free of any emotion except the need to get the job done. With the first blow he struck, he disarmed his attacker and with the second rendered the man unconscious. Stooping under the wildly aimed swing of the next man’s staff, he picked up his initial opponent’s abandoned weapon.
“Commander? Here,” he called crisply as he tossed Riker the staff.
“Thanks, Data.” Riker snatched it in midair and set himself ready to meet the mob from below. He fought with a little less detachment than the android.
Jaw set, he went into a waiting stance, ready to hold his ground or leap forward to meet the first man to come against him. His eyes narrowed, evaluating the onrushing crowd. They were making a lot of noise and there was no question that they outnumbered the Away Team, but they were farmers, not fighters, and some of them were drained from the recent illness in the village. He took a step forward, muttering the old saw, “The best defense…” He was right. They were no fighters. The first man to reach him carried a hoe and flailed it at Riker as if the commander were a cat that needed shooing off a table. Riker stepped under the sweep of the hoe handle, came up too close for the man to take another swing at him, and drove his elbow hard into his opponent’s side. The man’s breath left him in a rush and he staggered. Riker had no trouble knocking the sense from him with a light tap of his staff. He went down.
Upslope, Data was almost free of his attackers. The village men lay sprawled at his feet, unconscious or groaning, except for one who had watched his comrades meet their fate and was now hanging back, reluctant to test his own questionable battle skills against the android’s.
Mr. Data regarded him with that alert, speculative expression he always wore when confronting new phenomena and said, “I wish you would come closer.
Then I could eliminate you from this part of the combat and be of greater help elsewhere.” “Ah.” The man nodded once, then turned on his heel and ran away as fast as his feet and the slope would allow. Mr. Data observed his retreat, bemused, then shrugged it off for future analysis and went to Commander Riker’s aid.
Throughout the battle, Counsellor Troi had not been idle. Her hands were full elsewhere, trying to lay hold of and restrain Ambassador Lelys. The Orakisan tried to elude her, slipping between the trees, backtracking, always trying to break away and reach the spot where Bilik and Avren stood waiting. The oberyin and the shepherd did not take part in the fight, but watched its progress closely. From the corner of her eye, Troi thought