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"Tonight’s a good night for this," Kazz said. "Big battle going on. Tullius and Göring get very drunk and quarrel. They fight; their men fight. While they kill each other, invaders come. Those brown men across The River… what you call them? … Onondaga’s, that’s them. Their boats come just before rain come. They make raid to steal slaves, too. Or maybe just for the hell of it. So, I think, now’s good time to start my plan, get Burton-naq free."
As suddenly as it had come, the rain ceased. Burton could hear shouts and screams from far off, toward The River. Drums were beating pup and down The Riverbanks. He said to Targoff, "We can either try to escape, and probably do so easily, or we can attack."
"I intend to wipe out the beasts who enslaved us," Targoff said. "There are other stockades nearby. I’ve sent men to open their gates. The rest are too far away to reach quickly; they’re strung out at half-mile intervals: By then, the blockhouse in which the off-duty guards lived had been stormed. The slaves armed themselves and then started toward the noise of the conflict. Burton’s group was on the right flank. They had not gone half a mile before they came upon corpses and wounded, a mixture of Onondaga’s and whites.
Despite the heavy rain, a fire had broken out. By its increasing light, they saw that the flames came from the longhouse. Outlined in the glare were struggling figures. The escapees advanced across the plain. Suddenly, one side broke and ran toward them with the victors, whooping and screaming jubilantly, after them.
"There’s Göring," Frigate said. "His fat isn’t going to help him get away, that’s for sure." He pointed, and Burton could see the German desperately pumping his legs but falling behind the others.
"I don’t want the Indians to have the honor of killing him," Burton said. "We owe it to Alice to get him." Campbell’s long-legged figure was ahead of them all, and it was toward him that Burton threw his spear. To the Scot, the missile must have seemed to come out of the darkness from nowhere. Too late, he tried to dodge. The flint head buried itself in the flesh between his left shoulder and chest, and he fell on his side. He tried to get up a moment afterward, but he was knocked back down by Burton.
Campbell’s eyes rolled; blood trickled from his mouth. He pointed at another wound, a deep gash in his side just below the ribs. "You … your woman … Wilfreda … did that," he gasped. "But I killed her, the bitch…"
Burton wanted to ask him where Alice was, but Kazz, screaming phrases in his native tongue, brought his club down on the Scot’s head. Burton picked up his spear and ran after Kazz. "Don’t kill Göring!" he shouted. "Leave him to me!"
Kazz did not hear him; he was busy fighting with two Onondaga’s. Burton saw Alice as she ran by him. He reached out and grabbed her and spun her around. She screamed and started to struggle. Burton shouted at her; suddenly, recognizing him, she collapsed into his arms and began weeping. Burton would have tried to comfort her, but he was afraid that Göring would escape him. He pushed her away and ran toward the German and threw his spear. It grazed Göring’s head, and he screamed and stopped ru
Something struck Burton on the back of his head. Stu
Burton stood up, pulled the spear out, and plunged it into the man’s fat belly. Göring tried to sit up, but he fell back and died. Alice slumped to the ground and wept.
Dawn saw the end of the battle. By then, the slaves had broken out of every stockade. The warriors of Göring and Tullius were ground between the two forces, Onondaga and slaves, like husks between millstones. The Indians, who had probably raided only to loot and get more slaves and their grails, retreated. They climbed aboard their dugouts and canoes and paddled across the lake. Nobody felt like chasing them.
17
The days that followed were busy ones. A rough census indicated that at least half of the 20,000 inhabitants of Göring’s little kingdom had been killed, severely wounded, abducted by the Onondaga, or had fled. The Roman Tullius Hostilius had apparently escaped. The survivors chose a provisional government. Targoff, Burton, Spruce, Ruach, and two others formed an executive committee with considerable, but temporary, powers. John de Greystock had disappeared. He had been seen during the begi
Alice Hargreaves moved into Burton’s hut without either saying a word about the why or wherefore.
Later, she said, "Frigate tells me that if this entire planet is constructed like the areas we’ve seen, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, then The River must be at least 20,000,000 miles long. It’s incredible, but so is our resurrection, everything about this world. Also, there may be thirty-five to thirty-seven billion people living along The River. What chance would I have of ever finding my Earthly husband? Moreover, I love you. Yes, I know I didn’t act as if I loved you. But something has changed in me. Perhaps it’s all I’ve been through that is responsible. I don’t thing I could have loved you on Earth. I might have been fascinated, but I would also have been repelled, perhaps frightened. I couldn’t have made you a good wife there. Here, I can. Rather, I’ll make you a good mate, since there doesn’t seem to be any authority or religious institutions that could marry us. That in itself shows how I’ve changed. That I could be calmly living with a man I’m not married to…! Well, there you are."
"We’re no longer living in the Victorian age," Burton said. "What would you call this present age… the Melange era? The Mixed Age? Eventually, it will be The River Culture, The Riparian World, rather, many River cultures."
"Providing it lasts," Alice said. "It started suddenly; it may end just as swiftly and unexpectedly."
Certainly, Burton thought, the green River and the grassy plain and the forested hills and the unscalable mountains did not seem like Shakespeare’s insubstantial vision. They were solid, real, as real as the men walking toward him now, Frigate, Monat, Kazz, and Ruach. He stepped out of the but and greeted them.
Kazz began talking. "A long time ago, before I speak English good, I see something. I try to tell you then, but you don’t understand me. I see a man who don’t have this on his forehead." He pointed, at the center of his own forehead and then at that of the others.
"I know," Kazz continued, "you can’t see it. Pete and Monat can’t either. Nobody else can. But I see it on everybody’s forehead. Except on that man I try to catch long time ago. Then, one day, I see a woman don’t have it, but I don’t say nothing to you. Now, I see a third person who don’t have it"
"He means," Monat said, "that he is able to perceive certain symbols or characters on the forehead of each and every one of us. He can see these only in bright sunlight and at a certain angle. But everyone he’s ever seen has had these symbols — except for the three he’s mentioned."
"He must be able to see a little further into the spectrum than we," Frigate said. "Obviously, Whoever stamped us with the sign of the beast or whatever you want to call it, did not know about the special ability of Kazz’s species. Which shows that They are not omniscient"