Fred Saberhagen The Golden People

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to serve as staffs. They started up the slope, saving strength at the start by
going slowly. Not that they were capable of much speed anyway. The pursuing
geryons were still only distantly in sight.
Ahead of them, Ray sat on a rock, waiting.
Merit cried out to him: "Ray, do you know me? Can you understand me? We need
help."
"I know you, both of you." Ray nodded wisely. "I understand you better than
you understand yourselves."
"Ray, we need help."
"Against the Field-builders yes, of course. And it's only right, only proper,
that you should pray to a superior being for the help you need. Yes. Only
right." Ray's face still showed some effects of the battering Adam had given
him, but Ray no longer appeared dazed. Rather there was a look of profound
wisdom in the blue eyes.
Adam glanced back over his shoulder. The geryon pack was completely across the
river now, and were coming along the shore at a loping pace. Already they had
gained a hundred meters or more. He said: "Ray, what do you want from us?
Either do something to help us, or go away."
Ray looked at him keenly. "Adam, I want& "
"What?"
"I want you& I want you to come and visit our school when you can& Doc and
Regina will be glad."
Ray still looked wise and confident. He presented the image of a leader that
any human might be glad to follow.
In Adam's memory rose the events he had witnessed during the night on the
ocean island. He let the picture rise, and pushed it forward in his thoughts;
he could see in Merit's eyes, turned
now to him in desperation, that she was reading it, and he could see that the
implications of it hit her hard.
Adam took her by the arm. "Never mind. No time to think about all that how.
Come along."
There was still only one way to go; animals and fate were driving them up to
the Ringwall itself.
They walked around Ray, and in the moment of their passage he disappeared
again.
The sun rose higher as they climbed. It burned down on them through the high
rolling clouds of mist that here went up eternally from the great confluence
of rivers. The rocks nearby, the great angled pile of the Ringwall ahead, the
methodical animals steadily gaining in their pursuit, all shimmered faintly in
the heat. Merit and Adam alternately drank from the canteen, a swallow at a
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time, and climbed on, not daring now to pause for even a moment's rest. Not
when each backward glance showed the unhurried geryons a few meters closer.
We'll make it
, Adam thought, trying to project encouragement to Merit. With his imagination
at least he reached forward, trying to anchor himself on that approaching
moment when they would stagger into the shadow of one of the Ringwall's mighty
buttresses. There was no use trying now to look beyond that moment, to see
what form safety was going to take.
But they were not going to win the race. There was no moment when the hope of
escape vanished; it faded away slowly. The geryons were closing in more
rapidly now, still without appearing to exert themselves. One of their
commoner tactics was to let prey exhaust itself in flight, thus weakening the
final resistance.
Merit stumbled suddenly Adam had forgotten about her injured ankle and he
caught her by the arm. "Teleport out of here," he told her. "If you love me,
go."
She shook her head, her body swaying in exhaustion. "I can't."
She clung to him briefly, then pushed herself away, standing on
her own feet. "I won't."
He took a last drink from the canteen and handed it to Merit.
"Finish it," he ordered. Then he bent and picked up a small rock and threw it
thirty meters downhill at the nearest animal. The stone missed the arrogant,
handsome face, and bounced harmlessly off the dark hide of one shoulder. The
animal stopped for a moment, then took another hesitant step forward.
Adam screamed at it, a brief volley of obscenities. "We didn't come all this
way to finish in your rotten guts!" Now all of the geryons paused briefly in
their patient climbing, to watch and listen to him.
His throwing arm possessed no yesman power now, so it was unlikely that he
could damage the animals seriously with rocks.
He climbed again, with Merit. He had not thought, looking at this slope from
the other side of the river, that the way up would be so long, the Ringwall so
remote. The very size of it had fooled him. Now human strength was failing,
draining from their trembling legs and sliding feet.
As always, the pack followed. Now suddenly one animal pulled out of it, and
ran past Adam and Merit up the slope, grunting and wheezing in its brief
effort for speed. It got ahead of them easily, cutting them off from the foot
of the Ringwall. Blocking them from the towering mass of shimmering convoluted
stone, laced with shadows, whose foot Adam now estimated was only a hundred
meters ahead.
"There must be something there," Merit croaked to him.
"There must be some kind of help there, if they trouble to cut us off from
it." She was hardly able to stand, and her hands were bleeding from the sharp
rocks that she had gripped and fallen on. It would be of no help to Merit if
he were to separate himself from her now.
"Come on." And Adam led her on, climbing straight toward the waiting geryon.
The beast weighed ten times what they weighed together, and its yellowed teeth
were the size of human hands. Yet it shook its head nervously when they moved
straight at it. Adam pulled out the knife from Merit's belt, and used it to
slash a rough point on the end of his driftwood staff. His legs kept working
under him, somehow still driving him upward, slow step after slow step.
"Give me that." Merit took the pointed staff from him. "I can't throw as well
as you can. You keep the others off."
Adam picked up rocks. There was always some chance, with geryons, if you could
fight back enough to hurt them at all.
Geryons waited and watched, and followed, and waited some more. They always
waited, if they could, until you were too weak to hurt them. Adam hurled rocks
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downslope at the following pack, and kept on climbing.
Now he diverged slightly from Merit's course, hoping that the animal ahead of
them would be more likely to retreat if they came at it from two different
directions. He still had the hunting knife, and he held it ready, out where
the geryon could see it.
Adam was sure that the damned things were able to recognize a weapon.
Merit climbed straight toward the waiting beast, leveling the pointed stick at
its head.
"Wait!" Adam staggered closer. "Let me get "
She jabbed the spear at the geryon's face, just a second too soon, before the
animal might have backed away. Adam heard its teeth bite through the foolish
stick as he lurched forward, stabbing the hunting knife into the beast's
leathery neck, trying to turn it away from Merit. The geryon's lunge at her
became panicky flight the instant it felt the knife. It trampled Merit blindly
and galloped downhill, seeking the safety of the pack; and again the rest of
the pack hung back briefly, startled.
Merit lay on the rocky ground. For a moment Adam could touch the blurred
confusion of her mind. He put the knife between his teeth, tasting geryon
blood, picked up Merit and slung her across his shoulders.
He staggered up the hill again. The pursuing geryons still delayed, watching [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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