And Krystal found herself rooted where she stood, unable to move an inch, as Collier snapped the shotgun closed and headed for the door.
The hands which had grabbed Foster quickly dragged him several yards along a stone passageway, then a man-shape stepped over him and, with a grating noise, closed out the last trace of daylight Then he was pulled to his feet, turned about, and hustled up a flight of narrow, stone stairs, aware that there were persons both before and behind. His unseen captors were not exactly gentle, but neither did it seem that they were trying to hurt him. No word was spoken, only occasional grunts and one wheezing gasp.
After at least two dozen stairs, the hands halted him, then a low, narrow door opened and the two men ahead of him stooped and went through it. As he was being firmly pushed from behind, Foster, too, stooped low enough to negotiate the constricted opening. He straightened, to find himself in a high-ceilinged, if smallish, chamber, stone-walled and floored and windowless. It was completely devoid of furnishings, unless three long-bladed spears and a clumsy-looking gun could be considered furniture.
Foster would have liked to examine the gun more closely, but he was hurried through the small room so fast that his only impressions were of a trigger guard large enough to put the whole hand in, action too close to the buttplate for comfort in handling, and a bore that seemed at least ten-gauge and possibly eight-gauge, with a brass-tipped wooden ramrod slotted into the handguard. One other point: overall, the piece was close to five feet long!
As for the men who had dragged him through the wall, all were at least a head less than his own six feet, a couple even shorter, but without exception they were wiry and muscular, with broad, thick shoulders and arms and big, callused hands. Their clothing was rough—brogans of half-cured hide, trousers and shirts of what looked very much like homespun broadcloth—but skillfully patched, where worn, and clean, though showing multitudinous old stains. Clothing color was uniform, looking to be that of unbleached wool.
In personal appearance, they might have been the twins of those same men who had charged toward him outside—hair and facial stubble of varying shades of brown or dark blond, fair though tanned skin, here a splash of freckles, there a hint of auburn hi wavy and coarsely trimmed hair, eyes brown or blue or hazel—in short, they might have been any group of workmen encountered on any street Might have been, save for the fact that, in most places, men who strolled down the street bearing such an assortment of lethal-looking cutlery as these bore on or in their belts would quickly have been collected and taken away to explain.
Another thick, nail-studded door was opened and Foster was thrust into a larger room, this one carpeted, wood-paneled, and furnished with a refectory table, a couple of high-backed chairs, and several stools. The table was set before the tight-shuttered windows, and behind it sat a man considerably older than Foster’s captors.
One of those accompanying him crossed the room and laid the Winchester and the trench knife on the tabletop, rendered a bobbing bow while tugging at the hair over his right eye, then stepped back to his place beside the door.
The oldster tested the point of the knife, then ran a thumb along the honed edge, grunted, and laid it aside. He picked up the pumpgun and turned it round and about in his hands, then shook his balding head and laid it beside the knife. When he looked up and crooked a finger, Foster was led forward.
Pushing back from the table, the older man smoothed down the long skirts of his leather coat, thrust out his booted legs, and leaned back in the chair, clasping his long-fingered hands on the lower part of his steel breastplate.
Fixing his faded-blue eyes on Foster, he snapped something that sounded to his listener like, “HVy? Hwah’b’y’ahboot mahn?”
Foster just looked at his questioner blankly. The words sounded almost familiar, maddeningly so, but for a moment he could not make rhyme or reason of them. Then, suddenly, as the old man began to converse with one of those who had brought him there, the words and phrases began to take on meaning. Foster decided that the language was certainly English, of a sort—Shakespearean-like English spoken with a thick, Gaelic brogue.