Well, one of the bandits without a rams’-horn helmet had chosen Jerry as a soft target, rather than Bes. Just because you’re a murderous bandit doesn’t mean you have to be stupid.
Jerry had simply reacted. Right now he couldn’t say exactly how it had happened, but someway or another he’d skewered the man.
Cruz put a hand on his shoulder. “I see you’re one of the guys that don’t freeze up.”
Jerry looked at the blood. For once it was his turn to be mystified. “Huh?”
The sergeant gave a half smile. “In contacts most men just don’t react. They freeze up. We put a lot of time and effort into training that outa guys. It looks like you’re one of the few that don’t need training. It was him or you, Doc.”
Jerry still found the blood . . . bloody.
* * *
The two women who had been captives looked fearfully at the newcomers, and cowered nervously against each other. “We’re not going to hurt you. We promise. You’re free,” said Jerry soothingly.
They clung to each other.
“What is wrong with you?” snapped Medea. “You’ve just been rescued. Be grateful.”
“They’re going to rape us,” said the younger woman, who was barely more than a girl. She looked terrified and on the verge of tears.
Medea laughed slightly. “I promise you they will not,” she said in a gentle voice. “The men are all foreigners from a place called America. They have weird customs, but I think it’s a nice change myself.”
“What are you going to do with us, then?” asked the older woman, plucking up her courage. She was not more than thirty, but already her face was lined from hard living and hard work.
“Nothing,” said Jerry. “You’re free to go. The boys can gather the sheep. I suppose that’s all your stuff. Collect it and go home.”
The two women goggled at him. The younger woman shook her head. “This America place. It must be very, very strange. You kill them and we get the loot? It is not usually done that way, here.”
“Sorry. But that’s the way we do things. Now, can we get past the ponies? We’ve got a Titan to free.”
The smallest shepherd boy tugged at the older woman’s sleeve. “Why is that man so dark, Mama? When all the others are white and blue?”
It was an accurate enough observation. “It’s my natural color, son,” answered Lamont. “And the blue on the rest of them is just because they’re cold.”
The woman smiled and clapped. “Aha! Cold! Timotar. You and the other boys collect the clothes from the bodies of Cholkar’s band. Come on. Jump to it.”
* * *
Jerry looked at the heavy sheepskin jacket the boy was handing him. He’d live through the blood on it. The shepherd boy had done his best to wipe it away. And Jerry’d become a lot less squeamish since coming to the Krim Ur-universes. But the black line of migrants pouring out of it . . .
Whether freezing to death wasn’t better than being parasitized to death was a moot point, at least while the two, brightly dressed, Colchian tribeswomen had such a nice fire going. Looking at Liz he saw a similar expression on her face. Her eyes narrowed as they always did when she was thinking.
“I say, Jerry. Those wild animal spells—do you think the size of the animals matters?”
Lamont looked at the line of hungry lice. He shuddered. “Believe me, Jerry. Those critters look really wild to me. We’d probably be better off with tigers. At least they’d just eat you alive and not eat you alive and give you diseases as well.”
“Then let us try some game-driving spells . . . ”
* * *
The jacket, overtrousers, scarf, fur hat and even the boots fit reasonably well; the leg wrappings that did duty as socks were now at least vermin-free, if not clean. The warmth seeping into his bones from being insulated from the wind outside was delightful. And so was the hot, spicy soup.
The Colchian tribeswomen had long since passed from fear into a state of bemused amazement. Lice were things you lived with . . . A life without them was unimaginable. Looting, rape, murder and servitude were facts of life. People who captured a pack train of stolen fleeces and a herd of sheep, and then told you to help yourself, were a totally unheard of experience. The women and their children weren’t at all sure about what they were seeing here.
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