The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“It’s a change of guards!” Burton said.

They had to move around to the other side of the building since the four armed men were headed toward them.

Burton looked upward. Was it his imagination or was the fog becoming less dark above?

They waited, some of them sweating despite the damp, cold air. The guards exchanged some words, somebody must have cracked a joke, judging by their laughter, then the relieved men said good night. The torches showed that two were going to homes in the forward part. The other two went in the opposite direction, causing a swift retreat by the invaders.

Burton, watching from the corner said, “Those two are separat­ing. Kazz, do you dunk you could get one of them?”

“No sweat, Burton-naq,” Kazz said, and he was gone.

Both the torches were almost out of sight when Burton saw one of them drop. A minute later it lifted, becoming more bright as it approached them.

By then, Burton had moved the group from the side to the back of the building. He did not want a guard to walk past the front and see the torch.

Kazz had thrown his hood back. His big, blocklike teeth gleamed in the light of the flames. In one hand he held the heavy oak spear tipped with a long hornfish horn which he had taken from the guard. His belt held a chert knife set in a heavy wooden handle and a flint-headed axe. These he passed out to Frigate and Alice. His club went to the Arcturan.

“I hope you didn’t kill him,” Monat whispered.

“That depends on how thick his skull is,” Kazz said.

Monat grimaced. He had an almost pathological abhorrence of violence, though he could be an effective fighter in self-de­fense.

“Will your leg handicap you?” Burton said. “Think you can throw that axe as effectively as usual?”

“I think so,” Frigate said. He was shaking now, though he would be steady when the fighting started. Like the Arcturan, he dreaded physical conflict.

Burton told them what to do, then he led Kazz and Alice around one side toward the front. The others went around the opposite corner.

Burton peered around the corner. The four guards were standing close together, facing each other, and talking. A moment later, a torchlight appeared around the corner. The guards did not see it until it was close. As soon as Burton saw them turn toward it, calling a challenge, he moved out.

Kazz, his features shrouded by his hood, got near to them before he was required to stop. Probably, the guards thought that he was one of the relieved men, returned for some reason.

By the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late for them. Kazz grasped his spear just behind its head, and, using it as a quarterstaff, struck its butt against the side of a guard’s neck.

Burton, holding his knife in his left hand, chopped the edge of his right against the back of the neck of another man. He had no wish to kill, and he had ordered the bloodthirsty Kazz to avoid using the spearhead if he could do so.

Frigate’s axe whirled out of the greyness and caught a third in the chest. It was thrown not quite accurately enough, or perhaps Frigate was trying not to kill. In which case, his axe-throwing was superb. The blunt forefront, not the cutting edge, struck, and the man fell back, the wind knocked out of him. Before he could recover it, he was knocked out by Burton’s savage kick to the side of his head.

At the same time as the others, Monat struck, and the fourth crumpled from a blow on the head.

There was silence for a moment as they waited to find out if anyone had heard the fight. Then they picked up the torches from the deck, and Burton unbarred the door. The fallen were dragged inside, where Monat examined them.

“Very good. They’re all alive.”

“Some of them’ll be coming to soon,” Burton said. “Watch them, Kazz.”

He held a torch above the free-grail rack. “We’re beggars no longer.”

He hesitated. Should just seven grails be taken? Why not all thirty? The extras could be used to trade for wood and sails for the new boat to be built.