Scowling, the Voitu jabbed the air with the spear, a gesture with more than a hint of threat. “You come with me now,” he said.
“Of course.” Macurdy turned and stepped out the door. He twitched all the way to the hostel, remembering the wounds he’d received the last time he’d been herded from a gate by a man with a spear, fourteen years earlier. That, he told himself, had worked out well enough in the long run, but this had to work out in the short.
He’d been right about the number; there were a corporal and four privates. The domestic staff of five humans was enough to serve if a group came through from the other side. Macurdy hoped devoutly that it wouldn’t happen.
The corporal’s name was Trosza, and he spoke German much better than the spearman. Macurdy talked him into letting him spend the night and return the next day, meanwhile asking questions. At first about the Voitusotar, and what it was like to be a Voitik soldier. By supper they were on relaxed and congenial terms.
He slept till late morning, but that was no problem. He had till afternoon, sleeping had killed time, and he’d been hit by what in later years would be known as jet lag. After lunch he talked with the corporal again, until they felt the gate activate. “It is time,” the corporal said.
“Yes, I suppose we should leave soon. Perhaps I could have one more cup of your tea. We have nothing like it where I come from. It is very good.”
He lingered over the refill, talking, deliberately using up time. The gate always remained open for close to an hour, and he didn’t want to be followed. While they finished their tea, Macurdy slipped an object from a thigh pocket and pressed it against the underside of the table, where it stuck. About midnight, if the device worked on this side, it would flash into dripping flame, and hopefully burn the place to the ground. Perhaps even killing any eye witnesses to his being there. At least it would fix their minds on something else.
Finally he and the corporal went to the gatehouse. By the time they reached its doorway, they felt the repulsion quite distinctly, the reverse of the attraction on the other side.
“I will stop here,” said Trosza. “I wish you well.”
I wish you welll Macurdy had a job to do, but the Voitu’s words would trouble him afterward. He reached as if to shake Trosza’s hand, a civility the Voitusotar shared with humans. When they clasped, Macurdy pivoted abruptly away, pulling sharply on the hand, bending, kicking backward and upward, all in a fraction of a second. The pull half turned the startled Voitu, the kick striking him below the right ribs, compressing the abdomen, and though Macurdy didn’t know it, tearing the liver. In someone shorter, it would have broken ribs, collapsed a lung, perhaps resulted in heart spasm.
Trosza blacked out instantly, and Macurdy, hoping no one had seen, dragged him by the ankles into the gatehouse. If he was pursued, his .45 would be operable on the other side, but Macurdy wanted to avoid attention on either side.
As before, he had to lean and push against the gate’s repulsion, but within half a minute experienced the utter blackness, the utter silence, the sense of absolute nothingness of the return transit. Then, knees buckling, he dropped on the crest of the Witches’ Ridge, the unconscious Trosza behind him.
After handcuffing his captive and tying his ankles, Macurdy struggled the ungainly burden across his shoulders and started down the road. The Voitu was slender, but at nearly seven feet, he weighed at least two hundred pounds. Still it was downhill, and Trosza remained unconscious, which so far as Macurdy knew, meant that any wakeful Voitu in the schloss wouldn’t pick up via the hive mind that he’d been captured. If necessary he could kill him; judging by his aura, he was badly hurt already. A Voitik corpse would establish their reality for Donovan, but the general wanted him questioned. A live Trosza could verify from the hive mind what the threat was.