Those were six or eight men clad in archaic clothing, bearing swords, what were probably some sort of primitive firearm, and at least one big, broad-bladed ax. Two or three of them were carrying blazing torches, and more torchbearers were coming down the steps behind them. Even as she brought up her weapon and stepped forward, the foremost of the men drew his sword with a sibilant zweeep and a silvery-blue flash of fine steel blade.
The royal seals were first chiseled off, entire, and set aside, then the galloglaiches went at the walled-up doorway with picks and sledges and coarse, hoarse Gaelic curses and obscenities. These became louder and more vehement when a second wall, every bit as carefully laid and well mortared as the first, was found some foot behind the outer one. It proved to be slow, hot, very exhausting work in the confinement of the archway, which was too narrow to allow for a full-arm swing of the tools, so Bass had the initial crew of wall-breakers replaced with a second when the first wall had been cleared away. Even so, it was nearing midnight before the last stones of the second wall had been dragged from their places and the open passage, pulsing with a faint, greenish, eldritch glow, yawned before them.
Bass had patiently explained to all of them well beforehand that the device that lay down the stairway beyond the walled-up doorway was lifeless, soulless, only a machine no whit different from such familiar machinery as wheellock actions, clocks, and mills, that the glowing was simply akin to the glowing of heated iron. Still, when the first dim radiance welled up out of the long-deserted space, there was a ripple of movement as the hard-bitten warriors crowded back toward the honest Christian light of the torches, crossing themselves or clasping tightly the silver crucifixes strung about their sinewy necks.
But regardless of their evident fright—these men who feared nothing living—when Bass, Sir Ali, Nugai, Don Diego, Sir Calum, Sir Liam, and Fahrooq entered the archway and started slowly, carefully, down the steep, unrailed stone stairs, every one of the galloglaiches took up weapon, heavy tool, or torch and followed their chosen war leader.
Just as Bass reached the foot of the dangerous stairs and took a step toward the brightly glowing, green-gray, box like device and the silvery plate on which it crouched, uttering
barely hearable sounds that seemed to raise the hairs on his nape and set his teeth on edge like a thumbnail dragged across a slate, everything changed. The noise became truly audible—a whining-humming—and the glow heightened to fully illuminate every cubic inch of the earth-floored room— side to side and top to bottom—then, for the barest eyelid-flicker of a moment, complete and utterly black darkness enveloped the room and the men within it, bringing a gasp of surprise from Bass and a chorus of terrified moans from men who saw that not even the brightest torch would penetrate the suddenly stygian place into which they had trespassed.
But then, just as suddenly, the too-bright green light returned and, along with it, something new had been added. A tall, slender personage stood upon the silvery disk close beside the boxlike device, but facing away from them all, facing toward the bare stone wall. The figure was clothed in some gray-green garment that covered it from neck to wrists and to just above its ankles, where the legs of it met its low-topped boots. It wore no sword, but was hung all about with pouches of various shapes and sizes, from among which jutted the pommel and ridged hilt of a knife or dagger. Another, smaller hilt stuck out from the top of the figure’s right boot.
Slowly, the figure turned, stood for a moment staring at them all while its lips moved soundlessly. Then, bringing up a something hung from its right side to point a slightly belled length of metal ahead, it stepped off the disk and strode toward Bass and the rest.
He cursed himself for not bringing down at least one pistol. The others might not recognize the thing being pointed as a deadly weapon, but he certainly did. It was probably one of those things that Hal had called a heat-stunner, and here he was with only a sword and a couple of daggers and none of them properly balanced for accurate throwing. Nonetheless, he impulsively drew his Tara-steel sword from out its sheath, stepping out to meet the figure with his weapon at low guard. It was not until the flat-chested creature spoke that he realized he was facing a woman.
The dialect was not too different from his own 1970s American English, far less different and more understandable than had been the English of this world when he first came here. “Drop that sword, man, or I’ll kill you! Drop it, I say! All right, you———!”
The final word was unfamiliar to him, but it its meaning was as crystal-clear as the tightening of her finger on what he decided must be the trigger of that strange weapon. Bass leaped sideways, then lunged forward, his body in a sidling crouch, his sword pointed very high, his intent to stun the menacing woman with a sword flat to the temple while he used his free hand to jerk the weapon from her grasp.
But a split second before he had come within range to try to accomplish his risky purpose, the familiar-looking hilt of a kindjal was standing out from her chest, a look of shocked pain was on her face, and she was falling backward onto the floor.
Bass, however, had not lived through many a hard-fought battle through allowing mere surprise to slow him down. He continued his forward movement until he had his left hand clasped on the short barrel of the woman’s weapon, but when he essayed to jerk it from out her grasp, he discovered it to be fastened to the webbing belt cinching her waist. Dropping his sword, he used his freed right hand to unsnap the clip, then tore the buttstock from her weakened grip and hurled it beyond her reach. When her emptied hand immediately started to move jerkily toward the square butt of what might have been some variety of automatic pistol, bolstered at her right hip, he beat her to it, drew it, and threw it in the wake of the larger weapon.
The gaze she fixed on him for a moment was distilled of pure, unadulterated hatred, but then she sagged back in defeat, moaning, “Please . . . ? Take … it … out … never . . . felt such . . . pain.”
“You won’t feel it long, either,” said Bass bluntly, “That’s a deathwound. You’ll be dead in five minutes . . . maybe less, if I try to pull that blade out of you now.”
A voice spoke from just above him then. “Iss vay, mein Heir Herzog . . . might be. Blade did not directly into zee heart to go. Iss strange, for to at distance so short, miss.” The squat little man knelt beside his victim, placed one yellow-brown hand palm down on her chest, and grasped the hilt of the kindjal with the other, gingerly, at first, exerting just enough pressure to see how deeply the blade was imbedded and to ascertain if point or edge was stuck in bone. He nodded to himself, then took a better grip on the hilt and drew out the full length of the blood-slimed blade in one smooth, swift motion, seeming to not hear the gurgling scream of the woman as the steel came free of her chest.
Carefully cleaning the kindjal blade on the leg of her breeches, he then returned it to its scabbard at his waist. That done, he retrieved the sword Bass had dropped, checked it from end to end for possible damages, then held it until his master might again require it.
“How long do you think she’ll live now, Nugai?” asked Bass.
The little nomad shrugged. “Might be two minutes, mein Herr Herzog, no more than four.”
With Nugai’s assistance, Bass unsnapped the dying woman’s belt and harness and, as gently as was possible, removed them and the various packs and pouches they held from her body. He beckoned over Sir Calum and said, “See that black thing at the base of that box, the thing that looks like a thick, shiny rope? Take your ax and sever it as close to the box as you can. Do it now, at once! Do it before another of these murderous people is projected into here.”
Turning back to the woman, he noted for the first time the silver oak leaves on her shoulderboards, which previously had been obscured by the straps of her harness. These insignia, coupled with the name strip affixed above the right breast pocket of her coverall—STONE. DR JANE—jogged his memory.