Jack Vance - Tschai 01 by City of the Chasch

Author:City of the Chasch [Chasch, City of the]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-11-27T01:33:01+00:00

From the front came a sudden avid murmur. The brute apparently had fumbled open the latch to the cage. Giving no thought to gallantry, Reith dropped down behind the old woman, felled her with a blow, ran along the line of pens, throwing open the doors. The men thrust pellmell out into the corridor, while the troupe of clown-men watched in consternation.

“Take the gun,” Reith told the freed men. “Free the singers.”

He jumped up into the wings of the platform. The brute had entered the cage and was ripping the girl’s gauze gown. Reith aimed his gun, sent an explosive needle into the bulging back. A thwump!—the brute jerked, seemed to puff. He raised on tiptoes, twisted about and fell dead. Ylin-Ylan the Flower of Cath, looking around with dazed eyes, saw Reith. He motioned; she stumbled from the cage, across the platform.

The priestesses cried out first in fury, then in fear, for certain of the free men, bringing the gun out on the stage, fired again and again into the audience. Others released the singers.

The young man most recently caged charged for the priestess at the console. He seized her, dragged her to the vacated box, locked her within; then returning to the console, pressed home the firevalve, and the priestess sang an ululating contralto. Another of the erstwhile captives seized a torch, fired one of the sheds; others took clubs and began to bludgeon the wailing celebrants.

Reith led the sobbing girl down around the outskirts of the tumult, and was able to snatch up a cape which he drew about the shoulders of the girl.

Priestesses were trying to flee the area-up the hillside, down the east road. Some tried to wriggle their half-naked bodies under sheds, only to be dragged back by the heels and clubbed.

Reith led the girl down the main road toward the east. From the stable came rushing a wagon frantically urged by four priestesses. Tall and dominant bulked the Grand Mother. As Reith watched, a man vaulted up on the bed of the wagon, seized the Grand Mother and sought to strangle her with his bare hands. She reached up with her massive arms, drew him down, cast him on the deck and started to stamp on his head. Reith leapt up behind her, gave her a push; she fell off the wagon. Reith turned to the other priestesses: the three who had traveled with the caravan. “Off! To the ground!”

“We’ll be killed! The men are mad things! They are killing the Grand Mother!”

Reith turned to look; four men had surrounded the Grand Mother, who stood at bay, roaring like a bear. One of the priestesses, taking advantage of Reith’s distraction, tried to knife him. Reith threw her to the ground, and the other two as well. He pulled the girl up beside him and drove down the east road toward Fasm Junction.

Ylin-Ylan the Flower of Cath huddled against him, exhausted, apathetic. Reith battered, bruised, dry of emotion, hunched in the seat. The sky behind them reddened; flames licked up into the black sky.

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