d; he blasted it out of
existence with another shot. There were outcries from the squire and his
servants, and the priest rumbled, "Sacrilege!"

Rack's head showed between the rocks. "Calm down, boy," he said, his
staring walleye gleaming in the lantern light. "You've been living too
fast--"

"Not fast enough, Redbeard. Out of the way!"

Rack slowly withdrew, and after kicking a few more boulders from his
path, Revel stooped and went out into the tunnel.

"At him!" croaked the priest, a thin man in a radiant blue-green robe,
the double scalp lock waving like twin plumes on his shaven head. "Pull
him down!"

"Ewyo dies if I'm touched," said Revel coolly, pointing the handgun at
the squire's belly.

"Kill him--with that little thing?" said the priest. His voice seemed to
come out of the ground, not from such a gaunt frame as his. "You bluff,
rucker."

"Look at your zanphs if you think so." He glared at them. There was
Ewyo, burly in peach satin and white silk, his long-skirted coat pushed
back from a lace shirt, skin-tight pants held by knee-high black boots,
a cabbage rose thrust into his cocked hat. There was the priest, lean
and savage beneath two hovering globes. Three servants of the squire,
Jerran and Rack made up the rest.

"Come here, Jerran," he ordered. Smiling lazily, the little man ambled
over. "Take a couple of these miniature guns from my belt. They're
loaded. You point them--"

"I can use a gun," said Jerran, "though I never had my hands on one this
size."

"They came to us from the Ancient Kingdom," Revel told him.

"Ah," said Jerran, nodding as he pulled two guns from the big man's
waistband. "I thought they might have. The ballads say they used such
weapons. Everyone carried 'em." He faced the squire, and his small body
appeared to swell and toughen as he went on. "Lord Ewyo, please to
precede us with your servants and that feather-brained priest. We'll go
to the ladders."

* * * * *

Ewyo grunted. Orders from a rucker, to him, _him_, the greatest
landholder in Dolfya! But after another glance at the mutilated zanph,
he turned and walked down the tunnel.

"Wait a minute," said Revel, but Jerran turned to him with a face as
hard and ruthless as a woods lion's. "Shut up, lad," he said. "I'll
handle 'em. You just tend to the wench. She's awake, in case you didn't
know."

He knew now, for she had just bitten him on the rump. He hoisted her a
little higher