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.Bark bark, pause.Bark bark bark, longer pause.Like Morse code, he thought.Houses hunkereddarkly in the moonlight, with here and there something taller barns andstables he supposed.Somewhere in there was the bailiff s stronghold.His lips stretched tight over his grin.He felt better now, as iftheimmediacy of action was clearing away his nervousness.Quickening hishorse, he caught up with Tarlok. Keep it to a walk, he said, loudly enoughfor the men to hear. They won t react so quickly.At four hundred yards the village dogs became aware of them, and the barkingspread quickly, gaining energy.Another wagon road crossed the onethey were on; they d take it eastward when they left.Meanwhile theirpresent road took them into and almost through the village beforethey came to the stronghold, its fence looking solid and formidablein the darkness.The barking from inside was deep and raging, a sort ofstaccato roar that made him twitch.His men knew their assignments and needed no orders.One groupturned off on the near side, another rode past and turned off at the farthercorner, each group with a packhorse carrying a ladder for laying against thefence, a ladder broad and strong enough for three men to cross abreast.Macurdy and the rest stopped in front of the gate and waited.Ifthere d been an outside guard, he d disappeared.Meanwhile what were thePage 144ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlinside guards doing? Their dogs were just inside the gate, barking likesomething out of hell.The whole village had to be awake by now, he thought,and for the first time wondered what would happen if the villagerssided with the bailiff.Traditionally, flatlanders and hillsmen had beenhostile to each other, feelings dating from ancient wrongs occasionallyrenewed.The bailiff, on the other hand, was a present and continuing evil.But.Then someone inside whistled shrilly, a signal to those outside, and the dogsraced away from the gates, still raging.There were shouts fromseveral points, and very close by, a man screamed.The barking thinned as dogswere killed.The access gate opened, and one of Macurdy s men lookedout.Macurdy trotted in with another group, and stumbled over a body; a gate guard,he supposed.He wondered if his people had taken any prisoners, as he dinstructed, or if they d simply killed everyone they didn t know.There seemed not to have been any serious resistance.His attention went firstto the wagon gate a double gate, its two halves meeting in the center.They were barred that was no surprise but they were also fastenedinside by a heavy, padlocked chain through two large eyebolts.Andthey needed them open, to get the packhorses back out when they dbeen loaded. Slide the bar out! he shouted. Use it as a battering ram! One of his mentugged on Macurdy s arm. Captain! They had a bunch of tax girls shut up in ashed.What do you want done with them?He followed the man.The girls, four of them, had been brought outside.Macurdy judged their ages as being from twelve to perhaps seventeen.Even by moonlight they looked terrified.Two, seemingly the younger, werecrying, their voices keening.He spoke to the one he judged oldest: Tell them no one s going to hurt them.Tell them I m going tosend you allhome.Someone else came to him, to announce that the bailiff was dead. AndCaptain, we found a little casket in the house, full of coins silver andgold! Good.Tie it shut and load it on a packhorse.Someone came to tell him that the battering ram wasn t doing thejob.They d also tried using the ironwood pry poles Macurdy had had them bringalong, to pry the gates up off the hinge pins, but the pin ends hadbeen hammered, and the hinges wouldn t come off.Macurdy raised hishead. Someone bring an ax to the gate! he bellowed,  and a torch.Right away! ,and jogged to where the men had laid down their ram.A sizeable crowd was gathering outside.Tarlock was talking to them.Damn!Macurdy thought.If we don t get this gate open right now, we re going to look like abunch of clowns to these people. Captain! There s a guy here s got something he says is important. Have him wait! Where the hell is that ax? As he asked it, a man ran up withone and handed it to him.Macurdy stepped up to the wagon gate, eyed theU-shaped padlock bolt, wound up and hit it as hard as he could.The bodyof the lock fell to the ground.He grabbed the chain, hanging loosenow, and pulled it out of the eyebolts, then four of his men shoved the gateopen.The person with the important information was a boy of aboutfifteen years.He d seen someone come out of his father s horse shed, leadinghis father s best horse, a man wearing the helmet of a bailiff s armsman [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]