A Feast Unknown by Philip José Farmer
Noli had told them they might have to deal with another enemy, a Doctor Caliban. But not if I was killed soon and they got away.
Where was my wife?
When I asked this, my heart was squeezing, and I was shaking a little. I expected the worst.
Their spokesman replied that she was holed up in the castle. When the copter had descended and the cars had come in in a two-pronged attack, she had fled to the castle with a rifle. She had wounded two men during her flight.
The castle was across the tarn from the hall. It had been in ruins since the time of Oliver Cromwell, but I had rebuilt part of it. The keep was massively constructed and built as a refuge for atom bomb attacks or an emergency like this. The great stone doors had been closed behind her, and she could not, as yet, be pried loose. Bazookas had launched missiles against it without success. Clio sat inside with an untouchable source of oxygen and plenty of supplies. She could be blasted out if enough powder and time were used, but Noli had quit trying. He was afraid of attracting the villagers. The five domestics were still alive but locked up in a storeroom.
This had happened two days ago at dawn.
The three men had been diverging, as if they were corners of a very slowly growing triangle, while I was questioning them. Perhaps they hoped that, since it was so dark and they were moving so slowly, I would not notice. Even if I had been blind, I could have told that they were moving away, since their body odors were getting slightly weaker.
I don’t think that they would have tried anything if they had believed that I was going to let them go. But they must have decided that I would not dare to release them, since they could get to a phone in the nearby village of Cloamby or at a farmhouse on the secondary road and call Noli. It was possible that Noli had cut the telephone lines, but I could not trust them to tell me the truth about that.
One of them barked, “Take them!” and dived off to the left. The other two jumped for the right, one diving at my feet. There was a twang as Trish’s crossbow cut loose. I fired four times. The top of the head of the man coming at me must have been blown off, because, as I later found out, my pants were wet with blood and brains. His head almost struck my leg as he fell. The fellow nearest me had his pistol out (I had suspected that they were carrying weapons under their coats but did not want to frisk them in the dark). My second bullet hit him in the shoulder; his pistol flamed to one side; he was hit two more times before he struck ground. The third, of course, had been pierced at point blank range with the crossbow bolt.
I made sure all three were dead by using my knife. Then we stood above the bodies, listening. There were no sounds, nothing to indicate that our shots had alarmed anybody.
I said, “Let’s get back to the car.”
We walked back, and then drove it up to where the men lay, loaded in the weapons and the walkie-talkie, and were on our way. The road was steep and narrow here and wound up and back and forth on the face of mountain. At the top, it began to run through heavy woods, winding back and forth for a mile and then coming out on a fairly level stretch of 500 acres.
The tarn was a rough question mark-shaped lake about a half-mile long and two hundred yards wide. The castle was on the west side of the lower end of the tarn and the rather large chateau of Catstarn Hall was opposite the castle. The garages, servants quarters, and stables were north of the Hall. To the west, on a high hill, was the huge granite rock roughly shaped like a chair. This is the High Chair which I referred to before and which is connected with the enigmatic local saying. The original Randgrith is supposed to be buried by its base.
The walkie-talkie squawked as we drove into the woods, and a man said, in English, “Murray! What the hell’s the matter with you? Report!”
Trish was driving. I imitated Murray’s voice as best I could (I am an excellent mimic) and said, “Murray here. No sign of Grandrith yet.”
There was silence. Then the man said, “Have you forgotten something, Murray?”
It was evident I had. I had forgotten to question Murray about passwords over the walkie-talkie. He had told me the code used for identification in getting into the Hall and the castle, but I had blundered in this respect. So now they would be even more on their guard.
In the distance was a faint whirring noise. It sounded like a helicopter rising, and it was probably coming to investigate.
We abandoned the car after maneuvering it on the narrow road to face the other way. I left the keys under a bush near it. If we had to, we might be able to race away in it.
As I got out of the car, I heard another sound. It was quickly overridden by the chopping of the approaching helicopter, but not before I knew that a plane with propellers was nearby. Then we were in the woods, and the copter was hovering about 50 feet above the car, its searchlight poking around the woods. We made our way westwards. Through breaks in the vegetation, I looked for the plane. I could see nothing, not even a darkness flitting across the sky. I suspected that the plane was Caliban’s.
Another storm was advancing towards us. The thunder and lightning were nearer, and the wind had increased.
The copter continued to fly back and forth, its beam probing. It did not have much chance of spotting us in the very heavy undergrowth. I have always encouraged the opposite of park woods in my forests.
We got to the edge of the clearing. A hundred yards across the lawn was the back of Catstarn Hall. Its three-story rambling Tudor structure was splotched with white in the blackness. It looked unlit until someone briefly opened a door. Light jumped out like a lion from a cage.
At that moment, a distant flash of lightning revealed a 2-motored amphibian descending from the south. It was landing broadside to the wind but had to do so because the tarn runs longest from south to north. It was crabbing to keep from drifting and also slipping in at a very-steep angle. Its lights were not on. Apparently the pilot was depending on the lightning flashes for his illumination, and also on his radar for the altitude detection.
There were more lightning flashes. The copter abruptly turned from the hunt and headed towards the tarn. Four men ran out of the house towards another copter, a smaller craft guyed down on the meadow between the Hall and the stables. Murray had not told me about this copter.
The amphibian’s motors roared as it straightened out and flew up from the tarn, only thirty feet below it. Two more lightning flashes showed two small objects streaking from the plane. One struck near the copter on the ground. The other hit the big copter in the air. The machine on the ground was knocked over on its side by the explosion, which ripped the guy wires apart. The big copter became a great flaming globe and fell on the roof of the Hall.
By the light of the fire, the amphibian returned and landed on the tarn.
Trish and I took advantage of the confusion to run across the meadow south of the Hall. We went about 60 feet from the house, which was emptying itself of men as if it were vomiting them. The entire roof and the middle section of the Hall were burning brightly.
I carried two knives, an automatic, the bazooka, two grenades, and two bazooka missiles. Trish carried a knife, an automatic, the crossbow and six bolts, and another missile. Our destination was the castle.
By the time we got past the house, the amphibian had waddled out of the water and was proceeding swiftly on its wheels. It raced away from the south end of the lake, turned, and sped towards the men by the burning house. Submachine guns from the men and a heavy machine gun from the castle battlements pulsed flame at it. A rush of flame and a loud explosion came from the battlements where the machine gun had been. Briefly, by the firelight, I had seen the missile as a dark streak.
But forty feet away from the first explosion, a red jet shot out, something black whizzed towards the plane, and the nose was enveloped in smoke and it jumped a little. Smoke covered the amphibian, and when it was whisked away by the wind, a big hole in the belly, near the nose, was revealed. One of its wheels was gone, and the craft was listing.
The crew must have scra
We got up, and I shouted for her to follow me. Something whooshed by us and ripped apart the air and shook the earth from fifty yards behind us (or so I estimated). We continued on around the plane. Noli’s men must have seen us by the light of the burning, exploding plane, but intermittently, because we were veiled by puffs of smoke. A glance showed me that a number were running after us. They had to give the plane a wide skirting, however.
Ahead, three figures raced for the main entrance of the castle. The portcullis was up, and the drawbridge was down. The castle was surrounded by a moat which I had deepened and supplied by the tarn through an underground pipe.
The giant in the lead was undoubtedly Doctor Caliban. The two behind him were the old men, Rivers and Simmons. Each carried a small submachine gun and wore dark coveralls and black coal-scuttle helmets.
I did not know why Caliban brought the old men along. Perhaps he did so because they were deeply attached to Trish and wanted to be in on her rescue. Perhaps they wished to die with their boots on, fighting to attain some sort of Valhalla. Perhaps Caliban had had so little warning that these two were the only ones available and their aid was better than none. Probably, they came along because of a combination of all the reasons I have suggested. I will say one thing for them. For men of 80, they were remarkably agile and swift.
The third bazooka missile from the battlements, coming at a steep angle, blew up the end of the drawbridge behind them and hurled them forward and onto the floor of the bridge. They picked themselves up and ran through the great arch below the portcullis.
I did not like to use my bazooka yet, but I had to do so. We were now the targets of the men on the battlements, and we had much more ground to cross than Caliban and crew before we reached cover. After loading the bazooka, I put it on my shoulder and Trish aimed and fired it. The explosion was ten feet below the spot where I had seen the rocket’s jet. We ran forward with the hope that the nearness of the hit would upset and delay them. But their missile exploded on the ground about forty feet behind us.
I halted again, and loaded, and Trish fired. This time the missile hit about ten feet to the right of their estimated location and approximately a foot below the crenellations. The crenellations disappeared, and so did the bazooka men.
Meanwhile, our pursuers had rounded the plane, which had ceased to explode but not to burn. They began shooting at us. I turned with the bazooka loaded with our last missile and fired at the group. They threw themselves on the ground, and the missile went over their heads and blew up a tree on the edge of the meadows. However, they all jumped up and ran away behind the protection of the plane. I knew they would be back in a minute, so I threw the tube down, and we ran to the drawbridge.
We had to jump a gap of eight feet, which was easy for Trish even with her burden of weapons. A submachine gun in the battlements began firing at us. We got into the courtyard before he could bring his spray of lead around to catch us. The mob behind us, and the men above, were not all of Noli’s forces. Explosions inside the castle told us that Caliban was meeting resistance from others.
I tried to raise the drawbridge, but the chains had been sawed apart. A head, silhouetted against the glare, appeared above us, and the short snout of a tommy poked out. Trish aimed carefully. The bullet screamed off the stone, and the head withdrew.
“Where’s Doc?” Trish cried. “I want Doc!”
So far she had been as much aid as the best of men. But the time was to come when I would have to watch her because she might turn against me. That would not be, however, unless she got a chance to talk to him.
“We’ll find him,” I said.
We went through the closest of the nine entrances in the courtyard. This led up a narrow winding staircase for four stories, at which point an iron-bound oaken door blocked us. Noli’s men had used the other two routes to the battlement walls. They had not found the key to unlock this and had refrained from blowing it open. I turned the huge dragon-headed knob six times to the right, pushed in on it, and turned it three times to the left. It opened slowly with a slight squeaking despite all my stealth.
There were three bodies on the stones and three men standing. One was on my right and looking down into the yard, presumably for us. The other two were looking towards the flames. They were manning a .50-caliber machine gun.
We stepped out. I shot the man with the tommy in the back with my crossbow. The other two did not hear or see us. I reloaded and aimed just as one man turned towards us. My bolt caught him in the belly, and Trish’s two shots carried the other backwards and against the stone wall.
I looked down at the bridge. The last of the men from the Hall was just entering the courtyard. I pulled the pins of two grenades in rapid succession and tossed them down on the bridge near the end of the gap. When the smoke cleared, a fifteen foot gap existed between the bridge end and the lip of the moat.
Trish and I poked the dead men’s tommies over the embrasure within the yard and fired blindly down. A storm of bullets chipped stone off and one knocked Trish’s weapon from her hand. It fell down into the yard. I think they must have emptied the clips in their automatics and rifles and reloaded and emptied them again. They shot as if they had an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
37
Somebody suddenly realized that they were short of bullets. He shouted an order. I peeked over the edge and saw several men running into the castle. One body was sprawled on the stones. I leaned my tommy out and began firing but had to withdraw because they were not entirely out of bullets.
The next half-hour was one of siege. Noli’s men came up the two stairways open to them. I kept an eye on the one through which we had entered, too, because it could be blasted open with a grenade. We used very short bursts to keep them from coming up the two ways; they replied with torrents of long bursts. It was amazing how so many bullets were expended with, as far as I knew, no casualties.
There was also shooting in the other part of the castle, way off. Then, silence.
After a while, we were silent, too, because we had used up the tommy’s ammunition and all but five bullets apiece in our automatic pistols. I carried the machine gun and its tripod to the top of one of the stairways and waited.
The time came when I wondered if everybody was either out of ammunition or almost so. Noli and his men had been forced to run out of the Hall so swiftly that they could only scoop up the ammunition handy. Caliban and the two old men had been forced to run from the plane with little chance to get much ammunition. The men stationed in the castle had supplies, too, but these were probably limited.
I had seen no evidence of anything except tommies, rifles, and pistols. I had the only grenade in the place, as far as I knew. Of course, everybody must have a knife. And there were the maces, bludgeons, spears, and battleaxes on the walls of various rooms.
I fired several rounds from the heavy machine gun down the stairs. When the gun ceased, seven reports came from below. Stone chips stung my back and bullets shrilled. Trish, at my orders, fired once down her stairway and got eight in reply.
“They’re out of ammunition, Trish!” I yelled. “I’m charging them!”
I threw an empty tommy down the stairs. Three shots were fired.
Trish did the same thing and got two bullets. They probably had at least a few more rounds.
Someone shouted, “Noli wants us! He’s got Caliban cornered! Caliban’s out of ammo! So are we! But we got the numbers!”
It was a trick. Otherwise, why let me know that they were withdrawing?
Possibly, most of them were out, and the few who still had some rounds would be left on guard.
I crept down the steps, going slowly, wit
I went back up the stairs and did what I could have done before if I had had a good reason. I told Trish to patrol back and forth between the two staircases while I was gone. With my automatic in its holster and a grenade in my pocket, and my knives, I climbed down the wall on the outside above the moat. I used the half-brick projections, a provision of some ancestor who had wanted as many escape routes as possible.
At the first window I came to, an embrasure so narrow I would have scraped off my skin if I had gone through, I looked in. The room had been emptied except for two men. Each was stationed on the side of the entrance to the staircase, and each held an automatic. I fired twice through the window. One did not die immediately, and he looked very surprised. I had one bullet left.
After the silence of a minute was the sound of running shoes. The men stationed below Trish’s staircase were coming to investigate. Some of them, anyway. Evidently they thought the two shots were from their colleagues, who probably had orders to fire only if they actually saw me.
They ran into the room and stopped short. They were bewildered. It was incredible, I suppose, that I could have come down the stairs, killed the two ambushers, and gotten out without the others seeing me.
My last bullet took one in the chest. The other two fired blindly at the window as they ran from the room. I went through, scraping skin off beneath my clothes and for a second not sure that I wouldn’t be stuck. I ran to the dead men, and ejected their clips. Their guns were all .45’s, so the ammunition would not fit my .38. From the three, I got six bullets for one clip and inserted it in a .45.
I called back up to warn Trish and then went up. She took the automatic and the crossbow, while I carried the big machine gun. I descended one staircase. Trish took the other. The two men were standing out in the hall between the two rooms and discussing what they should do. I fired at the stone walls at an angle to richochet bullets at them without exposing myself. They ran away and Trish killed them with three shots. That left four rounds in her automatic and three bolts for the crossbow. I had twenty rounds in the belt of the .50-caliber.