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his post than they usually dared approach. Some of them drew within a couple
of hundred meters. Ufthak frowned, glanced over to the far side of the valley.
Sure enough, plainsmen were also making a display in front of the other sentry
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post. Ufthak glowered. What in the name of bad genes were they up to?
The Troop Leader clicked the change lever of his assault rifle from SAFETY to
BURSTS. If the nomads thought they could lull him out of alertness, they
were welcome to try. A lot of them would end up dead before they realized they
were wrong.
With all of Ufthak's enhanced senses focused on the riders ahead, the tiny
noises behind him did not register until someone jumped down into the firing
pit in back of him. He started to whirl, too late.
Iron-hard fingers jerked his head back. A knife's fiery lass licked across his
throat.
The last thing he felt before he went into the dark was embarrassment at
letting cattle trick him so.
Juchi climbed out of the Sauron sentry post, waved his dagger and the dead
sentinel's assault rifle to show he had succeeded. His keen ears caught the
sound of a struggle in the pit on the opposite side of the valley. He dashed
that way, only to see two nomads scrambled out, one supporting the other.
He pursed his lips, silently blew through them. Four men had gone after that
other sentry. He just thanked Allah and the spirits that neither Sauron had
managed to get off a shot.
The fortress was a couple of kilometers back into the valley. The warriors
there might not have heard, or might have assumed the sentries had things
under control. But Saurons had enhanced ears and lively suspicions. The last
thing Juchi wanted to do was rouse them.
As the plainsmen in the bands that had distracted the sentries realized the
way south was open, one of their number galloped away from the mouth of the
valley. He soon returned, leading all the fighting men of
Dede Korkut's clan.
"Now comes the tricky part," Juchi said softly.
"Aye." One of the nomads nodded. "We'd've had a go at the Saurons in their
fort long years ago, were it not for the minefields here."
"Now we know where the mines are, though, with the knowing stolen from Angband
Base's own computer," Juchi said. His men murmured in awe; to them as to
him, computer was but a word to conjure with, as vague and splendid as
demon. Three centuries had passed since anyone on Haven save
Saurons had aught to do with computers.
Juchi studied the map the swordsmith had brought to the clan. "Follow me," he
ordered. "Single file, each man walking as best he can in the footsteps of the
one ahead. Anyone who steps on a mine, I will punish without mercy." The
warriors stared, then chuckled softly.
They made it through without losing a man. Juchi knew nothing but relief, not
least for himself. The map was not an actual printout, but the swordsmith's
reconstruction of data smuggled out of the base.
Even to do so much - Juchi marveled at the courage of the woman who sent the
smith what she'd picked from the mechanical brain.
If all went as he hoped, he thought suddenly, he would meet her soon. Now,
though, for the one role in the mission he could not play. "Boys forward," he
whispered. A couple of dozen lads, all of them with from nine to fifteen
T-years, came up to him. "You know your jobs," he told them. They nodded,
slipped off toward Angband Base.
Up on the wall, Senior Trooper Shagrat came to alertness at the sound of
running feet approaching.
Then he heard children laugh, heard an overripe Finnegan's fig splatter off
the stone below him.
"Get out of here, you gene-poor cattle bastards!" he shouted. The children
took no notice of him. He went back to walking his beat; the Brigade Leader
tolerated this nonsense, even if he did not love it.
He heard a couple of other sentries shout challenges, then realize
they were just spotting more miserable boys. "For a bottle of beer, I'd
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blow them all away," he said when he came up to the Soldier on the next
stretch of wall.
The other Soldier laughed. "For half a bottle," he said.
Not all the boys were armed with fruit. Most carried drillbits instead,
carried them most carefully by the ropes that bound the burrowers' front and
hind legs together. They made sure the animals' heads could not reach
anything but air, made especially sure those irresistible teeth came nowhere
near their own precious flesh.
Mustafa's drillbit had a particularly evil temper. It kept twisting its
meter-long ratlike body, kept trying to jerk its head around so it could bite
his hand. As plainly as it could without words, it told him it was angry and
hungry and wanted its freedom right now, if not sooner.
"Yes, yes," Mustafa muttered, lugging it toward the wall. He set it down in
front of a fruit-besplashed place, cut its bonds with his beltknife.
The drillbit's teeth sank into the spot where it smelled fruit. Those
diamond-like incisors cared nothing about stone. As Mustafa watched, the beast
started to burrow into the wall. The youth did not watch long, but turned and
ran.
Shagrat yawned as he came down from his turn at sentry-go. Sleep would be
welcome, sleep and then his woman. Or maybe, he thought hopefully, the other
way round.
He was at the base of the wall when he heard a sound that did not belong. It
reminded him - he frowned at the image his mind called up - it reminded
him of a man chewing on a mouthful of ball bearings.
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