"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 and absently smacked her buttocks. "Lie quiet, damn you." She lay quiet. He went on marveling at Jerran's commanding new presence, but said nothing. He was behind a born leader now. Jerran said, "Priest, tell your gods to stop trying to get at my mind. I've shut it off from 'em. You follow Ewyo." The priest turned on his heel. The servants scuttled after their lord, and Rack sat down on a rock and pulled at his beard, looking thoughtful. "I don't think it'd be overstating it," he said mildly, "to tell you two you're in trouble." "So are the gentry, brother," Revel answered. "That'll be seen. Well," Rack said, squinting his good eye, "I'll be seeing you. Or not, as the case may be." "Come along," said Jerran, and walked off, followed by Revel with the Lady Nirea. Ewyo had vanished. His servants, uncertain, were grouped under the ladder, and the priest was mounting up, his radiant robe billowing to show scrawny, hairless legs. The two gods lifted through the murk.