'Don't know.'
'How came you here, John?'
Speaking in a low voice, John Norman told Roland what he knew
of what had happened to him. He, his brother, and four other
young men who were quick and owned good horses had been hired
as scouts, riding drogue-and-forward, protecting a long-haul
caravan of seven freightwagons taking goods - seeds, food, tools,
mail, and four ordered brides - to an unincorporated township
called Tejuas some two hundred miles further west of Eluria. The
scouts rode fore and aft of the goods-train in turn and turn about
fashion; one brother rode with each party because, Norman
explained, when they were together they fought like ... well ...
'Like brothers,' Roland suggested.
John Norman managed a brief, pained smile. 'Aye,' he said.
The trio of which John was a part had been riding drogue, about
two miles behind the freight-wagons, when the green mutants had
sprung an ambush in Eluria.
'How many wagons did you see when you got there?' he asked
Roland. 'Only one. Overturned.'
'How many bodies?'
'Only your brother's.'
John Norman nodded grimly. 'They wouldn't take him because of
the medallion, I think.'
'The muties?'
'The Sisters. The muties care nothing for gold or God. These
bitches, though . . .' He looked into the dark, which was now
almost complete. Roland felt lethargy creeping over him again, but
it wasn't until later that he realized the soup had been drugged.
'The other wagons?' Roland asked. 'The ones not overturned?'
'The muties would have taken them, and the goods, as well,'
Norman said. 'They don't care for gold or God; the Sisters don't
care for goods. Like as not they have their own foodstuffs,
something I'd as soon not think of. Nasty stuff ... like those bugs.'
He and the other drogue riders galloped into Eluria, but the fight
was over by the time they got there. Men had been lying about,
some dead but many more still alive. At least two of the ordered
brides had still been alive, as well. Survivors able to walk were
being herded together by the,,' green folk - John Norman
remembered the one in the bowler hat very well, and the woman in
the ragged red vest.
Norman and the other two had tried to fight. He had seen one of hi
pards gutshot by an arrow, and then he saw no more - someone had
cracked him over the head from behind, and the lights had gone
out.
Roland wondered if the ambusher had cried 'Booh!' before he had
struck, but didn't ask.
'When I woke up again, I was here,' Norman said. 'I saw that some
of the others - most of them - had those cursed bugs on them.'
'Others?' Roland looked at the empty beds. In the growing
darkness, they glimmered like white islands. 'How many were
