Piers Anthony: Var the Stick

They piled out and charged into the forest as the first pursuing car appeared. There were cries and shots as the troops spied the truck, not realizing that it was empty.

Var and the two gladiators kept running, knowing the emperor's men would pick up their trail soon enough. Alone, he could have lost himself easily, for the forest was his natural habitat and he could hide in the badlands. But the other men, skilled as they might be in combat, were behemoths here. The end was inevitable-unless they separated soon.

He could elude the gladiators. No problem about that. But was' it fair? They had helped him free Soli, at the risk of their lives, and one of them was wounded in that action. Though he had freed them initially, at the risk of his own welfare. Where did the onus lie?

"We have repaid you," one of them panted. "Now we must hide among our own people, as you cannot. Otherwise we all will die, for Ch'in is ruthless."

"Yes," Var agreed. "You owe me nothing. It is fair."

The gladiator nodded. "It is fair. We regret-but it must be."

They thought they were protecting him! And that he would die if they deserted him. The three had almost brought destruction on their own heads, through misplaced loyalty.

"It is fair. Go your way," Var repeated. He saluted them both and faded into the wilderness.

Secure at last from pursuit, he had opportunity to worry about the others. Soli and her father and the Master had driven north. Would they be able to outdistance the emperor's men and make a lasting escape? And if they did- could he locate them?

In fact-would they let him locate them? Sol had been reunited with his daughter, after Var inadvertently kept them apart these long years. They could go home to America. They did not need the wild boy. And might not want him. For what would he do, except try to take Soli away again?

If Soli had any such inclination. Now he doubted it. She had been furious when he put her in the school, and cool to him since, the few times he had seen her at all privately. She had been set up for an excellent marriage- until he had arranged to break it up. Now she was with her father, a better man than Var. Surely she would either stay with So1-or go back to Emperor Ch'in.

So he would be best advised to hide in the badlands and let her go her way.

He circled back to the road, knowing no one would expect to find him there, and trotted in the direction the car had gone, north. He never had taken the best advice.

Every so often a vehicle passed, and Var leaped into the ditch and hid, emerging immediately afterwards to continue his solitary trek. Sooner or later he would catch up to the car-or discover the trail where the party left it. Then-

Another truck was bouncing south and he jumped for cover. He smelled the dust of it, underlaid by gas fumes, manure odor. . . and Soli's perfume.

He charged into the road, shouting. Either Ch'in's men had captured her already, or The truck stopped. Soli stepped down prettily and waved her bonnet, looking incredibly genteel. "Get in, you mangy idiot!" she cried. "I knew you'd get lost."

So the four were together for the first time: Var, Soli, Sol and the - Master. The two remaining gladiators had gone their own ways, having fulfilled their obligation.

"Now we'll have to plan - our escape," the Master said as he drove. "There'll be road blocks. We foiled them by doubling back in another vehicle, but that won't work a second time. So we'll have to take to the hills soon; and they'll be tracking us with dogs. This Ch'in is not one to give up readily, and that general of his is an expert at this sort of chase. We'll probably take losses-better count on fifty per cent."

Var didn't recognize the term. "How many?"

"Two of us may die."

Var looked at Soli. She perched on Sol's lap, between Var and the Master, and her elegant coiffure was undisturbed. She was as lovely and distant a lady as he had ever seen, and a striking contrast to the brutish, stinking men about her. How well she had responded to the training!

And how aloof from him now! His tentative fancies were ludicrous. She had no need of him. She was with her father again, and the chase was over, and Var was superfluous. They had returned to pick him up out of common courtesy, no more.

"You've been here a year, Var," the Master said. "You know the region. What's our best escape route and where can we make a stand if caught?"

Var pondered it. "The land is fairly open to the south, but that's Ch'in's territory. There are mountain ranges east and west, so that no truck-roads go through, though we could scale one of the passes on foot. Except for the dogs," he added, realizing that they had to stay with the vehicle. "To the north is really best, except for the-"

He stopped, appreciating as he suspected the Master had already, the predicament they were in. Far north the land was wild and open, so that pursuit would be awkward even with many men and dogs. Wild tribes fought anything resembling an organized, civilized force, but tended to ignore refugees. Ideal for this group. But the near north was a bottleneck. Hardly fifty miles beyond the area where he had found the gladiators potent badlands began. These intense bands of radiation extended east and west for hundreds of miles, acting as an invulnerable natural barrier between the civilized southerners and the primitive tribes.

Only one road went through, for only one pass was clear of the deadly emanations, and that barely. This was fortified and always garrisoned; he and Soli had had to pass through it and pay token toll even as foot travelers, on their original journey south. This was not in Ch'in's domain, but the personnel were friendly to him. Ch'in's public relations with such key - outposts were uniformly good-one of the reasons his power was on the ascent.

"I think we shall have to take the badlands pass," the Master said.

No one answered. The feat was of course impossible.

"In my time as a gladiator," the Master said, "I pondered this as a theoretical problem. How half a dozen bold men might overcome the garrison and hold the pass indefinitely."

"But we are four!" Var protested, knowing that with even a hundred it could not be done. That fortress had balked entire armies in the past.

The Nameless One shrugged and drove on. When they passed other vehicles the passengers hunched down so as not to attract unwelcomed attention. In due course he turned off the main - road, heading toward the badlands section adjacent to the pass. "Give warning," he said to Var.

Var gave warning. The Master stopped immediately and backed away from the radiation thus advertised. "Now find a hot rock that we can put aboard with some shielding. Several, in fact. Don't touch them, of course-just point them out. We'll rig a derrick and hook them in at the end of a pole. A ten foot pole," he said, smiling momentarily for some reason.

It was done. Var located several small stones with intense radioactivity, and they levered them into the back of the truck by rope and stick. The men were dosed, inevitably, but not seriously. Soli looked on, concerned and not quite approving. Var privately agreed with her. This was dangerous work, to no apparent purpose-and it consumed time far better spent in fleeing the searching Ch'in forces.

Then they dumped- larger rocks and dirt into the main body of the truck, to serve as a shield between the cab and the radiation. When Var pronounced the cab clean, they poured their remaining fuel-the last of several big cans the truck carried as a standard precaution, since fuel stations were far between-into the tank and set off for the pass.

"Now comes the rough part," the Master said, as they ground up the winding approach. "The garrison has geiger counters, and we can be sure they're thoroughly leary of radiation. In fact, this is known as a hardship post, because of that danger. There's a rapid turnover in personnel to prevent low-grade illness from peripheral radiation, too."