Robert & Linda Evans - Time Scout

They finally allowed the bewildered Portuguese to get off their knees and stretch. But when the traders headed for the gate to return to their warm beds, Kit called them back. "My sons, think you that you return to bed now? Lauds must now be read before you may sleep safely in the knowledge that you are saving your souls."

When the military governor complained bitterly that his men needed to sleep, Kit held up a hand. "Until the matter of these witches is settled and I know that the souls of my new flock are safe from harm, I must ask that you abide by my decree. Kneel, then."

In the flickering lamplight, dismay showed plainly in swarthy faces. "My sons," Kit said gently, "too long have you been living ungodly lives. Have you considered that your own wickedness has brought the witches and the devil himself among you?"

Several of the men crossed themselves fearfully. No one else complained as they knelt to hear Lauds. By the time this second service had ended, dawn had begun to creep across the sky. Kit let them go, enjoining them to sleep with prayers upon their lips, then stumbled back to his own wretched bed. Malcolm glanced once at Margo's prison, then followed. They slept for exactly three hours, then roused the traders at six o'clock and conducted the Prime service. Only then did they allow the traders to eat breakfast. Kit ordered that the poor girl be fed, as well, then faced his uneasy new "flock."

"I would know what manner of devilish things these witches brought among you. Father Xabat and I will examine the evidence for what we may find of the Evil One's presence."

He and Malcolm made a great show of examining the wreckage of the raft with its PVC gridwork, the transparent Filmar and ripstop nylon, the medical kit with its shiny foil packets and brightly colored pills, and the water purifying equipment which had washed ashore in the wreckage.

"And was this all?" Kit asked worriedly.

"No, Father," Sergeant Braz answered. "There were strange, devil-made guns which we cannot make sense of and even more frightening things."

They brought out an M-1 carbine, a beautiful .458 Winchester that must have belonged to Koot van Beek, and a stained leather bag containing Margo's ATLS and personal log. Kit and Malcolm exclaimed to one another in Latin, made worried sounds, conferred at length, took apart the "devil" guns to see what might be inside, and admitted bafflement over the strange equipment.

Kit finally announced Tierce service, which ate up a good bit of time, then returned to examining the "evidence" until time for Sext. After that, he questioned each of the traders closely about everything he had seen and done and felt and thought during the past six weeks. That took them to None service, which he and Malcolm dragged out nicely.

They had just finished None when a disturbance outside the fort brought a shout from one of the traders.

"The search parties are returning! Open the gate!"

Kit and Malcolm exchanged glances, then hurried after the soldiers who ran to open the fort's high wooden gates.

Kynan Rhys Gower was a strong swimmer. But when the raft broke up, throwing him into the water, something heavy caught him a grazing blow across the temple, stunning him. He floundered in the breakers, swept away from the wreckage by a powerful southerly current. Kynan managed to keep his face above water and let the sea carry him, too dazed to struggle and wise enough to marshall his strength before trying for shore.

Lightning flares showed him the curve of Delagoa Bay and the wretched little settlement he'd first seen seven weeks previously. The current swept him past it, inexorably southward. By the time he'd recovered enough to move his arms and legs against the current, Kynan estimated he'd been swept several miles south of the settlement on the wide bay-which meant Margo and Koot were trapped north of it, on the wrong side of the bay to reach the gate.

Kynan struck out for shore, wincing slightly at pulled muscles in his shoulder, and finally groped his way onto a rocky beach. He pulled himself on hands and knees above the line of crashing breakers, then collapsed to catch his breath. Rain pelted his back. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in days, felt dizzy and weak from hunger and his struggle with the sea.

Am I going to die here? And where am I, really? he wondered bleakly. Africa, Margo had said, but Kynan had only the haziest idea where Africa was-somewhere far south of Wales-and he hadn't known how to interpret the glowing chart she'd shown him on her "computer." He knew the men in the bay settlement were Portuguese. Kynan shivered. No love was lost between Welshmen and Portuguese.

The other men who lived here ... The pictures Margo had shown him were difficult to credit. Black men in strange garments, carrying long, wicked spears he wouldn't have wanted to face one-on-one, not even on his best day. Which this clearly wasn't. Slowly Kynan sat up, squinting into the rain and dark wind. Lightning flares revealed the sea, lashing furiously at the coast.

As alone as he'd felt in the time station, the isolation he felt now paled that into insignificance. He was lost a century after his own time and five centuries before "TT-86" would exist, in a land where he looked nothing like the native people and where the only men born in Europe were his enemies. He had no food, no water, no weapons, and no way of reliably obtaining more. Without so much as a knife, he couldn't even make a bow to hunt game. Of course, he could probably find the gate again, if he stumbled around long enough looking for it.

Kynan grimaced. Never thought I would long to crawl back into hell ... .

Of course, he'd begun to doubt that TT-86 was hell over the past few weeks. He'd begun to change his mind about the girl, Margo, too. She was a young fool sometimes, but she had courage to match a warrior's. He didn't understand why she had left her grandfather's protection to hunt diamonds, any more than he understood the reasons any "'eighty-sixer" did anything, but he thought her grandsire would have been proud to see her on their journey down the river to the sea.

The last he'd seen of her, she'd been struggling in the sea, same as him. Kynan spat sand out of his mouth and stumbled to his feet. He'd accepted her leadership of his own free will. Kynan Rhys Gower did not abandon his leaders when they were in trouble. Margo was somewhere to the north. It was up to Kynan to find her again and help her bring Koot van Beek back with them through the gate.

He started walking and kept doggedly on, pausing to rest only when his legs threatened to buckle. Each time he rested, weariness urged him to just lie where he'd fallen and sleep, but each time, he forced himself back up. He kept going through the night and the long, steaming day which followed, moving steadily northward along the wild strand. Kynan caught the scent of the Portuguese settlement before he came within sight of the ramshackle little town: wood smoke, hogs, refuse.

He skirted inland past the broad bay where the Portuguese fort was, fighting exhaustion and thirst and trying to edge his way northward without raising an alarm. Kynan closed his hands, longing for some sort of weapon to defend himself, but he had none. He had only a sense of duty to drive him forward, step by aching step. Which did him no good at all when he staggered, unwitting, into an ambush.

One moment he was alone beneath a steaming forest canopy. The next, he was on the ground with Portuguese shouts in his ears and hard hands on his arms and legs. Kynan heaved and broke loose. He rolled and came to a crouch with his back against a tree trunk. Then swallowed hard. He faced half a dozen snarling Portuguese, all of them armed with guns or crossbows.

Honor demanded he fight. Duty demanded he try to escape and rescue his lost comrade and commander. A strong sense of practicality told him he could do neither, given his exhaustion and the unwavering weapons trained on him. One of the men grinned slowly and said something Kynan didn't understand. Then, in bad English: "Witch..."