Chapter 7

That's when I heard a weak voice try to shout, "Get Sir Hank in here. Move your asses or I will do it myself!"

That was obviously the King's voice, but it was so weak and thready that he was difficult to understand. A man rushed in from the next room and said, "King Haran IV orders you, Sir Hank, to his presence."

I nodded and rushed into the room. It turned out to be the fanciest hospital room that I had ever seen. Lying on the bed was the King, and he looked to me to be in very bad shape. I immediately decided to dispense with the niceties of the formal court. I rushed to him and said, "What can I do for you, Your Majesty?"

"Well, first of all, you can kill the bastard who ordered me shot! We now know who he is, and I am pissed off enough at him to wring his neck myself if I could reach him from this hospital bed. The blackguard is my second cousin Neatty through my Aunt Junity. She always was a scatterbrain, and she seems to have passed a full measure of that on to her son.

"It turns out that he is also the one who has been pestering Jorst and you. I don't care how you do it, but make damned sure that he does not become king. He has some weird ideas that would make him a despotic tyrant if he ever got to rule the kingdom. He has several toadies and hangers-on who are no better than him. My chamberlain has a list of their names; be sure to clean them out after you have taken care of Neatty."

"Your Majesty, how were you wounded?"

"Some traitor among my bodyguards shot me at close range as I was headed to supper. The damned bastard couldn't even wait until I had eaten a decent meal, though the doctors tell me that an empty stomach was a major factor in my still being alive. Anyway, the traitor got close enough to jam his pistol into my ribs and pull the trigger. Well, he paid for that. That's where we got most of the preliminary information and what led us to some of the other low level conspirators. Then it was just a matter of working up the chain."

"What can I do to be of the most help at this stage? It looks to me like your men have the worst of the attempted coup in hand."

"In that case, go after Neatty. This will not be over until he is dead!"

I bid goodby to King Haran and ran to gather my forces. Neatty was most likely at his Manor House, and that was where we had to search first. I talked by radio to the commanding officer of the base where my detachment normally resided, he offered to bring the whole complement of soldiers to aid in the attack on the Neatty House. We agreed on a meeting place, and I ran to my flier.

Once I was airborne, I called Anslee to tell her where I would be, but she did not answer. I had to try calling four different numbers at the Manor House before I was able to get an answer. One of the servants finally answered on that last call and reported a catastrophe: our Manor House had been attacked shortly after Jorst and I had left, and all of the household guards had been killed in a spirited defense. Furthermore, Anslee and her mother had been kidnapped by the attackers and were reputed to be on their way to the Neatty Manor House.

Dammit, now I had further incentive to catch and kill Neatty, and Neatty was going to regret every moment that he continued to live. I revved my flier up to its maximum speed and dashed for the Neatty Manor House. I had little hope of succeeding, but I was going to try to get there before the kidnappers.

Dawn was breaking as I approached the Neatty rendezvous point with my troops, and I saw the glint of sunlight reflecting off metal objects still several miles away. Yes, it was the band of soldiers coming to help me attack Neatty, so I told them to surround the Neatty Manor House and to make sure than none escaped. I also said that my wife had been kidnapped and was being taken to the Manor if she were not already there. I announced that I was going in after her, and I could not be dissuaded. I could tell that the commanding officer of the troops was somewhat disgusted with my selfish plan, but he also knew that he could not talk me out of it. Therefore, he agreed to do as I ordered and let the matter drop.

I continued to fly at maximum speed toward the Neatty Manor while I downloaded into my wrist computer the plans for the building. Damned if this place did not have a dungeon in the old sense of the word: an underground keep intended to be the last redoubt of the Manor's defenders. As such, there were several plush apartments within the dungeon as well as the usual quarters for the soldiers and a full kitchen. Several rooms were identified at storerooms, but there was no indication as to what was stored in there. To my absolute amazement, the "secret" escape tunnel and outside portal were also shown on the plans. What fool had done that!?

I knew that there was no chance of a negotiated settlement and that Anslee and her mother would be killed instantly if I could not rescue them, so that was my primary goal if I could indeed gain entrance to the dungeon. Such was the wonderful nature of my flying machine that I could hover over wherever I wanted to land and let the machine do whatever was necessary for me to come to rest exactly at the indicated landing point. I found the tunnel portal and ordered my machine to land beside it. This was done automatically, so I was able to prepare for my entry into the tunnel without concern for anything else.

I was already wearing my pouch of loose ammunition and four extra cylinders for my pistol, so all I had to do was to pick up my Winchester and dash for the tunnel entrance as soon as the flier landed. The entrance to the tunnel was not blocked by a door, but it was covered by the common vine used for ground cover all over this part of Horurie. Therefore, it would not have been noticed if I had not known where to look.

I ran into the tunnel and was greeted by masses of the local equivalent of spider webs. Ah, that meant that the tunnel had not been used by humans for some time, so Anslee and Neatty must still be inside the Manor House, and probably in the dungeon. I left a marker beacon at the tunnel entrance and radioed my troops on what to look for before I undertook to go very deep into the tunnel. None were shown on the plans I had, but I would not be surprised to find traps and deadfalls added by later occupants of the Manor. Over its 470-year lifetime, the Manor House must have seen many minor changes and additions that never made it onto the official record kept in the Palace archives.

Unfortunately, I was forced to move slowly for fear of tripping one of those traps. I expected to use this tunnel as my escape route from the Manor House if I found Anslee and her mother soon enough. For this reason, I wanted to make sure that I did not do anything to block the tunnel.

Not long after I entered the tunnel, I found a deadfall that would have blocked the tunnel if I had tripped it. I wanted to leave the deadfall so that if I was later pursued through the tunnel, it could be tripped and would slow down the pursuers. I disabled the hidden trigger and left another trigger that only I knew how to trip. That made it safe for someone to use the tunnel without knowing about the deadfall.

I found two more deadfalls and treated them the same way, but now I was getting so close to the dungeon that I dimmed my lamp to its practical minimum and crept toward the door at this end of the tunnel. Hmm, this door was of the dimensions of a standard interior door, and I wondered what was on the other side. I decided that I could not take a chance, so I set my lamp on the ground and took my saber in my right hand. I didn't want to make a lot of noise, so I could not fire either of my guns. I stood beside the door so that it could open freely past me, turned the knob, and jerked the door open.