Bitter Gold Hearts

"You worry about yourself, Garrett. Ain't nothing going to stop me now." He started climbing. I held the rope taut. Saucer head went up like he was seventeen and had never been hurt in his life. Sadler followed with not one but two crossbows slung on his back, then the Puddle. Lucky Garrett got to do it with no one to tauten the rope. When I reached the roof, I found that Marsha had already leaped to Gorgeous's roof. Saucer head was tying off the rope the groll had tossed back. Sadler was leaning on the chimney that anchored both ropes, sighting one crossbow on the top-floor window. Light still leaked through its shutters. I wondered if Marsha's rooftop landing had been heard below. I didn't see how Gorgeous could help but be forewarned with nearly two tons of groll prancing over his head. Puddle joined Marsha. Saucer head and I followed. I pretended the void below was really just water a foot beneath my dangling toes.

The pretense didn't help.

Sadler stayed where he was. He untied the rope so Marsha could haul it across and resumed his lethal posture. Marsha bent one end of the rope into a harness for me. As I got into it I wondered what was wrong with Gor­geous and his boys. Were they deaf? Or just chuckling as they got a little surprise ready for us?

I was going to find out all too quickly. There was enough light now to see Morley getting into a similar rig. Doris hoisted him and dangled him over the side.

The universe twisted. An abyss appeared beneath me. I turned at the end of the rope, glimpsing Sadler aiming too close for contentment. Marsha swung me in against the brick, then over to peek through the cracks in the shutter. At first I saw nothing. No ambush evidence, no excite­ment, nobody. Just an empty room. Then an ugly some­one opened a door and shoved his face into the room and said something I couldn't hear to someone I couldn't see. The back of the other someone appeared momentarily as he followed the ugly someone out the door. The set of his shoulders said he was aggravated.

I waved. Saucer head tied the rope to something. They left me hanging.

Evidently the report from the far side was favorable, too. Marsha leaned over the edge and let go a mighty bash with his club. A second later he lowered Saucer head at the end of a mile of arm and flipped him through the window. Saucer head grabbed me and dragged me inside. Puddle came through an instant later. The room was uninhabited except for the insect life infesting the stack of bunk beds. Saucer head and Puddle headed for the door while I battled ropes like a moth in a spider web. There was one hell of a racket going on somewhere else.

A guy came charging through the doorway just as Saucer head got there. His nose and Saucer head's fist collided. No contest. The ogre's eyes rolled up. Saucer head thumped him again as he went down, just for spite. I got loose and charged after Saucer head and Puddle, into a narrow hallway that dead-ended to our left. As we turned right a couple of breeds popped out of another bunk-room doorway. They were no more fortunate than their predecessor. Saucer head was in one of those moods. In the meantime, heaven put on its dancing shoes and began hoofing it on the roof. The grolls were pounding away with their clubs.

The racket elsewhere revealed itself as a lopsided bat­tle between Morley's crew and Gorgeous and about ten breeds. Several more ogres were down, with quarrels in them, and as we came to the rescue yet another made the mistake of stepping in front of the window. He squealed like a throat-cut hog as he fell. The bolt had gotten the meat of his thigh. Poisoned? Probably.

Being a nice guy, I just whapped a couple of heads with my stick instead of stabbing backs with Puddle. Saucer head threw ogres around the way us ordinary mor­tals might work through a pack of house cats. Holes appeared in the ceiling as the grolls kept pounding away, their blows so powerful they smashed through two-by-ten oak ceiling joists.

Our rear attack turned the tide. Suddenly, the num­bers were ours.

Gorgeous made a run for the stairs. I flung a foot out and got enough of his ankle to unbalance him. His mo­mentum pitched him into the doorframe. The fight seemed over but it wasn't yet won. Ogres are tough and stubborn. A few were still upright. Morley's boys left them to us and went to work finish­ing the ones who were down. I yelled a complaint that got ignored.

I'd gotten through the worst without a scratch. The others had a few dings and small cuts, except Sarge, who had collected a rib-deep slash across the chest and had taken himself out of the action to tend it.

"Not that one!" Saucer head roared at Puddle. "You save that one for me." He slammed the last upright ogre into unconsciousness, then explained, "That's the one that was in charge when they killed the girl."

Panting, I asked, "You see any others that were there?"

"Just him." He dragged his ogre out of the mess.