e they could draw guns from the saddle boots. A crack
behind him was the first one speaking tardily, and the roan leaped
forward, touched into fury by the slug's creasing its withers. Jerran
said calmly, "I'm hit in the leg. Let me see. A flesh wound, no matter.
Ride, lad!"

"The globes are our only worries now," said Revel exultantly.

"And they're some worries, for they descend even now at us."

He looked up, and saw that it was true. A multitude of the radiant gods
were dropping from their buttons, and the forest of Kamden with its
sprawling borders and its secret, protective darknesses lay half a mile
before the Mink.

Almost he would rather have died by a squire's bullet than a
pseudo-god's fierce energy blast. He recalled the feelers that had
touched his face yesterday, the searing heat of the aura that before
that had crisped off the hair above his ear. It was a filthy way to die.

The roan, strongest of all the gentry's horses, was easily distancing
them all. But it could not distance a down-slanting globe.

Revel the Mink committed his soul to whatever might receive it, and dug
in his heels for a last desperate gallop.

CHAPTER XI

The ruckers all have heard the call
The Mink has sounded clear;
They come from near, they come from far,
To fight the squire and sphere.

He arms them all with stolen guns,
With horses, pikes, and fire;
He sends them all abroad to hunt
The savage-stallioned squire!

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

As night fell, Lady Nirea left her father's house by the servants' door.
She was dressed in the miner's clothes she had worn the previous day,
and carried a gigantic portmanteau, so heavy she could scarcely lift it.

In the bag were her favorite gowns, numbering sixteen; two coats she
especially loved; some bracelets set with diamonds--the rarest gem of
any, for though they were mined extensively throughout the country, the
globes took all but a very few for their own mysterious purposes--and an
antique golden chain she'd inherited from her grandmother; some personal
effects, paint for her lips and such frivolities; a trumpet-mouthed gun
with the stock unmounted, together with as much ammunition as she could
find; and lastly, four books from her father's secret chamber.

These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of them
labelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "God-Feeding" on
its cover. Th