The Fury Out of Time by Lloyd Biggle jr.

pursued.
    “Let’s get out of here!” Whistler hissed.
    He took one of Karvel’s arms, and Jacques took the other. Crouching, blindly feeling their way forward, they moved back through the trees. Machine guns rattled again, and a volley of stray shots whipped past them. Finally they staggered over the crest of the hill, and the sounds of pursuit faded.
    They did not pause until they had topped the next hill, when Karvel shook off his support and sank panting to the ground. Jacques and Whistler conferred in whispers.
    “Lucky for us that someone ran for it,” Karvel muttered.
    “At least that plan worked,” Whistler said with satisfaction.
    “Plan? You planned that?”
    “Just in case. I promised Maurice a bonus if he brought it off. I hope nothing happened to him. We haven’t come a mile yet. Maybe we better get moving.”
    “I don’t think they’ll follow us through the forest. They don’t know we won’t shoot back.”
    “Jacques thinks they’ll set up more roadblocks as fast as they can. By the time we get back to the car they may have us boxed in.”
    “Like you said, we’d better get moving.”
    They struggled forward again. The slopes were endless and steep, the ground underfoot uneven and treacherously sown with obstacles, the night totally black. For some time the alarms and confusions of the valley continued to reach them faintly, but the shooting had stopped. Finally they reached the cars and found a grinning Maurice waiting for them. Karvel gave him a firm handshake, and Whistler called for a flashlight and solemnly counted out the bonus.
    Jacques held a short strategy conference. They had to negotiate two miles of narrow, rutted forest track to reach the road. The question, Karvel gathered, was whether to tear out of there at top speed with lights blazing, or to try to sneak out without lights—which would take infinitely longer. They voted for speed, piled into the two cars, and were off.
    They bounced recklessly along the zigzagging track without incident until they rounded the last turn and saw, where the arching trees met the highway, a waving flashlight. Jacques growled something that would have been profane in any language, and pumped a signal with his brake pedal.
    “I hope you have a plan for this,” Karvel remarked.
    “From here on, it’s their plan,” Whistler said.
    At the road they veered sharply to the right and came to a stop. The car behind them pulled alongside, veering to the left, and the two young soldiers stepped forward innocently. They had not even unslung their weapons. Suddenly spotlights struck them in the face, and the cars roared off in opposite directions. Karvel tensed himself and waited for shots, but none came.
    “I guess we’re in good hands,” he said dryly.
    “That’s just the beginning,” Whistler said.
    At the next crossroad they took another roadblock by surprise. It was set up to stop southbound traffic, with a car parked across the highway; they passed it going west, and skidded around the car on screaming tires. Again there were no shots, but Karvel looked back a moment later and saw headlights following them.
    For the next ten minutes Jacques drove the narrow, meandering road with furious confidence, negotiating curves with a recklessness that made even Whistler wince. They tore through a village, made a screaming turn, and thundered along a straightaway. The lights did not gain on them, but neither did they seem to lose ground.
    Jacques spoke excitedly. Whistler answered, and turned to nudge Karvel. “He’s worried that we’ll hit another roadblock. He thinks he could talk his way out of it if we weren’t with him. We’ll get out at the next village.”
    “Sure. Ask him if he’d mind slowing down.”
    “He’ll stop. You just be ready to jump.”
    A cluster of dark houses flashed past, and then a larger cluster with a crossroad. Jacques suddenly cut his lights and braked to a stop with his handbrake. Karvel and Whistler scrambled out,