Dare to Go A-Hunting ft-4

by Andre Norton

  For a moment he thought his wings were not going to support him. The heaviness which had weighed him down before was again a burden. He could not make it to the cliff top. Nor had he any intention of following behind that strange entourage which had already passed his ledge, skimming serenely along, as if they had nothing to fear from laser flashes which cut below, above, before and behind them, but never touched them.

  There was one way he might go while those others took the attention from him—and that was out over the camp, heading still farther west. He began to believe that such a maneuver might well be a good choice. To go west and then circle north and east—

  Thus he chose a path which carried him over the heads of the ship men, fighting for altitude. Their full attention was still centered on the group in the light.

  Selrena broke her calm, tempest-riding stance to point to the ground with the rod she held. Farree had just time to see that her escorts were aiming their weapons downward in obedience when a strong blast against him brought him to the ground. He was angry at his own folly in trying such a reckless ploy. On wing he stood out to be picked off by any who sighted him.

  He expected to be either burned or jumped when his feet touched earth. It was darker here. All the light was gathered near where the other air invaders were traveling.

  Out of the dark span a loop snaked about his body at waist level and then set off tendrils to bind his arms tightly to his body. A tangler! He was indeed trapped, forced to yield to the will of the trapper as he was snapped back, losing his feet, and then dragged face down across the ground where the vegetation had been worn away. Those portions of his hands and knees which had been skinned by his cliff landing were rasped raw for the second time.

  He blinked. That drag had brought him up beside one of the bubble shelters and the flap curtain closing that had been pulled aside. Out of the shadows came his captor. He was a tall man, matching one of the Darda in size, but there was nothing about him which suggested those cool and distant ones. He wore the clothing of a spacer and that was stained, grimy. From him as he moved there came an animallike smell which was like that of one of the drifters in the Limits. His skin was nearly black from space tan and he had a wide mouth which now gaped as he grinned, showing spaces of missing teeth.

  Now he reached down and caught Farree by his hair and dragged him up and into the shelter with one strong pull.

  "How'ya, lady? Got you a friend for now."

  Farree, helpless in that hold, looked to one who was not only more helpless than he but who had suffered from her fate.

  She huddled on the ground, her thin body seemingly drained of substance, curiously flat, showing bones beneath the skin, for her clothing consisted only of a few rags, and those left enough openings to display old lash marks and new. Her hair was a matted tangle and her small hands and feet nearer to claws than normal appendages. She did not lift her head nor look at the man and Farree.

  The spacer took from one of the loops of his belt a thin tube. Crowding past Farree he held that over her head. She stirred and lifted a face so twisted in torment that Farree struggled vainly in sympathy and fear.

  "Come on, you. Give us an invite now," her captor ordered.

  She stared past Farree as if she did not sight him or understand his presence, if she did. If his mind broke full voice, filled with pain, the cry he had heard before.

  "Come—come!" Around him he sensed a strange eddy, as if there were more than words in the mind plea. She moaned a little, her hands going to her head. The tall man laughed.

  "You got your wish, lady. Here's a friend come to you. Not that it's going to do either of you any good."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The jailer stood aside from the girl, but she did not show any more awareness of him nor of Farree then she had before. Her wings were fastened together and over them was a near transparent film packaging them so. They were the same color as those Farree wore—shades of green—but the sheen of the furlike covering was masked by that which imprisoned them. The guard stepped closer to Farree now and tapped one finger against the wings tangled in the cord which kept him prisoner.

  "Prime!" The man licked his lips. "Prime stock. Vass will like this. You've brought him luck, flying boy. At auction these will fetch a good round of credits and Vass, he don't forget them as has done a good job. Yessss—a prime pair."

  Now he ran his fingers along the edge of the near wing and Farree shivered. There was something in that touch which promised worse than he had expected. There came a clacking noise and the guard hurriedly unhooked a disc from his belt, listening to staccato speech Farree could not identify.

  The off-worlder barked an assent into the disc and stowed it away again. For a moment he stood looking at the two of them, a leering grin on his face. Then he spoke to the girl.

  "You, little lady, don't you think as how you can get out of here with him." He stabbed a thumb in Farree's direction. "You want th' silencer?"

  Something in that question pierced through the daze which held her. She gave a little moan and shook her head. The guard laughed.

  "No, I thought as how you wouldn't want that! As for you"—now he looked to Farree—"don't you go threshing about. Because there ain't anyway you can get yourself out of that tie up!" With that as a parting shot he left the shelter and dropped the outside curtain behind him.

  Farree already knew that there was no way he was going to get out of a tangler. Only fire might shrivel those bonds away—unless the proper signal was thumbed on the stock which had spun it. He looked to the girl. She crouched as if she wanted to bury herself in the earth under their feet, her head bent and her attention all on her balled hands.

  Then she spoke and there was a sharpness in the quality of her voice—as if she were thoroughly aware and unmarked by any ill handling, but knew exactly what she would do. Only the words she voiced in a thin croon, hardly above a whisper, meant nothing to Farree. It was not the universal trade tongue with which he was the most familiar—rather it sounded almost like a song.

  "I do not understand." He curbed his own voice until it was hardly louder than hers. Perhaps there was no hope that she would understand him in return. He guessed that to use mind touch here might be the worst of all.

  She did not raise her head but glanced up at him through the sweat-wet tangle of hair which fell across her forehead. The dazed stare was gone out of her eyes, replaced by inquiry which was as wary as if he were about to add to the wounds and scars which patterned her body.

  Now her fingers stretched apart from the tight fists into which she had curled them. She pointed a forefinger at him and her lips shaped a word which again had no meaning for him, but he took a guess at the question.

  "Farree," he answered with his name.

  The girl looked impatient, started to shake her head, and then winced as if at the bite from one of her hurts. Again she pointed, stabbing the air as if to emphasize the seriousness of what that question was.

  He could shake his head only a fraction in the bindings of the web which held him fast. If she did not want his name, but rather his reason for being there, he was unable to satisfy her.

  She had settled back a little and was eyeing him intently. Then she held out both hands. Her fingers slowly moved as if they wrote on the air.

  Farree sucked in his breath. Just so had he seen Maelen gesture once or twice in the past; yet the prisoner was plainly no Thassa. He could not lift his own arms, which were bound tightly by the tangler. If he could what might he do—only copy her own gesture?

  Maelen! He built up a mind picture of her without thinking.

  The girl threw herself forward, her one hand out to his head, one emphatic shake warning him.

  But that came too late. Skittering in and out of his thought bands was the touch he knew well—Togger! In spite of the continued emphatic warning the girl pantomimed, Farree deliberately pictured the smux, down to the last curve of the poison-feeding claws. Once done he held to that—not try
ing to reach any other of their company. It might be that his call for the smux was on so different a band of mind sense that it would not be detected by any of the sensors, mental or mechanical, which these killers used.

  He put into his own call all the force of his frustration.

  "Friend—friend!" Togger had made contact! Where was the smux—how far away? Farree forced all such speculation from his mind and continued to hold only on the picture of Togger, and to keep in touch with the smux. From the clearness of the touch, and the fact it grew continually sharper, he believed that by some freak of chance fortune was with him—Togger!

  The girl was on her knees before him, staring straight into his eyes as if she could see through those into what stood in his mind—the squat body of his first and closest ally.

  She brushed aside the locks of hair dangling about her face and then she held out both hands, touching his body between the loops of the cord which held him so motionless. Into him streamed a flow of strength. There was amazement in her expression, a recoil that almost caused an involuntary withdrawal from contact with him. Manifestly she had not expected what her touch was accomplishing.

  "Togger—" He strained his mind touch as far out on the scale as he could. And touched now another—!

  That these two had managed to reach him, and yet he had not felt any call from the Zacanthan, Maelen, or Vorlund, was surprising to him. Perhaps some device activated by his captors prevented this. But the party from his own ship must not be allowed to come within range of these who had established camp here. They in turn could be swept into captivity.

  The near witless look that the girl had worn while the guard was with them was swept away by her continued attitude and expression of wariness. Her touch on Farree changed. Now she gripped each of his hands, even pinned as they were against his sides by the tangler, in one of hers and a stronger force flowed between them.

  "Bad—bad in the air—" Togger broadcast. And repeated even more firmly, "In air, bad."

  Still keeping touch with the smux Farree listened. There were more shouts and he could hear the crackle of lasers. Did that mean invaders were still trying to shoot down Selrena and her black-winged escort? Or were the three of his own comrades riding the flitter of their own ship and now taking a part in the battle?

  His back was to the door of the shelter but he saw the girl's eyes widen, felt a small added pressure in her hands. Someone was there. Then Farree caught a whiff of the acrid odor given forth by Togger when he was aroused and his claws were ready to deliver poison to an enemy. There was another smell, too.

  "Yazz!"

  A furred body pressed against his back for an instant and then rounded into his sight. Mounted on the back of the slender hunter rode Togger, holding on to a strip which had been fastened around Yazz's body just behind her forelegs.

  "Togger, Yazz!" Farree would have liked to have shouted aloud, but he remembered to keep his voice down. Yazz raised her slender nose, sniffed in direction of the girl, who stared wide-eyed at the pair of newcomers.

  "Friends!" Farree, unable to even point because of his bound hands, nodded to the two newcomers.

  She dropped her hold on his hands, edging back into the position in which he had first seen her. Still she looked from one to another of the three of them with wonder in her face. Yazz moved in closer and opened a mouth well equipped with teeth, ready to snap at Farree's bonds.

  Hurriedly he sent a thrust of danger at Yazz. To touch those might well entangle her in turn. He must have his freedom—but how long they might have before the guard returned Farree had no way of telling. Fire—but there was no fire to shrivel the tangler cords into black strings as he had seen done before. Nor was the whip stock which controlled the spread of the sticky cords here. How then—?

  It was Togger who answered that. The smux dropped from Yazz's back and scuttled forward, his large foreclaws slightly raised. There was the shine of poison showing on those, even one or two drops falling as he came to Farree.

  Was that the answer? Could the caustic defense of the smux work to burn in another way? Farree clutched at that thought. Togger might not be able to nod in agreement as he squatted momentarily before his friend, but Farree was certain that that caustic burning was just what he proposed to try.

  He clicked his claws and Yazz came to him. Using a dangling end of the strap by which he could ride on the larger animal's back Togger pulled himself up to that place he had occupied before. Yazz turned sidewise and with small, cautious movements she drew as near as she could to Farree without touching one of those white cords. Togger held on with his back legs and his small claws, and reached out to Farree, straining his whole body as far as he could to reach the prisoner.

  Despite the growing stench of the poison and the threat of those claws should Togger aim badly, Farree stood as still as he could hold himself. Selecting a length of the bonds which was as far from any bare skin as he could find, Togger clasped it with a light grip.

  There came an even stronger whiff of the poison. But the touch of the smux had not tied him into captivity, too. Instead there was a black ring where the claw had clutched as the smux loosed it. That blackness spread, in both ways, from the ring.

  The cord loosed suddenly, fell down, while the black spread up the surface of each end of the cutting. Farree started once as part of the blackened stuff which touched his own skin gave him a sharp thrust of pain, as if he had held his arm in an open flame. His hands were free and the darkened portions were falling away. In moments he could shake himself and the last of the smoking tangler loops dropped from him.

  He kicked those away and stood steady as Togger now leaped from his perch on Yazz to his favorite riding place in the front of Farree's jerkin. The girl's hand was at her mouth as if she were chewing on her knuckles.

  Farree held out his hand to urge her to her feet. He might have very little hope of winning free from this camp but that was no reason not to try. Then she shook her head vehemently and pointed to what lay along the floor, which he had not noticed before. She was tethered to the large support in the middle of the shelter by a chain and a ring about one slender ankle; her ankle was much darkened by bruises, as if she had tried for freedom on her own.

  The anklet was of the same silvery metal he had found in the deeps below Selrena's castle. But the chain itself was darker in hue and looked as if it might be steel. The end which was clasped around the support was even darker in color.

  He reached for the nearest of the chain links to test the hold. She caught at his hand and shook her head sharply. He drew as gently as he could of her clutches and knelt, taking the chain up between his hands. The links were warm, even hot to the touch, but it seemed to him that when he jerked the loop around the support, it gave a little. Togger's acid poison had bitten through the tangler cord; could it also act on this?

  Farree threaded the chain through his hands, until his fingers were near that other ring about her ankle. The longer he held onto the length of metal the hotter it became, until he had to push himself to touch it. But he straightened it out against the trodden earth and mind sent to the smux.

  "Cut!"

  Togger slid down from Yazz once more and scuttled in his half side-wise advance to study the chain. His eyes shot out on their stalks to the greatest length, nearly touching the chain, and for a long moment he did not move.

  "Back—" The order reached Farree. Obediently he hunkered back on his knees. His smarting hands had gone to his belt pouch to bring out some wilted ill-bane, near crushed into a wet mess. Catching this up between his palms he turned it around and around. The first hurt of moving the reddened skin across his fingers was swallowed up with the healing coolness of the herb. Togger meanwhile squatted down and closed claw about the chain.

  How much venom remained in the claw pockets? Could it corrode metal as easily as it had disposed of the tangler cords?

  Togger closed both claws on the same link and held it tightly. The smart of his hands reduced
, Farree leaned forward to set fingers to the chain on either side of the link the smux held. He pulled at that with all the strength that he had.

  There was no change; the chain held. The effects of the ill-bane were wearing off, and Farree's hands felt the scorch of the strange heat rising again. Togger sat back, supported by his hind legs. It was plain that he, too, was bringing all his strength to bear.

  The smux dropped the chain out of his claws.

  "Hurt—" his complaint reached Farree. There were no more bubbles arising along the edges of the claws. It was plain that the venom pockets were empty. Perhaps half a day—or night—might lapse before they would be filled once again. Farree himself gave a last defiant jerk, in spite of the pain in his hands, to the chain.

  The link snapped. Farree looked at the two ends for a moment and then he caught the girl by the shoulder and dragged her to the entrance of the shelter. Unfortunately, it was also apparent that she was in a very weakened condition, and had to hold to Farree or fall face downward. Yazz crowded in upon his right side, Togger once more in place on her back. The girl caught hold of a roll of the loose skin immediately around Yazz's neck and used that hold to balance herself, while Farree, making sure she could stand erect for a few moments, carefully pushed back the shelter curtain a slit to look out. They could hear the crackle of lasers and the night sky was lit by constant flashes—but the main part of the disturbance was some distance away. He wondered if Selrena or any of her winged crew had been caught in the vicious and deadly darting of the beams.

  How had Togger and Yazz gotten there? Had they tracked him somehow clear across this country of which he himself was not sure? How had he gotten into the depths of Selrena's castle, by the way?

  "Not here! Them Darda will claim anything, 'tis truth enough. But Fragon never built nothing for no one but his own self—"

  The words in Farree's mind gave the impression of guttural sneering. Involuntarily his gaze fell from above to below. Beyond the next shelter bubble there was what seemed to be a well-like opening of dull black lying flat, only to be noted for a second or two when the firing above came near. A figure hunched on the lip of that and Farree was aware that the send came from there.