by Andre Norton
Surra whined. The ragged wound on her head was ugly, but, as Storm discovered thankfully, not dangerous. It looked much worse than it was and the attackers must have believed her dead. Not for the first time the Terran wished that the team had speech in common, as well as their trained rapport. He could only survey the scene and try to deduce what had happened.
It was his guess that Sorenson and the two Norbies had been cut off by the flood and had taken refuge on this hillock that was by far the highest in the vicinity. The attack had come later, after the end of the storm. And the attackers had thoroughly looted the camp, stripped the bodies – all weapons were gone.
Storm brought out his small personal aid kit and went to work on Surra, cleansing her wound. She allowed him to handle her, giving only a little protesting cry now and then. He worked as slowly as he could, trying not to think of that other task ahead of him. But with Surra comfortable he forced himself to it, though he could not repress shudders as he straightened out Sorenson’s contorted body and placed the dead Norbies on either side of the Survey man. There was nothing with which to dig graves, but he broke off pieces of the rubble, working with dogged determination, piling the loosened stones and earth over the three, while the sun turned the hillock into a steam bath.
Surra called before he had finished and Storm looked up to see her wavering to her feet. Baku was alive, and Surra, and back in the cave he had Rain and King. He knew little of Norbie war customs, but he did not believe that the Nitra – if it had been those wild tribesmen who attacked here – would linger. They might well believe that they had wiped out all members of the exploring party. He must get Surra to the higher land at the north of the valley, which meant using Rain. Storm spoke gently to the cat, planting in his mind the idea that he must go but would return soon which she would sense.
The water had fallen swiftly so that this time he swam only a few feet as he backtracked. He returned to the cave to discover that Hing had been busy on her own, using her particular talent – digging – perhaps in search of edible roots carried down in the earthslide. Because of her activities he was able to clear a path for Rain. There were iron rations among the supplies he had in the pack and purified water in his canteen. Rain trotted down to suck up a drink from the flood and tear avidly at the waterlogged grass.
Towing the stallion loaded with the supply pack, Hing riding on top, and Baku overhead, Storm came back to the vicinity of the hillock. The sullenly retreating waters had now bared a stretch of washed gravel and boulders against the cliff wall about half a mile ahead, and he chose that site for his temporary camp. Leaving the pack with Hing and Baku on guard, he splashed over to the mound.
Rain had accepted Surra from the start as a running companion. The cat on four feet was a familiar part of his everyday world. But whether the stallion would allow her as a rider was another matter. Storm, mounted, manoeuvred the horse close to the mound, gentling Rain with hands and voice, and when the mount stood quietly, he called to the dune cat. She staggered to the edge of the drop and sprang, landing in front of the man with a sudden shock of weight.
Somewhat to the Terran’s surprise, Rain did not try to rid himself of the double burden. And Storm, with Surra draped awkwardly before him, headed the horse back through the roiled waters to the rapidly enlarging dry stretch beyond.
Once on the gravel bed Storm took stock of his supplies. Before leaving Irrawady Crossing he had pared his personal kit to bare essentials, depending upon Sorenson’s preparations for food rations. So what he had rescued from the mare was only a fraction of what they might need before they found a way out of the wasteland and gained some isolated settler’s holding or a temporary herd station. There were for weapons his stun rod, the bow the Norbies had given him, his belt knife. And for food, a packet of iron rations he had already drawn upon, a survival of his service days. He had his sleeping roll, the blanket from Terra, the small aid kit he had used for Surra, the torch, a hand heat unit with three charges, and a canteen. But he would have to boil his water from now on; the chemical purifiers had gone with the rest of the party’s supplies. However, Storm had done with far less when in the field and the team had learned to hunt game with dispatch and economy.
There was an oversized, rock-dwelling, distant cousin of a rabbit, which they had shot and eaten with good appetite on the trail, a deerlike browser, and the grass hens, which could be easily flushed out, though it took a number of them to satisfy a man. But all Arzoran animals moved with water, and he would have to make the river-fed plains before the big dry closed up the land.
Storm sat cross-legged by the bed of grass he had pulled for Surra’s resting. King muzzled against him, chittering mournfully to herself. Even the bag in which Ho had ridden was not to be found and she missed her mate. As the Terran stroked her coarse fur comfortingly, he studied the southern end of the valley. Between him and the gateway of the tunnel there was still a vast spread of water. He was walled off from that exit until the flood retreated still farther. Also – Storm pushed Hing down on his knees, reached for the vision lenses lying by him.
He swept that southern range, dissatisfied. There was something wrong there, though he could not decide just what it could be. He had a feeling that there had been a change in what he saw. His gaze travelled along the cliffs. There were places there where an active man could climb, but none where he could take Rain. No, unless there was a gateway in the north, then the tunnel remained their only exit. And to head north was to bore farther into the untracked wilderness.
To be alone was nothing new for Storm. In one way or another he had walked a lonely road for most of his life. And sometimes it was easier to live with his inner loneliness and just the team, than to exist in a human anthill such as the Centre. But there was something in this valley that he had never met before, not on any alien, enemy-held planet where he had learned to live in peril, where every move might betray him to an enemy and yet not to quick, clean death. This thing clung to the mounds of rubble – to the walls of rock, and the Terran knew that he had not been greatly surprised to find only the dead waiting on the hillock. This was a place that invited death. It repelled his senses, his body. Had it not been that Surra could not yet travel far, Storm would be seeking a way out right now.
The Terran wanted a fire, not only to dry what was left of his clothing and gear and as a source of physical comfort against the chill of the coming waterlogged night, but because fire itself was his species’ first weapon against the unknown – the oldest, and the most heartening. Slowly he began to speak aloud, his voice rolling into the chants, the old, old songs meant to be a defence against that which stalks the night, words that he believed he could not remember, but that now came easily in the ancient and comforting rhythms.
Baku, perched on a stone outcrop yards above Storm’s head, stirred. Surra raised her chin from her paws, her fox ears pricked. Storm drew his stun rod. His back was against the cliff wall, he had a shielding boulder on his right – only two sides to cover. With the other hand he worked his knife out of its sheath. Any attack would have to be hand to hand. Had a bowman stalked them the arrow would be already freed from its cord. And his stun ray could take care of a charge –
“Eruoooooo!” That call was low, echoing, and it was one he had often heard and could not repeat.
Storm did not relax vigilance, but neither did he press the control button of the ray, as a figure, which was hardly more than a flitting form against shadows gathering in this part of the valley where the western sun was already cut off by the cliffs, came running toward him. Gorgol, his right arm pressed to his chest, reached the gravel beach and dropped on the edge of Surra’s bed. His left hand moved in limited signs which Storm had to watch carefully to translate.
“Enemy – after flood – kill – all dead –”
“It is so,” Storm returned. “Let me see to your wound, warrior.”
The Terran pushed the young native back against the barricade boulder and examined the hurt hur
riedly in the fading light. Luckily for the Norbie the arrow had gone cleanly through, and as far as Storm could judge none of the treacherous, glassy barbs had broken off in the flesh. He washed it with the last of the purified water and bound it up. Gorgol sighed and closed his eyes. The Terran brought out a block of concentrated ration, broke off a portion and pushed it into the Norbie’s good hand.
When Gorgol opened his eyes again Storm signed the all-important question.
“Nitra gone? Or still here?”
Gorgol shook his head in a determined negative. “No Nitra –” With the ration block clenched between his teeth, he moved his one set of fingers. “Not Nitra kill – not Norbies –”
Storm sat back on his heels, his eyes sweeping out over the mound-studded desolation. For an instant or two his vague fears of this place merged in a flash of imagination – the Sealed Cave people? Or some inimical thing they had left here on guard? Then he smiled wryly. Those men on the mound had been killed by arrows, the wound he had just tended was left by the same weapon. His racial superstitions were at war with all the scientific learning of his lost home-world.
“Not Norbies?”
“No Norbie, no Nitra –” Storm had made no mistake in his first reading of Gorgol’s signs. Now the native moved his other arm stiffly, forced his right hand to add to the authority of his left. “Faraway men come – your kind!”
But the arrows? That ritual mutilation of the dead –?
“You see them?”
“I see – I on cliff ledge – water high, high! Men come at end of rain – they wear this’ – he tapped the yoris hide corselet protecting his own torso – “like Norbie – carry bows – like Norbie –but not Norbie. Think Mountain Butchers – steal horses – steal frawns – kill – then say Norbie do. Mark dead like Norbie. They shoot – Gorgol fall like dead – only first Gorgol kill one!” His eyes gleamed brightly. “Gorgol warrior now! But too many –” He spread all his fingers to spell the size of the other party. “So when arrow find Gorgol he fall back – be dead – they no climb up to see whether really dead or no –”
“Mountain Butchers!” Storm repeated aloud and Gorgol must have guessed the meaning of the sounds for again he signed an eager assent.
They are still here?”
“Not so. They go –” Gorgol pointed north. “Think they live there. Not want men to know where they hide – so kill –”
Well, that was one more reason for not heading north when they tried to get out of here. But Gorgol was still making finger-talk.
“They have rider – he tied – maybe they make kill to feed evil spirits’ – he hesitated and then added that horrific sign Storm had first seen Sorenson make – “THE MEAT.”
Storm had heard of some Norbie tribes who, for purposes of a dark devil worship – or devil propitiation – ate prisoners they took under certain conditions. To most of the Arzoran tribes this custom was an abomination and there was a fierce and never-ending warfare waged between the ritual cannibals and their enemies. In Norbie minds the quality of evil was so associated with THE MEAT that it was natural for Gorgol to make the assumption he had just offered.
“Not so,” the Terran corrected. “Butchers not eat captives. This prisoner – he was from the plains?”
“Rider,” Gorgol agreed.
“Any settlers near here? We could find them – tell them about evil men – how they kill –”
Gorgol turned his head slowly so he looked south. “Many suns come up – go down – before reach settlers that way. Maybeso we can go. But not in dark – I not know this country – and Nitra be in hills. Man walk soft, so quick, be very careful –” But he glanced back at the Terran with a kind of level measurement the off-world man did not understand.
“With that I agree,” Storm spoke and signed together. The dark was almost on them now. He shared out bedding from his own roll, saw Gorgol was comfortable and then curled up on the grass beside Surra, sleeping as he had so many times before in perfect confidence that the super-acute hearing of the dune cat would warn him of any danger.
It was almost dawn when Storm did wake at her faint signal. He came not only awake but instantly alert, a trick he had learned so far in the past he was no longer conscious of knowing it. Whatever was coming had not aroused Surra’s fighting instincts, only her interest. He listened intently, hearing Gorgol’s heavy breathing, the rattle of hoof on gravel as Rain stirred. Then that other sound, a pattering noise so faint he could have missed it without Surra’s caution.
The light on the gravel bar was grey enough to distinguish objects and he was ready with the stun rod. He aimed at the dusky blot as soon as he was sure it was not a horse. The top-heavy outline against the rocks could be that of only one animal he had seen on Arzor, and they could certainly use the meat such a kill would provide. A minute later he was busy blooding the carcass of a yearling frawn, one which was plump enough to have enjoyed good foraging lately. Though what a frawn was doing alone in this wilderness was a mystery. The animals were plainsbred and ran in herds and they were never, under ordinary circumstances, either found in the mountain or alone.
Gorgol had an explanation when they squatted close to the fire Storm dared to light after he had heaped some rocks together as a screen. Chunks of frawn steak were spitted on sharpened sticks and the Norbie was giving their even browning careful attention.
“Stolen. Evil men put frawns in hiding – perhaps they lose this one when they drive many through – perhaps storm made herd stampede –”
Storm regarded the meat reflectively. There was a side problem to all this stealing horses and frawns. What in the world – or in Arzor – did the thieves intend to do with their plunder? The market for frawns lay off-world. There was only one space port and all animals loaded there had to be legally accounted for with sales and export papers. Settlers would be the first to detect any newcomer who could not account for his holdings clear back to the moment he set foot on Arzor. What was the profit in stealing meat on the hoof that you had no hope of selling?
“Why they want meat – no sell –” He passed that along to Gorgol, knowing the young native was acute enough to follow his chain of thought.
“Maybeso not sell-big land –” The Norbie waved his left hand wide. Take frawns far – horses, too. Norbie knows of places where Butchers hide. Norbie take horses from their secret places. Hurol, he of Gorgol’s own clan – he take three horses so last dry time. He big hunter – warrior –”
So the Norbies raided the secret caches of the Butchers. Now that scrap of information might lead to something. Suppose the Norbies should be encouraged in that useful occupation, one which appealed so to their own natural tastes? Put a Norbie afoot in the wastes and he could get along. Unhorse an off-worlder without supplies and it was a far different matter. But it all came back to this – how did the Butchers intend eventually to profit from their raids?
The situation might almost suggest a hidden space port to handle illicit trade. A hidden space port! Storm stiffened, his eyes very wide and level as he stared unseeingly at the fire. And Surra, catching from him that hidden tension, growled deep in her throat. There had been hidden space ports of a sort. He had uncovered one himself and brought in a mop-up squad to deal with it and those who manned it. Such a port established to milk a planet of food supplies –! Eagerly he responded to that familiar spur of the hunt.
Sure – the war was over – officially. He had spent that dreary year at the Centre to prove it. But suppose, just suppose that his wild suspicion were right! Then he had another chance –a chance to strike back once more at those who had taken away his world. Storm began to hum under his breath. In that moment his quarrel with Brad Quade was very far away – a thin wisp of a thing out of a half-forgotten story. If he were right –! Oh, Faraway Gods – let him now be right in his preposterous guess!
The Terran turned to Gorgol who had been watching him with close to the same narrow-eyed intensity that Surra’s thin pupils mirrored.
“It is so,” signalled the other.
Then, as Hurol, let us see whether some of those horses may not carry us!”
Gorgol’s thin lips drew back in the half-smile of his people. That is good hearing. For these have killed our blood, and for that there must be a taking of hands in return –”
In that moment Storm realized how close he had been to making a grave error of judgment, one which might have finished his friendly relations with the native. Had he ridden south as had been his first plan, then he would have outraged custom that demanded a personal vengeance for those killed here. It was a small thing to weigh against the crime he suspected, but it was a good argument to use against that scrap of conscience that recalled the unfinished matter of Quade.
9
Much as he wanted to be on the move, Storm desired Surra to have another day of rest before he put her to the strain of the trail. And Gorgol’s wound also needed tending. After seeing to his patients, the Terran made his own plans for a scouting trip. First south, because he wanted to be sure that the Nitra were not between his party and that retreat route. But before he left, he made other preparations.
Grease from the frawn meat mixed with powdered red dust and a chalky stuff ground from some small soft pebbles provided him with a kind of paint and he went to work, streaking face and chest with splotches and broken lines – War paint or camouflage, it served equally well on both counts.
Gorgol watched the paint job with keen interest.
“You make warrior magic?”
The Terran glanced down at the stripes on his chest and smiled, but the movement of lips made no difference in the general ghastly effect of his new face mask.
“I make warrior magic – my people’s magic –”
On impulse he put over his head the circlet of the necklace and fastened about him, looped over his weapon belt, the concha – the embellished one of his inheritance. Then he considered weapons.