by Andre Norton
"Well thought! That is an answer to give the People. The towers are the tombs of dead ones. When we return these they shall be taboo. We are agreed?" Buck asked.
"We are agreed!"
Buck tried his weapon on a sapling, saw it vanish into nothingness. None of the Apaches wanted to carry the strange guns against their bodies; the power made them objects of fear, rather than arms to delight a warrior. And when they returned to their temporary camp, they laid all three on a blanket and covered them up. But they could not cover up the memories of what had happened to bush, rock, and tree.
"If such are their small weapons," Buck observed that evening, "then what kind of things did they have to balance our heavy armament? Perhaps they were able to burn up worlds!"
"That may be what happened elsewhere," Travis replied. "We do not know what put an end to their empire. The capital-planet we found on the first voyage had not been destroyed, but it had been evacuated in haste. One building had not even been stripped of its furnishings." He remembered the battle he had fought there, he and Ross Murdock and the winged native, standing up to an attack of the ape-things while the winged warrior had used his physical advantage to fly above and bomb the enemies with boxes snatched from the piles. . . .
"And here they went to sleep in order to wait out some danger—time or disaster—they did not believe would be permanent," Buck mused.
Travis thought he would flee from the eyes of the sleepers throughout his dreams that night, but on the contrary he slept heavily, finding it hard to rouse when Jil-Lee awakened him for his watch. But he was alert when he saw a four-footed shape flit out of the shadows, drink water from the stream, and shake itself vigorously in a spray of drops.
"Naginlta!" he greeted the coyote. Trouble? He could have shouted that question, but he put a tight rein on his impatience and strove to communicate in the only method possible.
No, what the coyote had come to report was not trouble but the fact that the one he had been set to guard was headed back into the mountains, though others came with her—four others. Nalik'ideyu still watched their camp. Her mate had come for further orders.
Travis squatted before the animal, cupped the coyote's jowls between his palms. Naginlta suffered his touch with only a small whine of uneasiness. With all his power of mental suggestion, Travis strove to reach the keen brain served by the yellow eyes looking into his.
The others with Kaydessa were to be led on, taken to the ship. But Kaydessa must not suffer harm. When they reached a spot near-by—Travis thought of a certain rock beyond the pass—then one of the coyotes was to go ahead to the ship. Let the Apaches there know . . .
Manulito and Eskelta should also be warned by the sentry along the peaks, but additional alerting would not go amiss. Those four with Kaydessa—they must reach the trap!
"What was that?" Buck rolled out of his blanket.
"Naginlta—" The coyote sped back into the dark again. "The Russians have taken the bait, a party of at least four with Kaydessa are moving into the foothills, heading south."
But the enemy party was not the only one on the move. In the light of day a sentry's mirror from a point in the peaks sent another warning down to their camp.
Out in their mountain meadows the Tatar outlaws were on horseback, moving toward the entrance of the tower valley. Buck knelt by the blanket covering the alien weapons.
"Now what?"
"We'll have to stop them," Travis replied, but he had no idea of just how they would halt those determined Mongol horsemen.
17
There were ten of them riding on small, wiry steppe ponies—men and women both, and well armed. Travis recalled it was the custom of the Horde that the women fought as warriors when necessary. Menlik—there was no mistaking the flapping robe of their leader. And they were singing! The rider behind the shaman thumped with violent energy a drum fastened beside his saddle horn, its heavy boom, boom the same call the Apache had heard before. The Mongols were working themselves into the mood for some desperate effort, Travis deduced. And if they were too deeply under the Russian spell, there would be no arguing with them. He could wait no longer.
The Apache swung down from a ledge near the valley gate, moved into the open and stood waiting, the alien weapon resting across his forearm. If necessary, he intended to give a demonstration with it for an object lesson.
"Dar-u-gar!" The war cry which had once awakened fear across a quarter of Earth. Thin here, and from only a few throats, but just as menacing.
Two of the horsemen aimed lances, preparing to ride him down. Travis sighted a tree midway between them and pressed the firing button. This time there was a flash, a flicker of light, to mark the disappearance of a living thing.
One of the lancers' ponies reared, squealed in fear. The other kept on his course.
"Menlik!" Travis shouted. "Hold up your man! I do not want to kill!"
The shaman called out, but the lancer was already level with the vanished tree, his head half turned on his shoulders to witness the blackened earth where it had stood. Then he dropped his lance, sawed on the reins. A rifle bullet might not have halted his charge, unless it killed or wounded, but what he had just seen was a thing beyond his understanding.
The tribesmen sat their horses, facing Travis, watching him with the feral eyes of the wolves they claimed as forefathers, wolves that possessed the cunning of the wild, cunning enough not to rush breakneck into unknown danger.
Travis walked forward. "Menlik, I would talk—"
There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other—the warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert and the People.
"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be prepared to use it."
"The Horde is not here—I see only a handful of people," Travis replied. "Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are those who are his greater enemies."
"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment to face him."
Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so little time.
"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not got your woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with his chin—"leading the Russians into a trap."
Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.
"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.
"We," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.
Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving, contemptuous appraisal.
"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome machines?"
"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not change, though his eyes narrowed.
The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.
"You would talk—then talk!" Menlik ordered.
This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery. "Kaydessa leads the Russians into a trap we have set beyond the peaks—four of them ride with her. How many now remain in th
e ship near the settlement?"
"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship. But there is no getting at them in there."
"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at the meat?"
Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.
"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up against them, then we are once more gathered into their net—before we reach their ship."
"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People," Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you not be free?"
"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."
"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the river?"
Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.
"Give us proof that this will act against their machines!"
"What proof, Shaman?" asked Jil-Lee. "Shall we burn down a mountain that you may believe? This is now a matter of time."
Travis had a sudden inspiration. "You say that the 'copter is out. Suppose we use that as a target?"
"That—that can sweep the flyer from the sky?" Menlik's disbelief was open.
Travis wondered if he had gone too far. But they needed to rid themselves of that spying craft before they dared to move out into the plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would be the best proof he could give of the invincibility of the new Apache arms.
"Under the right conditions," he replied stoutly, "yes."
"And those conditions?" Menlik demanded.
"That it must be brought within range. Say, below the level of a neighboring peak where a man may lie in wait to fire."
Silent Apaches faced silent Mongols, and Travis had a chance to taste what might be defeat. But the helicopter must be taken before they advanced toward the ship and the settlement.
"And, maker of traps, how do you intend to bait this one?" Menlik's question was an open challenge.
"You know these Russians better than we," Travis counterattacked. "How would you bait it, Son of the Blue Wolf?"
"You say Kaydessa is leading the Russians south; we have but your word for that," Menlik replied. "Though how it would profit you to lie on such a matter—" He shrugged. "If you do speak the truth, then the 'copter will circle about the foothills where they entered."
"And what would bring the pilot nosing farther in?" the Apache asked.
Menlik shrugged again. "Any manner of things. The Russians have never ventured too far south; they are suspicious of the heights—with good cause." His fingers, near the hilt of his tulwar, twitched. "Anything which might suggest that their party is in difficulty would bring them in for a closer look—"
"Say a fire, with much smoke?" Jil-Lee suggested.
Menlik spoke over his shoulder to his own party. There was a babble of answer, two or three of the men raising their voices above those of their companions.
"If set in the right direction, yes," the shaman conceded. "When do you plan to move, Apaches?"
"At once!"
But they did not have wings, and the cross-country march they had to make was a rough journey on foot. Travis' "at once" stretched into night hours filled with scrambling over rocks, and an early morning of preparations, with always the threat that the helicopter might not return to fly its circling mission over the scene of operations. All they had was Menlik's assurance that while any party of the Russian overlords was away from their well-defended base, the flyer did just that.
"Might be relaying messages on from a walkie-talkie or something like that," Buck commented.
"They should reach our ship in two days . . . three at the most . . . if they are pushing." Travis said thoughtfully. "It would be a help—if that flyer is a link in any com unit—to destroy it before its crew picks up and relays any report of what happens back there."
Jil-Lee grunted. He was surveying the heights above the pocket in which Menlik and two of the Mongols were piling brush. "There . . . there . . . and there . . ." The Apache's chin made three juts. "If the pilot swoops for a quick look, our cross fire will take out his blades."
They held a last conference with Menlik and then climbed to the perches Jil-Lee had selected. Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Russians at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out to storm the enemy fort on the prairie. And should they blast any caller the helicopter might carry, Menlik and his riders would accompany them.
There it was, just as Menlik had foretold: The wasp from the open country was flying into the hills. Menlik, on his knees, struck flint to steel, sparking the fire they hoped would draw the pilot to a closer investigation.
The brush caught, and smoke, thick and white, came first in separate puffs and then gathered into a murky pillar to form a signal no one could overlook. In Travis' hands the grip of the gun was slippery. He rested the end of the barrel on the rock, curbing his rising tension as best he could.
To escape any caller on the flyer, the Tatars had remained in the valley below the Apaches' lookout. And as the helicopter circled in, Travis sighted two men in its cockpit, one wearing a helmet identical to the one they had seen on the Russian hunter days ago. The Russians' long undisputed sway over the Mongol forces would make them overconfident. Travis thought that even if they sighted one of the waiting Apaches, they would not take warning until too late.
Menlik's brush fire was performing well and the flyer was heading straight for it. The machine buzzed the smoke once, too high for the Apaches to trust raying its blades. Then the pilot came back in a lower sweep which carried him only yards above the smoldering brush, on a level with the snipers.
Travis pressed the button on the barrel, his target the fast-whirling blades. Momentum carried the helicopter on, but at least one of the marksmen, if not all three, had scored. The machine plowed through the smoke to crack up beyond.
Was their caller working, bringing in the Mongols to aid the Russians trapped in the wreck?
Travis watched Menlik make his way toward the machine, reach the cracked cover of the cockpit. But in the shaman's hand was a bare blade on which the sun glinted. The Mongol wrenched open the sprung door, thrust inward with the tulwar, and the howl of triumph he voiced was as wordless and wild as a wolf's.
More Mongols flooding down . . . Hulagur . . . a woman . . . centering on the helicopter. This time a spear plunged into the interior of the broken flyer. Payment was being extracted for long slavery.
The Apaches dropped from the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the wild scene. Hulagur had dragged out the body of the helmeted man and the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks, still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge fire to meet the Apaches.
He was smiling, his upper lip raised in a curve suggesting the victory purr of a snow tiger. And he saluted with one hand.
"There are two who will not trap men again! We believe you now, andas, comrades of battle, when you say you can go up against their fort and make it as nothing!"
Hulagur came up behind the shaman, a modern automatic in his hand. He tossed the weapon into the air, caught it again, laughing—disclaiming something in his own language.
"From the serpents we take two fangs," Menlik translated. "These weapons may not be as dangerous as yours, but they can bite deeper, quicker, and with more force than our arrows."
It did not take the Mongols long to strip the helicopter and the Russians of what they could use, deliberately smashing all the other equipment which had survived the wreck. They had accomplished one important move: The link between the southbound exploring party and the Russian headquarters—if th
at was the role the helicopter had played—was now gone. And the "eyes" operating over the open territory of the plains had ceased to exist. The attacking war party could move against the ship near the Russian settlement, knowing they had only controlled Mongol scouts to watch for. And to penetrate enemy territory under those conditions was an old, old game the Apaches had played for centuries.
While they waited for the signals from the peaks, a camp was established and a Mongol dispatched to bring up the rest of the outlaws and all extra mounts. Menlik carried to the Apaches a portion of the dried meat which had been transported Horde fashion—under the saddle to soften it for eating.
"We do not skulk any longer like rats or city men in dark holes," he told them. "This time we ride, and we shall take an accounting from those out there—a fine accounting."
"They still have other controllers," Travis pointed out.
"And you have that which is an answer to all their machines," blazed Menlik in return.
"They will send against us your own people if they can," Buck warned.
Menlik pulled at his upper lip. "That is also truth. But now they have no eyes in the sky, and with so many of their men away, they will not patrol too far from camp. I tell you, andas, with these weapons of yours a man could rule a world!"
Travis looked at him bleakly. "Which is why they are taboo!"
"Taboo?" Menlik repeated. "In what manner are these forbidden? Do you not carry them openly, use them as you wish? Are they not weapons of your own people?"
Travis shook his head. "These are the weapons of dead men—if we can name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone spears. They are from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ourselves with their use."