The Iron Breed

by Andre Norton

  “This is one of the Demons' servants from the old days. It obeys my will through this.” He indicated the caller. “When it breaks through to us we must be ready to mount on top. And it will carry us out of this evil den. But we must be swift, for these servants have a limit on their period of service. When this”—again he brought the caller their notice—“ceases to buzz, these servants die, and we cannot again awaken them. Nor do we ever know how long that life will last.”

  There was a sharp crash. Through the wall broke what looked to be a long black arm. It swept around, clearing the hole. Instantly, at its appearance, Foskatt thrust his tongue into the opening in the cube. The arm stopped its sweeping, was still, as if pointing directly to them. Behind it they could see the dark bulk of the nimbler, solid as a wall.

  “We must get on it—quick!” Foskatt tried to rise but his weakened body failed him.

  Furtig, at his side, turned to face the stranger.

  “Help me!” He made that an order. The other hesitated. He had been heading for the break in the wall. But now he turned back, though it was plain he came reluctantly.

  Together they raised Foskatt, though their handling must have been a torment, for he let out a small mewling cry at their touch. Then he was silent as they somehow got him through the broken door, raised him to the back of the boxlike thing.

  It had more than one of those jutting arms, all of them quiet now. And it was among their roots that they settled their burden. How the thing had arrived they could not determine, for they could see no legs.

  But that it had come with ruthless determination was plain by the crushed bodies of the Rattons lying here and there.

  Once on top, Furtig looked to Foskatt. How did they now bring to life this Demon nimbler? Would it indeed carry them on?

  “Brother!” Furtig bent over his tribesman. “What do we now?”

  But Foskatt lay with closed eyes, and did not answer. The stranger growled.

  “He cannot tell you. Perhaps he is near death. At least we are free of that hole. So—I shall make the most of such freedom.”

  Before Furtig could hinder him, he jumped from the top of the servant and ran in long leaping bounds into the dimness beyond. But, greatly as he was tempted to follow, the old belief that one ought not to desert a tribesman held Furtig where he was.

  He could hear distant squealing. More Rattons must be gathering ahead. Now he no longer believed that the stranger had made the best choice. He could well be heading into new captivity.

  As would happen to them unless—Furtig pried at Foskatt's hold on the caller. Tongue tip had gone in there, and the servant had come. Again tongue tip, and the rumbler had stopped beating down the wall. Therefore the caller ordered it. If that were so, why could Furtig not command it now?

  He brought it close to his mouth. How had Foskatt done it? By some pressure like the sign language? Furtig knew no code. All he was sure of was that he wanted to get the rumbler away from here, back to Gammage, if that was where it had come from.

  Well, he could only try. Gingerly, not knowing whether the caller might punish a stranger without learning for attempting to use it, Furtig inserted his tongue and tried to press. A sharp tingling sensation followed, but he held steady.

  There was an answering vibration in the box on which he crouched. The arms pulled back from the wall, and the thing began to move.

  Furtig caught at Foskatt lest he be shaken loose as the rumbler trundled back from the wall and slewed around, so that the arms now pointed toward the broken door of the room.

  They did not move fast, no faster than a walk, but the rumbler never paused. And Furtig knew a new feeling of power. He had commanded this thing! It might not take them to Gammage as he wished it to do, but at least it was bearing them away from the Ratton prison, and he believed that those slinkers would not dare to attack again as long as Foskatt and he rode this servant.

  Foskatt's warning of the uncertain life span of the Demons' servants remained. But Furtig would not worry about that now. He was willing to take what good fortune was offered in the present.

  They slid away from the light of the Ratton-held chambers. But now the rumbler provided light of its own. For two of those arms extended before it bore on their ends small circles of radiance.

  This was not a natural passage like the cave ways; the Demons had built these walls. Furtig and the wounded Foskatt rumbled past other doorways, twice taking angled turns into new ways. It would seem that for all the sky-reaching heights of the lairs aboveground, there was a matching spread of passages beneath the surface.

  Furtig's ears pricked. They had not outrun, probably could not outrun, pursuit. Behind he heard the high-voiced battle cries of the Rattons. At least he was well above their heads on the box and so had that small advantage.

  Hurriedly he used Foskatt's own belt to anchor him to the arms of the rumbler, leaving himself free for any defense tactics needed. With the claws on his hands, he hunched to wait.

  Strange smells here. Not only those natural to underground places, but others he could not set name to. Then the nimbler halted in front of what seemed a blank wall, and Furtig speedily lost what small confidence had carried him this far. They were going to be trapped; all this servant of Gammage had bought them was a little time.

  But, though the rumbler had halted, its outthrust arms moved. They were doing nothing Furtig could understand, merely jerking up and down, shining round spots of light on the wall here and there.

  There was a dull grating sound. The wall itself split in a wide crack, not such as those arms had beaten in the prison wall, but clean, as if this was a portal meant to behave in this fashion. As soon as the opening was wide enough, the rumbler moved on into a section which was again lighted. Furtig looked back; the wall started to shut even as they passed through. He gave a small sigh of relief as he saw the opening close. At least no Ratton was coming through there!

  But the rumbler no longer moved steadfastly; rather it went slower and slower, finally stopping with its arms curled back upon its body. Now it looked—Furtig's woods-wise mind made the quick comparison—like a great black spider dying. When the rumbler ceased to move he lifted the caller to his mouth, readied his tongue. This time there was no tingling response to his probing. It must be as Foskatt had warned—the servant had died, if one might term it so.

  There was light here, and they were in another corridor with numerous doors. Furtig hesitated for a long moment and then dropped to the floor. Leaving Foskatt where he was, he went to the nearest opening to look within.

  The room was not empty. Most of the floor was covered with metal boxes, firmly based. And there was an acrid smell which made him sneeze and shake his head to banish it from his nostrils. Nothing moved, and his ears, fully alert, could not pick up the slightest sound.

  He returned to the rumbler. If that could not carry them farther, and Foskatt could not be transported, what was he to do? When he was the merest youngling, he had learned the importance of memory patterns, of learning the ways of the People's tribal hunting grounds until those became a matter of subconscious recall rather than conscious thinking. But here he had no such pattern as a guide, he had only—

  Furtig scrambled up to sit beside Foskatt. There was one thing—If they had in truth been heading toward Gammage's headquarters when this journey began, he could try—He closed his eyes, set about methodically to blank out the thought of what lay immediately around him.

  He must use his thoughts as if they were ears, eyes, nose, to point to what he sought. This could be done, had been done many times over, by some individuals among the People. But Furtig had never been forced to try it before.

  He had never seen Gammage, but so well was the Ancestor fixed in the mind of all who dwelt in the caves, that he had heard him described many times over. Now he tried to build in his mind a picture of Gammage. And, because the Ancestor was who he was and had been to his tribe a figure of awe and wonder across several generations, doubtless
that mind picture was different from the person it represented, being greater than reality.

  As he had never tried before, Furtig strove now to think of Gammage, to discover where in the lairs he could find this leader. So far—nothing. Perhaps he was one of those for whom such searching did not work. Each of the People had his own abilities, his own weaknesses. When the People worked together, one could supply what another lacked, but here Furtig had only himself. Gammage—where was Gammage?

  It was like picking out the slightest ripple in the grass, hearing a sound so thin and far away that it was not true sound at all but merely the alerting suggestion of it. But a warm flush of triumph heated Furtig. It was true—he had done it! That sense would lead him now. Lead him. He opened his eyes to look at Foskatt.

  What of Foskatt? It was plain that the other could not walk, nor could Furtig carry him. He could leave, return later—But perhaps that wall which had opened and closed was not the only entrance. One dared not underrate the tenacity of the Rattons. Long before Furtig could return with help, Foskatt could be captive or dead.

  Suppose that somewhere in one of these chambers along this way he could find another of these servants, one which could be activated? It would do no harm to go and look, and it might be their only chance.

  Furtig began the search. But he found himself moving slowly, needing to stop now and then to lean against the wall. All of a sudden, now that the excitement of their escape had died, he needed rest. He fed on some of the dried meat from Eu-La's bag. But it was hard to choke down even a few mouthfuls of that without water. And where was he going to find water?

  Determinedly Furtig prowled among those metal boxes set in the first chamber, finding nothing useful. Stubbornly he went on to explore the next room.

  This was different in that it had tables, long ones, and those tables were crowded with masses of things he did not understand at all. He backed away from one where the brush of his tail had knocked off a large basin. The basin shattered on the floor, and the sound of the crash was magnified a hundred times by echoes.

  Furtig's startled jump almost brought him to disaster. For he struck against what seemed a smaller table, and that moved! He whirled around, expecting an attack, snarling. The table went on until it bumped against one of the larger tables.

  Warily Furtig hooked his claws lightly about one of its slender legs. Very cautiously he pulled the small table back. It answered so readily, he was again startled. Then he mastered surprise, and experimented.

  The surface was high, he could barely touch the top with his chin when he stood at his tallest. There was a mass of brittle stuff lying across it, and when he tried to investigate, it broke and powdered, so that he swept it off, leaving a bare surface.

  But he could move the table!

  Pushing and pulling, he brought it out of the room, back to the side of the rumbler. Luckily there was only a short space between the two levels, the table being a little lower. He was sure he could get Foskatt from one to the other.

  Blood was seeping again from the matted fur about Foskatt's wound by the time Furtig had finished. He settled the unconscious tribesman in the center of the table, hoping he would not roll, as there was no anchorage here.

  He fastened his belt to the two front legs of the table and then slung the end over one shoulder. It was a tight fit, the table bumping continually against his back and legs, and if it had not rolled so easily he could not have moved it. Resolutely he set out down the corridor.

  There were times following, which could have been night and day, or day and night, since Furtig could no longer measure time so here—times when he believed that he could not go on. He would hunch down, the table looming over him, breathing so hard it hurt his lower ribs. His whole body was so devoted to pulling the table that he was not really aware of anything save that he had not yet reached the place to which he must go.

  On and on, and there was no end, from corridor to room, across room, to another hall. The lights grew brighter, the strange smells stronger. He was never sure when the vibration in the walls began. It might have started long before his dulled senses recorded it. There was a feeling of life here . . .

  Furtig leaned against the wall. At least there was no smell of Ratton. And they were still heading in the right direction.

  Then he really looked about him. The corridor down which they had just come ended at a wall. And if this was like the wall the servant had opened, well, he did not have the ability to get through it. Leaving the table, he shambled forward to examine it better.

  What was happening to him? This was the bottom of a shaft, much the same as the one he had fallen down earlier. But now—he was going up! Gently, as if the air itself was pushing him.

  Frantically Furtig fought, managed to catch hold of the shaft entrance and pull out of that upward current. As he dropped to the ground, he was shaken out of that half-stupor which had possessed him.

  It was plain, as plain as such a marvel could be, that here the shaft reversed the process of the other one. And it was also plain that Gammage—or what his search sense had fastened on as Gammage—was above.

  Would this mysterious upward current take the table also? He could only try. Pulling, he got it into the shaft. Foskatt's body stirred, drifting up from the surface. So—it worked on him, but not on the table. Wearily Furtig accepted that, kept his hold on his tribesman as they began to rise together.

  It took a long time, but Furtig, in his weariness, did not protest that. He watched dully as they slid past one opening and then another. Each must mark a different level of these vast underground ways, even as the caves opened from two ledges. Up and up—

  Four levels up and Furtig's search sense gave the signal—this one! Towing the limp Foskatt, he made swimming motions to take them to the opening. And he had just enough strength to falter through, out of the pull of the current, to the floor beyond.

  He lay there beside Foskatt, panting, his sides and back aching from his effort. What now? But he was too worn out to face anything more—not now. And that thought dimmed in his mind as his head fell forward to rest on his crooked arm.

  5

  Furtig came out of sleep, aware even before he opened his eyes that he was not alone. What he sniffed was not the musky scent of Ratton, but rather the reassuring odor of his own kin. With that, another smell, which brought him fully awake—food! And not the dried rations of his traveling either.

  He was lying on a pallet not unlike those of the caves. And, waiting beside him, holding a bowl which sent out that enticing fragrance, was a female he had never seen before. She was remarkable enough to let him know he was among strangers. And he gaped at her in a way which should have brought her fur rising, set her to a warning hiss.

  Fur—that was it! Though she had a goodly show of silky, silvery fur on her head and along her shoulders, yet on the rest of her body it was reduced to the thinnest down, through which it was easy to see her skin.

  And those hands holding the bowl—the fingers were not stubby like his own but longer, thinner. Furtig did not know whether he liked what he saw of her, he was only aware that she was different enough to keep him staring like a stupid youngling.

  “Eat—” She held the bowl closer. Her voice had a tone of command. Also it was as different as her body was from those he knew.

  Furtig took the bowl and found its contents had been cut into easily handled strips. As he gnawed, and the warm, restorative juices flowed down his throat, he came fully to attention. The female had not left and that disconcerted him again. Among the People this was not the custom—the males had their portion of the caves, the females another.

  “You are Furtig of the Ancestor's cave—”

  “How did you—”

  “Know that? Did you not bring back Foskatt, who knows you?”

  “Foskatt!” For the first time since his waking, Furtig remembered his tribesman. “He is hurt—the Rattons—”

  “Hurt, yes. But he is now in the healing pla
ce of the Demons. We”—there was pride in her tone—“have learned many of the Demons' secrets. They could heal as well as kill. And every day we learn more and more. If we are given the chance we shall know all that they knew . . .”

  “But not to use that knowledge to the same purposes, Liliha.”

  Startled, Furtig looked beyond the female. The soft tread of any of his race should not be entirely noiseless, but he had been so intent he had not been aware of a newcomer. And looking up—

  “Famed Ancestor!” He set down the bowl with a bump which nearly shook out what was left of its contents, hastened to make the gesture of respect due the greatest Elder of them all. But to his pride (and a little discomfort, were the full truth to be known), Gammage hunkered down by him and touched noses in the full acceptance of the People.

  “You are Furtig, son of Fuffor, son of Foru, son of another Furtig who was son of my son,” Gammage recited as a true Elder, one trained to keep in memory clan and tribe generations through the years. “Welcome to the lairs, warrior. It would seem that your introduction here has been a harsh one.”

  Gammage was old; the very descent lines he had stated made him older than any Elder Furtig had ever known. Yet there was something about him which suggested vigor, though now perhaps more vigor of mind than of body.

  Like the female's fur, though she was clearly young and not old, Gammage's body fur was sparse. And that body was thin, showing more bony underlining than padded muscle.

  He wore not just the belt common to all the People but a long piece of fabric fastened at his throat, flowing back over his shoulders. This somehow gave him added stature and dignity. He also had about his neck a chain of shining metal links and from that hung a cube not unlike the one Foskatt had carried. While his hands—

  Furtig's gaze lingered. Whoever had he seen among the People with such hands! They were narrower, the fingers longer and thinner even than those of the female. Yes, in all ways Gammage was even stranger than the old tales made him.