The Iron Breed

by Andre Norton

  It was prod, slide, prod, a very slow advance. But his detect found no more barriers. Now there was even a faint glimmer of light to be sighted ahead. It was so welcome, Furtig hurried more than he had dared since he had entered the ducts.

  Soon he peered through what could only be a grating. But, like that of the Ratton prison, this was set not at floor level but near the ceiling, so that he had to squeeze close to it in order to get even a limited view of the floor.

  He was just in time to witness action. Rattons! Even before he saw them, their foul smell arose. Furtig froze, afraid of making some sound. But with that stench came the smell of blood and that of his own People. His stiff whiskers bristled.

  He could hear sounds almost directly below his perch, but the angle was such that he could not view what was happening. There was a low moan of pain, a vicious chittering in the Ratton tongue. Then a body rolled out far enough for him to see it.

  Though the fur of the prisoner was matted with blood, he was able to recognize Ku-La. So the stranger had not made his escape after all! He was not only back in Ratton claws but had suffered their cruel usage. That he still lived was no mercy. And his end would mean only one thing, food for the Rattons.

  Plastered against the grating, Furtig listened, as if he could do that not only with his ears but with his whole body. He could hear small scuffling noises, a few chitterings. Then those grew fainter, stopped. He was certain after a long wait that the Rattons had gone, leaving no guard here.

  Ku-La's own actions proved that. He was striving to raise his battered head from the floor, making efforts, which brought cries of pain out of him, to somehow reach his bonds with his teeth. But the Rattons were no fools; he had been well and skillfully tied. His struggles did not last long. With a last moan he went limp as if even that small effort had finished him.

  Ku-La was not of Furtig's clan, and one did not champion strangers. But—common blood—he was of the People. And his fate might be Foskatt's, or Furtig's.

  Furtig started to move away from the grating, but he discovered that something would not let him go in comparative safety, leaving Ku-La to Ratton-delivered death. He edged back and began to feel about the edge of the grating. At first he thought that too tightly set, that fate had decided for him, giving him no choice.

  Then there was a click which startled Furtig into instant immobility. After listening, and hearing nothing to suggest the enemy had returned, he began once more that patient prying and pulling.

  To work the grating loose in those confined quarters was difficult, but Furtig managed it. Once more he had recourse to his belt and the various tools and aids he carried. Wound there was a length of cord, seemingly too thin and fine to support even a youngling. But this was another of the Demons' wonders, for it could take greater weights than Furtig.

  He used the grating to anchor one end. Then, as he had used vines in the trees, he swung out and down. Furtig hit the floor in a half-crouch, ready to take on any Ratton. But the door was closed; there were none there.

  Sighing with relief, he moved to the captive in a single leap. Ku-La stared up at him in wide-eyed amazement but made no sound. Nor did he attempt to move as Furtig slashed through his bonds. The extent of the other's injuries made Furtig sick, and he was not sure he could save him. If Ku-La was unable to follow him into the duct, perhaps it would be his choice to ask for a throat slash and go out as a warrior should, rather than linger in the enemies' hold.

  Furtig extended his hand that the other might see his claws and understand the choice it was his to make. Ku-La's blue eyes regarded those claws. Then he moved, slowly, painfully, levering himself up, looking not to the promise of a clean and speedy death, but to the cord dangling beyond. He had made his choice, and Furtig was forced to accept it.

  For a moment he was bitterly resentful. Why did he have to turn aside from a vital mission to aid this warrior who was not of his clan, to whom he owed no duty at all? He did not understand the impulse that had brought him to Ku-La's aid, he only mistrusted it and the difficulties into which it had plunged him.

  Ku-La could not get to his feet, but he crawled for the end of the cord with such determined purpose that Furtig hurried to help. How he could get the almost helpless warrior aloft he had no idea. And he was driven by the fear that at any moment the Rattons might return. In the end he managed by looping the cord about Ku-La, then returning aloft to pull with all the strength he could summon.

  Had the distance been greater, Furtig could not have done it. But somehow he had the energy left to bring that dangling body within reaching distance of the opening. Then Ku-La himself, with what effort Furtig could imagine, raised one arm to the edge and drew himself within.

  Wasting no time in trying to tend the other's hurts, Furtig hurried to reset the grating. Only when he had done that did he squirm beside Ku-La, unhook his water container, and let the other drink—which he did in a way that suggested that his thirst had been almost as great a torment as his wounds.

  “Where now?” Ku-La's whisper was very weak.

  Well might he ask that! Furtig's impatience flared again. In this tight duct he could only tug the other on. He was sure Ku-La could not climb up the vent down which he had come. It could well be that he should leave the other here, momentarily out of harm, and go on his own mission. As he was considering that, the same idea must have come to Ku-La, for he said: “They will seek—”

  Naturally they would. And they would not be long in finding the grating. It would take them some effort to reach the opening, but Furtig could not gain much satisfaction from that. He set to work to see if he could wedge the grating more securely. He broke off a length of his detect and rammed it well into place. They would have some trouble breaking that.

  “We can only go on,” he said at last. But how far—and to where? The pace Ku-La could keep—His concern over the other had indeed put him in awkward straits; it might even lead to disaster.

  Perhaps Ku-La could help. Let them get away from the grating, and he could ask the other what he knew of this section of the lairs.

  “Can you crawl?”

  “While there is breath in me,” replied the other. There was that in his tone akin to some blood-oath promise. Furtig believed he meant it.

  He put out his hand, caught the other's right arm, and hooked Ku-La's fingers into his own belt.

  “Hang on then and let us go!”

  9

  They lay together in the small space the meeting of three ducts provided. Furtig could hear Ku-La's harsh gasping and knew, without need for confirmation, that Ku-La had come to the end of his strength. Yet he himself found that he could not just crawl on and leave the other to die in this hole. That drag upon him produced a dull anger in him.

  It was Ku-La who spoke first, his voice a thread of sound which Furtig had to listen to well to hear at all.

  “No—farther—”

  So he was accepting defeat. Furtig should now feel relief. It was as if Ku-La had accepted the inevitable, laid his throat open to the mercy claws. But he spoke again, and this time he asked a question which surprised Furtig, for he believed Ku-La sunk in his own misery.

  “What seek you?”

  “Knowledge.” Furtig answered with the truth. “The hidden knowledge of the Demons.”

  “So—also—” came the whisper. “I—found—before—I—was—taken—”

  Furtig, startled, rolled over, trying to see the other in the dark. Only Gammage's clan combed the lairs for knowledge. Yet this stranger spoke with certainty.

  “Records?” Furtig demanded. He could accept that Ku-La prowled perhaps hunting a superior weapon. But certainly he could know nothing of the tapes Gammage wanted.

  “Demon knowledge.” Ku-La's whisper was a little stronger, as if the necessity for communication actually produced strength to aid him. “They kept records in rolls of tape. Our people know this. You put them in—” His whisper died away.

  But Gammage and his people were the only ones
who had learned that, who studied such. Yet Ku-La spoke as one who had used such tapes. Furtig had to know more. Putting out a hand, he touched the other's shoulder, only to feel Ku-La wince with a gasp of pain.

  “How do you know this?” Furtig demanded sharply.

  “—live in lairs—to the east—lairs very large. We hunt knowledge—”

  Another clan such as Gammage's, busy at the same task on the far side of the lairs? But it was not possible. As Ku-La had said, the lairs were large. But that they had not had contact—that hinted that Ku-La's people may have been hiding with no good intent. Had he brought out of the Rattons' claws one who was as much an enemy as a Barker or one of the evil-smelling runners in dark ways?

  “Came—from a smaller lair—found knowledge there which brought us hunting here—” Ku-La continued that thread of tortured sound, bending his strength to an explanation. “We have old story—lived—with—Demons until they died—then learned—”

  Could it be that elsewhere the Last Days had been different? That dying Demons had not turned upon Ku-La's tribe as they had so mercilessly here? Furtig decided that such history was possible. And if that were so, surely Ku-La's people had a head start on Demon discoveries. Yet they had come here seeking knowledge—which made Gammage's need doubly important.

  Ku-La said he had found what he sought just before the Rattons had taken him! Which meant that a cache was either in Ratton territory or close enough for them to patrol there. Was that cache the one Foskatt had been aiming for?

  “Where is this place of tapes?”

  “There is a hall where stand many of those things like the one which broke down the wall.” Ku-La's voice was steadier, even a little stronger, as if fixing his mind upon his search had drawn him a little out of his present misery. “On the wall facing the door of that—there is a space there as if one had set his hand into it. Into that you must put a light—Then it opens—” His whisper ended with a sigh. Though Furtig shook the other's shoulder there was no flinching or answer.

  Was Ku-La dead? Furtig fumbled for the other's head, held his fingers over the half-open mouth. No, there was breath coming. But he did not believe he could get any more directions. This chamber—where would he find it? He had better advance in the general direction suggested by Foskatt. But in any case he could linger here no longer.

  Furtig dropped his head on his crooked arm and thought of the face of Foskatt. Then in his mind he retraced his passage along the ducts, concentrating hardest on the present point. He had no assurance his message was received, but it was the best he could do. Unlatching his container of water, he pushed it under one of Ku-La's limp hands. Then he scrambled into the duct at his right to continue his journey.

  As he rounded a turn, he saw again the faint slits which could only be gratings. He hurried from one to the next. The chambers he saw were piled high with boxes and containers—as if they were part of a vast storehouse in which the Demons had laid up treasures. Furtig had no idea of their contents. It would take seasons and seasons—even if Gammage realized his impossible dream and united the many tribes of the People—to explore this place.

  So much of what had already been discovered was not understood, for all the prying and study of those best qualified among the In-born. If they were given time and peace—what could they learn?

  The sight of all that piled below had the effect on Furtig that a clean, newly made track might have on a hunter. His fingers twitched with the desire to swing down, to claw open this or that shadowed container. But this was not what he had been sent to find. He forced himself past those tantalizing displays.

  With a shock he realized that the last grating gave him a new view. He pushed close to the grill to assess what he saw. Machines—lines of those strange willing-unwilling servants lined up. And a single door at floor level. Ku-La's tale—had he found by chance the very storage place the other sought? But this could not be Foskatt's cache, unless the vague description he had caught varied in details.

  In the dim light Furtig could not see any such space in the wall as Ku-La had described. He used his nose as well as his eyes and ears. The usual smell of these burrows—no taint of Ratton. If this was the chamber of Ku-La's story, there was no enemy guard. Dared he pass up the chance to prove or disprove what the stranger scout had said?

  If Ku-La's people had had a longer association with the Demons, a knowledge exceeding the hard-won bits and scraps Gammage had unearthed, than any cache the other had come to find might well be superior to that listed for Furtig. He must put it to the proof!

  Once more he loosened a grating, used his cord to drop to the floor below. But before he sought the end of the room, he went to the door. That barrier was shut and he wished to barricade it—but saw nothing large enough to use. He could only hope that the Rattons might betray their arrival by the noise of their coming, their rank scent.

  Furtig hurried to the wall Ku-La had spoken of. And he was really not surprised to find just such a depression as had been described. It was high up; Furtig had to scratch above eye level to fit his hand into it.

  What had Ku-La said? Light. What light? Furtig leaned against the wall to consider the problem. Light—the Demon weapon spat lightning—He had nothing else, and he was firmly determined to force this door if he could.

  Furtig drew the weapon. Dolar had drilled him in the charge of force it would spit. The wave of fire which answered was governed by the turning of a small bar on the butt. He could set that as low as it would go—

  Having done so, Furtig put the mouth of the barrel to the depression. More than a little nervous to be using forces he did not understand, he pressed the firing button.

  There was an answering glow reflected back from the cup. Then, slowly, with a dull rasping sound, as if something which had been a long time sealed was being forced, the wall split open. It did not crumble as had the wall in that other chamber when the rambler had battered it, but parted evenly, as if slashed carefully by claw tip. Furtig uttered a small purr of triumph.

  But he had prudence enough not to enter a place with a door that might close and entrap him. His inbred caution warred with curiosity, and caution won to make him take what precautions he could.

  Though the door remained open, Furtig turned to the machines in rows behind him. The one which had rescued them had traveled easily enough. Even if none of these were alive, could one not be pushed forward? He darted down the nearest line, trying to find one small enough to be managed. And finally, though there did not seem to be much choice as to size, he singled one out and began to pull and shove.

  Then he became aware of the device that Gammage had given him, that which must locate the tapes. It was buzzing, loudly enough to sound beyond the pouch where he carried it.

  Heartened by that, he redoubled his efforts and his choice moved, rolling with greater ease once he got it started, trundling forward to the door. There Furtig maneuvered it into position across the threshold so the opposed leaves, if attempt to close those did, would be held apart by its bulk. Only when it was set in place did he scramble over it.

  There was a light bar within on the ceiling, so he could see before him a narrow aisle of drawered containers such as were always used for tape storage. Hooking his fingers in the pull on the nearest, he gave it a jerk. The drawer rolled open to display boxes of record tapes. Furtig was amazed by the number. If each of these—he glanced down the double row of containers—held as many as this one drawer, this was just such a storehouse as Gammage had long hoped to find.

  Furtig slipped along the aisle, opening one drawer after another. But before he reached the end of that short line, he could see that the racks within were more and more sparsely filled. And the last section of drawers on the very end was entirely empty. Even so—this was a find to rejoice over.

  Transportation—Furtig leaned against the far wall, looked back to the wedged door. That was a new problem. He had brought a bag, now tightly rolled in his belt, which would hold three or four do
uble handfuls of tape cases. But how could he know which in this storehouse of wealth were those that mattered the most? There was nothing to do but make a clean sweep, transport everything here, at least into a hiding place of his own choice—which could mean somewhere along the ducts—until it could be carried back to Gammage.

  Furtig went into action, filling the bag, climbing into the duct to dump its contents, returning to fill and climb again. He was beginning to tire. His effort at dragging Ku-La along the duct told when added to this. But he kept to his task, making sure he left nothing behind in any drawer he emptied.

  It took ten trips, and at the end he was shaking with fatigue. By rights he should move that machine back, try to reseal the door, cover his tracks so that no prowling Ratton could be guided to the treasure trove he had to cache in the duct. But he simply could not summon the strength to accomplish all that. Instead he swung up for the last time, lay panting there until he could bring into his heavy, aching arms energy enough to reset the grill.

  About him lay the tape cases in a drift which rattled and rolled as he moved. And he knew that he dared not leave them so near the spot where he had found them. So he began once more, this time not only filling his bag but pushing before him an armload of loose tapes, taking what he could back along the duct.

  When he reached the meeting of the ways where he had left Ku-La, he heard a stirring.

  “You—have-found—” Ku-La's whisper was stronger, or did Furtig only imagine that because he hoped it was so?

  “Yes. But I must bring these here.” Flinging out his arm, Furtig sent the cases spinning, hastily emptied his bag. He wasted no more breath on explanation but set to retrace his way.

  How many such trips he made he did not know. Furtig only understood that he could allow himself no long pause to rest for fear of not being able to start again. But in the end he lay beside Ku-La with the tide of cases piled up like a wall about them.