by Andre Norton
“Bister—” Quade repeated thoughtfully. “Coll Bister. Anybody here know him?”
Dort Lancin answered first. “He rode down from the port as trail herder, ’long with me and Storm. Just like the kid here tells it. Seemed just like any other drifter to me. Only I heard about apers when I was with the outfit. Seems like they captured two of them close to the end, wearing Confed uniforms and runnin’ a side show to the big muddle. Might have fouled up that whole sector if one of the messes they cooked up hadn’t been called to the attention of a section commander in time. After that mix-up a lot of the boys looked close at each other, providin’ they weren’t born and raised together in the same river valley or such! Bister didn’t come in on our ship, and he was a new light and tie with Larkin, never rode for Put before. Don’t know where he came from—except Put picked him as a hire rider along with the rest of us.”
“Guilt,” Kelson observed, “is a queer thing. Bister hated Terrans, and he was probably, as you say, afraid of you, Storm, because you were trained for a duty not unlike his own. If he hadn’t been guilty—and afraid—he wouldn’t have tipped his hand by his treatment of you. Bister is one man we are going to rope tomorrow—or rather today—and tight! If Dumaroy’s moved out, we’ll trail him. But we don’t want to tangle with the Xiks. Since they are provided with the type of weapons you report, Storm, we’ll need a Patrol ship in here to really mop up. Quade, you’ll want to collect your kid anyway—you strike in that direction, angle up with a scout party to the east. I’ll ride on with the rest of you and try to head Dumaroy off. I think we can learn a lot more by splitting—”
So they did as Kelson suggested. Quade, with Storm as a guide, and two of the settler’s riders, took the side trail after they found Dumaroy’s river bank camp deserted and indications that the Peaks settler had proceeded with his plan to trace the Norbies and his missing herd into the mountains.
Storm rode in a dreamy haze. He located his landmarks, made his calculations as to where they must avoid possible ambush. But all of that was handled mechanically by a part of him operating as a robot set to a well-defined task and keeping to the pattern of a work tape. Whether the stun ray had more lasting effects than he had supposed, the Terran could not tell. But nothing about him appeared to have much meaning. He rode beside Quade for a space and answered questions concerning his meeting with Logan, their escape from the Xiks and through the cave of the gardens, and the final disastrous attack of the yoris. Yet to the Terran the conversation was all a part of a dream. Nor was he conscious when Quade began to study him covertly as they bored farther into the wild territory of the foothills.
However much that haziness clouded his mind, it did not prevent an instant reaction to trouble when attack did come. They were in the narrow opening of that gorge leading to the valley of Gorgol’s cave entrance, riding single file as the ground demanded. Storm had perhaps five seconds of time to sound the alert. He saw that yellow-red arm move, the blue streaks of painted horns against a domed skull.
“Ahuuuuuu!” The war cry of his people was a warning as bowstrings sang. Then the ground erupted with men about them. A numbing blow just below his shoulder almost sent Storm crashing from his saddle. His left arm hung heavy and limp as a blue-horned Norbie grabbed for his belt.
The Terran struck out with his other hand in a Commando blow but the weight of the falling native dragged him to the ground where they rolled into a pocket between two rocks. For a frenzied space of time Storm fought one-handed to keep a sword-knife from his throat. Only the fact that his first blow had practically disabled the Norbie saved his life. He brought his knee up and toppled the other off balance, rolling over again to send the Nitra senseless, sprawling out into the floor of the valley where the struggle was still in progress.
Storm struggled to his feet, only to collapse again as a stun ray clipped the side of his spinning head. He slid, bonelessly limp, behind the rocks and did not feel it when he landed full upon his wounded shoulder driving the cruelly barbed arrowhead deeper into his flesh, snapping off its painted shaft.
Perhaps that second dose of the ray neutralized in a measure the effects of the first, for when Storm opened his eyes, he remembered clearly all that had happened just before his raying.
The bright sunlight had left the gorge and the small passage was chill, chill and very quiet. Shivering, catching his breath at the twinge in his stiff shoulder, Storm somehow dragged himself upright to lean against the small wall of rocks that had protected him. He must have been overlooked, he decided. The Nitra had not mutilated his body after their custom.
There were no bodies in the narrow way, though broken arrows, and churned earth, a splash or two of blood marked the field. Storm staggered into the open and attempted to read the trail. Bootmarks leading away—prisoners forced to walk?
Storm pressed his hand tightly over the ragged hole in his shoulder and squinted down at that mixture of hoof, boot, and Norbie tracks. With one hand out to fend him off from the walls he reeled along, heading for the garden cave.
Just how he reached the mouth of the outer doorway he could not tell. But he was there, calling softly for the two he had left behind. There was no reply out of the dark. Storm stumbled on, guided by the light seeping from the garden cavern. The doorway they had half-closed and then reopened was still unblocked. The Terran wavered in and went to his knees on the path between two flanking gardens.
“Logan!” He called weakly. “Gorgol!” He could not get to his feet again. But somewhere there was a pine tree—and green grass—and the fragrance of the hills of home. Storm wanted that as much as he wanted cool water in his throat, an end to the burning pain in his shoulder, cool green grass and the arch of pine boughs over his head.
He was crawling now, and there was an object barring his path, a yellow-red barrier. He touched the softness of flesh, saw Gorgol’s face turned up to his, the eyes closed, the mouth a little open. But the native was still alive. Storm could see the beat of a laboring pulse in a vein running beneath one of the ivory white horns. There were no visible wounds; the Norbie might have been peacefully asleep.
“Gorgol!” Storm shook him. Then raised his good hand and slapped the Norbie’s face stingingly. Until at last those eyes opened and the native stared bewildered up at him. With one hand Storm asked his question:
“Who?”
Gorgol levered himself up, both hands going to his head. He moaned softly, pressed his fingers hard over his eyes, before he used them to answer.
“I come—go find water—Head hurt—fall—sleep—”
“Rayed!” Storm looked about him. There was no Logan, Surra and Hing were missing, as were the horses.
“Nitra?” He doubted that. Would the Nitra, who could hardly be familiar with a settler’s side arm, use the ray on Gorgol?
“Nitra kill with arrows—knife—” Gorgol was signing. Then he caught sight of Storm’s wound, that inch or so of arrow shaft showing out of the ragged tear. “Nitra—that! Here?”
“Ambush—down valley—”
“Come!” Gorgol, one hand going again to his head as he arose, stooped to draw Storm up beside him. Supporting the Terran, he led him along through the maze of gardens. Until at last Storm realized that he was indeed lying on a bed of pine needles, looking up once more into the green tent of the Terran tree. Not too far away Gorgol had built a small pile of dry twigs and was now engaged in coaxing a spark from his firestone to ignite it. When a tongue of flame sent fragrant smoke curling up, the native drew his knife and passed its sharp point into the red heart of the fire.
Storm, guessing what was to come, watched those preparations grimly. They were necessary and he knew it. Logan was gone—the animals had vanished—but he must be able to carry on if they were to find either, or trace Quade’s scouts. When the Norbie came across to him, the Terran managed a stretch of the lips that curved them briefly into something still far from the smile he intended.
“Arrow stay in—bad!” Gorgol’s finger
s spelled out the warning Storm did not need. “Must cut out—now.”
Storm’s good hand, moving restlessly through the carpet of needles on which he lay, closed on a small chunk of dead branch. He clenched his fingers about that in preparation.
“Go ahead!” Though Gorgol could not have understood what were to him meaningless sounds, he read the answer in Storm’s eyes. And go ahead he did.
Norbies were deft and the Terran knew that probably this was not the first time Gorgol had operated to cut out an arrowhead from some companion. But to endure the probing, skillful as it was, was hard. And Storm remembered what Logan had said about the Spartan treatment for arrow wounds and what it cost the victim. He was lucky in that three of the barbs on this head remained intact as Gorgol freed the glassy main section, and only one had to be located by deeper knife work.
Breathing hard and with a swimming head, Storm lay quiet at last while Gorgol slapped a mass of pulped wet leaves over the ragged wound and then raised his patient’s head to let him sip water in a blessed flood of coolness down his parched throat. As the native settled Storm down again, he held his hands into the line of the Terran’s vision and signed:
“Go—look for Logan—see who put Gorgol to sleep—hunt trail of evil ones—”
“Nitra—” Storm was too shaken to raise his hand in the proper movement. But again the Norbie appeared to understand.
“Not Nitra—” He wriggled his own right hand. “Still have bow hand on wrist—Nitra take for Thunder House trophy. Think maybeso Butchers. We see—”
Storm shut his eyes, even on the welcome green of the branch over him. He aroused to a soft, warm weight on his good arm, a snuffling in his ear, and opened his eyes slowly. Over his head was a rustling, and a dark shape moved on a low swinging branch, a sharp beaked head was bent so glittering eyes could regard him.
“Baku!” The eagle mantled in answer to his call, replied with her own harsh cry.
The warm lump on his arm chirruped, and Storm heard Surra’s purr rumble louder from beside him. For a moment of lazy content, not yet fully awake, the Terran lay unmoving. Then he tried to lift his left arm to caress Surra and felt the answering twinge in his shoulder, awaking him to full memory. The pain, as he experimented cautiously, was not nearly as bad as he expected. As on his first visit, this slice of a vanished world had worked its magic on him, and he was able to move with a measure of ease. In addition, the leafy plaster the Norbie had applied had dried hard, covering the wound and dulling the pain as if it had narcotic properties.
Gorgol must have returned and left again, for a small heap of objects taken from their supplies was piled not too far away. A battered canteen and one box of rations lay on the woolen blanket that had been his legacy from his grandfather. And beyond was some fruit laid out on a leaf plate.
Storm ate, with the greediness of a thoroughly hungry man. And as the minutes passed he had less and less trouble with his wound. He was trying to find the full extent of his disability when Gorgol came running lightly down the pathway toward the grassy oasis about the pine tree.
“You have found—what?” Storm demanded eagerly.
“Logan taken by Butchers. Butchers killed by Nitra. Logan—men with you—held by Nitra in other valley. Maybeso kill. Time of big dry comes, Nitra wizard makes magic to Thunder Drummers so rain come again. Kill captives for Thunder Drummers—”
“Nitra think that makes rain again?” Storm tried to put into signs his questions. “Nitra fear rains never come unless kill prisoners?”
The Norbie nodded vigorously. “Thunder Drummers live in high mountains, make rain, make growing things come. But sometimes too much rain—bad. Bad like too much dry. Storms worse in Nitra land than for Shosonna. So Nitra wizards give prisoners to Thunder Drummers—end big dry, not make bad rains if have prisoners to eat.”
“How do they give prisoners?”
Gorgol made a wide swinging sweep with one hand, ending in the gesture of one tossing an object out into empty space.
“Throw from high rock—maybeso. Not sure—Shosonna do not spy on Nitra wizards. Many, many Nitra guard around—kill those who watch if not Nitra.”
“Where?”
“Nitra camp over ridge. They wait—think they wish to kill Butchers. Also there are Shosonna in hills—maybeso fight with them.”
Refugees from the river village Dumaroy had tried to raid? These mountains were getting rather full now, Storm thought with a little smile. For some reason he felt almost absurdly confident. There was Dumaroy’s crowd, and the posse now headed by Kelson, unless either or both had run into the Xik holdouts, or Nitras, or been ambushed by the aroused and thoroughly angry Shosonna. But it was the Nitra who interested Storm most at present. Kelson had been warned, and Dumaroy was not too far ahead of the Peace Officer—they would have to take their chances.
But the Nitra were holding Logan, Quade, Lancin and perhaps Quade’s two riders. That was Storm’s concern. He had one card to play. With the Shosonna or any semicivilized Norbie tribe it might not work. But here he would be dealing with natives who should know very little about off-world men, especially any breed different from the settlers with whom they were only on raiding terms.
He outlined his plan as well as he could for Gorgol’s benefit. And, to his pleased surprise, the native did not object, instead he answered readily enough:
“You have wizard power. Larkin say your name mean weapon of Thunder Drummers in his tongue—”
“In my tongue also.”
Gorgol nodded. “Also Nitra not see bird totem like this one, nor other animals who follow you. Horses men may ride, zamle they can trap. But a frawn eats not from a man’s hand, or rubs head against him for notice. Nitra wizard commands no animals. So you may walk into their camp without meeting arrow. But maybeso you not come out again—that is different—”
“Could Gorgol find Shosonna in the mountains to help?”
“Wide are the mountains. And before sunrise the Nitra wizards make their magic.” The Norbie’s hands sketched the killing sign. “Better Gorgol use this.” From his belt holster he whipped the ray rod. “Use such magic on them!”
“You have only one charge left—” Storm pointed out. “When that is used, all you will have is a rod without power—”
“And this!” The Norbie laid his hand on his knife hilt. “But there be much warrior honor in this deed. When the fire of men is lighted, Gorgol can stand forth and tell great deeds before the face of twenty clans, and there shall be none to say it is not so—”
Storm made his preparations carefully. Once more he turned his face into a mask with improvised paint. The folded blanket lay across his shoulder to hide Gorgol’s protecting plaster of leaves, its ends thrust through the concha belt. He surveyed himself in a greenish mirror of one of the water garden pools, tearing a rag from a supply bag to hold his untidy hair out of his eyes. And the image the water presented was a barbaric figure, one which certainly should hold attention in the Nitra assembly, even without the addition of the team.
The Terran could not bear Baku’s weight on his injured shoulder for the full trip and he had to coax her out of the cavern as he carried Hing, and Surra walked beside him. Gorgol told him the eagle had come from the sky the day before, just preceding the attack of the Butchers, and had vanished into the garden cave where Surra and Hing had chosen to prowl on their own concerns.
Storm concentrated as he came into the open upon holding the animals’ attention, preparing them to aid him in any necessary attack. Gorgol’s night sight aided them again as they climbed a twisting way up to the heights. But tonight there were moons, and when they won from the maw of the valley, they crossed a brilliantly lighted slope.
The Terran went slowly, conserving his strength, accepting the Norbie’s assistance over rough places. The wind was changing, bearing with it a low muttering of sound that aped the roll of thunder. They reached a ledge that Gorgol turned to follow, one hand ready to lead or support the Terran. And th
at narrow and perilous path took them around the spur of an outcrop, through an arch of stone, onto a wider platform where there was a muddle of dried sticks under an overhang.
Gorgol kicked at some of the rubbish to clear a path and signed:
“Evil flyer.”
This must have been the eyrie from which he had pursued the wounded monster on the day it led him into the valley of the Sealed Caves. But by all indications the bird had had no mate, nor had its untidy nesting place been claimed by another.
The nest ledge was above another. With Gorgol’s hand on his belt, Storm swung over by one band and dropped to this, wondering how often he could equal that feat if called upon to do so tonight. However, this cutting led on around the side of the cliff and there was the red of fire beyond, a red that suddenly puffed vivid sparks of green into the air, along with a suffocating odor.
“Wizards!” Gorgol’s fingers wriggled.
As the green sparks cleared, Storm discovered that he was perched over a table-topped plateau, bare of any vegetation, but mounded here and there by weather-carved rocks, which assumed odd shapes in the semidarkness. Lashed to two such pillars were four men—settlers by their dress—while the space about the fire was crowded by squatting Norbies, intent upon the actions of two of their number who paced back and forth around the circle of the flames, beating on small tambors they held in their hands, so producing that deep thunder mutter.
Storm studied the scene. Either the Nitra felt secure from attack here or their sentries were very well hidden. He could detect none from his present stand. But there were men squatting beside the pillars to which the prisoners were bound, one each at the very feet of the captives.
“I am going in—” he signaled to Gorgol.
