World of Tiers 05 - The Lavalite World

by Farmer, Phillip Jose

  That job lasted fifteen or so minutes. She returned and mounted her beast, and they rode slowly on the white sand, reddish in the light, past another fallen man. When they thought they were out of hearing of the Wendow sleeping in the woods, they galloped for a while. After ten minutes of this, they eased their animals into a trot.

  Once more they had to detect the guard before he saw them; Anana slipped off the gregg and knocked out three Amerinds stationed at wide intervals near the edge of the woods.

  When she came back, McKay shook his head and muttered, "Lady, you're really something."

  When they had first been thrown together, he had been rather contemptuous of her. This was a reflection of his attitude toward women in general. Anana had thought it strange, since he came from a race which had endured prejudice and repression for a long time and still was in 1970. His own experience should have made him wary of prejudice toward other groups, especially women, which included black females. But he thought of all women, regardless of color, as inferior beings, useful only for exploitation.

  Anana has shaken this attitude considerably, though he had rationalized that, after all, she was not an Earth female.

  She didn't reply. The grewigg were ridden to where the last unconscious sentinel lay, and they were tied to two large bushes where they could feed. She and McKay went into the woods on their bellies and presently came on the first of the sleepers, a woman with a child. Luckily, these people had no dogs to warn them. Anana suspected that the Amerinds probably did own dogs but, judging from their leanness, the tribe had been forced to eat them during the journey to the sea-land.

  They snaked through a dozen snorers, moving slowly, stopping to look at each man closely. Once, a woman sat up suddenly, and the two, only a few feet behind her, froze. After some smackings of lips, the woman lay back down and resumed sleeping. A few minutes later, they found Red Ore.

  He was lying on his side within a circle of five dead-to-the-world men. His hands were tied behind him, and a cord bound his ankles together.

  Anana clamped her hand over her uncle's mouth at the same time that McKay pressed his heavy body on him. Red Ore struggled, and almost succeeded in rolling over, until Anana whispered in his native language, "Quiet!"

  He became still, though he trembled, and Anana said, "We're here to get you away."

  She removed her hand. The black stood up. She cut the rawhide cords, and Ore rose, looked around, walked over to a sleeper and took the spear lying by his side. The three walked out of camp, though slowly, until they came to an unsaddled gregg. Cautiously, they got a saddle and reins and put the reins on. Ore carried the saddle while Anana led the beast away. When they got to the two grewigg tied to the bushes, Anana told Ore some of what had happened.

  The light was a little brighter here on the beach. When she stood close to him she could see that her uncle's face and body were deeply bruised.

  "They beat me after they caught me," he said. "The women did, too. That went on for the first day, but after that they only kicked me now and then when I didn't move quickly enough to suit them. I'd like to go back and cut the throats of a few."

  "You can do that if you like," she said. "After you've answered a question. Did you see Kickaha or hear anything about him?"

  "No, I didn't see him and if those savages said anything about him I wouldn't have known it. I wasn't with them long enough to understand more than a dozen words."

  "That's because you didn't try," she said. She was disappointed, though she really hadn't expected anything.

  Red Ore walked over to the still unconscious sentinel, got down on his knees, put his hands around the man's neck, and did not remove them until he had strangled the life out of him.

  Breathing hard, he rose. "There. That'll show them!"

  Anana did not express her disgust. She waited until Ore had saddled up his animal and mounted. Then she moved her animal out ahead, and after ten minutes of a slow walk, she urged her gregg into a gallop. After five minutes of this she slowed it to a trot, the others following suit.

  Ore rode up beside her.

  "Was that why you rescued your beloved uncle? Just so you could ask me about your leblabbiy lover?"

  "That's the only reason, of course," she said.

  "Well, I suppose I owe you for that, not to mention not killing me when you got what you wanted from me. Also, my thanks, though you weren't doing it for my benefit, for taking care of Urthona. But you should have made sure he was dead. He's a tough one."

  Anana took her axe from her belt and laid its flat across the side of his face. He dropped from the gregg and landed heavily on the sand. McKay said, "What the...?"

  "I can't trust him," she said. "I just wanted to get him out of earshot of the Indians."

  Ore groaned and struggled to get up. He could only sit up, leaning at an angle on one arm. The other went up to the side of his face.

  "Bring his gregg along with you," she told McKay, and she commanded hers to start galloping. After about five minutes of this, she made it trot again. The black came up presently, holding the reins of Ore's beast.

  "How come you didn't snuff him out, too?"

  "There was a time when I would have. I suppose that Kickaha has made me more humane, that is, what a human should be."

  "I'd hate to see you when you felt mean," he said, and thereafter for a long time they were silent.

  Anana had given up searching for Kickaha. It was useless to run around, as he would have said, "like a chicken with its head cut off." She'd go around the sea, hoping that the palace might be in sight. If she could get in, then she'd take the flying machine, what the Wendow had called the shelbett, and look for Kickaha from the air. Her chances of coming across the mobile palace seemed, however, to be little.

  No matter. What else was there to do here but to search for it?

  For a while they guided their grewigg through the shallow water. Then they headed across the beach into the woods, where she cut off a branch and smoothed out their traces with its leaves. For the rest of the night, they holed up on top of a hill deep in the forest.

  In the morning the grewigg got nasty. They were tired and hungry. After she and McKay had come close to being bitten and kicked, Anana decided to let them have their way. A good part of the day, the animals ate, and their two owners took turns observing from the top of a tall tree. Anana had expected the Indians to come galloping along in hot pursuit. But the daytime period had half-

  passed before she saw them in the distance. It was a war party, about twenty warriors.

  She called McKay and told him to have the grewigg ready for travel, whether the animals liked the idea or not.

  Now she realized that she should have taken the animals through the water at once after leaving the camp. That way, the Indians wouldn't have known which direction to take in pursuit, and they might have given up. The precaution was too late, like so many things in life.

  The warriors went on by. Not for far, though. About two hundred yards past the point where the refugees had entered the woods, the party stopped. There was what looked like a hot argument between two men, one being the man holding the lion skull on the end of the pole. Whoever wanted the party to go back won. They turned their grewigg around and headed back at a trot toward the camp.

  No, not their camp. Now she could see the first of a caravan. It was coming at the pace of the slowest walker, and the hunters met them. The whole tribe halted while a powwow was held. Then the march resumed.

  She told McKay what was happening. He swore, and said, "That means we got to stay here and give them plenty of time to go by."

  "We're in no hurry," she said. "But we don't have to wait for them. We'll cut down through the woods and come out way ahead of them."

  That was the theory. In practice, her plan turned out otherwise. They emerged from the woods just in time to see, and be seen by, two riders. They must have been sent on ahead as scouts or perhaps they were just young fellows racing for fun. Whatever th
e reason for their presence, they turned back, their big beasts galloping.

  Anana couldn't see the rest of the tribe. She supposed that they were not too far away, hidden by a bend of the shore. Anyway, she and McKay should have a twenty minutes' head start, at the least.

  There was nothing else to do but to force the tired animals into a gallop. They rode at full speed for a while, went into a trot for a while, then broke into a gallop again. This lasted, with a few rest periods, until nightfall. Into the woods they went, and they took turns sleeping and standing watch. In the morning, the animals were again reluctant to continue. Nevertheless, after some savage tussles and beatings, the two got the grewigg going. It was evident, however, that they weren't up to more than one day's steady travel, if that.

  By noon the first of the hunters came into view. They drew steadily though slowly nearer as the day passed.

  "The poor beasts have about one more good gallop left in them," Anana said. "And that won't be far."

  '' Maybe we ought to take to the woods on foot,'' McKay said.

  She had already considered that. But if these Indians were as good trackers as their Terrestrial counterparts were supposed to be, they'd catch up with their quarry eventually.

  "Are you a strong swimmer?" she said.

  McKay's eyes opened. He jerked a thumb toward the water. "You mean ... out there?"

  "Yes, I doubt very much that the Indians can."

  "Yeah, but you don't know. I can swim, and I can float, but not all day. Besides, there may be sharks, or worse things, out there."

  "We'll ride until the beasts drop and then we'll take to the sea. At least, I will. Once we're out of their sight, we can get back to shore some distance down, maybe a few miles."

  "Not me," McKay said. "Noways. I'm heading for the woods."

  "Just as you like."

  She reached into a bag and withdrew the Horn. She'd have to strap that over her shoulder beforehand, but it didn't weigh much and shouldn't be much of a drag.

  After a hour the pursuers were so close that it was necessary to force the grewigg to full speed. This wasn't equal to the pace of the less tired animals behind them. It quickly became evident that in a few minutes the Indians would be alongside them.

  "No use going on any more!" she shouted. "Get off before they fall down and you break your neck!"

  She pulled on the reins. When the sobbing foam-flecked animals began trotting, she rolled off the saddle. The soft sand eased the impact; she was up on her feet immediately. McKay followed a few seconds later. He rose, and shouted, "Now what?"

  The warparty was about a hundred yards away and closing the gap swiftly. They whooped as they saw their victims were on foot. Some cut into the woods, evidently assuming that the two would run for it. Anana splashed into the shallow water and, when it was up to her waist, shucked her ragged jeans and boots. McKay was close behind her.

  "I thought you were going for the trees?"

  "Naw. I'd be too lonely!"

  They began swimming with long slow strokes. Anana, looking back, saw that their pursuers were still on the shore. They were yelling with frustration and fury, and some were throwing their spears and hurling boomerangs after them. These fell short.

  "You was right about one thing,"McKay said as they dogpaddled. "They can't swim. Or maybe they're afraid to. Them sharks ..."

  She started swimming again, heading out toward the horizon. But, another look behind her made her stop.

  It was too distant to be sure. But if the redheaded man on the gregg charging the Indians by himself wasn't Kickaha, then she was insane. It couldn't be Red Ore; he wouldn't do anything so crazy.

  Then she saw other riders emerging from the woods, a big party. Were they chasing Kickaha so they could aid him when they caught up with him or did they want his blood?

  Perhaps Kickaha was not charging the Indians singlehandedly, as she'd first thought. He was just running away from those behind him and now it was a case of the crocodile in the water and the tiger on the bank.

  Whatever the situation, she was going to help him if she could. She began swimming toward the shore.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WHEN KICK AH A RODE out of the woods, he had expected the people chasing Anana to be far ahead of him. He was surprised when he saw them only a hundred yards away. Most of them were dismounted and standing on the shore or in the water, yelling and gesticulating at something out in the sea.

  Neither Anana nor McKay were in sight.

  The discreet thing to do was to turn the hikwu as quickly as possible and take off in the opposite direction. However, the only reason for the strangers-whome he instantly identified as Amerinds-halting and making such a fuss here was that their quarry had taken to the sea. He couldn't see them, but they couldn't be too far out. And his tribe, the Thana, couldn't be very far behind him.

  So, repressing a warcry, he rode up and launched a boomerang at the gray-headed, red-eyed man sitting on his hikwu. Before the heavy wooden weapon struck the man on the side of the head and knocked him off his seat, Kickaha had transferred the spear from his left hand to his right. By then the few mounted warriors were aware of his presence. They wheeled their beasts, but one, another gray-haired man, didn't complete the turn in time to avoid Kickaha. His spear drove into the man's throat; the man fell backward; Kickaha jerked it out of the flesh, reversed it, and, using the shaft as a club, slammed it alongside the head of a warrior running to his merk.

  Having run past all the men, he halted his beast, turned it, and charged again. This time he didn't go through the main body but skirted them, charging between them and the woods. A man threw a boomerang; Kickaha ducked; it whirred by, one tip just missing his shoulder. Crouched down, holding the shaft of the spear between his arm and body, Kickaha drove its tip into the back of a man who'd just gotten onto his animal but was having trouble controlling it. The man pitched forward and over the shoulder of his hikwu. Kickaha yanked the spear out as the man disappeared from his beast.

  By then the first of the Thana had showed up, and the melee started.

  It should have been short work. The Amerinds were outnumbered and demoralized, caught, if not with their pants down, on foot, which was the same thing to them. But just as the last five were fighting furiously, though hopelessly, more whoops and yells were added to the din.

  Kickaha looked up and swore. Here came a big body of more Amerinds, enough to outnumber the Thana. Within about eighty seconds, they'd be charging into his group.

  He rose on his stirrups and looked out across the waves. At first, he couldn't see anything except a few amphibians. Then he saw a head and arms splashing the water. A few seconds later, he located a second swimmer.

  He looked down the beach. A number of riderless hikwu had bolted when he'd burst among them, and three were standing at the edge of the forest, tearing off branches. Their first loyalty was to themselves, that is, their bellies.

  Speaking of loyalties, what was his? Did he owe the Thana anything? No, not really. It was true that they'd initiated him, made him a sort of blood brother. But his only choice then was to submit or die, which wasn't a real choice. So, he didn't owe his tribe anything.

  Still standing up in the stirrups, he waved his spear at the two heads in the waves. A white arm came up and gestured at him. Anana's, no doubt of that. He used the spear to indicate that she should angle to a spot further down the beach. Immediately, she and McKay obeyed.

  Good. They would come out of the water some distance from the fight and would be able to grab two of the browsing moosoids. But it would take them some time to do so, and before then the Amerinds might have won. So, it was up to him to attempt to give Anana the needed time.

  Yelling, he urged his hikwu into a gallop. His spear drove deep into the neck of a redskin who had just knocked a Thana off his saddle with a big club. Once more, Kickaha jerked the spear loose. He swore. The flint point had come off of the wood. Never mind. He rammed its blunt end into the back of the h
ead of another Indian, stunning him enough so that his antagonist could shove his spear into the man's belly.

  Then something struck Kickaha on the head, and he fell half-conscious onto the sand. For a moment he lay there while hoofs churned the sand, stomped, missing him narrowly several times, and a body thumped onto the ground beside him. It was a Thana, Toini, the youth who'd given him a hard time. Though blood streamed from his head and his shoulder, Toini wasn't out of the battle. He staggered up, only to be knocked down as a hikwu backed into him.

  Kickaha got up. For the first time he became aware that he was bleeding. Whatever had struck him on top of the head had opened the scalp. There was no time to take care of that now. He leaped for a mounted Indian who was beating at a Thana with a heavy boomerang, grabbed the man's arm, and yanked him off his saddle. Yelling, the warrior came down on Kickaha, and both fell to the sand.