by Andre Norton
The major grinned. “What do you think? You know the rules—and the ones the Russians play by are twice as tough on their own men.”
“What kind of trouble?” Ashe wanted to know.
“Some kind of a local religious dispute. We do our best with their code, but we’re not a hundred percent perfect in reading it, I gather they were playing with a local god and got their fingers burned.”
“Lurgha again, eh?” Ashe smiled.
“Foolish,” Webb said impatiently. “That is a silly thing to do. You were almost over the edge of prudence yourself, Gordon, with that Lurgha business. Using the Great Mother was a ticklish thing to try and you were lucky to get out of it so easily.”
“Once was enough,” Ashe agreed. “Though using it may have saved our lives. But I assure you I am not starting a holy war or setting up as a prophet.”
Ross had been taught something of map reading, but mentally he could not make what he saw on paper resemble the countryside. A few landmarks, if there were any outstanding ones, were all he could hope to impress upon his memory until he was actually on the ground.
Landing there according to Millaird’s instruction was another experience he would not have chosen of his own accord. To jump was a matter of timing, and in the dark with a measure of rain thrown in, the action was anything but pleasant. Leaving the plane in a blind, follow-the-leader fashion, Ross found the descent into darkness one of the worst trials he had yet faced. But he did not make too bad a landing in the small parklike expanse they had chosen for their target.
Ross pulled loose his harness and chute, dragging them to what he judged to be the center of the clearing. Hearing a plaintive bray from the air, he dodged as one of the two pack donkeys sent to join them landed and began to kick at its trappings. The animals they had chosen were the most docile available and they had been given sedation before the jump so that now, feeling Ross’s hands, the donkey stood quietly while Ross stripped it of its hanging straps.
“Rossa—” The sound of his Beaker name called through the dark brought Ross facing in the other direction.
“Here, and I have one of the donkeys.”
“And I the other!” That was McNeil.
Their eyes adjusted to a gloom which was not as thick as it would be in the forest and they worked fast. Then they dragged the parachutes together in a heap. The rain would, Webb had assured them, add to the rapid destruction wrought by the chemical he had provided. Ashe shook it over the pile, and there was a faint greenish glow. Then they moved away to the woodland and made camp for the balance of the night.
So much of their whole exploit depended upon luck, and this small part had been successful. Unless some agent had been stationed to watch for their arrival Ross believed they could not be spotted.
The rest of their plan was elastic. Posing as traders who had come to open a new station, they were to stay near a river which drained a lake and then angled southward to the distant sea. They knew this section was only sparsely settled by small tribes, hardly larger than family clans. These people were generations behind the developmental level of the villages of Britain—roving hunters who followed the sweep of game north or south with the seasons.
Along the seashore the fishermen had established more permanent holdings which were slowly becoming towns. There were perhaps a few hardy pioneer farmers on the southern fringes of the district, but the principle reason traders came to this region was to get amber and furs. The Beaker people dealt in both.
Now as the three sheltered under the wide branches of a towering pine Ashe fumbled with a pack and brought out the “beaker” which was the identifying mark of his adopted people. He measured into it a portion of the sour, stimulating drink which the traders introduced wherever they went. The cup passed from hand to hand, its taste unpleasant on the tongue, but comfortingly warm to one’s middle.
They took turns keeping the watch until the gray of false dawn became the clearer light of morning. After breakfasting on flat cakes of meal, they packed the donkeys, using the same knots and cross lashing which were the mark of real Beaker traders. Their bows protected from dampness under their cloaks, they set out to find the river and their path southward.
Ashe led, Ross towed the donkeys, and McNeil brought up the rear. In the absence of a path they had to set a ragged course, keeping to the edge of the clearing until they saw the end of the lake.
“Woodsmoke,” Ashe commented when they had completed two thirds of their journey. Ross sniffed and was able to smell it too. Nodding to Ashe, McNeil oozed into nothingness between the trees with an ease Murdock envied. As they waited for him to return, Ross became conscious of another life about them, one busy with its own concerns, which were in no way those of human beings, except that food and shelter were to be reckoned among them.
In Britain, Ross had known there were others of his kind about, but this was different. Here, he could have easily believed that he was the first man to walk this way.
A squirrel ran out on a tree limb and surveyed the two men with curious beady eyes, then clung head down on the tree trunk to see them better. One of the donkeys tossed its head, and the squirrel was gone with a flit of its tail. Although it was quiet, there was a hum underneath the surface which Ross tried to analyze, to identify the many small sounds which went into its making.
Perhaps because he was trying so hard, he noted the faint noise. His hand touched Ashe’s arm and a slight movement of his head indicated the direction of the sound. Then, as fluidly as he had melted into the woods, McNeil returned. “Company,” he said in a soft voice.
“What kind?”
“Tribesmen, but wilder than any I’ve seen, even on the tapes. We are certainly out on the fringes now. These people look about cave level. I don’t think they’ve ever heard of traders.”
“How many?”
“Three, maybe four families. Most of the males must be out hunting, but there’re about ten children and six or seven women. I don’t think they’ve had good luck lately by the look of them.”
“Maybe their luck and ours are going to run together,” Ashe said, motioning Ross forward with the donkeys. “We will circle about them to the river and then try bartering later. But I do want to establish contact.”
9
“Not to be too hopeful but—” McNeil rubbed his arm across his hot face— “so far, so good.” After kicking from his path some of the branches Ross had lopped from the trees they had been felling, he went to help his companion roll another small log up to a shelter which was no longer temporary. If there had been any eyes other than the woodland hunters’ to spy upon them, they would have seen only the usual procedure of the Beaker traders, busily constructing one of their posts.
That they were being watched by the hunters, all three were certain. That there might be other spies in the forest, they had to assume for their own safety. They might prowl at night, but in the daytime all of the time agents kept within the bounds of the roles they were acting.
Barter with the head men of the hunting clan had brought those shy people into the camp of the strangers who had such wonders to exchange for tanned deer hides and better furs. The news of the traders’ arrival spread quickly during the short time they had been here, so that two other clans had sent men to watch the proceedings.
With the trade came news which the agents sifted and studied. Each of them had a list of questions to insert into their conversations with the tribesmen if and when that was possible. Although they did not share a common speech with the forest men, signs were informative and certain nouns could be quickly learned. In the meantime Ashe became friendly with the nearest and first of the clan groups they discovered, going hunting with the men as an excuse to penetrate the unknown section they must quarter in their search for the Russian base.
Ross drank river water and mopped his own hot face. “If the Russians aren’t traders,” he mused aloud, “what is their cover?”
McNeil shrugged. “A hunting tribe—fishermen—”
> “Where would they get the women and children?”
“The same way they get their men—recruit them in our own time. Or in the way lots of tribes grew during periods of stress.”
Ross set down the water jug. “You mean, kill off the men, take over their families?” This was a cold-bloodedness he found sickening. Although he had always prided himself on his toughness, several times during his training at the project he had been confronted by things which shook his belief in his own strong stomach and nerve.
“It has been done,” McNeil remarked bleakly, “hundreds of times by invaders. In this setup—small family clans, widely scattered—that move would be very easy.”
“They would have to pose as farmers, not hunters,” Ross pointed out. “They couldn’t move a base around with them.”
“All right, so they set up a farming village. Oh, I see what you mean—there isn’t any village around here. Yet they are here, maybe underground.”
How right their guesses were they learned that night when Ashe returned, a deer’s haunch on his shoulder. Ross knew him well enough by now to sense his preoccupation. “You found something?”
“A new set of ghosts,” Ashe replied with a strange little smile.
“Ghosts!” McNeil pounced upon that. “The Russians like to play the supernatural angle, don’t they? First the voice of Lurgha and now ghosts. What do these ghosts do?”
“They inhabit a bit of hilly territory southeast of here, a stretch taboo for all hunters. We were following a bison track until the beast headed for the ghost country. Then Ulffa called us off in a hurry. It seems that the hunter who goes in there after his quarry never reappears, or if he does, it’s in a damaged condition, blown upon by ghosts and burned to death! That’s one point.”
He sat down by the fire and stretched his arms wearily. “The second is a little more disturbing for us. A Beaker camp about twenty miles south of here, as far as I can judge, was exterminated just a week ago. The message was passed to me because I was thought to be a kinsman of the slain—”
McNeil sat up. “Done because they were hunting us?”
“Might well be. On the other hand, the affair may have been just one of general precaution.”
“The ghosts did it?” Ross wanted to know.
“I asked that. No, it seems that strange tribesmen overran it at night.”
“At night?” McNeil whistled.
“Just so.” Ashe’s tone was dry. “The tribes do not fight that way. Either someone slipped up in his briefing, or the Russians are overconfident and don’t care about the rules. But it was the work of tribesmen, or their counterfeits. There is also a nasty rumor speeding about that the ghosts do not relish traders and that they might protest intrusions of such with penalties all around—”
“Like the Wrath of Lurgha,” supplied Ross.
“There is a certain repetition in this which rouses the suspicious mind,” Ashe agreed.
“I’d say no more hunting expeditions for the present,” McNeil said. “It is too easy to mistake a friend for a deer and weep over his grave afterward.”
“That is a thought which entered my mind several times this afternoon,” Ashe agreed. “These people are deceptively simple on the surface, but their minds do not work along the same patterns as ours. We try to outwit them, but it takes only one slip to make it fatal. In the meantime, I think we’d better make this place a little more snug, and it might be well to post sentries as unobtrusively as possible.”
“How about faking some signs of a ruined camp and heading into the blue ourselves?” McNeil asked. “We could strike for the ghost mountains, traveling by night, and Ulffa’s crowd would think we were finished off.”
“An idea to keep in mind. The point against it would be the missing bodies. It seems that the tribesmen who raided the Beaker camp left some very distasteful evidence of what happened to the camp’s personnel. And those we can’t produce to cover our trail.”
McNeil was not yet convinced. “We might be able to fake something along that line, too—”
“We may not have to fake anything,” Ross cut in softly. He was standing close to the edge of the clearing where they were building their hut, his hand on one of the saplings in the palisade they had set up so laboriously that day. Ashe was beside him in an instant.
“What is it?”
Ross’s hours of listening to the sounds of the wilderness were his measuring gauge now. “That bird has never called from inland before. It is the blue one we’ve seen fishing for frogs along the river.”
Ashe, not even glancing at the forest, went for the water jug. “Get your trail supplies,” he ordered.
Their leather pouches which held enough rations to keep them going were always at hand. McNeil gathered them from behind the fur curtain fronting their half-finished cabin. Again the bird called, its cry piercing and covering a long distance. Ross could understand why a careless man would select it for the signal. He crossed the clearing to the donkeys’ shelter, slashing through their nose halters. Probably the patient little beasts would swiftly fall victims to some forest prowlers, but at least they would have their chance to escape.
McNeil, his cloak slung about him to conceal the ration bags, picked up the leather bucket as if he were merely going down to the river for water, and came to join Ross. They believed that they were carrying it off well, that the camp must appear normal to any lurkers in the woods. But either they had made some slip or the enemy was impatient. An arrow sped out of the night to flash across the fire, and Ashe escaped death only because he had leaned forward to feed the flames. His arm swung out and sent the water in the jar hissing onto the blaze as he himself rolled in the other direction.
Ross plunged for the brush with McNeil. Lying flat on the half-frozen ground, they started to work their way to the river bank where the open area would make surprise less possible.
“Ashe?” he whispered and felt McNeil’s warm breath on his cheek as he replied:
“He’ll make it the other way! He’s the best we have for this sort of job.”
They made a worm’s progress, twice lying still, with dagger in hand, while they listened to a faint rustle which betrayed the passing of one of the attackers. Both times Ross was tempted to rise and try to cut off the stranger, but he fought down the impulse. He had learned self-control that would have been impossible a few months earlier.
The glimmer of the river was pale through the clumps of bushes which sometimes grew into the flood. In this country winter still clung tenaciously in shadowy places with cups of leftover snow, and there was a bite in the wind and water. Ross rose to his knees with an involuntary gasp as a scream cut through the night. He jerked around toward the camp, only to feel McNeil’s hand clamp on his forearm.
“That was a donkey,” whispered McNeil urgently. “Come on, let’s go down to that ford we discovered!”
They turned south, daring now to trot, half bent to the ground. The river was swollen with spring floods which were only now beginning to subside, but two days earlier they had noticed a sandbar at one spot. By crossing that shelf across the bed, they might hope to put water between them and the unknown enemy tonight. It would give them a breathing space, even though Ross privately shrank from the thought of plowing into the stream. He had seen good-sized trees swirling along in the current only yesterday. And to make such a dash in the dark . . .
From McNeil’s throat burst a startling sound which Ross had last heard in Britain—the questing howl of a hunting wolf. The cry was answered seconds later from downstream.
“Ashe!”
They worked their way along the edge of the water with continued care, until they came upon Ashe at last, so much a part of his background that Ross started when the lump he had taken for a bush hunched forward to join them. Together they made the river crossing and turned south again to head for the mountains.
It was then that disaster struck.
Ross heard no birdcall warning this time. Though he was
on guard, he never sensed the approach of the man who struck him down from behind. One moment he had been trailing McNeil and Ashe; the next moment was black nothingness.
He was aware of a throb of pain which carried throughout his body and then localized in his head. Forcing open his eyes, the dazzle of light was like a spear point striking directly into his head, intensifying his pain to agony. He brought his hand up to his face and felt stickiness there.
“Assha—” He believed he called that aloud, but he did not even hear his own voice. They were in a valley; a wolf had attacked him out of the bushes. Wolf? No, the wolf was dead, but then it came alive again to howl on a river bank.
Ross forced his eyes open once more, enduring the pain of beams he recognized as sunshine. He turned his head to avoid the glare. It was hard to focus, but he fought to steady himself. There was some reason why it was necessary to move, to get away. But away from what and where? When Ross tried to think he could only see muddled pictures which had no connection.
Then a moving object crossed his very narrow field of vision, passing between him and a thing he knew was a tree trunk. A four-footed creature with a red tongue hanging from its jaws. It came toward him stiff-legged, growling low in its throat, and sniffed at his body before barking in short excited bursts of sound.
The noise hurt his head so much that Ross closed his eyes. Then a shock of icy liquid thrown into his face aroused him to make a feeble protest and he saw, hanging over him in a strange upside-down way, a bearded face which he knew came from the past.
Hands were laid on him. The roughness with which he was moved sent Ross spiraling back into the dark once more. When he aroused for the second time it was night and the pain in his head was dulled. He put out his hands and discovered that he lay on a pile of fur robes, and was covered by one.
“Assha—” Again he tried that name. But it was not Assha who came in answer to his feeble call. The woman who knelt beside him with a horn cup in her hand had neatly braided hair in which gray strands showed silver by firelight. Ross knew he had seen her before, but again where and when eluded him. She slipped a sturdy arm under his head and raised him while the world whirled about. The edge of the horn cup was pressed to his lips, and he drank bitter stuff which burned in his throat and lit a fire in his insides. Then he was left to himself once again and in spite of his pain and bewilderment he slept.
