A few days later I found myself nearing the end of the trail.
It was twilight in Charin, hot and reeking with the gypsy glare of fires
which burned, smoking, at the far end of the Street of the Six
Shepherds. I crouched in the shadow of a wall, waiting.
My skin itched from the dirty shirtcloak I hadn't changed in days.
Shabbiness is wise in nonhuman parts, and Dry-towners think too much of
water to waste much of it in superfluous washing anyhow. I scratched
unobtrusively and glanced cautiously down the street.
It seemed empty, except for a few sodden derelicts sprawled in
doorways--the Street of the Six Shepherds is a filthy slum--but I made
sure my skean was loose. Charin is not a particularly safe town, even
for Dry-towners, and especially not for Earthmen, at any time.
Even with what Dallisa had told me, the search had been difficult.
Charin is not Shainsa. In Charin, where human and nonhuman live closer
together than anywhere else on the planet, information about such men as
Rakhal can be bought, but the policy is to let the buyer beware. That's
fair enough, because the life of the seller has a way of not being worth
much afterward, either.
A dirty, dust-laden wind was blowing up along the street, heavy with
strange smells. The pungent reek of incense from a street-shrine was in
the smells. The heavy, acrid odor that made my skin crawl. In the hills
behind Charin, the Ghost Wind was rising.
Borne on this wind, the Ya-men would sweep down from the mountains, and
everything human or nearly human would scatter in their path. They would
range through the quarter all night, and in the morning they would melt
away, until the Ghost Wind blew again. At any other time, I would
already have taken cover. I fancied that I could hear, borne on the
wind, the faraway yelping, and envision the plumed, taloned figures
which would come leaping down the street.
In that moment, the quiet of the street split asunder.
From somewhere a girl's voice screamed in shrill pain or panic. Then I
saw her, dodging between two of the chinked pebble-houses. She was a
child, thin and barefoot, a long tangle of black hair flying loose as
she darted and twisted to elude the lumbering fellow at her heels. His
outstretched paw jerked cruelly at her slim wrist.
The little girl screamed and wrenched herself free and threw herself
straight on me, wrapping herself around my neck with the violence of a
storm wind. Her hair got in my mouth and her small hands gripped at my
back like a cat's flexed claws.
"Oh, help me," she gasped between sobs. "Don't let him get me, don't."
And even in that broken plea I took it in that the little ragamuffin did
not speak the jargon of that slum, but the pure speech of Shainsa.
What I did then was as automatic as if it had been Juli. I pulled the
kid loose, shoved her behind me, and scowled at the brute who lurched
toward us.
"Make yourself scarce," I advised. "We don't chase little girls where I
come from. Haul off, now."
The man reeled. I smelled the rankness of his rags as he thrust one
grimy paw at the girl. I never was the hero type, but I'd started
something which I had to carry through. I thrust myself between them and
put my hand on the skean again.
"You--you Dry-towner." The man set up a tipsy howl, and I sucked in my
breath. Now I was in for it. Unless I got out of there damned fast, I'd
lose what I'd come all the way to Charin to find.
I felt like handing the girl over. For all I knew, the bully could be
her father and she was properly in line for a spanking. This wasn't any
of my business. My business lay at the end of the street, where Rakhal
was waiting at the fires. He wouldn't be there long. Already the smell
of the Ghost Wind was heavy and harsh, and little flurries of sand went
racing along the street, lifting the flaps of the doorways.
But I did nothing so sensible. The big lunk made a grab at the girl, and
I whipped out my skean and pantomimed.
"Get going!"
"Dry-towner!" He spat out the word like filth, his pig-eyes narrowing to
slits. "Son of the Ape! _Earthman!_"
"_Terranan!_" Someone took up the howl. There was a stir, a rustle, all
along the street that had seemed empty, and from nowhere, it seemed, the
space in front of me was crowded with shadowy forms, human and
otherwise.
"Earthman!"
I felt the muscles across my belly knotting into a band of ice. I didn't
believe I'd given myself away as an Earthman. The bully was using the
time-dishonored tactic of stirring up a riot in a hurry, but just the
same I looked quickly round, hunting a path of escape.
"Put your skean in his guts, Spilkar! Grab him!"
"Hai-ai! Earthman! _Hai-ai!_"
It was the last cry that made me panic. Through the sultry glare at the
end of the street, I could see the plumed, taloned figures of the
Ya-men, gliding through the banners of smoke. The crowd melted open.
I didn't stop to reflect on the fact--suddenly very obvious--that Rakhal
couldn't have been at the fires at all, and that my informant had led me
into an open trap, a nest of Ya-men already inside Charin. The crowd
edged back and muttered, and suddenly I made my choice. I whirled,
snatched up the girl in my arms and ran straight toward the advancing
figures of the Ya-men.
Nobody followed me. I even heard a choked shout that sounded like a
warning. I heard the yelping shrieks of the Ya-men grow to a wild howl,
and at the last minute, when their stiff rustling plumes loomed only a
few yards away, I dived sidewise into an alley, stumbled on some rubbish
and spilled the girl down.
"Run, kid!"
She shook herself like a puppy climbing out of water. Her small fingers
closed like a steel trap on my wrist. "This way," she urged in a hasty
whisper, and I found myself plunging out the far end of the alley and
into the shelter of a street-shrine. The sour stink of incense smarted
in my nostrils, and I could hear the yelping of the Ya-men as they
leaped and rustled down the alley, their cold and poisonous eyes
searching out the recess where I crouched with the girl.
"Here," she panted, "stand close to me on the stone--" I drew back,
startled.
"Oh, don't stop to argue," she whimpered. "Come _here_!"
"_Hai-ai!_ Earthman! There he is!"
The girl's arms flung round me again. I felt her slight, hard body
pressing on mine and she literally hauled me toward the pattern of
stones at the center of the shrine. I wouldn't have been human if I
hadn't caught her closer yet.
The world reeled. The street disappeared in a cone of spinning lights,
stars danced crazily, and I plunged down through a widening gulf of
empty space, locked in the girl's arms. I fell, spun, plunged head over
heels through tilting lights and shadows that flung us through
eternities of freefall. The yelping of the Ya-men whirled away in
unimaginable distances, and for a second I felt the unmerciful blackout
of a power dive, with blood breaking from my nostrils and filling my
mouth.