Staggering under the blasting heat of a great ringed
sun, she fought only to cross her savage slimy world.
The lithe Priestess Ylda knew not that her goal lay,
bright and shining, a thousand light-years away.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Hardan Synn reined in his graceful golden-furred _maar_ as he reached
the rim of the river's low bluff. He was uncomfortable, for the
_vurth_-padded garments that covered his naked body were growing dry,
but tied to his huge hornless saddle were three fat Dryland birds. He
would eat well tonight.
The rough fare of cereals and preserved fish had palled. Five years
of roaming the blistering plains and mountains with sun-hardened
prospectors and hunters had given Hardan Synn a taste for Dryland
flesh. So it was that he quitted the camp when the day's trek was done
and rode out in search of game.
The maar's long black ears cupped forward, searching the source of some
discordant sound. Hardan's keen green eyes snapped back to the reality
of the camp sprawling half-in, half-out of the muddy bluish river.
Men were fighting, fists and clubs smashing into the down-furred
flesh of their fellows. The sound of their enraged bellowing and the
shrill screams of pain and agony grew louder even as he forced his maar
down the steep path to the bluff's base.
"Nitka Porn again," Hardan Synn spat out savagely as the blue dust
swirled about him. "Always he seeks to stir up trouble among the
_sarifs_."
His sun-darkened face was a gaunt mask as he neared the river, but his
slitted green eyes were hot with growing rage. He could not leave the
eighty great wagons with their cargos of two hundred Wetlanders and
their meager supplies for so short a time as a _turev_ of the water
dial without trouble arising.
Hardan sprang off his mount and elbowed his way into the thick of the
melee, his broad hard shoulders tossing soggy-padded men aside. His
hard fists smashed one scowling-faced Wetlander's nose, and then he was
through into the rude square formed by the inner ring of six-wheeled
wagons.
"Nitka Porn!" he shouted, his voice a knife-thrust of sound above the
tumult.
The fighting men separated slowly, some weaving on their legs
unsteadily, bleeding, and others kneeling and groaning. A half-dozen,
most of them wearing the short green capes of the nobles' personal
servants, sprawled limply in their own reddish-brown blood.
From one of these unmoving bodies a huge-bodied man, his brutal jaws
masked by a bush of fiery red whiskers and his broad nose segmented by
a sword-cut's diagonal scar, rose. Half his protective shell of faded
blue cloth stuffed with vurth was ripped away from his shoulder and
chest. Great muscles knotted there in his swiftly dehydrating pink
flesh. He snarled at Hardan.
"The Drylander arrives," he jeered, and laughed.
From the hard-packed blue clay of the camping place he picked an
arm-long stake of wood. He waved it derisively at Hardan.
"Watch him shiver," he roared. "When he is well beaten I will drive him
from the camp. Then I will lead."
Hardan's stomach knotted--and then dissolved into a glowing spot of
fire. His fingers bit into the leather handles of his twin short
swords. He had no eyes for the grinning minority clustered about Nitka
Porn. Nor did he see the puzzled empty faces of the other trekkers, the
slow-minded plodding sarifs caught in this bloody trailside struggle.
"You stand alone against us all," snarled Nitka Porn, swaggering
forward, his muddy green eyes slitted watchfully. "The Consars are
dead, swimming in their fine wagon tanks for the last time. Their
wagons and riding maars are ours now."
Hardan caught his breath on that. This was disaster!
"Fools," he said, his voice loud and sharp, "you know the price of any
rebellion. The Consars will track you down. For many it will be the
crushing death."
Even as he spoke his eyes never left those of the red-whiskered killer
he fronted. In a moment the giant sarif would charge forward, his club
swinging and the long curved sword of a dead lord in his other hand.
Hardan sprang to meet him, swords bared and gleaming. Perhaps with the
death of Nitka Porn the revolt would collapse....
The stake caught him squarely on the shoulder. His left-hand sword
dropped, tripping him. He caught himself, warded off a whistling slash
of the huge curved blade of the sarif, and leaped backward. His left
shoulder was numbed, his arm dangling limp as a blasted _netho_ leaf in
the noonday sun.
Hardan's sword darted in and out, flickering in the brazen sunlight.
Blades clashed, slithered apart and the good steel rang clear as bells
tinkling. Blood leaked through the pierced blue cloth of the sarif's
vurth-padded garment in a half-dozen places.
His arm was tingling with reviving life. Through a red mist of hate
Hardan fought with a cool machine-like series of lightning-swift lunges
that ripped the sarif's skin into myriad reddish-brown furrows. Hatred
was there, yes, but so controlled that it added strength to his sword
arm and length to his blade.
The long curved sword flipped abruptly away into the faceless mass of
the ringed trekkers. Nitka Porn pawed at his dripping knuckles, his
mouth squared, his eyes bulging. He lunged backward, the men parting
before his blind rush. And Hardan followed, his eyes hot.
"Kill him.... Mika, Garnd.... Don't let him.... No.... Mercy!" begged
the great coward, his hands before his face.
Hardan poised his keen blade for the death thrust.
"No," he swore angrily, "by Ung Roth, I have not the heart for killing
this foul _bladt_."
He rammed the sword into the clay. His fists swung hard, all the
unleashed loathing and disgust of weeks past in their calculated blows,
and Nitka Porn went down emptily, to quiver and lie still.
Hardan retrieved his swords, wiping the stains off on the unconscious
hulk's ribboned cloth. He faced the sullen Wetlanders.
"I take over again," he announced. "Back to Aba we go. It's but two
days' trek. There the guilty will be punished before I guide you to
Lake Gron."
* * * * *
Dandu Mot, a gray-maned sarif, stepped forward. "No," he said simply.
"We will not go back. The innocent would die with the guilty. And our
children and women would be driven out of the settlement stripped of
even our poor store of tools and food."
Hardan frowned. Dandu Mot was right. The justice of the Consars on the
frontier was severe. They would make of this revolt a lesson for all
that might follow along the arid dusty way from Wetland to Wetland.
Even he, as guide and leader of the wagon train, might be killed.
The old man came closer, his faded green eyes pleading.
"We did not wish to revolt," he said. "It was Nitka Porn and his men
who murdered the Consars. Perhaps beyond the Malsalm Range other
Wetlands lie...."
His voice trailed off. Hardan's eyes swept over the oddly assorted
throng of sarifs and craftsmen, poor oppressed men seeking a new and
freer life beyond the Drylands. Could he see these sad-faced women made
widows needlessly? And what of the young ones, their soft pelts as yet
devoid of the scantiest of silky fur?
"I must yield," he said soberly. "And beyond the eastern uplands there
does lie a sea. Only one Wetlander has ever looked upon it--Jaff Ka!"
He paused. "By the grace of Ung Roth and Zo Aldan we may win through."
"There are Drylanders?"
Hardan nodded. "Drylanders who hide in watered valleys and war on all
who venture there. Strange monsters, demons of Thog Molog, so say the
Drylanders, lurk in the darkness to kill. And winged _soraps_ that
carry off half-grown children and woolly bladts."
"You know the way?"
"I have ridden across the Plateau of Fire to the Plains of Niid, Dandu
Mot, but never to the Bitter Sea. But Jaff Ka told me the way."
"So let it be," said the old sarif, stroking his blistered cheek
thoughtfully. "And, if we die in the Drylands--we at least die free!"
He turned to his followers. "Seize the followers of Nitka Porn and bind
them. Tonight we will try them."
Swords and knives flashed. Clubs smashed and battered, and a moment
later seven groaning men were led away. Four others of the red-bearded
sarif's followers would walk no more, anywhere.
Hardan turned sharply on his heel and headed for the two wagons of the
priests of Ung Roth Ka. His dehydrated body cried out for a soaking in
the built-in tank in the wagon's middle. Only by frequent immersions
and water-soaked outer shells of cloth could the Wetlanders endure the
arid wastelands for more than a few hours.
A line of wounded, bruised men were already at the wagon, the two
priests in their hooded orange cloaks attending to their hurts. And
with the priests worked their gentle-faced wives, the priestesses of
Zo Aldan Ra, the god's beloved mate. Hardan's blood pounded fast as
he caught a glimpse of the white-robed novice, Ylda Rusla, bearing a
steaming basin of water in her dainty hands.
"Hardan!" cried the girl, her soft green eyes lighting up, "you escaped
death! You will take us back to Tarn--to safety?"
The frontiersman smiled down at the lithe full-breasted woman facing
him. Even the soggy vurth-padded garments and the coarse white robe
could not conceal the perfection of her body and face.
He shook his head.
"We go into the Malsalm Range," he told her, "and beyond."
"Not even to Lake Gron!" Ylda's face was ghastly. "But, I must--surely
you could send me back."
"Sorry," Hardan muttered, "but you cannot leave us now. The wagon train
must disappear--as though the Drylanders had attacked and destroyed it."
* * * * *
The girl's eyes flamed. "I command you to take me back to Aba!" Her
foot stamped down imperiously.
"Ylda, believe me, I would if it were possible. But the lives of us all
depend on absolute secrecy. No word of this train must ever reach the
Consars of Tarn."
Ylda's small chin lifted and she turned her back, the hot water
slopping down across her robe. She headed blindly back toward the
wagons. Hardan shrugged, an empty pit in his middle. Any hope that he
might win the beautiful novice from her devotion to Zo Aldan Ra was
gone now.
He hurried past the wagons and down the blue clay slope to the fresh
waters of the Gron River. For the moment he wanted no conversation with
the priestly healers of the wagon train--or anyone else....