There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one
or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace
toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other--the
warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert
and the People.
"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were
more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to
come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount
into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be
prepared to use it."
"The Horde is not here--I see only a handful of people," Travis replied.
"Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are
those who are his greater enemies."
"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a
general to face him."
Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so
little time.
"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your
woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with
his chin--"leading the Reds into a trap."
Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him
now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.
"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.
"_We_," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind
in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.
Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving,
contemptuous appraisal.
"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome
machines?"
"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis
displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into
shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not
change, though his eyes narrowed.
The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was
heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made
a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in
sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of
knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen
troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.
"You would talk--then talk!" Menlik ordered.
This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery.
"Kaydessa leads the Reds into a trap we have set beyond the peaks--four
of them ride with her. How many now remain in the ship near the
settlement?"
"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship.
But there is no getting at them in there."
"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not
think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at
the meat?"
Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a
tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.
"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up
against them, then we are once more gathered into their net--before we
reach their ship."
"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People,"
Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you
not be free?"
"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."
"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the
river?"
Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.
"Give us proof that this will act against their machines!"
"What proof, Shaman?" asked Jil-Lee. "Shall we burn down a mountain that
you may believe? This is now a matter of time."
Travis had a sudden inspiration. "You say that the 'copter is out.
Suppose we use that as a target?"
"That--that can sweep the flyer from the sky?" Menlik's disbelief was
open.
Travis wondered if he had gone too far. But they needed to rid
themselves of that spying flyer before they dared to move out into the
plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would
be the best proof he could give of the invincibility of the new Apache
arms.
"Under the right conditions," he replied stoutly, "yes."
"And those conditions?" Menlik demanded.
"That it must be brought within range. Say, below the level of a
neighboring peak where a man may lie in wait to fire."
Silent Apaches faced silent Mongols, and Travis had a chance to taste
what might be defeat. But the helicopter must be taken before they
advanced toward the ship and the settlement.
"And, maker of traps, how do you intend to bait this one?" Menlik's
question was an open challenge.
"You know these Reds better than we," Travis counterattacked. "How would
you bait it, Son of the Blue Wolf?"
"You say Kaydessa is leading the Reds south; we have but your word for
that," Menlik replied. "Though how it would profit you to lie on such a
matter--" He shrugged. "If you do speak the truth, then the 'copter will
circle about the foothills where they entered."
"And what would bring the pilot nosing farther in?" the Apache asked.
Menlik shrugged again. "Any manner of things. The Reds have never
ventured too far south; they are suspicious of the heights--with good
cause." His fingers, near the hilt of his tulwar, twitched. "Anything
which might suggest that their party is in difficulty would bring them
in for a closer look--"
"Say a fire, with much smoke?" Jil-Lee suggested.
Menlik spoke over his shoulder to his own party. There was a babble of
answer, two or three of the men raising their voices above those of
their companions.
"If set in the right direction, yes," the shaman conceded. "When do you
plan to move, Apaches?"
"At once!"
But they did not have wings, and the cross-country march they had to
make was a rough journey on foot. Travis' "at once" stretched into night
hours filled with scrambling over rocks, and an early morning of
preparations, with always the threat that the helicopter might not
return to fly its circling mission over the scene of operations. All
they had was Menlik's assurance that while any party of the Red
overlords was away from their well-defended base, the flyer did just
that.
"Might be relaying messages on from a walkie-talkie or something like
that," Buck commented.
"They should reach our ship in two days ... three at the most ... if
they are pushing," Travis said thoughtfully. "It would be a help--if
that flyer is a link in any com unit--to destroy it before its crew
picks up and relays any report of what happens back there."
Jil-Lee grunted. He was surveying the heights above the pocket in which
Menlik and two of the Mongols were piling brush. "There ... there ...
and there...." The Apache's chin made three juts. "If the pilot swoops
for a quick look, our cross fire will take out his blades."
They held a last conference with Menlik and then climbed to the perches
Jil-Lee had selected. Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that
Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other
three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Reds
at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out
to storm the enemy fort on the prairie. And should they blast any caller
the helicopter might carry, Menlik and his riders would accompany them.
There it was, just as Menlik had foretold: The wasp from the open
country was flying into the hills. Menlik, on his knees, struck flint to
steel, sparking the fire they hoped would draw the pilot to a closer
investigation.
The brush caught, and smoke, thick and white, came first in separate
puffs and then gathered into a murky pillar to form a signal no one
could overlook. In Travis' hands the grip of the gun was slippery. He
rested the end of the barrel on the rock, curbing his rising tension as
best he could.
To escape any caller on the flyer, the Tatars had remained in the valley
below the Apaches' lookout. And as the helicopter circled in, Travis
sighted two men in its cockpit, one wearing a helmet identical to the
one they had seen on the Red hunter days ago. The Reds' long undisputed
sway over the Mongol forces would make them overconfident. Travis
thought that even if they sighted one of the waiting Apaches, they would
not take warning until too late.
Menlik's bush fire was performing well and the flyer was heading
straight for it. The machine buzzed the smoke once, too high for the
Apaches to trust raying its blades. Then the pilot came back in a lower
sweep which carried him only yards above the smoldering brush, on a
level with the snipers.
Travis pressed the button on the barrel, his target the fast-whirling
blades. Momentum carried the helicopter on, but at least one of the
marksmen, if not all three, had scored. The machine plowed through the
smoke to crack up beyond.
Was their caller working, bringing in the Mongols to aid the Reds
trapped in the wreck?
Travis watched Menlik make his way toward the machine, reach the cracked
cover of the cockpit. But in the shaman's hand was a bare blade on which
the sun glinted. The Mongol wrenched open the sprung door, thrust inward
with the tulwar, and the howl of triumph he voiced was as worldless and
wild as a wolf's.
More Mongols flooding down ... Hulagur ... a woman ... centering on the
helicopter. This time a spear plunged into the interior of the broken
flyer. Payment was being extracted for long slavery.
The Apaches dropped from the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the
wild scene. Hulagur had dragged out the body of the helmeted man and
the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks,
still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge
fire to meet the Apaches.
He was smiling, his upper lip raised in a curve suggesting the victory
purr of a snow tiger. And he saluted with one hand.
"There are two who will not trap men again! We believe you now, _andas_,
comrades of battle, when you say you can go up against their fort and
make it as nothing!"
Hulagur came up behind the shaman, a modern automatic in his hand. He
tossed the weapon into the air, caught it again, laughing--disclaiming
something in his own language.
"From the serpents we take two fangs," Menlik translated. "These weapons
may not be as dangerous as yours, but they can bite deeper, quicker, and
with more force than our arrows."
It did not take the Mongols long to strip the helicopter and the Reds of
what they could use, deliberately smashing all the other equipment which
had survived the wreck. They had accomplished one important move: The
link between the southbound exploring party and the Red headquarters--if
that was the role the helicopter had played--was now gone. And the
"eyes" operating over the open territory of the plains had ceased to
exist. The attacking war party could move against the ship near the Red
settlement, knowing they had only controlled Mongol scouts to watch for.
And to penetrate enemy territory under those conditions was an old, old
game the Apaches had played for centuries.
While they waited for the signals from the peaks, a camp was established
and a Mongol dispatched to bring up the rest of the outlaws and all
extra mounts. Menlik carried to the Apaches a portion of the dried meat
which had been transported Horde fashion--under the saddle to soften it
for eating.
"We do not skulk any longer like rats or city men in dark holes," he
told them. "This time we ride, and we shall take an accounting from
those out there--a fine accounting!"
"They still have other controllers," Travis pointed out.
"And you have that which is an answer to all their machines," blazed
Menlik in return.
"They will send against us your own people if they can," Buck warned.
Menlik pulled at his upper lip. "That is also truth. But now they have
no eyes in the sky, and with so many of their men away, they will not
patrol too far from camp. I tell you, _andas_, with these weapons of
yours a man could rule a world!"