Murdock lay on his back, gazing up at the laced hides which stretched to
make the tent roofing. Having been battered just enough to feel all one
aching bruise, Ross had lost interest in the future. Only the present
mattered, and it was a dark one. He might have fought Ennar to a
standstill, but in the eyes of the horsemen he had also been beaten, and
he had not impressed them as he had hoped. That he still lived was a
minor wonder, but he deduced that he continued to breathe only because
they wanted to exchange him for the reward offered by the aliens from
out of time, an unpleasant prospect to contemplate.
His wrists were lashed over his head to a peg driven deeply into the
ground; his ankles were bound to another. He could turn his head from
side to side, but any further movement was impossible. He ate only bits
of food dropped into his mouth by a dirty-fingered slave, a cowed hunter
captured from a tribe overwhelmed in the migration of the horsemen.
"Ho--taker of axes!" A toe jarred into his ribs, and Ross bit back the
grunt of pain which answered that rude bid for his attention. He saw in
the dim light Ennar's face and was savagely glad to note the
discolorations about the right eye and along the jaw line, the
signatures left by his own skinned knuckles.
"Ho--warrior!" Ross returned hoarsely, trying to lade that title with
all the scorn he could summon.
Ennar's hand, holding a knife, swung into his limited range of vision.
"To clip a sharp tongue is a good thing!" The young tribesman grinned as
he knelt down beside the helpless prisoner.
Ross knew a thrill of fear worse than any pain. Ennar might be about to
do just what he hinted! Instead, the knife swung up and Ross felt the
sawing at the cords about his wrists, enduring the pain in the raw
gouges they had cut in his flesh with gratitude that it was not
mutilation which had brought Ennar to him. He knew that his arms were
free, but to draw them down from over his head was almost more than he
could do, and he lay quiet as Ennar loosed his feet.
"Up!"
Without Ennar's hands pulling at him, Ross could not have reached his
feet. Nor did he stay erect once he had been raised, crashing forward on
his face as the other let him go, hot anger eating at him because of his
own helplessness.
In the end, Ennar summoned two slaves who dragged Ross into the open
where a council assembled about a fire. A debate was in progress,
sometimes so heated that the speakers fingered their knife or ax hilts
when they shouted their arguments. Ross could not understand their
language, but he was certain that he was the subject under discussion
and that Foscar had the deciding vote and had not yet given the nod to
either side.
Ross sat where the slaves had dumped him, rubbing his smarting wrists,
so deathly weary in mind and beaten in body that he was not really
interested in the fate they were planning for him. He was content merely
to be free of his bonds, a small favor, but one he savored dully.
He did not know how long the debate lasted, but at length Ennar came to
stand over him with a message. "Your chief--he give many good things for
you. Foscar take you to him."
"My chief is not here," Ross repeated wearily, making a protest he knew
they would not heed. "My chief sits by the bitter water and waits. He
will be angry if I do not come. Let Foscar fear his anger----"
Ennar laughed. "You run from your chief. He will be happy with Foscar
when you lie again under his hand. You will not like that--I think it
so!"
"I think so, too," Ross agreed silently.
He spent the rest of that night lying between the watchful Ennar and
another guard, though they had the humanity not to bind him again. In
the morning he was allowed to feed himself, and he fished chunks of
venison out of a stew with his unwashed fingers. But in spite of the
messiness, it was the best food he had eaten in days.
The trip, however, was not to be a comfortable one. He was mounted on
one of the shaggy horses, a rope run under the animal's belly to loop
one foot to the other. Fortunately, his hands were bound so he was able
to grasp the coarse, wiry mane and keep his seat after a fashion. The
nose rope of his mount was passed to Tulka, and Ennar rode beside him
with only half an eye for the path of his own horse and the balance of
his attention for the prisoner.
They headed northeast, with the mountains as a sharp green-and-white
goal against the morning sky. Though Ross's sense of direction was not
too acute, he was certain that they were making for the general vicinity
of the hidden village, which he believed the ship people had destroyed.
He tried to discover something of the nature of the contact which had
been made between the aliens and the horsemen.
"How find other chief?" he asked Ennar.
The young man tossed one of his braids back across his shoulder and
turned his head to face Ross squarely. "Your chief come our camp. Talk
with Foscar--two--four sleeps ago."
"How talk with Foscar? With hunter talk?"
For the first time Ennar did not appear altogether certain. He scowled
and then snapped, "He talk--Foscar, us. We hear right words--not woods
creeper talk. He speak to us good."
Ross was puzzled. How could the alien out of time speak the proper
language of a primitive tribe some thousands of years removed from his
own era? Were the ship people also familiar with time travel? Did they
have their own stations of transfer? Yet their fury with the Reds had
been hot. This was a complete mystery.
"This chief--he look like me?"
Again Ennar appeared at a loss. "He wear covering like you."
"But was he like me?" persisted Ross. He didn't know what he was trying
to learn, only that it seemed important at that moment to press home to
at least one of the tribesmen that he _was_ different from the man who
had put a price on his head and to whom he was to be sold.
"Not like!" Tulka spoke over his shoulder. "You look like hunter
people--hair, eyes--Strange chief no hair on head, eyes not like----"
"You saw him too?" Ross demanded eagerly.
"I saw. I ride to camp--they come so. Stand on rock, call to Foscar.
Make magic with fire--it jump up!" He pointed his arm stiffly at a bush
before them on the trail. "They point little, little spear--fire come
out of the ground and burn. They say burn our camp if we do not give
them man. We say--not have man. Then they say many good things for us if
we find and bring man----"
"But they are not my people," Ross cut in. "You see, I have hair, I am
not like them. They are bad----"
"You may be taken in war by them--chief's slave." Ennar had a reply to
that which was logical according to the customs of his own tribe. "They
want slave back--it is so."
"My people strong too, much magic," Ross pushed. "Take me to bitter
water and they pay much--more than stranger chief!"
Both tribesmen were amused. "Where bitter water?" asked Tulka.
Ross jerked his head to the west. "Some sleeps away----"
"Some sleeps!" repeated Ennar jeeringly. "We ride some sleeps, maybe
many sleeps where we know not the trails--maybe no people there, maybe
no bitter water--all things you say with split tongue so that we not
give you back to master. We go this way not even one sleep--find chief,
get good things. Why we do hard thing when we can do easy?"
What argument could Ross offer in rebuttal to the simple logic of his
captors? For a moment he raged inwardly at his own helplessness. But
long ago he had learned that giving away to hot fury was no good unless
one did it deliberately to impress, and then only when one had the upper
hand. Now Ross had no hand at all.
For the most part they kept to the open, whereas Ross and the other two
agents had skulked in wooded areas on their flight through this same
territory. So they approached the mountains from a different angle, and
though he tried, Ross could pick out no familiar landmarks. If by some
miracle he was able to free himself from his captors, he could only head
due west and hope to strike the river.
At midday their party made camp in a grove of trees by a spring. The
weather was as unseasonably warm as it had been the day before, and
flies, brought out of cold-weather hiding, attacked the stamping horses
and crawled over Ross. He tried to keep them off with swings of his
bound hands, for their bites drew blood.
Having been tumbled from his mount, he remained fastened to a tree with
a noose about his neck while the horsemen built a fire and broiled
strips of deer meat.
It would seem that Foscar was in no hurry to get on, since after they
had eaten, the men continued to lounge at ease, some even dropping off
to sleep. When Ross counted faces he learned that Tulka and another had
both disappeared, possibly to contact and warn the aliens they were
coming.
It was midafternoon before the scouts reappeared, as unobtrusively as
they had gone. They went before Foscar with a report which brought the
chief over to Ross. "We go. Your chief waits--"
Ross raised his swollen, bitten face and made his usual protest. "Not my
chief!"
Foscar shrugged. "He say so. He give good things to get you back under
his hand. So--he your chief!"
Once again Ross was boosted on his mount, and bound. But this time the
party split into two groups as they rode off. He was with Ennar again,
just behind Foscar, with two other guards bringing up the rear. The rest
of the men, leading their mounts, melted into the trees. Ross watched
that quiet withdrawal speculatively. It argued that Foscar did not trust
those he was about to do business with, that he was taking certain
precautions of his own. Only Ross could not see how that distrust, which
might be only ordinary prudence on Foscar's part, could in any way be an
advantage for him.
They rode at a pace hardly above a walk into a small open meadow
narrowing at the east. Then for the first time Ross was able to place
himself. They were at the entrance to the valley of the village, about
a mile away from the narrow throat above which Ross had lain to spy and
had been captured, for he had come from the north over the spurs of
rising ridges.
Ross's horse was pulled up as Foscar drove his heel into the ribs of his
own mount, sending it at a brisker pace toward the neck of the valley.
There was a blot of blue there--more than one of the aliens were
waiting. Ross caught his lip between his teeth and bit down on it hard.
He had stood up to the Reds, to Foscar's tribesmen, but he shrank from
meeting those strangers with an odd fear that the worst the men of his
own species could do would be but a pale shadow to the treatment he
might meet at their hands.
Foscar was now a toy man astride a toy horse. He halted his galloping
mount to sit facing the handful of strangers. Ross counted four of them.
They seemed to be talking, though there was still a good distance
separating the mounted man and the blue suits.
Minutes passed before Foscar's arm raised in a wave to summon the party
guarding Ross. Ennar kicked his horse to a trot, towing Ross's mount
behind, the other two men thudding along more discreetly. Ross noted
that they were both armed with spears which they carried to the fore as
they rode.
They were perhaps three quarters of the way to join Foscar, and Ross
could see plainly the bald heads of the aliens as their faces turned in
his direction. Then the strangers struck. One of them raised a weapon
shaped similarly to the automatic Ross knew, except that it was longer
in the barrel.
Ross did not know why he cried out, except that Foscar had only an ax
and dagger which were both still sheathed at his belt. The chief sat
very still, and then his horse gave a swift sidewise swerve as if in
fright. Foscar collapsed, limp, bonelessly, to the trodden turf, to lie
unmoving face down.
Ennar whooped, a cry combining defiance and despair in one. He reined up
with violence enough to set his horse rearing. Then, dropping his hold
on the leading rope of Ross's mount, he whirled and set off in a wild
dash for the trees to the left. A spear lanced across Ross's shoulder,
ripping at the blue fabric, but his horse whirled to follow the other,
taking him out of danger of a second thrust. Having lost his
opportunity, the man who had wielded the spear dashed by at Ennar's
back.
Ross clung to the mane with both hands. His greatest fear was that he
might slip from the saddle pad and since he was tied by his feet, lie
unprotected and helpless under those dashing hoofs. Somehow he managed
to cling to the horse's neck, his face lashed by the rough mane while
the animal pounded on. Had Ross been able to grasp the dangling nose
rope, he might have had a faint chance of controlling that run, but as
it was he could only hold fast and hope.
He had only broken glimpses of what lay ahead. Then a brilliant fire, as
vivid as the flames which had eaten up the Red village, burst from the
ground a few yards ahead, sending the horse wild. There was more fire
and the horse changed course through the rising smoke. Ross realized
that the aliens were trying to cut him off from the thin safety of the
woodlands. Why they didn't just shoot him as they had Foscar he could
not understand.
The smoke of the burning grass was thick, cutting between him and the
woods. Might it also provide a curtain behind which he could hope to
escape both parties? The fire was sending the horse back toward the
waiting ship people. Ross could hear a confused shouting in the smoke.
Then his mount made a miscalculation, and a tongue of red licked too
close. The animal screamed, dashing on blindly straight between two of
the blazes and away from the blue-clad men.
Ross coughed, almost choking, his eyes watering as the stench of singed
hair thickened the smoke. But he had been carried out of the fire circle
and was shooting back into the meadowland. Mount and unwilling rider
were well away from the upper end of that cleared space when another
horse cut in from the left, matching speed to the uncontrolled animal to
which Ross clung. It was one of the tribesmen riding easily.
The trick worked, for the wild race slowed to a gallop and the other
rider, in a feat of horsemanship at which Ross marveled, leaned from his
seat to catch the dangling nose rope, bringing the runaway against his
own steady steed. Ross shaken, still coughing from the smoke and unable
to sit upright, held to the mane. The gallop slowed to a rocking pace
and finally came to a halt, both horses blowing, white-foam patches on
their chests and their riders' legs.
Having made his capture, the tribesman seemed indifferent to Ross,
looking back instead at the wide curtain of grass smoke, frowning as he
studied the swift spread of the fire. Muttering to himself, he pulled
the lead rope and brought Ross's horse to follow in the direction from
which Ennar had brought the captive less than a half hour earlier.
Ross tried to think. The unexpected death of their chief might well mean
his own, should the tribe's desire for vengeance now be aroused. On the
other hand, there was a faint chance that he could now better impress
them with the thought that he was indeed of another clan and that to aid
him would be to work against a common enemy.
But it was hard to plan clearly, though wits alone could save him now.
The parley which had ended with Foscar's murder had brought Ross a small
measure of time. He was still a captive, even though of the tribesmen
and not the unearthly strangers. Perhaps to the ship people these
primitives were hardly higher in scale than the forest animals.
Ross did not try to talk to his present guard, who towed him into the
western sun of late afternoon. They halted at last in that same small
grove where they had rested at noon. The tribesman fastened the mounts
and then walked around to inspect the animal Ross had ridden. With a
grunt he loosened the prisoner and spilled him unceremoniously on the
ground while he examined the horse. Ross levered himself up to sight the
mark of the burn across that roan hide where the fire had blistered the
skin.
Thick handfuls of mud from the side of the spring were brought and
plastered over the seared strip. Then, having rubbed down both animals
with twists of grass, the man came over to Ross, pushed him back to the
ground, and studied his left leg.
Ross understood. By rights, his thigh should also have been scorched
where the flame had hit, yet he had felt no pain. Now as the tribesman
examined him for a burn, he could not see even the faintest
discoloration of the strange fabric. He remembered how the aliens had
strolled unconcerned through the burning village. As the suit had
insulated him against the cold of the ice, so it would seem that it had
also protected him against the fire, for which he was duly thankful. His
escape from injury was a puzzle to the tribesman, who, failing to find
any trace of burn on him, left Ross alone and went to sit well away from
his prisoner as if he feared him.
They did not have long to wait. One by one, those who had ridden in
Foscar's company gathered at the grove. The very last to come were Ennar
and Tulka, carrying the body of their chief. The faces of both men were
smeared with dust and when the others sighted the body they, too, rubbed
dust into their cheeks, reciting a string of words and going one by one
to touch the dead chieftain's right hand.
Ennar, resigning his burden to the others, slid from his tired horse
and stood for a long moment, his head bowed. Then he gazed straight at
Ross and came across the tiny clearing to stand over the man of a later
time. The boyishness which had been a part of him when he had fought at
Foscar's command was gone. His eyes were merciless as he leaned down to
speak, shaping each word with slow care so that Ross could understand
the promise--that frightful promise:
"Woods rat, Foscar goes to his burial fire. And he shall take a slave
with him to serve him beyond the sky--a slave to run at his voice, to
shake when he thunders. Slave-dog, you shall run for Foscar beyond the
sky, and he shall have you forever to walk upon as a man walks upon the
earth. I, Ennar, swear that Foscar shall be sent to the chiefs in the
sky in all honor. And that you, dog-one, shall lie at his feet in that
going!"
He did not touch Ross, but there was no doubt in Ross's mind that he
meant every word he spoke.