Poison! Fors knew now the cleverness of the lizards, the reason for the sacrifice of the gleaners. The thorn balls were poisoned! And there had to be time for the poison to work. But—were they all infected?
In the end it was the leader who lived long enough to almost reach the other end of the valley, its paws scrabbling on the rock as it tried to drag its tortured body out of that place of death. But it crashed back, moaned twice, and then was as still as the rest.
Fors could hear the patter of lizard feet before he noticed that the hillsides were alive with them, moving in a red-brown cloud down toward the slain. He licked raw lips. Could he communicate with them, get them to use that knife lying there to saw through his bonds? His hands were too numb and so were his feet.
For a long time he hesitated as the lizards crowded about the dead, their thin whistling echoing up and down among the rocks. Then he ventured to make a croaking sound which was all his dry throat and dryer mouth could shape.
His answer was a flash of movement as those heads snapped around and cold hard eyes regarded him with detachment. He tried again as Lura kicked for freedom to no purpose. Some of the lizards drew together, their crested heads bent as they conferred. Then a party started forward. Fors tried to lift himself. Then sheer horror caught at his nerves.
In each four-fingered paw they were carrying something—a branch thick with thorns!
11
Drums Speak Loudly
“No! Friend—I am friend—” Fors gabbled the words wildly. But they were words the lizards did not recognize and the silent and menacing advance did not falter.
What stopped them was something else—a hissing from some point on the slope behind the helpless mountaineer. It was as if the giant grandfather of all snakes coiled there, resentful of the disturbance. To the lizards the hissing had meaning. They halted almost in midstep, their threadlike tongues flickering in and out, their ragged top crests stiff and upright, pulsing dark red.
Stones rattled down the hill. Fors tried desperately to turn his head to see what or who was coming. Lura’s struggles increased in violence and he wondered if he could roll to that knife which lay just out of reach. Though his hands were dead and numb he might be able to saw through the cat’s bonds.
One of the lizards drew ahead of the rest of the pack, but its thorn spear was still at “ready.” The scaled throat swelled and an answering hiss sounded. That was replied to promptly and afterward came three words which set the captive’s heart to pounding.
“Can you move?”
“No. And watch out! Poison thorns set in balls—on the ground—”
“I know.” The answer was calm. “Keep still—”
Arskane hissed for the third time. The lizards drew back, leaving their leader alone, alert and on guard. Then Arskane was there, stooping to slash the bonds of both captives. Fors tried to lever himself up with dead arms which refused to obey him.
“Can—not—make—it—”
But Arskane was rubbing at the puffed and swollen ankles and the torture of reviving circulation was almost more than the mountaineer could bear without screaming. It seemed only a second before Arskane hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the back slope.
“Get up there—”
That order had an urgency which made Fors climb in spite of himself, Lura dragging up ahead. He dared not waste the time to look back, he could only put all his strength to the task of getting up to the top.
If the way had been steeper he might never have made it. And as it was Arskane caught up to him and pulled him along the last few steps. From the southerner’s arm hung Fors’ knife belt with knife and sword both in their sheaths—he had waited to retrieve that.
Neither of them lost time in talk, Fors glad to reel along with the larger man’s support. After a while he knew that there was real grass under his feet and then he slumped down where water sprayed his parched skin.
He did not know how much time passed before he roused enough to know that Arskane was trying to pour some broth down his throat. He swallowed eagerly until his eyes closed against his will and he drifted off again.
“How did you get us out?” Fors lay at ease, hours later. Under him a mat of ferns and leaves seemed almost unbelievably soft and Arskane hunched on the other side of the fire fashioning a shaft for a short hunting spear.
“It was easy enough—with the Beast Things gone. I will tell you this with a straight and truthful tongue, brother.” The southerner’s teeth flashed white and amused in his dark face. “Had those yet breathed, then this venture might well have ended otherwise.
“When I awoke in this wood and found you gone I at first thought that you were hunting—for food or water or both. But I was not happy in my mind—not happy at all. I ate—here are rabbits, fat and foolish and without fear. And yonder there is the brook. So did my unease grow, for with food and drink so near I knew that you would not have gone from me and remained so long a time. So I went back along our trail—”
Fors studied the hands lumped on his chest, the hands which were still purplish and blue and which hurt with a nagging pain. What would have happened if Arskane had not gone back?
“That trail was very easy to follow. And along it I found the place where the Beast Things had lain in hiding to strike you down. They did nothing to cover their tracks. It is in my mind that they fear very little and see small need for caution. So came I at last to the valley of the lizards—”
“But how did you stop their attack?”
Arskane was examining a pile of stones he had culled out of the brook, weighing them in his hands and separating them into two piles. The smoothed spear shaft he had set aside.
“The lizard folk I have seen before. In my own land—or the land we held before the shaking of the mountains drove us forth—there was such a colony. They marched across the desert from the west one year and made a settlement in a gulch a half day’s journey from the village of my people. We were curious about them and often watched them from a distance. At last we even traded—giving them bits of metal in return for blue stones they grubbed out of the earth—our women having a liking for necklaces. I do not know what I said back there—I think it was only that my imitation of their speech surprised them so that they let us go.
“But it was well we got out of that place with all speed. The poison ball is their greatest weapon. I have seen them use it against coyote and snake. They wish only to be left alone.”
“But—but they were almost—almost human—” Fors told of the gleaners and the sacrifice they had made for their clan.
Arskane laid out three stones of equal size and girth. “Can we then deny that they have a right to their valley? Could we show equal courage, I wonder?” He became busy with some thin strips of rabbit skin, weaving them into a net around each rock. Fors watched him, puzzled.
Just overhead there was a break in the mass of tree tops and as he lay back flat he could see blue sky and part of a drifting white cloud. But this morning there was a chill tooth to the wind—summer was going. He must get back to the Eyrie soon—
Then he remembered what had happened to the Star pouch and his puffy fingers dug into the stuff he lay upon. There was no use in returning to the mountain hold now. When the Beast Things had destroyed his proof they had finished his chance of buying his way back into the clan. He had nothing left except what Arskane had brought out of the lizard valley for him—his knife and sword.
“Good!”
Fors was too sunk to turn his head and see what had brought that note of satisfaction into his companion’s voice. Arskane did not have anything to worry about. He would go south and find his tribe, take his place among them again—
“Now we shall have food for the pot, brother—”
Fors frowned but he did not look around. The southerner stood there tall and straight and around his head he whirled a strange contraption that, to the mountaineer, seemed of no use at all. The three stones in their rabbit skin nets had been fastened to thongs of hide and the three thongs tied together with one central knot. This knot Arskane gripped between his fingers as he sent the stones skimming in a circle. Having tested it he laughed at Fors’ bewilderment.