They began again that creeping journey along the jagged teeth of the heights. Below the river still spun, flicking around the old slides. And, even as Kana watched, a section of the cliff wall, undermined, gave way—tossing rocks and clay out into the current. So warned, they back-tracked from the rim. But here, for every mile of progress east, they traveled almost as much over or around obstacles, skirting side chasms, flanking butts and peaks. It was snail journeying and their hands left smears of blood on the stone. Even the incredibly tough Ciranian reptile hide of their boots showed scars and scratches.
And a fear which none mentioned rode them. That morning when Soong had tried to reach the Horde with the speecher he had raised no answer. At every rest interval while they panted in the thin air, he bent over the obstinate machine, fingering the keys with relentless energy, but never getting a faint click in reply.
Kana thought he knew what had happened, his imagination painting a very stark picture. The Horde had come up the river bed—to meet head on that flood, speeding even more as the ground sloped. The Terran force must have been caught, to be swept away to as final an end as the older Llor army had met in the valley of bones!
So vivid was this picture that, as they approached the fork, Kana lagged behind, unwilling to look for the debris of such destruction. But Soong’s shout of discovery drew him against his will.
One of the light carts was jammed into the rocks just below them, twisted almost out of shape. Bogate’s wide shoulders sagged as he hunched perilously over to view the wreckage. As they stared at the evidence which blighted their hopes, a wild shout drew their attention across to where those on the other side of the river were excitedly pointing behind them at the other fork. Bogate straightened, his lusty strength coming back.
“Maybe some of ’em made it!”
Two of the scouts on the other side had disappeared, but the third continued to wave.
“The problem of getting across remains,” Larsen pointed out. “We can’t swim that—”
“We got across the other river, didn’t we?” Soong demanded. “What we did once we can do again.”
They could do anything now! The knowledge that some of the Horde must have escaped was a stimulant which sent them to perch on stones just above water level while Bogate lowered one of the rifles, stock first, to test the pull of the river, only to have it almost ripped out of his grasp.
Across the water a knot of men appeared, among them Hansu. They were burdened with coils of rope and split into two groups, leaving one directly across from the marooned scouts. The Blademaster and the others went upstream, uncoiling rope as they clambered above the water line.
Here the gap, through which the water must enter the wider bed, was deeper and narrower than at any other point along its sweep from the falls. Hansu’s men fastened the rope end to an unwieldy bundle and tossed it into the flood. Soong and Bogate, rifles ready, lay belly down on the rocks. The bundle flashed downstream and they plunged their rifles in to capture it. There was a breathless instant when it seemed that it might escape—then all four of them had it and the rope end it brought them was safely in their hands, linking them to the party across the river.
To fight through those few feet of water was a nightmare of effort. In his turn Kana brought up against a half-sunken rock with force enough to make his head swim with pain. Then hands reached out to drag him in. Coughing up brackish water, he lay on a spit of gravel until they pulled him to his feet. The rest of the trip to the other valley was a mechanical obeying of orders, of being led. And he did not really rouse until he found himself lying on his back, a pack under his head, while Mic and Rey stripped off his soaked clothing and rubbed him down with a blanket.
Mic scowled. “What’d you do up there—blow a dam?”
“Sprung a trap—I think,” Kana sputtered the words over a cup of hot brew Rey thrust upon him. There was a fire blazing not too far away and the glow of warmth within and without his shivering body was pure luxury.
“So. Well, we have one of the trappers—”
Kana’s eyes followed Mic’s finger. Across the fire squatted a figure neither Llor nor Terran. About four feet tall, the creature was almost completely covered with a thick growth of gray-white hair. About its loins was a brief kilt of supple ttsor fur and it wore a thong necklet from which depended several thumb claws of the same felines. Even more expressionless than the less woolly Llor, the prisoner stared unblinkingly into the fire and paid little or no attention to his surroundings.
“Cos?”
“We think so. We caught him feeding a signal fire up on the cliffs night before last. But so far we haven’t been able to get anything out of him. He doesn’t answer to trade talk, and even Hansu’s Llor can’t bring an answer out of him. We pull him along, he sits when we stop—he won’t eat—”
As he talked Mic opened his pack and pulled out spare clothing while Rey contributed more. Kana gratefully donned the donations, watching his own clothes steam before the fire.
“Good thing our warning reached you in time—”
Mic did not quite meet his eyes. “The flood caught five of the men—a cart got hung up on a rock and they were working to free it. Then we lost three crossing the first river and a couple when the fur faces jumped us later—”
“The Llor followed you?”
“Part way. They faded out when we reached the bone valley. I suppose that gave them an idea of what they could expect. Anyway they chased us in and there’s no going back that way—unless we want to fight the whole nation. The rebels are all loyal royalists now and only too ready to attack the nasty Terran invaders—” There was a bitter undertone to that.
“What’s it like up ahead?” Rey wanted to know.
Swiftly Kana outlined what he had seen. As he spoke their faces grew bleak. But before he had finished Hansu strode up to the fire.
“See any Cos signs above the falls before that water came?” the Blademaster demanded.
“No, sir. We saw nothing but a ttsor and it gave us the alarm. I’d laid out a trade packet on a rock because we felt as if we were being watched. The ttsor came down to look it over and then—”
But Hansu was staring across the flames at the captive Cos. “All we need to know is locked up in that round skull over there—if we could just pry it out. But he won’t eat our food, he won’t talk. And we can’t keep him until he starves. Then they would have good reason to strike back at us.”
The Blademaster went around to stand beside the prisoner. But the white-wooled pygmy never changed position nor gave any indication that he was aware of the Terran commander. Hansu went down on one knee, slowly repeating some words in the sing-song speech of the Llor. The Cos did not even blink. Kana reached for the trade packets he had carried so long, made a hasty selection, and passed on a small package of sugar and a stone-set wrist band.
Hansu held the gemmed circlet into the light before the sullen captive, turning it so that the stones flashed. The offering might have been totally invisible as far as the Cos was concerned. Nor when the sugar cake was held within sniffing distance did he make any move to investigate. To him the Terrans and their gifts did not exist.
“He’s a stone wall and we’re up against him,” Hansu said. “We can only—”
“Let him go, sir, and hope for the best?” Kana’s X-Tee training suggested that.
“Yes.” Hansu stood up and then pulled the Cos to his feet. Compelling the captive by his great strength, the Blademaster marched the pygmy to the edge of the Terran camp and a good hundred yards beyond. There he released the mountaineer’s arm and stepped away.
For a long space the Cos remained exactly where he had been left—he did not even turn his head to see if they were watching him. Then, with a skittering movement, the speed of which left the Combatants agape, he was gone, vanishing at the far side of the canyon. Somewhere a stone rattled, but they saw nothing of the trail he took.
The Horde camped there for that night and, though they watched the mountains ahead and the cliffs walling them in, there were no more signal fires.