He ordered the dune cat on guard, certain that no scout of the Nitra could win past her. And tomorrow Baku would comb the wastes ahead of them with better eyes than any human or humanoid possessed. The party was reasonably safe from a surprise attack, but there was the matter of an ambush, which could be so easily staged in this country, where the trail threaded through canyons and narrow defiles, along twisted traces where it was sometimes necessary to dismount and lead one’s horse. And the farther they bored into the mountains, the worse the going became. He could well understand that only a strong lure could drag anyone into this desolate country.
After Sorenson and Mac turned in, Storm brought out his own bow and arrows. The fire had not yet died down and he held those glittering points in its glow. One by one he touched each to his wrist and pressed, saw the answering drop of blood cloud the crystal tip. Then, when all had been so painted, Storm let the blood fall in a thick dollop to the ground. The age-old offering to secure strong ‘medicine” for a new war weapon was made. Why did he offer it now – and to what spirit of the Arzoran wilderness?
“Why you do so?” The slender hand in the firelight sketched that inquiry.
He did not know the Norbie word for fortune or luck – but he used the finger vocabulary he did have and tried clumsily to explain:
“Give blood – arrow shoot straight – enemy feel. Blood pay for good arrow –”
That is true! You faraway man – but you think Norbie. Maybeso Norbie inside man – he fly far – far – be caught faraway – want to get back to his own clan – enter in faraway baby – so come back now. True – true –” The yellow-red fingers tapped lightly on the back of Storm’s hand close to that tiny wound. “Here – outside – you be faraway man. Inside, you Norbie come home again!”
“Perhaps –” Storm agreed lest he give offence.
“The sealed ones will know. They came far – far – too. Maybeso they like you –”
Gorgol spoke with the confidence of one who was acquainted with the mysterious, legendary people, and Storm asked another question:
“Gorgol knows the sealed ones?”
His question loosed a flood of story. Gorgol – three seasons back as far as Storm could determine – had left his tribe on his man-trip, to prove himself a lone hunter able to stand with the adult males of Krotag’s following. After Norbie custom he had either to engage an enemy tribesman on his own – if he were lucky enough to find a roving warrior of some clan traditionally at war with his people – or kill without aid one of the four dangerous forms of wildlife. Since his “inside man” had suggested such a path in a dream, Gorgol had headed to the eastern mountains, working his way along the same general direction the expedition was now travelling.
There he had come across the spoor of an “evil flyer”, the giant bird-thing the Norbies regarded with a wholesome aversion for its unclean habits and respect for its ferocious fighting spirit. Since he could hope for no better kill to establish himself among the men, Gorgol had spent the better part of five days tracking the creature to its nesting ledge high in the mountains. But he had been too eager at his first shot and had wounded it only.
The bird, after the manner of its species, had attacked him, and there had followed a running fight down the side of the nesting peak into a valley where Gorgol had laid an ambush that had successfully finished the flyer. Though he had been injured in the final encounter, he was not too badly wounded.
He thrust his leg out into the firelight now, tracing for Storm the blue line of a ragged scar fully ten inches long.
Disabled by his hurt, Gorgol had been forced to stay in the valley of the ambush. Luckily the season was still one of rains and the big dry had not yet begun so there was a trickle of water from the heights. And during his imprisonment in the narrow cut he had discovered a walled-up cave opening, together with other objects made by intelligent beings who were neither Norbie nor settler.
He had left those finds behind him when at last he could hobble, not wishing to vex the sealed ones. But since that day he had remained certain that he had chanced upon one of the doors of the Sealed Caves.
“The sealed ones – they good to men who keep their laws. Put in Gorgol’s head how to kill flyer – send water drip to drink while leg bad. Old stories say sealed ones good to Norbies long, long ago. I say this too. Maybeso I die there did not their magic help me! Their magic big –” His hand expanded in the large sign. “They do much – sealed away from sun they sleep – but still they do much!”
“Could you find this valley again?”
“Yes. But not go there unless sealed ones allow. I follow bird. Sealed ones know I come not to disturb them, not to dig them up. They excuse. Go to wake them – maybeso they not like. Must call – then we go.”
Storm heard the conviction in that and respected it. Each man had a right to his own beliefs. But this did back up Soren-son’s story that the wizard Bokatan had offered to guide them because he believed that the sealed ones themselves were in favour of it. And since the country of Gorgol’s hunting adventures was in the same general direction as the territory into which the expedition was heading, perhaps they were going to find the mysterious Sealed Caves after all.
7
The sun was a warm hand pressing on his bared shoulders as Storm lay on top of an outcrop, his long-vision glasses trained on the pass ahead. He had shed his easily sighted frawn shirt many days ago, having discovered that his own brown skin was hard to distinguish from the rocks.
Now the path of the expedition had narrowed to one choice, a defile leading between climbing walls, a perfect country for ambush. Properly they should travel it by night, except that the footing was none too good and they dared not risk a fall for either man or horse. Already the party followed well-tried Terran precautions for advance into enemy territory, stopping in the early afternoon to graze their horses and feed themselves, and then moving on for an hour after sunset, so that their night camp site was far from the place where they had first – to any spy-scout – bedded down. Whether such elementary tactics would mislead experienced native raiders was another matter.
Storm was certain that they were under observation, though he had no real proof except the alert uneasiness of the team. And he depended upon bird and cat for his first warning against any attack.
Now Baku did come in, voicing a harsh scream, to send winging out of the brush below a whole covey of panic-stricken grass hens. There was someone coming through the defile, a Norbie riding alone on a vividly spotted black and white horse. And the white star on its forehead was dabbed with red, a circle centred by a double dot – If this newcomer was not the wizard Bokatan, then he had acquired Bokatan’s favourite mount, which had been described to Storm in advance. This would not be too impossible. Storm remained where he was, his bow ready.
“Hoooooooooo!” The call was the twitter of Norbie speech prolonged into a high-pitched hoot. Out of the rock, seemingly, Dagotag arose to meet the wizard. At least the party now had their promised guide.
Before nightfall they had crossed the invisible border of the taboo land, to camp that night on the banks of a swollen stream. The water was red with silt, whirling along uprooted bushes and even small trees. Sorenson surveyed it critically.
“You can have too much of a good thing. We have to depend upon the mountain rains for water. But, on the other hand, flash floods in these narrow gorges can wipe out a party such as ours in a matter of seconds. Tomorrow we’ll have to parallel this as long as we can to water the horses. Let us hope the level begins to drop instead of to rise –”
Before noon the next day, not only was the flood dwindling but Bokatan pointed them away from it, using as a guide for their new direction something that excited them all. There was no mistaking the artificial origin of that low black ridge, running at right angles to the north-east.
Storm measured it roughly with his hand, finding it about a foot wide, though raised only a few inches from the ground. It was wedge-shaped with the narrower edge straight up. To the touch it was not stone, nor metal, at least no stone nor metal he had ever seen before. And its purpose remained a mystery. A knife blade made no impression, but under prodding fingers the substance had a faintly greasy feel, though neither dry soil nor leaves clung to its surface. Nor would Surra put paw on it. She sniffed dubiously at the ridge, plainly avoiding contact, sneezing twice and shaking her head in her gesture of distaste.