Storm sat cross-legged by the bed of grass he had pulled for Surra’s resting. King muzzled against him, chittering mournfully to herself. Even the bag in which Ho had ridden was not to be found and she missed her mate. As the Terran stroked her coarse fur comfortingly, he studied the southern end of the valley. Between him and the gateway of the tunnel there was still a vast spread of water. He was walled off from that exit until the flood retreated still farther. Also – Storm pushed Hing down on his knees, reached for the vision lenses lying by him.
He swept that southern range, dissatisfied. There was something wrong there, though he could not decide just what it could be. He had a feeling that there had been a change in what he saw. His gaze travelled along the cliffs. There were places there where an active man could climb, but none where he could take Rain. No, unless there was a gateway in the north, then the tunnel remained their only exit. And to head north was to bore farther into the untracked wilderness.
To be alone was nothing new for Storm. In one way or another he had walked a lonely road for most of his life. And sometimes it was easier to live with his inner loneliness and just the team, than to exist in a human anthill such as the Centre. But there was something in this valley that he had never met before, not on any alien, enemy-held planet where he had learned to live in peril, where every move might betray him to an enemy and yet not to quick, clean death. This thing clung to the mounds of rubble – to the walls of rock, and the Terran knew that he had not been greatly surprised to find only the dead waiting on the hillock. This was a place that invited death. It repelled his senses, his body. Had it not been that Surra could not yet travel far, Storm would be seeking a way out right now.
The Terran wanted a fire, not only to dry what was left of his clothing and gear and as a source of physical comfort against the chill of the coming waterlogged night, but because fire itself was his species’ first weapon against the unknown – the oldest, and the most heartening. Slowly he began to speak aloud, his voice rolling into the chants, the old, old songs meant to be a defence against that which stalks the night, words that he believed he could not remember, but that now came easily in the ancient and comforting rhythms.
Baku, perched on a stone outcrop yards above Storm’s head, stirred. Surra raised her chin from her paws, her fox ears pricked. Storm drew his stun rod. His back was against the cliff wall, he had a shielding boulder on his right – only two sides to cover. With the other hand he worked his knife out of its sheath. Any attack would have to be hand to hand. Had a bowman stalked them the arrow would be already freed from its cord. And his stun ray could take care of a charge –
“Eruoooooo!” That call was low, echoing, and it was one he had often heard and could not repeat.
Storm did not relax vigilance, but neither did he press the control button of the ray, as a figure, which was hardly more than a flitting form against shadows gathering in this part of the valley where the western sun was already cut off by the cliffs, came running toward him. Gorgol, his right arm pressed to his chest, reached the gravel beach and dropped on the edge of Surra’s bed. His left hand moved in limited signs which Storm had to watch carefully to translate.
“Enemy – after flood – kill – all dead –”
“It is so,” Storm returned. “Let me see to your wound, warrior.”
The Terran pushed the young native back against the barricade boulder and examined the hurt hurriedly in the fading light. Luckily for the Norbie the arrow had gone cleanly through, and as far as Storm could judge none of the treacherous, glassy barbs had broken off in the flesh. He washed it with the last of the purified water and bound it up. Gorgol sighed and closed his eyes. The Terran brought out a block of concentrated ration, broke off a portion and pushed it into the Norbie’s good hand.
When Gorgol opened his eyes again Storm signed the all-important question.
“Nitra gone? Or still here?”
Gorgol shook his head in a determined negative. “No Nitra –” With the ration block clenched between his teeth, he moved his one set of fingers. “Not Nitra kill – not Norbies –”
Storm sat back on his heels, his eyes sweeping out over the mound-studded desolation. For an instant or two his vague fears of this place merged in a flash of imagination – the Sealed Cave people? Or some inimical thing they had left here on guard? Then he smiled wryly. Those men on the mound had been killed by arrows, the wound he had just tended was left by the same weapon. His racial superstitions were at war with all the scientific learning of his lost home-world.
“Not Norbies?”
“No Norbie, no Nitra –” Storm had made no mistake in his first reading of Gorgol’s signs. Now the native moved his other arm stiffly, forced his right hand to add to the authority of his left. “Faraway men come – your kind!”
But the arrows? That ritual mutilation of the dead –?
“You see them?”
“I see – I on cliff ledge – water high, high! Men come at end of rain – they wear this’ – he tapped the yoris hide corselet protecting his own torso – “like Norbie – carry bows – like Norbie –but not Norbie. Think Mountain Butchers – steal horses – steal frawns – kill – then say Norbie do. Mark dead like Norbie. They shoot – Gorgol fall like dead – only first Gorgol kill one!” His eyes gleamed brightly. “Gorgol warrior now! But too many –” He spread all his fingers to spell the size of the other party. “So when arrow find Gorgol he fall back – be dead – they no climb up to see whether really dead or no –”
“Mountain Butchers!” Storm repeated aloud and Gorgol must have guessed the meaning of the sounds for again he signed an eager assent.
They are still here?”
“Not so. They go –” Gorgol pointed north. “Think they live there. Not want men to know where they hide – so kill –”
Well, that was one more reason for not heading north when they tried to get out of here. But Gorgol was still making finger-talk.
“They have rider – he tied – maybe they make kill to feed evil spirits’ – he hesitated and then added that horrific sign Storm had first seen Sorenson make – “THE MEAT.”
Storm had heard of some Norbie tribes who, for purposes of a dark devil worship – or devil propitiation – ate prisoners they took under certain conditions. To most of the Arzoran tribes this custom was an abomination and there was a fierce and never-ending warfare waged between the ritual cannibals and their enemies. In Norbie minds the quality of evil was so associated with THE MEAT that it was natural for Gorgol to make the assumption he had just offered.
“Not so,” the Terran corrected. “Butchers not eat captives. This prisoner – he was from the plains?”
“Rider,” Gorgol agreed.
“Any settlers near here? We could find them – tell them about evil men – how they kill –”
Gorgol turned his head slowly so he looked south. “Many suns come up – go down – before reach settlers that way. Maybeso we can go. But not in dark – I not know this country – and Nitra be in hills. Man walk soft, so quick, be very careful –” But he glanced back at the Terran with a kind of level measurement the off-world man did not understand.
“With that I agree,” Storm spoke and signed together. The dark was almost on them now. He shared out bedding from his own roll, saw Gorgol was comfortable and then curled up on the grass beside Surra, sleeping as he had so many times before in perfect confidence that the super-acute hearing of the dune cat would warn him of any danger.
It was almost dawn when Storm did wake at her faint signal. He came not only awake but instantly alert, a trick he had learned so far in the past he was no longer conscious of knowing it. Whatever was coming had not aroused Surra’s fighting instincts, only her interest. He listened intently, hearing Gorgol’s heavy breathing, the rattle of hoof on gravel as Rain stirred. Then that other sound, a pattering noise so faint he could have missed it without Surra’s caution.