They had to cut their way now, using weapons and their hands to pull and break a path between the small, isolated glades where the fall of some giant tree in the past had cleared a passable strip for them. Panting and floundering, they came to the fifth such clearing.
“This is it,” Ross said. “We’ll turn back from here.”
Luckily the summit of the tower showed now and then as a guide. They were approaching it from the back, and by a freakish whim of nature there was less underbrush here. So they had to choose cover, watching the heights for any indication that some scout or spy might lurk aloft. Not that they could be certain of spotting an army under the circumstances, Travis decided gloomily, moving with the wariness of one expecting an ambush at any moment.
They had covered perhaps half of the distance which would bring them to the base of the tower when both of them were startled into immobility by a squall. The battle cry of the thing which had laired in the red hall! And the sound was so distorted by the jungle about them that Travis could not tell whether its source lay before or behind.
That first wail of battle was only the starting signal of a racket loud enough to split human eardrums. A bird thing boomed out of the brush, flew in blind panic straight for the two, blundered past them in safety. A graceful, slender creature with a dappled coat and a single curving horn flashed away before Travis was truly sure he had seen it.
But those howls of rage and blood hunger chorused on. There must be more than one of the beasts—perhaps a pack of them! And from the noise, they were engaged in combat. Travis could only think of Ashe cornered in the tower to face such an enemy. He began to run. Ross drew level with him before they plunged together into a hedge of brush, fighting their way in the straightest line to the base of the tower.
Travis tripped, staggered forward, fighting to regain his balance, and plowed on his hands and knees into the open. He was facing the entrance to the tower, a long, narrow slit of opening. From within came the sounds. Ross, weapon in hand, leaped past him, a blue streak of concentrated action.
The Apache scrambled up, was only a step or two behind the time agent as they entered, finding themselves directly on the foot of an upward-leading ramp. One of those squalling roars, sounding above, ended in a cough. A mass of dull red fur and flashing legs rolled down. Its flat weasel’s head snapped its jaws in convulsive death agony. Ross leaped aside.
“Blast beam got that one!” he shouted. “Chief! Ashe! You up there?”
If there was any answer to that hail, the words were drowned in the screech of the animals. The light was dusky here, but there was enough for the humans to spot the barrier across the ramp. It must have been there for some time. But now it showed a gap, choked by two of the red beasts struggling against each other in their eagerness to force the doorway. Behind them snarled a third.
Travis steadied the barrel of his weapon across his forearm and nicked a darting weasel-head with a sniper’s expert aim. The thing did not even cry out, but reared and somersaulted backward down the ramp as the men jumped apart to give it room.
One of the creatures at the gap caught sight of the two below and pulled back, allowing its fellow through the barrier while it whirled to spring at Ross. His blast beam raked across its shoulders and it screamed hideously, collapsed and scratched frantically with its hind feet to gain footing. Ross fired again and the animal was still. But the rage of the fight beyond the barrier continued.
“Ashe!” Ross shouted. And Travis, catching his breath, echoed that call. To go through the gap in the barrier before them and perhaps be met by a blast from a friend was certainly not to be desired.
“Hullloooo!” The cry was weirdly echoed. It might be coming from ahead of them or above. But both of them had heard it. They pushed past the barrier into a wide hallway.
There was light here, coming from the white flames of smoking brands that lay on the floor at the far end as if tossed from a higher level. One of the red beasts lay dead. The men hurdled the body. Another, dragging useless hindquarters, crept with deadly purpose toward them and Travis picked it off. But the beam in his weapon died before he lifted finger from firing button. Another try proved his fears correct—the charge in the weapon was exhausted.
Something scrambled on the second ramp at the far end of the hall. Ross stood at the foot, his weapon up. Travis stooped to scoop up one of the torches. He whirled the brand in the air, bringing the smoldering end to life.
Ross aimed at a charging weasel-head, missed, flung himself to the side of the ramp and down to the floor to escape the rush. But the beast plunged insanely after him. Travis whirled the torch a second time, swinging its flaming end down against the snaky, darting head of the attacker.
One of those powerful forepaws aimed a vicious swipe that tore the torch from the Apache’s hold. But Ross was up to his knees again, weapon ready. And the red animal died. Travis retreated, a little unsteadily, to pick up a second torch.
“Hullloooo!” Again that shout from overhead. Ross answered it.
“Ashe! Down here . . .”
There were no more squalls from the ramp. But Travis wondered if more of the beasts lay in wait. With a useless weapon he had no desire to climb into the unknown. A flint knife was nothing against the weasel-heads.
They waited, listening, at the foot of the ramp. But when there came no other attack, Ross pattered ahead and Travis followed, nursing his new torch. His hand shot out, closed on Ross’s arm, as he caught up with the other. Something was waiting for them up there.
Travis thrust the torch into that pocket of gloom at the head of the ramp, saw Ross’s weapon at ready—
“Come on in!” The words were ordinary enough, but Ashe’s voice sounded a little breathless and in higher pitch than usual. But it was Ashe, unharmed and seeming his usual self, who stepped into the pool of light and waited for them to join him. Only he was not alone. Half-seen shadows moved behind him. Ross did not holster his weapon and Travis’ hand rested on his knife hilt.
“You all right, chief?”
Ashe laughed in answer to Ross’s demand. “Now that the space patrol has landed, yes. You boys introduced the right play at the proper moment. Come on and meet the gang.”
The torch sputtered as those shadows moved in closer to Ashe. Then a new light blazed up well above floor level and Travis blinked at the company that fire revealed.
Ashe was six feet tall, giving Travis himself an inch or so. But in this company he towered, for the tallest of his companions came only a little above his shoulder.
“They have wings!”
Yes, with a sudden twitch a flap of wing—not feathered, but ribbed skin—had unfurled, pointing up above its owner’s shoulder. Where had he seen a wing such as that? On the statue from the domed building!
However, the faces now all turned toward the humans were not as grotesque as the one of the image. The ears were not so large, the features were more humanoid, though the noses remained vertical slits. Either the statue had been a caricature, or it represented a far more primitive type.
The natives hung back, and from their narrow, pointed jaws came a low murmur, rising and falling, which Travis could not separate into distinct sounds or words.
“Local inhabitants?” Ross still held his weapon. “They the ones who kidnapped you, chief?”
“In a manner of speaking. I take it you accounted for the wild life below?”
“All we saw,” Travis returned, still watching the winged people, for they were people, of that he was sure.
“Then we can get out of here.” Ashe turned to the waiting shadows and holstered his own weapon with an emphatic slam. Two of the winged men beckoned and the rest stood back, allowing Ashe, Ross and Travis to pass them, to climb a third ramp. At the top the humans saw open sunlight, and came out into a wide hall with archways, not doors, down its length.
Travis’ nostrils expanded as he caught a mixture of scents, some pleasant, some otherwise. There was activity here; there were indications of a permanent settlement. The archways were hung with green nets into which flowers had been tucked here and there. Many were like the one he had found on his first day of exploration. Hollowed logs made into troughs stood about the walls. From these grew a mixture of plants, all reaching toward the sun which came through windows, forming a curtain of green from floor to ceiling.