The blaster ray was close. Andas cried out at the sear of it on his neck just below his ear. But the pilot had crumpled forward. The blaster, still blazing, spun past Andas, out of the hatch. He threw himself at the downed man, but the body was inert, and he scrambled over it to reach the controls. The rope of the harness was still winding in, and until it was all within the cabin, he could not set down. So he waited, tense.

Shara's unkempt head appeared above the edge of the hatch. She clung grimly to the harness, her eyes closed, her teeth set as if she were in the midst of an ordeal she could only endure. Andas moved back, caught her robe, and heaved her in with little ceremony. He let her lie gasping as he went to the controls and thumbed the b.u.t.ton to set them down.

Even as the skimmer settled, he could hardly believe that their wild and hopeless ruse had paid off. But he was in the skimmer, the pilot was dead, and they were in command of the situation. By the look of it, Yolyos had finished off the other crew member.

Sometime later they hunched in the shadow of the craft, ravenously eating the rations the crew had carried. Andas had always considered E-rations as totally lacking in anything but strict nutritional value. But what he mouthed now from tube and container was equal to an Imperial feast.

Before them on the ground lay their prizes of battle. There was one stunner, a blaster (the one that had pitched from the skimmer had been too badly jammed when it struck the ground to use again), and another needler, as well as fresh rounds for the one Shara had brought. The dead crew of the s.h.i.+p had been stowed under the overlapping pillars where they could not be sighted from the air.

"The First Ancestress," remarked Yolyos, "is always said to favor the brave, though 'reckless' and 'brave' are not always the same. When I have time, I shall offer five jars of fine essences for her delight. And what do we now? We have a s.h.i.+p, we have weapons-"

Andas turned to Shara. "Where do we go? The skimmer can take us fast and far."

She had not said much since she had been so unceremoniously pulled through the hatch of the skimmer after her ride aloft on the harness. It was as if she thought, reserving speech for later.

"We must return to the Place of Red Water-there lie the Imperial forces now in the field. But we cannot fly all the way in this. There are defenses about the headquarters, and we would be sky-burned before we could signal. It would be best to set down in the heights. There are places there possible. It has been long since we have had any fliers of our own."

"And this is not a cruiser," Andas commented. "She is a scout and can give us little more aid than speedy transportation."

"I wonder if there is a tracer on her. Suppose there is and they send something heavier now to look for her? Yolyos remarked. "We'd best be off quickly."

They buckled on the weapon belts they had taken, Yolyos setting the force knife in a convenient loop on his. The stunner Andas pa.s.sed to Shara. He found himself a little ill at ease with her now. Such feminine women (or as he thought feminine to be) as Elys and Abena he understood-a little. But this ugly, thin bone of a woman, with her tightly knotted hair, a woman who had so quickly risked her life to insure the success of their attack, was new to him. It was as if she expected to be treated as a battle comrade. And he found himself doing just that, speaking straightly as to another man-which was contrary to all his court training.

By Shara's guidance they flew north, in order to avoid any other air patrols. North was, she told them, largely wild country now. Where once broad farmlands and grazing uplands had provided most of the food for this whole section of the continent, now there stretched a desolate waste. Some of the farmers and herders flew south, forming ragged new settlements along the very edge of the Kalli. Many more had died on their own holdings or joined the Emperor's ragged force.

Beasts gone wild in the uplands were hunted and salted for the winter. But famine was a specter at every fire. They did not know how those at Drak Mount fared now, save that there was a rumor that stores had been laid up there before the outbreak of the war.

"The enemy must be fewer now," Shara continued. But whether that was true or she only hoped it, they could not know. "The plague was hard upon them even before the Triple Towers were destroyed. And that was years since. But the defenses at Drak Mount are such that even were it manned by dead men, the devices set on auto, we could not fight our way in."

"Then how did Andas-your Andas-ever expect to bring the war to a finish?" Andas asked.

"We have cleaned the whole of the north of the enemy," she spoke proudly. "They have really only the Drak Mount now. If they did not have such craft as this, we would not fear them at all. We reckon that they have at least two cruisers left with mounted flamers-though those we have not seen lately. My dear lord hoped to discover in the cache of the Magi some aid. Instead, he found his death."

"You spoke of treachery-"

"With good reason!" she said swiftly. "Only his own guard, three of his most trusted leaders, and perhaps the Arch Priest, knew what he would do. Also the cache was so well hidden that they did not find us there by chance. No, one of those he trusted betrayed him-for there was a party waiting in ambush. And it was only because of one of the Magi's safeguards, which my lord knew of, that we two won free. The rest died, for the safeguard was no respecter of right or wrong when it struck."

"You do not suspect one above the others?" Andas had no mind to be a second target.

"No." She answered him promptly enough.

They had set the skimmer on top speed, fleeing the vicinity of Drak Mount. Andas gave his attention now to the sweep of land below as it was recorded on the visa-screen. She was very right. One could trace the boundaries of once prosperous farms and holds, but the area was clearly under a blight, which had reduced it from wealth to scrubby half-wilderness. Nor did anything creep along the deserted roads.

Some of those roads headed to the port of Garbuka on the eastern sea, the main outlet for Ictio with the sea trade. Andas remembered those arteries in constant use.

Mountains arose-the k.u.mbi ranges.

Shara spoke. "Steer by the Crown of Stars."

Obediently Andas went on manuals and swung the skimmer west toward the landmark mountain. The country below was rough. Once this had been used for the systematic planting and harvesting of bluewoods, those trees esteemed by stellar trade not only for their beauty, but also for the extreme durability of the lightweight, highly polished furniture that could be fas.h.i.+oned from them. Andas could see now their peculiar wide-branched crowns pus.h.i.+ng above the lower growth, very noticeable from above, where they looked like large, flat platters laid upon the uneven covering of the other woodland.

"To the north of that crag, there is a landing place." Shara pointed a grimed finger on which the nail was ragged and broken. Again he swung to her guidance.

She was right. There was a level s.p.a.ce, enough to set down the skimmer, and they made a straight descent, though Andas wondered a little at the future difficulties with mountain winds.

"We need anchorage," he said as they climbed out.

"So, not too difficult-ropes around the rocks ought to do." Yolyos indicated large stones that had slipped down the upper slopes to make a ragged fringe along the side of the landing s.p.a.ce.

The harness hoist supplied some anchor lines, and they found another length of tough rope in the cabin locker. With these they wove such a netting anchor as would keep the skimmer where it was in spite of a storm.

Evening clouds were gathering, and Andas eyed them dubiously. Out of the skimmer's supplies they had a.s.sembled two packs, far too small, but all they could find. He and Yolyos could carry those easily, but the ledge on which they had set down was still well above the level of the forest. And he did not fancy a descent in the dark. Nor was he sure Shara knew the road from here.

"The Place of Red Water-where?" he asked as they trudged along the rim of the plateau looking for a place to descend.

"To the west, crossing through the Pa.s.s of the Two Horns." She spoke confidently, as if she carried a map with a vocal director in her hand.

He tried to remember. The mountains, yes, he had been here-enough to recognize the Crown of Stars. But the Pa.s.s of the Two Horns-no memory supplied that, just as the Place of Red Water was a name new to him.

"We cannot travel by night," she continued. "But that does not matter. There is a foresters' post near here. That will shelter us, and if it is manned, there will be news also."

"This way!" Yolyos gestured from where he had loped along ahead of them.

He had discovered a broken series of smaller ledges, like irregular steps, down which they could go. Andas fought his old fear of heights, keeping his eyes at a point immediately before him. But he was sweating and a little sick when they reached the scrub beginning of the woodland. Shara pushed ahead, eying the growth. A moment later she turned, much of her a.s.surance gone.

"I can see no trail landmark that I know," she admitted frankly.

Yolyos's head was up, his nostrils dilated. "You may not see, lady," he said in his halting growl of her speech, "but smell I can! There are men-that way!"

"How does he-?" She looked to Andas.

"His species have a far better sense of smell than we do. If he says there are men that way, he is right."

Shara dropped behind Andas, to the tail of their party, as if she were so dubious about their present course that she wanted to be able to retreat in a hurry if disaster loomed.

That Yolyos was right, in at least the fact men had been here, was proven when they pushed through a screen of brush into a trail. Once in that slot Yolyos turned left. But as he went, he asked Shara, "Are your friends, lady, such as will shoot first and hail strangers afterwards? If so, how can we make sure we shall not be their targets?"

She did not answer in words but raised her head a little, testing the breeze. She pursed her lips and uttered a small fluting whistle. Three times she signaled so and then waved them on. But within ten paces she whistled again, this time twice, and, at a third time, once.

They had come to the foot of a bluewood, and her answer reached them from overhead when a vine ladder whipped down out of the foliage. Shara pushed by the others and climbed, Andas and Yolyos following.

What they came into was a very well-concealed camp. Its like had been known, mainly as curiosity, in the gardens of the Triple Towers, but here it had been put to practical use. The bluewood had branches that were inclined to grow from the tree trunk at sharp right angles. They were also relatively straight beyond that point. Use had been made of this natural peculiarity on three levels, planks laid across and fastened to form an arbor house of three stories, vine ladders leading from one to the next.

Those who sheltered here, once their entrance ladder was up, could not be sighted, for the underside of the planks that formed their springy floors had been covered with growing things, while the flatly spreading top of the tree, well overhead, was a roof no skimmer could sight through.

The man who awaited their coming was as thin as Shara, and his clothing was as coa.r.s.e as hers, though it had been dyed in patches of green and brown, so that it matched woodland coloring. He had clumsy thong-bound leggings and a tight-fitting cap to which were stuck bits of leaf and vine. Andas could believe that in the woodland he could walk hidden.

"Hearth claim, master," Shara said.

He looked at her searchingly and then beyond, to Andas. When his eyes met those of the prince, his face came alive, and he dropped on one knee, both hands outstretched, palms up. His weapon, a crossbow, lay on the floor beside him.

"Sun of Dingame! That you you should be here!" should be here!"

"And glad for it," Andas answered. He made the traditional gesture, finger right to left on the man's palms. "We need shelter this night."

"And for once the hunting has been good!" The man's face still mirrored amazement. "I have meat, Great Lord."

Still kneeling, he waved toward the ladder to the next level. "Please to climb. There shall be food speedily. And here you may rest safely. There is none, not even the tree kangor, who dares this fort-place."

"You are named?"

"Kai-Kaus of the House of Korb, Great Lord. Once we held-"

"From the Upper Lumbo to the sea." Andas nodded. "And you will again."

"That we doubt not, Great Lord," the forester replied proudly. He was quite young, Andas saw, but there was about him the air of a man who was doing what he had to do with competence. Though he was dressed as a forester, it was apparent that he was of n.o.ble blood.

The next platform, which was the middle one of the three, was apparently the living quarters of those manning this post. There was a bed place wide enough for two, fas.h.i.+oned of ferns and leaves. Some calabashes with their stoppers well pounded in sat in a line, and a box had its lid thrown back to display crossbow bolts. Also there was a square of stone-rimmed clay where blackened embers showed fires burned.

Their host speedily joined them with a bundle of wood and a packet of bloodstained hide, which he unrolled to display dukker meat cut into strips and impaled with chunks of tree melon on skewers of green wood. Andas's mouth watered. This was far better than the rations from the skimmer, or the musty, dried stuff Shara had shared with them.

The forester laid his fire and brought it to life. Andas reached for the nearest skewer.

"There is no ceremony among comrades at war. We eat as one tonight."

For a moment it seemed that both Shara and the forester would protest. But when Andas held his skewer to the flames, they picked up their own. Yolyos was already pus.h.i.+ng his to the fire.

Andas saw Kai-Kaus glancing at the Salariki. After all, now any alien would be suspect. And he must make sure Yolyos was placed above suspicion.

"This is our comrade in battle-the Lord Yolyos from off-world. He has also been a prisoner of those we hunt and are hunted by, and by his aid only have we come through a great peril. He is thus named Lion Friend and s.h.i.+eld Upon the Left." From old tales Andas dragged those t.i.tles, the meaning of which might be forgotten, but would still be honored by those loyal to the Emperor. He remembered that his grandfather had once named a warrior so who had saved his son's life. And thereafter the court gave that man, though a commoner, the honor due a first house lord.

"To the Lord Yolyos, greeting-" The forester raised his hand in salute.

Yolyos looked up from the skewer he was tending so carefully. "To Kai-Kaus, greeting. It is a good hunter who can provide so well for unexpected guests."

The boy s.h.i.+fted. "It has been a lucky day. Some fear sent the herd on the move down trail. I was able to pick off five before they stampeded. They have grown so wary from our hunting that it is seldom we can find them so. It is perhaps by the will of Akmedu that this happened so I would have food for my lord-"

"Or something else. If a thing is not natural, it is suspect!" cut in Shara.

"That is so, lady. And the reason why I am alone here. Ikiui, who is a trained scout, has gone to see what set the herd moving. There are no hunters now except us, and I do not think the enemy would venture into the wilderness."

"Never underestimate an enemy." Yolyos had withdrawn his skewer, though to Andas's eye the meat on it was hardly cooked. He used thumb and forefinger to jerk the end lump from it, waved the bite for a moment in the air, and then popped it into his mouth, chewing with the noisy good manners of his people.

-14-.

There were no lamps to be lit in this tree house, and even the coals of fire were covered at the coming of full dusk by an earthen bowl. The forester swung down to the lower platform and crouched there, listening, and now the dark was such they could hardly see him.

Yolyos, once his hunger was satisfied, sought the same vantage point. And now Andas dropped down the ladder also.

"What do you listen for?" He stood beside Kai-Kaus.

"Ikiui. He has not returned. Yet we do not walk the forest trails at night."

"So?" The Salariki moved closer. "And why not?"

"The tree cats hunt by night, as do the great serpents. And lately, there are other things-" His voice trailed away, and Andas suspected he did not want to discuss those "other things."

But that very suspicion led him to press for information.

"Those being?"

"Nothing any man has seen-and lived."

"But some have seen-and died?"

"Yes. Four men of the southern range, Great Lord. Their bodies, two of them, were found in the trail easy to see-left as a warning, we believe. They had met the night crawlers-"

Andas froze. But legends could not live! The horrific tales that gave children pleasurable s.h.i.+vers up the spine had no base in real life.

"They were," Kai-Kaus continued in a low voice, as if by telling the story at all he could be invoking the evil he described, "drained of blood. We have found forest animals treated so, also, twice plainly hung on bushes to be seen-but those were earlier. Ikiui, he feared that the stampede might have been caused by such an attack."

The forester was so certain of his facts that Andas's disbelief was shaken. After all, the events of his own immediate past were enough to prove that anything was possible.

"The night crawlers serve her her," Kai-Kaus whispered. "And that she-rat of the Drak Mount is her her voice, as she has sworn openly. Also that one has danced the Bones before the eyes of the living and promised that all beyond her cloak of safety will be the meat of the Old Woman." voice, as she has sworn openly. Also that one has danced the Bones before the eyes of the living and promised that all beyond her cloak of safety will be the meat of the Old Woman."

Danced the Bones! That anyone had dared so drastic a ritual-this Inyanga was indeed a bedeviled land. Andas's hand went to the seam pocket wherein lay the ring. Did these women know wherein they dabbled? Or was their hunger for power so great that they did not care?

He recalled those tales he had considered fiction. Remembering one thing after another, he s.h.i.+vered. The ring-he must rid himself of that talisman if Kai-Kaus spoke the truth and that which should never be named now crawled this forest land.

Where to get rid of the ring? It must be lost in some place where no follower of the Old Woman could sniff it out, for by all accounts those who had taken such oaths were attuned to these things and they could be drawn. Perhaps even to carry it with him now would make them a focal point of attack.

"There is trouble-" Yolyos's growl was subdued to a rumble hardly louder than Kai-Kaus's whisper. "I can smell it on the wind."

"What kind of trouble? Someone coming?"

"Not so. This is the doom thing again." He made a spitting sound of disgust. "Evil. It stinks worse than the rotting hole of a gorp's nest. Also"-he was silent a moment and then added swiftly-"one flees before it. And his fear is as great a stench as that which follows him."

Andas listened. He could hear nothing. Only, out of the dark, came Kai-Kaus's hand to close about his arm.

"Lord, I am your man to defend you to the death. Get up into the fort level, taking the ladder with you. What comes may be only seeking hunters-"

"Before I was an emperor, liege man," Andas answered, "I was a warrior, taking blood oath. And among the words of that oath is a promise of s.h.i.+eld rights in battle. I do not let others fight my wars for me."

"An emperor has no choice, Great Lord. That other men die for his life is the pattern of things, for with the head of state dead, the state itself crumbles into nothingness. When you became Emperor, you put aside the rights and duties of a warrior to take on a greater burden.