Lord of Thunder Part 1

Lord Of Thunder.

by Andre Norton.

CHAPTER ONE.

Red ridges of mountains, rusted even more by the first sere breath of the Big Dry, cut across the lavender sky of Arzor north and east. At an hour past dawn, dehydrating puffs of breeze warned of the new day's scorching heat. There would be two hours-maybe three, yet-during which a man could ride, though in growing discomfort. Then he must lie up through the blistering fire of midday.

The line camp was not too far ahead. Hosteen Storm's silent communication with the powerful young stallion under him sent the horse trotting at a steady pace, striking out over a strip of range where yellow gra.s.s waved high enough to brush a rider's leg. Here and there Storm spied a moving blot of blue, the outer fringe of the grazing frawn herd. His sense of direction had not failed him when he took this short cut; they were nearing the river. In the Big Dry no animal strayed more than half a day's distance from a sure supply of water.

But he had come close to the edge of prudence in staying so long in the hills this time. One of the two canteens linked to his light saddle pad was as dry as the sun-baked rocks at his back, had been so since midmorning of the day before, and the other held no more than a good cup and a half of water. The Norbies, those wide-ranging hunters native to this frontier world, had their springs back in the mountain canyons, but their locations were clan secrets.

Perhaps here and there an off-world settler would be accepted by a clan to the point of sharing water knowledge. Logan might-Hosteen's well-marked black brows pulled in a fleeting frown as he thought of his Arzoran-born half-brother.

When Hosteen had landed on Arzor a half planet-year earlier, a veteran of the Confederacy forces after the Xik war, it was as a homeless exile. The last battle of that galaxy-wide holocaust had been a punitive raid to turn Terra into a blue, radioactive cinder. He had had no idea then that Logan Quade existed or that Brad Quade-Logan's father-could be any more to him than a man he had once sworn to kill.

In the end, the hate-twisted oath demanded of him by his grandfather on Terra had not made Storm a murderer after all. It had been broken just in time and had led him to what he needed most-new roots, a home, kin.

Only happy endings did not always remain so, Hosteen knew now. His emotion was more one of exasperation than disappointment. Though he had appeared to drop into a place already prepared to contain him as easily as his vanished Navajo kinsmen used to fit a polished turquoise into a silver setting, yet another stone in that same setting had come loose during the past few months, To most riders, the daily round of duties on a frontier holding were arduous enough. There were the dangerous reptilian yoris to hunt down, raiders from the wild Nitra tribe of the Peaks to keep off, a hundred and one other tangles with disaster or even sudden death to be faced. But none of that satisfied Logan. He was driven by a consuming restlessness, which pulled him away from a half-done task to seek out a Norbie camp, to join one of their wide ranging hunts, or just to wander back into the hills.

There was a flicker of black just within eye range in the sky. Hosteen's lips pursed as if for a whistle, though no sound issued from between their sun-cracked, blood-threaded surfaces. The black dot spiraled down.

The stallion halted without any outward command from his rider. With the peerless swoop of her kind, Baku, the great African Eagle, came in to settle on the p.r.o.nged rest that formed the horn of Hosteen's specially designed trail saddle. The bird was panting, her head turned a little to one side as one bright and keen-sighted eye regarded Hosteen steadily.

For a long moment they sat so in perfect rapport. Science had fostered that link between man and bird, had tested and trained man, bred, tested, and trained bird, to form not just a team of two very different life forms but-when the need arose-part of a smoothly working weapon. The enemy was gone; there was no longer any need for such a weapon. And the scientists who had fashioned it had vanished into ash. But the alliance remained as steadfast here on Arzor as it had ever been on those other worlds where a sabotage and combat team of man, bird, and animals had operated with accurate efficiency.

"Nihich'i hooldoh, t'a.s.sh 'annii ya?" Hosteen asked softly, savoring the speech that perhaps he alone now along the stellar lanes would ever speak with fluency. "We're making pretty good time, aren't we?"

Baku answered with a low, throaty sound, a click of her hunter's beak in agreement. Though she relished the freedom of the sky, she wanted no more of its furnace heat in the coming day than he did. When they made the line camp, she would willingly enter its heat-dispelling cavern.

Rain, the stallion, trotted on. He was accustomed now to transporting Baku, having fitted into the animal pattern from off-world with his own contribution, speed and stamina in travel. Now he neighed shrilly. But Hosteen had already caught sight of familiar landmarks. Top that small rise, pa.s.s through a copse of m.u.f.f bushes, and they were at the camp where Logan should be on duty for this ten-day period. But somehow Hosteen was already doubting he would find him there.

The camp was not a building but a cave of sorts in the side of a hillock. Following the example of native inhabitants, the settlers who ran frawns or horses in the plains set their hot-weather stations deep in the cool earth. The conditioners, which controlled atmosphere for the buildings in the two small cities, the structures in the small, widely separated towns of the range country, and main houses of the holdings, were too complicated and expensive to be used in line camps.

"Halloooo" Hosteen raised his voice in the ringing hail of a camp visitor. The recessed earth-encircled doorway of the living quarters was dark. From this distance he could not tell whether it was open or closed. And the wider opening to the stable, which would give the imported horses a measure of protection, was also a blank.

But a minute later a red-yellow figure moved against the red-yellow earth at the side of the mound, and sun glinted brightly on two curves of ivory-white, breaking the natural camouflage of the waiting Norbie by revealing the six-inch horns, as normal to his domed skull as thick black hair was to Hosteen's. A long arm flashed up, and the rider recognized Gorgol, once hunter of the Shosonna tribe and now in charge of the small horse herd that was Hosteen's own personal investment in the future.

The Norbie came out of the shade of the hillock to reach for Rain's hackamore as Hosteen swung stiffly down. Brown Terran fingers flashed in fluid sign talk: "You are here-there is trouble? Logan-?"

Gorgol was young, hardly out of boyhood, but he had already reached his full growth of limb. His six-foot, ten-inch body, all lean, taut muscle over hard, compact bone, towered over Hosteen. His yellow eyes, the vertical pupils mere threads of black against the sun's intrusive glare, did not quite meet those of the Terran, but his right hand sketched a sign for the necessity of talk.

Norbie and human vocal cords were so dissimilar as to render oral speech between off-worlder and native impossible. But the finger talk worked well between the races. An expert, as most of the range riders had to be, could express complex ideas in small, sometimes nearly invisible movements of thumb and fingers.

Hosteen went into the cave camp, Baku riding his shoulder. And while the coolness of the earth wall could only be a few degrees less than the temperature of the outside, that difference was enough to bring a sigh of content from the sweating man, a cluck of appreciation from the eagle.

The Terran halted inside to allow his eyes to adjust to the welcome dusk. And a single glance about told him he had guessed right. If Logan had been here, he was now gone, and not just for the early-morning duty inspection of the frawn herd. All four wall bunks were bare of sleeping rolls, there was no sign the cook unit had been used that day, and the general litter of a rider, his saddle, tote bag, and canteen, were absent.

But there was something else, a yoris hide bag, its glittering scaled exterior adorned by a feather embroidery pattern that repeated over and over the conventionalized figure of a Zamle, the flying totem of Gorgol's clan. That was the Norbie's traveling equipment-which by every right should have been stowed in a bunk locker at the Center House fifty miles downriver.

Hosteen stretched out his arm to afford Baku a bridge to the perch hammered in the wall. Then he went to the heating unit, measured out a portion of powdered "sw.a.n.kee," the coffee of the Arzor ranges, and dialed the pot to three-minute service. He heard the faintest whisper behind and knew that Gorgol had deliberately trodden so as to attract his attention. But he was determined to make the other give an explanation without asking any questions himself, and he knew that it was unwise to push.

While the heating unit was at work, Hosteen sailed his hat to the nearest bunk, loosened the throat lacings of his undyed frawn fabric shirt, and pulled it off before he sought the fresher and allowed water vapor to curl pleasantly and coolly about his bare chest and shoulders.

As the Terran came out of the alcove, Gorgol snapped the first sw.a.n.kee container out of the unit, hesitated, and drew a second, which he turned around and around in his hands, staring blank-eyed down at the liquid as if he had never seen its like before.

Hosteen seated himself on the edge of a bunk, cradled the sw.a.n.kee cup in his hand, and waited another long moment. Then Gorgol smacked his container down on the table top with a violence close to anger, and his fingers flew, but not with such speed that Hosteen was unable to read the signs.

"I go-there is a call for all Shosonna-Krotag summons-"

Hosteen sipped the slightly bitter but refreshing brew, his mind working faster than his deliberate movements might indicate. Why would the chief of Gorgol's clan be summoning those engaged in profitable riders' jobs? The Big Dry was neither the season for hunting nor for war-both of which pursuits, dear to the tradition and customs of the Norbies, were conducted only in the fringe months of the Wet Time. In the Big Dry, it was rigid custom for the tribes and clans to split into much smaller family groups, each to resort to one of the jealously guarded water holes to wait out the heat as best they could.

All tribes with any settler contacts strove to hire out as many of their men as riders as they could, thus removing hungry and thirsty mouths from clan supply points. To summon in men in the Big Dry was a policy so threatened with disaster as to appear insane. It meant trouble somewhere-bad trouble-and something that had developed in the week of Storm's own absence.

Hosteen had ridden out of the Quade Peak Holding eight days ago-to set up his square stakes and make his claim map before recording it at Galwadi. As a veteran of the forces and a Terran, he was able to file on twenty squares, and he had set out his stakes around a good piece of territory to the northeast, having river frontage and extending into the mountain foothills. There had been no whisper of trouble then, nor had he seen any signs of movement of tribes in the outback. Though, come to think of it, he had not crossed a Norbie trail or met any hunters either. That he had laid to the Big Dry. Now he wondered if more than the rigors of Arzoran seasons had wrung the natives out of the country.

"Krotag summons-in the Big Dry!" Even in finger movements one could insert a measure of incredulity.

Gorgol shifted from one yoris-hide booted foot to the other. His discomfort was plain to one who had ridden with him for months. "There is medicine talk-" His fingers shaped that and then were stiffly straight.

Hosteen sipped, his mind working fast and hard, fitting one small hint to another. "Medicine talk"-was that answer to shut off more questions or could it be the truth? In any event, it stopped him now. You did not -ever-inquire into "medicine," and his own Amerindian background made him accept that prohibition as a thing necessary and right.

"How long?"

But Gorgol's straight fingers did not immediately reply. "Not to know-" came reluctantly at last.

Hosteen was still searching for a question that was proper and yet would give him a small sc.r.a.p of information when there was a clear note from the other end of the cave room, the alerting call of the com, which tied each line camp to the headquarters of the holding. The Terran went to the board, thumbing down the receive b.u.t.ton. What came was no new message but a recall broadcast to be repeated mechanically at intervals, set to bring in all riders. There was something going on!

"You ride then for the hills?" he signed to Gorgol.

The Norbie was at the doorway, shouldering his travel bag. Now he paused, and not only the change of his expression showed his troubled mind. It was evident in every movement of his body. Hosteen believed the native was obeying an imperative order, greatly against his own will.

"I ride. All Norbies ride now."

All Norbies, not just Gorgol. Hosteen digested that and, in spite of himself, vented his surprise in a startled hiss. Quade depended heavily on native riders, not only here at the Peak Holding, but also down at his wider spread in the Basin. And Quade was not the only range man who had a predominance of Norbie employees. If they all took to the hills-! Yes, such an exodus could cripple some of the holdings.

"All Norbies-this, too, is medicine?"

But why? Medicine was clan business as far as Hosteen had been able to learn. He had never heard of a whole tribe or nation combining their medicine meetings and ceremonies-certainly not in the season of the Big Dry. Why, the river lands could not support such a gathering at this time of the year-let alone the arid mountain country.

But Gorgol was answering. "Yes-all Norbies."

"Also the wild ones?"

"The wild ones-yes."

Impossible! There were tribal feuds nursed for the honor of fighting men. To send in the peace pole for a clan, or perhaps-stretching it far-several clans at a time, was one thing. But for the Shosonna and the Nitra to sit under such a pole with their war arrows still in the quivers-that was unheard of!

"I go-" Gorgol slapped his travel bag. "The horses, they are in the big corral-you will find them safe."

"You go-but you will return to ride again?" Hosteen was bothered by the suggestion of finality in the other's signs.

"That lies with the lightning-"

The Norbie was gone. Hosteen walked back across the room to lie down on a bunk. So Gorgol was not even sure he would be back. What did he mean about that lying with the lightning? The Norbies recognized divine power in shadow beings who drummed thunder and used the lightning to slay. The reputed home of these G.o.d Ones was the high mountains of the northeast. And those same mountains also hid the caverns and pa.s.sages of that mysterious unknown race who had either explored or settled here on Arzor centuries before the Terran exploration ships had reached this part of the galaxy.

Hosteen, Logan, and Gorgol, together with Surra, the dune cat, and Hing, the meercat of the Beast Team, had discovered the Cavern of the Hundred Gardens, a fabulous botanical preserve of the Sealed Caves. That, and the ruined city of fortification in the valley beyond, was still under scientific study. It was easy to believe that there were other Sealed Caves in the hills-and also easy to understand that the Norbies had made G.o.ds of the long-vanished and still-unknown s.p.a.ce travelers who had hollowed out the Peaks to hold their mysteries.

Hosteen could spend hours speculating about that and not turn up one real fact. Now it was better to sleep through the day heat and ride out at night to answer the return order from the holding. For all Hosteen knew, that summons might have been sounding for days, which could account for Logan's absence. He turned on his side and willed himself to sleep.

That mental alarm clock that had been conditioned into him during his service days brought him awake hours later. To come out of the cave into the dusk of evening was walking into a wall of heavy heat, but it was not as bad as sunlight. He allowed Rain to splash in the shallows of the river before he swung up to the riding pad. Baku's world was not that of the night, but she accepted it at his urging, climbing into the star-encrusted sky.

The Center House was three nights' ride from the line camp. And two of the days in between Hosteen had to spend in improvised shelters, lying flat on the earth to get what coolness the parched soil might provide. Shortly before midnight on the third night, he rode up to the blazing light of his goal. The unusual glare of atom lamps was another warning of emergency.

"Who's there?" The suspicion-sharp hail out of the gate shadows made the Terran draw rein. Then from his right a furry body materialized beside the snorting stallion, reared on its haunches, and drew a paw with sheathed claws along Hosteen's boot.

"Storm," he answered the challenger and dismounted to caress Surra. The rasp of the dune cat's tongue on his hand was an unusually fervid greeting, which awoke answering warmth within him.

"I'll take your horse." The man who came from the gate carried an unholstered stunner. "Quade's been waiting', hopin' you'd make it soon-"

Hosteen muttered a brief thanks, more intersted in the fact that there were other men in the courtyard. But there were no Norbies, not a single one of the native riders he was used to seeing there. Gorgol had been right; the Norbies had all pulled out.

With Surra rubbing against his thigh, now and then b.u.t.ting him playfully with her head, he went to the door of the big house. Tension was alive in the cat, too. She had sometimes been like this on the eve of one of their wartime forays. Trouble excited but did not worry Surra.

"-continent-wide as far as reports have come in-"

Maybe Surra was exhilarated by the present happenings, but the tone of that voice told Hosteen that Brad Quade was frankly worried.

CHAPTER TWO.

Within the house, Hosteen found himself fronting a distinguished gathering that included most of the settlers in the Peak country-even Rig Dumaroy, whose usual a.s.sociation with Brad Quade was one of uneasy neutrality. But, of course, in any Norbie trouble Dumaroy would be present. He was the one large holder in the frontier country who was prejudiced against the Arzoran natives and refused to hire any of them.

"It's Storm-" Dort Lancin, who had ridden in with the Terran on the military transport almost a year ago, waved two fingers in greeting, a sign that was also a hunter signal for watchfulness.

The tall man standing by the com board glanced over his shoulder, and Hosteen read a shadow of relief on his stepfather's face.

Dort Lancin, his older and more taciturn brother Artur, Dumaroy, Jotter Hyke, Val Palasco, Connar Jaffe, Sim Starle-but no Logan Quade. Hosteen stood inside the doorway, his hand resting on Surra's head as the big cat nuzzled against bis legs.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Dumaroy, a wide and rather vindictive grin on his face, answered first.

"All your pet goats have lit out for the hills. Always said they'd cross you up, always said it-now you see. And I say"-his grin faded, and he brought his big hand down on his knee in a resounding slap-"there's trouble brewing up there. The sooner we fort up and send for the Patrol to come in and settle this once and for all-"

Artur Lancin's level voice, threaded with weariness, cut across the other's bellow with the neatness of a belt knife slicing through frawn fat. "Yes, you've been broadcastin' on that beam all night, Dumaroy. We received you loud and clear the first time. Storm," he addressed the younger man, "you see anything different out in the hills?"

Storm flipped his hat up on the daryork horn rack and unfastened the belt that supported his stunner and bush knife as he replied.

"I think now what I did not see is important."

"That being?" Brad Quade was pulling a fresh sw.a.n.kee container from the unit. He brought it over and then, with a fingertip touch on Hosteen's shoulder, guided him to. a foam chair.

"No hunters-no trails-nothing." Hosteen sipped the restoring liquid between words. He had not realized how bone-aching tired he was until he sat down. "I might have been riding in an empty world-"

The two Lancins watched him narrowly, and Dort nodded. He had hunted with the Norbies, was welcome in their villages, and well understood the strangeness of an empty country.

"How far did you go?" Quade asked.

"I made the rounds to set up markers," Hosteen brought his claim map from the inner pocket of his shirt. Quade took the sheet from him and compared its lines with the country survey chart that was a mural for one wall of the room.

"Clean up to the gorge, eh?" Jaffe commented. "And no hunter sign?"

"No. I thought it was because of the Big Dry retreat-"

"That wouldn't come quite this early," Quade replied. "Gorgol brought in your cavvy of mounts four days ago, took his bag, and rode off."

"I met him at the line camp."

"What did he tell you?"

"That there was a clan summons out-some sort of inter-tribal gathering-"

"Durin' the Big Dry?" demanded Hyke incredulously.

"I told you!" Dumaroy pounded with his fist this time, and Hosteen heard a snarling rumble from Surra. He sent a mental command to silence the cat. "I told you! We're sittin' right here on the only free runnin' water that keeps on runnin' through the worst of the Dry. And those goats are gonna come down and try to b.u.t.t us out of it! If we've the sense of water rats, we'll go up and clean 'em out before they can get organized-"

"Once before you moved up to clean out Norbies," Quade said coldly. "And what did we find out-that the Norbies weren't responsible for anything that had happened-that there was an Xik holdout group behind all our stock losses!"

"Yeah-and is this another Xik trick? Callin' in all the tribes now?" Dumaroy's hostility was like a fog spreading from him toward the other man.

"Maybe not Xik this time," Quade conceded. "But I refuse to make any move until I know more about the situation. All we are sure of at present is that our Norbie riders have quit and are heading for the mountains at a time when they are usually eager to work, and that this has not happened before."

Artur Lancin stood up. "That's sense, Dumaroy. We aren't goin' to stick our heads into some yoris' mouth just on your say-so. I say we do a little scoutin'. Meanwhile, we rustle up riders from the Basin or even pick up some drifters from the Port to tide us over. With the Dry on, the herds aren't goin' to move too far from the river, and we'll need only a yoris patrol and some count work. My granddad got through, ridin' on his own, with just his two boys to back him in the First Ship days. None of you here look too soft for the saddle now."

"That's right," Sim Starle agreed. "We'll keep our coms on a circle hookup and with the alert on. Anybody learns anything, he sends the word out on the beam. I'm for sittin' quiet until we're sure about what's happenin' and why. Maybe these Norbies are havin' them a medicine powwow-and that's none of our danged business!"

Hosteen, sinking deeper into his fog of weariness, watched the settlers leave for their 'copters, to fly back to the scattered holdings of the Peak country. He was still too torpid to move when Brad Quade re-entered, having seen off the company. But he roused himself to ask the one question bothering him most.