Lord of Thunder Part 2

"Hallo-the holding!"

"The fire is waiting!" Brad Quade called back the customary answer.

Storm was not in the least surprised to see that Kelson's companion was Widders, who, in his finicky civ dress, looked even more out place in the comfortable but rather rough-hewn main chamber. Its chief decorations were trophies of Norbie weapons on the walls, its heavy furnishings were made out of native wood by settler hands, and a few off-world mementos of Brad Quade's roving past as an officer of Survey were scattered around.

Widders crossed the threshold with an authoritative stride and then halted quickly as he fronted Surra. The big cat regarded him with a long, wide-eyed stare. Storm knew that she had not only imprinted the civ's appearance on her memory for all time but had also made up her mind concerning him, and that her opinion was not in any way flattering to the off-world Gentle h.o.m.o. Majestically, she moved to the far side of the room and leaped to the low couch, which was her own particular seat. But she did not curl up at ease; instead she sat upright, the nervous tip of her fluffy fox tail just brushing her foretoes, her vulpine ears at attention.

Storm busied himself at the heating unit to produce the inevitable cups of sw.a.n.kee. His early tension was increased now. Kelson had brought Widders here. That meant that neither the off-worlder nor the officer had given up the wild scheme about the Blue, but Quade's word would carry weight. Hosteen did not believe that the others were going to be satisfied with the outcome of the interview.

"Glad you came," Quade said to Kelson. "We've a problem here-"

"I have a problem, Gentle h.o.m.o," Widders cut in. "I understand you have a son who knows the outback regions very well, has hunted over them. I'd like to see him-as soon as possible-"

Quade's face showed no signs of a frown, but just as Hosteen knew Surra's emotions, he was aware of the flick of temper that brash beginning aroused in Brad Quade.

"I have two sons," the settler replied deliberately, "both of whom can claim a rather extensive knowledge of the Peaks. Hosteen has already told me of your wish to enter the Blue."

"And he has refused to try it." Widders was smoldering under bis sh.e.l.l. He was not a man used to, or able to accept, opposition.

"If he had agreed, he would need remedial attention from a conditioner," Quade returned dryly. "Kelson, you know the utter folly of such a plan."

The Peace Officer was staring into the container of sw.a.n.kee he held. "Yes, I know all the risks, Brad. But we have to get in there-it's imperative! And chiefs such as Krotag will accept a mission like this as an excuse-they can understand a father in search of his son."

So that was it-a big piece of puzzle slipped neatly into place. Hosteen began to realize that Kelson was making sense after all. There was a reason for exploring the Blue, an imperative reason. And Widders' quest would be understandable to the Norbies, among whom family and clan ties were close. A father in search of his missing son-yes, that could be a talking point, which normally would gain Widders native guides, mounts, maybe even the use of some of the hidden water sources. But the important word in that was "normally." This was not a normal Big Dry, and the clans were acting very abnormally.

"Logan has blood drink-brothers or a brother with Krotag's clan, hasn't he?" Kelson pushed on. "And you"-he looked to Hosteen-"are a hunt and war companion of Gorgol."

"Gorgol's gone."

"And so has Logan," Quade added. "He rode off five days ago to join Krotag's drift-"

"Into the Blue!" Kelson exclaimed.

"I don't know."

"The Zamle clan were in the First Finger." Kelson put down his drink and went to the wall map. "They were in camp here last time I checked." He stabbed a forefinger on one of the long, narrow canyons striking up into the Peaks, almost a roadway into the Blue.

Storm moved uneasily, picked up a wandering meercat kit, and held it cupped against his chest, where it patted him with small forepaws and cluttered drowsily. Logan had gone with the clan. The reasons for doing it might matter, but the fact that he had gone mattered more. The boy might be condemned by his own recklessness, facing more than just the perils of the Big Dry.

Continuing to stare at the map without really seeing its configurations, Hosteen began to plan. Rain-no, he could not ride Rain. The stallion was an off-world import without even one year's seasoning here. He'd need native-bred mounts-two at least, though four would be better. A man had to keep changing horses in the Big Dry. He'd need two pack animals per man for water transport. Other supplies would necessarily be concentrates that did not satisfy a body used to normal food but which provided the necessary energy to keep men going for days.

Surra? Hosteen's head turned ever so slightly; he linked to the cat in mental contact. Yes-Surra. There was an answering thrust of eagerness that met his wordless question. Surra-Baku-Hing had her maternal duties here, and there would be no need for her particular talents as a saboteur. With Baku and Surra, maybe no chance became a small chance. Their senses, so much keener than any human's or Norbie's might locate those needful wells in the outback.

Now Quade broke the short silence with a question, deferring to his stepson with the respect for the other's training and ability he had always shown. "A chance?"

"I don't know-" Storm refused to be hurried. "Seasoned mounts, concentrates, water transport-"

"Supplies can be flown in by 'copter!" Widders pounced at the hint of possible victory.

"You'll have to have an experienced pilot, a fine machine, and even then you dare not go too far into those heights," Quade declared. "The air currents are crazy back there-"

"Dumps stationed along the line of march." Kelson's voice held a note almost as eager as Widders'. "We could plant those by 'copter-water, supplies-all the way through the foothills."

The idea became less impossible as each man visualized the possibilities of using off-world transportation in part. Yes, supply dumps could nurse an expedition along to the last barrier walling off the Blue, providing there was no hostile reaction from the Norbies. But beyond that barrier, much would depend upon the nature of the territory the heights guarded.

"How soon can you start?" Widders demanded. "I can have supplies, an expert pilot, a 'copter ready to go in a day."

Again the antagonism Hosteen had felt at their first meeting awoke in the younger man.

"I have not yet decided whether I shall go," he replied coldly. " 'Asizi," he said, giving Quade the t.i.tle of Navajo chieftainship and slipping into the common tongue of the Amerindian Tribal Council, "do you think this thing can be done?"

"With the favor of the Above Ones and the fortune of good medicine, there is a chance of success for a warrior. That is my true word-over the pipe," Quade answered in the same language.

"There is this." In basic, Storm again addressed both Widders and Kelson. "Let it be understood that I am undertaking this expecting trouble. On the trail, the decision is mine when there comes a time to say go forward or retreat."

Widders frowned and plucked at a pouted lower lip with thumb and forefinger. "You mean, you are to be in absolute command-to have all the right of judgment?"

"That is correct. It is my life I risk, and those of my team. Long ago I learned the folly of charging against too high odds. The decisions must be mine."

A hot glance from those coals that lay banked behind Widders' eyes told him of the civ's resentment.

"How many men do you want?" Kelson asked. "I can spare you two, maybe three from the Corps."

Storm shook his head. "Me alone, with Surra and Baku. I shall strike up the First Finger and try to locate Krotag's clan. With Logan-and Gorgol, if I am able to persuade him, to join us-there will be enough. A small party, traveling light, that is the only way."

"But I am going!" Widders flared.

Hosteen answered that crisply. "You are off-world, not only off-world but not even trail-trained. I go my way or not at all!"

For a second or so it seemed that Widders would hold stubbornly to his determination to make one of the party. Then he shrugged when glances at Kelson and Quade told him they believed Hosteen was right.

"Well-how soon?"

"I must select range stock, make other preparations-two days-"

"Two days!" Widders snorted. "Very well. I am forced to accept your decision."

But Storm was no longer aware of him. Surra had flowed past the men to the door, and the urgency she broadcast brought the Beast Master after her. Dawn was just firing the sky but had not lit the mountains to a point where man and cat could not see that burst. Very far away, just on the rim of the world, a jaffered sword thrust up into the heavens. Lightning-but it was out of season for lightning, and those flashes descended and did not pierce skyward as these had done. They were gone before Storm could be certain he had seen anything of consequence.

Surra snarled, spat. Then Hosteen caught it, too, not truly sound but a vibration in the air, so distant and faint as to puzzle a man as to its actual existence. Back in the Peaks something had happened.

The scream of an aroused and belligerent eagle deadened the small sounds of early morning. From her perch by the corral, Baku gave forth another war cry that was answered by the trumpeting of Rain, the squeals of other herd stallions, the neighing of mares. Whatever the vibration had been, it had reached the animals, aroused in them quick and violent reaction.

"What is it?" Quade came out behind Storm, followed by Kelson, less speedily by Widders.

"I think 'anna 'Hwii'iidzii," Storm found himself saying in Navajo without really knowing why, "a declaration of war, 'Asizi."

"And Logan's back there!" Quade stared at the Peaks. "That settles it-I ride with you."

"Not so, 'Asizi. It is as you have said before. This country is ripe for trouble. You alone perhaps can hold the peace. I take with me Baku. If there is a need, she can come back for you and others. Logan, more than any of us, is friend to the clans. And the blood-drink bond is binding past even a green-arrow feud."

He watched Quade anxiously. It was not in him to boast of his own qualifications, but he knew that his training and the control of the team gave him an advantage no other man now in the river valley had. Quade knew Arzor, he had hunted in the Peaks, but Quade and Quade alone could keep the settlers in line. To be caught between whatever danger lay in the Blue and a punitive posse headed by Dumaroy was an additional peril Storm had no mind to face. He had had a taste of Dumaroy's hotheaded bungling of a similar situation months earlier when the Xik holdout post had been the object of the settlers' attack.

Somehow Brad Quade summoned a ghost of a smile. "There is that in you which I trust, at least in this matter. Also-perhaps Logan will listen to hanaai, the elder brother, where he closes his ears to hataa, his father. Why this should be-" He was talking to himself now.

The horses were quieting, and the men went back to the house, where they consulted maps, located dump sites. At last Kelson and Widders bedded down for the day heat before flying back to Galwadi to set up the supply lift. Hosteen lay down wearily on his own bed only to discover that he could not sleep, tired as he was.

That flash in the Peaks, the ghost of sound or air disturbance that had followed it-he could not believe they were signs of some phenomenal weather disturbance. Yet what else could they be?

" 'Anaasazi'-the ancient enemy ones," he whispered.

Half a year ago, he, Gorgol, and Logan had found the Cavern of the Hundred Gardens, where the botanical treasures of as many different worlds grew luxuriantly and unwithered, untouched by time, just as the unknown aliens had left them in the hollow sh.e.l.l of a mountain ages carrier. There had been nothing horrible or repelling about those remains of the unknown civilization of s.p.a.ce rovers. In fact, the gardens had been welcoming, enchanting, giving men healing and peace. And because of the gardens, the aliens had since been considered benevolent, though no further such finds had been made.

Archaeologists and Survey men had picked into the roundabout mountains, tried to learn something more from the valley of rains beside the garden mountain-to no avail so far. However, one mountain had hidden beauty and delight, so more mountains might contain their own secrets. And the mountains of the Blue were the essence of the unknown. That strange premonition of danger that had awakened in Storm at the sight and sound of the early morning could not be eased. He was somehow very certain his goal was not a fanciful garden this time.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Yesterday Hosteen had reached the first of the dumps, strategically located where a crevice gave him and his animals cover during the day. But he was not making the time he had hoped. In this broken country, even with Surra's keen eyesight and the horses' instinct to rely upon, he dared not travel too fast at night, and the early morning hours, those of the short dusk, were too few.

But so far, he had had tracks to follow. Trails left by the Norbies crossed and recrossed, made by more than one clan, until in some places he discovered a regular roadway. And he found indications that backed Dort Lancin's initial report-the natives were pushing onward at a pace that was perilous in this season. One could almost believe they were being herded on into the hills by some relentless pursuer or pursuers.

There had been no recurrence of the phenomenon in the Peaks, and neither Surra nor Baku had given Storm any more than routine warnings. Yet the vague uneasiness was with Hosteen still as he picked his way along the dried stream bed that bottomed this gorge, his horses strung out with drooping heads.

An alert came from Surra. With a jerk of the lead rein, Hosteen brought the horses against the cliff wall and waited for another message from his furred scout before taking cover himself. Then he heard a trill, rising and falling like the breathy winds of the Wet Time. It was a Norbie signal-and, the Terran hoped, Shosonna. But his stunner was now in his hand to serve if he were wrong.

There-Surra had relaxed. The sentry or scout ahead was not a stranger to her. Hosteen believed that the native had not sighted the dune cat. Her fur was so close in color to the ground that she could be invisible if she wished it so.

Hosteen plodded forward once more, leading his horses, not wanting to ride in the thick heat until he had to. One more hour, maybe less, and he must hole up for the day. But, at a second alert from his feline scout, he swung up on the saddle pad. There was a dignity to be maintained between Norbie and outlander, and mounted man faced mounted native in equality, especially when there might be a point of bargaining ahead.

The Terran called. His voice echoed hollowly back from canyon walls, magnified and distorted until it could have been the united shout of a whole party. One of the wiry black-and-white-coated range horses from a Norbie cavvy came into view, and on it sat Gorgol. The Norbie rider did not advance. His face was expressionless. They might have been strangers meeting trailwise for the first time. Nor did the native's hands loose the reins preparatory to making finger talk. It was Hosteen who gave the first hand gesture.

"I seek Logan-this is a matter not to be denied."

Gorgol's vertical slits of pupils were on him, but he did not acknowledge Hosteen's message. When his rein hand moved, it was in a swift finger wriggle of rejection and denial.

"Logan is with the clan," Hosteen stated that as a fact.

"Logan is of the clan," Gorgol corrected, and so eased Hosteen's worries by a fraction. If the boy was "of the clan," his formal adoption was in force and he was not a prisoner.

"Logan is of the clan," Hosteen agreed. "But he is of the clan of Quade, also. And there is a clan matter he must be concerned with-a task to be done-"

"This is not the season for the herding of frawns or the gathering of horses," Gorgol countered. "The clan goes to the heights on a matter of medicine-"

"We also have our medicine, and no man denies his clan call. I must have speech with Logan on this matter. Would I have ridden into these hills in the Big Dry, I who cannot whistle up the water, were it not a matter of medicine?"

Gorgol was plainly impressed by the sense of that, but when Hosteen would have ridden on, he urged his own mount crosswise to bar the path.

"This is clan talk. Krotag will decide. Until then-you wait."

There was no use in pushing further. Hosteen looked about him. The wait might last an hour-or a day. If he had to stay, he needed protection for the time when the sun would pour down, turning earth and rock into a baking oven. And Gorgol must have read his need, for now the Norbie pulled his mount around.

"Come," he signed. "There is a wait place ahead. But there you must stay."

"There I will stay," Hosteen agreed.

Gorgol's wait place surprised Hosteen. It was a camp site improved by the Norbies, a semipermanent structure of sorts compared to their usual skin-tent villages. Rocks and storm drift, carried along the canyon floor in the Wet Time floods, had been cobbled into an erection large enough to shelter most of a clan, the walls rising above the pit, which gave the coolness of the inner earth to those sweating out the furnace hot hours of the day. Hosteen found more than enough room for his horses, and soon Surra slipped in and Baku swooped down to pick a temporary perch. Hosteen shared out the water and provisions he had renewed at the dump. If he held to the trail marked for him, he would be able to stock up again in two days. But dealing with the clans might throw off his schedule.

He lay on his back on the cool earth and went over their nebulous plans for the hundredth time. Not only would the 'copter lay down dumps ahead, but it should be waiting at their last rendezvous this side of the Peaks to be used in primary exploration for a way through the mountain barrier-providing the Norbies could not or would not guide an off-world party into the Blue.

After a while he must have slept, for he aroused with a start. Surra was pawing at his arm, giving the old signal from their days in the field. She was alerting, not warning, and he expected Gorgol. But the Norbie who dropped down into the shelter was a youngster not yet wearing a hunter's trophy.

"Yuntzil!" Hosteen turned up both thumbs in the warrior's greetings. Gorgol's younger brother was manifestly pleased by this gesture from one wearing warrior's scars, even though of an alien race.

"I see you, one with honorable scars," the boy's slim fingers flashed in the last light of dusk. "I come bearing the signs of Krotag. The Feathered One says: 'There is a time of medicine in the hills, and the fires of friendship burn low. If the brother of our brother rides here, he does so knowing that medicine is a chancy thing and may rend the unbeliever, even as it holds the bow of defense before the believer-"

A warning, but not an outright refusal to allow him to proceed. Hosteen had that much. He stretched his hands into the funnel of light from the doorway so that Yuntzil would have no difficulty in reading the signs he made slowly and with care.

"This one is no unbeliever. To each man his own medicine and the wisdom not to belittle the belief of another. I do not ride under Krotag's medicine, but I have my own." He had taken the precaution that morning before his meeting with Gorgol to put on the heavy turquoise and silver necklace that was part of his inheritance from the past. On their first quest together, when they had faced the Xiks, he had worn that as well as the ketoh bracelet, and he knew that the Norbies now considered both ancient ornaments as talismans of power.

"If the brother of our brother believes, then let him come. He may speak with Krotag."

So they rode through the dusk. But Yuntzil did not keep to the main canyon Hosteen had chosen as the straightest route through the foothills. Perhaps a mile beyond the shelter, he turned abruptly to the left, pa.s.sed behind an outcrop chimney, and brought the Terran into a narrower way. Surra stayed with Hosteen since the Norbie's mount showed fear of the cat. But Baku was aloft again, and from the eagle Hosteen gained the information that an encampment was not too far ahead.

Silently he thought out his message. To keep the eagle out of sight of any prowling scout, as a set of eyes in reserve, was only a sensible precaution. And he also knew that if and when he gave the order, Surra would melt into the shadows behind them, to be an unseen prowler he would defy any native to locate. She had proved many times in the past that her mutant feline senses were superior to those of any creature, man or animal, that Arzor possessed.

"Now!" As unspoken as his order to Baku, the Terran instructed the dune cat.

The dusk was thick, bringing its coolness after the enervating fire of the day. But ahead was a splotch of light-the camp. Hosteen followed Yuntzil, riding easily. All the horses had been watered before they left the clan shelter, but they quickened their pace, suggesting the necessary liquid was waiting ahead-one of the famous hidden springs, perhaps.

The tall, lean silhouettes of Norbie bodies moved between Hosteen and the fire. He could sight no tent shelters. This might be a scout camp or a hunters' rendezvous, save that Yuntzil had given his invitation in the name of the chief. The young Norbie dismounted, and now he waited, his hand outstretched for Hosteen's reins. If he had noted Surra's disappearance, he did not remark upon it.

Leaving his horses behind him, the Terran walked confidently into the light of the fire, his sensitive nostrils twitching at the strong, almost unpleasant scent of the burning of bone-dry branches that had been packed from some distance to feed those flames. Falwood, sacred to medicine talks, did not grow in the mountains.

"Hosteen!" A smaller figure separated itself from the tall natives. Like them, he wore the high boots of yoris hide, still attached scales glittering in the greenish light. A wide band of the same hide, this time descaled and softened, made a corselet, covering his body from arm pit to crotch, and over that was the second belt of a warrior from which was suspended the twenty-inch knife of an accepted clansman. Logan had finished off his native dress with the customary yoris-fang collar, which extended from shoulder point to shoulder point and dipped down to belt length across his chest. Above it, his red-brown skin, many shades darker than that of the Norbies, glistened with a sweaty sheen. His head was uncovered, the hair held back from his face by a scarlet band. He was a barbaric figure, somehow more so than the natives about him.

Sighting him free and at ease in the Norbies' camp, Hosteen felt his anxiety and tension crystallize into irritation. He noted the shade of defiance on his half-brother's face, guessed that Logan thought the Terran had come to take him home.

Making no answer to Logan, looking beyond him to the waiting warriors, Hosteen held his hands well into the light of the fire and talked with the deliberate, fully rounded gestures of an envoy.

"There is one who is as the Zamle, whose arrows have drunk blood and their points then been powdered into nothingness many times over, who has hunted the yoris in its den and the evil flyer of the heights, alone, with only the strength of his hands and his medicine. I would speak with that one who stands among you wearing in this life the name of Krotag, leader of warriors, guardian of hunters."

A Norbie moved. The rich beading of his belt glittered more brightly than his scaled leg coverings. His horns, not the ivory-white of the others, were ringed with red.