Witch World Part 13

He launched through the network of guerrilla bands a request for information. And at nights, in one temporary headquarters after another, he pieced together bits and patches. There was very little concrete evidence, but Simon became convinced that certain commanders among the Karsten forces did not operate according to their former ways, and that the Duke's army had been infiltrated by an alien group.

Aliens! As always that puzzle of inequality of skills continued to plague him. Questioning of his refugees told him that the energy machines which they had always known had come from "overseas" ages past: "overseas" energy machines brought by the Sulcar traders, adapted by the old race for heat and light, the Falconers also from "overseas" with their amazing communicators borne by their hawks. And the source of the Kolder was also "overseas"-a vague term-a common source for all?

What he could learn he dispatched by messenger to Estcarp, asking for anything the witches might have to tell in return. The only thing he was sure of was that as long as his own force was recruited from those of old race, he had no need to fear infiltration himself, for that quality which gave them kinship with the land and the wild things granted them in addition the ability to smell out the alien.

Three more false hawks had been detected in the mountains. But all had been destroyed in their capture and Simon had only broken bits to examine. Where they came from and for what purpose they had been loosed was a part of all the other mystery.

Ingvald, the Karstenian lieutenant, pushed up beside him now to look down upon the scene of destruction they had left.

"The main party with the booty is well along the hill track. Captain. We have plundered to some purpose this time, and with that fire laid to cross our trail, they will not even know how much has come into our hands! There are four cases of darts as well as the food."

"Too much to supply a flying column." Simon frowned, his mind snapping back to the business at hand. "It would seem that Yvian hopes to make a central post somewhere hereabouts and base his foray parties there. He may be planning to move a large force borderwards."

"I do not understand it," Ingvald said slowly. "Why did this all blow up so suddenly out of nothing? We are not-were not-blood brothers of the coastwise people. They drove us inland when they came from the sea. But for ten generations we have been at peace with them, each going our way and not troubling the other. We of the old race are not inclined to war and there was no reason for this sudden attack upon us. Yet when it came it moved in such a way as we may only believe that it had long been planned."

"But, not, perhaps, by Yvian." Simon set his horse to a trot matched by Ingvald's mount so they rode knee to knee. "I want a prisoner, Ingvald, a prisoner of such a one as has been amusing himself in those ways we saw in the farm meadow of the fork roads!"

A spark gleamed deep in the dark eyes meeting his. "If such a one is ever taken. Captain, he shall be brought to you."

"Alive and able to talk!" Simon cautioned.

"Alive and able to speak," agreed the other. "For it is in our minds too, that things can be learned from one of that sort. Only never do we find them, only their handiwork. And I think that that is left deliberately as a threat and a warning."

"There is a puzzle in this," Simon was thinking aloud, playing once more with his ever-present problem. "It would seem that someone believes we can be beaten into submission by brutality. And that someone or something does not understand that a man can be fired to just the opposite by those methods. Or," he added after a moment's pause, "could this be done deliberately to goad us into turning our full fury against Yvian and Karsten, to get the border aflame and all Estcarp engaged there, then to strike elsewhere?"

"Perhaps a little of both," Ingvald suggested. "I know, Captain, that you have been seeking for another presence in the Karsten forces, and I have heard of what was found at Sulcarkeep and the rumors of man-selling to Gorm. We are safe in this much: no one who is not truly human can come among us without our knowledge-just as we have always known that you are not of our world."

Simon started, but turned to see the other smiling quietly. "Yes, Outlander, your tale spread-but after we knew you were not of us-though in some strange way your own akin to our blood. No, the Kolder cannot sneak into our councils so easily. Nor can the enemy venture among the Falconers, for the hawks would betray them."

Simon was caught by that. "How so?"

"A bird or an animal can sense that kind of alien quicker than even one who has the Power. And those like now to the men of Gorm would find both bird and beast against them. So the Hawks of the Eyrie serve their trainers doubly and make safe the mountains."

But before the day was behind them Simon was to leam that that vaunted safety of the mountains was only as strong as those frail bird bodies. They were examining the supplies looted from the train and Simon set aside a portion intended for the Eyrie, when he heard the hail of a camp sentry and the answer of a Falconer. Welcoming the chance to let the latter transport the hawkmen's share and so save his men a trip, Simon came forward eagerly.

The rider had not followed custom. His bird-head helm was closed as if he rode among strangers. It was not that alone which stopped Simon before he gave greeting. The men of his band were alert, drawing in a circle. Simon felt it, too, that p.r.i.c.kle of awaking surmise, just as he had known it before.

Without stopping to reason, he hurled himself at the silent rider and his hands caught at the other's weapon belt. Simon knew fleeting wonder that the hawk perched on the saddle horn did not rouse as he attacked its master. His lunge caught the Falconer by surprise and the fellow had no time to draw his arms. But he made a quick recovery, slumping his whole weight on Simon, bearing him under him to the ground, where mailed gloved hands tore for Tregarth's throat.

It was like tangling with a steel-muscled, iron-fleshed thing, and within seconds Simon knew that he had attempted the impossible-what was encased in the Falconer's covering could not be subdued with bare hands. Only he was not alone; other hands plucked that fighter off him, held the man pinned to the ground, though the stranger struggled wildly.

Simon, rubbing his scratched throat, got to his knees. "Unhelm!" He gasped the order, and Ingvald worked at the helm straps, jerking them free at last.

They gathered around the men who held the captive down, for his struggles did not stop. The Falconers were an inbred race with a dominate physical type-reddish hair and brown-yellow eyes like their feathered servants. By his looks this was a true man of the breed. Yet Simon and every man in that clearing knew that what they held was no normal member of the mountain country.

"Rope him tight!" Simon ordered. "I think, Ingvald, we have found what we have been wishing for." He went over to the horse which had carried the pseudo-hawkman into their camp. The animal's hide glistened with sweat, threads of foam spun at the bit hooks; it might have been ridden in a grueling race. And its eyes were wild, showing rims of white. But when Simon reached for the reins it did not try to escape, standing with a drooping head as great shudders moved its sweat-soaked skin.

The hawk had remained quiet, no flap of wings or hissing beak to warn Simon off. He reached up and plucked the bird from its perch, and the minute his fingers closed upon that body he knew he did not hold a living creature.

With it in his hand he turned to his lieutenant. "Ingvald, send Lathor, Kara," he named the two most accomplished scouts in his command. "Let them ride to the Eyrie. We must know how far the rot has spread. If they find no damage done there, let them give warning. For proof of their tale," he stooped to pick up the bird helm of their prisoner, "let them take this. I believe it is of Falconer making, yet," he walked over to the bound man, still silent, still watching them with eyes of mad hate,"I cannot quite believe that this is one of them."

"We do not take him also?" asked Kam, "or the bird?"

"No, we open no doors which are not already breached. We need safe disposal for this one for a s.p.a.ce."

"The cave by the waterfall, Captain." Waldis, a boy of Ingvald's homestead who had tracked his master to the mountains, spoke up. "One sentry at the entrance can keep it safe and none know of it save us."

"Good enough. You will see to it, Ingvald."

"And you, Captain?"

"I am going to backtrail this one. It may be that he did ride from the Eyrie. If that is true, the sooner we know the worst the better."

"I do not think so. Captain. At least if he did, it was not by any straight trail. We are well to the westward of the hold. And he entered from the path leading to the sea. Santu," he spoke to one who had helped to rope the prisoner, "do you go and take outpost on this trail and send in Caluf who first challenged him."

Simon threw the saddle on his own horse, and added a bag with rations. On top he thrust in the dummy falcon. Whether this was one of the counterfeit flying things, he could not tell as yet, but it was the first intact one they had. He finished just as Caluf ran in.

"You are sure he came from the west?" Simon pressed the question.

"I will swear it on the Stone of Engis if you wish, Captain. The hawkmen do not care greatly for the sea, though they serve the traders at times as marines. And I did not know they patrolled the sh.o.r.e cliffs. But he rode straight between those notched rocks which give upon the way to the cove we mapped five days ago, and he moved as one who knew the trail well."

Simon was more than a little disturbed. The cove of their recent discovery had been a ray of hope for the establishment of better communication with the north. It was not endangered by reefs and shoals such as fanged too much of the coastline and Simon had planned for the use of small vessels to harbor there, transporting north refugees, and returning with supplies and arms for the border fighters. If that cove was in enemy hands he wanted to know it, and at once.

As he left the clearing, with Caluf and another riding behind him, Simon's mind was again working on two levels. He noted the country about him with an alert survey for landmarks and natural features which might be used in future defensive or offensive action. But beneath that surface activity he was pushing under the constant preoccupation with safety, food, shelter-the job at hand-his own private concerns.

Once, in prison, he had had time to explore the depths within himself. And the paths he had hewn had been bleak, freezing him into a remoteness of spirit which had never thawed since that day. The give and take of barracks life, of companionship in field service he could a.s.sume as a cover, but nothing ate below that cover-or he had not allowed it to.

Fear he understood. But that was a transitory emotion which usually spurred him into action of one sort or another. In Kars he had been attracted in another way, and had fought free. Once he had believed that when he took Petronius' gate he would be a complete man again.

But so far that was not true. Ingvald had spoken of demon possession, but what if a man did not possess himself?

He was always a man standing apart watching another occupied with the business of living. Alien-these men he led knew it in him. Was he another of the odd mistaken pieces strewn about this world, pieces which did not fit, one with the machines out of their time and the riddle of the Kolder? He sensed that he was on the brink of some discovery, one which would mean much to not only himself but to the cause he had chosen.

Then that second, prying, stand-aside self was banished by the Captain of raiders as Simon caught sight of a branch of a tree, warped by mountain storms, as yet lacking leaves. It was stark against the afternoon sky and the burden it bore, dangling in small, neatly fashioned loops, was starker yet.

He spurred ahead and sat gazing up at the three small bodies swaying in the breeze, the gaping beaks, the glazed eyes, the dangling, crooked claws still bearing their bracelets of scarlet jesses and small, silvery discs. Three of the true falcons, their necks wrung, left to be found by the next traveler along the way. "Why?" Caluf asked.

"A warning, maybe, or something more." Simon dismounted and tossed his reins to the other. "Wait here. If I am not back within a reasonable time, return to Ingvald and report. Do not follow, we cannot afford to waste men uselessly."

Both men protested, but Simon silenced them with a decisive order before he entered the brush. There was evidence in plenty of those who had been there, broken twigs, sc.r.a.ps of boots on moss, a piece of torn jess strap. He was moving closer to the sh.o.r.e; the sound of the surf could be heard, and what he sought had certainly come from the cove.

Simon had been over that path twice, and he set himself to recall a mental picture of the country. Unfortunately the small valley which gave on the sh.o.r.e was lacking in cover. And the crags on either side were as bald. He would have to try one of those, which meant a roundabout route and some tough climbing. Doggedly he got to it.

As he had crept up to Volt's Hole so did he travel now, crevice, ledge, hand and foothold. Then he crawled on his belly to the edge and looked down into the cove.

Simon had expected many things-a bare strip of sand with no sign of any invasion, a party from Karsten, an anch.o.r.ed ship. But what he saw was very different. At first he thought of the illusions of Estcarp-could what lay below be projected from his own mind, some old memory brought to life for his bafflement? Then a closer inspection of that sharp, clean curve of metal told him that, while it bore some faint resemblance to craft he had known, this was as different from anything in his previous experience as the counterfeit hawk was from the real.

The thing was clearly a sea-going craft, though it had no sign of any superstructure, mast, or method of propulsion. Sharply pointed both fore and aft, it was shaped as might be a cross section, taken length-wise, of a torpedo. There was an opening on its flat upper surface and men stood by that, three of them. The outline of their heads against the silver sheen of the ship were those of the Falconer bird helms. But Simon was equally sure no true Falconers wore them.

Once again the eternal mystery of this land, for the traders' ships at Sulcarkeep had been masted vessels of a nonmechanical civilization; this ship could be taken out of the future of his own world! How could two so widely differing levels of civilization exist side by side?

Were the Kolder responsible here also? Alien, alien- once more he was on the very verge of understanding-of guessing- And for that instant he relaxed his vigilance. Only a stout helm plundered from Karsten stores saved his life. The blow which struck at him out of nowhere dazed Simon. He smelled wet feathers, something else-half blinded and dizzy he tried to rise-to be struck again. This time he saw the enemy wing out to sea. A falcon, but true or false? That question he carried with him into the black cloud which swallowed him up.

TRIBUTE TO GORM.

The throbbing beat of a pain drum filled his skull, shaking on through his body. At first, Simon, returning reluctantly to consciousness, could only summon strength enough to endure that punishment. Then he knew that the beat was not only inside him, but without also. That on which he lay shook with a steady rhythmic pound. He was trapped in the black heart of a tom-tom.

When he opened his eyes, there was no light, and when he tried to move Simon speedily discovered that his wrists and ankles were lashed.

The sensation of being enclosed in a coffin became so overpowering that he had to clamp teeth on lips to prevent crying out. And he was so busy fighting his own private war against the unknown that it was minutes before he realized that wherever he might be, he was not alone in captive misery.

To his right someone moaned faintly now and again. On his left another retched in abject sickness, adding a new stench to the thick atmosphere of their confinement. Simon, oddly rea.s.sured by those sounds, unpromising as they were, called out: "Who lies there? And where are we; does anyone know?"

The moaning ended in a quick catch of breath. But the man who was sick either could not control his pangs, or did not understand.

"Who are you?" That came in a weak trail of whisper from his right.

"One from the mountains. And you? Is this some Karsten prison?"

"Better that it were, mountain man! I have lain in the dungeons of Karsten. Yes, I have been in the question room of such a one. But better there than here."

Simon was busy sorting out recent memories. He had climbed to a cliff top to spy upon a cove. There had been that strange vessel in harbor there, then attack from a bird which might not have been a bird at all!

Now it added up to only one answer-he lay in the very ship he had seen!

"Are we in the hands of the man-buyers out of Gorm?" he asked.

"Just so, mountain man. You were not with us when those devils of Yvian's following gave us to the Kolder. Are you one of the Falconers they snared later?"

"Falconers! Ho, men of the Winged Ones!" Simon raised his voice, heard it echo hollowly back from unseen walls."How many of you lie here? I, whom am of the raiders, ask it!"

"Three of us, raider. Though Faltjar was borne hither limp as a death-stricken man, and we do not know if yet he lives."

"Faltjar! The guard of the southern pa.s.ses! How was he taken-and you?"

"We heard of a cove where ships dared land and there was a messenger from Estcarp saying that perhaps supplies might be sent to us by sea if such could be found. So the Lord of Wings ordered us to explore. And we were struck down by hawks as we rode. Though they were not our hawks who battled for us. Then we awoke on sh.o.r.e, stripped of our mail and weapons, and they brought us aboard this craft which has no like in the world. I say that, who am Tandis and served five years as a marine to Sulcarmen. Many ports have I seen and more ships than a man can count in a week of steady marking, yet none kin to this one."

"It is born of the witchery of Kolder," whispered the weak voice on Simon's right. "They came, but how can a man reckon time when he is enclosed in the dark without end? Is it night or day, this day or that? I lay in Kars prison because I offered refuge to a woman and child of the old race when the Horning went forth. They took all of us who were young from that prison and brought us to a delta island. There we were examined."

"By whom?" Simon asked eagerly. Here was some one who might have seen the mysterious Kolder, from whom he might be able to get some positive information concerning them.

"That I cannot remember." The voice was the merest thread of sound now and Simon edged himself as far as he could in his bonds to catch it at all. "They work some magic, these men from Gorm, so that one's head spins around, spilling all thoughts out of it. It is said that they are demons of the great cold from the end of the world, and that I can believe!"

"And you, Falconer, did you look upon those who took you?"

"Yes, but you will have little aid from what I saw, raider. For those who brought us here were Karsten men, mere husks without proper wits-hands and strong backs for their owners. And those owners already wore the trappings they had taken from our backs, the better to befool our friends."

"One of them was taken in his turn," Simon told him. "For that be thankful, hawkman, for perhaps a part of the unraveling of this coil may lie with him." Only then did he wonder if there were ears in those walls to listen to the helpless captives. But if there were, perhaps that one sc.r.a.p of knowledge would serve to spread uneasiness among their captors.

There were ten Karsten men within that prison hold, all taken from jails, all caught up for some offense or other against the Duke. And to them had been added the three Falconers captured in the cove. The majority of the prisoners appeared to be semi-conscious or in a dazed condition. If able to recall any of the events leading up to their present captivity, such recollections ended with their arrival at the island beyond Kars, or on the beach of the cove.

As Simon persisted in his questioning however, a certain uniformity, if not of background, then of offenses against the Duke and temperament among these prisoners began to emerge. They were all men of some initiative, who had had a certain amount of military training, ranging from the Falconers who lived in a monastic military barracks for life and whose occupation was frankly fighting, to his first informant from Kars, a small landowner in the outlands who commanded a body of militia. In age they were from their late teens to their early thirties, and, in spite of some rough handling in the Duke's dungeons, they were all able-bodied. Two were of the minor n.o.bility with some schooling. They were the youngest of the lot, brothers picked up by Yvian's forces on the same charge of aiding one of the old race who had been so summarily outlawed.

None of those here were of that race, and everyone declared that in all parts of the duchy men, women and children of that blood had been put to death upon capture.

It was one of the young n.o.bles, drawn by Simon's patient questioning from his absorption with his still unconscious brother, who provided the first bit of fact for the outworld man to chew upon.

"That guard who beat down Gamit, for which may the Rats of Morc forever gnaw him night and day, told them not to bring Renston also. We were blood brothers by the bread from the days we first strapped on swords, and we went to take him food and weapons that he might try for the border. They tracked us down and took us, though we left three of them with holes in their hides and no breath in their bodies! When one of the sc.u.m the Duke's men had with him would have bound Renston too, he told it was no use, for there was no price for those of the old blood and the men buyers would not take them.

"The fellow whined that Renston was as young and strong as we and that he ought to sell as well. But the Duke's man said the old race broke but they would not bend; then he ran Renston through with his own sword."

"Broke but would not bend," Simon repeated slowly.

"The old race were once one with the witchfolk of Estcarp," the n.o.ble added. "Perchance these devils of Gorm cannot eat them up as easily as they can those of another blood."

"There is this," the man beside Simon added in his half-whisper, "why did Yvian turn so quickly on the old race? They have left us alone, unless we sought them out. And those of us who companied with them found them far from evil, for all their old knowledge and strange ways. Is Yvian under orders to do as he did? And who gives such orders and why? Could it be, my brothers in misfortune, that the presence of those others among us was in some manner a barrier against Gorm and all its evil, so that they had to be routed out that Gorm may spread?"

Shrewd enough, and close to Simon's own path of thought. He would have questioned still further but, through the soft moans and wordless complaints of those still only half conscious, he heard a steady hissing, a sound he strove hard to identify. The thick odors of the place would make a man gag, and they provided a good cover for a danger he recognized too late-the entrance of vapor into the chamber with a limited air supply.

Men choken and coughed, fought for air with strangling agony and then went inert. Only one thought kept Simon steady: the enemy would not have gone to the trouble of loading fourteen men in their ship merely to gas them to death. So Simon alone of that miserable company did not fight the gas, but breathed slowly, with dim memories of the dentist's chair in his own world.

". . . gabble . . . gabble . . . gabble . . ." Words which were no words, only a confused sound made by a high-pitched voice-carrying with them the snap of an imperative order. Simon did not stir. As awareness of his surroundings returned, an inborn instinct for self-preservation kept him quiet.

". . . gabble . . . gabble . . . gabble . . ."

The pain in his head was only a very dull ache. He was sure he was no longer on the ship; what he lay upon did not throb, nor move. But he had been stripped of his clothing and the place in which he lay was chill.

He who spoke was moving away now; the gabble retreated without an answer. But so clearly had the tone been one of an order that Simon dared not move lest he betray himself to some silent subordinate.

Twice, deliberately, he counted to a hundred, hearing no sound during that exercise. Simon lifted his eyelids and then lowered them again quickly against a stab of blazing light. Little by little his field of vision, limited as it was, cleared. What he saw in that narrow range was almost as confounding as had been his first glimpse of the strange ship.

His acquaintance with laboratories had been small, but certainly the rack of tubes, the bottles and beakers on shelves directly before him could be found only in a place of that nature.

Was he alone? And for what purpose had he been brought here? He studied, inch by inch, all he could see. Clearly he was not lying at floor level. The surface under him was hard-was he on a table?

Slowly he began to turn his head, convinced that caution was very necessary. Now he was able to see an expanse of wall, bare, gray, with a line at the very end of his field of vision which might make a door.