Planet of Adventure Omnibus (55 page)

Reith came
forth. He yelled to Anacho and Traz. “Kill those under the net!” He jumped
through the tangle to confront the remaining Dirdir. Under no circumstances
must it escape.

Escape was
remote from its mind. It sprang upon Reith like a leopard, ripping with its
talons. Traz ran forward brandishing his dagger and threw himself on the Dirdir’s
back. The Dirdir rolled over backward, and tearing Traz’s legs loose, made play
with his own dagger. Anacho leaped forward; with one mighty swordstroke he
hacked apart the Dirdir’s arm; with a second blow he clove the creature’s head.
Staggering and tottering, cursing and panting, the three finished off the
remaining Dirdir, then stood in vast relief that they had fared so well. Blood
pumped from Traz’s leg. Reith applied a tourniquet, opened the first-aid kit he
had brought with him to Tschai. He disinfected the wound, applied a toner,
pressed the wound together, sprayed on a film of synthetic skin, and eased off
the tourniquet. Traz grimaced, but made no complaint. Reith brought forth a
pill. “Swallow this. Can you stand?”

Traz rose
stiffly to his feet.

“Can you
walk?”

“Not too
well.”

“Try to keep
moving, to prevent the leg from going stiff.”

Reith and
Anacho searched the corpses for booty, to their enormous profit: a purple node,
two scarlets, a deep blue, three pale greens and two pale blues. Reith shook
his head in marvel and vexation. “Wealth! But useless unless we get it back to
Maust.”

He watched
Traz limping back and forth with obvious effort. “We can’t carry it all.”

The corpses
they rolled into the pitfall, and covered them over. The net they hauled off
into the underbrush. Then they sorted out the sequins, making three packs, two
heavy and one light. There still remained a fortune in clears, milks, sards,
deep blues and greens. These they wrapped into a fourth parcel, which they
secreted under the roots of the great torquil.

Two hours
remained until dusk. They took up their packs, went to the eastern edge of the
forest, accommodating their gait to Traz. Here they argued the feasibility of
camping until Traz’s leg had healed. Traz would hear none of it. “I can keep
up, so long as we don’t have to run.”

“Running won’t
help us in any case,” said Reith.

“If they
catch us,” said Anacho, “then we must run. With nerve-fire at our necks.”

The afternoon
light deepened through gold and dark gold; Carina 4269 disappeared and sepia
murk fell over the landscape. The hills showed minuscule flickers of flame. The
three set forth, and so the dismal journey began: across the Stage from one
black clump of dendron to another. At last they came to the slopes, and
doggedly began to climb.

Dawn found
them under the ridge, with both hunters and hunted already astir. Shelter was
nowhere in sight; the three descended into a gulch and contrived a covert of
dry brush.

The day
advanced. Anacho and Reith dozed while Traz lay staring at the sky; the
enforced idleness had caused his leg to stiffen. At noon a hunt of four proud
Dirdir, resplendent in glittering casques, crossed the ravine. For a moment they
paused, apparently sensing the near-presence of quarry, but other affairs
attracted their attention and they continued off to the north.

The sun
declined, illuminating the eastern wall of the gulch. Anacho gave an
uncharacteristic snort of laughter. “Look there.” He pointed. Not twenty feet
distant the ground had broken, revealing the wrinkled dome of a large mature
node. “Scarlets at least. Maybe purples.”

Reith made a
gesture of sad resignation. “We can hardly carry the fortune we already have.
It is sufficient.”

“You
underestimate the rapacity and greed of Sivishe,” grumbled Anacho. “To do what
you propose will require two fortunes, or more.” He dug up the node. “A purple.
We can’t leave it behind.”

“Very well,”
said Reith. “I’ll carry it.”

“No,” said
Traz. “I’ll carry it. You two already have most of the load.”

“We’ll divide
it into three parts,” said Reith. “It won’t be all that much more.”

Night came at
last; the three shouldered their packs and continued. Traz hopping, hobbling,
grimacing in pain. Down the north slope they moved, and the closer they
approached the Portal of Gleams, the more ghastly and detestable seemed the
Zone.

Dawn found
them at the base of the hills, with the Portal yet ten miles north. As they
rested in a shadowed fissure, Reith swept the landscape through his scanscope.
The Forelands seemed quiet and almost devoid of life. Far to the northwest a
dozen shapes made for the Portal of Gleams, hoping to reach safety before full
daylight. They ran with the peculiar scuttling gait that men instinctively used
within the Zone, as if they thereby made themselves inconspicuous. A band of
hunters stood on a relatively nearby crag, still and alert as eagles. They
watched the fleeing men with regret. Reith put aside all hope of reaching the Portal
before dark. The three passed another dreary day behind a boulder, with
camouflage cloth overhead.

During the
middle morning a sky-car drifted overhead. “They’re looking for the missing
hunts,” said Anacho in a hushed voice. “Undoubtedly there will be a
tsau’gsh
... We are in great danger.”

Reith looked
after the sky-car, then gauged the miles to the Portal. “By midnight we should
be safe.”

“We may not
last till midnight, if the Dirdir close off the Forelands, as well they may do.”

“We can’t set
out now; they’d take us for sure.”

Anacho gave a
dour nod. “Agreed.”

Towards
middle afternoon another sky-car came to hover over the Forelands. Anacho
hissed between his teeth. “We are trapped.” But after half an hour the sky-car
once more drifted south beyond the hills.

Reith made a
careful scrutiny of the landscape. “I see no hunts. Ten miles means at least
two hours. Shall we make a run for it?”

Traz looked
down at his leg with a wistful expression. “You two go on. I’ll follow when the
sun goes down.”

“Too late by
then,” said Anacho. “Already it is too late.”

Once more
Reith searched the ridges. He helped Traz to his feet. “It’s all of us or none.”

They started
out across the barrens, feeling naked and vulnerable. Any hunt which chanced to
look down from the ridge into this particular sector could not fail to notice
them.

They
proceeded for half an hour, scuttling half-crouched like the others. From time
to time Reith paused to sweep the landscape to the rear with his scanscope,
dreading lest he see the dire shapes in pursuit. But the miles fell behind, and
hope correspondingly began to rise. Traz’s face was gray with pain and
exhaustion; nevertheless he forced the pace, tottering at a half-run, until
Reith suspected that he ran from sheer hysteria.

But suddenly
Traz stopped. He looked back at the ridges. “They are watching us.”

Reith
scrutinized the ridges, slopes and dark gulches, but saw nothing. Traz had
already set off at an erratic lope, with Anacho hunching along behind. Reith
followed. A few hundred yards further north he paused again, and this time
thought he saw a flicker of light reflecting from metal. Dirdir? Reith gauged
the distance ahead. They had come roughly halfway across the barrens. Reith
drew a deep breath and ran off after Traz and Anacho. Conceivably the Dirdir
might not choose to pursue so far across the Forelands.

A second time
he halted and looked back. All uncertainty was gone: four shapes bounded down
the slopes. There could be no doubt as to their intent.

Reith caught
up with Traz and Anacho. Traz ran with glaring eyes, mouth open so that his
teeth showed. Reith took the heaviest bag from the lad’s shoulder, threw it
over his own. If anything, Traz slowed his pace a trifle. Anacho gauged the
distance ahead, studied the pursuing Dirdir. “We have a chance.”

The three
ran, hearts pounding, lungs burning. Traz’s face was like a skull. Anacho
relieved him of the remaining parcel.

The Portal of
Gleams was visible: a haven of wonderful security. Behind came the hunters, by
prodigious leaps.

Traz was
faltering, with the Portal yet a half-mile ahead. “Onmale!” called Reith.

The effect
was startling. Traz seemed to expand, to grow tall. He stopped short and swung
about to face the pursuers. His face was that of a stranger: a person
sagacious, fierce and dominant, the personification in fact of the emblem
Onmale.

Onmale was
too proud to flee.

“Run!” cried
Reith in a panic. “If we must fight, let’s fight on our own terms!”

Traz, or
Onmale-the two were confused-seized a pack from Reith and one from Anacho and
sprang ahead toward the Portal.

Reith wasted
a half-second gauging the distance to the first Dirdir, then continued his
flight. Traz soared across the barrens. Anacho, his face pink and distorted,
pounded behind.

Traz gained
the Portal. He turned and waited, catapult in one hand, sword in the other.
Anacho passed through, then Reith, not fifty feet in advance of the foremost
Dirdir. Traz backed to stand just beyond the boundary, challenging the Dirdir
to attack. The Dirdir gave a shrill scream of fury. It shook its head, and its
effulgences, standing high, vibrated. Then, curvetting, it loped south, after
its comrades, already on their way back to the hills.

Anacho leaned
panting against the Portal of Gleams. Reith stood with the breath rasping in his
throat. Traz’s face was vacant and gray. His knees buckled; he fell to the
ground and lay quiet, giving not so much as a twitch.

Reith
staggered forward, turned him over. Traz seemed not to breathe. Reith straddled
his body and applied artificial respiration. Traz gave a throat-wrenching gasp.
Presently he began to breathe evenly.

The
solicitors, touts and beggars who normally kept station by the Portal of Gleams
had scattered, aghast at the approach of the Dirdir. First to return was a
young man in a long maroon gown, who now stood making gracious movements of
concern. “An outrage,” he lamented. “The conduct of the Dirdir! Never should
they chase so close to the gate! They have almost killed this poor young man!”

“Quiet,”
snapped Anacho. “You disturb us.”

The young man
stood aside. Reith and Anacho lifted Traz to his feet, where he stood in
something of a stupor.

The young man
once again came forward, his soft brown eyes all-seeing, all-knowing. “Allow me
to assist. I am Issam the Thang; I represent the Hopeful Venture Inn, which
promises a restful atmosphere. Allow me to assist you with your parcels.”
Picking up Traz’s pack he turned a startled gaze toward Reith and Anacho. “Sequins?”

Anacho seized
his pack. “Be off with you! Our plans are established!”

“As you will,”
said Issam the Thang, “but the Hopeful Venture Inn is near at hand, and
something apart from the tumult and gaming. While comfortable, the expense does
not approach the exorbitant fees of the Alawan.”

“Very well,”
said Reith. “Take us to the Hopeful Venture.”

Anacho
muttered under his breath; to which Issam the Thang made a delicate gesture of
reproach. “This way, if you will.”

They trudged
toward Maust, Traz hobbling on his lame leg.

“My memory is
a jumble,” he muttered. “I recall crossing the Forelands; I remember that
someone shouted into my ear-”

“It was I,”
said Reith.

“--then
after, nothing real, and next I lay beside the Portal.” And a moment later he
mused: “I heard roaring voices. A thousand faces looked past me, warriors’
faces, raging. I have seen such things in dreams.” His voice dwindled; he said
no more.

THE HOPEFUL
VENTURE Inn stood at the back of a narrow alley, a brooding, age-blackened
structure, doing no great business, to judge from the common room, which was
dark and still. Issam, it now appeared, was the proprietor. He made an effusive
show of hospitality, ordering water, lamps and linen up to the “grand suite,”
which orders were effected by a surly servant with enormous red hands and a
shock of coarse red hair. The three mounted a twisting stairway to the suite,
which comprised a sitting-room, a wash-room, several irregular alcoves
furnished with sour-smelling couches. The servant arranged the lamps, brought
flasks of wine and departed. Anacho examined the lead and wax stoppers, then
put the flasks aside. “Too much risk of drugs or poison. When the man awakes-if
he awakes-his sequins are gone and he is bereft. I am dissatisfied; we would
have done better at the Alawan.”

“Tomorrow is
time enough,” said Reith, sinking into a chair with a groan of fatigue.

“Tomorrow we
must be gone from Maust,” said Anacho. “If we are not marked men now, we soon
will be.” He went forth and presently returned with bread, meat and wine.

They ate and
drank; then Anacho checked the bars and bolts. “Who knows what transpires in
these old piles? A knife in the dark, a single sound, and who is the wiser save
Issam the Thang?”