caravan lurched and began to roll forward on the trail. “At least we’re going in style,” McCoy added. “We seem to have acquired a chauffeur.”
They jolted along for half an hour, and then the caravan came to a stop. Somebody barked a command from the outside, and the rear door was pulled open. Hillmen reached in, dragged them out, and tossed them roughly on the ground. Kirk struggled to a sitting position, blinking as his eyes accustomed themselves to the outside brightness, and looked around.
Off to one side, at least a hundred neelots were staked out, several with dead bodies tied to their backs. Groups of hillmen were squatting around small fires, roasting chunks of dried meat on green sticks. A short distance from the caravan, Kirk saw a squat, bandylegged figure whose hood and battle cloak bore the distinctive markings of a clan chief. He stood with his hands behind his back, staring off into the distance, seemingly oblivious to the bustle around him. The leader of the party that brought the Beshwa caravan in went over to him, saluted, and said something. The chief glanced at the bound captives and then back along the trail at the approaching carts and their escorts.
“Good,” he grunted. “They bring more spearstone than I expected. The Messiah will be pleased. How many dead?”
“Six. Those plains sheep have sharp teeth.”
“My son, did he fight well?”
“Like a man of twice his years. He killed four before a spear thrust brought him down. We wanted to bring him back in a cart, but he insisted on riding with the rest.”
“And these?” The chief gestured toward Kirk and the rest.
“Beshwa. We found them on the trail.”
“I know they’re Beshwa, idiot. Why were they brought here?”
“Alt ordered it. He said that perhaps the Messiah’s order didn’t apply to them. Beshwa have always been allowed to move freely through the hills.”
“What has been, is past,” the chief said harshly. “They are not of our blood. Kill them.”
“The woman, too?”
Tram Bir nodded. As he turned to go, a stocky warrior beside him who wore the markings of a sub-chief held out a restraining hand and whispered something. The chief shrugged.
“Bring that one here,” he ordered, pointing at Sara. Two hillmen jerked her to her feet and dragged her forward. Tram Bir eyed her critically. “She has a pretty face, Greth, but there doesn’t seem to be much meat on her bones.”
The sub-chief gave a coarse laugh. “Well see,” he said, and drew a razor-edged dagger from a sheath.
Kirk fought to keep control, frantically searching the memory of his Beshwa dop for some scrap of information about clan ways that could be used to stay the hillman’s blade. Suddenly, he thought he had something. Superstition might work where argument wouldn’t
“Azrath!” he boomed in as deep a voice as he could manage, lifting his face to the sky. “Azrath, hear! They would harm your handmaiden!”
“What is this nonsense?” Tram Bir demanded in an irritated voice.
“She has been consecrated to Azrath. The power she draws from him will shield us all from harm. Why do you think the Beshwa bear no arms? Why do robber clans let the Beshwa pass in peace?” Kirk fixed his eyes directly on Tram Bir’s. “If you touch our sister, Azrath’s wrath will follow you and your children and your children’s children. Your seed will be cursed until the end of time.”
“That might have been true once,” Tram Bir said coldly. “But we no longer fear foreign gods. We are the chosen of the Messiah.”
“And your sister is to be chosen by the son of the chief—if he likes what he sees,” Greth added in a mocking voice. He lowered his knife into the vee neck of Sara’s short leather tunic, edge out, and slashed down suddenly. She struggled futilely against the hard grip of grinning guards on each side, as the chiefs son pulled her slit garment open and exposed her shapely body to his father’s eyes.
“See,” he said, “there’s lots of meat on those bones.”
“Not enough for my taste,” Tram Bir said, “but you can take her back with you if you want to. Just see that you dispose of her before we leave for the gathering in the morning. As for those—” he gestured toward the male captives—”cut their throats.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Clansmen pounced on and rolled the defenseless captives onto their backs. Knives lifted and were about to slash down, when there was a sudden shout
“Chief, look! Your son Alt!”
A neelot was coming toward the group, a boyish figure slumped in the saddle, head hanging and eyes closed. The side of his mount glistened red where blood had run down it. The rider came to a stop a few meters from the chief and tried to straighten up.
“Father and chieftain, your orders have been carried out,” the boy said in an almost inaudible, faltering voice. “I tried to do you honor in the fight and… and…” His voice died away and he started to fall sideways. Hands caught him and lowered him gently to the ground. His father knelt beside him and opened the boy’s battle cloak. Extending from his side was a short length of broken spear shaft. The chief reached out his hand as if to grasp it, and then drew back.
“Hestor,” he said, looking up. “Can this be removed?”
A stooped man with an elder’s markings on his clan hood knelt beside Tram Bir. He took hold of the spear shaft and tugged at the splintered stub. The boy bit his lips and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a scream. Then he coughed and a bloody froth appeared.
“It’s barbed,” said the older man, rising to his feet “It cannot be removed. It would be useless to let the boy suffer any longer.”
For a moment, the chief gazed silently at his dying son. Then he reached down and drew a short, wide- bladed dagger from a sheath marked with ceremonial designs. He touched the tip of the blade to the boy’s throat and said in a low voice, “I offer my son to the Messiah. He dies a warrior’s death. At the appointed time, may he be lifted to Afterbliss with the rest.”
There was a hushed silence as he lifted the blade, and then a voice said quietly, “Our lives for his, Tram Bir. I can save your son.”
The chief turned his head toward the prisoners. “The spear is barbed,” he said harshly.
“Be that as it may,” McCoy said, “I can heal him. But it must be done quickly. He bleeds inside. Soon it will be too late.”
Tram Bir shook his head and turned back to his son.
“Beshwa have strange powers,” said the elder who had examined the boy’s wound. “Long ago they healed me of a fever when all else had failed.”
Tram Bir considered the advice silently for a moment. At last, slowly replacing the ceremonial dagger in its sheath, he rose to his feet.
“If it is as you say, old friend, they shall earn my gratitude. If it isn’t, they shall die… but not swiftly. Unbind them.”
Moments later, the now unconscious boy was lifted into the van and laid on one of the built-in bunks. Sara, holding her slit tunic together with one hand, climbed in, followed by McCoy.
“You two wait out here,” Kirk said to Chekov and Scott. He stepped up into the van and shut the door.
“All right, Bones,” he said, “how are you going to get out of this?”
McCoy seemed strangely unperturbed. “We’re still alive, aren’t we, Jim? Since your Azrath didn’t bail us out, somebody had to.”
“For how long?”
“Just watch. If you thought for one moment that I, a Starfleet surgeon, was going to land on a planet two
