any trace of either Nitra or Xik, though twice he crossed a fairly fresh yoris trail and once marked claw prints in a bank of soft earth that might have been the sign left by the monster of the heights Gorgol called the evil flyer.
He camped that night in a small side gully, a dry camp where he shared with Rain the contents of one of his canteens, and the stallion grazed disdainfully on some bunches of coarse grass already browning to summer death. But the morning came cool and cloudy and Storm pushed the pace, wanting to be out of these gorges if another cloudburst was brewing aloft, his lively imagination painting a vivid picture of what a sudden dash of water down these ways would mean to a trapped horse and its rider.
By midmorning the threatening clouds had not yet released their burden of water, and the Terran was cantering into the fringe of lowland that extended a tongue to the very foot of the Peaks. According to Logan, he should come across the first of the line cabins before nightfall and find within the communicator that would link him to all the range holdings of the district.
But Storm chanced upon the village first. The Staffa had cut a path across this level country and the Terran detoured to follow its west bank, sure that what he sought could not have been located too far from the necessary water. The rounded tent domes of a Norbie camp were a very welcome sight. He reined in, slung his bow so that he could show empty hands for the sentry, and waited. Only no sentry appeared to challenge him, and now, when he let Rain trot closer, Storm could sight no warriors about those tents. The continued eerie silence finally made him halt once more.
Norbie villages were never permanent affairs. You could come across the signs of old camp sites along any river in the right district. But neither was it customary for any clan to ride off and leave their curved roof poles standing, the hide and skin coverings stretched in place. Both possessions counted as part of the families’ wealth and were too hard to replace.
By the crimson strings marking the shield pole of the largest tent this was a Shosonna clan, allied to Gorgol’s people and friendly to the settlers. Had it suffered a Nitra raid? Storm kept Rain down to a walk and proceeded cautiously toward the tents. More Xik devilry?
“All right, rider! Stand where you are and keep your hands open!”
That voice came out of the blue – or rather lavender sky –as far as Storm could determine. But the bite in the tone was enough to lead the Terran to obey orders – for that moment anyway. He held up his hands, palm out, searching sky and ground for the invisible challenger.
“We’ve a far sighter on you, fella –”
So! Storm’s pride in his scout’s art revived a little. A far sighter could pick up a man a mile or more away. The unknown speaker could have cut him down before he even knew the other was in the country. But who was that unknown? Outlaws talking for the Xiks? Settlers? One guess was as good as another.
Rain snorted, stamped, and half turned his head toward his rider as if to ask what they were waiting for. Storm still watched the lodges before him, the waving grass of the plain, the banks of the stream, searching for some sign of the men he was sure were hidden there. His own impatience approached the boiling point. This was no time to play games of hide-and-seek. The sooner Logan had medical attention the better. And the knowledge of the Xik holdouts must be relayed to the authorities at once.
At last he deliberately dropped his hands. And that might have been an awaited signal, for three men stepped out of the chieftain’s tent in the village and began to walk toward him, their stun rods centred steadily on him.
“Dumaroy!” he said under his breath, “and Bister!” That was a combination he did not relish.
Coll Bister had fallen a step or so behind his companions and Storm, giving him his main attention, was sure the other had recognized him. A moment later he had oral proof of that.
“It’s that crazy Terran I told you about!” Bister must be purposely raising his voice it carried so well. “Run with the goats all the way down the trail to the Crossin’. Clean off his head, he is. And it looks like he’s teamed up with the horned boys for good.”
Dumaroy strode ponderously on, an impressive figure physically, and as dangerous in his own way as a frawn bull. Storm knew his type. If the settler had already made up his mind, nothing could change his point of view.
“Why the holdup, Dumaroy?” the Terran asked mildly, in his most gentle voice. “I’m glad to meet you. Back in the Peaks –”
Once before Storm had been a target for a stun rod and had suffered the consequences. But then he had not taken the beam dead centre. This was worse than any blow, almost as bad as the wild tumult he had ridden out in the backlash of the Xik projector. He did not realize that he had fallen from the saddle pad until he was lying dazed on the ground, the sky swirling madly over him and a faint shouting making a clamour in his ears.
He felt hands turn him over roughly, secure his wrists, taking him prisoner as he tumbled into a dark pit of unconsciousness. His last weak thought was that one of the three had shot him without warning. And Bister’s broad face was in the picture. Only there was something wrong with that face – something wrong with Bister – and it was important that Storm understand that wrongness, very important to him.
15
The torturing headache that was the result of being stun rayed provided a fierce rhythm over and under Storm’s eyes. And his eyes hurt in the bargain when he forced them open. But a feeling of urgency carried over from the past and the Terran fought for control over mind and body. His tentative struggles informed him that he had been staked out on the ground and that every pull he gave to his bonds heightened the pounding in his head.
The time was early evening, Storm judged, as he squinted at the daylight between half-closed lids, and he could hear the coming and going, the inconsequential talk of riders in camp around him. In spite of his sick dizziness the Terran concentrated on picking up what information he could from their conversations.
Piece by piece, half-heard sentences built an ugly picture indeed. Some of what Logan had feared had already come to pass. Dumaroy’s main herd had been raided and the trail of the stolen beasts led straight to the Shosonna river bank camp, which the aroused riders had attacked in retaliation. Luckily the Norbies had fled in time and there had been no killing, though when the riders pursued them, two men had been badly wounded by arrows.
Dumaroy was now awaiting reinforcements, determined to track down the Shosonna back in the hills and teach them a drastic lesson. He had sent out a call to rally all able-bodied settlers as there were signs that the retreating Shosonna band had crossed fresh Nitra trails and the original posse feared a uniting of the two native clans against the settlers’ expedition.
Let there once be a real battle between Norbie and settler and Xik plans would be well on the way to complete realization. The holdout outlaws could continue to needle both sides without loss of either secrecy or any of their own numbers. That is, it might have worked that way had not Storm reached the settlers. But surely once he had a chance to tell his story Dumaroy would have to reconsider, to wait for the Peace Officers. Bister – somehow Coll Bister had an important part. Storm was as certain, as if he had seen him do it, that Bister had rayed him before he could give his information. What sort of a tale had the other concocted while the Terran lay unconscious to explain that raying without warning, to supply a valid reason for keeping the other prisoner?
That Storm was friendly toward the natives was not strong enough. Too many of the settlers felt the same way. As a Terran he could be suspected of mental instability – had Bister played that angle? It was a hard one to refute. Everyone had heard the rumours out of the Centre and Bister had travelled with him from the Port to the Crossing – Nobody here he could appeal to –
Since the Terran could not raise his head more than an inch or so his range of vision was necessarily quite limited and those men he sighted were all strangers. Dort Lancin had a range in the Peak area, and if the settlers came in at the summons to back Dumaroy, he should arrive sooner or later. Dort Lancin was a staunch supporter of the pro-Norbie party and he could speak for Storm. But the Terran fumed inwardly over the waste of time.
Bister – that was Bister approaching now. On impulse Storm closed his eyes. A sharp tug on the rope about his ankles sent a quiver of pure agony through his head and he had difficulty in remaining still. Then followed a similar jerk at the wrists extended above his head. Scuff of boots on the ground – a grunt. Storm dared to peek. Bister was standing, his attention distracted by the sound of galloping horses.
Storm watched the settler as one fighting man measures another – an enemy – during a momentary truce. The fellow was a puzzle. He nourished hatred for Storm, had disliked the Terran from the first, for no reason Storm could fathom. If Bister were true to type, he would have been only too eager to mix it up physically. Yet Storm had mastered him without difficulty at their first embroilment and thereafter Bister had tried to get others to do his fighting for him – almost as if his impressive body, his cover of trail bully, was only the outer husk of a very different personality.
