Fors slipped and stumbled, splashing through small pools, following the route he had memorized as they came. The rain was slacking, it stopped entirely as he .reached the top of a pinnacle of rock and looked out again over the old airport. He could distinguish the bombed section and the building where they had found the maps. But he was more interested in what was directly below.
There was no fire—although his mind kept insisting that there should be one, for it was plain that he was spying upon a council. The circle of hunched figures bore an uncanny and, to him, unwholesome resemblance to the meetings of the elders in the Eyrie. The Things were squatting so that their bodies were only blotches—for that he was glad. Somehow he had no desire to see them more clearly. But one pranced and droned in the center of that circle, and the sounds it uttered were what had drawn Fors there.
He could distinguish gutturals which must be words, but they had no meaning for him. Arskane’s tongue and his own had once had a common base and it had not been difficult to learn each other’s speech? But this growling did not sound as if it were shaped by either lips or brain which were human.
What the leader urged he could not know, but what they might do as a result of that urging was important. The Beast Things were growing bolder with the years. At first they had never ventured beyond the edges of the cities. But now they would follow a trail beyond the ruins and perhaps they were sending scouts into the open country. They were a menace to the remaining humans—
The leader ended his or its speech abruptly. Now its too thin body turned and it pointed to the wasteland where Fors crouched, almost as if it had sighted the hidden watcher. The gesture was answered by a growl from its companions. One or two got to their feet and padded to the edge of the Blow-Up ground where their heads sank as they sniffer warily at the polluted soil. But it did not take them long to make up their minds. For they were gathering up their bundles of darts and forming into a sort of crude marching line.
Fors stayed just long enough to be sure that they were indeed coming, that whatever taboo had help them back no longer operated. Then he fled, skimming lightly at his sure woods’ pace, back to where he had left Lura and Arskane. The Beast Things did not seem too cheerful about their venture and their starting pace was slow. They walked as if they expected to find traps under their feet. There was hope that the pursued could keep ahead of them.
The mountaineer found Arskane impatient, Lura crouched on an outcrop, her eyes glowing in the dark. Fors grabbed up the equipment he had discarded as he gasped out his news.
“I have been thinking,” Arskane’s slower but deeper voice cut through his report. “We do not understand the weapons of the Old Ones, those which could make a desert such as this. Was there only one bomb which fell here, or were there more? But the heart of such a place would be more dangerous than its lip. If we head straight across we may be going to that death tradition promises for those who invade the ’blue places. But if we circle we may —”
“There is the matter of time. I tell you trackers run on our heels now.”
“Yes, and they track by scent. There is at hand an answer to that.”
Arskane’s moccasins plowed through a pool, sending up spray. Fors understood. The threat of stream might be their salvation after all. But, since the rain had ceased, the water was shrinking rapidly in volume, almost as if the rocky soil over which it ran was a sponge to suck it up.
Fors started ahead, his night sight picking out the pit-fals and bad footing for both of them. Sometimes it was only his hand which kept Arskane on his feet. The big man stumbled stubbornly on, his breath torn out of him in harsh gasps. Fors knew from the grip of cramp in his own leg muscles what tormented the other. But they must gain ground—gain it while the pursuers, still suspicious of the Blow-Up Land, traveled slowly.
Then, long after, Arskane fell and, although Fors allowed them both a rest, he could not get to his feet again. His head slumped forward on his chest and Fors saw that he was either unconscious or asleep, his mouth twisted with pain. But what was worse were the seeping stains on the bandage which still bound the wounded shoulder.
Fors pressed the palms of his hands against his burning eyes. He tried to think back—was it only last night they had slept in the city tower? It seemed a week behind them. They could not keep on at this rate, that was certain. Now that he relaxed against a sandy bank he was afraid he could not make the effort to get up again. He must keep. And there was the matter of food also. How large was this Blow-Up desert? What if they must go on and on across it—maybe for days?
But they would be dead before days passed. Would it be better to choose a likely place now and make a last stand against the Beast Things? He dug his eyes again. He dared not sleep now. Then he remembered Lura.
She lay flat on a ridge a little above them, licking one paw, pausing now and then to prick her ears and listen. Lura would nap too, but in her own fashion, and nothing could come to attack while she watched. His head fell back against Arskane’s limp arm and he slept.
10. CAPTURED!
The glare of sun reflected from the grease-slick surface of the bare rocks made Fors’ eyes ache. It was hard to keep plodding steadily along when raw hunger gnawed at one’s middle. But they had seen no game in this weird waste. And at the very worst he was not suffering as Ar-skane was. The southerner mumbled unintelligibly, his eyes were glazed, and it was necessary to lead him by the hand as if he were a tired child. The red stain on his bandaged shoulder was crusted and dried—at least he no longer lost blood he could ill afford to spare.
Where was the end of the Blow-Up country? If they had not traveled in circles they must have covered miles of its knife-edged valleys and rocky plateaus. And yet, still facing them at the top of each rise, was only more and more of the sick earth.
“Water—” Arskane’s swollen tongue pushed across cracked lips.
All the abundance of yesterday’s flood had vanished, absorbed- in the soil as if it had never existed. Fors steadied the big man against a rock and reached for his canteen. He did it slowly, trying to keep his hand from shaking. Not one precious drop must be spilled!
It was Arskane who did that. His eyes suddenly focused on the canteen and he grabbed for it. Water splashed over his hand and gathered in a depression of the stone. Fors looked at it longingly, but he still dared not swallow the fluid which had touched the tainted land here.
He allowed Arskane two swallows and then took the canteen away by force. Luckily the big man’s strength had ebbed so that he could control him. As Fors fastened the canteen onto his belt he glanced at the ground. What he saw there kept him still and staring.
From out of the shadow cast by a rock something was moving toward the spilled water. It was dark green, mottled with reddish-yellow patches, and man’s age-long distrust of a reptile almost made him send his boot crashing down on it. But in time he saw that it was not a snake that writhed across the ground, it was the long fleshy stem of a plant. Its flattened end wavered through the air and fell upon the water drops, arching over the moisture. Now the rest of the thing moved out to drink and Fors saw the three stiff leaves encircling a tall mid-dile spike which bore a red bulb. The plant drank and the suckered stem lifted to curl back against the leaves as the whole fantastic growth withdrew into the shade, leaving the watcher to wonder if thirst and hunger had played tricks with his eyes. Only on the stone was a damp mark covering the hollow where the water had been.
So there was life here—even if it were an alien life. Somehow Fors was heartened by that glimpse of the plant. It was true that he was used to vegetation which remained rooted. But in a slice of land as strange as this men might well stay in place while the plants walked abroad. He laughed at that—it seemed a very witty and enlightening thought and he repeated it proudly to Arskane as they moved on. But the southerner answered only with a mumble.
The journey went on with the quality of a nightmare. Fors managed to keep going, pulling Arskane to his feet again and again, heading on to landmarks he established ahead. It was easier to keep moving if one picked out a rock or one of the slippery earth dunes and held to it as a guide. Then, when that point was achieved, there was always another ahead to fix on in the same manner.
He was sometimes aware of movement in the shadows which lay blue-black under rocks and ledges. Whether colonies of the water plants lurked there or other inhabitants of this hell who spied upon travelers, he neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was to keep going and hope that sometime when they topped one of the ridges they
