Two of the Beast Things were already but skeletons and the pack of the valley’s inhabitants were fast at work on the others, a line of laden porters tramping up to the cave entrances while their fellows below swung tiny knives with the same skill with which the martyrs had earlier wielded their sickles.
“Look there—to the left of that rock—” Although Arkane’s touch made pain shoot along the length of his arm Fors obediently looked.
There was a pile of stuff there. Fors identified the remnants of his leggings and a belt such as was worn by the Beast Things. But a glint of color just beyond the haphazard pile of loot was more interesting. It stood in a tiny hollow of the wall—three blue rods—just about a finger high—familiar-Fors’ puzzlement vanished. Those rods—they were the little figures he had brought from the museum in the Star pouch. Now they were set up—and before the feet of each was a pile of offerings!
They were gods. And with a sudden shock of illumination he knew why the lizard folk did them honor.
“Arskane! Those figures—there in that hollow—they are the ones I brought from the museum—and they are making offerings to them—worshiping them!”
The southerner rubbed his hand down his jaw in the familiar gesture which signified puzzlement. Then he fumbled in the traveling pouch at his own belt and brought out a fourth figure.
“They do it, don’t you see—because of this!” Fors indicated the small head of the carving. Although the figure was human the head was that of a hook-billed bird of prey.
“One of those figures down there has the head of a lizard—or at least it looks like a lizard!”
“So. And thus—yes—I can see it!”
Arskane started down the slope and from his lips came the hissing cry he had used before. There was a flicker of movement. Fors blinked. The workers were gone, had melted into the cover of the rocks leaving the floor of the valley deserted.
The southerner waited, with a hunter’s patience, one minute, two, before he hissed again. He was holding out between two fingers the bird-headed statue and its blue glaze was sharp and clear. Perhaps it was that which drew the lizard leaders from their cover.
They came warily, gliding around stones so that only the most intent watcher could sight them. And, Fors also saw with apprehension, they had their thorn spears with them. But Arskane was well above the line where those balls of clay had fallen. And now he put the blue figure down on the ground and retreated with long-legged strides uphill.
It was the statue which drew them. Three came together, flitting along with their peculiar scuttle. When they were within touching distance of the figure they stopped, their heads darting out at strange angles, as if to assure themselves that this was no trap-bait.
As one of them laid a paw upon the offering, Arskane moved, not toward them but in the direction of the pile of loot. He went cautiously, examining the ground by inches, paying no outward attention to the lizards. They stood frozen where they were, only their eyes following him.
Deliberately and methodically the southerner turned over what lay there. When he came back he carried Fors’ boots and what was left of the “mountaineer’s clothing, passing the lizards as if they were not there. After he had passed by the leader grabbed the blue figure and darted away around a rock, his two fellows almost treading on his tail. Arskane came up slope with the same unhurried pace but there were beads of rrioisture across his forehead and cheeks.
Fors sat down and worked the boots over his sore feet. When he got up he looked once more into the valley. The workers were still skulking in their holes but there were now four instead of three blue figures standing in the rock shrine.
The next day they started south, leaving the queer Blow-Up land well behind them. And the second day they were deep in open fields where patches of self-sown grain rippled ripely under the sun.
Fors paused, half over a stone wall, to listen. The sound he had caught was too faint and low pitched for thunder, and it kept within the boundaries of a well-deHned rhythm. “Wait!”
As Arskane stopped Fors realized where he had heard that before—it was the voice of a signal drum. And when he said so Arskane dropped down beside the stones, putting his ear to the ground. But the message ended too soon. The southerner got to his feet again, frowning.
“What—?” ventured Fors.
“That was the recall. Yes, you were right and it was a talking drum of my people and what it said is all bad. Evil comes now upon them and they must call back all spears to stand in defense of the clan—”
Arskane hesitated and Fors plunged.
“I am not a spearman, or now even a bowman. But still I wear a sword at my belt and I possess some skill in handling it. Shall we go?”
“How far?” he added another question some breathless minutes later. Arskane had taken him at his word and the steady lope which the southerner had set as their pace was easier matched by Lura’s four feet than Fors’ two.
“I can only guess. That drum was fashioned to summon across the desert country. Here it may be farther from us than it sounds.”
Twice more that day they heard the summons rumble across the distant hills. It would continue to sound at intervals, Arskane said, until all the roving scouts returned. That night the two sheltered in a grove of trees, but they did not light a fire. And before daylight they were on the trail once more.
Fors had not lost his sense of direction but this was new country, unknown to him from any account of the Star Men. The trip across the Blow-Up land had taken them so far off the territory on any map he had ever seen ±hat he was entirely lost. He began to wonder privately if he could have returned to the Eyrie as he had so blithely planned, or made that trip without retracing his way through the city. This land was wide and the known trails very, very few.
On the third day they came to the river, the same one, Fors believed, he had crossed before. It was swollen with rain and they spent the better part of the day making a raft on which to cross. The current tore them off their course for several miles before they could make the leap ashore on the opposite side.
At sunset they heard the drum again and this time the throbbing was close to thunder. Arskane seemed to relax, he had had his proof that they were heading in the right direction. But as he listened to the continued roll, his hand went to the hilt of his knife.
“Danger!” He was reading the words out of the beat. “Danger — death — walks — danger — death — in — the — night—”
“It says that?”
He nodded. “The drum talk. But never before have I heard it speak those words. I tell you, brother, this is no common danger which sets our drums to such warnings. Listen!”
Arskane’s upheld hand was not neded for Fors had caught the other sound before his companion had spoken. That light tap-tap was an answer, it was less carrying that the clan signal, but it was clear enough.
And again Arskane read the message: “Uran here-coming—That is Uran of the Swift Arm, the leader of our scouts. He ventured west as I came north at the faring forth. And—”
Once more the lighter sound of a scout’s drum interrupted him.
“Balakan comes, Balakan comes. Now,” Arskane moistened his lips, “there remains only Noraton who has not replied. Noraton—and I who cannot!”
But, though they waited tensely for long minutes, there was no other reply. Instead, after the period of silence, the clan signal broke again, to roll across the open fields, continuing so at intervals through the night.
They paused only to eat at dawn, keeping to the steady trot. But now the drum was silent and Fors thought that quiet ominous. He did not ask questions. Arskane’s scowl was now permanent and he pressed on almost as if he had forgotten those who ran with him.
For smoother footing they took to one of the Old Ones’ roads which went in the right direction and when it turned again moved into a game trail, splashing through a brook Lura took with a single bound. Deer flashed white tails and were gone. And now Fors saw something else. Black shapes wheeled across the sky. As he watched one broke away and drifted to earth. He caught at Arskane’s swinging arm.
“The death birds!” He dragged the southerner to a stop. Where the death birds fed there was always trouble.
