But before the day was behind them Simon was to leam that that vaunted safety of the mountains was only as strong as those frail bird bodies. They were examining the supplies looted from the train and Simon set aside a portion intended for the Eyrie, when he heard the hail of a camp sentry and the answer of a Falconer. Welcoming the chance to let the latter transport the hawkmen’s share and so save his men a trip, Simon came forward eagerly.
The rider had not followed custom. His bird-head helm was closed as if he rode among strangers. It was not that alone which stopped Simon before he gave greeting. The men of his band were alert, drawing in a circle. Simon felt it, too, that prickle of awaking surmise, just as he had known it before.
Without stopping to reason, he hurled himself at the silent rider and his hands caught at the other’s weapon belt. Simon knew fleeting wonder that the hawk perched on the saddle horn did not rouse as he attacked its master. His lunge caught the Falconer by surprise and the fellow had no time to draw his arms. But he made a quick recovery, slumping his whole weight on Simon, bearing him under him to the ground, where mailed gloved hands tore for Tregarth’s throat.
It was like tangling with a steel-muscled, iron-fleshed thing, and within seconds Simon knew that he had attempted the impossible — what was encased in the Falconer’s covering could not be subdued with bare hands. Only he was not alone; other hands plucked that fighter off him, held the man pinned to the ground, though the stranger struggled wildly.
Simon, rubbing his scratched throat, got to his knees. “Unhelm!” He gasped the order, and Ingvald worked at the helm straps, jerking them free at last.
They gathered around the men who held the captive down, for his struggles did not stop. The Falconers were an inbred race with a dominate physical type — reddish hair and brown-yellow eyes like their feathered servants. By his looks this was a true man of the breed. Yet Simon and every man in that clearing knew that what they held was no normal member of the mountain country.
“Rope him tight!” Simon ordered. “I think, Ingvald, we have found what we have been wishing for.” He went over to the horse which had carried the pseudo-hawkman into their camp. The animal’s hide glistened with sweat, threads of foam spun at the bit hooks; it might have been ridden in a grueling race. And its eyes were wild, showing rims of white. But when Simon reached for the reins it did not try to escape, standing with a drooping head as great shudders moved its sweat-soaked skin.
The hawk had remained quiet, no flap of wings or hissing beak to warn Simon off. He reached up and plucked the bird from its perch, and the minute his fingers closed upon that body he knew he did not hold a living creature.
With it in his hand he turned to his lieutenant. “Ingvald, send Lathor, Kara,” he named the two most accomplished scouts in his command. “Let them ride to the Eyrie. We must know how far the rot has spread. If they find no damage done there, let them give warning. For proof of their tale,” he stooped to pick up the bird helm of their prisoner, “let them take this. I believe it is of Falconer making, yet,” he walked over to the bound man, still silent, still watching them with eyes of mad hate,”I cannot quite believe that this is one of them.”
“We do not take him also?” asked Kam, “or the bird?”
“No, we open no doors which are not already breached. We need safe disposal for this one for a space.”
“The cave by the waterfall, Captain.” Waldis, a boy of Ingvald’s homestead who had tracked his master to the mountains, spoke up. “One sentry at the entrance can keep it safe and none know of it save us.”
“Good enough. You will see to it, Ingvald.”
“And you, Captain?”
“I am going to backtrail this one. It may be that he did ride from the Eyrie. If that is true, the sooner we know the worst the better.”
“I do not think so. Captain. At least if he did, it was not by any straight trail. We are well to the westward of the hold. And he entered from the path leading to the sea. Santu,” he spoke to one who had helped to rope the prisoner, “do you go and take outpost on this trail and send in Caluf who first challenged him.”
Simon threw the saddle on his own horse, and added a bag with rations. On top he thrust in the dummy falcon. Whether this was one of the counterfeit flying things, he could not tell as yet, but it was the first intact one they had. He finished just as Caluf ran in.
“You are sure he came from the west?” Simon pressed the question.
“I will swear it on the Stone of Engis if you wish, Captain. The hawkmen do not care greatly for the sea, though they serve the traders at times as marines. And I did not know they patrolled the shore cliffs. But he rode straight between those notched rocks which give upon the way to the cove we mapped five days ago, and he moved as one who knew the trail well.”
Simon was more than a little disturbed. The cove of their recent discovery had been a ray of hope for the establishment of better communication with the north. It was not endangered by reefs and shoals such as fanged too much of the coastline and Simon had planned for the use of small vessels to harbor there, transporting north refugees, and returning with supplies and arms for the border fighters. If that cove was in enemy hands he wanted to know it, and at once.
As he left the clearing, with Caluf and another riding behind him, Simon’s mind was again working on two levels. He noted the country about him with an alert survey for landmarks and natural features which might be used in future defensive or offensive action. But beneath that surface activity he was pushing under the constant preoccupation with safety, food, shelter — the job at hand — his own private concerns.
Once, in prison, he had had time to explore the depths within himself. And the paths he had hewn had been bleak, freezing him into a remoteness of spirit which had never thawed since that day. The give and take of barracks life, of companionship in field service he could assume as a cover, but nothing ate below that cover — or he had not allowed it to.
Fear he understood. But that was a transitory emotion which usually spurred him into action of one sort or another. In Kars he had been attracted in another way, and had fought free. Once he had believed that when he took Petronius’ gate he would be a complete man again.
But so far that was not true. Ingvald had spoken of demon possession, but what if a man did not possess himself?
He was always a man standing apart watching another occupied with the business of living. Alien — these men he led knew it in him. Was he another of the odd mistaken pieces strewn about this world, pieces which did not fit, one with the machines out of their time and the riddle of the Kolder? He sensed that he was on the brink of some discovery, one which would mean much to not only himself but to the cause he had chosen.
Then that second, prying, stand-aside self was banished by the Captain of raiders as Simon caught sight of a branch of a tree, warped by mountain storms, as yet lacking leaves. It was stark against the afternoon sky and the burden it bore, dangling in small, neatly fashioned loops, was starker yet.
He spurred ahead and sat gazing up at the three small bodies swaying in the breeze, the gaping beaks, the glazed eyes, the dangling, crooked claws still bearing their bracelets of scarlet jesses and small, silvery discs. Three of the true falcons, their necks wrung, left to be found by the next traveler along the way. “Why?” Caluf asked.
“A warning, maybe, or something more.” Simon dismounted and tossed his reins to the other. “Wait here. If I am not back within a reasonable time, return to Ingvald and report. Do not follow, we cannot afford to waste men uselessly.”
Both men protested, but Simon silenced them with a decisive order before he entered the brush. There was evidence in plenty of those who had been there, broken twigs, scraps of boots on moss, a piece of torn jess strap. He was moving closer to the shore; the sound of the surf could be heard, and what he sought had certainly come from the cove.
Simon had been over that path twice, and he set himself to recall a mental picture of the country. Unfortunately the small valley which gave on the shore was lacking in cover. And the crags on either side were as bald. He would have to try one of those, which meant a roundabout route and some tough climbing. Doggedly he got to it.
As he had crept up to Volt’s Hole so did he travel now, crevice, ledge, hand and foothold. Then he crawled on his belly to the edge and looked down into the cove.
Simon had expected many things — a bare strip of sand with no sign of any invasion, a party from Karsten,
