Andre Norton - Daybreak—2250 A.D.

Then came a tray with a spoon and bowl and a small cup of the same bitter drink he had brewed under Arskane’s direction in the museum. The corn mush had been cooked with bits of rich meat and the stimulating drink was comforting in his middle.

He must have dozed off afterward because when he roused it was night outside and the crimson flames of the fire and the lesser beams of a lamp fought against the shadows. A hand placed on his forehead had brought him awake. Arskane knelt beside him and there were two others beyond. Fors levered himself up.

“What—” He was still half asleep.

“My father wishes to speak with you—”

Fors gathered his wits. One of the men facing him now was a slightly older edition of his friend. But the other wore about his throat a pair of silver wings fastened to a chain of the same stuff.

The chieftain was smaller than his sons and his dark skin was seamed and cracked by torrid winds and blistering suns. Across his chin was the ragged scar of an old and badly healed wound. Now and again he rubbed at this with a forefinger as if it still troubled him.

“You are Fors of the mountain clans?”

Fors hesitated. “I was of those clans. But now I am outlaw—”

“The Lady Nephata gave him earth—”

Arskane was both interrupted and effectively silenced by a single sharp look from his father.

“My son has told us something of your wanderings. But I would hear more of this Plainsmen encampment and what chanced with you there—”

For the second time Fors repeated his outline of recent events. When he had finished the Chief favored him with the same sort of intimidating glare which had worked on his son a few minutes before. But Fors met it forthrightly.

“You, Ranee,” the Chief turned to the young man with him, “will alert the scouts against this trouble and make the rounds of the western outposts every hour. If an attack offers, the two beacons on the round hills must be fired. That you must keep ever in the minds of the men—”

“You see, rover”—the Chief spoke over his shoulder, addressing a shadow near the door, and for the first time Fors noted a fourth man there—“we do not go to war as to a banquet-as these Plainsmen seem to do. But if it be necessary then we can fight! We who have faced the wrath of the thunder lizards and taken their hides to make our shields of ceremony—”

“Do not greatly fear the lances of mere men.” The Star Captain appeared faintly amused. “Perhaps you are right, Lanard. But do not forget that the Beast Things are also abroad and they are less than men-or more!”

“Since I have ordered the war drums for more than the lifetime of this my youngest son, I do not forget one danger when faced by another, stranger!”

“Your pardon, Lanard. Only a fool tries to teach the otter to swim. Let war be left to the warriors—”

“Warriors who have sat too long at their ease!” snapped the chieftain. “To your posts, all of you!”

Arskane and his brother went, the chieftain stamping out impatiently after them. Fors started to follow.

“Wait!”

There was the crack of a whip in that one word. Fors stiffened. Jarl had no power of command over him-not even the faintest shadow of power if he was an outlaw. But he dropped his hand on Lura’s head and waited.

“These people,” Jarl continued with the same harsh abruptness, “may be broken between two enemies. It is not in their nature to back trail and in their own country there has been nothing they could not vanquish. Now they have come into this new land and fight on strange territory against those who are familiar with it. They face worse than they can imagine-but if that truth is told them they will not believe it.”

Fors made no comment and after a moment the Star Captain went on:

“Langdon was my good friend always, but there was a streak of rashness in him and he did not always see the road ahead with clear eyes—”

At this criticism of his father Fors stirred but he did not speak.

“You have already, youth that you are, broken the clan laws-going your own way in pride and stubbornness—”

“I ask for nothing of the Eyrie’s giving!”

“That is as it may be. I have twice heard your tale-you have a liking for this Arskane, I think. And you have eyes and a talent for getting under the skin of a man. This Marphy is one whom we might well remember. But Cantrul is a fighting man and of a different breed. Give him something to fight and he may be more open to other thoughts when the victory lies behind him. Very well, it is up to us to give him something to fight-something other than this tribe!”

“What—?” Fors brought only the one word out of his vast amazement.

“Beast Things. A well-baited trail could lead them north to the Plains camp.”

Fors began to guess what was coming. He swallowed, his mouth and throat suddenly dry. To be bait for the Beast Things, to run north a pace or two before the most hideous death he knew-

“Such a task could be only ours alone—”

“You mean-not tell Lanard?”

“It would be best not. The plan would have no merit in their eyes now. You-you are an outlaw-a stranger who might well have little stomach for a fight not his. If you were to desert this camp, run away—”

Fors’ nails bit into the palms of his balled fists. To appear a skin-saving coward in Arskane’s eyes-just because Jarl had dreamed up so wild a plan-And yet part of him acknowledged the point of the Star Captain’s reasoning.

“If the Plainsmen and this tribe fight-then it may well follow that the Beast Things shall finish off both of them.” “You do not have to point it out to me as one and one are two,” Fors spat out. Somewhere a childish voice was humming. And the brother of that child had brought him whole out of the valley of the lizards.

“When do I march?” he asked the Star Captain, hating him and every word he himself spoke.

Again Fors was grateful for the mutation which had given him the keenness of his night sight. For almost an hour he had been wriggling down an ancient roadside ditch as a hanger-on of the small party of dark-skinned warriors whom Arskane now led. The broken surface of the nearby road was steel bright in the beams of the full moon, but he was sure that only he could see clearly what passed in the shadows beyond.

He was glad for the weight of bow and quiver across his shoulders-although the bow was the short, double-stringed weapon of the southerners and not the long one he was accustomed to. However, one sword was much like another and the new one at his belt already fitted his hand as if it had been forged to rest therein.

If it had not been for JarFs plan he could have been really happy in that hour. To follow Arskane as one of his own tribe-to be accepted without question by those around him-But he was now pledged to put an end to that by his own actions-as soon as the time was right. Jarl was scouting to the west, the same compulsion driving him. They might be able to rendezvous after their break away from the tribe or they might never see each other again. Fors sent a silent call to Lura. If they did strike out into the wilderness tonight he would have to depend upon her wits and instinct-even more than upon his own.

The old road curved around the base of a rise. Fors stopped-had he really seen a flicker of movement in a bush halfway up that hill? His hand fell on the ankle of the man before him and he pressed hard, knowing that that signal would be as swiftly passed down the line.

That flash of cream white, that must be Lura crossing the road and heading up. But what he had caught only the faintest glimpse of had been far above that. Lura should rout it cut-There was a sudden scurry on the slope and Fors saw the outline of a crouching body. The sharp line of the thing’s shoulders was only too familiar. “Beast Thing!”