Norton, Andre - Brother To Shadows

So they won through to day again. Taynad reported that the watcher had withdrawn sometime in the early predawn and that the Jat had shown no fear concerning it.

They had to insist that Zurzal eat—he was as a child before a feast day—so eager to be at what he would do that nothing else mattered. With Jofre's help the scanner was once more mounted and then there was a tedious space of waiting as the Zacathan applied measurements and adjustments, making sure that the instrument aimed directly down, not across the central one of those ditches.

THEY WERE NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT CAME WITH less warning than a mountain storm. The sound tore through the brazen sky, something totally foreign to this place which had so been forgotten by time.

A shadow swept over the plateaus like a giant Kag preparing to dive on prey—though that airborne craft did not indeed skim as close to them as the sound suggested.

Jofre had thrown himself flat, taking Zurzal down with him, half covering the Zacathan's body with his own. He was prepared in one instant of recognition to feel the sear of laser fire catching them both.

But the flitter's occupants had not taken their advantage and the aircraft swept on, over the hump of the cone— northward. They had been such easy prey that Jofre could not believe for an instant or two that they seemed to have been ignored.

It was a screaming cry from the Jat which brought him up to his knees, half-slewed around. Yan was pulling at Taynad, striving to drag her from where she had prudently gone prone at the passing of the flitter, toward them. Why became understandable almost immediately.

The edge of that cut which bisected the plateau suddenly had developed a series of humps along its edge, moving things which flowed up and over as if they were part of some giant flood imprisoned below and determined now to be free.

Sword-knife in one hand, the barbed length of chain in the other, Jofre tried to settle his weight evenly, be prepared to meet that dash. The Zacathan had drawn his stunner but against this wave that would be little good. Taynad moved in, the Jat leaping up and down at her side and screaming. It stooped to scrabble up an armload of stones, nursing those against its small body as potential weapons.

The creatures from the chasm resembled Skrem—but of a different kind than those who had companied with them earlier. These were larger; they did not ride but scuttled at a speed which hardly seemed possible toward the beleaguered off-worlders.

The Zacathan's weapon hissed and the first line of the charge twisted and went down, frozen in the cords of stass. However, that was only a portion of those arranged against them.

Jofre's eyes narrowed, he measured distances, the footing before him, and then with the ear-splitting, heart-stopping cry of the issha, he went into action, meeting the first three of those who had tramped over their kind with the whirling hooked chain. One of those hooks caught under the edge of the helmetlike head covering of the foremost, and the force of the swing whirled the native off his feet, smashing him into his closest fellow.

Jofre was back in a crouch. The tip of his knife had caught the third at the point where a human would have had a chin and sent it down as cleanly as the chain had taken the others.

A rock flew past Jofre to strike another Skrem flat on the head so it staggered and fell. Then another and another such projectile flew with skillful aim. It was not only Yan who was the marksman. Taynad had joined him, proving herself an expert with even such crude weapons. Still they came.

Zurzal had had time to thumb another charge into his hand weapon and this he now discharged, adding to the line of motionless bodies.

The Skrem had made no sound when they attacked; only Jofre's cry had broken the silence. Now they could hear again the beat of the flitter engine. Jofre's shoulders stiffened. They had them at their mercy, those in the flitter, for he was very sure that the crew of that was not coming to their rescue.

Yet, it would seem that he had been wrong. The Skrem milled around on the edge of the cut, now forming another attack line. Yan was screaming again, jumping up, trying to catch at the Zacathan's maimed arm, draw his attention. Zurzal attempted to fend off the Jat and still keep his weapon poised.

Once more the flitter banked, withdrew towards the hillock, and the wild Skrem gathered. How many charges they could hold off Jofre dared not try to guess. He believed he did know what those in the flitter had in mind—the wearing down, even the death of him and his companions, whereupon they could move in and take what they wanted. Yet surely those aloft must have superior arms on board—why this cat-and-mouse play with them and the wild Skrem? Except perhaps that they needed Zurzal to operate the machine and so were willing to keep their attackers at bay for now lest they destroy the scanner.

The Jat turned away from Zurzal and threw itself at the scanner while Zacathan, with a hissing cry, his neck frill an engorged crimson, clutched vainly after him. But the maneuver of the Jat brought the Zacathan's hand down on the controls.

There was a sound which drowned out the flitter. Jofre saw that machine tremble in the air, dip sidewise, as if its equilibrium was disturbed. Color, sound burst from behind. Jofre, by the very weight of that blow on his ears, was pushed against one of the rocks which had been part of their shelter for the night. It took some seconds for his eyes to adjust to the flow of images, so merged one with the other that it was difficult to see any one clearly. There appeared to be beings mounted and riding. Someone dressed not unlike the Axe was haranguing a mob of people into which the mounted warriors flowed and comingled—then the whole scene began to flicker at the edges—

Jofre was half knocked from his place by the thud of a small body against him. He threw out an arm to fend the Jat off, still so bemused by that swirl of pictures before him that he did not defend himself fully against that scrabbling paw.

Yan was gone, swallowed up by the play of pictures in the air fanning out farther and farther from the center point of the cone hill which was no longer that, but a great, towered keep more imposing than the largest of the Lairs.

The—the stone—the stone was gone! Jofre stumbled away from the rock support. Yan had taken his stone. Then—

There was no more change, weaving, misting about what he was watching. Instead it steadied into a clear stretch of a different world. The mounted warriors charged the crowd gathered around the priest. People who resembled the maned natives of the present produced weapons from beneath their robes, cut at the mounts, dragged riders like the Skrem from their beasts.

It was so real! Jofre edged closer to the rock and felt a body beside him. Taynad's breath came fast against his cheek. Forgotten was the attack from the chasm beasts. There was certainly no flitter in the air over this battle which they watched rage back and forth across a city so long lost that there was not even a dim memory of it left.

From the towered citadel issued more troops—these on foot. They were real, three-dimensional. Jofre could see them as well as if he had been there on the day when all this had happened.

Footmen fought footmen; those who were the priest's followers showed such ferocity one could only believe that they had good reason to hate the fortress guard. There were leaders standing out among them now. The priest was swept from his command position by a red-maned warrior who was a woman! Jofre could hear ancient screams, echoing from so far down the corridors of time that they were but whispers.