The Key to Irunium

VI

Savagely, Dalreay hauled Prestin past the end of the earth-cut steps. They crouched in a narrow recess gouged from the living jeweled rock, their ears ringing with the clangor of falling gem stones, their eyes blinded by the thick dust and the roiling clouds of rock chips; any single flying glint of rock could blind them forever if it struck their fleshy eyeballs. Prestin, hands over his face, cowered down and felt his fear lashing him unmercifully.

“I didn’t expect this!” choked Dalreay.

“How much powder did you use?” Prestin let the disgust rise to fight the fear. “Haven’t you any idea?”

“Of course I don’t know!” Dalreay spat out dust and rock chips. The dust whirled about their heads, sucked back and driven up as the air billowed in response to falling sections of roof. A glittering gray mass of rock and rubble poured down the steps, obliterating them. The noise rumbled like the inferno on Saturday night overtime.

Prestin pushed himself harder into the crevice.

“If Nodger were here I’d—I’d shove him into the rock fall!” Dalreay was really worked up. “He told me it would go well—strike another blow for our freedom, he said! Why—I’ll—”

“Who’s Nodger?”

“Him? He’s the most brainless, most useless, most sinful pile of offal this side of the Cabbage Patch.” Dalreay stopped shouting and wiped streaky fingers down the dust and sweat of his face. His beard stiffened, caked in dust. Their hair and eyebrows made them look like millers.

“It’s stopping.”

“By Amra, if it doesn’t the whole roof will cave in. We’ll be buried alive.”

“I thought,” Prestin swallowed and tasted flat dust, “I thought we were.”

“Maybe so. But we don’t know yet. This will bring Honshi, Trugs, rabble, maybe even a few Valcini themselves.” He stood up and bashed angrily at the dust on his green clothes. “We’ve got to find a way out before we’re caught.”

A single glance up the steps showed Prestin that no one was going in or out that way again until a million man hours with shovels had been put in. He felt dry.

Obediently, he followed Dalreay over the sprawled rock shards of the corridor. His eyes hurt and his feet hurt and his mouth felt drier than the rock dust caking his tongue.

“You wouldn’t, by any chance, Todor, have a drink?”

“No. And who gave you permission to use my own name?”

“Your own name—? Oh—I thought it was a title, like, mister—” Prestin licked his lips—unsuccessfully—and eyed Dalreay’s sword uneasily. The green had been cleaned off on the Honshi’s clothes, but the memory of it lingered. So did its smell.

“Todor is my own name. I do not know yours.”

“Robert. Robert Infamy Prestin.”

“So, Roberto—”

“Bob.”

“Bob. We have no water. We will walk until we find a way out. If we must kill guards, Honshi or Trugs, then we will do so. We cannot afford to lose now through any weakness of the flesh. Si?”

“Si,” said Prestin, and slogged on after his leader.

They reached the point at which their original explosion had brought down the ceiling and triggered off the fall down the steps shaft, and Prestin wondered what Dalreay would do. Obviously, they could not go on. The dust still drifted mindlessly in the air, the gems sparkled through it with an eerie persistent, glow, not a glitter, and Prestin’s eyes pained him badly.

“Through here.” Dalreay guided him roughly toward the wall.

A crevice had opened, a crack not more than eighteen inches wide. Dalreay slid through easily. Prestin followed with more difficulty, but he pushed on. Dalreay knew what he was doing. The ban on noise had long since passed, and as they edged their way along the crack Prestin heard swords and javelins clanking merrily against the encrusted walls. One good thing—a crack in the wall here brought its own light.

Sweat stung him, he panted for air, his arms and legs ached, but still he crabbed on after Dalreay, too scared of being left behind to stop for a breather.

How long he pushed and struggled on he didn’t know; he did not consult his wristwatch for he felt that he could not register time in this mad universe.

Dalreay halted with a sibilant hiss for quiet.

Tensely, the two men peered ahead where the crack, now widening, showed a darkness that struck back against the jeweled glow like a flung arc of ink.

Noises spurted from beyond the darkness—curiously muffled voices, laughter, a snatch of song, the trill of a guitar.

“Guards and their women,” said Dalreay viciously. “We must have bypassed the main workings, going parallel to the center passage. The whole place is interlaced with tunnels and runnels and cracks. It’s a common phenomenon in jewel workings.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Prestin meaningfully.

“Well, we’ve just got to go on. There’s certainly no way back.”

They ventured into the darkness where the gems’ sparkle ended and found their way blocked by a wooden door, studded with bronze.

“Looks as though the guards have a back door.” Prestin rubbed his hands thoughtfully over the stained wood. “This must be their way out.”

“And that means the passageway to the side must lead them to safety.” Dalreay chuckled. “Now it will lead us.”

The way became more difficult in the darkness but both men were now buoyed by hope that they would escape this rat maze with their lives. Soon a low opening showed grayly ahead. Dalreay put his head through, grunted deeply, and began to wriggle out.

“It’s clear,” he said. “Come on, Bob.”

They emerged into a vast cavern—it must have seemed larger to him than it really was, Prestin surmised, because of the previous claustrophobic tunnel—whose dim radiance poured into it from a high crenellation artificially formed against the groined roof. The place smelled unpleasantly of decayed fish.

“These are the Lancarno caves,” Delreay said joyfully. “All the time a back door to the Valcini mines and we never knew!”

“Well,” said Prestin sourly, his thirst almost unbearable, “you know now.”

They began to pick their way carefully over the littered floor. With grotesque rock formations rising on every side, in the dimness Prestin missed the sparkle of the jeweled rocks. Only the easement of the intolerable pain of his eyes gave him comfort. When he heard the tinkling plashing of water over rock he hurled himself ahead, sprawling full length to cup great double-handfuls of water into his mouth, slobbering and gasping and feeling the crystal water cut channels through the dust of his throat.

Dalreay joined him more delicately, and when Prestin sat up at last, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth so that drops flew, he was reminded of that story in the Bible of the choice between fighters and behind-the-lines men. He couldn’t have cared less.

Pushing on after that, they crossed areas of gravel and hard ridged outcroppings that took a toll on Prestin’s shoes—Dalreay wore leather ones hand-cobbled with an eye to strength rather than appearance—and reached a low arched opening beyond which they caught a glimpse of sky and cloud and a great bird wheeling in slow circles.

“Caution is indicated, Bob. There may be Ulloa about.”

Prestin made a face and hefted his sword.

Now that he had slaked his thirst he felt hungry. The risotto had worn off.

Once outside the low cave entrance, Prestin noticed how it blended in with the undulations of the land; he saw how the edge of one mound that normally would have been inconspicuous was cut into by the sharp edge of bare rock in which the cave entrance lay. The Lancarno caves. Well. A place worth remembering. Dalreay shaded his eyes against the sinking sun and sniffed the slight breeze, his face screwed up tight, concentrating.

Prestin let him get on with it. Presently Dalreay said, “They are there, waiting. But we must hurry for we have come a long way from the direct route, and my people are a hasty people when roused.”

With a panache and a swagger Prestin found most appealing, Dalreay started off across the weed-covered desert and the tall grasses bespeckled with red poppies.

Night fell before they had reached the end of their trek.

With the night, as was to be expected in a continental climate, came a severe drop in temperature. As the sun sank blindingly over the western horizon—at least they had a solar system of understandable function here—Dalreay said harshly, “You’ve had your last rest until we meet my people, Bob. To rest now without adequate shelter would be fatal. You must keep marching—and keep up with me! I shan’t wait for you. If I leave you—I’ll leave you. If you think you see me again after that—it’ll only be an apparition.”

“I know,” said Prestin. “It’ll only be an echo.”

Without bothering to find out what this other-worlder was babbling about, Dalreay started off with a long loping stride. Prestin was astounded that he could do it after what had happened, but he had to keep up. There was no going back now.

After about three hours Prestin heard a strange shuffling, padding, panting sound. He looked up blearily. Dalreay was hurrying forward. Under the starglow Prestin could see tall bulky shapes swaying like animated haystacks. He cried out and tried to run after Dalreay. His feet gave way, his legs gave way, his body gave way. He fell over. He lay on the ground, his face pressed against a clump of coarse grass, feeling its dampness icy cold against his cheek, and he knew he could go no farther.

Rough hands grasped him. He was lifted up. Shaded yellow light burst over his face. He heard Dalreay talking and a hoarse, gruff voice answering. “Kill him now and have done.”

“No!” Dalreay sounded firm. “He knows nothing. He came through the barrier like a floundering fish. He could be useful. He is a weakling, but he stuck by me—”

“Very well.” The harsh voice betrayed a weary heart. “Keep him. But if he causes trouble—you, Todor Dalreay, will answer. If necessary, with your life!”

“As I am Todor Dalreay of Dargai, I will so answer!”

Prestin tried to speak. “You fool,” he whispered. “You fool, Todor. Only your blind pride makes you take such a chance on a stranger—”

But he couldn’t frame the right words. He fell into deep unconsciousness as they were strapping him into a blanket and moss bed that heaved like a channel packet.

His dreams centered mistily around that old gift of his for losing things, for mislaying the everyday items of life. He dreamed that Margie mislaid her diamond bracelet. He dreamed that Fritzy mislaid her eye lashes and makeup and mini-skirt. He dreamed that he smiled at Alec, and the tough man was suddenly bereft of his express rifle. He had had a power all his life and had not known it. What other powers did other ordinary people possess that they knew nothing about?

These people among whom he had fallen, now. This proud man, Todor Dalreay, and his ready acceptance of what would be considered among civilized communities as a ludicrously imprudent obligation. This world of Irunium, itself. It was a real world. It had its own ecology and its own rules and it would not look kindly on a man from another world. But, stirring in his sleep and realizing that he was no longer dreaming, Robert Infamy Prestin made up his mind that he would survive and he would go back to his own world—he would…

He opened his eyes. The slow jog-jogging he had slept through all night continued and now he saw that his blanket and moss bed were strapped to the flank of an enormous beast. He could see a caravan of them, plodding methodically over the sand and grass, large and ponderous, like half-melted elephants, like the elephants of soap kids got at Christmas and, using gleefully, cried because ears and trunk, eyes and tucks sloughed away to a rounded vanishment.

Armored men with swords and spears paced beside the animals. Women and children rode panniers or walked with their men. The colors of scarf and dress were bright, fluttering bravely in the morning sun, but an air of defeat and despair hung like a pall over the caravan.

Dalreay trudged by. He glanced up, saw Prestin’s open eyes, smiled and waved. Hadn’t the man slept at all, then? Or was he entirely compounded of sinew and muscle?

“Buon’ giorno, Bob! How do you feel?” The wind caught his words.

“Fine, thank you. And you?”

“I can go on. In Irunium one must always go on, Bob. If I cut you down can you walk? Breakfast, such as it is, will be available in half an hour. The women are cooking it now.”

Prestin blinked. “But the caravan is still moving!”

“Of course.” Dalreay swung up lithely, drawing free the lashings of Prestin’s hanging bed. “Naturally. They cook on the backs of the Galumphers as we go—they have slate cooking slats and the Galumphers feel nothing of the fires—” He broke off. “Why do you smile?”

“Galumphers,” said Prestin. “I don’t believe it.”

“It is a name they were given,” he said casually. “I did not ask when I learned. They came down from the north, driven past the Cabbage Patch by King Clinton”—he made a small sign with his fingers as he spoke that name—” a good few years ago now. They are vital to our economy. Most of their bulk is water.”

Prestin gripped the lashings and eased himself out of the blankets. The wind whipped at him.

“Don’t lose any of the moss, Bob. The lumphers like to eat it, and we don’t want to leave trails.”

“Check,” said Prestin. He folded the blanket flap over carefully, gawped as he saw the machine-stitched label Witney. “That’s an English blanket!”

“I know.” Dalreay patted the hanging bed. “Best sort you can get. They come in trade.”

“Anyway,” said Prestin, dropping to the ground and walking alongside Dalreay—he had to slow down his normal impatient pace to keep level with the rolling Galumpher—”what do you mean about trails? This great Galumpher must leave a trail a tyro could pick up.”

“Not so, Bob. This little ground wind rubs out ordinary tracks. The Ulloas like to follow scents and they are our greatest weakness. Even so, they’re not too good at ordinary tracking. They’re not Dargan of Dargai.” He said with a conscious flashing pride.

Dargan of Dargai. A tribal name, obviously. Prestin knew well enough that he could spend a lifetime here learning customs; plenty of men had done that in the past on Earth, living their whole lives among primitive and savage peoples. But he did not have the time. One statement made by Dalreay, however, particularly interested him.

“You said the Galumphers were brought down past the Cabbage Patch by King Clinton recently.” He smiled at Dalreay, feeling the kinship for this man warming him. “Surely, Todor, you must know there are a dozen assumptions there I’d like to know about!”

“Of course. But you must have realized that I am not normally a nomad. The Dargan of Dargai should by rights still be living in Dargai but we were driven out—I assumed you would understand this from my green clothes. Why should green be a camouflage color in brown and golden deserts, in tall sere grasses with red Calchulik flowers? The green is a badge of honor!”

“I should have realized. But, Todor—the Cabbage Patch—?”

“Well, naturally King Clinton had to go around, even though the Galumphers are as strong as—he did say, once, how many of your horses they equalled, but I forget—but even they couldn’t force a way through the Growth.”

Prestin kept his temper. “I’ll try it another way. Who was King Clinton?”

“Oh—he was another out-worlder—but a very special one. Oh, yes,” Dalreay smiled as he spoke, making that small secret sign. “A very special one.”

“A few years ago, a good few years ago, you said. I gathered that was recently, that your culture had not employed Galumphers previously. But—how long ago?”

He was thinking of Mike Macklin.

“Oh—in our years, which are round and about the same as yours, so I am told, about ten. More or less. We have been wandering too long.”

“And King Clinton is dead now? I was hoping—”

“Dead? The King? I devoutly hope not! But he had to go away—some things neither man nor king can control and destiny is a harsh mistress—” Dalreay sounded mystical and Prestin let it go, since the mythical King Clinton was not available for a cozy chat. There were so many more things he had to know if he was to find his way back to the Earth he called home.

Quite evidently, these people were accustomed to trade across the dimensions. The strangeness of the concept to Prestin meant nothing beside the cheerful acceptance of him by Dalreay. Then Prestin said, “Clinton. That’s not an Italian name.”

“Why should it be?” Dalreay kept looking out to the featureless horizon, marked only by isolated clumps of the tenpin trees. “He wasn’t Italian—”

“Do,” said Prestin in English, “do you speak English?”

Before he had finished he knew the answer for, clear in his mind like a rock shaking free of receding waves, he recalled that hazy conversation of last night, when Todor Dalreay had promised to take on himself the responsibility for this new out-worlder Prestin. The man with the harsh voice of authority had spoken English. Preston had been too far gone in weariness and dizziness to react.

“Of course!” Dalreay laughed delightedly. “If you mean to say we’ve been prancing around each other in Italian all this time!” His English was excellent, uninflected by the thickness that marred his Italian. “Great jumping Jehoshaphat!”

“Amen,” said Prestin. He asked the next questions as though they were all part of what had gone before, but more than anyone else he knew the importance of what he asked; as much as he liked Dalreay and imagined he could come to endure and possibly enjoy this life, he had to get back. “Tell me, Todor. Where are we going now? Can I ever get back to my own dimension?”

“As to the second question,” said Delreay, squinting under his hand at the bar horizon, “I could not say. Only the Valcini have access to the Contessa, curse her black soul—”

“The Montevarchi!”

Dalreay halted and turned in a lithe panther motion that gripped Prestin’s wrists together, grinding the bones. He shoved his face close up to Prestin, his lips ricked back snarling as he spoke, his eyes boring in with hatred.

“You know that she-cat, that devil’s spawn! Speak, out-worlder Prestin, quickly—or you die—slowly!”

“Here—what the—” And then Prestin saw that here was no time for niceties of speech. “I don’t know her!” he screamed. “I’ve heard of her as an evil woman but I’ve never met her. She tried to kill me. I was escaping from her when I was trapped into this world!”

Dalreay glared levelly into Prestin’s face. What he saw gave him some reassurance. He let the Earthman’s wrists go and Preston rubbed them in turn, ruefully aware of the quick strength of the hunter.

“Look, Todor,” he said in his reasonable voice, the one he used arguing to get his byline on a story anyone could have written. “My friends on the other side were being chased by Trugs of the Montevarchi. We were shot and shelled”—he had had to alter that at the blank expression on Dalreay’s face—”We were in big trouble. A helicopter—a machine that flies—was about to fall on us when I came through here without knowing. I think maybe all my friends were killed.”

The look Dalreay gave him held a hard calculating decision. “You are not just an unfortunate fallen through a nodal point into our world, then. You have knowledge, I see. And you say you are fighting the Contessa?”

“Yes. I know little about all this.” He swallowed. “Do you know a man named Macklin?”

“Macklin? No. The name means nothing to me.”

“Too bad. Still. You haven’t told me where we are going. I was trying to head north when you found me.”

“North. Yes, toward the Big Green. You would have been sorry to have reached it.” And he laughed, a short ugly bark. “Come, friend Bob. Breakfast is ready. I am hungry.”

Sensibly, Prestin considered, he would let the subject lie. Naturally Dalreay would be suspicious of anyone knowing his enemies here, where any out-worlder would have come tumbling in helplessly—like Fritzy.

As they walked toward the kitchen Galumpher, Prestin nerved himself, and then said harshly, “Tell me, Todor. Have you heard of a girl called Fritzy Upjohn?”

He did not know if he wanted to hear a yes as answer—the subsequent details might harrow him so unmercifully that he would be unsane for a period long enough to approach insanity.

“No.” Dalreay glanced shrewdly at Prestin. “Is she—important to you?”

Prestin’s immediate answer would have been, “No! No, of course not.” But now he said slowly, “She could be, Todor. She could be, for I feel responsible for her.”

“Well, come and eat. You’ll feel more like life after that.” He clapped Prestin on the back and began to mount the leather-thonged ladder that swayed from the rear of the Galumpher. From the top, a mouth-watering whiff of frying savored down. Prestin climbed with a will. He could do nothing for Fritzy until he reached the approximate position in the north of Rome where she had been transferred. And he would go north, despite the vague warnings he had against that compass point.

The broad flat back of the Galumpher contained a ring of old women muffled in shawls, a number of the ubiquitous half-naked children, squealing and struggling, and a few men, clad like Dalreay in green. A man with one eye, a wisp of gray beard and a wisp of gray scalp hair, leered at Dalreay, his portly belly aswag with half the contents of the earthenware goblet balanced at his side. He wore dark brown patterned with yellow and his scant gray hairs were half covered by a lopsided helmet.

“Hey, Todor! I hear you did a grand job!” he said in good English but with a thick sloshing sound, a well-belching sound of good living. “You are to be congratulated!”

The women poked into a pot over the fire which burned thriftily on its bed of slate, ladling out fried rashers of meat onto earthenware plates. Prestin accepted one gratefully, with a twist of brown bread broken from a long roll. A gourd of water stood nearby.

Dalreay said something to the swag-bellied man in a tongue Prestin could not understand, at which the fat man half-reared up, spluttering, while the women cackled shrilly and the other men guaffawed, biting into their meat with strong white teeth.

“I gave you enough to do the job!” Once more the wine rose to the fat shining lips. “If you bungled it—”

“No, Nodger, I didn’t bungle it! You gave me enough powder to bring down half the mountains of the Daneberg!”

“I am the fire master of this caravan! I measure the powder—”

“Next time, Nodger, do not drink so deeply when you measure. Or I shall personally refuse to barter for wine the next time we go south!”

“You wouldn’t do that, Todor, would you, to an old man who has only his wine and his gunpowder for comfort and family? Think, Todor, what your poor father said—”

“Enough!” Flushed, Dalreay spat out a bone and fixed his unwinking stare on the old Nodger. “My parents are dead, slaughtered by the Honshi guards of the Valcini. No more, Nodger, if you value your hide.”

The oldster went back to his meat and bread with frequent sips of wine. Thinking of what David Macklin had said that first time he met him, Prestin had to smile. Every dimension, then, had its Falstaff? And a good thing, too.

“By Amra!” said one of the men through his meat. “I heard the accursed jewel mines spouted to the sky!”

“I,” pointed out Dalreay, “did not have the opportunity to see.”

Nodger spluttered and drank more wine, his one eye avoiding Dalreay’s icy glance.

Prestin warmed to the byplay. Clearly, these Dargan of Dargai were people who would not tamely bow down to the Valcini agents of the Contessa; they had struck back by blowing up one of the jewel mines. No doubt there was a running war in bloody progress. But as much as he might wish to know more of the Dargan, he had to find Fritzy. That quest alone gave him a single slender solace for living here.

His goblet was empty and he politely asked Dalreay for water, being offered wine and refusing. “Here, imp!” shouted Dalreay, hurling the goblet at the head of a half-naked youngster, who grinned wolfishly and caught the cup. Prestin watched him go to a wooden pipe protruding from the back of the Galumpher and turn a spigot at the top. Clear water gushed out, silvery and diamond-bright sparkling, cool just to look at.

“Is that—?”

“Certainly.” Dalreay laughed off-handedly. “The Galumphers carry a huge third stomach filled with water which they cool by exchange of body heat. They are engineeringly better than your earthside camels, and they carry a great deal more water, for which Amra be praised.”

“And you sink a tap and draw it off as required.”

“The Dargan of Dargai are hunters. We know animals.”

“You had to learn about the Galumphers, though. What was Dargai like?”

“Ah—!” went around the circle like a rolling wash of the ever-returning tide, a sigh of complete homesickness, the heartfelt cry of the wanderer, forever condemned, never to return. “What of Dargai…”

“By Amra, that is a question that demands a poet to answer!” exclaimed Dalreay, lowering his goblet, his eyes bright, his face flushed, his beard all abristle.

“Warmth and wine and women, wonderful!” said Nodger, brimming his goblet to his mouth, lost in the melancholic hindward gaze of all the adults. The children went on eating and drinking and gossiping among themselves. For them, Dargai was a name only, a name that meant sighs and whisperings from their parents; they would never know the despair of the homeless for they had been born wanderers.

The Galumphers slogged on and all down the line of the caravan the Dargan went to breakfast. Small Galumphers trotted between the legs of their parents, keeping up with the less-than-human walking-pace of the procession with ease. Some dust flew up from the great flat hooves. A few men walked ahead, but Prestin felt that they did it more as a genuflection to tactics than with any hope of avoiding attack by the Ulloas. Those cat-faced birds with the wingless bodies and dragonfly legs would race in at ten times the speed of a Galumpher.

Looking out on the scene, and being rocked by the somnolent swaying, Prestin could feel the timeless relaxed pace of life for these wanderers of Dargai. This life would breed a special kind of person, a person far different from the man that was Dalreay. There would be concern among the oldsters. Prestin could visualize it all.

A girl walked past below, her slender bronzed legs carrying her by their Galumpher with ease. She wore a yellow shawl and a kirtle, leaving much of her upper body bare to the wind; her dark hair blew free from her mantle, and a shake of her head as she went was clear indication that she knew Dalreay was watching. A very self-composed young lady, this, Prestin surmised. Then he smiled. Dalreay was gobbling away, trying to finish his mouthful of meat, his eyes bright, his hands fidgeting. He bolted the last of his food and swung down to land like a flying spider at the feet of the girl.

She pranced back, one hand upflung, teasing him. What they said was lost in the soft slosh-slosh-sloshing of the Galumpher’s broad pads, but Prestin heard Dalreay call the girl Darna; he felt a pang as he saw their two dark heads together as they walked up the caravan line, close, absorbed.

A thin trumpet blast cut through the bright golden promise of the scene like a squeal of brakes on an icy road.

Prestin jumped up. Everyone was rushing about with a purposeful activity. The children huddled down in the center of the Galumphers’ backs. The women put out the cooking fires and dismantled the trivets. Then they began to fashion the bales, packages and beds into parapets about the beasts’ backs, forming shelters. Helped by the older children, the work went fast, silently and with utmost urgency. The men appeared to cluster about the legs of the Galumphers and spread out to one side, each man carrying his arms, the metal bright under the sun.

“What is it?” asked Prestin of Nodger as the trumpet pealed again.

Nodger, his fat face and belly shaking, pulled a thick bale of pelts up for a shelter. “It is the warning, out-worlder! Someone attacks us! Pray Amra it is only a few miserable cowardly Ulloa—pray Amra!”

The lookout perched atop his scarecrow wooden tower on the Galumpher three over from Prestin screeched and pointed. The trumpet keened again. Prestin stood up, balancing on the long slow-swaying back, and stared at the horizon. Out there black dots speeded. They seemed to parallel the caravan’s course, but they were in a converging pattern, as Prestin saw when he looked more carefully, closing in, squeezing the parallel arms into a triangle.

Some ominous menace breathed at him from those distant shapes.

He realized what the menace must be as the watcher atop the rolling wooden tower shouted again for speed.

Those dots out there were traveling fast—faster than the Ulloa, faster than any normal animal had any right to travel. The watchman shouted, “Valcini!” And again, a hopeless wail against the wind, “Valcini!”

Dalreay caught at the leather thongs of the Galumpher, staring up, the cords taut, shouting, “Bob! The swords we took from the guards—they are still in your bed. Arm yourself! The Valcini attack and we must fight!”

Swallowing, Prestin scrambled down to the bed swinging from its thongs, the nearest cords empty as the women hauled up the blankets to form their parapet. He felt inside and touched the warm metal of the swords. He pulled them out carefully, handling their sharpness gingerly. Now he had two swords. What the hell was he supposed to do with them? Cry “Banzai!” and charge?

“Down here,” Dalreay called peremptorily.

Prestin joined him on the sand, walking along automatically as the caravan wended on, holding one sword in each hand. He waved them experimentally.

“The women will hurl javelins,” Dalreay said tightly. He looked worried. “We fight like men and hunters of Dargai!”

Prestin considered that Dalreay and his kinsmen would be deadly fighters with these swords. He understood that most of their equipment had been taken in the past from the Honshi guards. Iron smelting and steel forging would be difficult under the conditions of their pilgrimage; so, like most cultures in similar circumstances, pillage and acquisition had strong appeal for them.

Dalreay looked along the line at the clustered men, now ready to rush to the threatened point of the caravan. Prestin slogged along, keyed up but not too frightened, with the tough fighting men around him, of an Ulloa.

He looked again at the speeding dots. Not Ulloa. He licked his lips. The dots abruptly ceased all forward motion. He jumped with the suddenness of that—then he blinked as each dot seemed to bloat and grow in size as though being pumped up. Then he understood—they had turned inward and were charging head on.

A great cry burst from Dalreay. Prestin looked, saw what Dalreay saw, and understood what he faced.

“The Valcini attack! Armored cars! Recoilless rifles! Machine guns! Stand fast my people, for this is our doom!”